Peter Fleissner

Multi-User-Dungeons

0. Introduction

Within the last few years a completely new way to meet people has emerged. Strangely enough, the meeting place cannot be found by traditional geographical coordinates. It is a meeting place in cyberspace, beyond our common physical space, fuzzily called "Multi-User Dungeon", or "Multi-User Domain", or sometimes "Multi-User Dimension". Fortunately, there is a common abbreviation for all three names: one may use the simple acronym "MUD".

MUDs are chosen here because they give a good example of the new features offered by electronic networks. Usually one considers the changed perception of physical space and time as the essential feature of electronic networks, but although this is true, in my opinion it is not the most innovative and qualitatively new aspect. More important than being able to communicate faster, and in an asynchronous and multimedia mode, is the new opportunity of creating, experiencing and using new spaces, spaces accessible by other partners in a communication process.

Let us start with a short description of a MUD, to create an image which may be shared by the readers. Historically the genealogical tree of the MUD can be traced back to role-playing games. The name "Multi-User Dungeon" still reminds one of the famous game "Dungeons and Dragons" played by our children in Europe in the early 1990s. In the USA, these role-playing games boomed earlier, in the late 1970s and 1980s. They were played without a computer, i.e. in real life, by groups of youngsters.

With the spread of the PC to our private homes, computerized adventure games entered our living rooms. One of them became famous, and once again it was associated with dungeons: "Dungeon of Doom". These adventure games usually put one player in front of a computer screen and place him or her in a science fiction or fantasy situation, as described in books with similar theme (e.g. Tolkien 1975). He or she has the possibility to do certain actions like moving from one screen picture to another, to interact with pictures of monsters or people (simulated by the computer) by fighting them, or talking to them, sometimes receiving answers etc. In many adventure games, the player has to perform a special task, e.g. to find a treasure, to redeem a princess, to fight a dragon. Of course, there is the possibility of failing. In the latter case the player's dead body appears on screen, and the game is over.

The next stage of development was the spread of fast electronic communication infrastructure. At about the same time, and at several universities, trials started to expand the single-user games to multi-user ones. One of the more recent products enables our children, and of course adults too, to share interactively a fantasy which was originally produced by Hollywood. TrekMUSE was inspired by the TV series "Star Trek: The Next Generation". Up to eighty hours a week, players participate in intergalactic exploration and wars, through typed descriptions and typed commands (Turkle 1995: 10). At present, more than one thousand MUDs can be accessed from all over the world through the Internet. Not all of them are adventure oriented. Some are designed for scientific purposes (e.g. MediaMOO by Amy Bruckman at MITs Media Lab).

A MUD can be described as a multi-user game without graphical representation, i.e. on a textual basis only, played simultaneously via Internet by several players, each of whom can, in real life, be located anywhere around the world. The game represents a meeting place, a "domain", a social space where individuals from all over the globe may communicate with each other, assuming of course that they have access to the same electronic network.

After this short description, we should try to answer the following questions: What is the purpose of MUDs? Do they have any real value? Do they tell us anything about ourselves?

My investigation consists of three steps. I will deal successively with the object, its structure, and its meaning. Firstly, I will consider the ontological status of a MUD, to define its special location within the "order of things"; secondly, I will look for MUDs' special content, and structure it by means of a method which is usually applied to the study of myths; thirdly, I will briefly try to assess its possibilities and effects on the societal individual, living in contemporary culture.

1. Ontological status: A "space between"

Maybe it is helpful when trying to understand MUDs to find out their position within our common world. We may want to know the answers to some questions, such as the following: What degree of reality is demanded by MUDs? What is their relationship to other human artifacts, private and social? What similarities can be found between MUDs and technology, or between MUDs and imagination? Let us first consider the location of MUDS on a scale between the poles "purely material" and "purely ideational". We can be sure that they are not at one extreme or the other, but rather somewhere in between. MUDs are neither purely material nor purely non-material; they are not made of substance like a table, but they are not purely mental like the theorem of Pythagoras. A MUD is a "something" with a certain durability, created by human beings, which can be experienced by others. It can be experienced as a structured "something".

It will come as no surprise when, as a first rough attempt to describe MUDs, I link the attribute "virtual" to this kind of reality. This does not mean that a MUD is immaterial. Its material basis consists of electrical energy, in the form of different voltages and currents allocated to electronic components. This represents the ultimate "causa materialis". The physical essence of the MUD is not substance, not material components, but the electric charges, currents and voltages. It is not concrete, but it is matter.

Now let us proceed one step further and investigate the "shaping" of the MUD. If I apply the ancient pair of descriptors, "matter" and "form", to the MUD, I am once again brought back to the familiar, but vague, "betweenness". A MUD is built of a material substratum, and shaped by human ideas. However, at this point, by the application of traditional concepts the description becomes inaccurate. The term MUD seems to contain various strata of description, as indicated below.

* On a technical level (if we take the perspective of construction), we know that a MUD is nothing more than a computer program, running on a server in a network, which may be accessed by several persons simultaneously. This program controls the flows of electrical energy inside the computer.

* If we try a geographical approximation of the MUD as a place, we can often refer to it as a two or three-dimensional grid structure. Each node of the grid carries a certain description which makes sense to the players. Here we may use the classical difference of "form" and "content". While the grid could represent the form, the description could be understood as content. We see that the separation of the two aspects is complete.

* If we look at the type of mediation, we see the MUD just as texts which are conditionally switched and changed. More modern computer games are no longer text related, but use three-dimensional animated graphics; sometimes they represent the player inside the graphical surface as a so-called "avatar", and the player himself can look at the scene from his personal angle of view. The software resides on each PC locally, while the control of the graphics is done via INTERNET. (Mediamatic (1996: 6) describes the word "avatar" thus: "The word originates from Sanskrit and literally means "descent" - in the Hindu religion, the descent of a god into the world of human beings, analogous to the Christian concept of incarnation. One could say that Jesus was an avatar of God").

So far we have drawn a picture of the MUD as being static, but in fact it is not necessarily invariant over time. It may be changed by chance, by single persons or groups with "higher abilities". If the players have become Wizards, after a kind of initiation process, they may change some locations of the MUD, create new ones, or may ultimately change the rules of the game.

From the point of view of player actions, a MUD means different types of spaces ordered according to the degree of activity of the player:

* a space of perception

* a space of action

* a space of (a particular kind of) interaction

* a space of formation

* a space of creation

These five types are arranged by the level of penetration of the virtual sphere, in other words by the level of influence to be exerted by each player.

The space of perception is passively "observed" (actually by reading texts on screen), the only activity is the change of place (e.g. by typing "go north" on the keyboard). In the netters' jargon this change of place is called "browsing". A picture is built in the mind's eye of the observer. At that moment at the latest, the difference between virtual and mental space comes to the fore. The virtual space is perceptible not only to the individual, but simultaneously by other subjects as well. "Intersubjective" experience is possible. Thus the space has a separate, different and independent existence from the subjective thoughts of a person, independent of the existence of any particular person watching the MUD. Here is the essence of the difference between (on the one hand) MUDs and virtual reality, and (on the other hand) interactive media like telephone, telex, e-mail, and IRC, or one-way mass media like broadcasting, especially TV. Any of the latter can create a special, observable, ascertainable place between the users, which remains in existence without the participation of some of these users, although some rudimentary glimpses of "space in between" can be found there as well (e.g. the telephone exchange or the postmaster of a mailing list). News groups and the home pages of the WWW represent to a higher extent the place in between. You may follow some threads of discussion at a time much later than the messages were written originally. Different to MUDs is the kind of interaction: MUDs work synchronously, while news groups (like e-mail) and WWW usually function in an asynchronous way. Thus the possibility of interactive immersion is heavily restricted.

As an action space, a MUD offers individual or "collective" (by means of virtual, computer-generated actors) activities, like the appropriation of a (virtual) object or the selling or buying of a weapon.

As an interaction space, a MUD enables the user , of course in a very restricted way (compared to real life where bodily interactions are essential), to meet and speak to other inhabitants of the MUD, and to be addressed oneself.

As a space of formation, a MUD allows people to change, to influence, and to shape the "virtual" framework; finally, as a space of creation, a MUD is a place in which new rooms and spaces may be created or destroyed, and alternative communication/transport technologies can be installed.

Via this space of interaction (which is different from the space experienced in real life) a social space can be built up which can be meaningful for our everyday life, especially in a situation where a growing part of our work and leisure activities are linked to the computer. However, one still has to be careful. There should be a thorough investigation into the changes in interaction patterns and personal relationships which might occur if we no longer share a common bodily presence, but use abstract "dummies" instead of our physical bodies.

On the other hand, by abolishing most of the side conditions of common human practice, new variants of "reality" are possible. The laws of nature could be changed, the rules of interaction could be replaced by others etc. A necessary condition for the virtual worlds is their "linkability" to the sensory perception of the person who operates in this virtual reality. If this "linkability" is present, alternative experiences may be had. For example, one could immediately feel the forces between the atoms or molecules in a virtual reality representation of chemical structures, one could dive into the universe and observe planets from different perspectives, one could walk into the human body and look for information before doing surgery etc.

2. Features offered by MUDs

This chapter is devoted to the content of MUDs, as found in hundreds of variants via the Internet (for your personal experience try http://www.absi.com/mud/mud1.html).

For me, from the perspective of social science, MUDs are particularly interesting because they represent free creations of human beings, restricted only by the medium and the access to the technology. Because of time constraints in designing, constructing and shaping the MUD, there is nevertheless some limitation on the elements the users want to transport into virtual reality. I think that MUDs can thus be seen and used as indicators of the cultural context out of which they were born, and thus as an instrument for the investigation of this context. On the other hand, from the perspective of the user one can interpret a MUD as a societal laboratory where alternatives may be experienced and tested.

The central questions for me are what kind of objects, properties and relations are transferred into virtuality, and for what reason, what kind of filtering procedure is used, what the relation is between the human being and the MUD, what functions are offered by the MUD, what role they play in the life of a person, and, finally, what the role and effect of the relationships created via MUDs are.

What is actually transported into virtual reality? Although there is a wide range of different things, a lot of the MUDs offer certain well-defined basic features to the ordinary user. These features will be listed and commented on below. Later on I will look for features which are offered to the experienced user, the so-called Wizard.





3. Universally accessible MUD features

a) Allocation of an identity

Each user has to choose a name by which she can be identified. The procedure is similar to the log-in procedure at a terminal. In many MUDs, the person logged in is allocated to some collective body as well, like a guild or a professional organization.

  1. Orientation feature

The users are able to "look around". By typing "look" on the keyboard they can read a verbal description on the screen. By typing "who" they are informed who else is sharing the same "place".

  1. Movement feature

Usually the users may move freely within a kind of three-dimensional space (the directions are the four points of the compass plus "up" and "down")

  1. Communication feature

The users can exchange (written) messages and thus communicate with each other.

  1. Action feature

The users can perform certain actions, like grasping an object or taking a weapon.

Using these five features is the basic requirement for being recognized by others as an active player, i.e. an individual (human) associated with a certain domain of perception and action (moving around, acting physically, and communicating symbolically). Thus the individual has to decide what actions he chooses and can be held responsible for them. To a certain degree, a player self-determines his fate in a predetermined environment.

If the user is able to act in this environment in an effective way (the meaning of efficiency is defined by the given rules of the MUD) she can change her social position. In many MUDs the role of Wizard is possible. For Wizards, extended features of the MUD are feasible. These features correspond to the basic functions but offer increased scope and functionality.

  1. Allocation of more than one identity

Wizards can play tricks on others with respect to their identity, as they each have more than one at their disposal. They may transform themselves into other beings, i.e. persons or animals.

  1. Extended orientation feature

Not only are Wizards able to "look around", they can also exploit "knowbots" or control other inhabitants of the MUD, in order to collect information on the movements of others etc.

  1. Extended movement feature

Wizards can not only move from one location to a neighboring one, but also "teleport", or ride a flying dragon to another location in the MUD.

  1. Extended communication feature

Wizards can communicate with each other by unusual means. They may be able to listen, undetected, to confidential dialogs of others. By doing this they may obtain a high score.

  1. Extended action feature

In addition to performing common actions, Wizards have permission to change the appearance of the MUD. They can construct their own private rooms where nobody except themselves (or somebody who is initiated) can go. Pushed to the extreme, a Wizard can change the rules of the MUD itself, and thus becomes invincible.

In my opinion it is evident that the MUD is a kind of mirror of the external world, but a unique one. The mirroring of the three dimensions of physical space is only one aspect of the MUD. More important is the emotional charge of the virtual space. Some "rooms" can only be used by a particular Wizard, and so the "objective" space is structured by social values and by laws. Social values (the rules of the MUD) guide the actions of the players, who have to make something of their "lives". They are rewarded by an increase in their personal power.

It is not easy to survive in a MUD. In addition to the other players, there are a lot of dangers originating from witches, fairies, dwarfs, goblins etc., which are electronic creatures. They behave randomly in order to be unpredictable.

The degree of immersion (i.e. the feeling of being completely involved in playing the MUD) is very high. There are students who refuse nourishment for several days, and do not sleep for this period, just to be present in a MUD. Some colleges have thus stopped or restricted student access to certain MUDs.

4. MUDs and myth

What could be the methodological basis for interpreting these facts? Several scientific approaches are possible. As we have seen, there is a systematic correspondence between the MUD and real society, more than by mere chance, and this is the reason that I could try to use social-science theories. On this basis I could look for peculiarities, similarities and differences, for instance, by using methods like Marxist political economics, or neo-classical economic theory. However, one would immediately become aware that MUDs run only a very limited economy. There is a kind of money, namely the score. One can "earn" it increased by successfully completing a dangerous adventure (killing a dragon, rescuing a princess etc.). Apart from this, however, there is little similarity to an economy: the continuity of real production is missing, there is no reproduction of the labor force, no production of material goods, no class struggle, no metabolism, no environmental pollution.

As we have already seen, the script of a MUD is similar to a fantasy story. This branch of prose (one typical representative is Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings") describes an early type of society, on the level of heroic sagas of early German or Greek history. This suggests considering ways of investigating myths as an appropriate method for analyzing a MUD.

To me this idea looked promising, because myth research, in spite of all the variety in detail, is based on a common problem area which can be found in any society, be it ancient or contemporary. If we take Cassirer's findings for granted, it is not surprising that the mythological consciousness is the first form of societal consciousness (Cassirer 1994: 3ff). The common problems are the question of the origin, the continuity, and the end of society, as well as the birth, sexuality, and death of the individual. Instead of being oriented towards pure thought (as has happened since the Enlightenment), myths describe the human experience in terms of the body, of emotions, and sensuality. Physical objects seem to have personality, and they offer a meaning or power to the people. All these mystical charges have been explained away by modern science.

Reinwald (1991: 85) describes the founding myth of a society as the answer of human beings exposed to the experience of death, of sexuality, and of shortage. This myth implies a description of the space-time order, of human kinship or relationship, and of the technology of production. All these are mediated by a go-between (a shaman and/or a clown), who is a being between the gods and the humans. His existence constitutes a field of power which sheds particular light on society.

Which of the presented categories are relevant to a MUD? How are these categories assimilated? What particular answers does a MUD offer to the above problems? By looking at the type of problem-solving offered by MUDs, I will try to make the differences from real life and other types of society more transparent, and to gain insight into particular contemporary tendencies for dealing with (or circumventing) some problems. I will list some of the most important problem categories below.

Birth and death

Let us start with one basic experience, the death of the individual. As in real life, dying is there, but it is not an irreversible fate for the mudder (MUD player). To her, more than one life is offered, particularly if she has high scores (gained by coping in an excellent way with the difficulties of virtual life). Rebirth is possible. Having consumed all your available lives, "virtual death" (an oxymoron) is, as you may easily experience yourself, very unpleasant and embarrassing, because it is connected with a real loss of power within the virtual community, and exclusion from a social group with which the mudder has become intimately related.

Gender relations

Coping with sexuality seems to be one of the more interesting features of electronic communication. The rather strict separation of the male and female roles in real life is reduced by "gender swapping" (Bruckmann 1993). Because of the anonymity of the mudders with respect to their real-life identities it is possible to experience the game as a member of the other sex, or to play the role of an asexual being. There are still discussions going on as to whether the opportunities opened up by this type of media will reduce the differences between the sex-defined roles of real life, or if the prejudices against and preoccupations with the opposite sex will be increased. Becoming acquainted with the experiences and relationships of the opposite sex certainly seems to be a positive learning experience.

Shortage

Shortage is usually produced by the rules of the MUD. There is shortage in scores, in particular dexterity and abilities (powerful spells), and in certain objects (powerful weapons). Although the contemporary technology of production (electronic data processing) makes copying a very easy task, it is not used in MUDs for making life easier. In fact, shortage, connected with a certain value system for overcoming it, is one of the main driving forces of the activities in a MUD.

Space and time

The Kantian transcendental categories, space and time, are handled in a completely different way in a MUD. While the "reality" of space is transferred to the MUD, time is left to the "real" situation. Of course, as the degree of immersion becomes higher, the physical time measured by a clock does not count any longer; emotional time will take over, and the subjective feeling will be controlled by the actions from within the MUD. However, there is still no "objective" accounting of time other than real life.

The concept of space in a MUD is rather elaborate. Although other measures of distance could be used (emotional distance, closeness of concepts etc.), MUDs apply the Euclidean space by arranging possible rooms, squares, woods, bridges, castles etc. along a rectangular three-dimensional grid. In their first encounter with a new MUD, mudders usually draw a three-dimensional map of the MUD on a sheet of paper in order to find their way more easily. Standard transportation technique is "walking", by typing specific characters(u, d, n, s, e, w for up, down, north, south, east, west respectively) and thus moving to the next node of the grid. For Wizards, more advanced technologies are available, such as riding a dragon, teleportation, using secret doors, staircases, or "running rooms". It is evident that the space and the means of transport which can be used depend on the score the user has reached. The social hierarchy shapes the topology of the virtual space.

Family relationships

It is interesting that ties of blood between individuals do not seem to play any role. Relationships between the players depend on their own free choice. It looks like an echo of the contemporary trend of real life towards greater autonomy of the individual. As in real life, the autonomy cannot be realized without some "material" infrastructure offered to the players by the MUD. Without the features and functions listed above, the individualization could not happen. People can become individuals if, and only if, there are networks for them to satisfy their material or immaterial needs. Thus the MUD illustrates the necessity of infrastructure supply - a must for a society where individuals should be able to interact and cooperate. The infrastructure has to be built to counter the danger of isolation, fragmentation, and decay of society.

Production technologies

Because of the ability to create goods without cost in virtual space, production technology plays an inferior role compared with real life. Nevertheless personal abilities are important. The solving of a riddle or a mystery is essential for survival, as is technology for fighting, transportation, and communication. The individual usually has to find out the path the programmer has devised for the game. In many cases it is important to find out the options in the program, although there is not so much room for the ordinary player to be innovative and creative. Creation is a task reserved for Wizards.

Allocation of social rank

Another interesting decision of MUD programmers is the application of the achievement principle. Although the structure of the MUD society looks rather prehistoric, meritocratic principles are implemented, in contrast to early societies where social rank was acquired by birth. All that counts is personal achievement (measured by the score). Meritocracy does not prevent the existence of social hierarchies, but these are not fixed forever, and may change In a special MUD, the Berlin-based TubMud, two structures have evolved in parallel: the hierarchy of Wizards and the hierarchy of Clans. God, the highest Wizard of all, appoints deputies (Archwizards and elder Wizards), who help with testing new program features for the administration; this creates an autocratic hierarchy. The clan hierarchy, however, is based on elections and majority rule.

Field of power

As we have already mentioned, becoming a Wizard plays an important role in a MUD. Thus we meet again the hero of the myth. Once more we can see a difference from ancient real societies. The hero in a MUD, although willing to make sacrifices, does not do so for the community, but for himself only - once again a result of the surrounding real life society, where egotism plays an important role. The field of power in a MUD has thus changed from that of real ancient societies.

Somewhat ironically, one can state that within the MUDs, which use the most modern of technology, inside electronic networks, multimedia and the Internet, created by so-called "value-free" science and the highest possible degree of rationality, human power, passion, desire, and emotion break through the purified surface and show up again. Perhaps it shows that one should not try to reduce humans to rational reasoning alone. The inner side of cyberspace opens up to the chance of experiencing these often-repressed features of life vividly and cooperatively. In this space one is no longer restricted to cognitive processes and the realm of pure thought, but can act out a wide range of emotions, fantasies and desires. Turkle (1995) describes several of cases where the players experienced the MUDs as fruitful psycho-therapy.

However, some important questions still remain open. Why is it necessary to shift such activities to cyberspace, rather than use the immediately and directly available offerings of real life? Should a strategy of change, directed at society and everyday life, be preferred to passive role-playing? Are MUDs just a way of keeping people occupied, and to prevent them from being politically active?

One partial answer from psychology could be as follows. Myths create spheres of meaning, which might be seen as a collective pool for the sublimation of individual emotions. In contrast to myths, MUDs have to be actively managed and shaped by the power of human imagination. They could thus represent an expansion of our common reality. A psychoanalytical point of view suggests attaching great significance to the (technically supported) possibility of transforming imagination into reality (more precisely: virtuality) by being able not only to imagine another space, but to live in it, and experience the realized fantasies in an interactive way. It seems that never before in the history of representational practices have the boundaries between "reality" (that is interactively constructed reality) and imagination shaken in such vast dimensions, nor will they be in the future.

List of References

Bruckman, A., Gender Swapping on the Internet, Proc. INET'93, EFC-1/EFC-6, 1993

Cassirer, E., Philosophie der symbolischen Formen, Zweiter Teil, Das mythische Denken, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1994

Leyde, I., Technische und soziale Strukturen virtueller Welten am Beispiel von TubMud, Technische Universit‰t Berlin, Fachbereich 13, Informatik, Franklinstra_e 28/29, D-10587 Berlin, Bericht 1994-38

Mediamatic, Are the People the Gods of the Algorithms? Editorial, in: Mediamatic 8#4, Spring 1996: 6

Reinwald, H., Mythos und Methode, Wilhelm Fink Verlag, M¸nchen 1991

The Waite Group, Playing God - Creating Virtual Worlds with REND386, Corte Madera 1994

Tolkien, J. R. R., Der Herr der Ringe, 3 volumes, Hobbit Press im Ernst Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 1975

Turkle, S., Life on the Screen - Identity in the Age of the Internet, Simon and Schuster, New York etc. 1995