rabdill
commented
9 years ago Another specificity problem, from Emily Short: "If you’ve added new grammar, is it consistent with the old stuff? One problem I’ve seen — more than once — occurs when the author has added grammar to handle an indirect object (>HIT MAN WITH STICK, say) but hasn’t changed the default response to >HIT MAN. So hitting the man with the stick may be the only solution to a puzzle, but >HIT MAN will turn up “Violence isn’t the answer to this one.” Severely misleading.?
Instead of just "cut rope," the player should have the option to "cut rope with knife."
Potential issues: How do we prompt the player for more specificity? Just respond to "cut rope" with "With what?"?
What if the player tries to commit an action that requires a tool they don't have yet? Do we respond with a generic "You don't have anything to do that with" message, or force the author to give a rejection message? (OR: Treat it like "disallowed actions" -- the author has the option to specify command-rejection messages, for times when the player types "Cut rope with octopus" or whatever and should be yelled at or told something funny.)