The Advanced Authoring System!
Roddy Ramieson
My name is Roddy Ramieson, and today marks the release of the second
version of my pet project, the Text Adventure creation tool known as
AAS ("Advanced Authoring System".)
One of my friends alerted me both to this newsgroup, and according to
the FAQ I saw there are only six or seven free Text Adventures, and no
free development systems at all! So, I decided to point out AAS to you
all, which is free for use up to a number of objects and then has a
registration fee of just $20 if you want games with more than 15
rooms, which I think is a reasonable compromise.
AAS features:
* Great "Java"-based GUI IDE to build your games with only a few mouse
clicks!
* Support for XXX-TA ("adult" Text Adventures)!
* Easy "XML-based" data format!
* An official manual that helps you start, and gives lots of excellent
tips!
* Fun GUI interpreter!
* An applet version that lets you play games online!
* Virtually unlimited-size games with the registered version: up to
9999 rooms, monsters and objects!
* And some other surprises - for registered users only!
So... join us at http://www.aas-ta.com and download your copy of the
interpreter and games today! Then, download the IDE and make your own
games!
Bye!
Adam Thornton
Roddy Ramieson <ro...@outgun.com> wrote:
>One of my friends alerted me both to this newsgroup, and according to
>the FAQ I saw there are only six or seven free Text Adventures, and no
>free development systems at all!
Ah.
You've been misled by the confusion of "Free as in Beer" with "Free as
in Speech."
That is, none of the major text adventure development systems cost any
money, but none of them are released under licenses that make them
officially Open Source, either.
There are actually several thousand adventures that don't cost any
money.
Adam
Jessica Knoch
> ... I saw there are only six or seven free Text Adventures, and no
> free development systems at all!
> So, I decided to point out AAS to you
> all, which is free for use up to a number of objects and then has a
> registration fee of just $20...
I just wanted to point out that you are not increasing the number
of free anythings, in any sense of the word "free" that I can think
of. It sounds like an interesting tool. Are there any games written
in it yet? Are they available for download?
--
Jess K.
Andrew Plotkin
> One of my friends alerted me both to this newsgroup, and according to
> the FAQ I saw there are only six or seven free Text Adventures, and no
> free development systems at all! So, I decided to point out AAS to you
> all, which is free for use up to a number of objects and then has a
> registration fee of just $20 if you want games with more than 15
> rooms, which I think is a reasonable compromise.
There are dozens of development systems which are free for use for any
number of objects.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
* Make your vote count. Get your vote counted.
Plugh!
ro...@outgun.com (Roddy Ramieson) wrote in message news:<82a17ee9.03033...@posting.google.com>...
Vicko Vitasovic
news:68bd0e8.03040...@posting.google.com...
> errrm, what's today's date again ?
Nice hoax. But not better then Textfire.
Ben Caplan
*Technically*, the original post was yesterday. (Although raif-POOL was
released on the 2nd.)
Has anyone else considered the (small) possibility that he's serious?
----------------------------------------------------------------
Ben Caplan -- philosopher, linguist, and thaumaturge
Quintin Stone
> *Technically*, the original post was yesterday. (Although raif-POOL was
> released on the 2nd.)
>
> Has anyone else considered the (small) possibility that he's serious?
Well, I'm told that the games actually play, and the posts on his forum
seem to indicate that yes, these people actually seemed to be oblivious to
the existing IF community. Still...
/====================================================================\
|| Quintin Stone O- > "You speak of necessary evil? One ||
|| Code Monkey < of those necessities is that if ||
|| Rebel Programmers Society > innocents must suffer, the guilty must ||
|| st...@rps.net < suffer more." -- Mackenzie Calhoun ||
|| http://www.rps.net/ > "Once Burned" by Peter David ||
\====================================================================/
Andrew Plotkin
> Vicko Vitasovic at vickovi...@softhome.net pontificated:
>> "Plugh!" <pl...@plugh.info> wrote in message
>> news:68bd0e8.03040...@posting.google.com...
>>> errrm, what's today's date again ?
>>
>> Nice hoax. But not better then Textfire.
>>
>>
> *Technically*, the original post was yesterday. (Although raif-POOL was
> released on the 2nd.)
> Has anyone else considered the (small) possibility that he's serious?
I actually didn't consider the possibility that he might be joking.
But I didn't look at the features list -- just corrected one blatant
misunderstanding in his introduction.
SteveG
On 31 Mar 2003 18:22:43 -0800, ro...@outgun.com (Roddy Ramieson)
wrote:
[snip]
>One of my friends alerted me both to this newsgroup, and according to
>the FAQ I saw there are only six or seven free Text Adventures, and no
>free development systems at all!
Please note that the "FAQ" you are refering to is only talking about
"open source" software. ("Open source" meaning, very roughly, software
which is published with a licence which allows anyone to modify and
redistribute the software's source code. Within that FAQ you'll find
the terms it uses defined at more length.)
The official rec.arts.int-fiction FAQ can be found at
http://plover.net/~textfire/raiffaq/
I hope you will find the main FAQ informative.
-- SteveG
remove _X_ from my address to send me email
Nikos Chantziaras
news:82a17ee9.03033...@posting.google.com...
>
> So... join us at http://www.aas-ta.com and download your copy
> of the interpreter and games today! Then, download the IDE
> and make your own games!
Uhm, is it for real or just a joke? The above site takes forever to load
(even though the PC I'm using has T1) and displays nothing.
I guess it's a joke.
I think.
Maybe.
-- Niko
http://members.lycos.co.uk/realnc
Gunther Schmidl
> Uhm, is it for real or just a joke? The above site takes forever to
> load (even though the PC I'm using has T1) and displays nothing.
I could reach the website earlier, at least, and there's an interpreter and
an IDE with a manual and a few games there, but now it's no go. I've not had
time to look at it much, though, so I dunno about the jokeyness.
-- Gunther
Cryptonomic
news:b6cshe$43pvn$1...@ID-151409.news.dfncis.de...
> Roddy Ramieson wrote in message
> news:82a17ee9.03033...@posting.google.com...
> >
> (even though the PC I'm using has T1) and displays nothing.
>
I am able to reach the site and download some of the stuff. I am not sure
why everyone kept responding that this was a "hoax" or "joke" when there was
quite clearly a site there with things you could quite obviously download
and try out. I thought I was missing some in-joke or something.
The only problem I have is that I do not see why I would pay for some
version when there are free systems out there to use. Then again, I have not
looked entirely at this AAS system yet either. Perhaps it has hidden
delights that make the eventual payment worth it.
Roddy Ramieson
Dear Jessica,
My apologies for the misunderstanding I seem to have fallen foul of; I
missed the clause in the "Free IF FAQ" which explained the difference
between "free" software and "freely available" software. In any case,
AAS is then proudly joining the ranks of freely-available text
adventure systems.
Unfortunately the new release of AAS (2.0) isn't compatible with games
produced for the old (1.x) system, so there aren't very many games
released for it yet. The ones written by the beta-testing team are
available from the website, http://www.aas-ta.com.
I've noticed a few complaints from people who've not been able to see
the website or download the new version of the software. I'd like to
say that our server was swamped by the flood of requests ;) but in
actual fact we've just been having a few difficulties with the service
provider and Murphy's law says today had to be the day it went down.
It should be back up now, but just in case I've taken the liberty of
uploading a copy of AAS.zip, including all the games also available
from the website, to the "IF Archive" mentioned in your (real) FAQ, so
you should be able to find it there.
I hope you have fun, should you decide to check the system out!
--Roddy, AAS Guy
"If you don't feel your skills are at all threatened, keep doing what
you're doing."
Greg Ewing (using news.cis.dfn.de)
> I am able to reach the site and download some of the stuff. I am not sure
> why everyone kept responding that this was a "hoax" or "joke" when there was
> quite clearly a site there with things you could quite obviously download
> and try out.
This is really bizarre. It seems like just too weird a
coincidence that posting should appear dated 1 April
that seems at first sight so blatantly clueless, and
for it *not* to be a hoax.
But if it is a hoax, someone has gone to an extraordinary
amount of effort to back up a throw-away joke. Far too
much to believe, in fact.
So it appears that AAS isn't a hoax, and that it really
is just a weird coincidence. They do happen from time
to time, after all.
There's one other possibility -- that the AAS web
site itself is real, but the message in question was
forged by someone making an April 1 joke. Not that I
think that's likely -- I don't have any evidence of it --
but it would account for the weird coincidenceness
if it were true.
--
Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept,
University of Canterbury,
Christchurch, New Zealand
http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~greg
Plugh!
> amount of effort to back up a throw-away joke. Far too
> much to believe, in fact.
errm, do you remember a litle thing called AmissVille ?
Plugh!
> site itself is real, but the message in question was
> forged by someone making an April 1 joke. Not that I
> think that's likely -- I don't have any evidence of it --
> but it would account for the weird coincidenceness
> if it were true.
curioser & curioser ... (and, surprisingly, there _is_ an Agamemnon
Road, in London NW6)
[whois.joker.com]
domain: aas-ta.com
status: production
origin-c: ro...@outgun.com#0
organization: AAS Services Ltd
owner: Roddy Ramieson
email: ro...@outgun.com#0
address: 20 Agamemnon Road
city: London
postal-code: NW6
country: GB
admin-c: ro...@outgun.com#0
tech-c: ro...@outgun.com#0
billing-c: ro...@outgun.com#0
nserver: a.ns.joker.com 194.176.0.2
nserver: b.ns.joker.com 194.245.101.19
nserver: c.ns.joker.com 194.245.50.1
registrar: JORE-1
created: 2003-03-03 21:28:45 UTC JORE-1
modified: 2003-03-24 23:48:15 UTC JORE-1
expires: 2004-03-03 15:28:31 UTC
source: joker.com
Plugh!
> amount of effort to back up a throw-away joke. Far too
> much to believe, in fact.
Remember a little thing called AmissVille? My conspiracy thoery says
that that was an elaborate hoax by a raif insider who expended a _lot_
of effort.
And when A.P Hill ran out of civil war generals, he started giving his
personae 'superman' type names, with tha same initials ... Roddy
Ramieson
The strange thing here is that there actually _is_ an Agamemnon Road
in NW6!
JJK
> "Jessica Knoch" wrote in message
> I hope you have fun, should you decide to check the system out!
>
> --Roddy, AAS Guy
> "If you don't feel your skills are at all threatened, keep doing what
> you're doing."
I spent a few minutes on the site. It helps confirm a theory I've had
for some time: the IF community is much larger than just this
(wonderful) group we have here. Inform, TADS and Usenet attract a
certain number and type of people, but there are many more players and
writers than ever post here.
There were no game example text or screenshots of the GUI, so I don't
have any comments on that, but I did peruse the forum a bit. Roddy
Ramieson seems pretty level headed and enthusiastic, but, shockingly,
there are some R&I(Rude and Ignorant) chest thumpers in his community.
Lucky thing we don't have any such here...
The forum had posts on "The Art of Text Adventures", discussion of a
printed manual for the gaming system, a demand for more open source
games, requests for feedback on WIP, and a "What games should I start
with" type of request. The discussions of games themselves seemed to
involve AIF type themes, and stuff like hit points. Oh, and of course,
a thread about us (where I found the R&ICTs as well as Roddy's level
headed comments).
The forum is just under a month old and seemed to have a couple hundred
posts. Makes me want to google back and see what the original RAIF and
RGIF forums looked like...
-Jim
Jessica Knoch
>
> I've noticed a few complaints from people who've not been able to see
> the website or download the new version of the software. I'd like to
> say that our server was swamped by the flood of requests ;) but in
> actual fact we've just been having a few difficulties with the service
> provider and Murphy's law says today had to be the day it went down.
> It should be back up now, but just in case I've taken the liberty of
> uploading a copy of AAS.zip, including all the games also available
> from the website, to the "IF Archive" mentioned in your (real) FAQ, so
> you should be able to find it there.
>
> I hope you have fun, should you decide to check the system out!
Thanks for uploading stuff to the Archive; that should help a lot of
people out. I was able to download the Cloak of Darkness and the zip
file before anything went wrong with your site yesterday, but I am
unable to play any of them. Something to do with having Java (or not).
I did peruse the source code for the Cloak of Darkness game, and it
looks fairly straightforward. Congratulations on making a significant
contribution to Text Adventures, and best of luck.
--
Jess K.
Branko Collin
>Roddy Ramieson wrote:
>> "Jessica Knoch" wrote in message
>> I hope you have fun, should you decide to check the system out!
>>
>> --Roddy, AAS Guy
>> "If you don't feel your skills are at all threatened, keep doing what
>> you're doing."
>
>I spent a few minutes on the site. It helps confirm a theory I've had
>for some time: the IF community is much larger than just this
>(wonderful) group we have here.
The Letters section of Xyzzy News seems to suggest that a lot of
people don't even know about any community--the letter writers just
figured text adventures were dead, until they stumble upon the odd
game or Xyzzy News.
--
Real Men Don't Need Anaesthetics
Walter Sandsquish
is much larger than just this (wonderful) group we have here. Inform,
TADS and Usenet attract a certain number and type of people, but there
are many more players and writers than ever post here. >>
ADRIFT:
http://www.adrift.org.uk/
AGT:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/agt-authors/
AIF (Adult Interactive Fiction):
http://home.online.no/~rohaagen/aifportal/sites/
news:alt.games.xtrek
CAT:
http://www.richmond62.freeserve.co.uk/index.htm
Eamon:
news:alt.games.eamon
Quest:
http://www.axeuk.com/quest/index.htm
SUDS:
http://www.sudslore.com/
I believe there are also Spanish, German and Italian IF communities.