By Elizabeth Reid (emr@ee.mu.oz.au emr@rmit.edu.au )
A thesis submitted in
fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts
Cultural Studies
Program, Department of English,
University of Melbourne, January 1994
Copyright (C) 1994 by
Elizabeth Reid, all rights reserved. This text may be freely redistributed
among individuals in any medium so long as it remains unedited and appears with
this notice. Any commercial use or republication requires the written
permission of the author.
Beginning with an
understanding of virtual reality as an imaginative experience and thus a cultural
construct rather than a technical construction, this thesis discusses cultural
and social issues raised by interaction on 'MUDs', which are text-based virtual
reality systems run on the international computer network known as the
Internet. MUD usage forces users to deconstruct many of the cultural tools and
understandings that form the basis of more conventional systems of interaction.
Unable to rely on physical cues as a channel of meaning, users of MUDs have
developed ways of substituting for or
by-passing them, resulting in novel methods of textualising the non-verbal. The
nature of the body and sexuality are problematised in these virtual
environments, since the physical is never fixed and gender is a self-selected
attribute. In coming to terms with these aspects of virtual interaction, new
systems of significance have been
developed by users, along
with methods of enforcing that cultural hegemony through power structures
dependant upon manipulation of the virtual environment. These new systems of meaning
and social control define those who use MUDs as constituting a distinct
cultural group.
First and foremost, my
thanks go to Chris Healy, my supervisor, for his support, encouragement and
advice, all of which have been invaluable.
Secondly, I would like to thank the English Department for sponsoring my
use of the University of Melbourne's computing and network facilities, which
enabled me to undertake this research.
I would also like to thank Richard Oxbrow of the Department of Electrical
and Electronic Engineering for allowing me to use the
computing facilities of that
department, and Lochard Environment Systems Pty. Ltd. for providing the printer
used to produce the final version of this thesis. To Pavel Curtis and Kerstin Carosone go my thanks for help with
proof-reading and 'beta-testing', and to Daniel Carosone goes my especial
thanks for emotional, technical and culinary
support. Lastly, I should like thank all the people
who have made this thesis possible by allowing me to join them in their virtual
play and especially for allowing me to quote from examples of this play and
from their reflections upon it.
Parts of this thesis have
been published in "Electronic Chat: Communication and Community on
Internet Relay Chat" in _Media_ _Information_Australia_ No. 67 (February
1993) 61-70. The previously published excerpts are spread throughout this
thesis, and amount in total to approximately 2000 words.
Bibliography
Appendices
Appendix One: The Vanishing Room
Appendix Two: The Double Bluff
Appendix Three: The First Case of Cross-Gendered MUD Playing
Appendix Four: The Evolution of Communication
... Amongst Players
... and Wizards
Appendix Five: The Expression of Feelings on 'Nemesis'
Appendix Six: The LambdaMOO Player Survey
Appendix Seven: Character Generation...
...Complex
...Or Simple
Cyberspace.... A graphic
representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human
system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines
of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of
data. Like city lights, receding...[1]
Virtual Reality, or
"cyberspace"... takes alternate reality a step further [beyond books
and movies] by introducing a computer as mediator, or imagination enhancer.[2]
Cyberspace: A new universe,
a parallel universe created and sustained by the world's computers and
communication lines... a new stage, a new and irresistible development in the
elaboration of human culture and business under the sign of technology.[3]
Since William Gibson coined
the term in his best-selling novel Neuromancer, cyberspace' and virtual reality
have been part of late twentieth century culture, and have been infused with a
variety of cultural and emotional meanings.
Gibson himself envisaged a direct neural connection between humans and
computers against a background of urban decay and personal alienation. The film
The Lawnmower Man depicted a meld of mind-altering drugs and
computer-controlled sensory stimulation
which offered a new stage for the evolution of mankind, either toward godlike
wisdom or satanic evil. The popular media have posed cyberspace as the new
frontier and the new promise of the twentieth century. Gibson's 'console cowboys'--virtuoso
cyberspace users hacking at the edges of the law--have been incarnated in media
coverage of groups such as
the infamous 'Legion of Doom'. rcade
games incorporating datagloves and headsets have become the latest fad in
entertainment. Business Week filled its
October 5 '92 issue with special features introducing virtual reality
technologies and applications to its readers. Clifford Stoll's best-seller “The
Cuckoo's Egg” promoted cyberspace as the site of new levels of international
espionage, betrayal and tyranny, inhabited by glamorous foreign spies and
dedicated heroes.
Technically speaking, the
term 'virtual reality' is most commonly used to refer to systems that offer
users visual, auditory and tactile information about an environment which
exists as data in a computer system rather than as physical objects and
locations. This is the virtual reality depicted in "The Lawnmower
Man" and approximated by the 'Virtuality' arcade games marketed by Horizon
Entertainment. This thesis is not about these kinds of virtual reality. I do
not wish to talk about cyberspace or virtual reality as technological
constructions but as cultural constructs. In common with Howard Rheingold I do
not see virtual reality as a set of technologies, but as an experience.[4] More
than that, I believe that it is primarily an imaginative rather than a sensory
experience. I wish to shift the focus of attention away from the gadgets used
to represent a virtual world, and concentrate on the nature of the user's
experience of such worlds. I contend
that technical definitions of VR beg the question of what it is about such
systems that sustains the illusion of reality in the mind of the user. A list of technical components does not
explain why it is that users are prepared to accept a simulated world as a
valid site for emotional and social response.
The systems that I will
describe in examining virtual reality as a cultural environment are technically
simple. I have chosen to refer to a family of computer programs known as MUDs.
MUDs are networked, multi-participant, user-extensible systems which are most
commonly found on the Internet, the international network that connects many
thousands of educational,
research and commercial institutions. Using a MUD does not require any of the
paraphernalia commonly associated with virtual reality. There is no special
hardware to sense the position and orientation of the user's real-world body,
and no special clothes allowing users to see the virtual world through goggles
and touch it through 'datagloves'. The MUD interface is entirely textual; all
commands are typed in by the user and all feedback is displayed as text on a
monitor. A simple PC can act as a gateway into this kind of virtual world.
Instead of using
sophisticated tools to see, touch and hear the virtual environment, users of
MUD systems are presented with textual descriptions of virtual locations.
Technically, a MUD software program consists of a database of 'rooms', 'exits', and other objects. The
program accepts connections from users on a computer network, and provides each
user with access to that database. As Pavel Curtis describes, users are
presented with textual information describing them as being situated in an
artificially constructed place which also contains those other participants who
are connected to the
MUD program.[5] There are many hundreds of MUD programs
running on the Internet, each with its own unique database of descriptions of
localities and objects. Within each of these systems users can interact with
each other and with the virtual environment which the MUD presents to them.
As Curtis has commented, the
virtual worlds within MUD systems have many of the social attributes of
physical places, and many of the usual social mechanisms apply.[6] Users treat
the worlds depicted by MUD programs as if they were real. However, it is not
the technological interface itself that sustains the willingness of users to
treat this simulated environment as if it were real. Rather it is the degree to
which MUDs act not only as a tool for the expression of each user's
imagination, but mediate between the users' imagination and their communication
to others of what they have imagined. Cyberspace--the realm of electronic
impulses and high-speed data highways where MUDs exist--may be a technological
artefact, but virtual reality is a construct within the mind of a human being.
Within this construct a representation
of a person can be manipulated within a representation of a real or imagined
environment, both of which can be manifested through the use of various
technologies, including computers. Virtual worlds exist not in the technology used to represent them, nor
purely in the mind of the user, but in the relationship between internal mental
constructs and technologically generated representations of these constructs.
The illusion of reality lies not in the machinery itself, but in the users'
willingness to treat the manifestation of their imaginings as if they were real.
The technical attributes of
these virtual places, comments Curtis, have significant effects on social
phenomena, leading to new modes of interaction and new cultural formations.[7]
The lack of actual physical presence, indeed the great physical distances
between individual participants, demands that a new set of behavioural codes be
invented if the participants in such systems are to make sense to one another.
The problems posed by the lack of cultural cues which
physical presence carries
influence behaviour in virtual environments. The solutions to these problems
which participants devise constitute
the culture of the virtual world in which they are played out. It is the
tension between the manifestation of conventional social and cultural patterns,
the invention of new patterns, and the imaginative experience of these
phenomena as taking part in a virtual world that is the subject of my thesis.
My primary sources in this
work fall into three categories. Firstly, I will quote from logs taken of sessions
on MUDs. Secondly, I will quote from
electronic mail, or email, sent to me by MUD players in which they discuss such
usage. Lastly, I will be using articles
from the USENET newsgroups devoted to discussion of MUD and MUD playing.
These groups include
alt.mud, rec.games.mud, rec.games.mud.admin, rec.games.mud.announce,
rec.games.mud.diku, rec.games.mud.lp, rec.games.mud.misc and
rec.games.mud.tiny. I have been monitoring these groups since December 1991,
during which time these groups have seen an average traffic of approximately
fifty articles each day. In all quoted extracts the original (sometimes very
original) grammar and spelling have been preserved, and in all cases I have
secured permission to quote from the individuals concerned. In some cases I
have been asked to withhold identifying information, and where this is the case
I have indicated in the footnotes that the item of mail or the news article is
from "anonymous". However, in most cases the names of players and
characters as well as the names of the MUDs themselves have been preserved. The
most important exception is the case of 'JennyMUSH', which is an alias. For reasons that will be made clear in the
body of this thesis, the unique nature of this system and the experiences of
its users have led to a great concern with the issue of privacy. The
administrator of the MUD has asked me not to reveal any information that might
identify the location of the system, and has suggested 'JennyMUSH' as a
pseudonym which retains the flavour of its actual name.
This thesis will be divided
into three chapters, preceded by a section detailing the historical background
to and context of the evolution of MUD systems. The subject of the first and
second chapters is the nature of the social changes that these forms of virtual
reality engender. I will examine the impact of MUDs on the practices of
interpersonal communication and interaction, and on community formation and
social cohesion. The third chapter will describe how
the nature of human
existence is altered by entrance or translation into virtual reality. In this
last chapter I will explore the nature of social identity, sexuality and the
body in the virtual environment.
[1] William Gibson, “Neuromancer” (London: Grafton Books, 1989) 67.
[2] Nicholas Lavroff, “Virtual Reality
Playhouse” (Corte Madera CA: Waite Group Press, 1992) 7.
[3] Michael, Benedikt, “Cyberspace: First Steps” Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT
Press, 1991) 1.
[4] Howard Rheingold, “Virtual Reality”, (London: Mandarin, 1992) 46.
[5] Pavel Curtis, "Mudding: Social
Phenomena in Text-Based Virtual Realities," In: Intertek Vol. 3.3 (Winter, 1992)
26.
[6] Curtis, 26.
[7] Curtis, 26.
1)
Interactive Computing [1]
Personal computers are a
relatively recent phenomenon. It is
only within the last ten to twenty years that such machines have become common
in the work place, let alone the home.
The pre-history of computing was largely the domain of educational,
governmental or commercial organisations which owned large mainframe computer
systems.
These huge old systems were
jealousy protected; computer time was heavily booked and access available only
to the privileged few. These computers
of the past generation would hardly be recognisable to the present generation
of Mac and PC users. The old beasts of
the '50s and '60s took up literally rooms of space. Their computing power was
measured not in millions of
instructions per second--MIPS--but in hundreds of instructions. The multiple megabytes of random access
memory we now take for granted in even the most humble of desktop systems were
then only a fantastic dream. The
greatest and most costly super-computers of the sixties counted their memory in
kilobytes, hard and floppy disks were yet to be invented, monitors and
keyboards were only in the experimental stages, and most computers
received instructions and
gave back results on long spools of punched paper tape.
Still, archaic as these
clumping monsters now appear to be, they were the gleaming prize of their
age. Mathematicians, statisticians,
physicists, military engineers and government agencies all fought for the
funding to acquire one of these miraculous new machines. They also attracted the interest of a new
breed of young inquiring minds. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
one of the few educational institutions to invest large sums in the new computing technology, the members of the
Tech Model Railroad Club switched their interest from the construction of
intricate train tracks to the manipulation of complex computer
circuits.[2] Of course these young
students, most of them undergraduates, were not able to get direct access to
the new machines. Instead they took to
hanging around the
computer rooms at midnight
and the small hours of the mornings, begging computer time from the
nightwatchmen on the few occasions when these least attractive hours had not
been booked by others.
Most of the computers of the
time relied on punched paper both to receive instructions and to communicate
results. This forced computer
programmers and users to divide the giving and receiving of data into discrete
blocks. Instructions would be
transcribed into the punched code useable by the computer, the instructions
would be acted on by the computer and the results of its computations spat back
on punched tape. These results would then have to be decoded before any further work could be done. MIT's academics--physicists and
statisticians and mathematicians--relied on and accepted this paradigm of
computer use. Not so the members of the
Tech Model Railroad Club. Their
interest quickly centred on
an experimental computer which the Digital Equipment Corporation had loaned to
the Institute. This computer was much
less powerful than its hulking IBM cousins, and so was virtually ignored by the
academics to whom it had been lent. It
was adopted by the TMRC students because it offered a new paradigm of
computing. DEC's Programmed Data Processor was among the first to incorporate a
screen and a keyboard.
The TMRC members had no
complex scientific problems to solve. Instead they spent their time simply
exploring the capabilities of the PDP machine.
They programmed to demonstrate their skill in understanding how the
machine 'thought'. Staying up all
night, and functioning, so the story goes, on a diet of coke and burgers, these
young 'hackers' set out to colonise the unexplored territory of the
computer. One of their most famous
endeavours was the invention of
the first computer
game. By modern standards it was
uncomplicated. A simple figure of a
spaceship appeared on the screen, to be shot down by the player. At the time, however, it was a marvellous
feat of computer graphics, a miracle of programming. Copies of 'Spacewar', in
punched paper form, were passed around to computer enthusiasts at other
institutions, and began a small revolution in computer use.[3]
The game of Spacewar
depended on human/computer interactivity. It relied on the human user being able to monitor the computer's
actions and modify and correct for them while the machine was actually
operating. The concept of human/computer
interaction did not begin with this invention of the computer game, but the game
made a small instance of this interactivity available to a rapidly expanding
number of computer users and demonstrated that such concepts could be realised
in a simple and 'user-friendly' fashion.
It brought new programming ideas--new algorithms--to the computing
world. It also changed the way that the
academy thought about computers. The
leap between the idea of computers as awesome inhabitants of super-cooled
rooms, tended by white-coated engineers, to the idea of the computer as toy and
expressive tool, was made when that first spaceship was shot down. Spacewar made tangible the idea of the
computer as a medium for human expression.
2)
Networked Computing [4]
The computing expertise of
the TMRC members soon came to the attention of MIT's authorities. Wishing to harness this obvious talent, MIT
gave the students legitimate access to the computers, and legitimate work to
perform on them. One of the first jobs
they were assigned was to solve the problem of the costs involved in buying
enough computers to cater for the increasing numbers of people who wished to
use them. MIT was considering investing in a new form of operating system,
known as the Compatible Time-Sharing System, which would allow more than one
person to use a computer at once. Instead,
in a cost-saving move, they set the TMRC students to designing their own
multi-user operating system. The
multi-user computer system relied on a different hardware to the single user
system. If more than one were to be
accommodated, there needed to be more than one set of input and output devices
connected to the computer. From each of
these multiple terminals, different users could share the same computer
resources. The system
that they designed, and
named the Incompatible Timesharing System, was one of the first of this new
breed of operating system. ITS and other systems like it quickly
supplanted the old single-user systems. Today, the most popular multi-user
operating systems are part of the UNIX family, descendants of a system which
Bell Laboratories began to develop in 1969.
The multi-user paradigm
quickly became popular, as its cost-effectiveness became apparent, and was
followed by the idea of the computer network.
Programmers in the United States Department of Defence built the first
network. In 1969 the DoD began work on
a 'long-haul' network of computers at dispersed sites. This project was funded by the Advanced
Research Projects Agency, a research arm of the DoD. The original purpose of the ARPANET project was to design a
system for use by military control and intelligence. The network was designed to enable authorities to communicate and
weapons to be controlled remotely in the event of a nuclear war. The problem with which the engineers who
designed the system were faced was that during a war any central control point
would most likely be the target of enemy missiles. The solution was a network structure that had no central point
and which was designed from the beginning to withstand physical attack. Each node of the network could operate as a
central point, and there would be no 'right' way for a message to be directed
from one node to another. Messages
could follow any route, and should one node be taken out of operation, messages
would simply skirt around it. This
rather haphazard delivery system could
be extremely resilient--even with large portions of the network knocked out,
information could still be transmitted.[5]
In 1969 ARPA set about
installing the first node of the network at the Los Angeles campus of the
University of California. Shortly
afterward nodes were installed at the Santa Barbara campus of the same
university, at the University of Utah, and at the Stanford Research
Institute. Once the system was up and
running, these universities
were given leave to use it
for research purposes. They jumped to
do so, planning to exploit the network's ability to give users of the computers
at each of these sites access to the resources held by all three. At the same time, DARPA encouraged other
institutions to set up their own network nodes, each of which could be
commandeered in time of war. By 1972
thirty-seven universities and government research organisations were on
ARPANET, and as the network grew these institutions began to demand autonomy
from the military. In 1983 ARPANET was
divided into two networks, known as ARPANET (for research use) and MILNET (for
military use). The ARPANET arm
continued to expand, with local area networks at various government,
educational and commercial sites being added to the system. Other nations also adopted the technology,
and with the advent of satellite communications, it became possible for all
these computer networks to be linked together as one super network. This new international entity became known
as the Internet.
3)
Interactive Networking [6]
In its original design,
ARPANET was intended to facilitate the use of remote computers, and the
transfer of computer programs and data between remote computers. As something of an afterthought, a tool for
interpersonal communication was provided--electronic mail. By the second year of operation, it became
clear to ARPANET's designers that, despite their expectations, most of the
network's users were not using it to share facilities but to share
information. File transfers took up a
much greater portion of network traffic than did remote computing, and although
it accounted for only a small amount of network traffic, writing and reading
electronic mail took up most of the time which users spent on the network. People were using the network to collaborate
on projects, to trade notes, and just to chat and keep in touch. Less than a year after ARPANET became
operational, the mailing list was invented.
This allowed people to send messages to a single site, where a program
would then forward that message on to every person on a list, so facilitating
communication between a large group of people.
One of the earliest and most popular mailing lists was named SF-LOVERS,
and was used by science-fiction fans.
Since then, many more communications
facilities have become available on the network which ARPANET became: the
Internet. The most popular of these is
USENET, which came into being in 1979, the invention of three students at the
University of North Carolina who wanted to design a better system for
disseminating information between multiple
people than email and
mailing lists provided. USENET software
enabled people to read messages stored in a network distributed database of
messages divided by subject, and to add their own articles to the
database. In its original incarnation,
the USENET software was designed to handle a few articles per day from each of
a handful of subject divisions, or, as they came to be known, 'newsgroups'. In the last fourteen years, USENET has come
to encompass over two thousand newsgroups, with many of those groups seeing
several hundreds of articles each day.
Today's USENET software relies on a hierarchical arrangement of
newsgroups. The 'top-level' hierarchies
have such names as 'comp', 'talk' and 'rec' (the latter being for recreational
topics). Beneath these blanket
divisions are such groups as comp.os.msdos, comp.os.unix, rec.fishing,
sci.anthropology, sci.electronics, rec.juggling and rec.food.vegetarian. Almost every site on the Internet allows its
users to access USENET, and the articles that each user posts are very quickly
sent on to other sites. Where once it might have taken days for messages to be
propagated, it now takes only minutes.
Despite this speed of
transmission, electronic mail, mailing lists and USENET are nevertheless
asynchronous methods of communication.
Messages are read and responded to in discrete blocks, in a communicative
paradigm similar to that on which the earliest computers were based. Early on in the Internet's life, a simple
synchronous method of communication was developed. Variously known as 'phone' or 'talk', this facility allowed a
user to 'call' another user.
If that user decided to
accept the call, the two users could type directly to each other's screens,
allowing a far faster and more interactive form of communication than that
allowed by email or newsgroups. 'Talk'
programs suggested a new way of figuring computer-mediated communication. Where asynchronous methods of CMC such as
email or USENET tend to rely on the idea of a computer as a tool, as a means
for communication, synchronous methods rely on the idea of the computer as
providing a space for communication.
The talk program took the ideas begun by Spacewar further. Talk presented computers, and computer
networks, not only as a medium for activity, but as the site of it. Synchronous forms of CMC began to bring the
cyberspace of the Internet into the realms of virtual reality. Nominally, all
datapaths can be called cyberspaces.
Telephone lines, hard disks, fibre optic cables and satellite links are
all parts of the global cyberspace that is the Internet. Where that cyberspace becomes most tangible
to the user, and where it becomes a form of virtual reality, is where the users
of those networks can imaginatively enter into them. It was this imagined entrance into virtual space that was to be
developed in MUDs.
4)
MUDs: Networked, Interactive Virtual Realities [7]
The computer aficionados at
the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of the early 1970s were well
known for being fantasy fans. Rooms in the AI Lab were named after locations
described in J.R.R. Tolkien's “Lord of the Rings”, and the printer in the lab
was rigged so that it could print in
three different Elven fonts. It was one
of these fantasy fans who wrote the first virtual reality computer game. Donald
Woods, a veteran of MIT's Spacewar, discovered a quite
different kind of game being
run on a computer at the Xerox corporation's Palo Alto Research Centre. The program depicted an explorer seeking
treasure in a network of caverns. It
was an entirely text-based game. There
were no spaceships to be shot, no graphics at all, just descriptions of
localities and prompts asking players where they wished to go or what they
wanted to do next. Woods was entranced
by the game. He contacted the
programmer, Will Crowther, talked to him about it, and decided to expand
Crowther's program into a more complex adventure game. What he wrote was ADVENT, more commonly
referred to as Adventure, in which a player assumed the role of a traveller in
a Tolkienesque setting, fighting off enemies, overcoming obstacles through
clever tricks, and eventually discovering treasure.
Adventure players were
presented with text describing scenes such as the following:
You are standing at
the end of a road before a small building.
Around you is a forest. A small
stream flows out of the building and down a gully. There is a sword beneath a tree next to the stream.[8]
Simple commands, such as
'get sword', 'look tree' and 'go north', allowed the player to navigate and
interact with the
Adventure universe, with
each input item eliciting a new description of the player's environment or of
the results of his or her actions. Crowther and Woods were the inventors of the
very first computerised virtual reality game.
Crowther's caves, and Woods' more complex fantasy world, were figured by
players as places which they could enter through the computer.[9]
Simple though it may seem,
Adventure quickly became extremely popular, and a host of similar games began
to appear. Copies of these games spread
through the international tendrils of the Internet, where they can be found
today, played by countless numbers of computer users. The charm of the game lay
in the illusion it gave players of being
inside the game
universe. It engaged the imagination in
a way that no game had done before.
Unlike the commercial computer games which were then starting to be
written, the game had no definite aim.
Players were not called upon to solve specific problems, or defeat
specific enemies. There were no Pacmen
or spaceships, no laser weapons or gobbling globs. Instead players were free simply to explore the game universe. They could do whatever they liked. Users could in their imagination enter into
the game universe, and do in it exactly what they would do were the virtual
reality an actuality. Adventure offered
a form of escapism that no computer game previously had by allowing the user to
enter the game universe and plot the form the game would take.
Adventure and its cousins
did not run on computer networks. They
were single player games. However, at
the same time as they were being written, most US universities were, as I have
described, joining the ARPANET. By the
late 1970s most research institutions in the United States had joined the
ARPANET. In 1977 the interests of
networking,
interactivity, and virtual
reality games met to produce the first networked, multi-user game. Mazewar, written by Jim Guyton, involved the
extremely simple scenario of multiple participants wandering around a maze,
trying to shoot one another - a kind of multi-participant Spacewar. Mazewar was soon followed by a more complex
multi-user game which owed its setting to that depicted in Adventure. WIZARD featured
a dungeon, and puzzles and monsters.
Players roamed the WIZARD universe killing dragons and collecting
gold. Moreover, they could do it in
teams. WIZARD introduced the concept of
player interaction beyond the level of aggression. Players of WIZARD could communicate with one another, and could
share information and objects they had accumulated in their exploration of the
dungeon. Teams of players could
collaborate on adventures which were often lifted wholesale from the pages of
pulp fantasy novels, if not from “The Lord of the Rings”.
In 1979 Alan Klietz,
inspired by Adventure and WIZARD, began writing E*M*P*I*R*E, which later came
to be known as Scepter. Klietz was
associated with the Minnesota Educational Computer Consortium, a group which from
1976 to 1983 made use the of the new multi-user 'time-sharing' computer
operating systems to provide computer access to schoolchildren. One of the most popular programs on the
system was Adventure, and Klietz wrote Scepter as a multi-user alternative to
Adventure. Scepter allowed players, as
WIZARD had, to communicate, and it also adopted that feature of Mazewar that
was to become one of the major features of this genre of game. Scepter allowed players to
play against each other as
well as with each other. Player to
player combat introduced a new level of complexity into the game, which quickly
became so popular that Klietz set about writing a commercial version, known as
Screenplay, under the ownership of his employers, Gambit Incorporated.
Scepter was the first game
to depart from the fantasy genre that had dominated previous games. Alan Klietz's game universe featured various
themes including areas emulating the wild west, and science fiction and detective
stories, as well as the more familiar Tolkienesque areas. The latter remained popular, and the science
fiction areas quickly collected an avid group of fans. To this day the fantasy and science fiction
genres dominate these games, just as in the forms of Spacewar and Adventure
they had inspired their birth. Unfortunately, Klietz was eventually forced to
abandon his work. The company that
originally owned the rights to Screenplay, Gambit, was subsumed into a larger
company, Interplay. Interplay later
filed for bankruptcy and its owner was sent to jail on eighteen counts
including tax evasion and running a false church out of his home.[10]
Screenplay left the market under a cloud.
The name 'MUD' first
appeared in 1978 when Roy Trubshaw, then a student at the University of Essex,
England, wrote what he called a Multi-User Dungeon. The name itself was a tribute to an earlier single-user
Adventure-style game named DUNGEN.[11]
In 1979, Richard Bartle joined Trubshaw in working on MUD. MUD contained many of the
features which others, such
as Alan Klietz, had developed independently.
It was a networked multi-user game which allowed users to communicate
with one another, to cooperate on adventures together, or to fight against each
other. In an early version of the game,
players were also given the option of extending the game world by creating new
objects and places within it. However,
in the end, the option of user-extensibility was taken out, partly as a result
of the lack of computing resources available to run the game, and partly
because Bartle felt that the hodge-podge of items created by players detracted
from rather than enhanced the game.
The first MUD universe was a
fantasy-style one that encouraged players to compete with each other for
points. Player went on quests to kill
monsters or find treasure. Killing
monsters--or other players--was a source of points, but more were to be gained
by finding treasure and bringing it back to a swamp located at a shifting point
in the game universe. On throwing
treasure into the swamp, players would be rewarded with points which, once they
had collected enough, would enable them to gain new and greater powers. Although this original MUD game did not ever
gain a high level of popularity, it nevertheless has had great influence on
those who were to develop later games.
The number of people who played Bartle and Trubshaw's MUD was small, but
many of them went on to design the systems that are popular today. The original
MUD game can still be played. Richard
Bartle was asked to design a version for the CompuServe computer facility, and
that version is still in existence.
Called British Legends, players compete to collect enough points, by
solving puzzles, killing monsters and finding treasure, to become a 'Wizard', a
title recognising the player's mastery over the British Legends universe, and
giving him or her special powers within that universe.
Alan Cox was one of those
who spent a lot of time playing the original MUD game, and in 1987 he decided
to design his own. AberMUD, named for
the town of Aberystwyth in which Cox lived, has evolved through numerous
versions and is still played today. Jim
Aspnes of Carnegie-Mellon University was another fan of Bartle and Trubshaw's
MUD. In 1989 he began work on TinyMUD,
which was to introduce a whole new flavour of game to the genre. TinyMUD was designed to run on computers
running the UNIX operating system, and the growing popularity of UNIX made
possible the popularity of Aspnes' creation. TinyMUD was the first of what were
to come to be called 'social' MUDs.
Aspnes deliberately set out to get away from the notion that these games
had to be played with the idea of gaining points, or killing things--let alone
that players should be given the option of killing each other. Instead of being given access to commands
such as 'kill', TinyMUD players were encouraged to centre their play around
communication and world creation.
Although none of the features of TinyMUD were new to the growing MUD
genre, it was the first system to combine them in a fashion that stressed
cooperation and interaction rather than competition and mastery.
>From 1990 onward the
number of MUD programs in circulation increased rapidly. There are, among others, COOLMUDs, ColdMUDs,
DikuMUDs, DUMs, LP-MUDs, MAGEs, MOOs, MUCKs, MUSEs, MUSHes, TeenyMUDs,
TinyMUDs, UberMUDs, UnterMUDs, UriMUDs and YAMUDs (the latter being an acronym
for 'yet another MUD'). Each program offers its own technical
advantages and disadvantages, such as the amount of computer hard disk space or
memory needed to run the program. The
environments portrayed on MUDs have become far more varied. The Tolkienesque fantasy worlds are still
the most common, closely followed by science fiction worlds, but MUD environments based on actual or historical
places--such as Moscow, the ante-bellum South, the Wild West, the prehistoric
era, or a medieval village--have appeared.
The meaning of the term 'MUD' has changed to reflect this. The original acronym 'Multi-User Dungeon'
has been joined by 'Multi-User Dimension' and 'Multi-User Domain', and the term
has come to refer not to the original program written by Richard Bartle and Roy
Trubshaw but to the entire program genre.[12]
Many of today's MUD systems are not games, but are being used for
academic purposes. The first of these
academic systems was MediaMOO, run by Amy Bruckman of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, which provides a virtual meeting place for students
and academics working in the area of media and communications. Several more such systems have followed in
MediaMOO's steps, including PMCMOO, which serves literary and cultural
theorists, and BioMOO, which serves biologists.[13] These systems use the virtual environments created by MUD
programs to collapse the distances between academics from around the world, and
to provide materials such as course outlines, papers and conference information
in an easily accessed form.
Nevertheless, the majority
of MUD systems run on the Internet are intended to be used for social or
entertainment purposes, and it is these
systems with which I am concerned.
These MUDs tend to fall into one of two categories, commonly referred to
by MUD players as 'adventure' and 'social' MUDs. The first category--the adventure- style MUDs--refers to MUD
programs that descended directly from Bartle and Trubshaw's MUD; the
second--the social MUDs--refers to systems that were inspired by TinyMUD. Whether a particular MUD program belongs in
either category is dependant not purely on any technical considerations of its
programming or implementation, but on the style of play which it encourages.
On adventure-style MUDs,
such as those based on the LPMUD and DikuMUD programs, there exists a strict
hierarchy of privileges. The person
with the most control over the system is the one running the MUD program. He, or she, has access to every computer
file in the program, and can modify any of them. This person is commonly known as the God of the MUD, and he or
she has complete control over the elements of the virtual world. Gods may create or destroy virtual areas and
objects, and destroy or protect players' characters. The players, on the other hand, have very little control over the
system. They cannot cannot build new objects or areas, and have no power over
those that already exist. They can only
interact with the MUD environment. They
can kill monsters, collect treasure and solve puzzles, and communicate with one
another. By doing these things players
on adventure MUDs gain points, and once a player has a certain number of points
they gain certain privileges. Once a
player has collected enough points he or she may be elevated to the rank of
Wizard.[14] Wizards do not have the
complete degree of control which is available to the God of the MUD. They cannot alter the MUD software itself,
but they do have the ability to create and control objects and places within
the MUD universe.
Social MUDs, many of which
are based on the MUSH or MUCK software, are not so evidently hierarchical. Early versions of Bartle and Trubshaw's MUD
allowed players to add items and rooms to the game database, an idea that was
incorporated into the TinyMUD program. This feature is common to all social
MUDs. While social MUDs have Gods as do
adventure MUDs, who control the actual software, and Wizards who have privileged
powers, these powers in the same
universe are not unique in kind but only in degree. Players do not have to fight to gain points and levels before
they can build simple objects and create new areas of the game universe. Novice players on a social MUD are able to
do these things. They do not have
access to the actual computer files of the game program, but they have access
to a
library of commands that
allow them to create and describe objects and areas, and make them behave in
certain ways in response to input from other players. The rank of Wizard is not dependant upon gainingpoints, and
elevation to this rank is at the discretion of the Gods. Players of these MUDs
are, as were the original players of TinyMUD, encouraged to interact with and extend
the virtual environment rather than compete within it.
In this thesis I have chosen
to concentrate on four MUDs representing four different environments and the
two different styles of MUD, although I shall refer briefly to other
systems. These four MUDs are known as
LambdaMOO, FurryMUCK, Revenge of the End of the Line and JennyMUSH.[15] The first is a social-style MUD, set in a
rambling
mansion. The second, also a social MUD, involves
players in a world in which each individual adopts the persona of an
anthropomorphised animal. Revenge of
the End of the Line (or EOTL as its players refer to it) is an adventure-style
MUD, and JennyMUSH is a social MUD used as a virtual support centre by
survivors of sexual assault. I have
chosen to concentrate on these MUDs because each lends itself to a discussion
of virtual reality from a different perspective. LambdaMOO, which of the three
most nearly attempts to recreate reality inside virtuality--the core of
the LambdaMOO mansion is a virtual
recreation of the God's actual home--provides an insight into changed
communicative and cultural practices.
EOTL, with its competitive and hierarchical structures, shows the
evolution of power and social control in cyberspatial environments, as does a
painful episode on JennyMUSH.
FurryMUCK, with its emphasis on anthropomorphic characters lends itself
to an exploration of the fate of the human body and human
identity inside virtual
realities.
[1] The story presented in this chapter is
based, unless otherwise noted, on information contained in Tracey L.
Laquey, “The User's Directory of
Computer Networks” (Massachusetts: Digital Press, 1990), Steven Levy, Hackers:
“Heroes of the Computer Revolution” (New York: Dell, 1984), and Timothy Trainor
and Diane Krasnewich, “Computers!” (New York: Mitchell, 1989), as well as on
anecdotes related to me by some of the 'hackers' in the Computer Science
Department and Electrical Engineering Faculty at Melbourne University. This history is by no means perfect--many of
my sources, and the memories of the people who lived through these times,
contradict each other. In writing this
section I have tried to reconcile these differences and produce a narrative
that accounts as far as possible for the differences amongst my sources.
[2] The Tech Model Railroad Club featured
heavily in Levy, particularly in Chapter One.
[3] The invention of Spacewar is detailed in
Chapter Three of Levy.
[4] This history of computer networking and the
Internet is based on: Philip Leverton and Ross Millward, “Technical note 82:
Using the UNIX Mail System” (Melbourne: Melbourne University Computing
Services, 1989); a USENET article on the history of UNIX written by Pierre
Lewis (Newsgroup: comp.unix.questions, Subject: A very brief look at Unix
history, From: "Pierre (P.) Lewis" <lew@bnr.ca> Date: Fri
Jan 8 14:56:22 EST 1993); "The
Strange History of the Internet," an article by Bruce Sterling published
in the “!mindgun” 'zine produced by the Society for Digital Redistribution
(originally published in the February 1993 issue of “The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction”); and information in the works by Laquey and
Levy detailed above.
[5] This paragraph is based on information
contained in Sterling.
[6] Information on the early development of
USENET has been taken from articles by Gene Spafford and Brian Reid which are
regularly posted to the USENET group news.answers.
[7] My sources for this history include
first-hand accounts related to me in electronic mail by Richard Bartle, Alan
Klietz, Alan Cox, Jim Aspnes and Jim Finnis, information included in Levy
(especially Chapters Three and Seven), user documentation included with the
AberMUD, TinyMUD and LPMUD programs, and postings made to the Usenet newsgroup
rec.games.mud in response to a query from Amy Bruckman.
[8] Levy, 141.
[9] See Levy, 138-144 for more details on the
invention of Adventure.
[10] This anecdote has been
taken from a USENET article with the following headers: From: alberti@mudhoney.micro.umn.edu (Albatross); Newsgroups: rec.games.mud;
Subject: Re: history: VMS Monster, Sceptre of Goth; Date: 23 Mar 92 22:01:55
GMT.
[11] The operating system
under which DUNGEN ran only allowed filenames to be a maximum of six letters
long, thus the particular spelling of the name.
[12] Some would insist that
MUD has come to stand for Multi Undergraduate Destroyer, in recognition of the
number of students who may have failed their classes due to too much time spent
MUDding.
[13] PMCMOO is an off-shoot
of the electronic journal “Postmodern Culture”.
[14] The titles given to
those who run and administrate the MUD vary from system to system. Since they
are by far the most commonly used of all titles, I have chosen to use the term 'God'
to refer to the person running the MUD program, and 'Wizard' to refer to those
players who have been given administrative powers by the God.
[15] These MUDs may be
connected to from any computer on the Internet by using the 'telnet' command or
program. The Internet address for
LambdaMOO is lambda.parc.xerox.com (or 192.216.54.2) and the port number is
8888. The address for FurryMUCK is
sncils.snc.edu (138.74.0.10), port number 8888. Revenge of the End of the Line can be found at mud.stanford.edu
(36.21.0.99), port 2010. JennyMUSH's administrator has asked me to withhold
information on how to connect to that MUD.
Chapter
One: Communication and Cultural Context
For words to have a shared
meaning they must be given a context. Stripped of the historical, environmental
and social contexts in which they have evolved and in which they are used,
words have little meaning. It is
context that creates meaning and allows us to act. The information on which we
decide which aspects of our systems of social conduct are appropriate to our
circumstances lie in cultural contexts rather than in the shape and sound of
words alone. In interacting with other
people, we rely on non-verbal information to delineate a context for our own
contributions. "Being
cultured," says Greg Dening, "we are experts in our semiotics... we
read sign and symbol [and] codify a thousand words in a gesture".[1] We do not need to be told that we are at a
wedding, and should be quiet during the ceremony, in order to enact the code of
etiquette that our culture reserves for such an occasion. Words alone do not express or define the full extent of our cultural and
interpersonal play. The greater part of
our interaction is expressed through signs and symbols--in tone and nuance, in
styles of dress and handwriting, in postures and facial expressions, in appeals
to rules and traditions. The words
themselves tell only half the story--it is their presentation that completes
the picture.
Human communication is never
merely a matter of words, much less so is human culture. This is something that we all take for
granted—yet the virtual environments that are the subject of this study are a
product of words, of pure text. Because
of this, these virtual places subvert many of our assumptions about the
practice of interactive communication.
MUD players are unable to rely on conventions of gesture and nuances of
tone to make sense of one another. Nevertheless, despite the absence of these
familiar channels of interpersonal meaning, players do not fail to make sense
of each other. On the contrary, MUD
environments are extremely culturally rich, and communication between MUD
players is often highly emotionally charged.
Although they cannot see, hear or touch one another, MUD players have
developed ways to convey shades of expression that would usually be transmitted
through these senses. Their means of expression are severely limited by the
technology on which MUDs are based, but instead of allowing that to restrict
the
content of their
communication they have devised methods of incorporating socio-emotional
context cues into pure text. They use text, seemingly such a restrictive
medium, to make up for what they lack in physical presence. On MUDs, social presence is divorced from
physical presence, a phenomenon that refutes many of the assumptions that have
in the past been made about the ideal richness of face-to-face
interaction. On MUDs, text replaces
gesture, and even becomes gestural itself.
MUDs show none of the four
distinctive features Kiesler, Siegel and McGuire have described
computer-mediated communication as having: an absence of regulating feedback,
dramaturgical weakness, few social status cues and social anonymity.[2] Despite being textually based, MUDs are
sites for social interaction and cultural meaning. The virtual worlds created with MUD software are dramaturgically
and socially rich, and MUD players have been able to devise means of
communicating social context cues through the textual medium. The subject of this first chapter is the
methods which MUD systems and MUD players use to provide themselves with a
social context and a social presence.
1)
Making Sense of the World
Each MUD system begins as a
blank space. It is nothing more than a
set of commands and possibilities. A MUD
program is, in essence, a set of tools that can be used to create a
socio-cultural environment. It is this that sets MUDs apart from other
textually based computer-mediated communication tools. The latter merely provide an interface that
separates what one person types from that of another, and so allows a form of
written conversation. MUDs, by contrast, allow the depiction of a physical
environment which can be laden with cultural and communicative meaning. They allow imagination and creativity to furnish
the void of cyberspace with socially significant indicators. It is this that
makes a MUD system a form of virtual reality.
The first step in the use of a MUD program is the creation of a MUD
world and the peopling of it. Those
setting up the program must act as their titles suggest, as Gods and
Wizards. They must create the
universe--they must, to invoke a MUD command, '@create light.'
The basic MUD program,
whether MUSH or LPMUD or any other variety, consists of a number of tools and
commands to be used to create a database of textually described 'objects', as
they are called. The objects created
are symbolically linked--in both the technical and the cultural sense--to
create the textual illusion of a world.
Database entries representing spaces are linked together such that one
can be accessed from the other by using a command such as 'out' or
'north'. Entries representing things
such as chairs or swords or spaceships are placed within these virtual spaces,
and given properties that allow them to be manipulated by players. Lastly, entries representing the players
themselves are set free to roam and interact with these spaces and things, and
often to create more of them.
Together, these three types
of objects--places, things and people-- make up the context that the MUD
community operates within. As Kiesler,
Siegel, and McGuire have suggested, the chief problem faced by electronic
interlocutors is the "dramaturgical weakness of electronic media".[3] To compensate for this lack in the medium, players
must become actors and must provide their own scenery. Imagination must take
the place of physical reality, and must be manifested in forms accessible to
players on the system. Each object in
the MUD universe--each person, each place, each thing--an be given a
description by its creator. This
description can be as simple or as complex as the creator wishes, and can be
viewed by every other player by use of the 'look' command. When a player connects to a MUD through the
computer network, he or she is immediately provided with a textual
manifestation of the MUD's virtual environment. On LambdaMOO, the player will seem to enter the coat closet in
the sprawling house which is at the core of the LambdaMOO world:
The Coat Closet
The closet is a dark, cramped space. It appears to be very crowded in here; you
keep bumping into what feels like coats, boots, and other people (apparently
sleeping). One useful thing that you've
discovered in your bumbling about is a metal doorknob set at waist level into what
might be a door. Don't forget to take a look at the newspaper. Type 'news' to see it. Type '@tutorial' for
an introduction to basic MOOing. Please
read and understand 'help manners'
before leaving The Coat Closet.
This coat closet is a
remarkable place. It may be small and
cramped, but it provides an initial point of reference in the LambdaMOO world
and it furnishes the newcomer with a host of information about the cultural
nature of the world he or she has entered.
Most if not all MUDs are provided with such an anteroom. It is often a cramped, dark place, and
rarely an open space containing a great many objects to distract or disorient
the newcomer. Closets, cracks under
bandstands, teleportation rooms and hotel hallways--to suggest just a few of
the anterooms on a few of the MUDs I have visited--might not seem especially
inviting places in the actual world, but on textually represented virtual
worlds they provide a space in which players may become accustomed to the
virtual environment. These spaces are
sparsely furnished; they do not overload the newcomer with information. At the same time they provide the
reassurance of
others' virtual presence,
most often in the form of sleeping bodies, and they allow the player to take a
virtual breath before stepping out into the main area of the virtual
landscape. Most importantly, many MUD
anterooms contain pointers to helpful information and rules. LambdaMOO novices
are directed to a newspaper, which will tell them
about recent events on the
MUD, a tutorial, which will tell them how to interact with the virtual universe
on a technical level, and some advice on etiquette, which will tell them how
they should interact socially on LambdaMOO.
Once ready, LambdaMOO
newcomers may decide to open the closet door and venture into the greater part
of the virtual world. They will then
find themselves in the living room:
The Living Room
It is very bright, open, and airy here, with large
plate-glass windows looking southward over the pool to the gardens beyond. On
the north wall, there is a rough stonework fireplace. The east and west walls are almost completely covered with large, well-stocked bookcases. An exit in the northwest corner leads to the
kitchen and, in a more northerly direction, to the entrance hall. The door into
the coat closet is at the north end of the east wall, and at the south end is a
sliding glass door leading out onto a wooden deck. There are two sets of couches, one clustered around the fireplace
and one with a view out the windows. You see Cockatoo, README for New MOOers, a
fireplace, a newspaper, Welcome Poster, LambdaMOO Takes A New Direction, The
Daily Whale, a map of LambdaHouse, The Carpet, The Birthday Machine, lag meter,
and Helpful Person Finder here. Guinevere, jane, MadHatter, Fred, Obvious,
Alex, jean-luc, tureshta, Bullet_the_Blue, Daneel, KingSolomon, lena, Laurel,
petrify, Ginger, and Groo are here.[4]
The importance of anterooms
on MUDs becomes clearer in the light of the quantity of information which
entrance into more dynamic areas elicits.
The LambdaMOO living room is a social and virtually physical nexus. From this point players of the system may
enter an ever increasing number of virtual places. The main body of the living room's description details the places
that can be visited from that room.
Having come this far, most novice players are provided with a strong sense of physical context, which provides
a sense of the conceptual limitations and possibilities of the virtual world.
Physical context is a dimension of social context; place and time are as much
loaded with cultural meaning as are dress and gesture. LambdaMOO provides the
place, and makes it non-threatening and comfortable. With fireplaces and couches, books, sunlight, fresh air and
pool-side views, the LambdaMOO house is definitely a desirable residence. It
is a place to relax and chat, and that is exactly what people do in it.
Along with virtually
physical centrality, the living room provides social centrality. It is the main meeting place for LambdaMOO
inhabitants. It is quite likely the
first port of call for newcomers seeking to find a social niche in the virtual
setting. From LambdaMOO's beginning,
the living room was presented in such a way as to offer a sense of social
orientation to newcomers. Fixtures in
the room included a simple map of the main areas of the ever-growing
LambdaHouse, a welcome
poster and a device enabling the newcomer to get in touch with players
designated as 'Helpful People' willing to answer questions and provide aid to
the confused. As LambdaMOO has evolved,
its denizens have added to this list of fixtures. The more popular additions have included a device for registering
one's
birthdate and finding out
the birthdates of other players, as well as the LambdaMOO newspapers, which are
commonly filled with social notes, gossip, announcements and opinions. All of these objects, and the functions they
perform, create LambdaMOO as a space held together by interpersonal sociality. Birthdays are remembered and commemorated. Help is easy to find, and
clearly advertised. All newcomers are
offered a welcome, and the day-to-day social lives of LambdaMOO denizens are
reported and commented upon.
I have been unable to find a
MUD that does not provide the player with both an anteroom and a central social
nexus point, each room containing information about the physical and social
context of the MUD. The nature of that
context differs widely between MUDs.
Some, such as LambdaMOO, give an impression of warmth and friendliness.
Others might be competitive and dangerous, or might offer and adventure and
challenge. The information transmitted
differs, but not the method of transmission.
MUDs create their own context out of words. The cues normally associated with sight and sound and touch are
provided through description. The
information with which newcomers are met allows them imaginatively to place
themselves within the virtual world, and encourages them to treat these textual
cues as
if they were real. This information provides a common basis for
interaction between players.
2)
Making Sense of Each Other
The MUD system provides
players with a stage, but it does not provide them with a script. Players choose their own actions within the
context created by the MUD universe.
They are not technically dictated to by the MUD, but are instead given
tools which enable them to act and speak virtually. Interaction on social-style MUDs such as LambdaMOO is carried out
through the use of five commands known as 'say', 'pose', 'whisper', 'page' and
'page-pose'.[5] Each of these commands
allows communicative information to be channelled in different ways. The 'say', 'pose' and 'whisper' commands are
used between players in the same virtual space. If a player in the living room, who might be called Fred, types
'say Hi there!' then all the players in the living room will see that:
Fred says, "Hi
there!"
If Fred then types, 'pose
grins amiably' then all those in the room will see:
Fred grins amiably.
The pose command can also be
used to mix actions and utterances together.[6] If Fred were to type, 'pose hugs Ginger warmly and says,
"It's great to see you again!" ' those in the living room, including
a character named Ginger, would see:
Fred hugs
Ginger warmly and says, "It's great to see you again!"
If, however, Fred wished to
communicate only with Ginger, he might choose to use the whisper command. Typing 'whisper Hi there! to Ginger' will
cause Ginger, and only Ginger, to receive the following:
Fred
whispers, "Hi there!" to you.
Even if Ginger were not in
the same virtual room as Fred, he could still communicate with her. The page and page-pose commands allow the
same function as do say and pose but allow messages or virtual actions to be sent
to players in other virtual rooms. The
results of these commands appear this way:
Fred
pages, "Hi there!" to you.
and
In a
page-pose to you, Fred grins amiably.
Described baldly, this suite
of commands seems simplistic. They are,
however, the tools with which social presence is formed on MUDs and through
which social interaction is made possible.
They may be simple, but they are immensely flexible. Players can say, whisper or page whatever
they choose to, and may pose or page-pose any action they wish to take. There is no technical limit to what can be
expressed, although as I shall describe later, conventions have arisen on MUDs
which delimit the acceptability of various kinds and subjects of communication.
By contrast, players of
adventure style MUDs, while having access to commands such as whisper and page,
are able to emote only in tightly controlled circumstances. The actions taken by players on adventure
MUDs form part of a never-ending narrative, a story in which enemies are
killed, and treasure and power are won.
Actions are taken not only within a social context but within the
context of the MUD's narrative. To
allow players to pose such lines as 'Ginger wields a sword of Ultimate
Destruction,' or, 'Fred gives you 1000 gold coins,' would destroy the integrity
of that narrative. It is only in
special places in the MUD world, commonly known as 'emote rooms', that players
of adventure systems are able to use emote commands; elsewhere they are given
access to a suite of commands that enable specific actions. Thus, for instance, on Revenge of the End of
the Line, if Fred were to type 'french Ginger', Ginger would see:
Fred
gives you a deep and passionate kiss...
It seems
to take forever...
Adventure MUD systems
commonly provide players with several hundreds of these commands, typically
divided into verb and adverb categories. By combining words from each category
players are able to express actions and feelings, an exercise that demands
skill and memory. Though less versatile than the free poses allowed players of
social MUDs, verb and adverb commands are heavily used. Thomas Gerstner, who is associated with an
adventure-style MUD named 'Nemesis',
recently circulated the results of a tally showing how many times each command
was used. Over a period of 250 days,
and with an average of twenty players connected at all times, players on
Nemesis invoked a 'feeling' command every thirty seconds. The most popular commands were:
Verbs:
|
smile |
89089 |
bow |
50138 |
shake |
46312 |
|
greet |
46152 |
grin |
46046 |
nod |
42385 |
|
laugh |
34063 |
wave |
30875 |
giggle |
20145 |
|
sigh |
19222 |
hug |
19220 |
wait |
13550 |
|
kiss |
12212 |
shrug |
10849 |
kick |
9504 |
|
poke |
9307 |
chuckle |
7401 |
french |
6773 |
Adverbs:
|
happily |
5057 |
demonically |
3763 |
evilly |
3662 |
|
sadly |
2027 |
smilingly |
1864 |
deeply |
1458 |
|
passionately |
1143 |
knowingly |
1119 |
insanely |
1096 |
|
erotically |
950 |