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[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Chris Crawford's infamous Dragon Speech is now on YouTube. The quality's a bit... YouTubed... but it's worth watching, and still relevant today (this was in 1992).

In five parts,
1 -


2 -


3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpW0fZ0390M
4 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7N_Ju1L_Mg
5 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqMwmdvf8v0

[Guert]

Thanks for the links!

[Alec]

erm

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Haha, did you watch the whole thing? Maybe it's not for everyone, but I think the main ideas of the speech are true and important, even if it's a little too focused on Crawford's life.

[Alec]

I read about it before hand, so I was mostly interested in seeing the end.

I just get the impression that its a huge ego trip by the way he talks and the way he's consciously 'acting' it out.

But yeah.

Is there an alpha/beta of the Storytron stuff out yet?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Definitely, but I don't have much against egoism, I think it's cute sometimes.

The beta of Storytron actually is supposed to release tomorrow (after, like, 15 years of development); I'm kinda looking forward to it and intend to try to make a "storyworld" in it but I don't think it'll have more than a cult following unless they improve the interface.

[Anthony Flack]

What a strange and frightening delivery he has.

[guille]

Hahaha I really appreciate this, thanks a lot for sharing.

Of course he was acting it out, he even brought the sword LOL

I just realized Chris looks and talks (and maybe dresses too) like Phil Collins.

Anyways, I never thought a video of this would pop-up from somewhere, it's been a while since I read the transcript of this speech, great stuff.

[frosty]

Thanks for sharing the links.  I sort of expected him to just ramble on, but he's quite lucid, and his delivery becomes entertaining once you get used to the strangeness.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Trivia: he forged that sword himself, in his back yard.

[sega]

rinkuhero, you said Storytron won't have more than a cult following until they improve the interface.  I haven't seen it, but from what I read on the site, it sounds like it's a text adventure game.  Is this true?  If so, then yeah, that's an awful interface if you want more than a few subscriptions.  So, 15 years in development... I wonder how long it'd take for them to turn a profit on the whole project, let alone cover running costs.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

It's not text adventure at all, interactive fiction (text adventures, "IF") is completely different from interactive storytelling. You'd really have to read Crawford's works to understand what he's going for, but if it's done the way he outlines, it won't be like anything else that exists currently.

The interface is mainly an inverse parser -- it's similar to text adventures in that it's language-oriented, but you don't type anything in, instead you form a sentence by selecting words from a menu; for instance, you might select a subject, verb, adjective, adverb, and then the storyworld interprets your command and responds accordingly -- not according to pre-written rules like in IF, but by the nature of the storyworld's behavior system.

By contrast, an IF is a very static world, responding to your commands according to what the IF author planned out ahead of time, whereas an IS (interactive storyworld) is an active world where characters go about their business and talk to and respond to each other, and you are one among them.

[Chris Whitman]

Inform seven is entirely rule-based and allows for a fair amount of autonomous behavior, even extending to actions on the part of actors which affect game objects much in the way you are describing. There's nothing to stop you from developing interactive fiction which works in this way.

My problem with Crawford is mostly that I think he is on very shaky theoretical ground when it comes to his ideas. After I don't know how many years of waiting for him to release anything at all, I've come to the conclusion that it is mostly smoke and mirrors and buzzwords.

On the other hand, if it's legit I'll be reasonably impressed, assuming it doesn't just duplicate the same kind of thing that could already be done with existing systems developed in the long period where he was desperately trying to figure out what the hell his thing was supposed to do. So far, however, I haven't seen any whitepapers written in using even vaguely rigorous language which indicate that there is anything at all to his concept.

[Chris Whitman]

To clarify, by 'anything at all' I mean anything really, genuinely new.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I don't think Inform 7 has the capability to create storyworlds in the way he describes. For instance, the very idea of "game objects" defeats the point of Crawford's ideas -- the interactions have to be meaningful dramatically. E.g. people gossiping and transmitting information, forming and breaking friendships, not just people autonomously picking up a key off the ground and using it on a door or something. But I admit that Inform 7 does look great from what I read about it, and I may even make an IF one day in it, but nothing I read about it convinces me that it would be capable of IS.

Also, he has released things; he released the Erasmatron engine back around 2000, he's made about a dozen games that implement some aspect of his ideas (the best being Siboot, available for free on The Underdogs). I do think that many of those things were really, genuinely new. And other people have made things based in part on ideas which are also new (Facade for example -- which was sort of on the border between IF and IS, or rather it was IF so complex that it seemed like IS).

I agree that his ideas seem shaky, but any idea seems shaky until it's implemented.

[Chris Whitman]

Actually, Inform allows you to define relationships explicitly between persons and objects, which could allow you to define 'friendship' relations, etc. In fact, such a thing is included in some of their examples.

For examples of 'interactive stories' written using IF, you should take a look at some of Emily Short's stuff, which is very character driven and usually quite convincing as an interactive story in the way you are describing.



When I say Chris Crawford's ideas are on shaky ground, I don't mean that I think they're unfeasible, I just really don't think this is anything new. Even now that it's out, it doesn't actually appear to simulate anything that hasn't already existed in other platforms, except that he has placed it under some new rubric which makes it sound like some kind of revolution.

I mean, really, other interactive fiction authoring systems have already supported exactly the same concepts he discusses on the web site for years. It's not like it's a bad idea, it's just not as revolutionary as he seems to think it is.

[Radix]

I'm also skeptical, but even if the software isn't revolutionary it'll be worthwhile if it merely simplifies the process to get to that sort of interrelativity*. I've attempted to create dynamic worlds in IF engines in the past and found it to be a complex and time-consuming deal. Emily Short has shown what can be possible with traditional engines, but evidently she is an exceptional case.

I'm always open to authoring tools that simplify the parts that don't matter. I'm hoping this will be the textual equivalent of using all the various techniques available for the graphical details you can't be arsed doing manually. Whether or not this can be used to create anything worth playing is yet to be seen. Hopefully it will be possible to merely build an active world around your central story rather than a completely autonomous clusterfuck.


(*May not be a real word.)