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Show HN: Lyceum – An MMO game built with Zig and Erlang

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Re: Show HN: Lyceum – An MMO game built with Zig and Erlang

#31

Post by bitterblotter »

Closi wrote: post #7

Pretty amazing effort, this looks like a great labour of love! I can't give feedback on the code/technology, but on the writing on the lore section, I would try to simplify the writing. For instance the following: > The reverberations of the trumpet stirred the knights from their deep repose, igniting a tumultuous awakening. With swords unsheathed and hearts ablaze, they clashed in a thunderous symphony of war, each…

This definitely has a GPT smell, at no fault of the creator. Reminds me of a PR i reviewed about a simple security patch, where the description said "The following changes have been implemented to strengthen our role-based access policies and system security" - Like yeah, it's security patch. A small tweak to his prompt would probably do the trick

Re: Show HN: Lyceum – An MMO game built with Zig and Erlang

#32

Post by pmarreck »

bitterblotter wrote: post #31
Closi wrote: post #7

Pretty amazing effort, this looks like a great labour of love! I can't give feedback on the code/technology, but on the writing on the lore section, I would try to simplify the writing. For instance the following: > The reverberations of the trumpet stirred the knights from their deep repose, igniting a tumultuous awakening. With swords unsheathed and hearts ablaze, they clashed in a thunderous symphony of war, each…

This definitely has a GPT smell, at no fault of the creator. Reminds me of a PR i reviewed about a simple security patch, where the description said "The following changes have been implemented to strengthen our role-based access policies and system security" - Like yeah, it's security patch. A small tweak to his prompt would probably do the trick

i have "no purple prose" in my custom instructions

Re: Show HN: Lyceum – An MMO game built with Zig and Erlang

#34

Post by nonethewiser »

Closi wrote: post #25
nonethewiser wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a style thing. Fantasy writing often does this deliberately. I've thought about this before when I revisited fantasy after years of being in the CS domain which helped me abhor ornate writing. I definitely think there is such thing as TOO ornate but dead-simple language also feels bad. It feels wrong to just say its an exception with fantasy - simplicity is good because it conveys the same thing more clearly and…

You are right - it's a balance and definitely a matter of taste. Although not-ornate doesn't necessarily mean dead-simple or bad. For instance compare the following: > The reverberations of the trumpet stirred the knights from their deep repose, igniting a tumultuous awakening. With a very similar sentence from Tolkein: > At that moment, among the trees nearby, a horn rang out. It rent the night like fire on a hill-t…

That's a good example. I agree the imagery is strong with the Tolkien example. It also struck me as how you might say it if you are verbally telling the story. The "among the trees nearby" interlude and the successive exclamations at the end.

Re: Show HN: Lyceum – An MMO game built with Zig and Erlang

#35

Post by danenania »

Closi wrote: post #25
nonethewiser wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a style thing. Fantasy writing often does this deliberately. I've thought about this before when I revisited fantasy after years of being in the CS domain which helped me abhor ornate writing. I definitely think there is such thing as TOO ornate but dead-simple language also feels bad. It feels wrong to just say its an exception with fantasy - simplicity is good because it conveys the same thing more clearly and…

You are right - it's a balance and definitely a matter of taste. Although not-ornate doesn't necessarily mean dead-simple or bad. For instance compare the following: > The reverberations of the trumpet stirred the knights from their deep repose, igniting a tumultuous awakening. With a very similar sentence from Tolkein: > At that moment, among the trees nearby, a horn rang out. It rent the night like fire on a hill-t…

From a writing perspective, I think much of it is about “weighting”. If you make every line ornate and full of adjectives, then nothing stands out.

Therefore for not-so-important details like “the knight woke up” that are just about giving the reader necessary info to follow along, it’s generally better to put less weight and emphasis by stating it plainly. This way when you do add emphasis to make the reader visualize a crucial scene or situation, or describe emotional states at these moments etc, they will jump out as being special rather than just more of the same.

In my experience, every great writer follows this pattern, though they begin at different baselines. It’s fundamental to good writing, just like creating attention hierarchy is fundamental to good graphic design.

Re: Show HN: Lyceum – An MMO game built with Zig and Erlang

#36

Post by adamc »

skulk wrote: post #15
Closi wrote: post #7

Pretty amazing effort, this looks like a great labour of love! I can't give feedback on the code/technology, but on the writing on the lore section, I would try to simplify the writing. For instance the following: > The reverberations of the trumpet stirred the knights from their deep repose, igniting a tumultuous awakening. With swords unsheathed and hearts ablaze, they clashed in a thunderous symphony of war, each…

It's definitely a matter of taste. The first version has flavor, the second is flat. The first reminds me of the style of writing that got me hooked on MUDs.

Yeah, agree. "Jolted" is not as evocative as "stirred".

Re: Show HN: Lyceum – An MMO game built with Zig and Erlang

#37

Post by sigbottle »

nonethewiser wrote: post #34
Closi wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right - it's a balance and definitely a matter of taste. Although not-ornate doesn't necessarily mean dead-simple or bad. For instance compare the following: > The reverberations of the trumpet stirred the knights from their deep repose, igniting a tumultuous awakening. With a very similar sentence from Tolkein: > At that moment, among the trees nearby, a horn rang out. It rent the night like fire on a hill-t…

That's a good example. I agree the imagery is strong with the Tolkien example. It also struck me as how you might say it if you are verbally telling the story. The "among the trees nearby" interlude and the successive exclamations at the end.

Exactly. Even though I understand every word of this quote

> The reverberations of the trumpet stirred the knights from their deep repose, igniting a tumultuous awakening. With swords unsheathed and hearts ablaze, they clashed in a thunderous symphony of war, each seeking to claim dominance over the waking realm.

there's a distinct feeling of disconnect, I guess? That language feels much more appropriate, when say, you're on top of a mountain and admiring the beautiful landscape around you. Tolkein's words capture the urgency and adrenaline of war with his simpler sentences.

I suppose I'd need to see the context behind the original quote; in a historical lore recap, I'm more happy with that quote.

(Not going to pretend like I know precisely what's different as it's all subjective, but I suspect the mood you're trying to go for heavily impacts your writing choice)

Re: Show HN: Lyceum – An MMO game built with Zig and Erlang

#38

Post by diath »

The BEAM is made with fault tolerance, scalability, and concurrency in mind at the cost of performance due to immutability and message passing approach among other things, which sounds like a terrible choice for a multiplayer video game that's anything more than a walking simulator. Erlang sounds like a good choice for auxiliary video game services, such as chat/social, guild management, auction house and so on, not so much for the game shard itself.

Re: Show HN: Lyceum – An MMO game built with Zig and Erlang

#40

Post by DuLR10 »

bitterblotter wrote: post #31
Closi wrote: post #7

Pretty amazing effort, this looks like a great labour of love! I can't give feedback on the code/technology, but on the writing on the lore section, I would try to simplify the writing. For instance the following: > The reverberations of the trumpet stirred the knights from their deep repose, igniting a tumultuous awakening. With swords unsheathed and hearts ablaze, they clashed in a thunderous symphony of war, each…

This definitely has a GPT smell, at no fault of the creator. Reminds me of a PR i reviewed about a simple security patch, where the description said "The following changes have been implemented to strengthen our role-based access policies and system security" - Like yeah, it's security patch. A small tweak to his prompt would probably do the trick

No AI-based tools were used to make the lore. One of our developers (not me) is more of an intense reader and retro gamer; he was the one chosen to write it.
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