Trying to Appreciate LambdaMOO

I had two very different experiences while visiting LambdaMOO, which I guess is to be expecting seeing as I only visited the site two times.  Anyway, during my first login I just explored the house a little.  I tried “looking” at a few objects, but that proved fairly uninteresting.  Possibly if I weren’t examining couches and lamps it would be a little more exciting—in earlier Resident Evil video games you pretty much do the same thing:  static sceneries are meant to be explored, and objects are to be “looked” at in order to solve puzzles.  In Resident Evil, though, your character is represented visually, and a more interactive element comes into play when you shoot zombies.  Maybe the texts programmed into LambdaMOO could be fun, but what I saw/read was not.

 

After looking at a few boring objects, I got lost in some sort of wine cellar.  The maze of barrels I was in was pretty impossible to navigate out of, but luckily (kinda) someone teleported into the room to check on me.  Her name was Jill.  Jill had us teleport to a new room, I forget which, but it was a public room that she claimed had a better vibe.  I could actually see why she wanted to leave the barrel-room.  It’s interesting that some people have just been able to accept and be affected by the LambdaMOO universe, and take seriously the fictitious environment.  In this new room, a red flag went up when she asked if Alex stood for Alexander or Alexandra.  Soon after I was offered cybersex.  I realllly had to go to dinner after that point…

 

During my next login, a character approached me and asked if I was in LambdaMOO for a class.  He had obviously encountered other MCMers the day, and said if I needed any help I could just ask him.  I first asked if everyone just uses the system  now to “live out” sexual fantasies; I suppose it’s more anonymous and accessible than phone-sex.  He said that “veterans” like himself don’t do that.  His screenname, though non-representative of his real-life self, had acquired a certain personality over the years that would be unable to engage in those activities as completely anonymous.  He told me about LambdaMOOs heyday when it had a huge waiting list to become a character, and the rooms would be filled with others.  All that seemed to be left was a lonesome residue of an imagined community that I had never been a part of, and therefore could never fully appreciate.  LambdaMOO reminded me of an old, crude video game.  Newer, flashier versions are available (AIM), but there may not be too much more substance.  Part of it is our willingness to imagine the space.  The rudimentary Mario found in the original Donkey Kong may be more of a Mario to some than the Mario found in the latest Mario Galaxy.  As I left LambdaMOO, the character I met was feeding a seemingly untamable bird—an activity that seemed unfulfilling to me, but to someone who has submitted to this universe and this imagined community, it may hold much more significance, and that much more pleasure may be gained from the textual challenge.