Scott's+SocialMOO+Page


 * 4/28/10**

Admittedly, it has been a long time since I logged onto Aardwolf. I logged into my character Ricket again. I began my adventuring around the world again, but it took quite a while before I got my grips back on how to get around the world. I killed a few globs of mud for experience (not sure exactly how mud attacks me. But then again, I'm walking around as a mutant fairy). Granted, I can't remember at all how to use my inventory, but the Help Menu system is extremely sophisticated and the only cause of my problems is my own absence.

I overheard another player talking in the gossip channel. He said that he hadn't logged into Aardwolf in over a decade, and was very impressed with the strides that the MUD has made in his time away. One would expect it to make improvements over its life, but it was pretty cool to see players from long ago coming back to it. I guess even with all the new games, a lot of players still have a soft spot for their good old MUD adventures.


 * Presentation Images

LambdaMOO

Aardwolf

2/21/10** I am more or less finished up with training in Aardwolf. There were a lot of steps to go through, just because there's so much that you can do in the world. Buying/selling/trading, fighting monsters, navigating the world, chatting with other players, etc. It's a lot of information to learn at once, but most of it is very intuitive and there's a help system that, well, helps.

I moved to a different telnet client called MUSHclient, because Aardowlf recommended it. I then followed a tutorial that let me use a whole bunch of plug-ins to go with the game. These included a floating map, a health bar, and a few other things. Now my client looks like this.

It's pretty neat how sophisticated the game has become. Obviously the heart of it is all text-based and the like. But after being around for a couple decades, I guess it makes sense that Aardwolf has evolved.

On another note, a player gave me a bottle of Jim Beam while we were sitting around in town. We talked about the best food that goes with whiskey (concluding pretzels were at the top). Then I watched as a number of people talked about the Olympics in the gossip channel. Aardwolf is a fantasy game at heart, but I have seen far more user interaction here than I did at Lambda.

I'm still going through training, managing my inventory and all of that business. I got trained in how to auction items to other players, and a helpful fellow named Curmudgeon bought a fundraising leaflet from me for 150,000 gold. Which seems like a lot. He later told me that he had mistaken me for somebody else, but nevertheless continued chatting with me and gave me something called a demon school backpack. I watched as some players talked in the gossip channel and nothing in particular, and everyone seemed very friendly and inviting. It's pretty cool to see how good-natured all the people playing the game are. Seems like a mature audience.
 * 2/15/10**

Things continue to go smoothly with Aardwolf. I've been playing through the training stage of the game. There are a few non-player characters that guide you through the mechanics of the game. It's a lot of information to try to remember, but it's set up in a very friendly manner.
 * 2/13/10**

I wandered out of the Academy on my first trip into the world. As I moved through a forest, I was really amazed at the amount of detail that went into this game. Each different spot I moved to had a description of what surrounded me, what creatures were doing, etc. A lot of it was really good, detailed writing too. I killed a whole bunch of small vipers for a quest, was attacked by a boar that I fled from, and ultimately wandered back to the city. I saw a few players auctioning equipment, but it was all for way more gold than I could afford.

Ricket is up to level 5 now. And he just got a new pair of boots. I was more than a little startled by how easily time flew by once I was out in the world, killing woodland creatures and the like. Who knew I would be enjoying myself with a purely text-based game?

I found my first real sign of MUD life! In MudConnector I went to the Top 10 and picked Aardwolf. It has apparently been going since 1996. Their site boasts about a thriving community, and claims some players have gotten married in real life after meeting through the game. Who would expect text-based dragon slaying to end up in matrimony?
 * 2/9/10**

I logged in and was already in character creation. Helpful prompts and information on the various races/classes I could pick from made this a total breeze. A few minutes in I had a Bandit Quickling (which is apparently some type of mutant faerie) whom I named Ricket. I was then plopped into a place called the Academy, where a trainer character welcomed me and guided me towards various classes to learn the game. A few players around me were talking, some just learning the mechanics while others helped them. A game of lasertag started as I wandered around. There was even a map so I could keep track of my position in the rooms.

This one was unbelievably easier to use than any of the others I have tried. For the first time it seemed intuitive in the least, and I found players actually //interacting with each other//. And, I admit, as I watched the lasertag game play out, I thought "Okay, this is a little cool."

I logged into LambdaMOO again. I had created a character of my own (instead of a guest account), whom I called Dodds. I started out in a linen closet, then started to wander around the house. There's a map for guidence, which has proved moderately useful. I passed by a person sleeping in a hallway, then walked into Living Room #17. I am beginning to wonder where the other 16 living rooms are. I found a couple people in this room, and waved. One person disconnected, and the other walked into a plate-glass window before exiting to the deck. Social interaction #2 = unsuccessful. Karma for my first one? Possibly.
 * 2/8/10**

I have looked at Cybersphere a couple times. On neither occasions have I seen a single player there, and was informed that no roleplaying plots are scheduled. I have a feeling Cybersphere might be dead.

I stumbled into a place called MudConnector. Seems like a kind of hub for people trying to get players for their MUD. A couple mention a kind called "godwars," which seems like another roleplaying-esque game. I also witnessed a forum battle between two members, arguing over a player's actions in a MUD that seems to have happened many years ago. I get the feeling most people using MOOs are at least a decade older than me.

I decided to give a different MOO a shot, mostly because I wasn't ready to keep trudging through the business of character creation and the like in Cybersphere. I took a look at PythonMOO, but the site told me there were only 3 active users. This didn't exactly scream "thriving community" to me, so I wandered over to LambdaMOO.
 * 2/3/10**

Overall, this was the easiest one to get a handle on so far. I downloaded a program called Putty, which is more or less for connecting to IRCs, MOOs, and other text-based online thingies. I logged in to find myself in what was called the Coat Closet, where apparently the logged-out users are stored. A person named Brown_Guest waved at me. While it did seem odd that I was standing in a closet with a person waving at me while others slept, it seemed like I should just go with the flow.

But about this time I realized I didn't know how to do a single thing. I then somehow walked out of the closet and into a room called Living Room #17. First social interaction on a MOO = unsuccessful.

I searched around for a while trying to find some MOOs. I stumbled across one called Cybersphere MOO, which had a cyberpunk, Gibsonian dystopia theme to it. It's like a roleplaying game, where you create a character, choose a skill set, interact with the other inhabitants of the dystopian world, etc. And being a MOO, of course, it is all entirely text-based. I decided to give it a shot, and then spent about an hour and a half reading rules, trying to create a player character, and in general battling the text-based engine which was none too friendly. The number of times it told me "I don't understand" after I tried to enter a command was, well, rather high.
 * 2/2/10**

...Still in the process of making my character. I decided to take a break after staring at green-on-black until my vision started getting blurry.