You call it “the topic”, while otherwise you’re referring to the topic understood. Therefore, I’m pretty sure Inform reads that as simply a topic.
If you didn’t see the edit, I said that I tested it with others that didn’t have that “If the topic is who are you” code and it is still saying the stock message as well.
So the code would be something like this.
[code]
After asking the Archer about something:
if the topic understood is a topic listed in the Table of Archer Responses:
say “[response entry]”;
otherwise:
say “To see what topics you can speak about, type ‘Ask Archer about’”;
continue the action;
[/code]
I can’t reproduce the issue. My advice would be for you to create a minimum example that shows the error but still compiles, and post it. That way, someone on the forums is practically guaranteed to help you in short order. Right now, there’s any number of things that could be the culprit.
What do you mean by a Minimum example? Like an inform file?
Simplest way is to make a new copy of the project, and then just remove from that copy all the things that don’t make the problem show up, while still having the new project compile. The idea is to end up with a handful of lines that you can post on the forum within [code] tags. Then, other people with Inform will be able to compile and go, “hm, yeah, you’re right, that is a funny issue”… or even better, they’ll go “aha, I see the problem.”
Cutting things out doesn’t take all that long, usually. Even for a big project, it should really only take a few minutes.
Don’t worry, this has now been fixed. The “Continue the action” needed to be changed to “Stop the action”
All right. Anyway, I stand by that advice; it’s the best way to get feedback you can rely on.
For future reference, you can also write:
say "To see what topics you can speak about, type 'Ask Archer about'" instead.This has the same effect as “Stop the action.”
You can also use an “instead of” rule rather than an “after” rule.
Something you may want to try that is sort of basic Inform 7 organization…instead of changing the printed name in an after rule, you could put it in a carry out rule.
Carry out asking the archer about something when the topic understood is "Who are you" (This is the identify the archer rule):
now the printed name of the archer is "Schmecky McShootypants".
A lot of problems can be more easily sorted by not doing everything in one rule. Then if you name your rules, you can use RULES ON in the IDE and identify when and if rules are being triggered.