Practicum #2-- Katie Yohn

I spent a couple of hours yesterday exploring a social MOO called BayMOO. It is one of the few active social MOOs that are left. Most MUDs are used for virtual text gaming now, so the social MOO is hard to come by. BayMOO is a virtual world located in the San Fransisco Bay Area. When I say "virtual world" I want to be clear that it is completely a TEXT world. Instead of seeing "The Aquatic Dome", text will tell you that you are entering, or are inside of "The Aquatic Dome".

I navigated the world as a guest because I have not yet figured out how to become an active member (hopefully one of my next couple of posts will involve that process). It seems that the only restriction to being a guest is that there is a limit to how many "items" you can "pick up." I have not yet figured out how to grab items either (again, hopefully my next post will involve how to do that).

So far I have basically been navigating myself around the world. I have been looking at various places and getting a feel for the environment. There is a lot of reading when taking part in a social MOO, as it takes much description to make one feel like they are actually in a place. The MOO uses extremely vibrant language to make you feel like you are "there" (for example, see screen shot below of the description of The Aquatic Dome. Colored text was used to make the Birthday Machine look more exciting).

I spent some time in the Help Desk to learn about basic commands and codes. For the most part the text gives options on what you can do, where you can go, and what to type to get there, but sometimes extra knowledge is needed. For example, to say something to another player you actually need to type the word "say." Unfortunately I tried to communicate to other players but wasn't able too. There was only one other player logged in to Bay MOO at the time but they had been inactive for nine days (see top of picture below. It shows the person's name, how long they were connected and where they were in the world). I like the MOO feature of being able to see who is logged in. That way you can talk to specific people instead of just the ones that are currently in the "room" that you are.

I will try to find a more active social MOO for my next post. Hopefully I will learn how to pick up objects and become an active member. I am going to try and have some dialogue with other players as well. Look for my post tonight or tomorrow as I will be MOOing for a couple of hours today.