🚀 go-pugleaf

On conversations:

Like most others here, I miss being able to type in a topic.  The 
select-from-list method of U7+ is slick, but:
(a) if you replay the game you have to go through every single thread all
     over again [one reason I haven't much replayed since U6];
(b) you can never be clever and figure something out ahead of time, which
     is annoying and eliminates a whole class of nice puzzles;
(c) if the designers have put the make-topic-available flag somewhere else,
     then even though Joe says "Bob knows about ancient books" you can't
     ask him about it.  Argh!  [Big problem in Serpent Isle.] [Bob due to
     Allen Petersen.]

Instead:

After all other conversation options, add a "..." option that lets you type
in a topic.  Do a word-match on as-yet-unveiled topics and trigger if there's
a match.

That would work pretty well; it would keep the current interface 90% of 
the time, but if the designers neglected to set a flag, or if you were 
replaying the game, or if you had a neat idea, you'd be covered.

Combat:

I suggest that the player should be able to give the avatar (and/or NPCs)
orders that would thereafter be followed automatically, especially "chop
at the enemy I click on until he dies".  Manual combat can be fun but I
don't want to be forced to it all the time.  

A good compromise between real-time and turn-based is pause-for-orders:  you
can stop the action at any time with (P) and change fighting orders, then
hit (P) again and resume.

-- 
Daniel Starr           |  Graphics CPU demand will peak in 1995;
starr-...@yale.edu  |  AI is the processor hog of the future.
                       | --------------------------------------------------    
"Scuppers. Hosepipe."  |  PC with 10^10 neurons: 40-80 years. (Moore's law)