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By Charles Deemer |
Imagine having your own "virtual office" in cyberspace. There you would have many of the conveniences of your office in the physical world: a desk and chairs; a blackboard; filing cabinets; a tape recorder; an adjacent conference room for more private consultations. MOO - Object Oriented Multi-User Dimensions - are online sites that provide the tools for creating exactly this.
This is where a sense of being overwhelmed begins. MOOs are very powerful, as I hope you'll learn here. They also are a bit confusing and require some getting used to. A new MOO guest may ask: Now what? Or: Is this all there is? Once you connect, nothing seems to be happening.
But wait! With luck, an online experienced MOO Wizard or member may greet you in The Lobby, where your journey begins. To speak to him or her, type the word say and then press enter - you will be prompted to type your message. As a shortcut, you can use " instead of say (i.e. a single quotation mark).
A MOO is divided into many areas or rooms, which can be used by many users at once "in real time." In this sense, it combines features of IRC and the Web. Like IRC, real time chat is available at a MOO; as on the Web, a space with many areas within it is defined.
Once you've done the "connect Guest" command above, you can get to my office with the command: @go CDOffice
I created my office with commands of "@dig" and "@create," learning about them at the online help area ("help index"). A MOO is dynamic: people can "dig" new rooms or spaces and "create" objects to put in them. I thus created a "tape recorder" and "tape," so I can record what happens in my office when I hold online classes or workshops there. I mail this log to myself with a @mailme command.
I also created a "filing cabinet" so I can store things out of sight from vistors. I created a "clock" so I can easily find out what time it is. I created a "blackboard" on which I can write messages for anyone who happens to drop by.
Many commands in the MOO mirror common sense commands. Thus, to get my tape recorder ready to use, I type: "put CDlog in CDrecorder" and "turn CDrecorder on." I could have given these devices any time I wanted and also described them in any way I wanted (what I describe is what a visitor will see with a "look" command.
Speaking in a MOO is done with the "say" command, unless one wants to "whisper" privately. "say How are you?" might be one command (it is safer to press the enter key after "say" and then type the message, which prevents simultaneous dialogue from interfering with each other). "whisper to CharlesD Let's leave" might be another.
When you enter a room, you can "look" at the objects in it. What you see (read) depends on how the creator as described them (with the @describe command: @describe CDFile as "a battered filing cabinet picked up at a garage sale", for example, will bring up this very description when a visitor types "look CDFile".
The MOO, in other words, is a text-based virtual reality and, as such, is a wonderful environment for writers.
Enter the command: @go Kaos Seminar Room (you are still at the theatre MOO). This is a "generic classroom." Generic rooms are easily copied and adapted for use by MOO members.
At the seminar room, enter the command: @tutorial
Take your time going through the wealth of material here, and when you're done type "help here" for even more features.
For all the features in my office, I've only used a smattering of the commands available to me. Many people use the MOO with a sense of fun, paying homage to MOO's origins in the MUD (Multi-User Dungeons) game tradition.
I've used my virtual office mostly for business, meeting my online classes there, holding screenwriting workshops there, or having business meetings there.
For this project, I am using 13 actors at 13 computers, who will move through an 8-room environment in a "hyperdrama lab" that is being constructed just for this event. (If it goes well, a public performance will be scheduled in April or May).
Hyperdrama, with its simultaneous action occurring throughout a performance area, is a difficult form to rehearse "as whole cloth" - but in a MOO environment, for the first time, material can be tested and conveniently "tracked" by having "virtual tape recorders" running in all of the performance spaces. The MOO environment is letting me do things as an author of hyperdrama that I have not been able to do before with regard to new play development.
The creative uses of MOO, then, are limited only by the visions of the artists taking advantage of textual virtual reality. I expect many more exciting projects will premier at ATHEMOO in the months ahead.
I urge you to take the plunge into MOO.
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