Re: Single use command considered harmful

At Sun, 28 Sep 2008 21:50:58 -0500,
Billy Bissette wrote:

The intuitive understanding of the game world is that when I want
my character to use an item, I want him to use an item. I don't
care whether he quaffs it, reads its, or waves it. I want it used,
I order it used, and if possible under the circumstances it gets
used.

Why do you want to use a potion, and not quaff it? Why would you use
a scroll, and not read it? Why would you use food instead of eating it?
Didn't your mom teach you to not play with food?

I believe your "intuition" in this case comes from experience with many
primitive, in terms of item interaction, games -- like platformers,
first person perspective shooters and, sadly, even adventure games.
But this concept is unnatural and you have specifically trained to make
it seem intuitive to you.

That I might use the same key to use a potion as I would to read
a scroll doesn't make the potion less of a potion or the scroll less
of a scroll. I'm not going to go "It's pitch dark. Why can I still
use this potion but I cannot use this scroll?"

You are not? What's stopping you? There is no mechanism that would hint
you that you cannot use a scroll in the dark, other than actually trying
it, is there? In similar manner, why should mummy not be able to "use" a
potion?

From what I recall, it took a while before the functionally
equivalent 'p'ray and 'm'agic were finally made interchangable in
Angband. You still had one function mapped to two keys, but at least
the game stopped complaining if you hit 'p' while playing a magic
user or 'm' while playing a priest.

The next step is making "a magic user" character class, and getting
rid of "priests" and "mages". Of course Angband's spells and prayers
weren't different from each other in the first place -- so it seems
good that two mechanisms that have no practical or semantic difference
have been merged.

(Both keys were kept because people who played prayer-based
characters were used to using "p" to cast while players of magic
users were used to using "m". As there was no decision over which
key to remove, nor even any desire to actually remove a key at all,
both were kept.)

That's the power of habituation. I still type "mad" when I want to
switch on the light in my room ;)

--
Radomir `The Sheep' Dopieralski <http://sheep.art.pl>
"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority,
it's time to pause and reflect." -- Mark Twain
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Single use command considered harmful
    ... Why do you want to use a potion, ... a unified use command would not work. ... For markers, you can write a new scroll, or write ... The next step is making "a magic user" character class, ...
    (rec.games.roguelike.development)
  • Re: Single use command considered harmful
    ... intuitive understanding of the game world this way. ... my character to use an item, I want him to use an item. ... That I might use the same key to use a potion as I would to read ... a scroll doesn't make the potion less of a potion or the scroll less ...
    (rec.games.roguelike.development)
  • -Crawl- advice needed: Mines or Lair?
    ... t - a wand of lightning ... v - a scroll of enchant armour ... M - a bubbling black potion ... a scroll of curse armour (1 gold) ...
    (rec.games.roguelike.misc)
  • -crawl- YASD | Damn Xtahua!
    ... next plan was to blink out of sight, quaff a potion of speed, and - ... My final move was to try a scroll of teleportation, ... You visited 6 branches of the dungeon, and saw 37 of its levels. ... d - an uncursed ring of teleportation ...
    (rec.games.roguelike.misc)
  • The Cruel RNG
    ... A - an uncursed wand called teleportation ... d - a scroll called ea/rc ... y - a potion called 200mag ... w - a violet gem ...
    (rec.games.roguelike.nethack)