BKort@BBN.COM (Barry Kort) (11/10/90)
Several students have posted requests for information on VRs for use in term papers. Since the high-tech end of VRs is largely inaccessible to most people, you might want to explore and write about the low-tech end of the genre. I am talking about text-based VRs, otherwise known as Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs). These network-based cyberworlds are accessible to anyone who has access to the Internet. So if you can read and post to Netnews, you can probably gain access to MUDs as well. MUDs encourage extemporaneous creative writing and imagination, much like old time radio. For information on getting started, read net.rec.mud. Barry Kort (aka Moulton) Visiting Scientist BBN Labs Cambridge, MA
broehl@watserv1.waterloo.edu (Bernie Roehl) (11/21/90)
[MUDs keep intruding on our consciousness. As I told Bernie, in preparing to post the following high-quality posting, so far as I know, there is no systematic study of MUDs now taking place. Until there is, I continue to doubt their efficacy for explaining or exploring true virtual world experiences. However, the Group Mind may have something to say about this. Do YOU want more discussions of existing online virtual experiences here, or should they be dealt with in the specific conferences set up to discuss particular applications (like MUDs)? -- Bob Jacobson, Moderator] In article <10922@milton.u.washington.edu> BKort@BBN.COM (Barry Kort) writes: >...MUDs. These network-based cyberworlds are accessible to anyone who has >access to the Internet. True! >So if you can read and post to Netnews, you can >probably gain access to MUDs as well. Not *quite* true... a lot of people receive news over a uucp link, rather than being on the Internet directly. Anyone who's not sure can just try giving the command "telnet"... if it exists, you're fine. If not, you're (probably) out of luck. >For information on getting started, read net.rec.mud. Actually, it's rec.games.mud (at least, on our site!) Having followed discussions in both this group and rec.games.mud, I can suggest that people look at MUDs for some ideas of how virtual reality might be set up and administered. You might also discover some of the problems you run into; let me explain, and perhaps give sci.virtual-worlds people a quick intro to what a MUD is all about. Anyone who's played a text-based adventure game (e.g. Adventure or Zork) has a pretty good idea of what a MUD "feels" like. The great innovation that makes a MUD different from Adventure or Zork is that multiple players can be wandering around the same environment simultaneously, communicating with each other and working together to solve puzzles, make discoveries, or just chat. The second important innovation (which I believe is credited to James Aspnes) is the idea of *extensibility*. The players can not only wander around exist- ing rooms, but can build new rooms, create new objects, and generally work to create a richer, more complex environment. This is where the biggest problem facing MUDs originates; since a MUD grows more sophisticated and complex as people from all over the world build and create, it also outgrows the ability of the machine it's hosted on to handle the huge of amount of data involved. I'm in the process of designing a distributed MUD, that would be implemented across a group of machines rather than a single machine; I'm also keeping in mind the kind of extensibility needed to allow a visual (rather than strictly text-based) model of reality. An important aside: virtual reality already exists; it's our *means of accessing it* that is growing more sophisticated. Consider the following examples of virtual reality: - the net - telephone "party lines" - MUDs - Internet Relay Chat In all cases, people from all over the physical world can come together in a "virtual" world to communicate, discuss and work together. All of these have certain basic elements in common, and all of them provide (in some form or another) access to a "reality" that exists independently of the physical world. Adding a visual component to that interaction will make it much more effective, and much more productive, that any of the above examples. -- Bernie Roehl, University of Waterloo Electrical Engineering Dept Mail: broehl@watserv1.waterloo.edu OR broehl@watserv1.UWaterloo.ca BangPath: {allegra,decvax,utzoo,clyde}!watmath!watserv1!broehl Voice: (519) 885-1211 x 2607 [work]
andrew@calvin.doc.ca (Andrew Patrick) (11/23/90)
The moderator writes: >[MUDs keep intruding on our consciousness. As I told Bernie, in preparing >to post the following high-quality posting, so far as I know, there is no >systematic study of MUDs now taking place. Until there is, I continue to >doubt their efficacy for explaining or exploring true virtual world >experiences. However, the Group Mind may have something to say about this. >Do YOU want more discussions of existing online virtual experiences here, >or should they be dealt with in the specific conferences set up to discuss >particular applications (like MUDs)? -- Bob Jacobson, Moderator] I think MUDs do have a place in discussions on virtual worlds. First, the social/conversational aspects of virtual environments are going be very important for any good representation of reality (be it artificial or real), and this is being explored in the MUDs. Second, one area where VR can be applied and commercialized is entertainment, and people might pay for the ability to interact with other people in virtual situations (look at CompuServe and Minitel). Again, this is being explored in the MUDs. -- Andrew Patrick, Ph.D. Department of Communications, Ottawa, CANADA andrew@calvin.doc.CA andrew@doccrc.BITNET HDTV: higher resolution, improved colour, wider screen, "sit-com" reruns. What's wrong with this picture?
andrew@calvin.doc.ca (Andrew Patrick) (11/23/90)
On Nov 22, 7:47pm, Human Int. Technology Lab wrote: } Subject: Re: Reference to MUD newsgroup (Was Re: Virtual Reality) | But *how* is "the ability to interact with other people in virtual | space" being explored in MUDs? Systematically, or just anecdotally. | I wonder whether D&D has much advanced our ability to design virtual | worlds. | | Bob J. | s.v-w }-- End of excerpt from Human Int. Technology Lab Anecdotally, of course. But sometimes in new fields anecdotal evidence is all that you have. This does not make the information necesarily invalid or uninteresting. I think D&D has told us what people like. Who would have thought that people would pay for an nearly-empty box containing a very small booklet telling you how to sit and imagine your someplace else. -- Andrew Patrick, Ph.D. Department of Communications, Ottawa, CANADA andrew@calvin.doc.CA andrew@doccrc.BITNET HDTV: higher resolution, improved colour, wider screen, "sit-com" reruns. What's wrong with this picture?
jwtlai@watcgl.waterloo.edu (Jim W Lai) (11/25/90)
In article <11599@milton.u.washington.edu> andrew@calvin.doc.ca (Andrew Patrick) writes: >I think D&D has told us what people like. Who would have thought that >people would pay for an nearly-empty box containing a very small >booklet telling you how to sit and imagine your someplace else. Television has offered non-interactive virtual worlds of nearly-empty content. Or did you mean adolescent power-fantasy? >Andrew Patrick, Ph.D. Department of Communications, Ottawa, CANADA > andrew@calvin.doc.CA andrew@doccrc.BITNET > HDTV: higher resolution, improved colour, wider screen, > "sit-com" reruns. What's wrong with this picture? And even worse, game show reruns. The Wheel of Fear--er, Fortune in HDTV?