The most outstanding attribute of MOO is its ability to allow two or more people to communicate with each other in real time. This is synchronous communication, as opposed to the asynchronous communication of email, news groups, bulletin boards, and the like. Like many other applications, it is open to anyone in the world who has Internet access. MOO users type lines of text which, if high traffic on the Internet is not slowing things down, is displayed instantly on the screens of those with whom the writer wants to communicate.
This instantaneous communication has the advantage of being extremely engaging while encouraging the formation of rapid and informal speech-like discourse, in spite of the fact that it is in a written form. In the same sense that email is more informal and more quickly composed than, say, a regular letter or essay, MOO communication is that much more spontaneous than email. Each utterance is generally much shorter than a typical email message, yet because of the live interplay with other users, MOO sessions can run into hours of fascinating language use.
Those who have used IRC (Internet Relay Chat) and who have heard of MOO often ask why they should bother with MOO. These two "talkers" do have some attributes in common. With IRC, someone opens a channel, others connect to the channel to chat, everyone enters lines of text in order to communicate, and the channel is closed when the last person leaves. With MOO, the user connects via telnet to a program that is running on one computer, enters lines of text to communicate, and disconnects when done. In both applications users can chat in real time, talk to many people at once or send private messages, and show actions and emotions.
The differences between the two, however, all stem from the fact that a MOO can be programmed, compiled, and saved while its still running. This means that the MOO doesn't have to be shut down for work to be done on it. In order to program in IRC, however, it must be shut down, hacked, recompiled, and started up again. This is the virtual equivalent of having to evacuate a town in order to install street lights, and the effect on the users' sense of community permanence is the same.
Because MOO communities create in the minds of the users the illusion of a real space in which they can meet each other, one that doesn't disappear or change drastically, users have a much richer experience in MOO than they do in IRC. In his unpublished article "Communication in the Virtual Classroom," Colin Moock describes how this works:
The communication in a MOO is fused inextricably with the environment within which it takes place. As a communication tool, a MOO's functioning bears some resemblance to a UNIX "talk" session, or an Internet multi-user IRC (chat session). But to compare the entirety of a MOO solely to either one of these communication systems would miss as much of the essence of MOOs as would a comparison of a neighbourhood full of people interacting to a two-way telephone conversation. Both comparisons overlook environment, from physical setting itself to the interaction of individuals within that setting.
Because the landscape of a MOO comprises a geographical area such as a university, communication always takes place "somewhere" (a dorm room, a meeting hall, a restaurant, in the middle of the street) and often involves the manipulation of "something" (a note pad, a bulletin board, a newspaper, an essay, a street sign). User-environment interaction occurs through metaphor: text descriptions stand in for real situations. While in the real world, "setting" exists as a three dimensional space through which a person can move, and on which a person can have an effect, in the virtual world of a MOO, setting exists as an elaborate series of textual indices to the real world.
As noted earlier, MOO users can add and build and create interesting objects with almost infinite possibilities. Robots like schMOOze University's monkey, documents like MundoHispano's chapters from Don Quixote, and programs like the dictionaries and word games found on both MOOs can be left behind for others to use. When nobody is using an IRC channel, it closes. But if users find a MOO with nobody connected, there is still plenty to do. They can wander from room to room (MOOs may have hundreds of these rooms) reading descriptions and playing with objects , and at the very least can read their MOOmail in the mail system that is a part of every MOO.
Rooms and objects in MOO provide a context for communication in the target language. The number of contexts is limited only by the imaginations of the users. Because of the limitless creative possibilities in MOO, users may choose to chat about real events, describe fanciful rooms, or act in ways they might not be capable of IRL (in real life), such as doing cartwheels along the edge of a balcony high above a Parisian street in MOOfrancais.
Due to the richness and relative permanence of contextual clues in MOO, users often have the sensation that they are actually meeting in the same (albeit virtual) space. For the language learner using a target language MOO, this becomes the imaginary equivalent to having an immersion experience. IRCs, on the other hand, give users the sensation that they are still at a distance, hence the feeling of having left one's own surroundings and entered a foreign environment is not easily attained. MOOspace and the durability of its contents contribute to the formation of virtual communities, for MOO users know that they can expect to find essentially the same rooms, programs, and people in the MOO every time they log on.
It is this sense of community and the relationships it engenders that inspires language learners to return repeatedly to a linguistic environment that might otherwise be seen as difficult. Although they may be struggling with the language, they can rely on friendships formed in the MOO to make the language learning experience more pleasant. The MOO environment can be enhanced regularly by programmers who create language learning aids, administrators who encourage native speakers to be helpful to language learners, and wizards who use programming to set a theme, watch over public behaviors, and maintain security controls that are sensitive to the needs of learners and native speakers alike.