Re: Non-obvious usages

The Sheep wrote:

> Hiding non-obvious usages
> -------------------------
>
> The problem
> -----------

sbip!

> The idea
> --------
>
> My idea is to use somethin I called `micro-usages'. Every item or item class
> would have their normal usages, but they would consist of series of smaller
> actions, the micro-usages.  For example, drinking a potion would require to
> grab it, open it, drink the contents and discard empty bottle. This would be
> done in stardand way by selecting the `quaff' command and selecting the potion
> (or the other way arounf if one prefers noun-verb ordering).
>
> Now, consider we don't want to drink the potion, but to spill it over our
> armor, since we suspect the potion to be a potion of holy water that will
> make our armor blessed.  But there's no `spill' or `dip' command in our game.  
> What to do? We select the `micro' special command, which allows us to specify
> the micro-usages for the item.  For the potion, we select `grab it, aim it,
> open it' and when we are asked for the target, we select our armor from the
> inventory.
>
> Ok.  Now consider the player tries to examine all possible combinations. There
> may be about 20 micro-usages for a simple roguelike.  Average usage consists
> of about 3-4 micro-usages.  That gives us 20^3 = 8000 possible combinatios.
>
> If you're a malicious designer, you could even add some usages that are in
> fact dangerous for the player character or the item.  Pointing wand of magic
> missile in ones head and then concentrating on it nad waving might be quite
> dangerous. It doesn't matter the player thougt it's a wand of hair dying...
> Also, for futuristic roguelikes, consider something like this: you find a can
> that looks like soda drink, you try to open it but the ring just comes off, 
> so you just put it back to you bag, hoping you'll find a can opener somewhere.
> And three seconds later -- ka-boom! It was a grenade.  It's even more fun for
> all those boxes with flashing lights and shiny buttons...

What about fail situations? Should the program automatically rollback or 
do we require that the actor rollbacks.

You open the bottle.
You try to light the contents. Fail.

OK, now we either automatically close the bottle or require that the 
actor does it. In the latter case we might have to consider what happens 
if the actor puts the open bottle in his rucksack.

Of course we could discard the open bottle but that seems too harsh.

Topi
--
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are
always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
- Bertrand Russell
"How come he didn't put 'I think' at the end of it?" - Anonymous