Revised January 13, 2004

Oasis: A Virtual Campus for WILMA

by David Laughton, Information Services Manager for WILMA and Oasis Wizard

Since its inception in 1999, the World Institute for Leadership and Management in Africa (WILMA) has endeavored to maximize the use of the internet and other modern information technology to promote socioeconomic development. The vast distances between WILMA's Washington, DC, office and its colleagues in Africa and Europe place restrictions on collaboration that even frequent intercontinental travel has not been able to alleviate. Electronic mail and the World Wide Web provide efficient means of sharing information, but they are ill suited to support the give-and-take and spontaneous discussion that are an important part of any team effort. Therefore, WILMA is beginning the process of developing a "virtual campus" where participants from anywhere on the internet can interact in real time. This campus will take the form of a Multi-User Domain (MUD), an environment commonly used for interactive games on the internet but which WILMA believes can be adapted to work as well as play.1

The virtual campus will supplement, not supplant, e-mail and websites. Long or complex documents and pictures cannot be transmitted through a MUD, which uses plain text for all communication.2 However, among a community of users who already share information through e-mail and the web, a MUD will add an element of interactivity. Governments, corporations, and other institutions with abundant resources use teleconferencing for similar purposes, but such facilities generally take the form of a single conference room with video transmission equipment. Even if it had the funds to pay for such a facility, WILMA's could not place a single video-capable conference room in any location that would be convenient to a significant number of its widely scattered staff and colleagues. Desktop video cameras and telephones are both available for use on the internet, but they require fast connections that are a rarity in WILMA's focus region, the African continent, and they are of no use to staff who travel frequently and rely on the unpredictable assortment of equipment that will be found at local internet cafes.

1 Among online game players, MUD also stands for Multi-User Dungeon, a term which reflects the typical fantasy environment in which they encounter monsters, traps, and puzzles while searching for treasure. "Domain" is more appropriate for Oasis.

2 A few MUDs have graphic interfaces, but the vast majority are text-based and are the only type considered in this paper. Because it relies on plain-text communications, a MUD transmits data in small bursts; that is, if a user types a 100-character sentence, the data transmitted over the internet is a little more than 100 bytes consisting of the text and some routing information. On the web, the control codes that are transmitted to define even the simplest webpage may easily be larger than the text that is displayed, and the addition of a single picture may add thousands or millions of bytes. With its small, efficient transmissions, MUD sessions can be effectively supported by the slow connections often found in Africa, and the only equipment needed is a computer with an internet connection. Until better technology is widely available on the continent, a MUD represents the best method of introducing an element of online interactivity to WILMA's work there.

MUD Is Also a Verb

To MUD is to log into a MUD and use it for its intended purpose.3 In most existing MUDs, the purpose is entertainment, so the player's object is to find something fun to do. The process begins by creating a virtual character which will "live" in the MUD environment; this character executes commands typed by the player, and the character's experiences are transmitted to the player as text.

For example, let's say that a player has created a character named Catherwood in a MUD with a sword-and-sorcery theme. The player logs in and immediately sees this on his computer screen:

You are standing at a crossroads in the middle of a forest. Only the chirps of birds high overhead and the occasional rustle of small animals in the underbrush break the silence. Dense trees prevent you from seeing much in any direction except along the road. A faint smell of cooking wafts in from the east. There are four obvious exits: north, south, east, and west. >

The text tells the player what Catherwood sees, hears, and smells. In typical MUD style, the computer describes the immediate environment in terse terms and then prints a caret (>), which is the signal that it's waiting for the player to type something. What the player does next is limited only by the MUD's command set. Mature MUDs offer staggering numbers of commands that may let Catherwood search the

3 MUD, as a verb, is nearly always used in an imperfect form; that is, a player will commonly say "I was MUDding," but rarely, if ever, "I MUDded."

2 underbrush, climb the trees, or hide and ambush the next traveler. This example is only intended to give a quick impression of a MUD session, so our player will simply type "east" to make Catherwood go east (in all examples the player's typing is in boldface).

> east You arrive at a small tavern along the forest road. Lamplight shines through the windows, and you can see a few patrons moving about inside. The door is open. There are three obvious exits: east, west, and inside. > inside The interior of the tavern is aglow with the cheerful yellow light of many oil lamps fixed to the walls. Behind the bar are rows of bottles and glasses and a huge beer keg. There are several tables, one of which is occupied by some people playing cards, and plenty of empty chairs. A rough passage cut through one wall leads to a darkened room. A bartender, a young red-haired lumberjack, an old bearded lumberjack, and a tired traveler. A coat rack and a spittoon. There are two obvious exits: outside and passage. >

When Catherwood enters the tavern, not only does the player get a description of the physical environment, but he gets a terse inventory of nearby objects, both living and inanimate. Only the person who created this environment can explain why he chose these particular items and descriptions; often the text contains subtle clues that may lead the player to a new adventure, but that is not the focus of this paper. What's important is that Catherwood has just entered an environment with living objects. While the ">" indicates that the computer is waiting for the player's input, the characters in the room may act spontaneously.

> The tired traveler raises his hands in greeting. The tired traveler says: My old friend Catherwood, what a surprise! How about we go bend a couple in the Doo-Dah room? The tired traveler motions toward the passage.

The computer is still waiting for the player's input; it will not repeat the ">" to remind him. It also gives him no obvious clues whether the "traveler" is being controlled by

3 another player or is a computer-generated character. Since the example is a game, the player may have Catherwood converse with the traveler and look him over in an attempt to gain useful information; the traveler, on the other hand, may try to rob or kill Catherwood, or he may turn out to be, as he claims, an old friend.

say do I know you? The tired traveler looks confused. > examine traveler He is a tired traveler. He is wearing a long black cloak, a broad-brimmed black hat, and dusty black boots. He wears the badge of the Ministry of Magic Suppression. He has a dueling scar on his right cheek. > introduce me to traveler You introduce yourself to the tired traveler. The tired traveler says: don’t you recognize me, Catherwood? The tired traveler motions toward the passage. >

The traveler's confusion suggests that he is a computer-generated character whose program is not written to handle the question, or he may be under the control of a player who simply wants others to think he is a computer-generated character. Examining the traveler reveals details that may identify him as a potential friend or adversary, and his evasive response to the introduction is a further clue to his motives.

Whatever the situation, the MUD player generally has numerous actions available. Some are "built into" his character, such as the ability to walk, talk, and examine things. Others come into play when the right equipment is available.

examine coat rack The coat rack is a simple wooden pole with a few nails for hanging coats. A long dagger is hanging by a leather loop from one of the nails. > take dagger You take the long dagger from the coat rack. > wield dagger You wield the long dagger in your right hand. The tired traveler backs away from you slowly. The tired traveler says: Excuse me, Catherwood, but I think I have a previous engagement. The tired traveler vanishes into thin air! The old bearded lumberjack grumbles: Good riddance! >

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Most objects in a MUD can be referenced with their shortest unique names. Thus, the player could have typed "examine rack" and gotten the same information that "examine coat rack" delivered. If there were two racks in the immediate environment, such as a bottle rack and a coat rack, then the player would need to specify which he wanted to examine.

Now that the mysterious traveler is gone, the player may want to send Catherwood into the passage to see what lies beyond:

passage There's little light and plenty of smoke on the other side of the passage, and your eyes water terribly. When they clear, you see many sausages hanging from the ceiling and a smoldering fire in the center of the room maintaining a cloud of white smoke around them. An open window provides just enough ventilation for you to breathe. A pointy-headed bug-eyed gnome. Many sausages. >

As in the last room, the player has a myriad of actions available to him. He may examine any of the objects, which include not only the sausages and the gnome but also the window, the smoke, and the fire. He may try to take some objects, he may try to converse with the gnome in hopes of obtaining some useful information, or he may wait a bit to see what happens next.

The pointy-headed bug-eyed gnome introduces himself as: Bollonio Pronto the sausage maker. > examine bollonio Bollonio is a pointy-headed bug-eyed gnome. He is as wide as he is tall. He is wearing a mustard-stained shirt, worn leather pants, and worn leather sandals. >

Now that Catherwood knows the gnome's name, the player may use it to refer to him in any command. For ease of typing, players rarely need to use uppercase letters, and in most cases a single word is sufficient to identify an object (as long the reference is unique). Commands tend to have compact syntax, so that the player can usually

5 perform whatever action he wants with just a verb or a verb-object combination. Speaking is just a matter of typing "say" followed by the words to be said. Basic actions are easy to master, and a player quickly gets past the point of thinking about the syntax and can concentrate on the content rather than the medium.

While the example above has nothing to do with socioeconomic development (the traveler could be in the tavern to discuss reforestation techniques with the lumberjacks, but this is unlikely in a sword-and-sorcery environment), the same technology that makes fantasy adventures possible can also be used to support a virtual campus where people can meet and discuss real projects. Virtual bulletin boards and internal MUD mail systems provide additional capabilities, and users can even meet at a virtual tavern for a celebration. Future functions may include virtual training exercises, but for the present only a small area for meetings, mail, and bulletin boards is being drafted.

Terminology

MUDs have their own language. To further complicate the process of explaining MUDs to non-players, different types of MUDs use the same terms in different ways. Oasis will be an LPMUD, one of many written in LPC, a variation of the programming language C developed by Lars Pensjö, and the following terms will be used as they are in other LPMUDs: theme: the basic concept of the MUD that dictates all the details. For example, one MUD's theme may be "sword-and-sorcery," and in an adventure there a mortal may encounter dragons, knights, and castles; in MUD with a Star Trek theme, one would expect to find Klingons and starships. domain: an autonomous region within a MUD with its own theme and wizards. For manageability, most large MUDs are divided into domains with distinct variations on the main theme; for example, in a MUD with a Star Trek theme, each planet or starship may be a different domain. wizard: one of the designers/programmers of a MUD, sometimes called an "immortal." mortal: a user of a MUD who does not write or design it. player: generally speaking, any user of a MUD. The term is used loosely; when wizards speak of players, they usually mean only the mortals, but mortals often use the term to include anyone who logs into a MUD whether wizard or mortal.

6 driver: the central program that processes all activity in a MUD. It handles interpretation of players' commands, transmission of text, and all interactions between objects in the online domain. mudlib: The basic command structure is built into the mudlib; that is, it defines universal actions such as "take," "give," "buy," "sell," and "say." Having these functions defined centrally relieves individual wizards of the need to write them into individual objects and ensures consistency in their application throughout the game. If a mortal becomes familiar with the syntax of playing (or working) in a MUD built with a certain mudlib, he can quickly transfer his skills to other MUDs based on the same mudlib.

NPC: a non-player character. In a MUD, a player may encounter a person (which, depending on the MUD, may be human or a fantasy creature) with whom he may converse, trade, fight, or otherwise interact. The person may be controlled by someone who is logged into the MUD from somewhere on the internet (a player), or it may be computer-generated (an NPC). Some MUDs make the difference immediately obvious, some don't. newbie: someone new to MUDs.

Oasis

WILMA's MUD is named Oasis. The name does not reflect any particular physical environment; instead, it represents a sheltered or protected area, someplace where anyone can come and feel comfortable even if the territory isn't familiar. Unlike most MUDs, it has no overall theme. Themes will be applied to various domains as needed, and there will be no need to ensure that the domain themes actually mesh into a coherent overall theme. The only established theme during the planning stage is that of the central domain: a tidy seaside town, set in no particular time or place, with a variety of useful services provided -- complements of the wizards -- by both realistic and whimsical characters.

Oasis will be developed according to the needs of WILMA and its collaborators. Initially, a central domain providing basic communication and collaboration services will be developed; later, other domains may be developed with completely different functions. Since Oasis has no fixed theme, there's no reason why -- should the mortals express the need -- there can't be both a Star Trek domain and a sword-and-sorcery domain, or even (to the dismay of MUD purists everywhere) a domain combining elements of both.

The wizards of Oasis are the personnel of World Institutes for Leadership and Management Online (WILMO), the information services provider to WILMA. They bring many years of MUD and other programming experience to the project. The

7 mortals will be the personnel of WILMA and anyone whom WILMA chooses to invite into the MUD. In general, the wizards of Oasis refer to mortals as players, since this term is readily understandable by experienced MUDders and newbies alike, and the remainder of this paper will do the same.

The Oasis driver is the LPMUD driver written by Lars Pensjö (with contributions from others), and the basic mudlib comes from the Chalmers Computer Society at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. The Society developed the first LPMUD, Genesis, in "about 1986" according to the Genesis homepage.4 Two WILMO wizards have contributed programming to this MUD, and their familiarity with the driver and mudlib led to the decision to make Oasis an LPMUD. The unintended utility of Genesis for virtual meetings on non-Genesis topics and scheduling non-Genesis events inspired, in part, the creation of Oasis. While "out-of-context" activity is discouraged in Genesis (it detracts from the realism of the sword-and-sorcery adventures), Oasis is intended expressly to bring real-world issues into a flexible MUD working environment. 5

The most important difference between Oasis and other MUDs is that a player brings his own identity into the virtual environment; that is, the character has the same name as the player and projects his own personality and interests into the MUD. A player named John Smith will control the character named John Smith, and the description of John Smith in Oasis will not consist of physical attributes but of attributes pertaining to WILMA and/or development activity. For example, upon entering a room, a player may see:

You are in the WILMA general meeting room. The walls are paneled in light oak, and an ornate brass chandelier provides excellent illumination. A meeting table dominates the center of the room. There are two obvious exits: outside and upstairs. Paul Armington and David Laughton. A long oak meeting table and many chairs. >examine paul Paul Armington is president of WILMA. He is authorized to induct new players into Oasis.

4 Records from this period are sketchy.

5 Anyone interested in trying an LPMUD is encouraged to visit the Genesis homepage (http://genesis.cs.chalmers.se); everyone with an internet connection is welcome to play the game without charge. Prospective Oasis players will find it to be a useful training arena. Before logging in, players -- especially newbies -- should read the rules and game information carefully.

8 WILMO will devise a secure character-generation process so that when a player sees "Paul Armington and David Laughton" on his screens, he may be assured that Paul Armington and David Laughton actually control of their namesakes in cyberspace. The chance that someone will obtain the password of an Oasis player and impersonate them online is the single greatest threat to its utility, and strict standards will be enforced to ensure that players can trust the identification of the characters they encounter.

Style and Substance

In keeping with MUD tradition, we who work on Oasis call ourselves "wizards" and the users "players." It is not only tradition that prompts us to use these terms but our goal that this MUD be both useful and fun. Yes, we can let players move from one chat room to another with a "move" command, but we'd rather slide down a pole, be flung by a catapult, or ride on the back of a roller-skating turtle, and we think the players will too. Whimsical detail, restricted by needs for efficiency and ease of use, will ease the tedium and monotony common to prolonged online sessions. To allow for undistracted work, players will be able to get away from the whimsy of Oasis for serious discussions or study, but it will always be there when they need it.

Oasis is a collaborative, not a competitive, environment. While game MUDs provide functions designed to let players gain an advantage, often in power, prestige, or wealth, over others, Oasis' functions will ensure equal opportunity for all players to avail themselves of its resources. Some specific examples of how Oasis will differ from game MUDs are:

Typical Game MUDs Oasis

Combat is an essential part of the game, and Combat and the death of players' characters will not players' characters may kill and be killed. be allowed.

Players do not know the names of characters they All players immediately know all other players by meet until they are introduced. name; NPC introductions will be at the wizards' discretion.

Players begin with tiny characters, devoid of Players start with a uniform set of abilities which strength and skills, which grow during extended are sufficient to perform all regular tasks; some play. special abilities may be added when needed.

Players may enter the game freely and play under an Players enter the game by invitation only and use assumed name. their real names.

9 Typical Game MUDs Oasis

Players vie for titles and treasures in quests devised What the players want to do is up to the players; by wizards. wizards will create areas, objects, and functions according to the players' interests.

Players' characters must eat, drink, rest, and attend The physical and financial needs of all characters to other physical needs, and some form of payment will be satisfied automatically within the central is required for goods and services. domain (Lenin promised, but we deliver!); other domains may vary.

The above are only a few examples. There will be many more differences between Oasis and typical game MUDs, but nearly all of them pertain to the non-competitive nature of Oasis and its population of real-world collaborators.

Players and Wizards

Players are allowed into Oasis by invitation only. The first few players will be invited by the wizards; some of these players will be given authority to invite other players, and some may also be allowed to authorize other players to do the same. While the wizards will circulate guidelines before issuing such authorities, they will, in general, not impose restrictions on whom the such players may invite or authorize.

The wizards of Oasis are employees of WILMO; in the future, their number may include volunteers as well as paid employees. Not only do they design the virtual environment and write the programs that make it operate, but they regularly log in to test new programs, monitor game performance, and correct problems, and players may encounter them with or without warning. Their code of conduct prohibits them from divulging any information they may inadvertently acquire in the course of maintaining mail systems and bulletin boards, or other performing other duties; as a rule, MUD maintenance keeps them far too busy to pay much attention to players. In the event of a problem with the MUD that cannot be solved by other means, players may summon a wizard to fix it, but this is an "emergency" procedure: in most circumstances, players are discouraged from summoning wizards.

Unlike players, wizards do not use their real names online. They use pseudonyms, and they may appear as elves, ghosts, or other fantasy creatures. These distinct names and appearances are intended to remind players that wizards are not online to discuss real- world projects; they are focused on developing and maintaining the environment. It is certainly permitted for a mortal to converse with any wizard he encounters, but unless the conversation is about Oasis features, the wizard may "roleplay" in response; that is, he may speak in gibberish, summon a windstorm, or turn the player into a toad.

10 Players are expected to conduct themselves in a reasonable manner, but Oasis will not enforce any set code of conduct. What constitutes "reasonable" will be determined by the players themselves. Those who have the authority to invite players also have the ability to remove them; should anyone become a nuisance by, for example, posting misleading bulletins, filling mailboxes with extraneous messages, or other disruptive behavior, authorized players may issue warnings or remove the problem player as necessary.

Building Oasis

The full roster of services to be provided in Oasis is still under development by the wizards. We expect to offer meeting areas, bulletin boards, and a number of other basic communication services. By themselves, these services do not represent a great leap beyond what is available from other sources on the internet, but bundled together in an easy-to-navigate environment, combined with an invitation-only entry process which assures each participant that (a) people are indeed whom they claim to be, and (b) only people who have a sincere interest in the work of WILMA and its partners will be in the environment, the overall value of Oasis services will far exceed that of any single chat room or bulletin board.

As of November 2002, WILMO has received permission from Chalmers Computer Society to use their driver and mudlib, and a contract to provide the processing support has been established with WolfPaw, a Canadian company specializing in MUD hosting. Work is currently underway to load the driver and mudlib onto a WolfPaw server, and meetings -- both virtual and real -- are planned among WILMO personnel later in the month to discuss construction of the virtual environment.

Due to higher-priority commitments, illness, and other unexpected circumstances, work on Oasis has progressed far more slowly than originally hoped. The wizards now expect to have the central domain of Oasis operating in a rudimentary form sometime during 2004. When it is ready, a few people from WILMA and its collaborative organizations will be invited to try it and suggest changes and improvements. During this trial period, the players should be able to conduct actual work, and as the wizards act on their suggestions, the working environment should become increasingly conducive to online collaboration. Eventually, the processing capacity of Oasis will be increased to handle hundreds of simultaneous players, but no schedule exists for building this capacity or for working on the outer domains whose themes will be determined later.

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