For my practicum project I just went on the journey of finding social MOOs/MUDs. These programs are so old that they cannot even be accessed from the Internet. A special client (there are many to choose from) must be downloaded in order to connect to a MOO or MUD. Most MOOs and MUDs require a client that can access something called telnet. I found that because there are so many different clients, and MOOs are not extremely popular anymore, it is not an easy task to find one that works well. I had to download several clients before I found one that I could use.
MudMagic worked but it only offered two MUD programs that were both game-based. Since this project is about looking at Social MOOs I had to find a new client. Another one, called JMC, the Java Mud client, was for advanced users and was extremely hard to use. I was unable to connect to a MOO from this program because they did not have a list of options. My life-saver was a client called zMUD. This is the most popular MUD client for PCs and is easy to use. Users have to pay for the client but there is a 30 day trial where they can use it for free. The client has a list of MOOs and MUDs that you can easily connect with.
Another helpful source in the MOO/MUD world is the website THE MUD CONNECTOR. This site has a list of MUD clients, a list of working MOOs/MUDs and help sheets for new users explaining how MOOs and MUDs work. The site also has a built-in flash client that allows you to access any MOO or MUD straight from the Internet. The only reason it is better to download a client rather then using the website, is the flash client uses a smaller screen and text can often be cut-off. This is not good because text is the only thing that matters in a MOO/MUD. If you miss a few words your whole path in the world could be off.
Since I finally have a client and have read a little bit about MOOs on THE MUD CONNECTOR site, I am going to start exploring a virtual text world. Stay tuned for my next update on what an actual MOO looks like!
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