Diversity University - Structure of Diversity University

Structure of Diversity University

Although MOOs are virtual spaces - basically computer objects in a database - they are usually organized around a central spatial metaphor. For Diversity University, that metaphor was a physical university campus, with buildings that represented the various subject fields of the participants on DU, along with other types of buildings that you might find on a typical university campus. In his master's thesis on "Design in Virtual Environments Using Architectural Metaphor," Dace A. Campbell used Diversity University's campus as an example of virtual architecture; one can still see DU's "campus" structure as Figure 1.3 in that thesis.

Guests who connected to Diversity University landed in a "room" in the "Student Union," in a kind of orientation space, while registered characters would land in whatever "room" was their virtual home in that environment. Once in a room, characters could use various commands to navigate around the virtual space. For example, they could type "out" to exit from the room to an adjoining room or hallway, and they could also use the cardinal directions (n, s, e, w) to "move" in those directions from room to room, building to street, street to connected street, and also into other virtual buildings on the campus. When creating "rooms," therefore, people who had building rights on the MOO were encouraged to use the appropriate version of the command (@dig) so that they would create not a free-floating, unconnected room, but a room that was joined to another room (or hallway), in the appropriate virtual building, allowing users to "walk" around the MOO. A variety of other commands, ranging from basic to advanced, were also supported.

Because the overarching structure was metaphorical, characters and guests on the MOO had the "magical" ability to "teleport" (or jump) from a room in one virtual building to another room "somewhere else" by using commands such as @go (to go to a room by its object number or name) and @join (to join another character in a room). Rooms could be open or locked, to allow (or prevent) people from joining other characters in that virtual space. Programmers on the MOO could also create "virtual objects" that had the ability to move characters from room to room, such as virtual cars, a magical tour globe that provided you with a guided tour of English-related rooms in the environment (programmed by one of Diversity University's "wizards," Ulf Kastner), and a Points of Interest Board that served as a kind of portal to every site listed on the board, among others. Many of these features have been incorporated into newer, three-dimensional versions of Multi-User Virtual Environments, such as Second Life.