Book descriptions changes

[Sar]

So, um, any reason book descriptions were just RUINED FOREVER? I understand changes to other descriptions, but I always liked the book ones, they were rather funny. Was there at least a gameplay reason to, not enough place to list spells, perhaps?

https://gitorious.org/crawl/crawl/commi ... 96fb70bbbf

[wizzzargh]

New players were reading those descriptions and mistakenly thinking the game had flavor, this has now been rectified.

[Leafsnail]

A lot of descriptions wrongly implied the books were dangerous (eg "So if I carry around a book of fire too long I'll catch fire?"). Some of the replacements are a bit dull though.

e: Although I guess there's also a desire to avoid overly long descriptions. I quite like some of the changes (eg I think the new Book of Hindrance text is funnier because it doesn't explain the joke) but a lot of them are definitely too generic.

[Sar]

I do prefer clarity over flavour when they are in conflict. I recently started a thread in GDD that resulted in making vamp text less ~flavourful~ and more useful. I made it because I actually observed that message being confusing and useless. I'm happy that devs listened and changed it.
I never observed book descriptions causing any confusion, though. So this change is confusing me. I mean, you can make and argument that Crawl isn't a game that should have any flavour... why do we still have monspeak.txt, anyway?

[twelwe]

The best change

banana


A delicious yellow fruit, probably grown and imported by some amoral
multinational as the result of a corrupt trade deal.
A delicious yellow fruit.

[twelwe]

eggplant

A rotten eggplant which you can throw at the Crawl developers. (It's a bug if
you ever see this message.)
you ever see this message).

CORRECT! FUCKING! FORM! THANK YOU WHOEVER IS DOING THIS!

&

is this a spelunky joke? how old is this reference?

[twelwe]

eggplant

A rotten eggplant which you can throw at the Crawl developers. (It's a bug if
you ever see this message.)
you ever see this message).

CORRECT! FUCKING! FORM! THANK YOU WHOEVER IS DOING THIS!

I'm wrong this would be the correct way to write it, no period after developers:

A rotten eggplant which you can throw at the Crawl developers. (It's a bug if
you ever see this message.)
A rotten eggplant which you can throw at the Crawl developers (It's a bug if
you ever see this message).

[Bloax]

Parentheses are already rather ungrammatical notes, and I'd argue the original, uncorrected version is actually the right way to do things - since the sentence in the parenthesis is completely separate.
If you absolutely want it to be correct then it would probably look somewhat like this:

  Code:

A rotten eggplant which you can throw at the Crawl developers.
Note: If you're wondering why you would do that, then it's because a bug has occured if you ever see this.

[tedric]

eggplant

A rotten eggplant which you can throw at the Crawl developers. (It's a bug if
you ever see this message.)
you ever see this message).

CORRECT! FUCKING! FORM! THANK YOU WHOEVER IS DOING THIS!

I'm wrong this would be the correct way to write it, no period after developers:

A rotten eggplant which you can throw at the Crawl developers. (It's a bug if
you ever see this message.)
A rotten eggplant which you can throw at the Crawl developers (It's a bug if
you ever see this message).

Actually the original is/was correct.

A parenthetical fragment attached to a sentence should come before the period (as this one does).

A complete parenthetical sentence, should stand alone with the period inside parentheses. (I'm a punctuation nerd.)

This is what the AP style guide recommends (I'm also a journalist) and I've seen the same rule in other style manuals as well.

[tedric]

A lot of descriptions wrongly implied the books were dangerous (eg "So if I carry around a book of fire too long I'll catch fire?"). Some of the replacements are a bit dull though.

e: Although I guess there's also a desire to avoid overly long descriptions. I quite like some of the changes (eg I think the new Book of Hindrance text is funnier because it doesn't explain the joke) but a lot of them are definitely too generic.

Agreed. "Dull" is an understatement. I'm all in favor of brevity (being the soul of wit and all that), but some of the changes commit the unforgiveable sin of redundancy, creating "descriptions" that tell you nothing you don't already know from the name of the object:

  Code:

Book of Fire
A book containing advanced spells in the elemental school of Fire.

New players were reading those descriptions and mistakenly thinking the game had flavor, this has now been rectified.

I hope that by 0.15, Crawl will have been reduced to its true essence: it will taste like cardboard, and be winnable only through a precise and repeatable grind of optimal spoilery min-maxing. Then it will finally be fun!

[Leafsnail]

None of these changes introduce spoilers of any kind

[twelwe]

no, i`m right (the second time).

[duvessa]

most of the crawl descriptions that aren't very old (and some that are) read like some combination of "college student trying to fill 5 pages" and "amanda mckittrick ros"
personally i'm glad someone is trying to fix this

[dck]

Well weapon descs and some things like wands of para were extremely bad. Other than that I think if something should be addressed it would be things like Fannar's extremely overlong and cringe-worthy description, and not harmless things like the joke in the old young poisoner's handbook.

[Sar]

Fannar's description was cut already and I have no protests about that.

That said, if those descriptions are considered to be written badly, I retract my complaints. I don't have a literary taste.

[dck]

I don't know, I see a lot more purpose in some book descs having the odd joke about crazy wizards than every other item having a huge quote that could not be more out of context.

[twelwe]

On the evening of December Rosa Parks decided that she was going to sit in the white people section on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama. During this time blacks had to give up there seats to whites when more whites got on the bus. Rosa parks refused to give up her seat. Her and the bus driver began to talk and the conversation went like this. "Let me have those front seats" said the driver. She didn't get up and told the driver that she was tired of giving her seat to white people. "I'm going to have you arrested," said the driver. "You may do that," Rosa Parks responded. Two white policemen came in and Rosa Parks asked them "why do you all push us around?" The police officer replied and said "I don't know, but the law is the law and you're under arrest."

[Sar]

Well the quotes are written by actual writers and thus are objectively good.

[Kate]

Solved in the only way possible.

Eggplants predate Spelunky (and Stone Soup for that matter!), and describe invalid missiles. They were also hysterical raisins for a while, apparently.

[bcadren]

The best change

banana


A delicious yellow fruit, probably grown and imported by some amoral
multinational as the result of a corrupt trade deal.
A delicious yellow fruit.

Here's a good question: I never realized that bananas used to have commentary about the banana wars (American/Carribbean conflict in the 1920's)...it's being removed; but now I'm wondering who put it there in the first place...SERIOUSLY who on the dev team is knows enough obscure American History to make a joke about our least talked about war?

[nicolae]

A lot of descriptions wrongly implied the books were dangerous (eg "So if I carry around a book of fire too long I'll catch fire?").

When I was writing them I was trying to write them in a way that would suggest the effects described wouldn't actually do anything during the game (like writing that it would take months for a book of fire to spontaneously combust, when normal games don't take near that long) but I could probably have been better about it. Then again when I was writing them I was not sleeping very well.

oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

edit: well at least the book descriptions I liked most are still in

[Tiktacy]

On the evening of December Rosa Parks decided that she was going to sit in the white people section on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama. During this time blacks had to give up there seats to whites when more whites got on the bus. Rosa parks refused to give up her seat. Her and the bus driver began to talk and the conversation went like this. "Let me have those front seats" said the driver. She didn't get up and told the driver that she was tired of giving her seat to white people. "I'm going to have you arrested," said the driver. "You may do that," Rosa Parks responded. Two white policemen came in and Rosa Parks asked them "why do you all push us around?" The police officer replied and said "I don't know, but the law is the law and you're under arrest."

What the fuck?

[nicolae]

On the evening of December Rosa Parks decided that she was going to sit in the white people section on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama. During this time blacks had to give up there seats to whites when more whites got on the bus. Rosa parks refused to give up her seat. Her and the bus driver began to talk and the conversation went like this. "Let me have those front seats" said the driver. She didn't get up and told the driver that she was tired of giving her seat to white people. "I'm going to have you arrested," said the driver. "You may do that," Rosa Parks responded. Two white policemen came in and Rosa Parks asked them "why do you all push us around?" The police officer replied and said "I don't know, but the law is the law and you're under arrest."

What the fuck?

Spoiler: show

there was a thing recently where it turned out that a bunch of college athletes were taking totally BS classes so they could maintain their high GPA and stay on the team, one of the classes was literally just writing a single paper, and one of the athletes wrote what twelwe quoted and got an A- in the class. big scandal, etc, nothing will change

[and into]

If buses are ever added as an evocable item to Crawl, we know the man to write the flavor quote in their description.

[twelwe]

Her and the Bus Driver is going to be my next tournament clan name

[Confidence Interval]

A parenthetical fragment attached to a sentence should come before the period (as this one does).

A complete parenthetical sentence, should stand alone with the period inside parentheses. (I'm a punctuation nerd.)

This is what the AP style guide recommends (I'm also a journalist) and I've seen the same rule in other style manuals as well.

Where, then, would you insert a superscript reference? (Let's pretend that the numerals are superscript below - I don't think superscript is possible here.)

A parenthetical fragment attached to a sentence should come before the period (as this one does5).
OR
A parenthetical fragment attached to a sentence should come before the period (as this one does)5.
OR
A parenthetical fragment attached to a sentence should come before the period (as this one does).5

This matter troubles me occasionally.

[tedric]

A parenthetical fragment attached to a sentence should come before the period (as this one does).

A complete parenthetical sentence, should stand alone with the period inside parentheses. (I'm a punctuation nerd.)

This is what the AP style guide recommends (I'm also a journalist) and I've seen the same rule in other style manuals as well.

Where, then, would you insert a superscript reference? (Let's pretend that the numerals are superscript below - I don't think superscript is possible here.)

A parenthetical fragment attached to a sentence should come before the period (as this one does5).
OR
A parenthetical fragment attached to a sentence should come before the period (as this one does)5.
OR
A parenthetical fragment attached to a sentence should come before the period (as this one does).5

This matter troubles me occasionally.

AP style doesn't cover this, so I'm drawing on APA style instead (https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/04/).

If the reference applies directly to the parenthetical fragment, but not the rest of the sentence, use the first option. If it applies to the entire sentence, use the third. Never use the second.

Of course, often you want to attach the reference to an individual5 word, or even a series6 of individual7 words,8 and in that case you want to place the reference immediately following the word but also after any punctuation, like the comma following "words" earlier in this sentence.9

The only exception is for parentheses: (A superscript reference for an independent parenthetical statement would look like this.10)

[Confidence Interval]

Thank you. What is your take on the Oxford comma (a.k.a. the Harvard comma or the serial comma)? As you would see if you looked up Wikipedia, style guides differ on this matter?

[tasonir]

I like the old book descriptions better.

On the other hand, I've been playing for over 2 years and I had never read them until this thread, and probably never would have if not for this thread. I guess that's saying something.

[TeshiAlair]

CYC contest. Write new descriptions with a character limit. Winners get IMMORTALIZED (until probably about 3 or 4 patches from then).

[damiac]

I really don't understand most of these description changes. Was anyone really worried their book of fire was going to combust on them? Or that their book of air would... change pages?

I feel like this was a bad trade.
flavor------
clarity+

As this was a change I and most people would never have noticed, we must respond inversely with GREAT FURY!

[tasonir]

Here's a good question: I never realized that bananas used to have commentary about the banana wars (American/Carribbean conflict in the 1920's)...it's being removed; but now I'm wondering who put it there in the first place...SERIOUSLY who on the dev team is knows enough obscure American History to make a joke about our least talked about war?

I don't know too much about the war, but the phrase "banana republic" is something I'm familiar with - a country whose government is either ineffective or corrupt and is largely controlled by external forces (another country's government, or large corporations). This is why I've always found it so odd that the clothing store would want to name itself after something which is corrupt. But if you aren't familiar with it, banana corporations have done some incredibly evil stuff in the process of selling fruit. Fedhas would be very, very angry.

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

[Igxfl]

  Code:

You establish a corrupt and exploitative banana corporation.
Fedhas appreciates your contribution to the ecosystem.

[Grimm]

Thank you. What is your take on the Oxford comma (a.k.a. the Harvard comma or the serial comma)? As you would see if you looked up Wikipedia, style guides differ on this matter?

comma chameleons

[tedric]

Thank you. What is your take on the Oxford comma (a.k.a. the Harvard comma or the serial comma)? As you would see if you looked up Wikipedia, style guides differ on this matter?

The debate over whether the Oxford comma is "proper" is pretty pointless IMO. The point of punctuation is to increase clarity by either setting ideas apart from one another or grouping them together. When presented with an opportunity to use the Oxford comma, it is very rare that the choice impacts clarity -- if it does, go with whichever one is clearer. If it doesn't, which is the vast majority of cases, go with your preference -- whichever "sounds" better in your head.

comma chameleons

In other words, what Grimm said.

Also: