Valhalla used to be on a computer at the University of San Diego. It no longer exists. But this document will still be useful for beginners to MOO.
In order to get to a “MOO”, you need a “MOO Client”, just like you need a web client to get to the web, or an e-mail client to get e-mail. If you don’t have a MOO client, don’t panic: you can use any old telnet program at first.
You also need to know the “host” and the “port” of the MOO you want to get to. For example, if the MOO says to use the host valhalla.hoboes.com, and port 4444, you would ‘telnet’ to:
telnet valhalla.hoboes.com 4444
Note that Valhalla MOO isn’t actually running right now: it only runs when I have need of it. But I’ll be using it for examples because it’s the one I use most often.
When you arrive at Garm’s cave, you’ll type
@connect your-player your-password
to get past the cute little puppy. If you don't have a player yet, you'll need to create one, by thinking up a name and password, and typing:
@create your-player-name your-password
Valhalla will tell you if the player name you've chosen is already being used. You'll then have to use @create with a new name. Once you're in Valhalla, type
news
to see the latest edition of the Valhalla News-Rune, for the latest information about Valhalla and the people who use it.
When you want to see what’s around you, type
look
and type
look object
to look at a particular object. For example, try:
look me
Whenever you say me, Valhalla assumes you’re talking about yourself.
Usually, there will be some directions you can go, such as north, door, or docks. Type
go place
to go somewhere. Look in the description of where you are to see possible directions to go in. You can also get a ‘compass rose’ by typing @rose.
If you have a home, you can type
home
and you’ll be transported there just like in the Wizard of Oz.
You can get help by typing help. You can get help on a topic by typing help topic. We have no psychiatrists in Valhalla. Yet.
You are malleable. You yam what you yam and you ain’t no more. When you first use your player, you will have something like the following generic description:
look me
You see a player who should type '@describe me as ...'.
It is awake and looks alert.
You can describe things that you own (and you own yourself) with the command:
@describe object as "Description"
You’ll also need to set your gender if you are male or female.
For example:
@describe me as "Loki, half-giant, half-Aesir, is a dashing fellow with a sly smile."
@gender male
The next time someone looks at you, they’ll see:
look me
Loki, half-giant, half-Aesir, is a dashing fellow with a sly smile.
He is awake and looks alert.
You are ‘awake’ because you are here. When you leave Valhalla you are asleep. You are ‘alert’ because you are doing something. If you leave your player unattended for a while, you are staring off into space.
The most common ways of interacting with other people are by ‘talking’, ‘emoting’, and ‘paging’.
"Hi everybody! Where's the ale?
You say, "Hi everybody! Where's the ale?"
:smiles.
Balder smiles.
:chugs a tanker of ale.
Balder chugs a tanker of ale.
page Thor "Hey, Thor, there's a great party over at the circus.
Your message has been sent.
Meanwhile, Thor sees:
You sense that Balder is looking for you in The Fields of Valhalla.
He pages, "Hey, Thor, there's a great party over at the circus."
"Hi everybody! Where's the ale?
First, I talked. To talk, you type a quotation mark (double-quote) and what you want to say. Everyone else sees:
Balder says, "Hi everybody! Where's the ale?"
:smiles.
Then, I emoted. This uses the colon. Everyone else saw:
Balder smiles.
The ‘emote’ can be used to do things as well. For example, chugging a tanker of ale. There's a difference, however, between chugging a tanker of ale by emoting, and chugging an actual tanker of ale. To really chug a tanker (and what does ‘really’ mean in a virtual reality?), you need to have an object called tanker, and this object must contain a verb called chug. More about objects and verbs later, though.
When you talk, only the people who are in the same room can hear you. If there’s someone else in Valhalla, you can page them.
The syntax is:
page player "text of page
For example:
page Thor "Hey, Thor, there's a great party over at the circus.
Thor sees:
You sense that Balder is looking for you in Balder's Chimney.
He pages, " Hey, Thor, there's a great party over at the circus."
To find out who is awake in Valhalla, type
@who
Player name Connected Idle time Location
Balder (#78) an hour 0 seconds The Fields of Valhalla
Loki (#79) 20 minutes 10 minutes Jotunheim
Thor (#3) 2 hours 10 seconds Bifrost Bridge
You can also whisper to someone if you want to have a private conversation without finding an empty room.
whisper "What's with the funny hat?" to Thor
You whisper, "What's with the funny hat?" to Thor.
And, Thor sees:
Balder whispers, "What's with the funny hat?"
Nobody else in the room sees anything at all.
You can send and receive mail within Valhalla. You send mail with the @send command. You’ll be asked for a subject, and then you can type in your message, one line at a time.
@send Fred
Subject:
[Type a line of input or ´@abort' to abort the command.]
Party at Thor's
Mail Room
Do a 'look' to get the list of commands, or 'help' for assistance.
Composing a letter to Balder (#78) entitled "Hello, Fred."
"There is a party at Thor's on Tuesday night, 7:30 pm Valhalla time.
Line 1 added.
"Can you bring your keg-of-20-drinks?
Line 2 added.
Note that you have to use a quotation mark, as if you are saying something, to add text. That's because you are saying it, and the ‘Mail Room’ is dutifully writing down what you say.
If you want to see what you’ve typed so far, you can use list.
List
1: There is a party at Thor's on Tuesday night, 7:30 pm Valhalla time.
2: Can you bring your keg-of-20-drinks?
To change something you’ve written, use subst (for substitute). The syntax is subst /text-as-it-is/text-as-you-want-it/lines-the-text-is-in. For example,
sub /your/my/2
2: Can you bring my keg-of-20-drinks?
changes the your in line 2 to my. You can also specify a range of lines, for example, 2-5. If you don’t know what the last line is, you can use the dollar sign $. Valhalla interprets $ as ‘the end’.
Use send when you’re ready to send the message on its way. If you change your mind and decide not to send any mail, use abort.
send
Sending...
Mail actually sent to Fred (#99)
Chimney
The stone chimney is smokey and warm, and a bit cramped for anyone of normal size. Dirty elfs skitter about as they see you coming.
You see the Chimney description again because, when you are composing a mail message, you are actually in a different room—the ‘Mail Room’. After you ‘send’ the message, you return to wherever you were before composing the message.
When Fred receives the message, he sees:
You have new mail (1) from Balder (#78).
Type ´help mail' for info on reading it.
You can list your mail by typing:
@mail on me
1:+ Jul 15 11:37 Fred (#99) Re: Hello, Fred.
2:+ Jul 15 12:59 Thor (#3) Party Canceled
----+
You can read a message by typing
@read # on me
where # is the number of the message you want to read. Delete a message with
@rmm 1 from me
Deleted 1.
For more information about mail, type help mail.
There are a number of discussion groups on Valhalla. You are already a member of *Life, a group for general discussion of life in Valhalla. If you want to see a list of mail on *Life, type @mail on *Life. To read message 7 on *Life, type @read 7 on *Life. Discussion groups are just like mail, except that instead of the word ‘me’, you use the name of the discussion group. All of the mail verbs work with discussion groups.
To see a list of all of the discussion groups available to you, type @unsubscribed. To take part in a discussion, you need to subscribe by typing
@subscribe discussion-group
If you want to stop taking part in a discussion group, use
@unsubscribe discussion-group
and use @subscribed to see a list of the groups you’re currently subscribed to.
Using pure text can be somewhat limiting. You can’t squiggle pictures in the margins, you can’t wave your arms or smile and expect the person at the other computer to see it. In Valhalla, you can wave your arms and smile using the emote verb already described:
:smiles disdainfully. "Funny as a crutch, Thor."
Balder smiles disdainfully. "Funny as a crutch, Thor."
You can add emphasis to a word or phrase by surrounding it with an asterisk. If you surround each word separately with asterisks, it’s a more staccato an emphasis.
Balder says, "*Where* did you put it?!"
Balder says, "*Where did you put it?!*"
Balder says, "*Where* *did* *you* *put* *it?!*"
You can yell (but you shouldn't very often) by using all capitals. (And if you accidentally hit your shift lock key, everyone will think you are yelling.)
Balder says, "WHERE DID YOU PUT IT?!"
If you want to set off a title without as much emphasis, use the underscore. It’s similar to italics, and is probably derived from the editor’s mark for italics[1].
Balder says, "Have you seen _Gone With the Wind_?
And, of course, you can combine them as much as you want...
Balder looks at his tape collection quizzically. "Have you seen _Gone With the Wind_? *Bitchin'* movie.*WHERE* did you *put* it?!"
...but don’t overdo it, you’ll burn your keyboard out.
You can also use emoticons, although they should be limited to electronic mail. The most common emoticons are the smiley and the frown. They look sort of like a smiling and a frowning person... if you turn your head to the side... and use some imagination.
:*) :*( :^) :^( =*( =*)
Other emoticons exist. There’s an exhibit in the museum in Balmooa Park.
The basic commands that apply to objects are look, take, drop, and give.
look staff
take staff
drop staff
give staff to Thor
In Valhalla, these commands are called ‘verbs’. In order to ‘do’ something to or with an object, either that object or one of it’s ancestors must have that ‘command’ as a ‘verb’. Only programmers can create and program verbs.
For more information about using objects, type:
You can look object to see an object’s description. Usually, looking at an object will tell you everything that the object’s creator wants you to know. If you want to see a list of the verbs on the object, and some of the properties, type @examine object. ‘Verbs’ are things you can do to or with the object. Drop and look are both verbs. ‘Properties’ are information about the object. Names, aliases, and descriptions are all properties.
I’ll talk a little more about this under Building and Advanced Building.
Valhalla has a built in help system. Type help to see it. Some parts of help that you may find helpful are:
help movement
help communication
help players
Valhalla’s purpose is to provide a meeting ground in ‘virtual space’. It is a space on the Internet where people can interact in real time or by leaving messages. People in Valhalla can personalize their interactions by creating special rooms and objects. Valhalla is meant to provide a place for the University of San Diego community to meet with other communities on the Internet. Members of the USD community can sponsor on-line festivals, professional conferences, regular get-togethers, readings, and anything else that humans meet for, using Valhalla and the Internet.
Valhalla is open to anyone on the Internet. However, ‘programmer’ status will generally only be granted on the request of a member of the USD community, and then only if it will contribute to the general needs of Valhalla’s USD users.
From a technical standpoint, Valhalla is what is known as a MOO. MOO is a ‘programming language’ for creating multi-user dungeons (MUD). There are many other MUDs around. MOO is object oriented (thus, MUD, Object Oriented, or MOO). Don’t worry about what that means. MOO was created and is currently maintained by Pavel Curtis and Xerox PARC, who are to be commended for their work. They provide the MOO environment free of charge.
Valhalla is a MOO on one of the IBM compatibles at the University of San Diego, using the Linux operating system. Linux is a Unix look-alike. There are different versions of Linux available, but all are provided free of charge by the people who write and maintain them.
Finally, Valhalla is maintained by Thor and Balder, who can occasionally be seen wandering about the Circus Bazarre and the rest of Valhalla’s universe.
[1]The editing mark for italics is to underline the text. The editing note for underlines is to underline the text with a squiggly line. You do occasionally see the tilda used to set off titles, and this, too, is probably derived from the editing mark.