The language of Virtual Worlds
E-mails, chatgroups and the Web have all in
common the fact of being electronic interactions
about real things in the real world.
In a virtual world interaction the subject-matter
is totally imaginary, communication takes place
with reference to the character and events of a
virtual world.
In the past, the most generic designation for virtual
worlds was MUDs. Mud stood for “Multi-UsersDungeon” with reference to the role-play fantasy
game “Dungeons and Dragons”.
At present another designation is more common,
MMORPG (Massive(ly) Multiplayer Online RolePlaying Game, which includes the MUDs.
Role-play games are played by groups of people.
The “Game Master” defines the environment in
which the players will move, the obstacles and their
powers.
Each player chooses a character and selects its
attributes (race, clothing, weapons, gender).
Games can last for years.
The MUD game is quite similar to the roleplaying games (RPG).
At present MUD is glossed as “Multi-UserDimension” to get away from the monster and
combat association.
At present Virtual Worlds are very different in
subject-matter and some of them have nothing
to do with fantasy. There are MUDs games were
there are winners and losers but many of them
foster collaborative role-playing activities.
You can create a MUD for social chat, but here
you create your own world and adopt characters
which fit into this world.
Within the educational domain, some people
constructed MUDs in order to engage in a
discussion of academic research or college
teaching practice.
Whether the purpose of MUDs, they are all
interactive databases which create vivid
environments in which users interact.
The first MUD was devised in 1979-80 and since
then variants developed.
LPMUDs, based on the LPC programming language,
attract programmers interested in making changes
to the virtual environment (new features and
commands).
DikuMUDs, (so called from the computer science
department of Copenhagen University) are written
in C programming language. They allow
sophisticated adventures.
TinyMUDs, so called because the program used was
smaller than the previous ones, are “talker” MUDs,
aimed at providing a social environment where chat
is the main activity.
Each genre of MUD has evolved subgenres.
Acronyms for new MUDs are continuously created.
MOOs stands for “MUD Object Orientated”
referring to the programming objects that can be
created and manipulated within the virtual world.
The majority of players are male and they are
usually quite young, most of all students.
Not all MUDs are games so it is difficult to find a
word for their users, players is widespread, but
users is preferred by the ones who do not want
to be associated with the gaming connotation.
The character created is an on-screen persona,
with its own name and description. A single
player may have more than one character.
In graphical systems characters are called
avatars.
The player may have also a presence on the
screen, it is important to allow people keep on
interacting “out-of-character” even when they
stop role-playing.
Characters can be anything at all. Older players
may maintain their character names across
different MUDs.
There are kind of moderators, system
administrators. They have got different names
(wizards, gods, programmers) but they are just
experienced players usually with programming
ability.
In time the character will gain experience, the
experience allows the character to get more
power.
Wizards may adopt a disciplinary role against
players who do not conform to the rules of the
MUD.
Crystal believes that in virtual words there are
more opportunities for bad behaviour. There
have been many examples of sexual
harrassment.
Bad behaviour, offending other players or
violating the game rules, is punished. Players
can be newted, temporarily prevented from
playing or toaded, excluded from the game.
A gag command is also available. It allows other
players to make invisible the messages written
by one particular player.
There are MUD groups with thousands of
registered characters and it is possible to play
with hundreds of players.
In virtual words it is possible to find the same
linguistic complications already encountered in
other situations, most of all chatgroups.
Lag is a problem in virtual worlds, and some
people are worried about group size.
Some sites restricted the introduction of new
characters but it could be dangerous because
such an attitude could reduce their long-term
prospect of survival.
Chat is always present in virtual worlds but they
are not a variety of synchronous chatgroups.
The reality existing there is a function of the
online participants, without the chatters the
chatgroup doesn’t exist.
On the contrary, the reality of virtual worlds
exists even without their players.
Take away the typists and the virtual world that
they have created remains, allowing new
characters to play and interact at any time, as
long as the server is operational.
What is a MUD world? It is a database of
connected functional spaces, rooms, described
according to the theme of the MUD (planet,
castle, ordinary house).
The rooms are described within the database so
when you log-in, you can read the description of
where you are going to appear.
You moved around and made actions by text
commands which could be general or specific.
Actually, at present, it is more common to move
around in the virtual world just by clicking on a
particular place on the screen and the textual
part is limited to interaction between players.
In the past, as you moved, a description of the
place in which you were, appeared on the
screen.
When you entered a room, a textual message told you
what objects were there and who.
Crystal reproduces an examples of instructions:
>go to control centre
You walk to the north ladder.
You climb the ladder and enter the outer office.
You cross the office and enter the control room.
You see:
A box of tapes
A tape recorder
A bunch of bananas
Doc is here
Prof is here
Doc and Prof are other players and a message
appeared on their screen saying that a new
player arrived.
You could speak or hear what they were saying.
It was also possible a whisper or mutter
command which allowed just one player to
interact.
An appropriate command allowed other players
to see the description of your character.
The completely textual virtual worlds survived
among some users who play role plays by email.
A game master creates a world and send a
description of the places and circumstances to
the players. The players create characters and
interact each other by mailing their actions,
attitudes and purposes to the game master.
Typical commands are @who, to find out other
players logged in, @where, look, to have a
description of something in detail, get, to take
something, go and teleport, to move the
character. These commands are still available in
some role games, but at present it is more
common to have completely graphic virtual
worlds where you can do the same things only
by clicking on a specific object.
Although some MUDs are quite identical in their
purpose to synchronic chatgroups, the fact that
they are set in an imaginary world is enough to
motivate differences in language.
Crystal considers only those features that make
virtual worlds different from chatgroups.
The medium provides a range of discourse
options.
There are 2 chief modes of communication:
1) Saying
2) Emoting
In the first one the typist writes the commands to
speak with the other characters.
Example:
> say hello (X says hello is what the other’s players
will see on their screens)
X says, “good day” (it is a possible answer of one
player)
The emoting allows a player to express a
character’s actions, feeling, reactions.
Usually they are statements in the 3rd person.
Example:
> Emote salutes (X salute is what the other’s
players will see on their screens).
But on the typist’s screen the software changes
the message in you salute.
It is possible to use this command to express
whatever you want.
All social contexts are represented (hug, guess,
kill).
This language presents similarities with other
language varieties which contain ongoing
descriptions (recipes).
The feedback function is also important.
It is traditionally conveyed (X agrees, nods) or by
idiosyncratic word-formation (John acks, Pete
actuallies).
The narrative style of emotes gives a literary
flavour to the colloquial tone of the interaction.
Usually there are some favourite expressions or
words used by some MUDs players (identity
markers).
Emotes provide the non-linguistic context for
the direct speech, but they add complications to
the task of maintaining discourse coherence.
It is possible to have several conversations at
once and multiple threading is normal, that’s
why sometimes players must make clear to
whom they are speaking.
Some MUDs developed discourse stratagems to
alleviate turn-taking problems (moderator
controlled queue, reminders about the topic).
Players themselves devise co-operative
conventions, for example it is possible to break
down long messages into shorter sentences in
order to make them more comprehensible.
Example: Langman finds the situation bizarre.
Langman has never seen anything like it.
Langman believes Doc should apologize.
As it is possible that other players insert a message
while we are still writing, some conventions have
been developed to signal to others that a longer
message is forthcoming, such as introducing a
remark with well.
Very common is the losing: 2 players respond to
something in the same way, but one player’s
response arrives before the other has finished
writing. The second player does not finish his
message, ending with “loses”.
There are linguistic forms and constructions
used also in chatgroups and other Internet
situations, such as contracted forms (gonna,
wanna, dunno), abbreviations and sound
effects. But in MUDs there some differences.
The constant switching between saying and
emoting produces the most distinctive linguistic
feature of MUD style, person shift.
There is a constant switching between 1st and
2nd person of saying (Langman says “I’m sorry”)
and the 3rd person of emoting (Langman looks
ashamed of himself).
The influence of standard English is always
present, even if players try to depart from it.
Again in virtual worlds is not a matter of
“anything goes”.
If you want to be accepted you should be
linguistically co-operative.
The impression is of a mixture of styles.
The style of a group depends greatly on the
number of participants trying to speak at once
(they will use fewer words in a sentence to make
faster the reading and writing process).
There is also variation in the economy of
expressions. Some groups evolve a very short
pattern of interaction while others prefer a
much more discursive set of direct-speech
utterances.
Looseness of construction is common (switching
from 1st to 3rd person).
Concerns over economy are quite common –
function words are omitted (prepositions,
auxiliary verbs).
Crystal thinks this is not only due to the need of
being fast in typing, omissions are features of a
particular dialect, as illustrated from the
structure of emotes that quite often use
complex expressions.
There is widespread appreciation for anything
which does speed up typing but there is a great
deal of variation between usage conventions.
Variability in usage between MUDs partly reflects
synchronic dialect differences among different
groups.
Each group has got his jargon. Language change is a
frequent topic in some MUDs dialogues (linguistic
history of the group, origins of its jargon).