TriadCity Message of the Day
2002-06-14

Drumroll please...

We're very pleased to announce that an early iteration of our long-anticipated chatterbot "Oscar" is online.

Oscar, as we've been promising for more than a year, is a repository of many of Oscar Wilde's witty epigrams and aphorisms. He's unlike a conventional chatterbot, 'cause he doesn't try to converse. Instead, he fires-off observations and witticisms in a way which is close to free-association.

Oscar seems especially appropriate for a world like TriadCity's, with its pervasive allusions to literature and culture. Wilde himself is an intriguing figure in RPG context: a man who helped define the preoccupation with masks-as-identity which has become such a prominent theme in online communities. Like many funny people Wilde was principally a moralist; his ethical philosophy seems appropriate inside TC's explorations of good and evil. Blah blah blah!

Note that Oscar will sometimes intervene in Chat discussions, unlike our other bots. In testing, we've found his contributions to be oddly appropriate to the ongoing conversation.

Like our Help bot, the current Oscar is a very early approximation of what will grow up to be a much richer implementation. Pretty much like everything around here. :-)

Have fun with him!

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