MUDs and MOOs

On the Internet MOOs and MUDs are complex and dynamic virtual environments that anyone can access via a text relaying program, like Telnet, using a modem. Users are logged on to a server simultaneously and are able to communicate in real time. And many experts from around the world use MOOs to meet for a chat or hold virtual conferences. Most MOOs, everyone can join; at least as a guest to have a look.

Back in the future - some MOO history

First there was the MUD. Multi-User Dungeons or Multi-User Domain or Multi-User Dimension arises from the first ever text-based computer games, the "Adventures". In these games the player would enter a fictional world with written descriptions of objects, tools and traps. He could then type in instructions as what to do and where to go and the computer would describe what things looked like, tell what happened and where to go next. The vocabulary used was a number of simple english commands as "go field" or "get torch".
A computer can be a pretty good opponent in games, but (still) not as good as the human mind. So some adventurous programmers tried out the possibility of more people playing the same game simultaneously and instead of you getting the torch, someone else would, and run away. The success of this try-out resulted in games with over a hundred players logged on at the same time. The single-player dungeons had become multi-user domains.

Other programs started to grow from the MUD. The interaction in the fantasy worlds were no longer (just) a game. The worlds were dynamic which meant that the players did not only connect to the MUD for chasing or killing each other, but to socialise or create objects themselves. And in some worlds, they changed bits of the code and the MUDs became MOOs; a difference mainly noticeable for programmers.

The use of virtual environments

The hundreds of MOOs available have been divided into three main groups: 1) educational, foreign language and research MOOs, 2) gaming MOOs and 3) social MOOs. Some MOOs have a specific topic like a certain language, films, romance, gays, gardening, some environments have a more pointedly academic character with the idea of the virtual classroom or confrenceroom and a lot of worlds still evolve around the idea of playing games. Especially the first category is interesting to journalists, who might discover that some MOOs, like MITs Media-Moo have world-renowned experts as their inhabitants. And in the MOO they might be much easier to get hold of, then in real life, where you have to get past the secretary.

Because the origins of virtual environments was a game, a lot of people still think of MOOs as imaginary places with only game-like qualities. A MOO is just a MUD and a MUD is just a game. But even so, MOOs have proven to be suitable for educational purposes, distance and international learning, research and as a highly efficient communicative tool in various contexts. Teachers of all subjects can find it useful to involve virtual reality in their education. If the history teacher was to explain the strategies of World War I, he could bring the students to a MOO, create a scene of the battleground and let the participants play the roles of the generals themselves.A MOO is an imaginary environment with game-like qualities, but not just that, because it allows for learning while playing.

But still MOOs mostly serves as socially oriented areas. Cyberspace creates a space for people to meet and allows for real-time conversations from all around the world. People connect to a MOO, join others for a discussion about a certain subject or simply just hang out in a virtual café, chatting to whoever might log on. In multi-user domains you have the chance of running in to a physioscientist from Germany or a biologist from London who, by the way, happens to know a great deal about fashion in the 60s. All of this depending on the "Theme" (e.g. Astropysics or Star Trek) of the MOO.

When the MOOs move

MOOs are text-based environments. Everything that goes on in the worlds are actually visualised in the minds of the user, like reading a book. The objects are described objects, the persons are explained as being beautiful or evil or well-dressed, the world itself is specified by words only. Never the less many MOOs have moved to the World Wide Web.

A WOO, Webed MOO or Web-MOO, is a MOO than can be accessed directly from the Web server, rather than from a client. The force of a WOO is that it can incorporate graphics and sound so that when creating an object, it is done visually. When walking around you can actually see your surroundings.
The WOO is a fairly new invention and a lot of environments are still only at a try-out stage. Various problems have arisen from the WOO experiment, mainly the fact that when you use the World Wide Web, you actually only connect to a distant computer when you click something. It all boils down to, that the real-time communication you are having on the WOO, only gets really real-time if you click your screen all the time. This problem has been taken care of by using an "automatic update" that automatically connect to the wanted WOO very often, but still a real-time conversation gets more real by connecting via a client such as Telnet.

If you want to know more about MOOs and MUDs go to:

Kaare's guide to MUD's and mudding
- Welcome to the world of MUDding. Here you will find basic information about MUDs and MUDding and a really helpful glossary section that introduces the terms used when speaking of virtual environments.

Rachel's Super MOO List
- On this site you will find more than a hundred addresses and descriptions of individual MOOs, listed in alphabetical order. Besides the list a number of relevant links are available on this really phenomenal site of MOOing.

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