🚀 go-pugleaf

On Thu, 5 Mar 1998, Alex wrote:

> Matthew Murray <mmu...@cc.wwu.edu> wrote:
> 
> >	I also don't think that should be going on.  Calling someone an
> >imbecile is ridiculous--calling Roberta Williams talentless, however, is
> >fair, I feel.
> >
> Listen, I'm not a big Roberta Williams fan or anything. I personally
> think Jane Jensen holds the future of Sierra in her hands. But calling
> RW "talentless." What's the last adventure game you put together huh?
> Can you provide us with a downloadable demo, so we can all see how
> it's done? Do you have any idea the amount of scripting, coding, and
> design work that goes into an adventure game, and, YES, talent! It is
> fine to criticize someone's work or even state that it is subpar in
> comparison to the works of others. But, I think you'd offend every
> creative mind in the computer gaming industry by saying that Roberta
> Williams has no talent.

	I guess we use the word talent differently.  I have never thought
that talent is an acquired attribute.  To me, talent is something you
either have or you don't.  I don't have many, but one of my few talents is
my ability to very easily pick up languages.  No one taught me this,
I've just always been able to do it.  I do >not< believe that Roberta
Williams has this kind of "talent."  Skill, yes--she knows how to put the
games together technically.  That is not in debate.  But for me, that's
all there is.  Her games have, from the beginning, seemed very mechanical
in many ways, and limiting in their structure and emotional content.  This
is not Mrs. Williams' fault--she is not to >blame<, but she is not
"talented."  Talent suggests to me something extra, something special.  I
would say that Steve Meretzky--author of many Infocom classics, the
Spellcasting series, and others--is >talented<.  Technically capable, yes, 
but with that little something extra that seems to imbue his games with a
different kind of energy. Jane Jensen is likewise >talented<--she took
very obvious and overdone stories, and managed to turn and twist them and 
create the characters necessary to make them interesting, but there is
>more< in these games.  Something extra, something that can't be taught. 
Roberta Williams has a long history with the adventure game industry, and 
her games may have sold well.  However, skillful as she might be,
Roberta Williams is >not< talented.

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Matthew A. Murray	    | The script calls for fusing and using our smarts,
			    | And greatness can come from the sum of our parts,
mmu...@cc.wwu.edu	    | From now on I'm with you--
			    | And with you is where I belong!
http://www.wwu.edu/~mmurray |		-David Zippel, City of Angels
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