Trouble's a-brewin'
Russ Bryan
reps to slip through this newsgroup from time to time, and they now own
the licenses on all of the old Infocom games.
I do not recommend publically offering to E-mail these games to all
comers. If someone from Activision gets a bug up their ass, you'll be
looking at some fairly significant piracy charges.
Anyway, be careful. I'm off-line for about a week, and I hope everyone's
still here when I get back.
-- Russ
/--- Sphere Discovery: an Interactive Prologue ---\
|----- Interactive Fiction by Russ Bryan -----|
\----- Coming for I-F Contest 1996 -----/
Stephen van Egmond
We -know- that some people at Activiation read the rec.*.int-fiction
newsgroups. Witness their pathetic attempts to advertise before Zork
Nemesis appeared.
Some people say that the Net has no memory. One of the Official Rules of
UseNet Posting is that you can't refer to information that was posted
more than a month ago in any post. I think this is untrue. The hackish
roots of Usenet are still readily apparent in a large portion of the
newsgroups; I can't imagine doing much worse than offering a stolen Infocom
game in areas where hackish memes still live. You could be eaten by a
grue...
Kenneth Fair
svan...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (Stephen van Egmond) wrote:
>Some people say that the Net has no memory. One of the Official Rules of
>UseNet Posting is that you can't refer to information that was posted
>more than a month ago in any post. I think this is untrue. The hackish
>roots of Usenet are still readily apparent in a large portion of the
>newsgroups; I can't imagine doing much worse than offering a stolen Infocom
>game in areas where hackish memes still live. You could be eaten by a
>grue...
Weelllllll, unofficial really. The only "official" rules are expressed
by the RFCs (Requests For Comments). The "unofficial" rules can, of
course, be found in news.announce.newusers.
The "one month limit" is quickly becoming stale with the advent of
DejaNews anyway. I'm not sure that's a good thing, though.
--
KEN FAIR - U. Chicago Law | Power Mac! | Net since '90 | Net.cop
kjf...@midway.uchicago.edu | CABAL(tm) Member | I'm w/in McQ - R U?
The Internet was not created for companies to make money from.
Matthew T. Russotto
Russ Bryan <russ...@aol.com> wrote:
}I just want to slip in a quick warning to you all. A couple of Activision
}reps to slip through this newsgroup from time to time, and they now own
}the licenses on all of the old Infocom games.
}I do not recommend publically offering to E-mail these games to all
}comers. If someone from Activision gets a bug up their ass, you'll be
}looking at some fairly significant piracy charges.
}Anyway, be careful. I'm off-line for about a week, and I hope everyone's
}still here when I get back.
Well, if Activision wants to prosecute me for piracy of Infocom games,
I've got a few answers for them:
1) I didn't do it.
2) You didn't see me
3) The statue of limitations has run out
4) I was a minor anyway
:-)
--
Matthew T. Russotto russ...@pond.com russ...@his.com
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit
of justice is no virtue."
Cthulhu
>I just want to slip in a quick warning to you all. A couple of Activision
>reps to slip through this newsgroup from time to time, and they now own
>the licenses on all of the old Infocom games.
>
>I do not recommend publically offering to E-mail these games to all
>comers. If someone from Activision gets a bug up their ass, you'll be
>looking at some fairly significant piracy charges.
>
>Anyway, be careful. I'm off-line for about a week, and I hope everyone's
>still here when I get back.
Whow! A crime that the criminal gets absolutely nothing out of! I'm still
beginning to wonder which idiot made selflessness, charity and generosity a
crime :).
Gord Jeoffroy
>3) The statue of limitations has run out
Nice typo. I'm gonna put this in the first game I code:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
STATUARY MOVES: 26778
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Statuary
The room is filled with nondescript statues of various shapes and
sizes which the programmer has neglected to elaborate upon,
obviously thinking you would never make it this far. One large,
badly carved and not-quite-finished statue in particular grabs your
attention: in your heart of hearts you know that it is the key to
winning this game.
>EXAMINE THE UNFINISHED STATUE
Internal Error #87 -- Saved games corrupted.
*** You have died. ***
Would you like to RESTART, RESTORE a saved game or QUIT?
>TEAR PROGRAMMER'S HEART FROM CHEST AND EAT IT
--Gord
Andrew C. Plotkin
> Whow! A crime that the criminal gets absolutely nothing out of! I'm still
> beginning to wonder which idiot made selflessness, charity and generosity a
> crime :).
Smile, friend, but don't pirate any software *I* write. Ok?
--Z
(Yes, of course I mean "except freeware and the freely-distributable
parts of shareware.")
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
Giovanni Maga
>
> Whow! A crime that the criminal gets absolutely nothing out of! I'm still
> beginning to wonder which idiot made selflessness, charity and generosity a
> crime :).
...but when they can be called copyrights violation you're in trouble!
Paul O'Brian
>Whow! A crime that the criminal gets absolutely nothing out of! I'm still
>beginning to wonder which idiot made selflessness, charity and generosity a
>crime :).
The mistake here is that you're only thinking of yourself as the "criminal."
When you pirate software, there are two criminals: you and the person to
whom you send the pirated work. You get nothing, the other gets a commercial
game without having to pay the author who makes a living from their work.
If you really want to be selfless, charitable, and generous, write your own
game and release it as freeware. Or would you rather get paid for your work?
--
Paul O'Brian obr...@ucsu.colorado.edu
"The brain is wider than the sky,/ For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include/ With ease, and you beside."
-Emily Dickinson-
bonni mierzejewska
>Whow! A crime that the criminal gets absolutely nothing out of! I'm still
>beginning to wonder which idiot made selflessness, charity and generosity a
>crime :).
<snort>
ENGLISH 101
You see a $40 textbook and a course syllabus here. You note that only 3
short stories in the textbook are required reading in the course. In a
spirit of selflessness, charity, and generosity, you wish you could do
something about that.
>Get textbook.
Taken.
>Copy textbook.
You make 30 copies of the 3 required short stories.
>Give copies to students.
*** You have broken the law ***
While in jail, you ponder the connection between charity and honesty.
bonni
coming soon - 1996 IF Competition entry
__ __
IC | XC | bonni mierzejewska "The Lone Quilter"
---+--- | u6...@wvnvm.wvnet.edu
NI | KA | Kelly's Creek Homestead, Maidsville, WV
tv's Spatch
>patr...@Direct.CA (Cthulhu) writes:
>>Whow! A crime that the criminal gets absolutely nothing out of! I'm still
>>beginning to wonder which idiot made selflessness, charity and generosity a
>>crime :).
>The mistake here is that you're only thinking of yourself as the "criminal."
>When you pirate software, there are two criminals: you and the person to
>whom you send the pirated work. You get nothing, the other gets a commercial
>game without having to pay the author who makes a living from their work.
Just out of curiosity's sake, how are the great Infocom imps getting along,
royalty-wise, with Activision and their re-re-re-(whatever)-releasing of those
CD collections such as the Adventure Collection and whatnot? I'd sure like to
see Steve M. et al see some pennies from my purchasing an Activision-released
collection and not just watch some company who thinks all games should be
created for Windows 95 only, amen, et cetera, take my money and run.
>If you really want to be selfless, charitable, and generous, write your own
>game and release it as freeware. Or would you rather get paid for your work?
Excellent point. Freeware is a beautiful thing, as long as it's rightfully
known all around that said game one is distributing freely is freeware and not
just an Infocom .DAT file zipped up and passed around.
(However, if someone actually offered to pay me for PUTPBAD, quite easily the
dumbest thing I've ever had the misfortune to write, I'd really have to think
for a moment before deciding _I_'d be the criminal for accepting the money...
but I digress...)
--
tv's Spatch, MSTie #43790. My mother was a Bozoette in high school.
"Hey! There's no food here! You tricked me, you big dumb liar cat!"
- 2 Stupid Dogs
Big dumb liar cats abound at: http://uptown.turnpike.net/S/spatula
Sarinee Achavanuntakul
: On Fri, 19 Apr 96 03:07:06 GMT, patr...@Direct.CA (Cthulhu) wrote:
: ENGLISH 101
: You see a $40 textbook and a course syllabus here. You note that only 3
: short stories in the textbook are required reading in the course. In a
: spirit of selflessness, charity, and generosity, you wish you could do
: something about that.
: >Get textbook.
: Taken.
: >Copy textbook.
: You make 30 copies of the 3 required short stories.
Man, this sounds *sooooo* familiar....
-Sarinee
(not to mention the cramp and colorful dots I saw after standing
3 hours straight in front of the machine, trying not to look at the
flash.........)
Cthulhu
<4l6vs7$2...@orb.direct.ca> wrote:
>patr...@Direct.CA (Cthulhu) writes:
>> Whow! A crime that the criminal gets absolutely nothing out of! I'm still
>> beginning to wonder which idiot made selflessness, charity and generosity a
>> crime :).
>
Don't worry. I don't pirate shareware. I have the registered version of TADS
and I am NOT giving it away. But when a company puts out five different
packages, each containing a CD-Rom formatted to one meg each, it's a different
story. No shareware author would ever be this evil.
Cthulhu
>patr...@Direct.CA (Cthulhu) writes:
>If you really want to be selfless, charitable, and generous, write your own
>game and release it as freeware. Or would you rather get paid for your work?
If I'd written a game then I'd rather be paid via recognition, i.e. with
reviews sent to Spag and articles in Xyzzy.
But there's a big difference between doing it with shareware and doing it with
commercial software.
Cthulhu
>ENGLISH 101
>
>You see a $40 textbook and a course syllabus here. You note that only 3
>short stories in the textbook are required reading in the course. In a
>spirit of selflessness, charity, and generosity, you wish you could do
>something about that.
>
>>Get textbook.
>Taken.
>
>>Copy textbook.
>You make 30 copies of the 3 required short stories.
>>Give copies to students.
>*** You have broken the law ***
Exactly what the heck was wrong with that? Another example. I buy a music
album. I see a whole bunch of people who say they really want it. So I offer
to copy it for anyone who wants it.
Cthulhu
>Well, if Activision wants to prosecute me for piracy of Infocom games,
>I've got a few answers for them:
>
>1) I didn't do it.
>2) You didn't see me
>3) The statue of limitations has run out
>4) I was a minor anyway
If you got the game from *me*, then you can also truthfully say:
1) I didn't get any documentation.
2) I didn't get any copy-protection
3) The copy-protected games were not cracked.
4) I didn't even get an EXE file
5) Many of the games are unplayable without copy-protection/documentation
(Lurking Horror...)
6) At least some of the games are impossible to even start playing without
documentation (A Mind Forever Voyaging and Suspended)
7) Many of the games are impossible to finish without documentation (Beyond
Zork...)
8) All I got was a DAT file
9) Most of the games cannot be enjoyed to the fullest extent without the
documentation that I didn't get.
Now that you know THAT, people, you are making a more informed decision when
you E-mail me to say "please send me a game". But if you still want it, I'll
send it to you.
Cthulhu
>patr...@Direct.CA (Cthulhu) writes:
>The mistake here is that you're only thinking of yourself as the "criminal."
>When you pirate software, there are two criminals: you and the person to
>whom you send the pirated work. You get nothing, the other gets a commercial
>game without having to pay the author who makes a living from their work.
Look, people. Activision is *not* making a living with the "___" Collections.
Their money is coming from their graphics games. I think it's blowing this out
of proportion a heckuva lot to say that I'm depriving Infocom of anything
signifigant. So far, I must add, no-one has ever asked for every game in a
Collection. ONE person did ask me to send him LTOI2 so he could play it until
he finds a legitimate copy.
Andrew C. Plotkin
a-brewin' Cth...@Direct.CA (688)
> >Smile, friend, but don't pirate any software *I* write. Ok?
> Don't worry. I don't pirate shareware. I have the registered version of TADS
> and I am NOT giving it away.
Don't *worry*?
My "real" job is with a company that sells computer games. Commercially.
There is a commercial game out there with my name under the programmer
heading. I buy food and books and Macintosh hardware with the salary
they pay me. I write freeware IF at home on my Macintosh, in my spare
time.
I can give bigger hints if you need them. Goddammit.
--Z
Joe Frank
>>>Give copies to students.
You spend 6 months everyday, sometimes 16 hours a day putting together
a music album. You have a wife and kids to feed, and somehow have to
keep a roof over your head.
Your release your music album. One person buys it. As you walk down
the street, you here the music you spent thousands of hours on being
played through the headphones and boomboxes of forty people.
Your stomach hurts from lack of food, the landlord throws you out
and your wife a kids leave you because you can't feed them.
***you have starved to death***
Too bad nobody paid you for your work, things might be a little
differant for you now.
Richard G Clegg
: Whow! A crime that the criminal gets absolutely nothing out of! I'm still
: beginning to wonder which idiot made selflessness, charity and generosity a
: crime :).
Perhaps some *idiot* thought that programmers who write worthwhile
and intelligent software should be rewarded for their efforts rather
than ripped off... Just something you might like to consider - if everyone
pirated Infocom games then the company might, for example, go under and
be swallowed by a software giant who would sit on the label and milk it
for all it was worth by releasing games based upon the original and hoping
they can up sales by playing upon nostalgia.
oops - too late.
--
Richard G. Clegg There ain't no getting round getting round
Dept. of Mathematics (Network Control group) Uni. of York.
email: ric...@manor.york.ac.uk
www: http://manor.york.ac.uk/top.html
Cthulhu
<4lc88m$i...@orb.direct.ca> wrote:
>Excerpts from netnews.rec.games.int-fiction: 21-Apr-96 Re: Trouble's
>a-brewin' Cth...@Direct.CA (688)
>
>> >Smile, friend, but don't pirate any software *I* write. Ok?
>
>> Don't worry. I don't pirate shareware. I have the registered version of TADS
>> and I am NOT giving it away.
>
>Don't *worry*?
>
>My "real" job is with a company that sells computer games. Commercially.
>There is a commercial game out there with my name under the programmer
>heading. I buy food and books and Macintosh hardware with the salary
>they pay me. I write freeware IF at home on my Macintosh, in my spare
>time.
So, knowing this, how am I going to avoid pirating any game *you* write if you
don't tell me which ones you wrote?!!
Cthulhu
>Cthulhu (patr...@Direct.CA) wrote:
>
>: Whow! A crime that the criminal gets absolutely nothing out of! I'm still
>: beginning to wonder which idiot made selflessness, charity and generosity a
>: crime :).
>
> Perhaps some *idiot* thought that programmers who write worthwhile
>and intelligent software should be rewarded for their efforts rather
>than ripped off... Just something you might like to consider - if everyone
>pirated Infocom games then the company might, for example, go under and
>be swallowed by a software giant who would sit on the label and milk it
>for all it was worth by releasing games based upon the original and hoping
>they can up sales by playing upon nostalgia.
>
> oops - too late.
Last I checked it was because of a bad investment in a database product, not
because of piracy.
Cthulhu
>patr...@Direct.CA (Cthulhu) wrote:
>>Exactly what the heck was wrong with that? Another example. I buy a music
>>album. I see a whole bunch of people who say they really want it. So I offer
>>to copy it for anyone who wants it.
>
>You spend 6 months everyday, sometimes 16 hours a day putting together
>a music album. You have a wife and kids to feed, and somehow have to
>keep a roof over your head.
> Your release your music album. One person buys it. As you walk down
^^^^
>the street, you here the music you spent thousands of hours on being
>played through the headphones and boomboxes of forty people.
Only ONE person buys it?!!
> Your stomach hurts from lack of food, the landlord throws you out
>and your wife a kids leave you because you can't feed them.
>
> ***you have starved to death***
Actually, that would also have happened if ALL forty people paid for it.
> Too bad nobody paid you for your work, things might be a little
>differant for you now.
Whoa! Forty people make the difference between life or death in real life,
correct? And people really would make copies of music albums for forty people
in real life, correct?
May I suggest that your analogy is flawed?
Gord Jeoffroy
>Whoa! Forty people make the difference between life or death in real life,
>correct? And people really would make copies of music albums for forty people
>in real life, correct?
>May I suggest that your analogy is flawed?
Come on, don't play stupid. You know exactly what he's talking about.
If only one in forty owners of that album -- or that book, or that
Infocom game that someone pirated out of the goodness of his heart --
pays for the product, that's a 97.5% loss in potential revenue to the
producer. Even if "only" every other person pays for their stuff,
that's still a 50% loss in revenue.
From the sounds of your morals, you won't mind taking even a 50% cut
in your income. So how's about you REALLY be generous and give us all
half your money.
--Gord, wondering what they're teaching kids these days...
Tim Hollebeek
: >
: >My "real" job is with a company that sells computer games. Commercially.
: >There is a commercial game out there with my name under the programmer
: >heading. I buy food and books and Macintosh hardware with the salary
: >they pay me. I write freeware IF at home on my Macintosh, in my spare
: >time.
: So, knowing this, how am I going to avoid pirating any game *you* write if you
: don't tell me which ones you wrote?!!
Here's a hint. If you don't pirate any games, the probability of
pirating one of his is low.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Hollebeek | Disclaimer :=> Everything above is a true statement,
Electron Psychologist | for sufficiently false values of true.
Princeton University | email: t...@wfn-shop.princeton.edu
----------------------| http://wfn-shop.princeton.edu/~tim (NEW! IMPROVED!)
bonni mierzejewska
>>*** You have broken the law ***
>Exactly what the heck was wrong with that? Another example. I buy a music
>album. I see a whole bunch of people who say they really want it. So I offer
>to copy it for anyone who wants it.
You don't get it, do you? That would be theft. That bunch of people who
say they really want the album should go and buy a copy so the artist can
receive the money for their work.
I think we should drop this thread, folks. This guy sounds *very* young.
Perhaps he'll gain wisdom with age - if he doesn't get sued by a
corporation first.
Stourly Kraklite
laws. Especially those who write games. The writer of a prior post might
be "*very* young" but that doesn't fully explain the reasons he might be unsure
about the morality of copyright infringement.
I wonder; how many of you game writers have a web page up that has ZERO
copyright infringements on it? The whole internet is one big copyright
infringement. Maybe I've just turned over the rock where all the 100% law
abiding computer types are hiding, but I doubt it.
I'm not saying that everybody should be free to copy anything (a view which has
quite a few proponents). But it is clear that copyright law is completely out
of date and unrealistic in the age of the net.
So I ask all of you: Is it immoral for you to knowingly download and
redistribute that porn picture, photograph, logo. Is everybody that does so
amoral scum? Or does this just apply to computer games. Or do we need a whole
new way of considering copyright.
I say the latter. I say our young friend has every reason to be confused.
bonni mierzejewska
<krak...@wavefront.com> wrote:
>I wonder; how many of you game writers have a web page up that has ZERO
>copyright infringements on it? The whole internet is one big copyright
>infringement. Maybe I've just turned over the rock where all the 100% law
>abiding computer types are hiding, but I doubt it.
Why is it so hard for you to believe that there might be a large number of
folks who are 100% law abiding computer types? I happen to be one. I
don't currently have a web page, but when I did, it had ZERO copyright
infringements on it. I happen to be more willing to believe than you seem
to be that there are more people like that. Perhaps this is a matter of
personal perspective affecting our respective opinions?
>I'm not saying that everybody should be free to copy anything (a view which has
>quite a few proponents). But it is clear that copyright law is completely out
>of date and unrealistic in the age of the net.
Should we make crimes legal just because there are plenty of criminals who
indulge in them?
>So I ask all of you: Is it immoral for you to knowingly download and
>redistribute that porn picture, photograph, logo. Is everybody that does so
>amoral scum? Or does this just apply to computer games. Or do we need a whole
>new way of considering copyright.
Immoral and illegal are two separate issues. It is certainly illegal to
knowingly download and redistribute copyrighted material. I'm not making
a moral judgment call here; that is simply a fact.
>I say the latter. I say our young friend has every reason to be confused.
Unfortunately, in the US at least, ignorance is no excuse before the law.
And since a number of people, both here and on rai-f, have endeavoured to
educate him, he doesn't have even that excuse.
There's no way for us to know if an investigator from Infocom hasn't
already requested a pirated game from him, either. Large companies do
things like that.
Aquarius
: >*** You have broken the law ***
: Exactly what the heck was wrong with that? Another example. I buy a music
: album. I see a whole bunch of people who say they really want it. So I offer
: to copy it for anyone who wants it.
Nothing, apart from the fact it's a copyright violation and therefore
against the law. when you make an album and then only get 10p in
royalties 'cos only one person buys it, you'll know why, won't you?
*** Do not pass GO, do not collect $200 ***
Aquarius
PS. Working on a TADS adventure - at the current rate of progress, I'll
probably enter it in the 1999 competition. :)
--
"The grand plan that is Aquarius proceeds apace." - 'Ronin', Frank Miller.
s.i.la...@durham.ac.uk | http://www.dur.ac.uk/~d4f8bu/ | Mail for PGP key
"I do believe in God. And the only think that scares me is Kaiser Sosek."-TUS
Stourly Kraklite
> On Tue, 23 Apr 1996 15:39:01 -0700, Stourly Kraklite
> <krak...@wavefront.com> wrote:
>
> >I wonder; how many of you game writers have a web page up that has ZERO
> >copyright infringements on it? The whole internet is one big copyright
> >infringement. Maybe I've just turned over the rock where all the 100% law
> >abiding computer types are hiding, but I doubt it.
>
> Why is it so hard for you to believe that there might be a large number of
> folks who are 100% law abiding computer types? I happen to be one. I
> don't currently have a web page, but when I did, it had ZERO copyright
> infringements on it.
Well, good for you. I submit that you are in the minority. I've done a more
or less random scan of non-commercial, non-institutional web pages and found
very few that appear to have ZERO violations. I suggest that the majority of
images circulating on the net are illegal. Ditto for sound bytes and just
about everything else. I can't prove it but seems a safe guess based on my
observation.
And for the most part, I don't feel this has too much to do with the decline
of moralality or criminals. Rather, it is due to the fact that many people
are making creative and practical use of a new tool and that the law is out of
date. I think the law should be changed to reasonably accomodate the reality
of the 21st century and ignored until that happens. But it hardly matters
what I think. That's just the way it's gonna be.
> Should we make crimes legal just because there are plenty of criminals who
> indulge in them?
Some, Yes. Not sure in the case of game piracy. And in the case of software,
I am also a programmer so I do have an interest here. But for example, look
at any CD in your collection. Did you know that it is illegal to LOAN a CD to
another person, regardless of whether they copy it or not. Don't take my word
for it. Look yourself.
Many people do not consider this to be a reasonable law and don't feel too bad
about breaking it. I'm one of them. How about you? Have you ever lent out a
CD? Will you stop now that you know it is illegal? How about the infamous
internet censorship bill. Will you comply BECAUSE it's the law? Maybe you
will, but I won't. I will comply because I'm not interested in the restricted
subject matter. At the point at which I might become interested in the
subject matter, I will break the law.
> Unfortunately, in the US at least, ignorance is no excuse before the law.
> And since a number of people, both here and on rai-f, have endeavoured to
> educate him, he doesn't have even that excuse.
If you are merely giving our friend advice about how to avoid legal problems,
your point is well taken. But my point was that the law is way behind reality
as far as copyright goes. And most people don't govern their actions because
of what's legal or what's not anyway. Only a few grannies from Wisconsin.
The primary reason I don't kill my neighbor is because I don't want to. The
second reason is that it's immoral. The third is that I might be punished by
society. The idea that I don't kill my neighbor because it is illegal and I
must obey the law is not even on the charts.
As I hope is clear, none of this is meant to endorse theft of games. Just to
point out that the law is a poor guide to conduct and that hippocracy is
widespread on the copyright issue.
kraklite
Russ Bryan
1) NEVER has any thread I have started extended to thirty replies -- thank
you, one and all, for providing me with this validation of my (yada yada
yada) ...
2) When nearly everyone says you're wrong, you might want to consider the
possibility that you might not be 100% right.
3) Not too long ago, you could consider me a regular pot smoker. I smoked
nearly every day for three years, and never once questioned its legality.
If you're educated in drugs, you probably realize that pot is quite
harmless, particularly when compared with tobacco or alcohol, both of
which are legal and are highly addictive. About two months ago, I
stopped smoking pot -- no withdrawl symptoms, no cravings. On the other
hand, I don't think I can ever stop smoking cigarettes.
So, in regard to the use of CDs and other written media:
> Many people do not consider this to be a reasonable law and don't feel
too > bad about breaking it. I'm one of them. How about you?
I'd just like to throw something out there for you all to chew on. I am a
writer, myself. Does the existence of the internet mean that YOU don't
believe I should ever be fairly paid for it? Should all creative and
intellectual property be in the public domain? Lending CDs is fine by me,
but tell me -- how many times have you borrowed a CD, really liked it, and
then NOT copied it?
Just some shit to chew on.
-- Russ
/--- Sphere Discovery: an Interactive Prologue ---\
|----- Interactive Fiction by Russ Bryan -----|
\----- Coming for I-F Contest 1996 -----/
Julian Arnold
to be the most idiotic post I have ever seen in this newsgroup:
In article <4lh4ot$k...@orb.direct.ca>, Cthulhu
<mailto:patr...@Direct.CA> wrote:
>
> In article <YlSfnT600...@andrew.cmu.edu>, "Andrew C. Plotkin" <erky...@CMU.EDU
> >
> <4lc88m$i...@orb.direct.ca> wrote:
> >Excerpts from netnews.rec.games.int-fiction: 21-Apr-96 Re: Trouble's
> >a-brewin' Cth...@Direct.CA (688)
> >
> >> >Smile, friend, but don't pirate any software *I* write. Ok?
> >
> >> Don't worry. I don't pirate shareware. I have the registered version of TADS
> >> and I am NOT giving it away.
> >
> >Don't *worry*?
> >
> >My "real" job is with a company that sells computer games. Commercially.
> >There is a commercial game out there with my name under the programmer
> >heading. I buy food and books and Macintosh hardware with the salary
> >they pay me. I write freeware IF at home on my Macintosh, in my spare
> >time.
>
> So, knowing this, how am I going to avoid pirating any game *you* write if you
> don't tell me which ones you wrote?!!
(Would anyone mind if I made this into my .sig?) ;)
Jools
Perry Israel
> But for example, look at any CD in your collection. Did you know
>that it is illegal to LOAN a CD to another person, regardless of whether
>they copy it or not. Don't take my word for it. Look yourself.
> Many people do not consider this to be a reasonable law and don't feel
>too bad about breaking it. I'm one of them. How about you? Have you
>ever lent out a CD? Will you stop now that you know it is illegal?
Just a small technical point:
Is it really illegal? It's in violation of the contract--or at least so
the argument would come from the "licensee" of the CD Rom. (By the way,
based upon the license, maybe you don't have a CD collection: you just
are in possession of a medium (which you own?) that holds intellectual
property that the software company owns.) The real question seems to me to
be whether the contract is overreaching on the part of the company or
whether you are actually bound by it.
I suppose if the contract were found to be enforceable, the company might
(in addition to suing your pants off) be able to argue to some DA that you
should be prosecuted for criminal conversion or some such thing.
--
Perry Israel | "That does not keep me from having a terrible need of
Sacramento, CA | --shall I say the word--religion. Then I go out at
pis...@crl.com | night to paint the stars." --Vincent van Gogh
Cthulhu
>Come on, don't play stupid. You know exactly what he's talking about.
>
>If only one in forty owners of that album -- or that book, or that
>Infocom game that someone pirated out of the goodness of his heart --
>pays for the product, that's a 97.5% loss in potential revenue to the
>producer. Even if "only" every other person pays for their stuff,
>that's still a 50% loss in revenue.
Unless, of course, you've already left that company and you're *already* not
getting royalties. I'm referring, of course, to the people who wrote the
Infocom games.
>From the sounds of your morals, you won't mind taking even a 50% cut
>in your income. So how's about you REALLY be generous and give us all
>half your money.
Activision's money is not coming from the Infocom games. They made it
abundantly clear with LTOI1 and LTOI2 that they don't care. The utter
contempt for Infocom fans is even more abundant in the five Collections that
it recently released. It's money is coming from games like RTZ and Zork
Nemesis.
Cthulhu
>patr...@Direct.CA (Cthulhu) wrote:
>You don't get it, do you? That would be theft. That bunch of people who
>say they really want the album should go and buy a copy so the artist can
>receive the money for their work.
Unless, of course, the artist (to continue the analogy) is *already* not
getting money for his work, and his work is being repackage and resold by his
record company again and again while he is not getting a penny in royalties.
Cthulhu
>There's no way for us to know if an investigator from Infocom hasn't
>already requested a pirated game from him, either. Large companies do
>things like that.
It's called entrapment.
Cthulhu
>Here's a hint. If you don't pirate any games, the probability of
>pirating one of his is low.
Here's another. I don't think that too many people are ever going to spend
their lives without pirating a single game.
And BTW, let me put something into perspective. I am only offering to give out
the games in various Collections. This offer will be off as soon as the
original offer is taken down (don't know when that will be). I'd say the
probability of giving out one of his games is already pretty low.
Cthulhu
>A couple of notes:
>I'd just like to throw something out there for you all to chew on. I am a
>writer, myself. Does the existence of the internet mean that YOU don't
>believe I should ever be fairly paid for it? Should all creative and
>intellectual property be in the public domain? Lending CDs is fine by me,
>but tell me -- how many times have you borrowed a CD, really liked it, and
>then NOT copied it?
Zero times. But I can think of three times when I've borrowed a CD,
liked it, recorded it, listened to it until the recording wore out, and then
finally bought it.
>Just some shit to chew on.
Yuck!!
Adam J. Thornton
In article <4lmpfu$t...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>,
Russ Bryan <russ...@aol.com> wrote:
>Lending CDs is fine by me,
>but tell me -- how many times have you borrowed a CD, really liked it, and
>then NOT copied it?
A bunch. Tapes sound crappy. If the music's good, I'll buy the CD.
Too bad software doesn't work this way.
Adam
--
ad...@phoenix.princeton.edu | Viva HEGGA! | Save the choad! | 64,928 | Fnord
"Double integral is also the shape of lovers curled asleep":Pynchon | Linux
Thanks for letting me rearrange the chemicals in your head. | Team OS/2
You can have my PGP passphrase when you pry it from my cold, dead brain.
Julie Brandon
Hiyas,
On Thu, 25 Apr 96 23:11:10 GMT, patr...@Direct.CA (Cthulhu) wrote:
>In article <4lh8i9$4...@cnn.Princeton.EDU>, t...@wfn-shop.princeton.edu wrote:
>
>>Here's a hint. If you don't pirate any games, the probability of
>>pirating one of his is low.
>
>Here's another. I don't think that too many people are ever going to spend
>their lives without pirating a single game.
Here's another....
In the UK... where care volunteers get paid 1UKP an hour at best for
their 35 hour a week stint, I can't AFFORD to spend 40 pounds for each
game. For many people, it is pirating or absolutely nothing - there
is not a CHOICE to buy the game.
For me, I buy games that I am reasonably sure of when I can manage to
budget for such a thing. In between, I have been known to scrounge
for stuff if I want anything. Having said that, the only things that
I have gathered that are pirated over the last year was one
(overpriced underprogrammed) pinball game from the net, LGOP, a swap
of an Amiga Zork Zero for a PC version with someone, and a rather
popular word-processor that would have cost many many times what I
struggle to live on each weak.
Pricewise many products are so off-the-planet that it makes many types
of products and packages totally unrealistical for many people...
...and I speak as someone with 15 years of experience with computing
from assembly language programing and wiring serial interfaces to 'C'
etc. with a Bachelor of Engineering honours degree in the subject...
...and now I can't continue in the subject, because I can't even
afford or run my own computer now.
Hence I am now a carer (well it works out 12 UKP better off than
attempting to get by on income support) and live on the edge, often
not even being able to afford some fairly basic things - like new
clothes or shoes.
To Mr Plotkin... Don't you dare tell me how any of *my* "piracy" is
taking money away from the industry!
It is interesting to note that many of the prices now *force* piracy,
i.e. affording a full purchase just simply isn't an option. What
about formats which, when new, were difficult to pirate, such as
CD-ROM's when they came out - were CD-based products any cheaper...
not in a million years! CD's still are difficult to "home" or
"personal" pirate.
I sat and watched as the industry got *at least* as greedy as the
pirates did.
Love,
Julie.
PS Before anyone asks; this machine, this dial-up account, and this
newsreader I am writing on are not mine, are not payed for by me, but
are owned by a close friend. I couldn't begin to afford to own any of
this.
PPS Yes I know my qualifications are not particularly unusual or good;
my purpose of including those details was not to brag, but to prove
the point that this was the industry I had trained for for many years,
and now cannot afford to get the first steps to work in.
PPPS I mention the names of the products above because even if a
company did want to sue me they'd find it pointless - without savings
or assets I'd have nothing to pay them with, and hence nothing to
lose. ;-)
Jarle Brinchmann
In article <317EC6...@wavefront.com> Stourly Kraklite
<krak...@wavefront.com> writes:
as far as copyright goes. And most people don't govern their
actions because of what's legal or what's not anyway. Only a few
grannies from Wisconsin. The primary reason I don't kill my neighbor
is because I don't want to. The second reason is that it's immoral.
The third is that I might be punished by society. The idea that I
don't kill my neighbor because it is illegal and I must obey the law
is not even on the charts.
You are not really arguing against obeying the law here. Killing a
person is such an extreme case, that very few would question your
judgement here. A society has laws to be able to punish those who do
not comply with what the society (or the ruling class in some
situations :-/) see as reasonable. You are therefore supposed to
follow the law, not because of its wording per se, but because it is
supposed to agree with the society's sense of right and wrong.
However, in some situations you might feel yoourself so detatched from
what your actions might lead to that you do not feel compelled to
comply with the laws/regulations. (Personally I do this quite often
:-) _Then_ the laws are a kind of guideline for you; or rather
instructions from the society on what kind of behaviour is
acceptable.
Personally I used to dislike all kinds of laws and regulations when I
was younger, not wanting to follow them unless I saw a reason for
it. As I grow older, I more and more understand that in many
situations the actual reasons for laws are so complicated and
many-faceted that I personally cannot come to grips with why the law
is as it is. It is just one of the rules of the society, this law
thing.
Jarle.
Stephen van Egmond
Stourly Kraklite <krak...@wavefront.com> wrote:
>I wonder; how many of you game writers have a web page up that has ZERO
>copyright infringements on it?
Infringements? Me.
> The whole internet is one big copyright
>infringement.
How? Where? Certainly, it can be *used* as a tool for copyright
infringement, just as a telephone or a radio or a photocopier or a
standalone computer could be. The fact it's networked doesn't make it
any moreso.
> Maybe I've just turned over the rock where all the 100% law
>abiding computer types are hiding, but I doubt it.
You happen to have found a place where the hacker ethic is quite strong.
So: yes, you did.
>I'm not saying that everybody should be free to copy anything (a view which has
>quite a few proponents). But it is clear that copyright law is completely out
>of date and unrealistic in the age of the net.
Nonsense. The presence of the Net lowers the barrier to copyright
infringement. In the case of piracy, I used to have to scrounge around
on a local BBS, now I would just find a warez group and post a request.
The presence of the Net does not render moot concepts such as fair use,
parody, copyright, etc.
Two aspects where the Net or digital media strongly intersect copyright
issues are:
1. Sampling, i.e. using a portion of someone else's work as part of your
own. Current copyright doesn't say much about this, and the current
arrangement of having-to-get-permission can be burdensome for people who
want to sample a work that itself uses samples, that [etc.]. Which leads
to the notion of ...
2. Pay per use. In a world where evefry computer is wired up to a
high-speed digital network, Microsoft would be able to charge you $.25
for each hour of using the latest Microsoft Word instead of $400 for a
one-time, one-version licence. Again, current law says squat about this.
There are probably more and besides, I just made the above up.
>So I ask all of you: Is it immoral for you to knowingly download and
>redistribute that porn picture, photograph, logo. Is everybody that does so
>amoral scum? Or does this just apply to computer games. Or do we need a whole
>new way of considering copyright.
In what other ways can you consider the statement, "I made this, so I get
to decide in what ways it may be used, and in what ways I will be paid
for its use." with the force of the legal system to back it up?
Pictures, games, porn, books, it doesn't matter. (Logos are trademarks,
which belongs elsethread.)
>I say the latter. I say our young friend has every reason to be confused.
I think you need to think about what makes the wired world so different
from the old one that this need be so.
/Steve
who reads Wired, unsurprisingly
Berek Halfhand aka John Bowlin
> Lending CDs is fine by me, but tell me -- how many times have you borrowed
> a CD, really liked it, and then NOT copied it?
Every time I've borrowed a CD and liked it I've gone out and bought the
CD. (I assume we mean music here). The reason is simple -- CD music
sounds a lot better on CD than on tape. I don't have a DAT tape player.
If I did, and I could make perfect digital copies of CD's, I would
probably end up "owning" a lot of CD's on DAT and not running out to pay
for the CD. Maybe the really special ones I would buy. Simply because I
collect CDs and like to have all of the CDs from certain artists I
enjoy. But if it were a "one shot" artist with a few songs I liked, I
would probably reproduce the CD onto a DAT in full or in part, if I had
the right equipment.
> I'd just like to throw something out there for you all to chew on. I am a
> writer, myself. Does the existence of the internet mean that YOU don't
> believe I should ever be fairly paid for it? Should all creative and
> intellectual property be in the public domain?
I believe that an author deserves a decent living for what he's written
if enough people like it. This could be accomplished in several ways on
the net -- donations by patrons, subscription service to e-zines or
web-zines, "shareware" writing where the reader gets the rest of the
story once he's paid for it. That kind of thing.
But software piracy is different from other forms of copyright
infringement. It is well within reason for an individual without special
equipment to make practically unlimited, unflawed copies of the
software. You can't really do that with traditional printed material.
You can do it on the web, so it's starting to become an issue in areas
other than computer software publishing. I don't think that individual
software piracy (copying between friends) is costing the software
industry as much money as the SPA and other anti-piracy groups
statistics claim. But it probably has some effect on inconvience to
legitimate purchasers, increased prices, etc. In other words "if
everyone who used this program paid for it" may mean a whole lot less
people use it, but probably more people would pay for it than are
currently. A lot of people will resort to piracy when they don't intend
to use a product very much, or if they want to "try-before-buy" on a
commercial product. While it is definitely illegal, I personally don't
find it morally offensive. And yes, I am a programmer. :)
What I find morally offensive is people who make a living pirating
software (selling copies). They are really stealing from the authors,
because they money their customers are willing to pay for the software
should be going to the authors.
Stourly Kraklite
Jarle Brinchmann wrote:
> However, in some situations you might feel yoourself so detatched from
> what your actions might lead to that you do not feel compelled to
> comply with the laws/regulations. (Personally I do this quite often
> :-) _Then_ the laws are a kind of guideline for you; or rather
> instructions from the society on what kind of behaviour is
> acceptable.
This is what I was trying to say. I think most people do the same. The
best example from my prior post was "CD loaning" and not "murder". I notice
that I don't see ANY repsonses that claim they don't loan CDs, think the
loaning prohibition is a good law, a rush of people who plan to turn
themselves in :), etc. We make judgements about the laws we CHOOSE to
follow. We don't follow laws BECAUSE they are laws. Just about everybody
breaks laws on purpose at some time or another and aren't kept up at night
about it.
It's illegal to run a natural gas lamp in my town (holdover law from energy
crisis). Mine burns brightly. My neighbor runs huge floodlights. I'm
violating the law, he isn't. His energy useage for the same purpose is
higher and its production is dirtier. It's also ugly. Who out there would
prefer I follow my neighbor's example?
On the other hand, I stole a bicycle when I was 12. I didn't get caught but
I still feel guilty about it today.
My point was that breathlessly stating something to be ILLEGAL (gasp!)
doesn't cut much to most people. They gotta have a better reason than that.
BTW, I got a message from somebody who doubted my statement that loaning a
CD to a friend is illegal, regardless of whether they copy it. I assure you
all that it is true. I scanned my CD collection for declarations on a CD
that a lot of people might have. My collection is a little esoteric but I
did find two popular titles where this is stated explicitly:
Blues Traveler - four
Soundgarden - Black Hole Sun - Maxi-Single
Look for yourselves! If you have ever loaned a CD, you have violated the
law! (gasp again!) This was done as a bi-partisan favor to the recording
industry. It is another reason I don't feel too compelled to obey the law
without question: It's for sale.
kraklite
Matthew T. Russotto
Entrapment by the copyright owner isn't a defense for copyright
violation, unfortunately.
--
Matthew T. Russotto russ...@pond.com russ...@his.com
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit
of justice is no virtue."
ct
In article <318154...@wavefront.com>,
Stourly Kraklite <krak...@wavefront.com> wrote:
> The best example from my prior post was "CD loaning" and not
> "murder". I notice that I don't see ANY repsonses that claim they
> don't loan CDs, think the loaning prohibition is a good law, a rush
> of people who plan to turn themselves in :),
> BTW, I got a message from somebody who doubted my statement that
> loaning a CD to a friend is illegal, regardless of whether they copy
> it. I assure you all that it is true.
Just because it is stated on the CD, this does _not_ make it illegal.
It is entirely possible/probable that the condition is illegal itself,
so you are quite entitled to ignore it. Of course, I'd hate to argue
that one in a court of law.
> My point was that breathlessly stating something to be ILLEGAL
> (gasp!) doesn't cut much to most people. They gotta have a better
> reason than that.
Actually, I'd say for the majority of people this holds in the
contra-positive(?) - Most people need a good reason to _break_ the
law. Given one of course, most people would ignore the law quite
happily.
regards, ct
Russ Bryan
>> There's no way for us to know if an investigator from Infocom hasn't
>> already requested a pirated game from him, either. Large companies do
>> things like that.
Patrick:
> It's called entrapment.
Don't fall into the old "I was entrapped" cry. Entrapment would be like
if a cop wandered up to you on the street and said "Hey, buddy, want to
buy some coke?" and you said "Sure!" and then you got busted. If you put
an ad in the paper saying "Free Drugs, Just Call 555-COKE," then you
better bet some cop is going to give you a call, and you'll have one hell
of a time calling it entrapment.
Russ Bryan
Julie:
It is interesting to note that many of the prices now *force* piracy,
i.e. affording a full purchase just simply isn't an option.
The internet has a wealth of inexpensive or free entertainment available.
The reason I am here and active on the internet is because I usually can
not afford to buy the games I'd like to play. I can't afford a sports
car, either, but I'm not going to steal one because I've accepted my
place.
The only reason any of us feel differently here is because we don't have
to walk into the store and steal the package. Somehow, since we don't
have that physical impediment, stealing becomes OK.
I don't want to sound obnoxious, but I have to admit that I can not accept
a lack of resources as an excuse for piracy or stealing in any form. We
all have to learn to live within our means. As an unemployed struggling
writer, that means I often can't go out on weekends unless I have a couple
of friends who can help pay for the beer. It sucks, but unless I want to
start ripping off six packs from the corner deli, it's just the way it is.
-- Russ
Dsurfr
I was just reading your posting about the typo and your "game". Extremely
Funny. It just really made me laugh. Have your really written an IF game?
How long did it take?
Matthew Russotto
In article <4loq7m$l...@crl3.crl.com> pis...@crl.com (Perry Israel) writes:
}Stourly Kraklite (krak...@wavefront.com) writes:
}
} > But for example, look at any CD in your collection. Did you know
} >that it is illegal to LOAN a CD to another person, regardless of whether
} >they copy it or not. Don't take my word for it. Look yourself.
}
} > Many people do not consider this to be a reasonable law and don't feel
} >too bad about breaking it. I'm one of them. How about you? Have you
} >ever lent out a CD? Will you stop now that you know it is illegal?
}
}Just a small technical point:
}
}Is it really illegal? It's in violation of the contract--or at least so
}the argument would come from the "licensee" of the CD Rom. (By the way,
}based upon the license, maybe you don't have a CD collection: you just
}are in possession of a medium (which you own?) that holds intellectual
}property that the software company owns.) The real question seems to me to
}be whether the contract is overreaching on the part of the company or
}whether you are actually bound by it.
Most of these licenses have a "self-destruct on violation" clause, where if
you violate the license you no longer have a right to use the copyrighted
material yourself. With a particularly vicious lawyer, you could
probably get hit for $100,000 in damages for each and every time you used the
CD after loaning it out. Far as I know, even the recording industry goons
haven't tried that one yet. For an even more fun one-- say you have a site
license for 50 copies of software, and you make 51 copies. Your site license
could evaporate in a puff of orange smoke, and you could be using 50 illegal
copies of software, which subjects you to felony (read: Say "hi" to your
new cellmate, Bubba) penalties. Even the SPA hasn't tried that one yet.
IMO (and I'm definitely not a lawyer) shrink-wrap licenses are worthless.
Matthew Russotto
In article <4lmr9c$n...@cnn.Princeton.EDU> ad...@tucson.princeton.edu (Adam J. Thornton) writes:
}In article <4lmpfu$t...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>,
}Russ Bryan <russ...@aol.com> wrote:
}>but tell me -- how many times have you borrowed a CD, really liked it, and
}>then NOT copied it?
}
}
}Too bad software doesn't work this way.
Say hello to the writable CD -- and with the price of CDs the way they are,
the music industry may indeed have to worry about them.
And perhaps the music DAT won't stay down, though the music industry does
appear to have succeeded there.
John Francis
> >already requested a pirated game from him, either. Large companies do
> >things like that.
>
That's another thing you've got wrong.
It's only entrapment if they entice you to make an illegal copy of a game
*before* you have offered to do this. Once you have made the offer it is
perfectly reasonable for them to respond to your offer to collect evidence.
You may believe that you haven't broken the law. (If so, you are wrong).
You may believe that the law is unjust, and you are morally entitled to
break it. You may believe that being a minor entitles you to break the
law with impunity. you may believe that you are a whole lot smarter than
the employees of any game company responsible for enforcing copyright
violations. Just remember that the law doesn't care what you believe.
Kenneth Fair
Well, presumably the flat fee the artist gets makes up for the lack
of royalties on an expected present value basis.
Offer #1: I'll give you $100,000 right now for your work. I get all
of the rights and royalties.
Offer #2: I'll give you 10% of all the profits. If there are any.
You keep the rights.
If you think there's a really good chance your work will make more than
$1 million in profits, you'll want to go for the second version. If not,
you'll want to go for the first.
(Okay, this is a very large simplification. But the point still holds.)
--
KEN FAIR - U. Chicago Law | Power Mac! | Net since '90 | Net.cop
kjf...@midway.uchicago.edu | CABAL(tm) Member | I'm w/in McQ - R U?
"Your grasp of science lacks opposable thumbs."
- B. Waggoner
bonni mierzejewska
On 26 Apr 1996 22:00:54 GMT, c...@ecs.ox.ac.uk (ct) wrote:
>> My point was that breathlessly stating something to be ILLEGAL
>> (gasp!) doesn't cut much to most people. They gotta have a better
>> reason than that.
>
>Actually, I'd say for the majority of people this holds in the
>contra-positive(?) - Most people need a good reason to _break_ the
>law. Given one of course, most people would ignore the law quite
>happily.
Depends. But I would agree that most people need a good reason to _break_
the law. A few hours passing amusement doesn't cut it for me. To feed my
children, I probably would, but even then, only after exhausting legal
alternatives.
Maybe my generation was taught more respect for Law than yours, I don't
know. It's not a knee-jerk reaction; it's well-thought-out respect. It
actually is rather distressing to know that pointing out the illegality of
an action isn't enough to deter many people these days. Whatever happened
to honour?
bonni
coming soon - 1996 IF Competition entry
__ __
IC | XC | bonni mierzejewska "The Lone Quilter"
---+--- | u6...@wvnvm.wvnet.edu
NI | KA | Kelly's Creek Homestead, Maidsville, WV
Adam J. Thornton
In article <31825ed3...@wvnvm.wvnet.edu>,
bonni mierzejewska <u6...@wvnvm.wvnet.edu> wrote:
>Maybe my generation was taught more respect for Law than yours, I don't
>know. It's not a knee-jerk reaction; it's well-thought-out respect. It
>actually is rather distressing to know that pointing out the illegality of
>an action isn't enough to deter many people these days. Whatever happened
>to honour?
This has little or nothing to do with Interactive Fiction, so I'll keep it
brief. Illegality is not necessarily immorality. Thus it is perfectly
possible, even with a well-developed sense of honor, to feel no remorse for
breaking the law.
For instance, I feel no guilt about driving 75 on open highway.
On the other hand, copyright law, in general, strikes me as both moral and
reasonable. If you want something, then either you want it bad enough to
pay for it, or you don't get it.
This does raise an interesting point: what to do about those things still
covered by copyright but out-of-print? We've had this discussion on RAIF
before; no clear consensus has emerged, but I'll bet that someone offering
to pirate "Cyborg" would be less likely to inspire the sort of loathing
that our buddy from AOL has.
We do seem to be mostly united here in the belief that if you want it, and
it is commercially available, than you should buy it rather than pirating
it.
Steven Howard
In <4lqltj$2...@news.multiverse.com>, russ...@ariel.ct.picker.com (Matthew Russotto) writes:
>In article <4loq7m$l...@crl3.crl.com> pis...@crl.com (Perry Israel) writes:
>}Stourly Kraklite (krak...@wavefront.com) writes:
>}
>} > But for example, look at any CD in your collection. Did you know
>} >that it is illegal to LOAN a CD to another person, regardless of whether
>} >they copy it or not. Don't take my word for it. Look yourself.
>}
>}
>}Is it really illegal? It's in violation of the contract--or at least so
>}the argument would come from the "licensee" of the CD Rom. (By the way,
>}based upon the license, maybe you don't have a CD collection: you just
>}are in possession of a medium (which you own?) that holds intellectual
>}property that the software company owns.) The real question seems to me to
>}be whether the contract is overreaching on the part of the company or
>}whether you are actually bound by it.
>
>Most of these licenses have a "self-destruct on violation" clause, where if
>you violate the license you no longer have a right to use the copyrighted
>material yourself. With a particularly vicious lawyer, you could
>probably get hit for $100,000 in damages for each and every time you used the
>CD after loaning it out. Far as I know, even the recording industry goons
>haven't tried that one yet. For an even more fun one-- say you have a site
>license for 50 copies of software, and you make 51 copies. Your site license
>could evaporate in a puff of orange smoke, and you could be using 50 illegal
>copies of software, which subjects you to felony (read: Say "hi" to your
>new cellmate, Bubba) penalties. Even the SPA hasn't tried that one yet.
>
>IMO (and I'm definitely not a lawyer) shrink-wrap licenses are worthless.
There seems to be some (deliberate?) confusion in this discussion between
music CD and CD-ROMs. I own hundreds of music CDs, none of which came with
any "license agreement" whatsoever. I own these CDs. I can sell them, I can
give them away, I can lend them out. The only things I can't do are make copies
which are not for my own personal use or charge people to listen to them
without paying royalties.
I own a dozen or so CD-ROMs, each of which came with a written license
agreement. Typically, this agreement allows me to run one copy of the software
on one computer. I can also sell these CD-ROMs or give them away, which
transfers the license to the new owner. In most cases, I can even lend them out,
provided that the program cannot then be run on two computers at the same
time (if the original CD were required to run the program, for example, or if I
had deleted the program from my hard drive).
Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV.
========
Steven Howard
bl...@ibm.net
What's a nice word for "euphemism"?
Jerry Foster
Julie Brandon (ju...@merp.demon.co.uk) wrote:
: To Mr Plotkin... Don't you dare tell me how any of *my* "piracy" is
: taking money away from the industry!
Its not? Where would it go if you actually purchased the game?
:
: It is interesting to note that many of the prices now *force* piracy,
: i.e. affording a full purchase just simply isn't an option. What
Oh, what logic. Buying that Ford Mustang I've always wanted is not an
option for me because I feel the price of cars these days is ridiculous
and puts them out of my reach. Obviously its ok for me to steal one
instead? The "its not my fault" undercurrent in this world continuous
to produce incredible arguments like the one above. To claim that
you are *forced* to pirate games is ludicrous. If someone feels that
prostitutes charge too much money can he claim that he was *forced*
to rape one? Sheesh.
----------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------
Jerry Foster ---+--- "I am opposed to abortion, and to
Plexus Systems FEAR | NOT government funding of abortions."
jf...@plex-sys.com | -Gov. Bill Clinton, 9/26/86
----------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------
Matthew Russotto
}Maybe my generation was taught more respect for Law than yours, I don't
}know. It's not a knee-jerk reaction; it's well-thought-out respect. It
}actually is rather distressing to know that pointing out the illegality of
}an action isn't enough to deter many people these days. Whatever happened
}to honour?
Respect for the law disappeared a short time after laws become unworthy of
respect. I start my day with a some speeding, rolling through stop signs,
and running of red lights, perhaps fail to put a seat belt on. Later maybe
I'll do a little jaywalking. At the office, someone might play a radio so
anyone can hear it (an illegal copyright violation). If I'm on a business
trip, I might rent a car though I'm under 25 (just a violation of policy, like
a violation of those license agreements on software). When I get home (after
some more speeding and perhaps an illegal U-turn) I'll take out the trash
without separating recyclables (there goes another ordinance). Then I'll
use some bug spray in a manner inconsistent with its labelling, tear the tags
off a mattress, and wait for the police to come and get me. While I'm
waiting I'll dial up my ISP and post bits of a news article.
You want me to have respect for the law, stop making it into such a
strait-jacket that following them takes a supreme effort.
Jacob Solomon Weinstein
russ...@ariel.ct.picker.com (Matthew Russotto) writes:
>Respect for the law disappeared a short time after laws become unworthy of
>respect. I start my day with a some speeding, rolling through stop signs,
>and running of red lights, perhaps fail to put a seat belt on.
I've seen a few posts in this thread along the line of, "Hey, don't
criticize software piracy if you break the law yourself." Aside from a
logicial fallacy or two, the problem with this is the assumption that (1)
when the law inconveniences you, it becomes unneccessary to obey it; and
(2) everybody feels this way.
For the record, my New Year's resolution last year was to stop breaking
the law. Not just the bigs laws-- all laws. I no longer cross against the
light or go 35 MPH on a 25 MPH street. Being a human being, I don't
always stick to this; I still speed sometimes, or jaywalk when I'm not
paying attention. (And, obviously, if I'm in a situation where I must
break a law to save a life, of course I'll do it.) But I've done pretty
much as good a job as I can, and
guess what? I haven't been terribly inconvenienced. I haven't died, or
been more likely to be late to appointments, or withered away from the
lack of affordable entertainment.
My reason for my resolution was that I realized that Socrates was
correct--that if we live in a society, we have an obligation to accept
the rules of the society that we consider just and to fight actively
against the unjust ones. Passively violating the ones we consider unjust
is immoral.
I'm not trying to brag. I certainly don't consider myself morally
superior to people who have made a thoughtful decision not to obey all
laws. I'm just responding to anybody who is tempted to justify their
piracy by saying, "Hey, does anybody really obey all laws?""
Speaking of obeying the rules of one's society, I'm going to try
desperately to bring this issue on-topic. The issue of when/if it's
justifiable to break the law is one that seems to me to be a natural for
Interactive Fiction; IF is a medium that allows the author to force the
player into making a moral choice. A clever game might allow a player to
choose at a certain point to break a seemingly useless law, and show the
consequences of that choice. (Obviously, depending on one's philosophy,
those consequences might be good or bad.)
Indeed, as has been noted here before, the conventions of IF games often
involve breaking laws--stealing everything that isn't nailed down, for
example. Can anybody think of an IF game that gives real weight to moral
choices? "AMFV" comes to mind. ("Trinity," I think, doesn't quite count.
The question isn't so much whether or not you should stop the nuclear
bomb--the question it asks is, "Can you?")
-Jacob
Adam J. Thornton
In article <4m36a4$n...@castor.usc.edu>,
Jacob Solomon Weinstein <jwei...@castor.usc.edu> wrote:
>Can anybody think of an IF game that gives real weight to moral
>choices? "AMFV" comes to mind. ("Trinity," I think, doesn't quite count.
>The question isn't so much whether or not you should stop the nuclear
>bomb--the question it asks is, "Can you?")
SPOILER
REALLY!
"Planetfall," of course. You _must_ sacrifice Floyd to advance the plot.
This is a choice that has caused a number of players some angst.
Another one is the ending of "The Horror Of Rylvania."
I'm thinking of including such a choice in my IF Competition Entry, if I
write it.
Paul Lyon
Jacob Solomon Weinstein (jwei...@castor.usc.edu) wrote:
: Speaking of obeying the rules of one's society, I'm going to try
: desperately to bring this issue on-topic. The issue of when/if it's
: justifiable to break the law is one that seems to me to be a natural for
: Interactive Fiction; IF is a medium that allows the author to force the
: player into making a moral choice. A clever game might allow a player to
: choose at a certain point to break a seemingly useless law, and show the
: consequences of that choice. (Obviously, depending on one's philosophy,
: those consequences might be good or bad.)
: Indeed, as has been noted here before, the conventions of IF games often
: involve breaking laws--stealing everything that isn't nailed down, for
: example. Can anybody think of an IF game that gives real weight to moral
: choices? "AMFV" comes to mind. ("Trinity," I think, doesn't quite count.
: The question isn't so much whether or not you should stop the nuclear
: bomb--the question it asks is, "Can you?")
I have played two Sierra games that had a bit of that to them. The first is
King's Quest I, in which there is at least one puzzle in which violence doth
not pay, even tho' it would seem the natural choice. Depending on the order
in which you do things, you can come into possession of a dagger and then
later be confronted with a dragon in its cavern. If you do the obvious, you
will never get out of that cave :-)
In a more substantive way, Christy Marx's game ``Conquest of Camelot'' gives
points for moral choices as well as for fighting skill and puzzle solving
cleverness. To be sure, virtue---in this game---gets properly rewarded, but
you still have to ``do the right thing'' to win.
Ciao,
Paul
--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Paul Lyon | "Without true justice
Liberal Arts Computer Lab | there can be no peace."
University of Texas at Austin | Lucretia Coffin Mott
email: p...@la.utexas.edu |
'phone: 512-471-5121 *** fax: 512-471-1061 |
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Roger Giner-Sorolla
Let's have a crosspost of the last part of your post to r.a.i-f, Jacob.
Mr. Dissertation might not let me ramble on at length on the topic, but I
think with a lot of the latest games explicitly raising moral and social
questions ("Lost New York" and "Jigsaw" come to mind), the issue of
different concepts of morality within games becomes more important.
Roger Giner-Sorolla New York University, New York, NY
gi...@xp.psych.nyu.edu Dept. of Psychology (Social/Personality)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The F.B.I. has said that it believes he was a student of the history of
science, but on the evidence here he was a social psychology major with a
minor in sociology, and he shows all the distressing hallmarks of the
worst of that academic breed." -- Kirkpatrick Sale on the Unabomber, 9/95
Julian Arnold
>
> [...stuff and (non)sense*...]
>
> Speaking of obeying the rules of one's society, I'm going to try
> desperately to bring this issue on-topic. The issue of when/if it's
> justifiable to break the law is one that seems to me to be a natural for
> Interactive Fiction; IF is a medium that allows the author to force the
> player into making a moral choice. A clever game might allow a player to
> choose at a certain point to break a seemingly useless law, and show the
> consequences of that choice. (Obviously, depending on one's philosophy,
> those consequences might be good or bad.)
>
> Indeed, as has been noted here before, the conventions of IF games often
> involve breaking laws--stealing everything that isn't nailed down, for
> example. Can anybody think of an IF game that gives real weight to moral
> choices? "AMFV" comes to mind. ("Trinity," I think, doesn't quite count.
> The question isn't so much whether or not you should stop the nuclear
> bomb--the question it asks is, "Can you?")
"Jigsaw" perhaps? Would changing history (were it possible) be morally
wrong? Certainly, according to the rules of the game it's wrong, but is this
a moral position, or just necessary to give the game a plot?
Jools
(*-- delete as appropriate, but please don't post here about it.)
Sarinee Achavanuntakul
Paul Lyon (p...@bertie.la.utexas.edu) wrote:
: Jacob Solomon Weinstein (jwei...@castor.usc.edu) wrote:
: : Speaking of obeying the rules of one's society, I'm going to try
: : desperately to bring this issue on-topic. The issue of when/if it's
: : justifiable to break the law is one that seems to me to be a natural for
: : Interactive Fiction; IF is a medium that allows the author to force the
: : player into making a moral choice. A clever game might allow a player to
: : choose at a certain point to break a seemingly useless law, and show the
: : consequences of that choice. (Obviously, depending on one's philosophy,
: : those consequences might be good or bad.)
I might add that a clever game might also change the _context_ of
the game so that the _moral_ implications of such actions are conveyed,
EVEN if the game doesn't give any choices. Gabriel Knight 1 is a good
example of this: since the game is linear, ANY law-breaking behavior has
"good" consequences in terms of advancing the plot and giving points.
However, actions that garner points in the last half of the game are
"moral" ones (completing initiation rite, assisting the police, etc) as
opposed to "immoral" (in this case, also "illegal") acts in the first
half (stealing official documents, lying to get information, etc). The
game succeeds because it alters the context of such actions: in the first
half, Gabriel is just an immoral writer who lies to get advantage; in the
second half, he becomes the supernatural police bringing the murderers to
justice.
It would be nice if ALL games give us choices to break laws. But
IMHO altering the context like in GK1 is the next best thing-- I wasn't
bothered a bit by the game's linearity because its changing context keeps
things interesting.
Trying to balance between portraying consequences in the _game's_
context (of breaking a law) and those in the _player's_ context (gaining
points from solving puzzle = "good" for the player) is IMHO a difficult
thing to do in a linear game. A non-linear game can certainly avoid this
by making one choice a wrong one, i.e. lead to an abrupt end.
-Sarinee
Paul David Doherty
In article <4m2go8$q...@pravda.aa.msen.com>,
Jerry Foster <m...@mail.msen.com> wrote:
>Julie Brandon (ju...@merp.demon.co.uk) wrote:
>: To Mr Plotkin... Don't you dare tell me how any of *my* "piracy" is
>: taking money away from the industry!
>
>Its not? Where would it go if you actually purchased the game?
But she wouldn't purchase it, because she can't afford it. Read her
posting again; she explains it in detail.
-- Dave
Rat-boy
In article <4m2p1s$l...@news.multiverse.com>,
Matthew Russotto <russ...@ariel.ct.picker.com> wrote:
>In article <31825ed3...@wvnvm.wvnet.edu> u6...@wvnvm.wvnet.edu writes:
>
>}Maybe my generation was taught more respect for Law than yours, I don't
>}know. It's not a knee-jerk reaction; it's well-thought-out respect. It
>}actually is rather distressing to know that pointing out the illegality of
>}an action isn't enough to deter many people these days. Whatever happened
>}to honour?
>
>respect. I start my day with a some speeding, rolling through stop signs,
>I'll do a little jaywalking. At the office, someone might play a radio so
>anyone can hear it (an illegal copyright violation). If I'm on a business
>trip, I might rent a car though I'm under 25 (just a violation of policy, like
>a violation of those license agreements on software). When I get home (after
>some more speeding and perhaps an illegal U-turn) I'll take out the trash
>without separating recyclables (there goes another ordinance). Then I'll
>use some bug spray in a manner inconsistent with its labelling, tear the tags
>off a mattress, and wait for the police to come and get me. While I'm
>waiting I'll dial up my ISP and post bits of a news article.
>
>You want me to have respect for the law, stop making it into such a
>strait-jacket that following them takes a supreme effort.
>
First of all, let me apologize for posting this in a public forum
especially one in which it doesn't belong. I just couldn't let it go.
You are a prime example of someone who thinks he owns the entire
fricking world. How much effort does any of the things you mentioned
above take on your part? Don't be a lazy shit - leave five or ten
minutes early and you won't have to speed, roll through stop signs, or
run any red lights. All three of these laws were put into effect for
the safety of not only you, but everyone else. You don't seem to
realize that these laws were made to protect people idiots like
you hurt by breaking them.
You may not agree with the idea that the environment is worth
caring about; fine, you're entitled to that opinion. But don't give
me any bullshit about how difficult it is to recycle.
Oh, yes, and it's an incredible strain to put aluminum cans out
in a separate container. Sometimes *I* spend six or seven seconds
doing this; what a huge chunk out of my day, I certainly can't
afford that time, what with all the TV I watch.
Don't go around using your own godawful laziness as an excuse
for breaking the law. The world isn't an easy place to be in;
grow up and realize this.
--
"Dammit! I'm sick and tired of seeing this crap."
Transcendent - Butt-Head
-==(UDIC)==- "Your life's a joke, you're broke, your love life's
D.O.A...." - Rembrandts
Matthew Daly
I think that you snipped enough out to indicate that he didn't
understand Ms. Brandon's point. If you go back and reread it, you'll
see stuff about stealing sports cars that are outside one's price
range and other arguments that point out that he DID understand
that she doesn't feel that she can afford to make the moral decision.
He disagreed with that position, as do I.
It is morally objectionable to take something that belongs to someone
else, even if you reeeeeeally want it and you reeeeeeeeally can't
afford it. Perhaps we've trained ourselves that just maybe it's
okay to do it with software because it's easy to do and is virtually
untracable at this stage. Maybe we convince ourselves that there is
a sufficiently large body of independently wealthy I-F players who
will financially subsidize authors so that millions of additional
people can play for free. It's a lie. The saddest part of the lie
is that there are probably excellent writers of movies, TV shows,
books, and the like who would drive I-F toward the next level of
professionalism but choose not to because it's not financially
viable with so many freeloaders in the system.
While I sympathize with Ms. Brandon's economic plight, I suggest
two options: betatesting and freeware. In the first, the author
is getting something in exchange for your being able to play the
game for free, and in the second the author entered the contract
with full knowledge that people would be playing without paying.
But the notion that we are somehow forced to play Enchanter
whether or not we can afford it is laughably solipsistic and
morally dangerous.
-Matthew Daly
Just my opinions, not my employer's....
Jacob Solomon Weinstein
I'm cross-posting this thread to rec.arts.int-fiction. For those of you
who missed it when it when it was only in rec.games.int-fiction, I
asked if there were any IF games that explored moral questions in
detail, and I've gotten some interesting replies. (My original post is
reporoduced at the end of this one, for anybody who is interested.)
So far, folks have brought up both lost New York and Jigsaw as
examples. I ought to warn you that I haven't finished either of them, so
I may be talking through my hat, but it seems to me that both those games
beg the moral questions they raise.
[Minor spoilers for Jigsaw (if you don't know the basic premise of the
game) follow:]
Julian Arnold, I think, put his finger on the reason that Jigsaw isn't
the sort of game I mean:
>"Jigsaw" perhaps? Would changing history (were it possible) be morally
>wrong? Certainly, according to the rules of the game it's wrong, but is this
>a moral position, or just necessary to give the game a plot?
As he points out, the rules of the game presuppose that changing history
is wrong. It's something that we're supposed to accept, along with the
possiblity of time travel, when we willingly suspend our disbelief. As
others have pointed out, if we don't accept the immorality of altering
history, Jigsaw doesn't really make a persuasive case for it. The game
shows us the consequences of changing history--but it's sometimes far
from clear that the consequences are bad.
A different game--not a better or worse one, just one more interested in
exploring the question of morality--might give us more freedom to alter
history, and show us the consequences in subtly persuasive ways.
(Imagine a time travel story structured like "A Mind Forever Voyaging."
One might advance forward in ten year increments and slowly see the
consequences of altering history play themselves out.)
I don't see Jigsaw's acceptance of the immorality of time travel as a
flaw--just a choice on the part of the author. But based on my impression
so far, I think that Lost New York _is_ flawed by its handling of moral
issues. (And it's the only flaw I've found so far in an excellent game.)
[Minor spoilers for Lost New York (if you have fewer than 26 points) follow.]
Here's what I mean. Through a speech that one hears early on, Lost New
York draws your attention to the human cost of progress. That speech
provides a moral context in which to play the game; it specificly draws
the players attention to moral issues. Yet in the parts of the game I've
played so far--I'm up to 26 points--I've already been rewarded (with
points) for taking advantage of a helpless drunk, and I expect that I'll
be rewarded for stealing from a poor man.
Were the game set in a mythical, Zorkish world, I might accept the
irrelevance of morality as just another rule of the game universe, along
with the presence of unicorns and magic. But by setting it in a very
believable New York, and by explicitly calling our attention to moral
issues, the author has set me up to feel very uncomfortable about
performing immoral acts during my quest.
Unless...hmm... Unless the player's immoral tactics are meant to echo the
immorality that went into the creation of modern New York. Hm. Perhaps I
really should finish the game before I judge.
All right. I'm going to go play it right now.
-Jacob
>In article
<4m36a4$n...@castor.usc.edu>,
Jacob Solomon Weinstein ><mailto:jwei...@castor.usc.edu> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Speaking of obeying the rules of one's society, I'm going to try
>> desperately to bring this issue on-topic. The issue of when/if it's
>> justifiable to break the law is one that seems to me to be a natural
for
>> Interactive Fiction; IF is a medium that allows the author to force
the
>> player into making a moral choice. A clever game might allow a player
to
>> choose at a certain point to break a seemingly useless law, and show
the
>> consequences of that choice. (Obviously, depending on one's
philosophy,
>> those consequences might be good or bad.)
>>
Russell L. Bryan
Jacob:
> Here's what I mean. Through a speech that one hears early on, Lost New
> York draws your attention to the human cost of progress. That speech
> provides a moral context in which to play the game; it specificly draws
> the players attention to moral issues. Yet in the parts of the game I've
> played so far--I'm up to 26 points--I've already been rewarded (with
> points) for taking advantage of a helpless drunk, and I expect that I'll
> be rewarded for stealing from a poor man.
I'll jump on this one before Neil gets the chance. If you spend some time
talking to the drunk, you will discover that he is a bigot who happened to get
drunk and lose his wallet. He is not necessarily poor, and my suspicion is that
he lost all his money in the [SPOILERS: Do not read the next word] casino.
There are many unsavory characters in Lost New York. The problem with morality
in interactive fiction is that we too often assume that if we must steal from a
character, that character is a nice person who doesn't deserve such treatment.
Have you discovered what you do with the coat afterwards? Who do you suppose
deserved it more?
OK, I retract that comment -- I can not assume that the random homeless person
is necessarily a good person, either, but if you want to feel bad about stealing
from a poor man, shouldn't you then feel good that, in actuality, you end up
helping a poor man instead?
-- Russ
Matthew Russotto
In article <4m36a4$n...@castor.usc.edu> jwei...@castor.usc.edu (Jacob Solomon Weinstein) writes:
}russ...@ariel.ct.picker.com (Matthew Russotto) writes:
}>Respect for the law disappeared a short time after laws become unworthy of
}>respect. I start my day with a some speeding, rolling through stop signs,
}>and running of red lights, perhaps fail to put a seat belt on.
}I've seen a few posts in this thread along the line of, "Hey, don't
}criticize software piracy if you break the law yourself."
That's not my point. My point is merely that "it's the law" is not a
sufficient nor even a compelling reason not to do something -- at least, not
with the state of law nowadays. Software piracy is wrong for other reasons.
}For the record, my New Year's resolution last year was to stop breaking
}the law. Not just the bigs laws-- all laws. I no longer cross against the
}light or go 35 MPH on a 25 MPH street.
Do you even KNOW all the laws? Even memorizing all of the United States Code
provisions you could break in everyday life is a daunting task -- add in
the Code of Federal Regulations, state laws, local ordinances, etc, and you've
got a completely unmanageable task.
}My reason for my resolution was that I realized that Socrates was
}correct--that if we live in a society, we have an obligation to accept
}the rules of the society that we consider just and to fight actively
}against the unjust ones. Passively violating the ones we consider unjust
}is immoral.
You know what that got Socrates. "Very nice speech, sir, now just drink the
hemlock". I don't accept that the moral choices when faced with an unjust rule
are to either obey it, or fight it actively and accept the punishments --
certainly not when fighting it is akin to tilting at windmills, and the
punishments are severe.
}Indeed, as has been noted here before, the conventions of IF games often
}involve breaking laws--stealing everything that isn't nailed down, for
}example. Can anybody think of an IF game that gives real weight to moral
}choices? "AMFV" comes to mind. ("Trinity," I think, doesn't quite count.
}The question isn't so much whether or not you should stop the nuclear
}bomb--the question it asks is, "Can you?")
Most IF has tended towards "do whatever you can get away with". The RPG
Ultima IV had moral rules, but they were rigid -- either you followed them,
or you were penalized. In AMFV, I don't think there were any moral choices
Perry Sim or the player made. He merely observed the practical consequences
of one set of those choices. There were choices to be made in Jigsaw, but to
move the story along you had to make the "right" one -- it is a choice that
isn't really a choice, as you find out in the first chapter.
Matthew T. Russotto
In article <DqoMJ...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>,
Rat-boy <ak...@fulton.seas.Virginia.EDU> wrote:
}In article <4m2p1s$l...@news.multiverse.com>,
}Matthew Russotto <russ...@ariel.ct.picker.com> wrote:
}>In article <31825ed3...@wvnvm.wvnet.edu> u6...@wvnvm.wvnet.edu writes:
}>
}>}Maybe my generation was taught more respect for Law than yours, I don't
}>}know. It's not a knee-jerk reaction; it's well-thought-out respect. It
}>}actually is rather distressing to know that pointing out the illegality of
}>}an action isn't enough to deter many people these days. Whatever happened
}>}to honour?
}>
}>respect. I start my day with a some speeding, rolling through stop signs,
}>I'll do a little jaywalking. At the office, someone might play a radio so
}>anyone can hear it (an illegal copyright violation). If I'm on a business
}>trip, I might rent a car though I'm under 25 (just a violation of policy, like
}>a violation of those license agreements on software). When I get home (after
}>some more speeding and perhaps an illegal U-turn) I'll take out the trash
}>without separating recyclables (there goes another ordinance). Then I'll
}>use some bug spray in a manner inconsistent with its labelling, tear the tags
}>off a mattress, and wait for the police to come and get me. While I'm
}>waiting I'll dial up my ISP and post bits of a news article.
}>
}>You want me to have respect for the law, stop making it into such a
}>strait-jacket that following them takes a supreme effort.
} First of all, let me apologize for posting this in a public forum
}especially one in which it doesn't belong. I just couldn't let it go.
}run any red lights. All three of these laws were put into effect for
}the safety of not only you, but everyone else.
The reason for strait-jackets is the same.
} Don't go around using your own godawful laziness as an excuse
}for breaking the law. The world isn't an easy place to be in;
}grow up and realize this.
Why do some people use "grow up" as a synonym for "knuckle under"?
--
Matthew T. Russotto russ...@pond.com russ...@his.com
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit
of justice is no virtue."
Nulldogma
[SPOILERS FOR LOST NEW YORK BE HERE]
>I'll jump on this one before Neil gets the chance. If you spend some
time
>talking to the drunk, you will discover that he is a bigot who happened
to >get
>drunk and lose his wallet. He is not necessarily poor, and my suspicion
>is that
>he lost all his money in the [SPOILERS: Do not read the next word]
>casino.
That's an excellent theory, though I must admit I never thought of it.
I actually thought a lot about morality when I wrote the bits with the
panhandler and the drunken man. This was during one of r.a.i-f's periodic
bouts with the subject, and I specifically wanted to write a scene that
could potentially justify theft in the player's mind -- you're putting
yourself in the position of the "criminal classes" the drunken man is
disparaging, and (I hope) getting some appreciation for how stealing a
coat would look from their position.
Actually, in early versions of the game, you had to be perfectly awful to
the panhandler in order to get his coins from him, and it bothered me to
no end. I finally tore up that whole section of the game, adding the drunk
and several other puzzles.
Neil
David H. Thornley
In article <4m2go8$q...@pravda.aa.msen.com>,
Jerry Foster <m...@mail.msen.com> wrote:
>Julie Brandon (ju...@merp.demon.co.uk) wrote:
>: To Mr Plotkin... Don't you dare tell me how any of *my* "piracy" is
>: taking money away from the industry!
>
>Its not? Where would it go if you actually purchased the game?
>
>:
>: It is interesting to note that many of the prices now *force* piracy,
>: i.e. affording a full purchase just simply isn't an option. What
>
>Oh, what logic. Buying that Ford Mustang I've always wanted is not an
>option for me because I feel the price of cars these days is ridiculous
>and puts them out of my reach. Obviously its ok for me to steal one
>instead?
I don't want to condone software piracy, but this isn't a logical argument.
If I steal your car, I've deprived you of the car. If I steal your
software, I've deprived you of money if and only if I would have bought the
stuff anyway. If Julie collects all of Andrew Plotkin's company's games
in pirated versions, exactly what does Andrew lose? He (and his company)
lose the *potential* of selling the games to Julie; if Julie is flat broke,
the potential was worthless in the first place. Even less tangibly, the
company loses control over its property. The main tangible loss is to
people who could afford the software but steal it instead. (The main
intangible loss is the reduced incentive to create. If everybody who
had downloaded the Unkuulian Unventures and played them had registered,
would more of them be coming out? Currently, the I-F industry is a bunch
of people doing it out of their own creativity and spare time.)
Suppose that matter duplicators become common; so common that I can afford
one even though I can't afford a car. I'm walking down the street, feeling
grumpy, and see a nice Ford Mustang. I duplicate it and drive away.
Leaving out license fees and the like (which go to offset the effect
the car has on the environment, and the stuff constructed by society to
support cars - things that have no parallel with software), what have I
done wrong? (If your answer is "absolutely nothing" I invite you to
re-think it.) This is a more appropriate parallel.
> The "its not my fault" undercurrent in this world continuous
>to produce incredible arguments like the one above.
If it's an incredible argument, it should be easy to refute; however,
you completely miss the point. Think a little deeper. The obvious
reason why grand theft auto and rape are wrong is the effect on the
victims; software piracy has *no* direct effect on the victims.
BTW, does anybody have any actual knowledge on the validity of shrinkwrap
licenses? I know the software companies want us to think they're valid.
I know that copyright is legally valid, as well as license agreements
negotiated before purchase, but is there any law or court decisions
about the shrinkwrap license? (Morally, of course, I have problems with
attempts to change an ostensible purchase by restrictions on what I can
do with any software that happens to be on what the vendor guarantees to
be a genuine disk, but that's another argument.)
David H. Thornley, known to the Wise as thor...@cs.umn.edu O-
Disclaimer: These are not the opinions of the University of Minnesota,
its Regents, faculty, staff, students, or squirrels.
Datclaimer: Well, maybe the squirrels. They're pretty smart.
--
David H. Thornley, known to the Wise as thor...@cs.umn.edu O-
Disclaimer: These are not the opinions of the University of Minnesota,
its Regents, faculty, staff, students, or squirrels.
Datclaimer: Well, maybe the squirrels. They're pretty smart.
Damien Neil
On 30 Apr 1996 00:27:49 GMT, Paul Lyon <p...@bertie.la.utexas.edu> wrote:
>In a more substantive way, Christy Marx's game ``Conquest of Camelot'' gives
>points for moral choices as well as for fighting skill and puzzle solving
>cleverness. To be sure, virtue---in this game---gets properly rewarded, but
>you still have to ``do the right thing'' to win.
I feel that this is the wrong way to go about adding moral choices to
a game. By rewarding `moral' decisions, and penalizing `immoral' ones,
the actual moral dimension is lost; the player is required to determine
what the author considered to be moral, rather than analyze her own
opinions on the options available.
Consider a situation where a beggar holds an object the player must
have to continue the game -- a watch, say, given to him by his mother,
and of significant personal value. The player has several options; she can
take the watch by force. She can wait for the beggar to fall asleep,
and steal the watch. She can give the beggar some food...except that
he considers the watch more valuable than the food, and will not trade.
She can pay him a significant quantity of money, which will render a
later (but non-essential) section of the game inaccessable -- the
money was needed to buy a ticket to Paris, perhaps, where the
mastermind of the art theft ring has fled. Without following him,
he will get away scot-free, even if the stolen da Vinci paintings are
recovered.
Some players might be willing to take the watch by force or stealth.
After all, they need the watch more than the beggar does. Perhaps
they will return the watch after using it.
Other players will pay the money, and accept the penalty later on (not
being able to apprehend the criminal).
Another possibility would be to steal the watch, and leave some food
or a lesser quantity of money in exchange. For some people, this might
fulfill what they view as their moral obligation.
What makes a situation like this one is that there are no constraints
on the player's decision. The game will never declare one action to
be `right', and another to be `wrong'. Acting in the `most moral'
fashion (according to my values, at least) will actually have a
negative impact on the player's ability to complete the game...which
corresponds to the nature of moral choices in the real world. A
person is moral if he donates money to charity, even though he
could have used the money for himself. Is there any positive moral
value, however, to donating money if some recompense is expected?
(Saving money through landing in a lower tax bracket, winning the
game, etc.) In Ultima IV, victory required that the character become
a paragon of virtue. This leads to players amassing vast sums of
money, and wildly showering it on beggars to gain compassion points.
There is no compassion involved, however; the player is merely
purchasing a commodity.
- Damien
Matthew Daly
In article <4m575k$o...@news.multiverse.com> russ...@ariel.ct.picker.com (Matthew Russotto) writes:
>In article <4m36a4$n...@castor.usc.edu> jwei...@castor.usc.edu (Jacob Solomon Weinstein) writes:
>
>I don't accept that the moral choices when faced with an unjust rule
>are to either obey it, or fight it actively and accept the punishments --
>certainly not when fighting it is akin to tilting at windmills, and the
>punishments are severe.
The alternative is to quietly break the rule, hoping that you won't be
singled out as a lawbreaker and, if you are, to attempt to claim to
moral high ground because the law is "unjust". I can't brand this style
of living as "immoral", but it certainly doesn't demonstrate that you
have the courage of your convictions.
So, if you want to speed, then do it. Just throw out your radar
detector and put a "Can't Drive 55" bumper sticker on your car to make
it clear that you're flaunting the law and not just sneaking around it.
>}Indeed, as has been noted here before, the conventions of IF games often
>}involve breaking laws--stealing everything that isn't nailed down, for
>}example. Can anybody think of an IF game that gives real weight to moral
>}choices? "AMFV" comes to mind. ("Trinity," I think, doesn't quite count.
>}The question isn't so much whether or not you should stop the nuclear
>}bomb--the question it asks is, "Can you?")
>
>Most IF has tended towards "do whatever you can get away with". The RPG
>Ultima IV had moral rules, but they were rigid -- either you followed them,
>or you were penalized. In AMFV, I don't think there were any moral choices
>Perry Sim or the player made. He merely observed the practical consequences
>of one set of those choices. There were choices to be made in Jigsaw, but to
>move the story along you had to make the "right" one -- it is a choice that
>isn't really a choice, as you find out in the first chapter.
I think that you're right about computer-based IF -- I think that there
is some degree in "Choose Your Own Adventures" books that moral choices
can (or can not) lead to preferred outcomes. The problem with computer
IF is that most games that I have seen do not support multiple endings,
or only give lip service to them by having the choice that detemines
the endgame in the final few moves.
I'm glad you mentioned Ultima IV. I didn't want to hold it up as IF
on my own, but it's about as close as an RPG can get, so I say let's
count it. (If it weren't for the battles, it would be IF, but if you
play conservatively enough, none of the battles are risky.) There are
moral choices to make, and you can only get to the endgame if you
make a large number of morally correct choices. But there is a lot of
playability in the game if you go around stealing from beggars and
killing shopkeepers if you wanted to, it just isn't the stated
purpose of the game. I'll admit that this position would be a lot
easier to maintain if it were, in fact, possible to kill Lord
British and win the throne of Britania through treacherous means,
but LB seems to be omnipotent.
The entire second trilogy in Ultima looks at the issue of morality in
RPGs. It might be that U6 comes closer to U4 to having multiple
endings. Oh heck, I'm about to spill things, so, if you don't want
U6 spoiled...
SPOILERS
I think there are several ways that you can be "sacrificed" to the
gargoyles. It is painfully obvious that the "winning" method is
by redefining the term, but I got the distinct impression that you
could solve the problem by having the death ritual performed on
you. (If I liked the U6 interface more than I do, I'd go back
and check, but I didn't.)
-Matthew Daly
Jacob Solomon Weinstein
null...@aol.com (Nulldogma) writes:
>[SPOILERS FOR LOST NEW YORK BE HERE]
>I actually thought a lot about morality when I wrote the bits with the
>panhandler and the drunken man. This was during one of r.a.i-f's periodic
>bouts with the subject, and I specifically wanted to write a scene that
>could potentially justify theft in the player's mind -- you're putting
>yourself in the position of the "criminal classes" the drunken man is
>disparaging, and (I hope) getting some appreciation for how stealing a
>coat would look from their position.
I can understand that, and I think that makes sense. But--based on what
I've played so far--there's no justification for stealing the little
blanket from the hovel. Presumably, I'm taking something from some poor
guy who desperately needs it, and I don't see the justification. Am I
missing something? It seems to me that a simple throw-away line to the
effect of, "The hovel obviously hasn't been lived in for weeks" would
make it much more justifiable..
-Jacob
Russell L. Bryan
Jacob Solomon Weinstein wrote:
> I can understand that, and I think that makes sense. But--based on what
> I've played so far--there's no justification for stealing the little
> blanket from the hovel. Presumably, I'm taking something from some poor
> guy who desperately needs it, and I don't see the justification. Am I
> missing something? It seems to me that a simple throw-away line to the
> effect of, "The hovel obviously hasn't been lived in for weeks" would
> make it much more justifiable..
Actually, you are missing something. First of all, it's only a scrap of
blanket. More importantly, you don't need the blanket to win the game!
Therefore, if you took it from the hovel, it was your personal choice to
steal it. Who's got the morality problem now? <grin>
-- Russ
Matthew T. Russotto
In article <4m7oua$h...@kodak.rdcs.Kodak.COM>,
Matthew Daly <da...@PPD.Kodak.COM> wrote:
}In article <4m575k$o...@news.multiverse.com> russ...@ariel.ct.picker.com (Matthew Russotto) writes:
}>In article <4m36a4$n...@castor.usc.edu> jwei...@castor.usc.edu (Jacob Solomon Weinstein) writes:
}>
}>I don't accept that the moral choices when faced with an unjust rule
}>are to either obey it, or fight it actively and accept the punishments --
}>certainly not when fighting it is akin to tilting at windmills, and the
}>punishments are severe.
}The alternative is to quietly break the rule, hoping that you won't be
}singled out as a lawbreaker and, if you are, to attempt to claim to
}moral high ground because the law is "unjust". I can't brand this style
}of living as "immoral", but it certainly doesn't demonstrate that you
}have the courage of your convictions.
It's a matter of avoiding another sort of conviction. Heinlein called
it "rational anarchy". I call it "criminal disobedience" in contrast
to Thoreau's "civil" version -- which got him a day in jail and no
effect on the law in question. My version doesn't effect the law in
question either, but at least I don't have to spend time in jail (or
pay high fines) if I do it right. It doesn't demonstrate that I have
the courage of my convictions, but I already know I do -- I don't need
to demonstrate it to the world at large.
}I'm glad you mentioned Ultima IV. I didn't want to hold it up as IF
}on my own, but it's about as close as an RPG can get, so I say let's
}count it. (If it weren't for the battles, it would be IF, but if you
}play conservatively enough, none of the battles are risky.) There are
}moral choices to make, and you can only get to the endgame if you
}make a large number of morally correct choices. But there is a lot of
}playability in the game if you go around stealing from beggars and
}killing shopkeepers if you wanted to, it just isn't the stated
}purpose of the game. I'll admit that this position would be a lot
}easier to maintain if it were, in fact, possible to kill Lord
}British and win the throne of Britania through treacherous means,
}but LB seems to be omnipotent.
I have it on good authority that LB is not omnipotent in Ultima IV, though I
never got that authority to tell me how. My main choice in that game
was after fighting my way to the 6th level of the abyss and having the
power go out, I never played it again.
Jacob Solomon Weinstein
(Spoilers for Lost New York)
"Russell L. Bryan" <russ...@earthlink.net>
writes:
>Actually, you are missing something. First of all, it's only a scrap of
>blanket. More importantly, you don't need the blanket to win the game!
>Therefore, if you took it from the hovel, it was your personal choice to
>steal it. Who's got the morality problem now? <grin>
Oops. This is what comes of attempting an in-depth moral analysis of a
game when I'm only 26 points into it.
Sorry about that.
I will now shut up.
-Jacob
Trevor Barrie
russ...@ariel.ct.picker.com (Matthew Russotto) wrote:
>Most IF has tended towards "do whatever you can get away with". The RPG
>Ultima IV had moral rules, but they were rigid -- either you followed them,
>or you were penalized.
"Penalized" in what sense? You wouldn't finish the game if you didn't
do this, but then your objective was to become a paragon of virtue,
and a game which brought you to the successful conclusion even if you
actively tried not to reach the goal would be a horrible case of
railroading.
Other than that, you could act as evilly as you wanted in Ultima IV.
Torbj|rn Andersson
All this talk about moral choices in IF games reminds me of an article
I read back in ... oh, I've forgotten the year, but I remember it did
mention "Seastalker" as Infocom's most recent game and Sierra-on-line
as a new exciting company. The author of the article either speculated
about, or said that someone was working on, (I've forgotten which) a
computerized love story, where the player would alternate between the
two characters in the story, i.e. one "chapter" would be played from
one point of view, the next from another, etc.
I don't know if anything ever came out of this. I might be able to dig
it out, but the article was non-technical, and in Swedish, so I'm not
sure how interesting it'd be even if I could find it.
Anyway, I guess that this would be the kind of game where moral
choices would have great impact on the story. Whether or not it's
possible to implement well is, of course, open to debate.
_
Torbjorn Andersson
Matthew Daly
In article <4m8lga$1...@wanda.phl.pond.com> russ...@wanda.phl.pond.com (Matthew T. Russotto) writes:
:It's a matter of avoiding another sort of conviction. Heinlein called
:it "rational anarchy". I call it "criminal disobedience" in contrast
:to Thoreau's "civil" version -- which got him a day in jail and no
:effect on the law in question.
Perhaps it didn't, but of course "Civil Disobedience" has had a worth
in American (and perhaps world) history that defies measurement. For
me, one of the main strengths of the book is that Thoreau was someone
who walked the walk in addition to just talking the talk.
(Oh dear, Thoreau wrote "Walden" and Emerson wrote "Civil Disobedience".
Exercise: derive the same point from the correct information. :-)
:My version doesn't effect the law in
:question either, but at least I don't have to spend time in jail (or
:pay high fines) if I do it right. It doesn't demonstrate that I have
:the courage of my convictions, but I already know I do -- I don't need
:to demonstrate it to the world at large.
Fair enough. I guess I don't know if the 55 mph speed limit was
overturned on the few who protested actively or the silent majority
who simply ignored the law. Probably some combination of the two was
important.
:}I'm glad you mentioned Ultima IV. I didn't want to hold it up as IF
:}on my own, but it's about as close as an RPG can get, so I say let's
:}count it. (If it weren't for the battles, it would be IF, but if you
:}play conservatively enough, none of the battles are risky.) There are
:}moral choices to make, and you can only get to the endgame if you
:}make a large number of morally correct choices. But there is a lot of
:}playability in the game if you go around stealing from beggars and
:}killing shopkeepers if you wanted to, it just isn't the stated
:}purpose of the game. I'll admit that this position would be a lot
:}easier to maintain if it were, in fact, possible to kill Lord
:}British and win the throne of Britania through treacherous means,
:}but LB seems to be omnipotent.
:
:I have it on good authority that LB is not omnipotent in Ultima IV, though I
:never got that authority to tell me how. My main choice in that game
:was after fighting my way to the 6th level of the abyss and having the
:power go out, I never played it again.
Wow. Does anyone know how to kill Lord British? Even if it were true,
I bet it wouldn't change the endgame. He'd come back to life as soon
as you left the castle and came back.
BTW, the endgame WAS kinda cool. It's the only place that explains
the two triangle-two circle design of the Avatar. Not really worth
replaying the game, tho. :-)
-Matthew
Jacob Solomon Weinstein
ne...@godzilla.jpl.nasa.gov (Damien Neil) writes:
>I feel that this is the wrong way to go about adding moral choices to
>a game. By rewarding `moral' decisions, and penalizing `immoral' ones,
>the actual moral dimension is lost; the player is required to determine
>what the author considered to be moral, rather than analyze her own
>opinions on the options available.
This is a good point. It might be worth distinguishing between
fiction that makes a moral statement and fiction that makes a moral argument.
Based on what you (and others) have said about Ultima IV, it makes a
moral statement: it is good to give money to beggars, etc. This, I think,
is how much of IF deals with morality. The author assumes that you will
share his or her moral beliefs, and they are therefore a given in the
game, just like the presence of magic or laser guns. This is what I meant
when I said that many IF games beg the moral questions they raise.
A more effective and satisfying way of dealing with moral issues is to
make a moral argument--to show the player the consequences of actions
that you, the author, consider immoral. I posted earlier that Trinity
begs the moral question by simply assuming that nuclear weapons are bad,
but it occurs to me that it makes a very effective moral argument at one
point. (SPOILERS FOR TRINITY FOLLOW:)
Early in the game, you see a disfigured woman with an umbrella. Later in
the game, you see a child to whom you give the umbrella just before a
nuclear bomb is dropped. For me, it was a very effective moment of
realization when I realized that the child would grow up into the
disfigured woman. Brian Moriarty (the game's author) had managed to
demonstrate to me the human cost of nuclear weapons, rather than just
stating that they are immoral. And, for me at least, the fact that I had
given the child the umbrella made her injuries particularly personal. In
a sense, it was because of me that she had grown up to be that woman with
the umbrella, and I therefore felt strangely complicit in her tragedy.
Think how much more effective this moral argument is than the moral
statement that might be made by the following sequence:
You are above the city.
>drop bomb
Oops. The bomb explodes prematurely, killing you.
*You have been punished for your sins.*
So, I would agree with you that just rewarding the player for behaving
morally is not very effective, but I'd also argue that your notion of a
morally neutral game is not the
best or most interesting way to deal with morality. It's fine to let the
player choose to act morally or immorally--but a clever IF author would
persuade them through the way the story unfolds that the choice should or
should not have been made.
-Jacob
Damien Neil
[SPOILERS for _Lost New York_. Be warned.]
On Tue, 30 Apr 1996 15:18:47 -0500, "Russell L. Bryan" <russ...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>I'll jump on this one before Neil gets the chance. If you spend some
>time talking to the drunk, you will discover that he is a bigot who
>happened to get drunk and lose his wallet. He is not necessarily poor,
>and my suspicion is that he lost all his money in the [SPOILERS: Do
>not read the next word] casino.
I must confess that I have not yet finished _Lost New York_, in large
part because of this one situation. Being forced to act so far out of
my own character in order to progress in the game fractured my suspension
of disbelief. While the descriptions of New York are excellent, and the
history is fascinating, my lack of identification with the protagonist
has destroyed much of the incentive I had to complete the game.
It seems clear to me that the drunk's speech is intended to assuage
any guilt I may feel at taking advantage of him. (``Why, he's nothing
but a vile bigot! I'll just give him some of this drug, and steal his
coat...after all that beggar needs it more than THIS creep does.'')
I, however, do not feel this way. The fact that I disagree with another's
views does not give me the right to take advantage of them. Drugging
people and stealing their possessions is wrong, plain and simple. It
doesn't matter how much you may despise the person's views; they have
the right (in the country _Lost New York_ takes place in, at least)
to hold them.
I might have been able to accept the puzzle (with reservations) if
_Lost New York_ were a simple puzzle-oriented game, such as _Spiritwrak_.
The fact that the introduction of the game clearly sets up the intention
to deal with spiritual and moral issues (the old man's monologue on
Liberty Island, for example) means, to me, that I cannot fail to look
at the morality of the actions of my character.
Incidentally, I don't particularly like the use for the coat, either.
I never once dreamed that I would need to get the panhandler's coins;
my first thought upon getting the nickel was to give it to him. Were
I to give a coat to someone in real life (I saw my mother do this once,
incidentally...one of many reasons I love her), I would not dream of
taking recompense for it. It cheapens the nature of the gift.
This has much to do with my earlier post in this thread (did I make
that in rec.games.int-fiction by mistake? It was intended to be in
.arts.). If there were an alternate means of getting money, perhaps
with difficulties or limitations not present in the current one,
it would be interesting to see people's willingness to choose one
solution over the other.
- Damien
Gerry Kevin Wilson
In article <4maofh$1...@castor.usc.edu>,
>fiction that makes a moral statement and fiction that makes a moral argument.
It certainly is. :)
>Based on what you (and others) have said about Ultima IV, it makes a
>moral statement: it is good to give money to beggars, etc. This, I think,
>is how much of IF deals with morality. The author assumes that you will
>share his or her moral beliefs, and they are therefore a given in the
>game, just like the presence of magic or laser guns. This is what I meant
>when I said that many IF games beg the moral questions they raise.
Well, the early part of the Ultima series was excellent. There was a
certain amount of biblical imagery, which partially explains where the
morals in it come from. However, those of you who have played Ultima 8
will know what I mean when I say "BAD ORIGIN! NO BISCUIT!" <The spoilers
for the games will be included at the end of this post.>
>So, I would agree with you that just rewarding the player for behaving
>morally is not very effective, but I'd also argue that your notion of a
>morally neutral game is not the
>best or most interesting way to deal with morality. It's fine to let the
>player choose to act morally or immorally--but a clever IF author would
>persuade them through the way the story unfolds that the choice should or
>should not have been made.
Hmm, I dunno about that. It can be done right, like Brian Moriarty does
it (but then, he's the best game writer I've seen.) and then it can be
done wrong, like the end of Shades of Grey (spoilers at end.)
SPOILERS DOWN BELOW FOR ULTIMA 8 AND SHADES OF GREY!
Ultima 8: You are forced in Ultima 8 to pretty much violate all your
codes of virtue in order to return to Britania. This is crap. I worked
so hard in Ultima 4 to become a paragon of virtue, then maintained it in
Ultima 5-6, haven't played 7 yet. But anyways, you are not given any way
to avoid violating your own moral code. I kept waiting to see "Thou hast
lost an eighth!" flash at me. No dice. I say again, Ultima 8 was an
example of how to screw up your carefully established world setting.
Make it into a nintendo game and leech all the morality out of it after
already having established it as a moralistic game.
Shades of Grey: This game was great, right up until the ending. Then,
pow. I am forced to make a moral judgement that is fairly ambiguous. I
do so. I say "The ends do not justify the means." and stop an
assassination of a (granted) evil man. I am told at that point that I
was basically wrong. I go back and try the other choice, and have him
bumped off. Wow, a better win. Hmm, gee, thank you authors for telling
me how screwed up my system of morals is. <Whips out rolled up newspaper>
"BAD AUTHORS! BAD!" At least, I really didn't appreciate it.
--
"Unspeakable glyphs discolor the filth-blackened walls of this
infernal sanctum. Scribed in the center of the room is a blood red
circle inscribed with a silver pentagram."
-An excerpt from "Avalon", a game under construction.
Julie Brandon
Hiyas,
On 30 Apr 1996 15:46:10 GMT, in rec.games.int-fiction you wrote:
>It is morally objectionable to take something that belongs to someone
>else, even if you reeeeeeally want it and you reeeeeeeeally can't
>afford it. Perhaps we've trained ourselves that just maybe it's
I really object to this!
Taking something that belongs to someone else = stealing = implies
loss. I don't do anything that would lead to anyone elses *loss*,
thanks very much! There is a difference, a big difference.
Also, do you *know* how many copied programs I have... take a look at
the original message - that is all of them! They are all either:- so
expensive I *could* never have bought them, so crap I would never have
payed money for them, or unavailable to buy any more.
>is getting something in exchange for your being able to play the
>game for free, and in the second the author entered the contract
Again, don't be so bloody patronising. I do *know* about freeware you
know - I live on freeware most of the time, thanks! Read my original
message again... and perhaps others I have written; by experience,
qualfications, and interest, I am foremost a programmer - I do know
about these things you know.
>But the notion that we are somehow forced to play Enchanter
>whether or not we can afford it is laughably solipsistic and
>morally dangerous.
Who said anything about Enchanter in my message - it certainly wasn't
*ME*. The only IF game I have that I have that I haven't bought is
LGOP... as you may well know Activision don't/won't sell this anymore.
All I tried to imply was that the argument might *not* be a completely
black-and-white one. This is a complicated world of many greys, and
rash generalisations rarely apply to it very well!
Take an example: a person with a severe disability that means they
cannot write, they can only type. The world we live in requires
written documentation all the time; and in the case of things like
University courses, written or printed documentation of a very high
quality. Person in question cannot afford to buy a word-processor -
yet indirectly, without it may life opportunities are missed. What
does that person do? Copy a word-processor, or forget the degree they
would have otherwise studied. (It's a mathematically based degree, so
abiltiy to import high quality graphs and add complex mathematic
equations are essential.)
... don't dare say this is contrived ... it is a real situation (names
removed to protect the innocent!)
My original message was neither to support or moan about previous
messages from people who were supporting piracy, I just wanted to
indicate that this question is not *always* as black and white as we
all would like it to be - in both directions.
Personally I do not like piracy, I do not like doing it when I do do
it, I usually will not do it if I can reasonably avoid it. When I've
done it there has been no "loss" to any other parties - and to me,
that is important, *very* important. Whereas it is interesting to
note that in a few circumstances, to not have done so would have meant
a major loss (sometime serious) to me (no degree, for instance, which
with the prejudices in this country, combined with problems I do not
wish to talk about, would have meant a virtual guarantee of no job...)
I feel *really* *shitty* to admit that if I hadn't copied a 'C'
compiler, and a decent editor, and a word processor, to run on the
computer I used to have (which for financial reasons the computer is
now sold - I don't own the machine or account I'm using to write this
on) then I simply would not have the degree I have now. (For reasons
I won't go into now, I was unable to use any of the campus
facilities.)
I had the choice - I opted for the degree. Perhaps then, opting for
the degree instead of avoiding copying programs implies I'm some kind
of bad person. Yes, I hate it also, but I think it would have been a
plain stupid thing to have done to have chosen not to do the degree.
These things can be horribly complicated, horrible, decisions. But
they are *real* ones that do happen for me, and for other people, in
*real* life.
So, you tell me - which option should I have chosen? (No folks, there
was no realiable/stable/complete freeware 'C' compiler around at the
time, neither was there a similarly usable editor.) This is an
*important* question, as it is (was) a real situation.
As a final note:
I gather there are emulators on ftp.gmd.de, and hence presumably
material of a still legally copyrighted nature in the archive to run
on the emulators. And then there's the copies of the Infocom Hints on
ftp.gmd.de. What do all of you folk out there think of this? (This is
an honest question, not meant to be linked to the above.)
Ta-ta!
Love,
Julie.
(Trying to save up to buy Zork Nemesis and/or Chronicles of the Sword
at some point in the near [!] future.)
Russell L. Bryan
Julie Brandon wrote:
> I gather there are emulators on ftp.gmd.de, and hence presumably
> material of a still legally copyrighted nature in the archive to run
> on the emulators. And then there's the copies of the Infocom Hints on
> ftp.gmd.de. What do all of you folk out there think of this? (This is
> an honest question, not meant to be linked to the above.)
Well, the emulators are fine -- in fact the only copyrighted part of
Infocom code is the data files. As I understand it, all of the data
files on ftp.gmd.de are either freeware or shareware, or in some other
way legally available for review by the public. As for the Invisiclues,
well, that's a very good question.
One quick thing about the only part of Julie's post that I now disagree
with, namely the "crap I would never have paid for, anyway." There is a
lot of crap in the world. If we have games on our hard drive that we
"wouldn't have paid for," then I hope we also have a closet full of
rocks and dirt and bug carcasses and maybe a couple of jars of sand or,
maybe even literally some crap. If I *really* don't want something, it
isn't in my house or on my hard drive. If you've got it, then
presumably you wanted it on some level, or you wouldn't have it -- and
since you do have it, and you didn't pay for it, you pirated it. I'm
not making a moral judgement on the issue -- I worked in a computer
store for a year, and I'll freely admit that I borrowed Return to Zork,
played it, hated it, ran it through the shrinkwrap machine and put it
right back on the shelf. But I didn't KNOW that it sucked before I
played it. If I HAD known that it sucked, I never would have taken it
off the shelf. And if it HADN'T sucked, I would have bought it.
So if you are referring to crap that you KNEW was crap, but that you
pirated anyway, then you're not just a pirate, you're a little weird,
too. No weirder than the time I was arrested for stealing douches and
tampons, but ...
Well, ahem, that's another story.
-- Russ
Dave Cunningham
Gosh -- I never thought *I* would defend a lawbreaker <g> but I rather think you
took the preceding post a tad too seriously!
Getting into moral-high-dudgeon mode when a person is (humorously) trying to
show that a lot of folks violate laws without even pausing to think about
them is an interesting exercise -- but WHY?
Better to treat humor as humor, and not become PC at the wink of an eye ...
Dave
Matthew T. Russotto
In article <4mad6h$c...@kodak.rdcs.Kodak.COM>,
Matthew Daly <da...@PPD.Kodak.COM> wrote:
}(Oh dear, Thoreau wrote "Walden" and Emerson wrote "Civil
Disobedience".
}Exercise: derive the same point from the correct information. :-)
Thoreau wrote "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" in 1849. Emerson's
contribution was bailing Thoreau out of jail after Thoreau put his
theory into practice.
}:I have it on good authority that LB is not omnipotent in Ultima IV, though I
}:never got that authority to tell me how. My main choice in that game
}:was after fighting my way to the 6th level of the abyss and having the
}:power go out, I never played it again.
}
}Wow. Does anyone know how to kill Lord British? Even if it were true,
}I bet it wouldn't change the endgame. He'd come back to life as soon
}as you left the castle and came back.
}
}BTW, the endgame WAS kinda cool. It's the only place that explains
}the two triangle-two circle design of the Avatar. Not really worth
}replaying the game, tho. :-)
Two triangle-two circle? I don't even remember it, it's been so long.
Nulldogma
[SPOILERS FOR LOST NEW YORK]
>I, however, do not feel this way. The fact that I disagree with
another's
>views does not give me the right to take advantage of them. Drugging
>people and stealing their possessions is wrong, plain and simple. It
>doesn't matter how much you may despise the person's views; they have
>the right (in the country _Lost New York_ takes place in, at least)
>to hold them.
Obviously, I disagree. (Not about having the right to one's opinions, but
about stealing always being inherently immoral.) There were plenty of
people in 1880 New York who went around drugging people and stealing their
possessions (or, as a friend of mine likes to cite, dropping sacks of
ashes on their heads and shanghaiing them aboard ships), and I think it's
important for you (the player and the character) to see why that sort of
thing might be considered acceptable under certain circumstances. But I
can see why, if you feel differently, you might be turned off by that part
of the game.
>Incidentally, I don't particularly like the use for the coat, either.
>I never once dreamed that I would need to get the panhandler's coins;
>my first thought upon getting the nickel was to give it to him. Were
>I to give a coat to someone in real life (I saw my mother do this once,
>incidentally...one of many reasons I love her), I would not dream of
>taking recompense for it. It cheapens the nature of the gift.
Well, the idea was that the panhandler, having gotten the coat, was going
to knock off for the day anyway and was giving you his coins as a gesture
of appreciation. (Not in exchange.) I suppose it could be clearer in the
text, though. Anyway, point well taken.
Neil
Matthew Daly
Julie,
Surprisingly, this is losing its charm rapidly. :-)
So I'll just take one last stab and leave the last word to you. As
always, I don't mean to offend and apologize if that's what I've done.
However, I'll continue to maintain that the reason the world seems so
full of grays is because we're wearing dark glasses in an effort to
ignore the harsh clarity that the world tends to offer.
In article <3189166f...@news.demon.co.uk> ju...@merp.demon.co.uk writes:
:Hiyas,
:
:On 30 Apr 1996 15:46:10 GMT, in rec.games.int-fiction you wrote:
:>It is morally objectionable to take something that belongs to someone
:>else, even if you reeeeeeally want it and you reeeeeeeeally can't
:>afford it. Perhaps we've trained ourselves that just maybe it's
:I really object to this!
:
:Taking something that belongs to someone else = stealing = implies
:loss. I don't do anything that would lead to anyone elses *loss*,
:thanks very much! There is a difference, a big difference.
I am reminded of the copyright FAQ in news.announce.newusers. One of
the questions is "Well, by posting a few pages from X's book, I'm
really advertising for him. Why is he suing me when he should be
thanking me?" The answer is that it's the author's right to have
control over his creation, and it is not for others to judge what
is the best exposure of the creation.
The same goes, I believe, for software. Why is Activision selling
everything except LGOP? I don't know. I sure wish I did, though,
because I loved that game dearly and my disk got trashed along the
way. But it's outside of warranty, and they have the right to
keep it from me. Maybe they're making a live-action version and
don't want to dilute the market with the text version. Maybe they're
going to offer it in a year for $150 knowing that we'll pay it.
I don't need to worry about it, because it's not my choice to
make.
Indeed, if I wrote a cool game and waved it in front of all of
you saying "Look at this game I wrote. Want to play it? You
can't! Not at any price!!!" I'd be a real Exon, but it still
doesn't excuse piracy. Presumably I would have my reasons, and
those reasons really are good enough.
:Take an example: a person with a severe disability that means they
:cannot write, they can only type. The world we live in requires
:written documentation all the time; and in the case of things like
:University courses, written or printed documentation of a very high
:quality. Person in question cannot afford to buy a word-processor -
:yet indirectly, without it may life opportunities are missed. What
:does that person do? Copy a word-processor, or forget the degree they
:would have otherwise studied. (It's a mathematically based degree, so
:abiltiy to import high quality graphs and add complex mathematic
:equations are essential.)
:
:... don't dare say this is contrived ... it is a real situation (names
:removed to protect the innocent!)
I'm not fond of ethics quizzes like this, because you seem to want to
paint me as an ogre for denying an education to a disabled person.
(My original complaint was denying you the right to play a game,
which is a far less objectionable thing, you might agree.)
But I do find it hard to believe that these are the only two
options. Does this student not have the ability to talk to
the professor about options? Does the school have no public
resources to provide the kind of software whose output it demands
for a class? How can the student afford a University course (and
a computer?) and not software?
:Personally I do not like piracy, I do not like doing it when I do do
:it, I usually will not do it if I can reasonably avoid it. When I've
:done it there has been no "loss" to any other parties - and to me,
:that is important, *very* important.
I don't have a large backlog of messages here, so I don't know what
software you write. But let's say that it was something of some
sort of commercial viability, and you found one day that it had
become a cult classic among college students, who loved and used
your work frequently but couldn't afford it. Meanwhile, you're in
the same economic strata you're in now. Do you believe that you
have not experienced a "loss" by this?
:I feel *really* *shitty* to admit that if I hadn't copied a 'C'
:compiler, and a decent editor, and a word processor, to run on the
:computer I used to have (which for financial reasons the computer is
:now sold - I don't own the machine or account I'm using to write this
:on) then I simply would not have the degree I have now. (For reasons
:I won't go into now, I was unable to use any of the campus
:facilities.)
:
:I had the choice - I opted for the degree. Perhaps then, opting for
:the degree instead of avoiding copying programs implies I'm some kind
:of bad person. Yes, I hate it also, but I think it would have been a
:plain stupid thing to have done to have chosen not to do the degree.
:
:So, you tell me - which option should I have chosen? (No folks, there
:was no realiable/stable/complete freeware 'C' compiler around at the
:time, neither was there a similarly usable editor.) This is an
:*important* question, as it is (was) a real situation.
It's not really important, as the event has passed. I doubt any of
us are qualified to absolve you, even if you did feel that you needed
it. My only question is this: if you feel that shitty about using
software without paying for it, why don't you send a few bucks to the
company that distributes the software with a note explaining your
actions? I mean, calculate how imporant it was to the acquisition
of your degree and calculate how much money you've gained for having
a degree instead of not having it, and you'll have an idea of how
much that (free) software is valued at in terms of your life.
In conclusion, I'd put forward that we all have choices in our
lives, and we're never _forced_ to take things for free that
we would ordinarily be expected to pay for. There are alternatives.
Just like there are alternatives to driving 10 MPH over the posted
speed limit. Just like there are alternatives to claiming a few
shady expenses on your income taxes. (Sorry I don't know any more
international examples, but you know what I mean...) People aren't
evil beyond redemption for doing these small things, but I wonder
if the world wouldn't be a better place to live if people were
more compassionate to the ideals of a society before doing such
things.
<hopping off soapbox>
:Ta-ta!
:
:Love,
: Julie.
-Matthew
:(Trying to save up to buy Zork Nemesis and/or Chronicles of the Sword
:at some point in the near [!] future.)
Speaking for ZN, I'd advocate waiting a year. It's not going to
get any worse, but the price will be cut by 70%. Yesterday, I
bought RTZ for $20 at Electronics Boutique, and the Zork
Anthology came with it!)
Trevor Barrie
da...@PPD.Kodak.COM (Matthew Daly) wrote:
>Wow. Does anyone know how to kill Lord British?
Not in Ultima IV, but it's reasonably well known how to do it in VII.
Trevor Barrie
da...@PPD.Kodak.COM (Matthew Daly) wrote:
>I'm glad you mentioned Ultima IV. I didn't want to hold it up as IF
>on my own, but it's about as close as an RPG can get, so I say let's
>count it. (If it weren't for the battles, it would be IF, but if you
>play conservatively enough, none of the battles are risky.)
You're contradicting yourself. If it could be made more IF-like by
removing battles, then it _isn't_ as close to IF as an RPG can get; a
battleless one would be closer.
At any rate, I'd say that Ultima IV and V definitely qualify as IF.
Probably V moreso; IV is more innovative, but V had more of a story.
(To further confound the issue, I've always thought that the computer
games generally referred to as "text adventures" are far more like
RPGs than the computer games generally referred to as "RPGs"...)
athol-brose
In article <4marlp$5...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
Gerry Kevin Wilson <whiz...@uclink.berkeley.edu> wrote:
[spoiler space preserved]
>Ultima 8: You are forced in Ultima 8 to pretty much violate all your
>codes of virtue in order to return to Britania. This is crap. I worked
>so hard in Ultima 4 to become a paragon of virtue, then maintained it in
>Ultima 5-6, haven't played 7 yet. But anyways, you are not given any way
>to avoid violating your own moral code. I kept waiting to see "Thou hast
>lost an eighth!" flash at me. No dice. I say again, Ultima 8 was an
>example of how to screw up your carefully established world setting.
>Make it into a nintendo game and leech all the morality out of it after
>already having established it as a moralistic game.
Er... this is one of the themes of Ultima 8. While I agree with you
that U8 was much too video-game like, restricted in movement and
options and just not up to par with the other Ultima games story-wise,
the loss of virtues through everything you have to do in U8 is not
just a random decision...too methodical for that. U9 will probably
have quite a bit to do with the identification of the Avatar, and
whether the new Titan of Ether/Avatar is still the same person after
xis experiences on Pagan.
--
r. n. dominick -- cinn...@one.net -- http://w3.one.net/~cinnamon/
<*> Remember the time I saw a seagull fly out of your lips?
if keys are all that stand between, can i throw in the ring?
Steven Howard
In <3189166f...@news.demon.co.uk>, ju...@merp.demon.co.uk (Julie Brandon) writes:
>Hiyas,
>
>On 30 Apr 1996 15:46:10 GMT, in rec.games.int-fiction you wrote:
>>It is morally objectionable to take something that belongs to someone
>>else, even if you reeeeeeally want it and you reeeeeeeeally can't
>>afford it. Perhaps we've trained ourselves that just maybe it's
>I really object to this!
>
>Taking something that belongs to someone else = stealing = implies
>loss. I don't do anything that would lead to anyone elses *loss*,
>thanks very much! There is a difference, a big difference.
>
Nonsense. You receive some benefit from the use of the stolen programs,
correct? Even "entertainment value" counts as a benefit. What have you
given the programmer in exchange for the benefit you derive? Nothing. It
may not represent a material loss, but you have still taken someone else's
work for your own benefit and given nothing in return. To me, this is morally
indefensible.
>Also, do you *know* how many copied programs I have... take a look at
>the original message - that is all of them! They are all either:- so
>expensive I *could* never have bought them, so crap I would never have
>payed money for them, or unavailable to buy any more.
>
1. Computer games, in ANYBODY's definition, are a luxury item. I firmly believe
it is morally jusitifiable to, in the classic example, steal bread to feed one's
starving family. However, being unable to afford luxury items is no defense
for stealing them. 2. Once again, you must see SOME value to these games,
else you wouldn't have them. 3. I don't see that commercial availability or
lack thereof makes any difference. This may be overly simplistic and
judgmental, but since nobody NEEDS a computer game, it's never justifiable to
steal one.
>Take an example: a person with a severe disability that means they
>cannot write, they can only type. The world we live in requires
>written documentation all the time; and in the case of things like
>University courses, written or printed documentation of a very high
>quality. Person in question cannot afford to buy a word-processor -
>yet indirectly, without it may life opportunities are missed. What
>does that person do? Copy a word-processor, or forget the degree they
>would have otherwise studied. (It's a mathematically based degree, so
>abiltiy to import high quality graphs and add complex mathematic
>equations are essential.)
>
>.... don't dare say this is contrived ... it is a real situation (names
>removed to protect the innocent!)
>
I won't say it's contrived. I WILL say that its relation to the topic at hand is
INCREDIBLY thin. Plus, there ARE freeware word-processors that have pretty
good support for equations and mathematical symbols. I don't know about the
UK, but here in America there are also public and university libraries, many of
which have decent computer facilities available at a nominal fee. Many
universities also provide assistance to handicapped and low-income students to
acquire computers and software.
>I feel *really* *shitty* to admit that if I hadn't copied a 'C'
>compiler, and a decent editor, and a word processor, to run on the
>computer I used to have (which for financial reasons the computer is
>now sold - I don't own the machine or account I'm using to write this
>on) then I simply would not have the degree I have now. (For reasons
>I won't go into now, I was unable to use any of the campus
>facilities.)
>
>I had the choice - I opted for the degree. Perhaps then, opting for
>the degree instead of avoiding copying programs implies I'm some kind
>of bad person. Yes, I hate it also, but I think it would have been a
>plain stupid thing to have done to have chosen not to do the degree.
>
>These things can be horribly complicated, horrible, decisions. But
>they are *real* ones that do happen for me, and for other people, in
>*real* life.
>
>So, you tell me - which option should I have chosen? (No folks, there
>was no realiable/stable/complete freeware 'C' compiler around at the
>time, neither was there a similarly usable editor.) This is an
>*important* question, as it is (was) a real situation.
How long ago was this? I know of some pretty good freeware C compilers that
have been around since I was in school, 10 or more years ago. There have been
good programmers' editors and word-processing programs around for free for
longer than that.
I won't tell you what you should have done, but my preferred options (in this
order) would have been: 1. Overcome or work around whatever it was that
prevented you using the university facilities. You're paying for them, you might
as well use them. 2. Talk to someone at the university and see about arranging
to borrow what you need. (Education is "fair use" in terms of copyright law. I'm
no lawyer, but I don't think you'd be in violation if you only used the software
for school projects and deleted it from your machine when you were done with
it.) 3. Take out another loan. (Many people I went to school with used this
as their preferred solution for almost any problem, but that's another story).
4. Find fellow students in the same predicament and pool our money to buy
the software. (As long as only one person is using it at a time, there's no
copyright violation.) 5. Just copy it, resolving to buy a legal copy when I can
afford it.
========
Steven Howard
bl...@ibm.net
What's a nice word for "euphemism"?
David H. Thornley
In article <4mdt35$s...@kodak.rdcs.Kodak.COM>,
Matthew Daly <da...@PPD.Kodak.COM> wrote:
>Julie,
>
>Surprisingly, this is losing its charm rapidly. :-)
>
>So I'll just take one last stab and leave the last word to you. As
>always, I don't mean to offend and apologize if that's what I've done.
>However, I'll continue to maintain that the reason the world seems so
>full of grays is because we're wearing dark glasses in an effort to
>ignore the harsh clarity that the world tends to offer.
>
some means of always knowing what is right and what is wrong, I'd like
to know about it. A *lot* of extremely intelligent people over a *lot*
of centuries have looked very very hard at ethics, and have not come up
with anything clear, let alone harsh. Personally, I find it hard to
believe that anybody old enough to type correct sentences hasn't had
at least one experience where following their own morality hasn't
at least threatened to cause unnecessary harm to people.
Matthew Daly
In article <4mecjg$s...@bud.peinet.pe.ca> tba...@cycor.ca (Trevor Barrie) writes:
>da...@PPD.Kodak.COM (Matthew Daly) wrote:
>
>>I'm glad you mentioned Ultima IV. I didn't want to hold it up as IF
>>on my own, but it's about as close as an RPG can get, so I say let's
>>count it. (If it weren't for the battles, it would be IF, but if you
>>play conservatively enough, none of the battles are risky.)
>
>You're contradicting yourself. If it could be made more IF-like by
>removing battles, then it _isn't_ as close to IF as an RPG can get; a
>battleless one would be closer.
Very well then, I contradict myself. I am complex, I contain
multitudes... :-)
My point was that the battles don't exist to put your life in
jeapordy, they exist to test your Valor and Honor and a few
other virtues whose relevance I can't think of right now.
I should have said that U4 comes as close to IF as any RPG that I
have ever seen, though. Someone could (and should!) write a
game of that sort of magnitude that involves interacting with
people and items and gaining information and skills without
battles; it would fill a niche, I believe. (Kinda like a
non-linear Carmen Sandiego game.)
>At any rate, I'd say that Ultima IV and V definitely qualify as IF.
>Probably V moreso; IV is more innovative, but V had more of a story.
V had a plot that you needed to follow. IV was open-ended, which
is something that I've never seen before. The purpose of IV was
to wander around being a good example for people, and only after
twenty hours of play did you get a sense of what shape the endgame
would take. A little more like life, I would hasten to say.
>(To further confound the issue, I've always thought that the computer
>games generally referred to as "text adventures" are far more like
>RPGs than the computer games generally referred to as "RPGs"...)
I hadn't thought about that, but I guess you're right. Flashy
graphics aren't a part of my D&D experience, it's more like
text and the occasional hand-drawn map, and describing my
instructions verbally to the DM. Has there ever been a time that
someone has tried running, say, Zork I as a solo-player campaign?
It would be interesting to see in what ways problems would be
solved that the parser wouldn't understand.
-Matthew Daly
Mike Phillips
On 7 May 1996 14:39:27 GMT, Matthew Daly <da...@PPD.Kodak.COM> wrote:
>I should have said that U4 comes as close to IF as any RPG that I
>have ever seen, though. Someone could (and should!) write a
>game of that sort of magnitude that involves interacting with
>people and items and gaining information and skills without
>battles; it would fill a niche, I believe. (Kinda like a
>non-linear Carmen Sandiego game.)
In some ways, Ultima 6 fits the bill rather well. Using only those
items available from the beginning of the game, it is quite possible
to *avoid* much of the fighting, leaving only those few fights that
advance the plot (e.g. the thief under Britain). Even then, if you
get "clever" you can bypass the whole map sub-plot, which cuts out
most of the remaining fighting in the overarching story. That leaves
*lots* of time to wander around talking to the townsfolk, discovering
the little things that make them tick, solving local people-problems
(like the mis-communication between the undertaker and his gravedigger),
and just generally enjoying the world.
Ultima 6 is the *only* Ultima that (IMO) has tremendous re-play value.
I-III were so beat-em-up they were barely RPG's, IV was cool but the
*depth* of the world was missing, V was a pain (fun in parts, but
overall weak), VII was Too Much (and the new interface stank), and
we'll just ignore VIII (so, when was Origin bought by Sierra,
exactly?).
Ultima 6, however, was a very nice balance. It could be an overbearing
hack-n-slash if that's the way you want it. Or, it could be a long
and careful exploration of the world and its people. Or it could be a
save-the-world thing.
The story pointed out that there are two sides to a story, and I think
handled it rather well. I felt like it unfolded without being
gratuitously convoluted.
I suspect that most people did not take the time to experiment and find
ways of solving problems *without* fighting. I did, and it was a
wonderful thing :-)
It's the only Ultima I still keep on my hard drive.
Mike Phillips, mi...@lawlib.wm.edu
Jason A. Wells
da...@PPD.Kodak.COM (Matthew Daly) writes:
[Discussion on battless RPGs and IF snipped.]
>>At any rate, I'd say that Ultima IV and V definitely qualify as IF.
>>Probably V moreso; IV is more innovative, but V had more of a story.
>V had a plot that you needed to follow. IV was open-ended, which
>is something that I've never seen before. The purpose of IV was
>to wander around being a good example for people, and only after
>twenty hours of play did you get a sense of what shape the endgame
>would take. A little more like life, I would hasten to say.
That was actually a part of Ultima IV that I enjoyed greatly.
I can't remember the source, but I read an interview in which
Richard Garriot (sp?) was discussing the Ultima series. In it,
he had words to this effect:
"All of the other adventures seemed to have this great
theme of You're the Big Hero (tm). And you were supposed to kill
the Big Nasty (tm) just because that it was the instructions said
to do."
"No-one ever said 'Go on the quest of the Avatar'; you had
to decide to do it yourself. I wanted to make it a more personal
thing with the player, sort of a quest for the Holy grail."
There were a lot of other games out (and still are) that involved
taking advantage of everyone the player meets along the way, killing
innocent people and such to find the magic item the player needs to
win the game.
That got stale. Fast. The Ultima games were sort of a refreshing
change of pace from the Big Hero (tm) type of games, where a
quick wit and problem solving skills took dominance over big swords
and lucky dice rolls. Not many RPGs, and a little IF, take the time
to give personalities and even /names/ to each actor in the game.
Actually fleshing out the actors is a virtue often ignored in computer
entertainment, IF, RPG, or otherwise. Many games I've played offered
a simple "WE SELL WEAPONS. BUY/SELL?"
Granted, doing this is a /very/ difficult task, but when it comes down
to having five-minute conversations with Yotomo the arms dealer of Yew
in Ultima VI, it truly makes a world of difference.
Oh, now I've rambled off topic again..e
--jaw
--
Jason A. Wells (jaw...@crl.com) (gumb...@virtvil.metronet.com) [INTJ]
This message was brought to you by the language C and the number F.
M. Sean Molley
In article <gurgle>, Matthew Daly <da...@PPD.Kodak.COM> wrote:
>I hadn't thought about that, but I guess you're right. Flashy
>graphics aren't a part of my D&D experience, it's more like
>text and the occasional hand-drawn map, and describing my
>instructions verbally to the DM. Has there ever been a time that
>someone has tried running, say, Zork I as a solo-player campaign?
>It would be interesting to see in what ways problems would be
>solved that the parser wouldn't understand.
Actually, yes. I have run AD&D players on adventures which incorporated
the entire puzzle structure (but not necessarily the plot) of Zork I and
II, Trinity, and Beyond Zork. The last of these was obviously the most
suitable to adaptation.
The disadvantage to using such puzzles in an AD&D game can be summarized
in a single word: MAGIC. Dungeons and Dragons characters have access to
a far wider variety of magical spells than do Infocom protagonists.
There are more "first level" spells in the _Player's Handbook_ than in
all of the Enchanter Trilogy combined.
One way to avoid this, of course, is to restrict your players to exactly
the same set of items which are available in the original text adventure
setting (plus whatever other basic equipment you deem necessary). Doing
this, of course, requires substantial contrivance on the part of the DM
to separate the player characters from all of their hard-earned
equipment. My solution was just to let them keep everything they had and
see what developed. I was fortunate to be able to avoid the magic
problem altogether because the PC's consisted of only a fighter and a
thief (my feeling being that a larger group of PC's would cause far more
problems).
Of course, I also added in a few locations of my own, as well as some
more "traditional" D&D fare (more combat encounters, for one thing). The
result was a smashing success. It went so well, in fact, that I had the
same two players "live-test" my own interactive fiction game, Challenge
of the Czar, in the same way I had done the Infocom games. This time I
did restrict them to the items in the game world, however. The result?
They came up with many alternative solutions to puzzles which have been
incorporated into the program and which I might have never thought up on
my own. They also, to my satisfaction, enjoyed the "game" immensely.
Come to think of it, this could be a whole new form of playtesting for
interactive fiction games. The DM basically takes on the role of the
parser, but in this case s/he really *is* the ideal IF parser -- anything
the players want to try, they can communicate to the DM, who will
understand their request and decide on the outcome on the spot.
So what are you waiting for? "Code up" your IF game on a bunch of 3X5
cards, like I did, and find you a group of D&D players to give it a
live-action playtest. You might discover some very useful information.
(Side note: "Challenge of the Czar" became too big to compile under TADS
1.2 and I was forced to wait for TADS 2.X, during which time I got
involved with other projects and lost that sense of urgency so important
to finishing an IF game. A couple of you people out there in int-fiction
land have seen it, though, so you know it's not *totally* vaporware. I
am still playing with it, but have not really contemplated the monumental
task of moving all of my ugly code over to the latest version of TADS.
Nevertheless, I plan to resume working on it this summer. We shall see
what develops. If I ever do get it done, perhaps I'll write an article
for XYZZYnews on my experience with "live playtesting.")
Followups may or may not need to be set to rec.arts.int-fiction. I'll
leave that decision up to anyone who chooses to actually read this. :)
Sean
-----
M. Sean Molley, Computer Science Department, Western Kentucky University
mol...@pulsar.cs.wku.edu