I have often wondered about doors and directions of movements.
In the following example, what do you prefer, and why?
You are in the living room of your house and there’s a door leading out to the porch.
Would you have the player open the door before being able to leave the living room, or would you just have a direction, “out” for instance (letting the player automatically open and closing the door as s/he leaves the living room?
What would you prefer as a player?
The second. No contest.
Maybe I’m one of them wet-behind-me-ears youngsters without grit or gumption, and thus unable to hack it like the oldschoolers did. Actually, I’m pretty sure that’s uncontested. But when I type something into the parser, I want the parser, as far as this is possible, to do everything it can to understand the spirit of my request. Unless there’s ambiguity or a significant choice to be made, I simply don’t see the purpose of forcing the player to do makework.
If the door in question is an airlock behind which you have hard vacuum, then I can understand why the player would feel the need to hesitate or even admonish me (“no, you have to open the airlock door first”). But otherwise? Otherwise it’s just a barrier and a speed bump, much like any “red key or gold key?” puzzle. It’s not a puzzle, it doesn’t provide narration, and it doesn’t contribute anything save tedium.
EDIT: Now I feel a bit silly. In my post-dinner comatose state I may have overlooked the thrust of your question. I’d have to say that, direction-wise, it depends. I usually prefer both methods, where you can either go through the door or go in the given direction.
I fully agree with Eleas. There’s no point in generally forcing the player to type OPEN PORCH DOOR before he can enter it or go south or whatever.
I don’t particularly mind some standard response like “(first opening the porch door)”, though.
And of course there may be more or less good reasons to leave it to the player to open doors: as in Eleas’s example; or if you’re in the middle of a timed puzzle where opening a door should count as one turn—in such a case it’s more fair, I think, to let the player knowingly spend one turn on opening the door than to open it automatically for him and counting two turns for that one command.
A door that can be (has to be) opened and closed can be fine: if your game is about that door. For instance, if you’re making a zombie survival game, and it really matters for his survival whether the player remembers to close the door? That’s a great reason to implement a door that can be opened and closed.
But if the door is not important to your game, I wouldn’t bother implementing it and I certainly wouldn’t force the player to interact with it.