Part Five: The Wyvern Bites Its Tail...

I grew up on computer user created content. Literally. I was born in 1973, so the only people creating computer content in my childhood were users with tendencies towards self-aggrandizement. A historical "I put my flag here first!!!". A sentiment that remains to this day. One which I appreciate, but tends to cause a lot of hard feelings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilroy_was_here

Around 1987, there was my first epiphany. It was a program created for the PC which allowed one to create text based adventure games. I loved it. Triggers, and exposition. It made it "easy" to create some interesting stories. It probably flopped due to lack of a central depository for retrieving them.

Pre-internet. It was a wild world.

It allowed you to create an Infocom-like text based adventure game. I ate it up like candy. I was also 14. You can imagine how immature it was. My recollections of it were fairly pedestrian, but my father, the biggest, most useful critic I know, actually kind of liked what I came up with. With his usual reservations. Thus the reason I sort of disappeared for some years.

In 1990, as a new senior in high school, I landed in a programming class that was trying out not requiring the higher level math classes that had been previously required for the class. Previously, as I was a senior, I wouldn't have gotten into the class.

I was in the college curriculum track, but I was behind the curve. Three different schools in seventh grade has that effect on people like me.

It was one of the few classes between 8th grade and graduation where I shined. Or so I remember. As I type this, I see where it helped develop what I do now. In that specific class, of 18 or 20 people, I was number two.

I was still so insanely quiet and unsure of myself... The teacher of that class asked me why I wasn't shooting for smoothing out my programs for extra credit. I admitted, quite honestly, that I was graduating, it wouldn't matter, and Ben Wood deserved it more than I did. I just wanted to finish Prince of Persia.

Today, don't think less of me, I have a lot of down time to think, and I do a lot of things that that computer teacher espoused:

1) When teaching people how to use a computer interface, nothing beats using it themselves.
2) Never touch their interface. Point, gesture, state implicitly, but never TOUCH the interface.
You are the guide, not the operator.
3) People are users, and they should always be treated as though they don't know anything when they begin using your application.

As time has proven to me, people forget that there's a sizable proportion of the population in the USA that's functionally illiterate. And I'm not talking about mountain people who ain't seen a book that made them wanna read it without pretty pictures and lotsa naked boobies.

We've created a generation that has difficulty writing in a way their elders have difficulty understanding. Then there's the population that's programming interfaces that outside people deal with, yet their guinea pigs aren't able grant positive feedback because they're being hovered over by the interface operatives. Really, changing "Invalid Loyalty Card" to "What are you trying to scan?" with suitable submenus would solve pretty much all the negative feedback I get, which is inappropriately directed at me instead of the system. It'd be significantly cheaper to fix the system. Or better yet, heuristic (not even HARD heuristics, based on ISBN bar code numbers) that recognize familiar bar codes would erase this problem.

An interface is only as good as a newbie to the interface is able to use it instinctively. This was the innovation that Apple has continually brought to the playing field, and has yet to falter in producing.

Since I was 12 years old, I was trying to produce content people would enjoy reading. This blog is only the latest example of a long running desire for social acceptance of what I felt was a viable opinion of the world around me.

In the early 1990s when SSI came out with Unlimited Adventures, I disappeared for months. I understand there's still a community out there that eats up UA. It's successors include both Neverwinter Nights titles. What collapsed for me between the latter two was ease of use. It's a pain in the damn ass to try and put stuff together for those.

From my point of view, I'd have to find one person who can translate the scripting into something I can understand, another who can work the creation of new maps, and then another to work on new creatures to be fought.

Never mind the bit about possible new gaming mechanics.

*Shudder* I'm not that charismatic. I'm not that rich.

Ergo the title of this specific blog post. What I wanted out of CRPGs turned full circle with Mission Architect in City of Heroes. It's by far and away the easiest of its type to use. You don't get easier, and even within its limitations, it still rocks in comparison. There's no comparison.

With CoX (City of Heroes/Villains is frequently abbreviated CoX), you get a solo friendly intro, a genre with a lot of wiggle room, and people shitloads better at producing content than I am. But I know my limitations. If two people like what I did, I'm happy. I consider "like" to be 3 out of 5 stars.

I've spent 24 years trying to find my niche between quirky humor, dialogue and plot. I'm still playing that game.