>don't sell the genre short, even if it's being kept alive for the moment
>in a quiet corner of cyberspace. The potential of the form is explosive.
I don't mean to come down too hard. But having just erased a 6 page
rant/bitch/moan, I figure I'm entitled to a paragraph long one. Don't
hold your breath. Look around you. This is it, dude. There are a few
hundred hardcore fans left. Text adventures are going exactly nowhere.
Ask Dave Baggett. Two years ago I was arguing your viewpoint. Text
adventures, like the Mexican peso, have been devalued. They are no
longer economically feasible in any form. I hope to just recoup my
investment on Avalon and flee the genre, skin intact. 2 years. 2 lousy
stinking years I been writing that game. And I'll be THRILLED, ECSTATIC
to sell 15 frigging copies. That's a sum profit of jack nothing. Sure,
the hobby aspect (SPAG, the IF Contest) is fun, but the game writing is a
waste of time unless you feel it too is a hobby. As for writing
book-length texts about writing text adventures, well, let's just say I'd
rather have the time back that I spent writing that IF Authorship Guide.
Basically, the well of enthusiasm within me on the topic of text
adventures has nothing but dirt in it anymore. My current ambition is to
move to New Zealand and herd sheep. At least that way I'll never have to
see another one of those godforsaken DOOM/SF2 clones. No more Ultima
8s. No more nothing.
-- <~~~~~E~~~G~~~SIGHT~UNSEEN~~~LOST~IN~THE~FOG~~~CYBER~CHESS~~~SPAG~~~|~~~~~~~> < V R I O Software. We bring words to life! | ~~\ > < T "We at Vertigo apologize for the delay. Sorry." | /~\ | > <_WATCH for Avalon in Oct. 1995!______whizzard@uclink.berkeley.edu__|_\__/__>