The “rails” thing is very much the gist of it. Don’t get me wrong, I think classic WoW is probably one of the best games ever made, but after it came out, nobody wanted the raw experience of early online worlds anymore. Which is just life I guess.

Yep. After I stopped UO I took a break for a few years and picked up WoW after it had already settled in for a bit. I was surprised how on rails it was. Get a quest? Well my UI plugin tells me exactly what to go. Add *any* sort of mystery or nondeterminism? People whine.

This is also where I first started seeing people focusing on "end game", although it may have existed in EQ. The actual sandbox-ish game was just a warmup you blasted through in order to get to the "real game". Meanwhile I ran around solo and just explored, and did whatever weird thing I wanted.

I never got to the endgame but I solo-levelled a couple of characters in a slow pace in classic wow (pre-tbc) and it was mind blowing. The world is so well crafted, the lore, the art design, it is just fantastic. I guess if we have to be on rails at least they did it well.

A lot of grinding, first and foremost. The idea of a massive multiplayer game was new so just having the thing itself was enough to get you excited to go in and spend days repeating the same 5-second loop to get a level. It was also a much more social thing, servers were usually small (and niche) enough that you would know most people by nickname, know when someone new entered, etc. Most games were mostly sandboxes so the fun was just to have this shared world and compete in it, more than doing quests, etc. There was a lot of full drop PVP so the stakes were really high, you could lose in a second the items you worked for weeks or months to get. It was exhilarating.

Then WoW happened.

I've heard of EverQuest was brutal as well

I don’t know, the way I see it, if you read the title and you know Zork then you know, and if you don’t then… skip it I guess? I don’t mean to be a jerk, seriously, I skip 90% of what I see in HN because I don’t know the tech and thus am not interested. I just assume that whoever is interested in that can click away.

I clicked in because, being quite a retro-head, I do know the legendary name Zork (although I've yet to actually play it) and am well aware of Infocom text adventures in general (having read more than one historical retrospective on Infocom over the years as well as having played Hitchhiker's Guide on my Amiga in the mid-80s). My post was only to thank the GP for linking to the page which should have been linked in the first place. Then I went on to make a broader point about the increasing frequency of other 'mystery posts' on HN lately even though, admittedly, this wasn't an especially egregious example.

Unlike some mystery posts, in this case, the mystery for me wasn't "What is this?" It was "Okay, I see a playable Zork output on the left and, apparently, the Z-Machine source script on the right" but which version of Zork this and, before investing many hours, what is this interactive play-through intended to explore? Although early interactive fiction isn't my retro focus, I've always wanted to play at least one version of Zork, and even I know the Z-Machine source for most versions of most Infocom adventures has been available for many years, including most (but not all) platform ports. So, if you know anything about Infocom adventures or early interactive fiction preservation, you know some context is expected when presenting such a legendary classic.

Preservationists are still searching for lost versions, ports, betas, etc of notable early interactive fiction titles (and few are as notable as Zork). From time to time, one of these is discovered and archived, leading to much rejoicing and new retrospective sessions at interactive fiction conferences. There are even passionate opinions on which versions count as "the original" (there can be more than one!), which is considered most "canonically complete", and even which subsequent compilations, translations, corrections, decomp/recomps, extensions or even remakes are "good for a first-time play-through". For example, when I did my first play-through of the legendary Colossal Cave Adventure last year, I may have spent as much time exploring which version I wanted to experience as actually playing it (full disclosure: I cheated with a guide because I've always sucked at interactive fiction). That's not as crazy as it sounds since the "Incomplete taxonomy of CCA versions & forks" may have more nodes than a map of the huge Cave in the game! https://mipmip.org/advfamily/advfamily.html. Frankly, I enjoyed learning about the origin, architecture and evolution of CCA more than playing it - but, as I said, IF has never been my thing.

Much like the lost 1960s Doctor Who episodes that were recently found, a new version of a notable title can be big deal in the interactive fiction sub-community and anything by Infocom (especially with the name Zork) would be significant. So, linking on HN directly to an interactive play-through of "Zork" with nothing but the Z-Machine source alongside, instead of linking to the parent page with the context, version and what this interactive experience will explore - is like posting "Beatles Song" on a forum frequented by hardcore early rock fans but only linking directly to a two hour-long mp3 of Beatles songs with zero context as to whether it's newly found rehearsal cuts, an AI segmentation into source stems, or just a mix tape of your Mom's favorite songs. Hence, the first post being another poster linking to the context page with my +1 response.

As someone dealing with a few cases of cancer in the family (including a child) I can’t help but think what an amazing miracle to live to 91 years old. Some people really hit the jackpot! Rest in peace.

When my younger sister was in elementary school, she complained to my mother that the other kids at school had grandparents.

A post a few years back by someone dying of a terminal disease said as much (and I will not forget the sentiment). Essentially: old age is a privilege, not something anyone should ever expect.

Isn’t this a kind of “leopards ate my face” situation? I thought we had all “agreed” that letting AI write code and take control of software repositories is good, even if we have no idea what is going on beyond a thin surface layer, because well it’s fast and we can fix it later and lol who needs testing? My customers are my testers.

And now it’s suddenly bad because the developer is the customer?

The sneaky commit modification is triggered by very modest usage of AI such as auto-completion.

Look, if an agent writes the code and the commit message then adding a Co-authored-by by default is ok. Not even showing it before the commit is made is not, and adding the message when AI was just completing code is not.

I genuinely think it's not ok even then. Copilot is a tool, one of many I use. That tool has no business polluting commit messages without my knowledge.

The appended message isn't even adding any new information, as in this day and age a vast majority of commits is probably "co-authored" by an LLM.

I should have been clearer, the hidden addition is never ok.

If I ask Claude to write a commit message, it will inserted a co-author line (and an ad), but I can see it and disapprove, add a counter instruction to CLAUDE.md etc

I personally don’t understand the need to treat a tool as an “author” but that’s not important, my comment is mostly regarding the backlash of what happened. A feature was rushed in and does not work as intended, in a kind of disastrous way. Now we feel like our customers do when they have to deal with all the crap that our AI co-authors push forward without the right process.

Glorified autocomplete, syntax reminder and random snippet generator thinks it's co-authoring things.

I’m sorry, I don’t get it: a piece of software needs credit for creating another piece of software? Like, would you credit GCC for adding optimisations to your binary?

It's useful as metadata (like how JPEGs can store the camera model it was taken on, or PDFs contain the program used to generate it), but yes, I don't like LLMs giving themselves co-author credit. I turn this off in Claude Code.

It's a useful warning label for LLMed code. (When an editor isn't gratuitously adding it to non-LLMed code.)

GCC isn't making editorial decisions.

How can anyone differentiate an insider bet from a normal one enough to actually make use of it?

I think the premise is that the betting market prediction odds should be more accurate than other sources of statistics because of the underlying financial incentive.

As long as the hordes of losers are not bothered by it enough to ask for fairness in the business, you’re right. Ethics and morals are constructs with the intention of creating a better, more just common existence. If the people in this common existence don’t care, then there is no reason for them not to do it.

Because the markets don’t “forbid” anything, especially when they are profiting from it, which polymarket definitely is. It’s the government who must forbid things for the good of the citizens. But somehow the citizens were dumb enough to fall for the bullshit idea that you should put the same person who is profiting in charge of regulating their own crimes!