Kristin's+Social+MOO+experience

YES! Social MOO!! Fact: I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I AM DOING!!! YES!!

Today I checked out PythonMOO and was super excited to get started...that was until I found out that I was the ONLY person online...

So instead of chatting it up with cool new people I tried to learn how to communicate in this new world by talking to myself (which was a real good time) and sent a request to start an account so I won't be a guest every time I enter. (Hopefully I am at the right site for this project because if I'm not, I may be receiving some weird emails :S)

YAY!! That's all for today. More to come when people actually TALK to me and when I figure out what I am suppose to do here.

Feb 6, 2010 So today I decided to give the whole PythonMOO another go. This time it appeared as if 4 people were online; however, one have been inactive for 13 hours, while the other two have been inactive for days now...it appears as if I am the only one that has been recently active! I even tried paging some of the other players online, but I haven't received a

response. Some of the players it appears have been online for days, so I am a little worried that they may all be dead by their computers and no one knows about it. I have to admit that I am getting a bit discouraged not having any luck with Python. It actually looks like it would be really fun to participate in because you can move from room to room using a directional pad on the right hand side of the screen and each room that you move into has a different description that explains how the room is set up. IMAGINATION!!! I think I am going to have to check out some different MOOs...Python really is disappointing. I've already tried LambdaMOO but I am having trouble actually accessing the chat room. If anyone doing Social MOO has any advice on what is working for them PLEASE let me know!!! Please post!!!

I found out how to take a screen shot today which was really exciting and so I am posting my first screen shot of how PythonMOO looks. Note the inactive players...gah!

2/13/10 I finally got LambdaMOO working thanks to the wonderful help of our TA Liz! I decided to jump right in and see what this community is all about. I was warmly welcomed in the coat closet with smiles and waves from numerous players. I was logged under the name "Copper Guest" and a player under the name "Yellow Guest" seemed to have me confused for another player and claimed that I was her daughter. Yea, I was a little freaked out. After explaining that I wasn't who she thought I was, she continued to insist that I was her long lost daughter that her husband had no idea about so I decided to play along (JERRY JERRY JERRY)...don't ask. To tell the truth it was a little fun role playing but at the same time I was a little freaked out with myself for going along with it. It also brought to my attention how no one really knows your age/sex/race in LambaMOO which is fun in some aspects and a bit creepy in others. I also fell off the face of the earth which was really fun...well actually I think I died because it wouldn't let me move anywhere and I had to reconnect to begin again in the closet. Thank goodness I was only a guest. I decided to request a character and I just got an email confirming my request, so I won't have to log into Lambda as a guest anymore. I'm keeping an open mind about this, and trying to play along...because it is a little fun...

2/21/10

So I have to admit that I am still very confused about this whole lambdamoo thing. Today I decided to log on with my new character Kwicke and explore a bit. I ended up getting extrememly lost...the corridor seems to go on FOREVER! I found out that you could pick things up and add them to your inventory; however, I had no luck at picking up anything. I tried to steal mail from a mailbox and it informed me that I couldn't do that...so I left empty handed. I also tried to light a fire in the living room but I didn't have any wood, I have no idea where I am suppose to find wood so I just moved on. I finally got to an elevator and started to ride it up and down when I was paged by another player named Horus asking me if I was gong up? I paged him back explaining that I was really confused and lost. He was really nice and helped me figure out how to transport to the room that he had created, which was a Tomb with little description. His description of his character was a 6'1 male with the head of an eagle.

We began to talk and he started to explain the whole Social MOO thing to me. He told me that LambdaMOO use to be a really happening place; however, it has now become a ghost town mostly because people have turned to more visual based multi user games than text based. He specially brought up Second life and seemed a bit bitter towards it. I asked him about creating things in LambdaMOO and inventory things and he said that people usually go on to LambdaMOO to talk with friends rather than build things; however, he told me that some still enjoy building new rooms in Lambda.

The thing that I realized is that I am really bad at taking on an alter ego. I think I am a little uncomfortable not knowing the truth behind who I am talking to. Maybe this is defeating the purpose of LambdaMOO but I had to ask Horus if he was really a guy in real life because it is really interesting to me how people take on a different sex in Lambda. He told me that he was, but that Horus was who is was in LambdaMOO and that he would appreciate it if I didn't ask questions about his real life. Now i know that it is probably really creepy of me to try to figure out the details of someone's real life who I met online through a text based world, but I just feel rather unconfortable not knowing the truth behind someone's true identity. I didn't even really know how to talk to Horus...I had no idea if I should be engaging in small talk or trying to get to know this character's personality when this character doesn't really exist! I know that this is just suppose to be a fun place where you can be whoever you want to be, but it is really hard for me still. Hopefully I will get over this and take on an alter ego myself but right now I feel like I am having anxieties about trying to separate reality from role playing. I need to stop this.

Horus became my LambdaMOO guru, and I felt like he was really watching out for me which I really appreciated. At first he told me that he realized that my description said that I was a female which was one of the reasons that he decided to talk to me...okay that creeped me out...but then he preceeded to tell me that I should be careful with identifying as a female in LambdaMOO because you can get a lot of unwanted attention. He also told me to be careful with my description because it will ultimately determine who approaches me in LamdaMOO and what kind of attention I will receive. Good advice from Horus. I definitely don't want to be attacked in LambdaMOO by creepy people...

More to come. Hopefully Horus will give me more insight and I come up with a description for my character

2/22/10

I decided to get over my inhibition towards this whole reality vs. make believe. I am going for it. I have this character that I made up in my improv group a while ago named Martha Beans who is a colorful middle aged homeless woman who is a little bit off but has a heart of gold. I decided to change my name from Kwicke to Martha_Beans because Kwicke was just too close to my own identity. I took a screen shot of my description so here it is. I am now Martha Beans...woo hoo!





April 6 2010

Wow! I realized that I haven't been on lambdamoo for awhile now so I decided to hop back into it tonight! Let me just say that I have become rusty! I had to pull up a website with all the commands and reintroduce myself to the MOO experience. I realized tonight how important it is to participate long enough in a community in order to become a member and the consequences of not doing so. Upon entering, I checked out who was online by typing @who and realized that a lot of people were in "The Coat Closet" so I transported there by joining an avatar there by typing @join (avatar's name). When I got there, people welcomed me and told me that they liked my description of Martha_Beans. I met this character Dreadnaught who told me that I should create an eyeball that I could interact with. She gave me commands to type but I couldn't get them to work so I just acted like I was going to do it later. Then something weird happened. Dreadnaught teleported a 200 inch TV into the room and put me on Channel 8! I was actually in the TV. I had no idea what was going on or how to get out. I think I had my first experience of being manipulated by a more experiened player through some black magic...or maybe just being bullied. So naturally I had no idea what was going on so I kept asking for Dreadnaught to let me out- and she wouldn't. What a funny girl...NOT! So finally she lets me out and they start making sexual inuendos to one another! Now as we all know, Martha_Beans does not go beyond PG-13 and these avatars were up to no good. I even had to shield the doll's ears and eyes! So, then they started adressing Martha and I had no idea what they were talking about so I started staying random things. I even emoted that Martha_Beans was saying random things because she has no idea what is going on and feels a little naive. That was a bad idea- Dreadnaught totally turned on me. She started telling others that she wanted to @gag me which is basically kicking me out and blocking me from conversations. So, I was a little scared- I couldn't believe this avatar hated Martha_Beans, the woman with the one eyed doll who wears moo moos! What's not to like!? So, naturally I told Dreadnaught that I would just leave and that she didn't have to gag me- however, other avatars told me to stay. They told me that Dreadnaught is always like this. So I decided to stay and I confronted Dreadnaught by asking her why she wanted to gag me. She said that I was being too random and that she made observations about Martha and they have all proven to be true. She was really harsh and really mean. Then she asked me why I wasn't addressing avatars ever and just writing things to everyone. Let me explain this a little- when you type something you want to say you have to type one quotation mark and then what you want to say. This will show up as: Martha_Beans says (whatever you type). Dreadnaught was angry at me because I wasn't addressing a specific avatar. If I addressed a specific character it would appear as Martha_Beans says [to Dreadnaught] (whatever you type). So I simply explained that I didn't know how, that I was new and that I was doing this whole moo thing for a class project. Plus, I threw in the whole feeling unwelcomed in the community. Now I don't know if it was the whole doing this for school (suggesting I am an intellectual- hahahaha), or the newbie not feeling welcomed but Dreadnaught suddenly stoped being a jerk. She showed me how to address certain characters- of course this didn't come easy to me and i played the pity card a bit to make Dreadnaught feel a little sorry for treaing me so mean by saying that I felt like an idiot and just felt like leaving. I had Dreadnaught wrapped around my finger. She apologized to me and I learned how to address specific characters. Then she asked what class I was doing this for and I told her that I was researching community, identity and internet flaming (ahaha I threw that in there beause she was flaming at me!) so then she told me that she hopes she shows up in my paper and that she hopes I don't think she is a jerk...I told her that she would definitely make it into my paper (however, probably as an example of ways community members flame at newbies...jerk) All in all the whole experience taught me a lot tonight about online communities: Here are the lessons: 1. Being part of a community really does mean participating long enough to learn the language- you will stick out like a sore thumb if you dont know the proper way to communicate within the community and people will point it out to you sometimes harshly 2. Participating in a community doesn't mean just typing random sentences to feel "involved"- people will get annoyed of you and will try to @gag you 3. Always use the excuse that you are "new" at something- people are so much nicer to you 4. Make a list of people to avoid- some people just like to start confrontations and others just want...well inappropriate things. These people include : Dreadnaught and FunMan

April 22 2010

So I decided to get back into the swing of things on LamdaMOO tonight- I have to admit that i have been hesitant about going back on since my flamming experience. Plus, I am an idiot and forgot to write down the commands that I learned last time from the horribly mean Dreadnaught-so I am scared I will be scolded again in Lambda for communicating incorrectly. You would think that this whole LambdaMoo thing would be getting easier for me, but I find myself very confused every time I go back on. Tonight I decided to try something new and create a room for my avatar that I could call "Home". I looked up some commands for creating new objects and I found that by typing in @dig you can create your own room. So, I created a room called "Martha's Dollhouse" (wanting to keep with the theme of my oddball avatar's love for dolls). So I made the room...but then I tried to create a description of the room and I was obviously doing the commands wrong because none of it worked. I also tried to make myself a resident of the room but then it told me that Martha's Dollhouse didn't exist!? WHAT? This text based world is seriously a pain in the butt. All I wanted to do tonight was to get Martha out of that nasty linen closet and give Martha and her doll a place to call home...IS THAT RELALY TOO MUCH TO ASK!? (Cue Melodramatic music) So my attempts tonight were a big failure- but I'm learning. I think I'll ask someone in Lambda tomorrow about buiding and creating objects. I am determined to create something before the end of the semester- I owe it to Martha and her little doll too!! Wow- I really sound like a freak on this-

May 4 2010

I HAVE A ROOM FOR MARTHA!!! It's called Martha's Doll House...but I can't figure out how ot make a description.

So I made a room for Martha but that is about all the programming that I have been able to master. A screenshot should be included to show how my character's homebase is Martha's Doll House- so cool!

I decided to teleport into the coat closet and I met Teal_Guest. We started to talk and he told me that he was there when Dreadnaught yelled at me!!!! He told me that she is usually like that and that she has a real attitude problem on Lambda- a character I should avoid.

So- once again, instead of having a normal conversation I retreated back into my interrogation mode in which I ask question upon question to the characters I meet. Teal_Guest was actually very helpful and shared a lot of interesting things about Lambda. First of all I found out that they don't use the word "Avatar" in Lambda- they are called "Characters". I first asked Teal_Guest why he didn't have a "character" since he told me he had been a member of Lambda for 15 years! He grinned and told me that he wasn't sure about how much he wanted to be a member. Now how can it be possible to not create a character for 15 years!!!?? Perhaps he didn't find himself feeling invested in the community-I'm really not sure because he seemed to dodge the question. Then I asked him if he was anything like who he was in real life- I was finding it a little fishy that he hadn't created a character and had been a guest for so long. There had to be something with playing with identity here- but he told me that he basically was the same person in Lambda as he was in RL. He said that the only thing that was different from his real life was that he would say things in Lambda to characters that he probably wouldn't say in RL- he used the example of telling Dreadnaught to F off---That Dreadnaught is not liked. So then I became curious about his emotional investment in other players and how that effected his real life. He told me that he was married in RL, that he once was emotionally invested in someone in Lambda, but he knew that nothing would come from it because it was in a virtual world. He also told me that he would never meet someone that he met on Lambda in RL -"too many nut cases". I then told me that I was doing this for a class project- his response was to tell my professor to "get out of the 90s" HAHAHAH! So I asked him why he was "stuck in the 90's" still on a MOO when we have social networking sites that are more up to date and easier to use. He told me that he had become a diehad member of Lambda, that he didn't have time to start over in another world- he also told me that Lambda was very addictive when he first joined and that he was scared of becoming addicted to another virtual world. It was a very interesting conversation. Unfortunately I had to end the conversation because the Memorial library was kicking me out- darn hours!!!