1. Mud Agents

2. Internet Chat  Multi-user  Near-real time Asynchronous communication  Locality –Public space / private space –Different rooms  Identity

3. Mud Worlds  Detailed World Map  Virtual objects –Money –Instruments  Virtual characters –Monsters –Store-keepers

4. World Map Town Center Bank Troll-villePool Hall east south west north DragonKid RedBeard TheBankTeller

5. Sample Interaction >You are in the Town Center > In the room is : DragonKid, RedBeard East >You are at the Bank > In the room is : TheBankTeller TheBankTeller : would you like to put some money in your savings account?

6. Mud Interaction  Plain ‘ol chat –DragonKid: I need a beer.  “Emote” –Virtual actions performed “DragonKid hugs RedBeard.” “RedBeard spits at Dragon Kid.”

7. Two Agents  Julia –1993 –TinyMud  Cobot –2001 –LambdaMoo

8. Julia  Comes when called  Gives directions  Gives money, exchanges money for quotes  Gives messages to people

9. Gossipy  Remembers what people say, and can quote them on request You : Julia quote Tirstor Julia : “I once heard Tristor say, ‘Well not in the FLESH, but I am here. ’”

10. Gender  Julia guesses gender from names –You :‘Julia, what sex is Robyn’ –Julia : I would think Robyn is female.

11. General Knowledge  Location  Amount of money in possession  Who has killed her recently –(Is mean to them)

12. Cobot  Mainly focused on general chat properties, not necessarily on MUD- specific worlds

13. Social Statistics  Keeps track of verbs (emotes) used by a particular person  Keeps track of verbs used by one person onto another person

14. Who are your friends?  Cobot keeps track of interactions, and can report who you’ve talked to most, who you interact with  Cobot keeps track of who acts like you

15. Cobot Changed the World  This ability itself altered the interactions on the MUD Snow_Crash [to Medb] : Cobot says you act like me. Stop. Medb cracks up laughing at Snow_Crash. Medb [to Snow_Crash] : How do you know it’s not you acting like me?

16. Cobot’s Dialogue  A small set of large, public texts –(starting with the Unibomber Manifesto)  When asked a question Cobot’s not familiar with, it picks a sentence from this text, by weighting sentences by number of matched words

17. Cobot Speaks Technicolor_Guest [to cobot] : What’s your religion? Cobot [to Technicolor_Guest] : technology unless you REALLY believe in that religion yourself and find that it arouses a deep, strong, genuine response in many people

18. The Trick (well one)  Pick texts with a coherent theme  Where virtually the entire text is amusing –Other choices scripts : “The Big Lebowski”, “Planet of the Apes”, articles on alien abduction and paranormal experience

19. Everybody loves Cobot  Most popular inhabitant of the room  More than twice # of interactions than second most popular

20. Conclusions  Very simple functionality  Simple dialogue model  Still more entertaining than many people