Dramatic Interactors - Computers as Theatre - page 123

jacket. Presently a waiter appeared and asked Terry sotto voce to put his jacket back
on. Etiquette, you know. “It's warm in here,” Terry replied. “I'm sorry, sir, but I really
must insist,” said the waiter. Breaking into that high female voice he often used in
Monty Python, Terry loudly exclaimed, “I won't !” He rose, knocking a $100 bottle of
wine off the table. In the same voice, he addressed the patrons of the restaurant.
“This is a stuffy place! You shouldn't be eating here!” Then he strode defi antly out the
door, only to slink back in about 10 minutes later to ask his wife for “a couple of quid”
to buy himself dinner somewhere else.
At our closing party, Jim Henson talked with us enthusiastically about the fu-
ture he envisioned for interactive games (we miss you too, Jim). At the end of the
night, as Henson was leaving, he presented Douglas with a large package of smoked
salmon. “Say it,” Henson demanded. After a moment, Douglas replied, “So long, Jim,
and thanks for all the fi sh.”
The elephant in the marketplace is World of Warcraft , originally intro-
duced in 1994 and going strong with over 10 million subscribers in 2013—
the largest MMORPG in history. Various types of interactions are enabled
by the various “realms” of the game, each with distinctive play proper-
ties to suit the palate of the player (for example, how much fi ghting they
want to do). Non-player characters (NPCs)—often with fairly sophisticated
AI structures—serve as enemies, friends, wizards, familiars, monsters, and
other sorts of forces on the level of character to shape dramatic action.