MOO

What is a MOO?

MOOs are a version of a MUDs, Multi-User Domains (or Dungeons), originally developed for Dungeons and Dragoons-type games. MUDs grew out of the adventure game Zork which provided a text-driven interactive environment in which the player could perform simple actions, such as move west, open a door, or get a bird cage (Murray 148). MUDs add multiple users who may interact in the same, text-driven, real-time, virtual environment. Unlike IRC (Internet Relay Chat) or adventure games like Zork, MUDs provide a virtual environment for physical, real-time interaction and dialog. With an immersive and multi-user environment, role-playing in a collective begins to supercede individual point-building in the adventure game.

MOOs differ from MUDs by adding objects to the environment, becoming then “object-oriented.” MOOs incorporate a programming language within a MUD that gives players more control over their environments and the objects within those environments (Vitanza 424). As Vitanza and Schweller point out, initial encounters in MOOs can be, and usually are, confusing and off-putting, especially when large numbers of players attempt to be heard at the same time. Initial meetings are also made difficult because of a “newbie’s” lack of MOO literacy: knowing a few basic commands before one’s initial foray into a MOO is necessary.

There are three basic types of MOOs: adventure games, social, and education. Here, we are interested in the latter two; however, some MOOs incorporate components of two or three types into their sphere. Schweller suggests that educators find MOOs difficult to use at first because they do not have the knowledge in “maintaining conversational coherence, making resources available, and managing presentations” (88). Not only does the individual and teacher have initial difficulties in using MOOs, administrators, in some cases, sanction their use in education because of the nefarious mythology that has sprang up around them (Vitanza 425). Julian Dibbell’s famous essay “A Rape in Cyberspace; Or, How an Evil Clown, a Haitian Trickster Spirit, Two Wizards, and a Cast of Dozens Turned a Database into a Society” narrates the supposed events that led up to the virtual assult of two characters at LambdaMOO. Despite some resistance, MOOs represent venues where users can gather, don an array of virtual masks, escape RL, work on their own identities, build their own environment, and play (Turkle xii-xiii and Bruckman).

Participating in a MOO is not unlike reading the script for a play that has not been written yet. Theatrical tropes abound: stage, character, setting, direction, pacing, props—all suggest the performative aspects of MOO life. If the theatre mirrors the real (some might suggest the theatre is the real), then MOOs, too, represent RL.

Some MOO Links

Here are some basic links to MOOs and MOO-related information.

• What’s MOO?
• Center for Teaching Enhancement Workshop on Synchronous Communication
• High Wired enCore: Educational MOO Core Database
• List of Some MOOs
• LitMOO Homepage
• MOO/MU Document Library

Some MOOs I Frequent

• LitMUSE
• DaMOO
• LambdaMOO
• Diversity University MOO