Virtual Worlds, Real Communities

Issues with quartz2d

2010-09-10T15:09:00.003-05:00

a quick survey

2007-02-26T02:18:00.000-05:00

So here's my survey. If you play wow, feel free to be part of my sample group.

Please Click here to participate in the World of Warcraft Economic Survey

Survey Site

2007-02-16T22:18:00.000-05:00

To meet the requirements for the student licence for the survey site you need the following:

a link to their site www.questionpro.com
give permission/have permission to publish the project Abstract as a QuestionPro case Study
give permission to publish survey as a QuestionPro survey template.

sounds reasonable to me. allows one survey with unlimited questions and caps you at 5000 respondants.
if they don't let each student in the class have a licence from the link from this blog i suggest starting a blog (seing as we all have blogger accounts anyway), as that should satisfy the requirements.

How Green is your Avatar?

2007-02-14T10:57:00.000-05:00

Interesting post on http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/12/avatars_consume.php looking at how much power is consumed by your computer, by the SL servers running your avatars and what it means in terms of our energy consumption.

I guess we should compare it to what you would do if you were not in SL 20hr/week.

Examining Direct and Indirect Social Influence with Virtual Characters:

2007-02-07T10:01:00.001-05:00

Examining Direct and Indirect Social Influence with Virtual Characters:
The Role of Gender and Realism

Catherine Zanbaka

PhD Candidate in Computer Science

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Faculty Candidate

Friday, February 9th, 2007
11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Fuller Labs 320

With the emergence of interface agents and virtual characters in everyday applications, understanding how people respond to this new medium is crucial. If social interactions with virtual humans are found to be like human to human interactions, then researchers will be able to substitute virtual humans for real people in both research and applied settings. The research presented in this talk covers three experiments which investigate how people react to and are influenced by virtual agents. To study both direct and indirect social influence, two paradigms (Social Facilitation and Inhibition, and Persuasion) from the field of social psychology were used to compare human to human with human to virtual human interactions. The overall conclusion is that people do respond similarly to virtual characters as they respond to real people. In fact, just as in real life interactions, gender plays a significant role in how people respond to virtual characters, more so than even the appearance of the virtual character. This talk presents empirical results from three experiments involving over 300 participants.

________

Catherine A. Zanbaka received a BS in computer Science in 2000 and an MS in Human Computer Interaction in 2002 from the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is currently a PhD candidate in Information Technology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Her research interest includes 3D human computer interaction, virtual humans, and virtual environments.

Host: Michael Gennert

Refreshments will be served.

Change happens with ball-flattening speed.

2007-02-05T18:23:00.000-05:00

I came across this interesting read... It provides a few predictions about our future with MMO games.

A quote from it:
You've heard stories about how ticket sales are plummeting at movie theaters, in favor of home DVD viewing. Why? Why do so many people want to work from home now? Because we're sick of having to sit with other people. We want that extra layer of control that meat interaction will never give us. We want a world without the unpredictability of real, unrestrained humanity.

http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/games/wowworld.html

WhisperThott

2007-02-01T21:54:00.000-05:00

WoW users routinely use thottbot.com for help with quests or to find where an NPC is. The web database has lots of great information, but users will still ask/yell in-game for location of objects rather than switching to a web browser and looking at thottbot. While the problem has always existed, it has become more pronounced in Outlands, the new BC area. Everybody is new. Everybody is in a rush to get to level 70, so asking is easier than looking it up yourself.

Here is my suggestions: WhisperThott. An addon that has all the information from thottbot already in it, so when people whisper "Where is Marshall?" to you the addon automatically replies with the coordinates. The addon can even listen in on the general channel and respond to questions pro-actively.

What do people think? Will the addon be useful? Will it increase the fun factor of the game? Does it help create better communities?

Virtual Items banned from Ebay

2007-01-31T01:15:00.000-05:00

Found this little tidbit: link

WoW Meeting

2007-01-30T19:37:00.000-05:00

ZipZip was lonely on Tuesday night in WoW. Next meetings: Wednesday: Feb 1, 8-9pm
Thursday: Feb 2, 6-7pm.

Storytelling Alice

2007-01-30T11:52:00.000-05:00

IMGD/CS Talk

Storytelling Alice:presenting programming as a means to the end of
storytelling

Caitlin Kelleher
Carnegie Mellon University

Friday, February 2, 2007
11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Fuller Labs 320

It is estimated that the number of incoming college students intending
to major in computer science has dropped by 70% since 2000, despite
the fact that the need for computer scientists continues to
grow. Increasing the numbers of female students who pursue computer
science has the potential to help fill projected computing jobs and to
improve the technology we create by diversifying the viewpoints that
influence its design. Numerous studies have found that girls begin to
turn away from math and science related disciplines, including
computer science, during middle school. By the end of eighth grade,
twice as many boys as girls are interested in pursuing science,
engineering, or technology based careers. I will describe the
development of Storytelling Alice, a programming environment that
gives middle school girls a positive first experience with computer
programming.

It presents programming as a means to the end of storytelling, a
motivating activity for a broad spectrum of middle school girls. More
than 250 girls participated in the formative user testing of
Storytelling Alice. To determine the impact of the storytelling focus
on girls' interest in and success at learning to program, I conducted
a study comparing the experiences of girls introduced to programming
using Storytelling Alice with those of girls introduced to programming
using a version of Alice without storytelling features (Generic
Alice). Participants who used Storytelling Alice and Generic Alice
were equally successful at learning basic programming
concepts. However, I found that users of Storytelling Alice show more
evidence of engagement with programming.

I will conclude by discussing future directions for introducing
programming through storytelling as well as other potential contexts
for storytelling.

MMO for Children from

2007-01-30T11:49:00.000-05:00

CBBC, the channel for 7-12 year olds, said it would allow digitally literate children the access to characters and resources they had come to expect.

Users would be able to build an online presence, known as an avatar, then create and share content.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6290585.stm

SL Economy

2007-01-29T17:55:00.000-05:00

Castranova discusses SL economy and compares it to a "village" rather than a "large country". Everyone is waiting for SL economy to crash. Any bets on when it will happen?

Cheating on your girlfriend with a night elf?

2007-01-29T02:58:00.001-05:00

On a forum I visit regularly, I found this little gem linked.

It involves a post on the WoW forums about a guild breaking up. Interesting topics involved with the break-up include one guild member telling another's real life girlfriend that he was cheating on her with online girls, with photographic...er I mean, screenshotographic evidence. One of the posters also states how "To you this may just be a game, but to some of us this is a very real thing. I haven't spent 75 days of my life playing this game so I can !*!#ing LOSE BATTLEGROUND GAMES because you think it's CUTE to screw around. If any one person caused this breakup, it was you."

Link

2007-01-25T09:42:00.000-05:00

For those of you interested in reading up a bit on "gender issues" in games and especially in online (game) communities, here are some of the good and easy-to-read sources from which we will probably anchor our discussion in today's class.

First and foremost I'll recommend one of the most amusing (and remarkable) stories about girls and online games I've ever read. It's from The Escapist, and called "OMG Girlz Don’t Exist on teh Intarweb!!!!1" (easy-print version) (PDF- entire issue).

For another interesting read, check out Games of a Fairer Sex (easy-print version), also from The Escapist.

If you don't already read The Escapist on a regular basis, you may want to add it to your personal reading list. It's very good, it's free, and it publishes an issue with 5-7 articles each week.

I may post a few more sources of inspiration for our talk later today, but this is a good start and will hopefully help us get some good discussions going.

Good Laugh

2007-01-25T00:32:00.000-05:00

A geeky webcomic, and when i saw they mentioned second life, i figured you guys would like the laugh. It's the linked strip and the one after it.

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20070118&mode=classic

SL Article on CNN/Fortune

2007-01-24T09:21:00.000-05:00

Interesting article on SL in CNN/Fortune

I will need to look at more IBM spaces in SL.

The article mentions 334,000 regular visitors to SL which reflects the SL population more realistically than the 2.5million subscriber number.

Now, the question is how to we build the next version of SL that is much more like the web, not controlled by any one company, running on many many servers

I haven't read this yet but it looks interesting

2007-01-21T14:15:00.001-05:00

http://thezenspace.blogspot.com/2007/01/english-102-research-paper-videogames.html

Train Man

2007-01-21T11:05:00.000-05:00

Wired article about Train Man shows the power of online communities. I am undecided about whether the story is true or something that 2Channel came up with. Does it make a difference? If we found out it was fake would we be cynical about helping people online or believing their stories. Lonely Girl on youtube was madeup, but the truth has not deterred fans.

101 Uses of Second Life

2007-01-20T01:12:00.000-05:00

Megan S. Conklin has a good writeup titled
101 Uses of Second Life in the College Classroom which might provide inspiration for ideas for midterm/final papers as well as some more general reading.

Karnium in Outland (my 61 druid)

2007-01-18T15:34:00.000-05:00

this is me in my Feral Gear standing over the void ridge in the new continent. Outland.

yes... i bought the expansion. the expansion has made me feel like i'm playing for the first time again. discovering new things with other people, levelling my character, and here's the frustrating one... replacing my epics with greens and blues. This feeling is what i wrote my WoW reaction on in some part. Anyone else playing around in outland?

Jevonspx Adzebills

2007-01-18T13:56:00.000-05:00

Jevonspx Adzebills makes an appearance in Second Life. He does not have many friends yet, but he is a member of the "Virtual Worlds, Real Communities" group where all cool avatars hang out

SL Media Hype

2007-01-16T17:27:00.000-05:00

More and more mentions of SL in the media. Much of it is hype, but hype will get more users. Picture from Valleywag, not sure where the data comes from.

Survey Answers

2007-01-14T20:14:00.000-05:00

) Have you been in SL before?
Nope, I think I tried once or twice but it never ran on my computer before, or it was so laggy I didn't think it was running properly.

2) Have you played WoW before?
Nope, I don't particularally like the 'click-n-slash' genre, and so never tried WoW because I didn't feel like paying for that sort of control scheme. I also just haven't wanted to get addicted because even though this style of control isn't very entertaining, this sort of game tends to be very addicting.

3) Any other experience in large virtual worlds, virtual communities of any sort?
Yes, used to play on Graal and Furcadia. Currently play Natural Selection.
In all these a community was present.

4) So, what are you doing here?
I feel much of the replayability of online games is the community that you find. Without a good community one will get bored. If one makes friend they will keep coming back and having fun playing the same game because of the social aspect.

5) Anything else you want to share?
Don't think so.

BBC Videos, Avatars and Attachment

2007-01-13T17:36:00.000-05:00

There are a couple of interesting videos from the BBC Geek of the Week series. There is one on virtual worlds from Jan 5 and an interview with SL CEO from Jan 10.

The phrase "I have a sense of myself in another space, in the virtual space" is uttered with such fascination that while I agree with the statement I am surprised at the level of fascination. When you talk on the phone, aren't you at a different space? When you space out, daydream, aren't you in a different space?

The comparison to Renaissance that we will discover a "new" way of looking at things is a bit of a hype. We have been living with "virtual money" for a long time. Money is often just electronic bits that get transferred from the employer to me and then to the credit card company. There is value in my online avatar. I am connected to it, because it is my creation, a part of me, something I have spent hours with. My avatar reflects me much more than my goldfish might, so should I not feel sad when the time comes to delete the avatar?

SL -- Fact or Fiction. Do we care?

2007-01-12T16:15:00.000-05:00

Clay Shirky writes about the SL hype, so is SL fact or fiction. Or maybe the better question is do we care?

Before I come to it, I should point out that Clay uses a quote from Rheingold's book, not the same chapter, but the same book :-)

Back to the question of do we care?

Let's say it is all fact. SL has 2.5 million users. Real participants working hard. WOW, great achievement, great community. They should collect donations and buy bigger and better servers so it does not slow down.

Let's assume the opposite and say it is all fiction. At any given time there are 5 real people in SL and 100 zombies. Not a pretty sight, not a community but an empty landscape with 'stuff' here and there. Suck right? But then again, Linden labs is a research lab and maybe, just maybe we might have still learned something from this experiment. Something that will help us build SL2 with a real community.

Fact or fiction, it is good that we have SL.

Streaming Video In SL

2007-01-12T09:15:00.000-05:00

I have yet to wat live video in SL, but at Joan Morris DiMicco reports it is possible and can even lead to you watching yourself

Second Life supports live streaming of video, so real-world (non-virtual? what is “real” anymore?) events can be shown within Second Life. This can lead to crazy things like within Second Life's replica of Harvard's Berkman Center you can see live presentations that are going on at the physical Berkman Center at that moment. Or you (as an avatar) could look at yourself giving a presentation in real-life from within Second Life. Freaky! And also very interesting for workplace collaboration scenarios with a mix of collocated and remote workers.

2007-01-11T09:22:00.000-05:00

1) Have you been in SL before?
No actually, but it sounds interesting enough.

2) Have you played WoW before?

Yes, if playing for 5 minutes for a suite mate counts.

3) Any other experience in large virtual worlds, virtual communities of any sort?

Yes, I play an online game called syrnia which is a text based mmo. The community there is really strong and is the only reason most of the people play the game. Ironically enough, some people hate how the community is, don't interacti with it ever, and prefer it that way.

4) So, what are you doing here?

Well, when i heard about the class, i realized that this course will be having us figure out what makes these games popular. If i am to program games in the future, i'd like to have at least these few hints on what goes into a good game/a game people want to play.

5) Anything else you want to share?

I'm a computer science major, and a geek of all sorts. Also, even though i'm a computer science major, computers just seem to break sometimes when i'm around.

Hello (Virtual) World

2007-01-09T20:43:00.000-05:00

well lets break some ice. i'll start with those questions.

1) have I ever been in SL before?

yes. I have wandered around SL before, although it is really tough to get interested in SL unless you wander around with someone you know. I chatted with a few people, and I made and interacted with some things in the world, but it was a bit booring without people i actually knew. maybe it'll be different for class.

2) Have you played WoW before?

guilty. I am not an über-leet WoWer, but i do have a 60 and i have been to Blackwing Lair (BWL). but only 2 bosses. I have a guild of people that i joined kind of randomly, but they're good e-friends. we do the ventrillo and the late nights and they are from all over the country, plus a few frenchies. Of late I haven't been playing on as regular a schedule. I have been talking about meeting up with some of my guildies at a convention somewhere.

3) Any other experience in large virtual worlds, virtual communities of any sort?

I sporadically play the role of a /b/-tard. actually i hang out on /wg/. if you don't know what i mean then you don't do things on 4chan.org other than that i've not spent much time on any virtual worlds.

4) So, what are you doing here?

well... i guess i am here because i love computers. I have had interest in computers my whole life and i played around with HTML as a small child on my Apple II. i am a CS/IMGD double major because i really want to go into games but i want the programming too, and the best way to work that into a double major in my mind is CS and IMGD on the art track.
thats if here means WPI. if here means this class then i'm here because all aspects of game interest me.

5) anything else?

I am a big fan of (really really) dark chocolate, and not white chocolate. wine and martini's (shh, don't tell the fuzz) I am a big fan of skiing, and i tried to snowboard once and fell on my arse alot. I read alot of fantasy and science fiction, practically to the exclusion of all other books. ask me something if you want to know.

-Peter Worrest

:-(

2007-01-08T15:57:00.001-05:00

Latest update: 8 Jan 2007 -- There is a possibility that the course
may not go ahead due to some WPI regulation. I am trying to sort it
out and will let you know when I can. Still meeting on Thursday Jan
11th 3-4pm at Fuller 141 and hopefully having the class in C-term as
intended.

9 Jan 2007: Class is going ahead with a small number of students :-)

Welcome

2007-01-08T14:15:00.000-05:00

Welcome to "Virtual Worlds, Real Communities" blog. How can I teach a class on Virtual Worlds/ without having a blog associated with it?

The blog is primarily for students and other associated with the class. A place to reflect, a place to chat, a place to read an laugh asynchronously. That is when we are not hanging out in SL or in WoW.

I have never taught this class before, so it is an experiment, it is an adventure and it better be fun :-)

And to get things rolling a couple of questions that everybody should answer.

1) Have you been in SL before?

Yes, I have logged in SL a number of times. Spent a couple of hours chatting to people, mostly people I know from RL or other that they introduced me to. I am not part of any social network in SL, but I have a lot of friends who are tightly connected in SL.

2) Have you played WoW before?

Err, yes. Maybe even a bit too much. I raided them all, got the phat loot, spent the night away talking, chatting, and typing away. Some RL friends, but mostly people all over the world. I still enjoy it, but I recently changed servers and find it difficult to connect with the people on this new server. They even use a different language "RTU?? Huh, roll to use, rather than roll for greed"

3) Any other experience in large virtual worlds, virtual communities of any sort?

I used to read and contribute to usenet/newsgroups when the net was young and you could scare away the spammers easily. I created lots of community web pages that brought together foreign students living in the US. I also played with MUDs, spent some time on IRC, but would not call myself hardcore.

4) So, what are you doing here?

I taught game design and game programming at UTS. Very different classes. Game design is all about understanding the elements, getting the gameplay right. Game programming is hardcore graphics programming, getting your binary-space partition trees lined up so you can render it fast. Sabbatical is a time to explore new directions (it is not a paid vacation as some people imply, I cannot help it that my job is fun!), so I am diving into a bit of sociology, teaching about community development in the context of games, getting a better understanding of who is playing, what are they doing and why are they doing it.

5) Anything else you want to share?

Orange is my favorite color. It has been that way since the age of 2. Not sure why, but I am sticking to it. I am constantly looking for the darkest edible chocolate. I have a cat -- hence cleaning of fur of my clothes all the time. One time I wrote a paper for a very prestigious conference. It got in, so I went to the conference and presented it. The reason I wrote the paper was so I could go to Ireland and drink Guinness at the source. Nobody believes me. Moral of the story: given the right motivation, people can achieve great things. I cry when it rains, smile when the sun shines. I moved from Chicago to Sydney "to try it out", but got stuck there big time. Heck, it has so many nice beaches. They know me at Balmoral Sandbar and may even miss me this year. I have a blog at http://ramblingonthisandthat.blogspot.com/ that I occasionally update. If I had a penny for every comment on that blog, I'd have a nickel by now! I have never put anything on youtube, but planning to put something up soon. Not sure if I am brave enough to go with my own name.

Edit: You should have gotten an invite to be an "author" for this blog. Please blog a new entry as an answer if possible. Lots of entries make the blog look rich :-)