Preparation Notes

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Workshop 3:

Virtual Worlds for Virtual Communities

Findings

Introduction

A virtual world is a cyber-space inhabited by virtual communities. There are a few types of virtual world which are 1D, 2D, 2.5D and 3D spaces ('D' in stands for dimensions). In the past, these virtual worlds are normally built with text or documents, which is 1D. Examples of 1D spaces virtual world are chat rooms, bulletin board system, and web worlds. Today, virtual worlds are becoming more visible, and dramatic as 2D and 3D graphical landscapes are fast spreading across the net. Examples of 2D and 3D virtual world would be discuss later.

Virtual world could also be divided into two categories, single-user worlds and multi-user worlds. Single-user worlds are worlds where the contents of these worlds are transferred to the user's own computer and only the user can wonder around in this world. These kind of worlds are mostly being used for the visualization of objects, ranging from a car to a complete city. In the other hand, the multiple-users world can be accessed by multiple users at the same time anywhere in the world. Actions that the users make need to be visible other users, which is done by shared events. The events that occur in a multi-user world are distributed to the computers of all the other users. This distribution is done by a server which sends all shared events to all users' local copy of the virtual world.

Nowadays, avatars are playing an relatively important place in the virtual world. Avatars are the name for a digital embodiment of a person in cyberspace. They could talk and move humanly. Avatars and virtual worlds working hand-in-hand could transform one's experience of visiting the cyberspace from a screen interface into a real place.

Examples of Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds are usually classify in 3 categories of application, text-based(1D) application, 2D-based application, 3D-based application. There is also some in between dimensional categories, such as 2.5D-based application. One example of the in-between dimensional categories is WorldsAway which is a 2.5D-based application. Further elaboration of WorldsAway would be discuss later. Below is example of each categories application:-

Text-based Application (1D-based Application)

IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is a text-based communication forums, which consist hundreds of channels. People in the forum communication with each other in real time by typing short text messages to each other. Communication could be done public to everyone who is sign in the forum; or, privately, where communication is done only to people who are selected to be in the chat room.

Dark Chambers is one of many Multi Users Dungeons (MUDs) that have been entertaining the Internet society for many years. It is a text-based role-playing game functions which might not sounds so familiar with nowadays. It involves around character development and team play, which is largely based on the imagination of the player.

2D-based Application

Ultima On-Line is a network based version of Ultima Role Playing game which allows thousands of players to exist in the same fantasy game world over the Internet. The players could interact with other participants in real time to form adventuring parties, engaging with battles with other players, taking up a quest in a group, and etc. The Ultima's world is presented in a third person view with the avatar of the person being the point of focus. There are numerous computer controlled creatures and hundreds of other objects in the world.

The Realm is a virtual world and a on-line Role Playing Game (RPG) provided by Sierra On-line. The world consist of thousands of playing rooms, which is presented in third persons view. The user may explore the locales of the world and chat with fellows Realmers all over the world.

2.5D-based Application

WorldsAway is a in-between dimensional application of 2D and 3D-based application. This application is based on LucasArts' Project called Habitat. The concept is fully modified by Fujitsu, and is currently offering socializing possibilities for thousands of Internet users. The users in the community could interact with each other, and the virtual economy of the world. WorldsAway allows the users to join group games and many other activities.

3D-based Application

Active Worlds is the first 3D environment in the Internet. It has a huge area of cityscapes and 300,000 registered citizens and tourists. Interactions between people in the Active Worlds is done through text chat. Building new establishments are done by direct manipulation of components and stacking them together like Lego.

Blaxxun interactive has already opened doors to the VRML (Virtual Reality Modelling Language) club in Cyberspace. The users could build their world and avatars with VRML and connect it to the vast and expanding labyrinth of Blaxxun's world. Communications between users could be done through text chat or voice conferencing.

History

The evolution of virtual world is similar to the evolution of virtual communities as we discuss in Workshop 1, after all, it is still a part of the birth of the Internet. Virtual communities find its technological roots in the earliest text-based multi-user games such as Space War. This continuing trend was the development of UseNET, LISTSERVs, MUDs, MOOs, IRC and conferencing systems like the WELL in the 1970s and 1980s, and in the 1990s the World Wide Web (WWW) evolved from it. The merging of text-based chat channels with a visual interface in which users were represented as 'avatars' first occurred in Habitat in the mid 1980s. This has reached an important milestone with the launch of the 3D Internet-based Worlds Chat in 1995.

Inhabited Virtual Worlds (IVWs) and their communities was primarily drew from their roots in MUDs and text-based real time chat systems and utilized the power of existing 3D rendering engines developed for gaming applications such as Doom and Quake. VRML has had very little influence except as an occasional model interchange format and is user in few IVWs with large user communities. IVWs do not take advantage of the full immersion and special devices of virtual reality systems but instead concentrate on running effectively on a large range of consumer computing platforms at modem speeds.

Issues

 

The issues that raised from the above research on virtual worlds are stated below:-

• How would the future of the virtual worlds be?

• How does virtual worlds change our life?

• Does virtual worlds do any bad to our life?

• Is virtual world growing at the speed that is too fast for the human technology to sustain?

 

References

 

	Quality	Title & Author
	*****	Comparative Classification of Multi-User Worlds - Tony Manninen and Jani Pirkola
	****	Communicating with Avatars in Virtual 3D Worlds - Volker Thoma, Andrea Haf and Arno Hitzges
	****	Digital Space Virtual World
	****	Virtual Organizations and Virtual Worlds (A Case Study of AVATARS98)
	****	Virtual Worlds on the Internet (Another look at the VU Campus) - F.E. Dozzi
	***	What is Virtual Worlds?
	**	Virtual Reality: History

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