Sorry to go back a bit…
I, uh, fail to see the problem, and I seem to be the only one, so I must be wrong somewhere. AFAIK, since namekusejin defined the object as “oak tree”, that means any interaction directed to “oak”, “tree” or “oak tree” will work. So you would be able to refer to it as a “tree” in the example provided.
…wouldn’t you?
You would, but that’s a synonym that wasn’t mentioned in the text, only in the source.
Then I must be misundertstanding this whole thing (not the whole thread, just this micro-discussion here). I thought it was about understanding synonims even though they’re not specified in the game text - understading “water” as “pond” even though the description does not say “water” at all. By this token, the example would correctly accept “tree”, as it should, even though the game text doesn’t say “oak tree”.
EDIT - I mean yeah, the example is insufficient and some synonims would be welcome, and these synonims would have no place in the object’s name in the source, this is ground already covered. But it’s valid, it works, and it should actually be sufficient for most games unless the tree is given more importance in the game’s text.
Well, I think that namekuseijin originally stated his argument to say that the game only needs to understand nouns that are explicitly mentioned in the text. Technically, this would be true even for following source:
An oak is here. “A nearby oak looks positively tall.”
even though that source wouldn’t understand “tree.” Draconis’s point is that this would be annoying; the player could reasonably expect “x tree” to work even though the word “tree” does not appear in the printed text.
Ok, so the emphasis here is not on “tree” but on “oak”, that one being the synonim he grudingly added to the source to “solve the problem” quickly.
Gotcha, thanks muchly. On with the discussion, don’t mind me. 