Psychology of Cyberspace -> Home Page Article Index Subject index Search Engine This section first created in May 96
John Suler, Ph.D. Rider University Copyright Notice


Life at the Palace

A Cyberpsychology Case Study


The Palace is a client/server program that creates a highly visual, spatial, and auditory chat environment. It is an excellent example of the current trend toward graphical, interactive domains on the internet, sometimes referred to as "habitats," "GMUKS" (Graphical Multi-user Konversation), or, "multimedia chat." Currently, there are many Palace sites located across the internet, varying widely in technical and artistic sophistication as well as graphical themes (e.g., a futuristic Cybertown, a haunted house, Japan, Star Trek, etc.). Some sites are commercial, some private. Some even may be considered "art."

The oldest and one of the most populated sites is the Main Mansion, or simply "Main." Created and maintained by TPI (The Palace Incorporated, which later merged with Electric Communities), Mansion consists of approximately 30 rooms - including a bar, a game room, bedrooms, a study, a beach, a moor, and several surrealistic locales, such as the orbit of an alien planet and an underground space that looks like Hades. These room graphics often are used at other Palace sites. Users can move freely within and between the rooms. They talk with each other via typed text that appears in balloons that pop out from one's head, similar to characters in comic strips. A unique feature of the Palace is the ability to create icons to represent oneself. These icons, called "avatars" or "props" can be changed at will.

My research at the Palace is an ongoing, intensive case study of the psychological and social dynamics of this evolving community. What makes the Palace so fascinating is the fact that it is highly visual and spatial. This is a new dimension to social interaction on the internet, and certainly a predictor of the multimedia experiences to come.

What follows is an outline of my research. Most of it has focussed on the Main Mansion community. New articles will be added to this outline. So feel free to stop by to see how my research is progressing. Life at the Palace is a subsection of my online hypertext book Psychology of Cyberspace.






back to the Psychology of Cyberspace home page
www.rider.edu/users/suler/psycyber/psycyber.html