The Zork Library Forum

Continued from the fanart thread:

Quote:
Siriusstar: The many ways in which Activision ignored or mangled existing canon is a subject unto itself.

Dr. Paul: I'm glad you said that.  Now we have lots of things to talk about.  

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Oh yes, plenty to talk about there. lol. So much that I think it merits a thread of its own.

It isn't that the Activision games are not good games on their own. I do realize that the series needed to be expanded upon to make successful new games. Some of their ideas were pretty good and reasonably consistent with what came before; but too often it seems that Activision's Zorks play so loosely with canon that they barely resemble Infocom's. If Z:N were simply called 'Nemesis' and not Zork: Nemesis, there would only be a handful of references that bring Zork to mind at all; some of those it does have are incorrect or awkwardly placed. Z:GI isn't canon perfect, either. I can't remember RTZ well enough to comment accurately.

One of my personal pet peeves is the denigrating of the Dungeon Master's duties. As per Zork Zero, the DM was to watch over ALL the kingdom of Quendor, not just the Underground, and to be certain any rulership that does arise is benevolent. If evil alchemists did come to be, their removal would be the task of the DM or those she/he chose to help her/him. I admit some of this may be preference as opposed to cold, hard factual canon.

Of course the very concept of a 'solar system' was disproved in Zork Zero.

I'm not at all convinced about Syovar and the Enchanter's Guild. It does not match with what we know of the Enchanters' Guild in the Enchanter Trilogy.

Aging: I can buy a 'long life spell.' (It is not mentioned in Infocom canon, but it is certainly a reasonable addition to it.) But I have a hard time with spells of any kind still working after the utter abolishment of magic. There was no room as per the end of Spellbreaker for ANY magic to exist after the end. According to Infocom canon Sorcerers normally live to be 175 years old, but this would most certainly be because of their magic. And how did Lucy and Jack manage to live so long? Jack isn't even magical!

Ages, pt. 2: Belboz is described as ageless in Spellbreaker, not old as he appears in the portrait in Z:GI; nor is he remotely in character. Y'Gael? That is certainly not the Y'Gael of Beyond Zork & Wishbringer.

There are more. (Aside from those that have been mentioned already.) But that's enough for the moment. lol.  

The inconsistencies aren't all terrible. I've been known to exploit a few on occasion. Some I merely work around or ignore.

What inconsistencies do the rest of you notice? Which are the most irritating? Which do you prefer Activison's way?  

Wow!  I'm gonna have to go and do a little studying before I can add something noteworthy.

But here's one thing:  I'm not sure if RTZ is off-limits or not in this topic.  The reason is that RTZ was an Infocom game which also provided us with the Encyclopedia Frobozzica, from which much of Zork canon is extracted.  On the otherhand, at the time of release of RTZ, I think that Infocom was an ActiVision company.  So does RTZ count as an Infocom game or an ActiVision game?

I consider RTZ definitely an Activision game. Infocom was essentially only a label after 1989, when Activision 'moved' the company to California.  It's definitely fair game for inconsistency scrutinizing. I simply don't remember the finer points of RTZ well enough to nitpick it myself.

Nearly all of the info in the Encyclopedia came from the original Infocom games, their packaging, and occasionally, from the New Zork Times/Status Line newsletters; so most of the *Encyclopedia* is Infocom canon, despite coming with a game released after Infocom was dissolved. A few errors have managed to tangle things up, (i.e. the date for Enchanter.) but it is a handy guide and I'm happy to have it.

I just finished playing The Undiscovered Underground.  I completed the game, but only got 67 out of 100 points.  Being a little lazy, I consulted the TUU invisiclues to see what I missed.  

While looking through them, I noticed a section in the invisiclues about Grues and about the fact that they are actually described in TUU.  It also remarks that they (ActiVision) could get away with this because they had the original authors write the game.  So I guess we take the Grue description in TUU as canon.  In fact, I guess we should take the whole game as canon even though it is an ActiVision game.  

But here's the real poin to this note:  The TUU Invisiclues also say that you can Frotz a Grue in Sorcerer anytime you are in the dark to get a brief description of the Grues.

I vaguely remember doing this but can't remember.  But since Sorcerer is Siriusstar's favorite, maybe she can remember if the description in Sorcerer is consistent with the description given in TUU.

What say you, Siriusstar?  

I just checked in Sorcerer myself, and it describes it as a multi-fanged creature who runs off tearing at its glowing fur. So:
The fur glows, but because of the spell, not just...because.
And it doesn't explode.
Hm...

Ha! I never tried frotzing a grue. I tend to play rather seriously most of the time. As if my character is really doing these things and needs to survive without the ability to 'restore.' One definitely misses out on some fun that way, though.  lol.

That's actually quite interesting. I agree that we do have to (slightly dubiously) accept TUU as Infocom canon... but it also makes the two grue descriptions nearly impossible to reconcile. Glowing is definitely not something Sorcerer's grues do naturally.  

IIRC, there is another instance of a grue ceasing to exist when hit by light. In Beyond Zork, when your character fights the Ur-Grue, you destroy the 'grue' part of the creature by aiming a beam of sunlight into its enveloping shadow. Perhaps different kinds of light affects grues differently? One could apologize for Sorcerer's grue not exploding (or dissapearing) by saying the magical light 'captured' the grue in a way that normal light wouldn't?

I can't think of anything to solve the glowing, though. :-/

Yeah.  This glowing fur seems to present an inconsistency between the description in Sorcerer and in TUU.  From the Sorcerer description, it sure doesn't sound like 'glowing' is something Grues do naturally.

I guess the fact that a Frotzed Grue doesn't explode could be explained by the notion that the light is being emitted outwardly from the Grue but it is not actually striking the Grue.  The light is going out, not in.

Still, this glowing fur thing is a problem.  I think there must have been some other, non-standard forces at work in TUU to cause the fur to glow.  Maybe having something to do with the banishment of Magic during the reign of the GI has affected Grues, since they are somewhat magical creatures or are from a magical realm.  The glowing might indicate that they are a step closer to 'our' world while Magic is banished.

I recall that in one of the graphic games, probably GI, there is a book or something that shows a picture of a Grue, but the picture is simply a solid black square with no indication of a glowing outline.  Where am I remembering that from?

The picture of the Grue was from a book in the Steppinthrax Library in Zork Nemesis called "Interview with a Grue."

As for grues and light?  I know some (or most) fans don't necessarily consider them canon, but the Infocom novels "The Lost City of Zork" and "Enchanter" cover grues in light a little bit.  In the Lost City, one of the grues is frotzed.  It runs around in pain for some time, the light making it too indistinct to make out many details.  As it runs around, the characters notice that the shadow at the heart of the light seems to be shrinking.  Turns out the light was slowly eating away at the grue.

In Enchanter, one especially large and stubborn grue chases the main characters into the sunlight, again implying that grues can survive for a while at least in the light.

The description from 'Lost City' sounds a little like my grue plot. I really need to read the novels someday.

I wish I knew how much the novels were based on actual information from the game authors. I've heard the novels had little to do with the games, but nothing verifiable.

The novels actually take place AROUND the games.  "The Lost City of Zork" is supposed to take place shortly after Duncanthrax takes over as ruler of Quendor, and focuses on the start of the Empire, and specifically the Underground Highway.

"Enchanter" is supposed to be about the Great/Unseen Terror briefly encountered in the original Enchanter game.  The book is supposed to be after the game, stating that after the original enchanter disturbed the seal on the Terror, it managed, after quite some time, to escape.

There are inconsistencies that some fans would notice, and it may or may not bother you.  For example, despite taking place at the start of the Flathead Dynasty during Duncanthrax's reign, the Berzio potion (obviate need for food and drink) is used long before it is named/invented.

But they also try and explain a few things from the games.  For instance, "The Lost City of Zork" offers an explanation for all of the random spell scrolls found throughout the GUE.

Hmm, a lot of interesting ideas, I've been so busy I've not had time to reply. First I must say that there are bound to be inconsistencies because the Zork Universe is so massive and expansive. Although not really acceptable it makes trying to explain things a chore. Reminds me of religions trying to always explain things conveniently to fit the religion instead of allowing science to explain it simply.

All the grue issues... I'd say that one might just simply say there are different species of grue's... similar to saying different species of mammals. It is all quite interesting though, I do like the idea of a glowing grue heh.