BETTER LIVING THROUGH
LANGUAGE
The Communicative
Implications of a Text-Only Virtual Environment,
Welcome to LambdaMOO!
Eva-Lise
Carlstrom
Grinnell
College
15
May 1992
With the growth of computer technology and the
resources available to colleges and businesses, new forms of communication have
appeared. Computer chatlines and
bulletin boards are now commonplace; these are both communication modes similar
to a conversation, but held in text.
Clearly, this type of conversation will have some fundamental differences
from one held vocally in person, particularly the lack of paralinguistic
features such as tone or expression.
MUDs, or Multi-User Dungeons, are an
outgrowth of this technology plus the popularity of adventure roleplaying as
exemplified by Dungeons and Dragons. They are environments which one can log
into from a terminal connected to Internet, and then interact in text with
objects, places, and other players within a gamelike setting. There are several kinds of MUDs and
variations on MUDs, varying according to programming complexity and style, and
called such names as UnterMUDs, MUSHes, MUCKs, etc.
The programming of the environment
and commands affects what can be done in a MUD and the kind of activity that
goes on there. Some MUDs are extremely
adventure-oriented and involve little interaction between players. Others
emphasize socializing, and still others are primarily a practice ground for
programmers. These features are found
in varying degrees in different MUDs, but there is usually a noticeable
emphasis in some direction.
This paper will concentrate on one
particular MOO (MUD, Object-Oriented), LambdaMOO. This MOO is one of the most active and social available. It combines the social, programming and
gaming aspects more than many MUDs do.
Also, it is extremely complex and elaborated, and so reflects the
possibilities of many different kinds of simpler MUDs.
LambdaMOO is not only a new
sociolinguistic environment, it is a new kind of sociolinguistic environment.
To illustrate: on entering a new MUD for the first time, it is reasonable to
ask about what commands can be used, how objects are defined, what one can
change about one's character, etc. This
is roughly equivalent to arriving in a new country and inquiring about the laws
of physics. It is commonly said that
speakers of a language construct reality by doing so. In a MUD it is literally true that "reality" is created
through language, both by the actions of the players and through the code used
used by the programmers.
The creators and maintainers of a
MUD are known as Gods or Wizards, and have powers within the MUD that are
beyond a normal player's abilities. On
most MUDs, a player can become a Wizard by proving his or her programming and/or adventuring ability. Before this occurs, a player is limited to
the actions and objects created by existing Wizards. LambdaMOO is different in this respect because it is a hands-on
object-oriented system. Everything in a
MOO is defined as an object with an identifying number, including things,
places, and even players. Even new
players have the ability to create new objects (although not to program new
functional objects). There are also no
barriers to becoming a programmer, which allows a player, by request, to gain
the power to program new verbs and functional objects.
As a MOO ethnographer, I have a
distinct advantage over an anthropologist arriving in most unfamiliar
cultures. The MOO society is made up
precisely of visitors from all over, of varying degrees of familiarity with the
MOO environment and MUDs in general. As
my character, PatGently, I am as much a member of the MOO population as is any
other player, and, in fact, have been on longer than many players I meet there. I was fortunate enough to get into the MOO
while it was still open to character creation without the requirement of
requesting it from a wizard. The
popularity of LambdaMOO has demanded this change to discourage the
less-interested from creating characters which will then burden the MOO's memory
capacity.
In doing fieldwork for this paper, I
used several recording techniques which have different implications for the
data collected. In the order in which I
came to use them, they are:
1)Printscreen. This is inefficient, but good for capturing
small fragments when not recording in any other way. It records everything appearing on the screen at the time
directly on paper.
2)VAX
log files. These keep a perfect record
of everything typed displayed on the screen, including the user's commands, but
they quit without notice after a certain file size.
3)A
virtual camcorder device. This is the
only recording method which is visible to other players on the MOO. Within the MOO environment, it is a
"physical" object, which can be used with MOO videotapes, turned on
and off, etc. The tapes can later be
played back on a MOO VCR/TV.
Unfortunately, the only way to record the tape content outside the MOO
is to printscreen or log the playback session.
Each line of playback is prefaced with "ON MOOTV" to separate
it from anything going on in the room the TV is in. Just as in RL (real life), some people object to being
videotaped. I had one player object to
my taping not on the grounds of privacy, but because the device is fairly heavy
in CPU use, which burdens the system.
Since the MOO was not heavily burdened at the time and he seemed quite
upset, I suspect it may really have been a privacy issue. Also as in RL fieldwork, I found that many
of the people I spoke to with the camcorder had never seen one before and were
curious about how it worked and what it did (in this case, they knew what a RL
camcorder did, but had never seen the programmed MOO object before). At one point I spent an entire recording
session demonstrating the camera to a group and recorded no other
interaction. This was part of the
reason for abandoning the camcorder, along with the objections to being
recorded and the requirement of playback, which is slow and annoying.
4)Tinytalk. This is a log system which works for MUDs
through Sun workstations. It keeps a
record like the VAX log except that it does not record the user's commands,
only their results. The commands are
generally obvious from the results, but there are some exceptions, such as
spoofing (described later). Tinytalk does
not stop recording until the user leaves the MUD. This is by far the best recording method, but I did not learn
about it until late.
Because the MOO is a programmed
environment, I can and must delineate the distinct communication forms possible
there. The speech modes are `say',
`page', and `whisper'. Say is the usual
mode, used for talking to anyone in the room.
Page is used to speak to someone at a distance (it is private, and can
be used in the same room). Whisper is
used within a room, and is private. However, some player classes have the
ability to notice when someone is whispering (though not hear the message), and
may object to it.
Next to say, `emote' is the most
common communication form. Emote is
used to perform actions ("PatGently waves hello", "Xiombarg
grins."). Emote is also used for
speech when a verb other than "says" is desired, as in "Tequila
coos, 'You're sweet'". Emote is
very different from any RL mode of communication because, rather than merely
enabling the physically or humanly possible, it allows anything that is
verbally possible. For instance, a
player named Sabrina can type, ":bobs around near the ceiling.", and
the message "Sabrina bobs around near the ceiling." will appear on
everyone's screen. Also, emote allows projection of thoughts in constructions
such as "PatGently wonders about that, but decides not to ask", which
can be amusingly paradoxical. Emote
commands have no "real" effect; that is, if one player types
":sends Plato to hell", Plato will not in fact go anywhere. Emoting is purely show.
Most MUDs do not have free
emoting--it is available only to wizards, or for a cost of spell points (needed
for magic in adventure contexts). To
fill the need for expression, most MUDs have a series of "atmosphere
commands" such as smile, grin, laugh, kiss, pat, dance, yawn, cry, etc.
which can be used by anyone and which produce a preprogrammed line on the
screen (for instance, every time you type "dance" on a typical MUD,
the action will appear on your screen as "You do the Disco
Duck"). LambdaMOO has recently
added a small set of atmosphere commands.
Mistakes do occur in the selection
of communication modes, such as a player using say instead of emote and ending
up with an action enclosed in quotation marks.
This tends to be immediately obvious and is noticed and corrected by the
speaker.
Actions, as in real life, may also
have communicative intent. As mentioned
above, emoting ":sends Plato to hell" will not send Plato to hell. To
accomplish that, the player would have to type "@move Plato to
#19232" (the object number for Hell), at which point the character Plato
will in fact be teleported to Hell. But
this would be considered rude. Leaving,
shooting people with zappers or paintball guns, and throwing things at them can
also be effective methods of showing disapproval. In one case, I even discouraged someone's unwanted affections by
changing my gender. Actions meant as
friendlier communication would include joining someone in the hot tub, removing
clothing (if one is of a character class that can do this--players can change
character class if they wish), giving someone objects, or using a healing spell
on an injured player.
Because there are many programmers
and so one frequently encounters verbs and functional objects that are
unfamiliar, it is not always immediately obvious whether a line that appears on
the screen is a simple emote or an action using a verb or object unknown to the
viewer. Complicating the matter is
spoofing.
To spoof to present a line of text
as if originating from another player, or as if an independent event has
occurred. Spoofing is possible under
certain conditions in many MUDs, and may be done just for fun, or to cause confusion
and gain advantage. Example: Player A
may be able to produce on everyone else's screen the line "Player B hits
you!", thus causing everyone to attack Player B in defense against a
nonexistent offense. Since Player B has
also received the message, though, everyone is likely to figure out what
happened soon enough. Spoofing is
usually considered rude to some degree, but may be considered funny or clever
enough to make up for it. On LambdaMOO,
spoofing is officially disapproved of, but it is possible to create verbs that
allow players to spoof. There are
several forms of spoof verbs on the MOO, most of which credit the user in some
way so that they are not true spoofing and do not transgress the rules for
acceptable behaviour.
Other modes of MOO communication
include descriptions and move messages.
The most obvious is the character name and description. The character name is the first thing
created. Names are usually fairly
exotic-sounding and unrelated to the player's name (there are exceptions). One of the first things a player does on
creating a character is to set his or her description. This description may be very short (I have
seen them as short as two words, but this is unusual) or very long (essay
length). Usually they several lines
long and provide a physical description of of the character and a sense of
personality. Descriptions are often
heavily poetic prose, describing the beauty or handsomeness of the
character. There are some descriptions that
parody this tendency, and many that depart entirely from it. Some players describe themselves in their
character description, but this is not assumed by any means. As I have implied above, players may not
even be the same gender as their characters (gender may be changed at will to
any of 10 possibilities, only some of which are sensible), much less height,
weight, hair color, age, level of attractiveness, historical period, or,
sometimes, species. The most common
character type is an attractive young man or woman looking like a character out
of a popular fantasy, science fiction, or horror novel. Some player classes have the ability to take
several forms with different descriptions.
Besides the personal descriptions,
which are an obvious form of self-expression, descriptions of rooms and other
objects may be communicative. Players may create personal rooms for themselves,
describe them in any manner desired, and add any objects they like (including
functional objects, if they know a parent object to copy from or can program
objects themselves). Personal rooms
usually expand on a theme clear from the character description. For instance, a vampire character might have
a dim room full of candles and velvet draperies, with a coffin in the
center. Just as some characters are
more down-to-earth than others, some rooms are extremely bizarre, while others
are simple studies or bedrooms.
Objects a character is carrying are
seen by other players when they look at them, so they add to the impression the
character makes. Objects also have
descriptions. All objects can be created, exchanged, dropped or picked up, and
recycled (destroyed). Programmers can
create objects that do more, and most of these objects can be copied so anyone
can make their own. The @exam command
allows players to look closely at objects (including rooms and characters), and
see not only the description, but the object number, owner (usually the
creator), and obvious verbs that can be used with the object. @parent is
another useful verb, allowing the player to identify the parent object from
which a thing is copied. There are many
"generic objects" in the MOO, which can be copied (have
"children" made of them) and/or elaborated on by programmers.
Pets, puppets, and other followers
are a distinct category of self-expressive objects. For instance, PatGently has a copy of the generic following dog
modified into a cat, Asmodeus has a tiger named Hobbes, Xiombarg has a Sacred
Chao and a puppet described as her "evil twin", and Sick has a fan
club that takes pictures. Pets may be
trained to perform actions on command or in response to other actions. The standard dog sits, fetches, rolls over,
plays dead, and speaks, responds to pets and kicks, and also sniffs itself at
random intervals. A player can train
his or her pet to do anything, according to preference and sense of humor.
Just as pets have messages that can
be modified, players do too. When a
character teleports into or out of a room, the other players present see a
message on the screen announcing that fact, and this can be rewritten however
the player pleases. Most characters who
have been on for a while have changed their teleport messages, some very
humorously. There are also messages
displayed to someone who pages a character, and other modifiable messages that
play less of a role.
It will be readily seen that a
text-only environment has important implications for the kinds of communication
that take place there. Several
important elements in RL communication are absent or changed:
1.) `Proxemics'. There is no spacing of players in a MOO
room--all are simply there. Proxemics
may, however, be implied by use of emote commands ("PatGently snuggles up
to Xiombarg") or use of furniture or other objects ("Lilly sits on
the sofa").
2.) `Silence'. This carries comparatively little meaning on
the MOO. Unlike speech sounds, Internet typed messages take a measurable amount
of time to reach the receiver. Usually
the delay is small enough not to cause communication problems, but longer
delays arise intermittently, caused by a general lag, or slowing of the system
due to heavy processing. It is
understood that MUD lag may increase at any time, and that individual players
may be experiencing lag on their systems that the others do not see. Also, messages appear only when the player
presses return at the end, so a long message will cause a longer pause while
the player types. While a player is
typing, he or she does not see messages about what else is going on. These will appear only after the return key
is hit. The features of a slower "speed of sound", variable lag time,
and the fact that messages are shown only in their entirety, not heard as they
are spoken (or seen while being typed, as with VAX phone) mean that a lack of
immediate response to a comment or question is not taken as meaningful until it
lasts for several utterances.
3.) Turn-taking. For the same reasons listed for silence,
strict turn-taking is impossible and so does not exist. Similarly, interruption is generally an
undefinable concept. Several conversations
tend to be going on at once in a room, even if only two people are there, and
utterances belonging to the various subjects overlap and intermingle. The conditions described above make this
likely to occur, and it is also unproblematic because all messages appear on
the screen and do not drown each other out as they would in speech. Also, a
player who is confused by a seemingly
contextless remark can look back up the screen for its earlier referent. This form of communication is slightly less ephemeral
than sound, and spacing and timing are less important than in normal
speech. One disadvantage of a text-only
environment, however, is that events which do not interfere with vocal-aural
communication do interfere with MOO communication. For instance, a programmed object that performs actions
frequently is just as "noisy" (in terms of taking up screen space and
reading attention) as a character talking, and if there is too much going on,
speech
messages
may be missed in the confusion, or scroll off the screen too quickly to be
read. I have been asked to stop playing
with complex objects and verbs in the living room (the hub of the MOO and main
social gathering place) for this reason.
When one MOO character convened a meeting on VR that was open to all
comers, there were enough people in the room to make it very difficult to keep
up with the comments, and one of the first things done was banishing pets from the room so that they
would not contribute to the mayhem.
Similarly, we quickly realized that raising our hands before speaking
did not help matters any.
The following transcript was made 6
Mar 1992 in the living room of LambdaMOO.
It is unedited, and therefore includes both my own commands and the
visible results of them. This allows
the reader to see the effects of lag
time on communication, as frequently several utterances from others come
between my command and its execution.
The sense of comments overlapping and passing each other is typical of
the MOO. The lines are numbered
for reference. The reader should assume that any
orthographic peculiarities are recorded verbatim.
1 Amarantha takes a cigarette from packet
of Marlboros.
2 :asks Amarantha whether she could
refrain from smoking.
3 PatGently asks Amarantha whether she
could refrain from smoking.
4 Cookie goes idle for a bit
5 Skip doesn't think it's cool to smoke
anymore
6 Amarantha lights a cigarette.
7 HardWare has disconnected.
8 Cookie waves
9 Moebius coughs furiously
10 Skip too
11 Amarantha sighs at fascism on the MOO.
12 Skip grins
13 Moebius wonders since when coughing was
fascist
14 :is amused at people coughing from MOO
smoke.
15 Amarantha takes a puff on her Marlboro
cigarette.
16 Mista says, "Let's just open the
sliding glass doors, and everyone will be happy."
17 Amarantha says, "everybody needs a
hobby!"
18 Mista says, "...get a nice breeze
in here."
19 mandy says, "hiya dooby"
20 PatGently is amused at people coughing
from MOO smoke.
21 Skip opens a window
22 Amarantha says, "It's ok, my
neo-nazi friends... I'll step outside."
23 Mista laughs in rl.
24 Mista smiles.
25 Moebius says, "it's all right with
the ventilation..."
26 Skip shortens in rl to irl
27 HardWare has connected.
28 Moebius puts on a sweater
29 Mista nods and smiles.
30 Amarantha takes a puff on her Marlboro
cigarette.
31 HardWare is back.
32 Amarantha says, "I'll blow smoke
rings to entertain you!"
33 look amar
34 HardWare hats the stupid server.
35 Amarantha
a Muse, a Fury, a Siren, and Ethel
Merman rolled into one. She has a penchant for peaches.
She is awake and looks alert.
Carrying:
wooden chest
Magic Rose (worn)
staff
a pack of Silk Cuts
packet of Marlboros
lit Marlboro cigarette
36 Moebius waves and the waves form
interesting interference patterns
37 Moebius likes hats
38 HardWare has to go.
39 :serves the stupid hats.
40
Amarantha blows rings resembling obscure parts of the anatomy.
At the beginning of this transcript,
Amarantha takes out a cigarette. This could be an emote, but is in fact an
action performed on her possession "packet of Marlboros", which
appears in her inventory when I look at her later (line 35). I (PatGently) respond immediately to her
action by using an emote to ask her not to smoke, as does Skip. The length of Skip's utterance and the brief
space between my comment and his indicates that we must have been typing at the
same time. Amarantha lights a cigarette
anyway, probably done before our messages appeared.
Moebius and Skip respond to
Amarantha's smoking by coughing (with emote).
The conflict is now clearly recognized.
In line 16, Mista suggests opening the sliding glass doors to the deck
to get some ventilation. In fact, these
doors cannot be opened and left open, they can only be opened in the process of
going through them. This is in addition to the obvious fact that reading
about someone smoking a cigarette is not irritating to anyone's lungs, and
therefore the whole scene is spontaneous roleplaying within the MOO
environment. Skip's grin on line 12 and
Mista's laughing and smiling in lines 23-24 is probably provoked by
consciousness of the humor of this, as was my emote on line 20.
Amarantha offers to step outside,
still complaining about our complaints (line 22). At line 21, before seeing Amarantha's offer, Skip emotes opening
a window. This is completely
non-functional; there is not even a window to be opened. Nevertheless, it obviously satisfies Moebius
(line 25) and Mista (line 29). There
are no further complaints about the smoke from anyone else either, but Moebius
emotes putting on a sweater, presumably to counteract the "cold air"
from the nonexistent open window. At
this point, the dispute is settled, a nonexistent problem solved by a nonexistent solution, and everyone is happy.
Clearly, players consider MOO events
to have some effect for which there is an appropriate response, even when there
is not even an effect as "real" as changing the description of
anything in the room (as would happen if a functional window existed and had
been opened). LambdaMOO is an involving
world, and players simultaneously take it very seriously and treat it as a
grand game. Things that happen on
LambdaMOO can have very strong emotional impact, as evidenced by the existence
of netsex and MUD romances.
Netsex is similar to phone sex, but
conducted on a MUD and therefore with emote as well as say capabilities, so
that the acts performed are psychologically closer to real actions than to
descriptions of actions. Some people
conduct sexual and social lives on the MOO, and on other MUDs there are even weddings
between characters. The fact that
netsex exists, and the way that emote is programmed, also makes
"netrape" possible. It would
be very easy to have happen, even accidentally due to a misunderstanding, since
there is no way of preventing someone from saying they are doing something to
you. Netrape can affect players
emotionally almost like real rape would, despite the lack of actual
contact. My point in bringing this up
is that LambdaMOO is not merely a game to its inhabitants. It is an unreal environment in which real
interactions happen.
Aside from the smoking issue,
another point about MOO interaction appears in this transcript. HardWare's typo ("hats" for
"hates") on line 35 shows that "speech errors" on the MOO
are rather different from those in vocal speech. His utterance is understood by those present (he is frustrated
with lag and the computer resources), but they take the opportunity to play
with language. Moebius responds by
saying that he likes hats, and I respond by rearranging the elements of the
sentence. Wordplay is very common on
the MOO, which is to be expected in an environment constructed of words.
I
described spoofing earlier, and I have said that it is not always clear what is
happening from the messages that appear on the screen. The following transcript, from 29 Feb. 1992,
illustrates this phenomenon well.
1 Reggie squirts a cloud of Love Potion
in billy's direction.
2 Billy's eyes meet Reggie's gaze from
across the room. It's Love at First
Sight!
3 Xyphus looks at Melina
4 Billy declares her undying love for
Reggie
5 Billy winks suggestively at Reggie
6 Billy says, "lots of spoofing
here"
7 All eyes turn to Billy as she starts
making kissing noises at Reggie
8 Reggie says, "nah... its just the
potion, Billy!"
9 Billy declares her undying love for
Reggie
10 Billy goes home.
Reggie has an object, Love Potion
#9, which is unfamiliar to the others present (there were several people in the
room, including myself and Catbutt in addition to those that appear in the
transcript). Billy reasonably assumes
that since she is not doing the things attributed to her, declaring love,
winking, etc., someone must be spoofing her.
I also thought this was what was happening, but Reggie clarifies by
attributing Billy's apparent actions to the potion. In fact, the potion is programmed so that when sprayed at
someone, it produces the messages shown, with the names of sprayer and sprayee
inserted. Billy leaves, apparently in response to the experience, but it is unclear
whether she understands the potion, and whether she is offended or merely
confused and going somewhere calmer, a very common reaction on the MOO.
I hope that this paper has given the
reader some sense of the power and possibility available to the inhabitants of
LambdaMOO and of other MUDs. My own
experiences with LambdaMOO have given me a taste of language-based virtual
reality that I find addictive, both for its realism and for its profound differences
from what I can experience IRL.
The technology of virtual reality is
commonly understood to be an attempt to simulate real life and the interactions
possible therein. Programming constructs are judged by the closeness of their
approach to realism. Real-life
simulation is indeed a useful goal for many practical applications of VR
technology. However, experience in a
text-based virtual reality has convinced me that the flavor of
"reality" found there is not merely an imperfect reflection of real
life potentials, but an independent system whose communicative and social forms
arise from the modality itself. The
ways in which interaction on a textual interactive system are different from
real-life interaction should not be seen as flaws or signs of inferiority, but
as indications of a different kind of reality.
Here
are some sample character descriptions, to provide a feel for the form and of
the personality of the MOO. Characters
of player classes that can change clothes have their current clothing as the
last part of their description.
Some
descriptions have flaws because of programming problems. Looking at a character produces the
description, a line stating whether the character is alert, idle, or asleep
(player logged off), usually "He is awake and looks alert", and the
character's inventory list. The
following consists of descriptions only.
Also, it must be stated that Allysa's
description below is not typical, and caused much comment and
controversy when she entered a room. In addition, a few characters have
"descriptions" consisting of text graphics rather than verbal
descriptions.
rohan
a
lost soul looking for an education
Kougar
He is a "recom", a genetically engineered
human with short, tawny fur and a tail that sweeps slightly
upwards short of the ground. A computer specialist, he has implanted a
network interface into the
base of his skull.
He wears only a black leather vest and matching shorts. This is an append_msg.
Nightwatcher
Nightwatcher looks at you, his steady green eyes
sparkling. His pleasant but searching gaze roots
you to the spot, as if in a trance. After a moment, he turns and his blonde hair
waves in the breeze
as he drifts away. You begin to wonder..
Nightwatcher is wearing nothing. Buck naked. Not a
stitch. He is pondering the future contents of
his append_msg.
Midnight-love
medium height with a slight build have golden brown
hair and brown eyes like to meet and make
new friends enjoys talking to people wearing faded
blue jeans with a light blue oxford shirt and
carrying a black leather jacket Midnight-love is
attired in the current vogue intimate fashion for
females. She is pondering the future contents of her
append_msg.
Allysa
You
see a tall, luscious young woman with long, wavy deep-auburn hair that gleams
golden when it
catches the light. She has fair ivory skin, the
soft, supple kind that makes you want to reach out and
touch its silkiness. Her deep emerald-green eyes are
inquisitive, as well as coy and seductive. She is
wearing a slinky black cashmere sweater that falls
teasingly off her irresistable white shoulders, and
a black leather mini that reveals the long, toned
legs of a dancer. She glances at you shyly, but in a
way that is maddeningly inviting. The delicate
fragrance of her sweet perfume reaches you and
tantalizes your nose, taunting you, calling for you
to step up to Allysa and slip your arm about her
slim waist. Basically, if you believe this, you'll
believe anything. In real life, Allysa (whose name is
actually Rebecca) is a homely nerd like all the
other MOOers with ridiculous descriptions like this,
or who knows? chances are she's probably a guy out
for a netsex cheap thrill. how pathetic.
Skot
An eighteen year old male of average height, with
blue eyes and an unruly head of blondish hair. He
is wearing black 10-hole boots (decorated), plain
shorts, and a T-shirt declaring I DON'T NEED
GOD.
autumn
About five and a half feet tall with straight hair
the colour of autumn leaves hanging just past her
shoulders. She is dressed in a black and brown
patterned skirt with a black sweater that is a bit too
big. It
constantly falls off one shoulder. She
is barefoot, and you notice that she has a tattoo of a
Celtic design on her left ankle.There is always a
slight smile hovering around the corners of her
mouth.
The
default arrival message is simply "<playername> teleports
in." The following are the
customized teleport messages belonging to the first arrivals at the VR
discussion. Departure messages are set
separately, but are similar in effect (the default message is
"<playername> disappears suddenly for parts unknown.").
Accumulated hair sheddings form into
Hyperpelosity.
Taliesin appears in a flash of green,
plucking a chord from his lute.
Ishmael appears in a flash of over-the-top
special effects.
SoulToucher materializes before you with a
gentle hum and a change in the feeling in the room.
You see a nose. You see a smile. You see
a face. You see--HerkieCosmo!
Dr.Sherry appears in a psychodynamically
balanced fashion.
Tobin appears seemingly from nowhere about
2 feet up in the air.
He drops to the floor and smiles.
ghond appears from behind a molecule.
Bibliography
Both
of the following articles were taken from an ftp site on Internet, and were
written specifically about LambdaMOO by inhabitants thereof. Pavel Curtis is also Lambda, the creator of
LambdaMOO.
Curtis,
Pavel. “Mudding: Social Phenomena in Text-Based Virtual Realities”.
Rosenberg,
Michael S. “Virtual Reality: Reflections of Life, Dreams, and Technology; An
Ethnography of a Computer Society”.
http://www.oise.on.ca/~jnolan/muds/about_muds/communicative
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