#DIGC101 Online Worlds

Online World : An expansive world like environment made by humans for humans, maintained, rendered and recorded by a computer.

Predecessor: role playing and self contained virtual worlds, dungeons and dragons & sim city.

Online multi user environment - Habitat: chat world with visuals.

LamdaMOO - Text based virtual world. http://www.juliandibbell.com/texts/bungle.html

1996 - First visually immersive synthetic world - Meridian 59

1998 Lineage, first online world. 1999 Everquest, 77th richest country in the world.

2000 The Sims. Very popular. Lead to WoW.

Second life, largest virtual economy. Heaviest user age 45+, 17,000 virtual sq kms. Large user generated content. Intellectual property rights retained by user. “Your world, your imagination.” Real economic exchanges between real world and virtual.

3 forms of communication, text, voice, visual. Most users prefer text over voice. Strategies for communication. People think voice is too real. Public vs private conversations, group structures (ie star trek fans).

Creating profile, avatar vs user. Search function. Meta texts, news services, avatar blogs, commentary, fashion, machinima.

Language in Second Life : Slang and jargon. NPIRL = not possible in real life. Speech styles, cross-cultural and global. Includes translators.

Exploration. Virtual Van Gogh. Virtual lectures. Corporate, usually empty. Virtual history. Fashion, can equal real world money. Virtual strip club.

Virtual intimacy. Virtual babies.