I dislike not implementing objects that are mentioned in the room
description. But I know that, unless you have very simple
environments, it's impossible to fully implement every object. You'd
go insane. So I prefer a lot of "that's not important." messages. They
aren't entirely in the mood (although it's really very common to tell
the player what to think), but at least they don't slow the game down,
and they don't give the impression that the author is amnesiac.
In Inform, actually, I've been doing a lot of objects which are one
step above "You don't need to refer to that object." I create a
scenery object whose before property is
[ "That's out of reach."; ]
or some other slightly individualized string. Maybe "Don't hassle
that." or "That belongs to the vendor, don't wreck it." It's there,
but you can't do anything to it.
If I want to expend a little more energy, make an exception for
"examine" and add a description. Now you can examine it, but nothing
else. And it still doesn't slow the game down, because when "take
thing" and "push thing" and "eat thing" all produce the same response,
the player catches on pretty quickly.
It's not as good as adding lots and lots of detail, but it's better
than taking three years to release your game.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."