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This website is an example of what a social phenomena in text based virtual realities look like and how people interact through text. There is an introduction showing three major factors what qualifies as MUD from an adventure style game. One a MUD is not goal-oriented because a MUD isn't really a game at all. Two they are extensible from within and new objects can be added and three there are more than one user connected at a time. Every object has a textual description that players can view with a look command. Players spend their time connecting with others and socializing with each other. MUD players create their own world and as the reading describe can become evil at times. Curtis, Pavel. " Social Phenomena in Text-Based Virtual Realities."

Here's a tour of a MUD in action. Every time I read the Dibbell article I wonder about what this sort of 'gameplay' looks like. I decided to search one out on Youtube. This video provides a voice-annotated tour that illustrates the Multi-User Dungeon in its starkly abstract textual form. The impersonal nature of text as letter-forms distributed across a network, aligning with the affordances of anonymity, but there's also the thrall of live communication. Words are powerful and the seductive qualities of connection transcend the medium at hand. "Let's Show! MUD: Part 3: Grand Finale" Posted by FrogurtX. June 29, 2009. Accessed February 27, 2014. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQJ2xG0LdVo&list=PLgVWAwe9s2rJhafD0gv2mo-W9d0bvh6sl