ABSTRACT

Multi-user domains, or MUDs, are text-based virtual spaces and typically games. In MUDs, users are the authors, architects, and players; all collaboratively improvised. Building a MUD is a cross between writing fiction and computer programming. For example, designing a virtual wardrobe in a character’s room involves writing text to describe the physicality and location of the wardrobe as well as writing the programming code to make the wardrobe exist within the physical dimensions of the virtual room. The characters users create for themselves are called personae. Most MUDs are role-playing games, such as Dungeons and Dragons. In fact, MUD originally referred to a “multi-user dungeon,” a program in which the player in charge (usually the system administrator of the computer on which the MUD sits) is called the “Wizard” and has special permissions and commands available for maintaining and policing the MUD. The players are not only authors of the games, but of themselves as well. These players appear to be situated in an artificially constructed place that also hosts other players who are connected at the same time. These virtual spaces accept connections over a network, such as the Internet. These spaces hold rooms where players decide how they represent themselves; using usernames, rather than real names, describing themselves as female when they are actually male (and vice versa-gender swapping), changing physical appearance such as height, weight, hair, and eye color. Some players give extremely short descriptions, often cryptic. MUDers, on the whole, tend to keep to regular communities, much like a real-world pub. In this, different MUDs are different communities, following different social agreements on how the community behaves. MUDs provide an opportunity to try new identities for the construction and reconstruction of self. That is, you are who you pretend to be.