Molinare Practicum Post 3

News

As soon as you log into LambdaMOO you are prompted to read the news.  I found this to be interesting because it suggests that the modest role play is group oriented.  I believe this indicates community behavior because game moderators set up the news in order to keep both new and returning players up to speed with the history of the game.  The player has the option of viewing "New News" or "All News".  New news includes only recently updated news, while all news includes every news post posted in the history of LambdaMOO.  I found this to a great way for new players to feel connected and beginning to form a sense of community because I was able to go back in time and see how the game has developed since its creation.

News isn't updated all too frequently, but the most recent set of news has to do with nominations for the LambdaMOO Architecture Review Board.  With a little bit of digging I discovered that the Architecture Review Board (or ARB) was created in December 1991 to help the "wizards" (AKA admins) in assessing who should receive more quota to build with.   Currectly, LambdaMOO is still accepting nominations for a position on the ARB, but as a new ember I doubt I would be up for that position even if I wanted it.

Reading the "all news" I was even more convinced that the MOO was a community because I stumbled across a news article of a player saying that they were leaving after 15 years of the game and a lot of players expressing concern about the loss.  This shows that a bond between the players is created over game play and that some players stick around for over a decade in this world.