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PAWS is back, new version 2.1! (Roger Plowman’s "Python Adventure Writing System")

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Matthias Hormann

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Nov 14, 2016, 10:27:27 PM11/14/16
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I was looking for an Adventure Writing system (or at least a good foundation) in Python, and stumbled across Roger Plowman’s PAWS ("Python Adventure Writing System").

Sadly enough, the web page and email have gone, and Archive.org’s Wayback Machine doesn’t have the files anymore.

So, from whatever I could find of Robert’s stuff on the Internet, and repair and extend myself, I decided to make available a new and shiny (well, more or less …) PAWS Version 2.1.0 at https://github.com/Moonbase59/PAWS.

It has lots of new features and bug fixes and I will be working on and extending its "Universe" module for a while still. I do believe in the flexibility of Python but also very much in having a robust and solid foundation on which to build one’s own text adventures.

The goal is getting a "game world" that knows about a lot of places, things and behaviour "by itself" and can handle these via built-in defaults (that can easily be inherited/overwritten in the actual game, though).

I’d love all interested parties to try it out and give some feedback and/or fresh ideas. Of course I can’t promise anything (got a real life, too 😉) but I’ll most certainly work on it in my spare time for a while still.

Cheers!
Matthias a.k.a. »Moonbase59«

Katzy

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Nov 15, 2016, 8:07:16 AM11/15/16
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Hello,

Matthias Hormann wrote in message ...
fresh ideas. Of course I can’t promise anything (got a real life, too ?) but I
’ll most certainly work on it in my spare time for a while still.

Cheers!
Matthias a.k.a. »Moonbase59«

I do have PAWS14.zip, PAWS15.zip and PAWS20-developer set, this one sent by
Wolf.



Matthias Hormann

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Nov 15, 2016, 1:19:03 PM11/15/16
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Am Dienstag, 15. November 2016 14:07:16 UTC+1 schrieb Katzy:
>
> I do have PAWS14.zip, PAWS15.zip and PAWS20-developer set, this one sent by
> Wolf.

Hi Katzy,

now THAT is good news! Would you be willing to let me have a copy, at least of PAWS20-Dev.zip? And do you ny chance have any contact data for Roger (Wolf) that still works?

Thanks for letting me know!
Matthias

FizzyP

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Nov 15, 2016, 10:21:46 PM11/15/16
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That is really cool! I bet he'd be incredibly happy that you put in this much effort.

Matthias Hormann

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Nov 16, 2016, 3:49:53 AM11/16/16
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Am Mittwoch, 16. November 2016 04:21:46 UTC+1 schrieb FizzyP:
> That is really cool! I bet he'd be incredibly happy that you put in this much effort.

Well, I do hope there is still an audience there, I mean people who actually still care about text adventures and maybe even write new ones built upon all this.

And of course I’d so much like to get in contact with Wolf, but it seems he has vanished for many years. Does anyone know how to contact him?

Also, I’m still wondering about this "Google Group" thingie here … it looks and feels much like the REAL newsgroups we had oh so many decades ago but lacks so much. Did Google somehow take all that over? Or just "steal" a real newsgroup feed and made an odd web interface to it? How would be quoting rules, how would one contact people personally? Questions over questions …

:-)

Matthias Hormann

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Nov 16, 2016, 4:00:57 AM11/16/16
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Am Dienstag, 15. November 2016 14:07:16 UTC+1 schrieb Katzy:
Katzy,

I’d love to get in contact but I don’t really know how this Google Groups stuff works—there isn’t even something like "personal message". Anyway, you can try to reach me at moon...@quantentunnel.de — thanks!

Matthias

Katzy

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Nov 16, 2016, 6:57:38 AM11/16/16
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Hello,

Matthias Hormann wrote in message ...

>I’d love to get in contact but I don’t really know how this Google Groups
stuff works—there isn’t even something like "personal message". Anyway, you
can try to reach me at moon...@quantentunnel.de — thanks!


Yes, I am still there. I don't use a valid e-mail address here. Therefore you
can't reach me. So this has nothing to do with Google Groups. ;)

You can download the files. They are in the download here:
http://www.nostalgia8.org/verzameling.htm between my collection of other old
creating tools, so halfway around. I did link the site of Roger then, but it
became a dead link, so removed it.

I contacted him more than a year ago and used the address named on his old
website. Something with zoom in it. I'll write you when I find it back.

Katzy



Matthias Hormann

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Nov 16, 2016, 8:28:19 AM11/16/16
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Hey, Katzy,

man, THANKS a million! THAT was a find! I’m so happy that I finally got the version 2.0.3 documentation—something we can build on! :-)

I got Wolf’s old email address you mentioned, but emails to that address come back as undeliverable. :-(

Anyway, since Wolf’s generous license permits it, I’ll go and put the Dev.zip on my GitHub repo, together with my new stuff, so others can benefit.

See https://github.com/Moonbase59/PAWS

Thanks again and have a good time!
Matthias

John W Kennedy

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Nov 16, 2016, 12:00:28 PM11/16/16
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Google Groups uses and archives the old newsgroups system, which still
exists. (They purchased DejaNews ages ago.) There are also Google Groups
groups that are not newsgroups.

--
John W. Kennedy
"The blind rulers of Logres
Nourished the land on a fallacy of rational virtue."
-- Charles Williams. "Taliessin through Logres: Prelude"

Matthias Hormann

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Nov 16, 2016, 2:09:16 PM11/16/16
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> Google Groups uses and archives the old newsgroups system, which still
> exists. (They purchased DejaNews ages ago.) There are also Google Groups
> groups that are not newsgroups.
>
> --
> John W. Kennedy

Thanks for some elucidation, John, much appreciated!
Matthias

Gregory Ewing

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Nov 16, 2016, 4:59:58 PM11/16/16
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Matthias Hormann wrote:
> Also, I’m still wondering about this "Google Group" thingie here … it looks
> and feels much like the REAL newsgroups we had oh so many decades ago but
> lacks so much. Did Google somehow take all that over? Or just "steal" a real
> newsgroup feed and made an odd web interface to it?

I'm reading and replying to this through the rec.arts.int-fiction
Usenet group, so whatever you're using must be gatewayed to it.

Yes, Usenet still exists, and r.a.i-f still exists, although
posts to it are few and far between -- everyone seems to have
abandoned it for the www.intfiction.org web forum, which is
disappointing.

If you and some other old-timers that appreciate the advantages
of Usenet would like to come back here, that would be great.

--
Greg

Anonymous

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Jan 4, 2017, 9:02:49 PM1/4/17
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Gregory Ewing wrote:
> Yes, Usenet still exists, and r.a.i-f still exists, although
> posts to it are few and far between -- everyone seems to have
> abandoned it for the www.intfiction.org web forum, which is
> disappointing.

Perhaps someone can ask www.intfiction.org administration to exchange
posts with this Usenet newsgroup? It's not that hard technically, some
forum engines (like Phorum) are able to do it out-of-the-box.

Anonymous

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Jan 4, 2017, 9:19:34 PM1/4/17
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Katzy wrote:
> I don't use a valid e-mail address here.

This is a complete OT, but I would like to point that I use valid e-mail address for my other Usenet identity, and I didn't receive a single spam e-mail yet. I guess spammers moved out of Usenet long time ago.

vsync

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Sep 21, 2017, 12:35:07 AM9/21/17
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On 17 Nov 2016, Gregory Ewing <greg....@canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:

> Yes, Usenet still exists, and r.a.i-f still exists, although
> posts to it are few and far between -- everyone seems to have
> abandoned it for the www.intfiction.org web forum, which is
> disappointing.

Ah, that really is unfortunate. I've just drifted back in and was
wondering what happened.

--
Tim Howe
http://quadium.net/~vsync/

Love of bustle is not industry; it is only the restlessness of a
hunted mind. And true repose does not consist in condemning all
motion as merely vexation; that kind of repose is slackness and
inertia. No, men should combine these tendencies, and he who
reposes should act and he who acts should take repose.
-- Seneca
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