Virtual Worlds and Online Communities

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Virtual Worlds and Online Communities

• Anton Bogdanovych

Room 5/273, phone [phone] anton_at_it.uts.edu.au
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Concept of Virtual Worlds

• Definition multi-user Internet places designed
  using the metaphor of architecture.
• Purposes of virtual environments
• Simulation of the physical world.
• Functional virtual places.

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Concept of Virtual Worlds

• Distinct features
• move beyond the static, document based interface
  of collaborative environments.
• Persons embodiment in the world - avatar
• Consistent metaphor reflects on terminology,
  models, etc.
• Not necessarily mimics visually the physical world

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Development of Virtual Worlds

• Origins of virtual environments feature guns.
• Military simulation.
• Internet games.

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Development of Virtual Worlds

• Current use of virtual worlds
• Social community virtual museums and chat rooms.
• Academics online learning and research.
• E-Commerce Electronic Marketplaces

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Development of Virtual Worlds

• Current use of virtual worlds
• Communication and collaboration online
  conferencing and design collaborative.
• Architecture space and multimedia study.
• Entertainment Collaborative computer games

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Political, Social, Economical and Moral Issues

• Millions of people spend around 20 hours per week
  in Virtual Worlds based computer games
• In average users pay a monthly fee of 10
• Game designers (as politicians in real world)
  have to deal with constant pressure from
  citizenry with competing demands
• Liberty or equality?

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Political, Social, Economical and Moral Issues
Virtual worlds are one of a few online businesses
that make money on the Web
Norrath, The online world created by Sony

• Has more residents than Miami
• Has bigger GDP than Bulgaria

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Project Entropia multi-user gameVirtual Island
sold for 26500 USD
Political, Social, Economical and Moral Issues
Treasure Island (6000 Acres/25 km²)
Rights available to the purchaser of the
island - A unique castle (furniture not
included) - Hunting (including native forms of
wildlife) - Mining (both minerals and enmatters)
- Taxation rights on hunting and mining
activities on the island - Income from the sale
of land lots. Five lots per month will be
available for sale under the duration of one
year. These 60 lots alone have an estimated
market value of 300 000 PED. - Massive revenue
potential
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Crimes in Virtual Worlds
Political, Social, Economical and Moral Issues

• Most of the real world crimes are present in
  Virtual Worlds
• One of the earliest virtual world crimes was rape
  (text-based virtual world LambdaMOO). A male
  avatar used a coding trick to take control over
  two female avatars and sodomized in public.
• First crime in There fraud (an avatar tried to
  sell house he didnt own)
• Virtual killing is one of the most prevalent
  crimes
• Ultima Online game designers introduced avatar
  reputation and rewards (which didnt help to stop
  crimes)
• Virtual police is too costly, and automatic crime
  prevention fails

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Democracy in Virtual Worlds
Political, Social, Economical and Moral Issues

• Most of the nowadays Virtual Worlds are
  dictatorships or anarchies
• LambdaMoo (created in 1990) is a first Virtual
  democracy
• LambdaMoo provided users with the possibility to
  make a petition to change the social structure or
  architecture
• Petition examples implement property rights,
  prohibit bulk-mailing, rules against similarity
  in names (there were also petitions seeking
  removal of petition system)
• Some people think of introducing virtual
  governments

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Gender in Virtual Worlds
Political, Social, Economical and Moral Issues

• Female avatars are harassed more often
• Female avatars often obtain numerous benefits
  (free gifts and favors)
• Swapping genders makes strategic sense

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Future perspectives
Political, Social, Economical and Moral Issues

• More and more communities appear in the Virtual
  Worlds
• Big Companies (Nike, Levi Strauss etc.) start
  running shops in Virtual Worlds, selling virtual
  and real products
• The code is a truly law in present Virtual
  Worlds, so developers and big companies are
  absolute dictators so far.
• The more immersive Virtual Worlds become, the
  more conditions of abuse they create.
• There is no way to prevent crimes, as to change
  human nature

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Historical Review of Virtual Worlds

• Adopted the architectural metaphor, the WWW has
  accommodated many different technologies
  supporting
• Multi-user text-based virtual environments.
• Two-dimensional graphical virtual environments.
• 3D virtual environments.

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Historical Review of Virtual Worlds

• Early stage of virtual worlds
• Text-based virtual worlds of MUDs and MOOs.
• MUD Multi-user Domain.
• A place for role-playing games, for example,
  Dungeons and Dragons.
• MOO MUD Object Oriented.
• Objects participants bodies and objects around
  them.
• Verbs for activating behaviours.

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Virtual Worlds Web MOOs

• TAPPED-IN implements the metaphor of a campus
  (decreases the cognitive overload).

http//moo.tappedin.org
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Virtual Worlds - Web MOOs

• Room metaphor
• Programmable environment
• Frame of reference for consistent navigation
• Clear (and almost standard interface)

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Virtual Worlds Web MOOs

• The Virtual Campus implements the same metaphor
  of a campus, but the ontology is different
  (Buildings, Groups of Rooms, Rooms, things in
  those rooms).

http//moo.arch.usyd.edu.au7778/
Character representation
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Early graphic virtual worlds

• Habitat was the very first networked virtual
  world in which there were people represented as
  avatars and able to communicate and form a
  'virtual community'.
• It started out running on Commodore 64 computers
  way back in 1985
• The essential lesson from the experiences with
  Habitat - Cyberspace is defined more by the
  interactions among the actors within it than by
  the technology with which it is implemented.

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Historical Review of Virtual Worlds

• Nowadays, 3D virtual worlds have become the most
  frequently seen forms.
• The development of 3D virtual worlds is closely
  related to the development of various design
  platforms, for example
• Game and chat oriented Quake engine and Blaxxun.
• Extened from MOO LambdaMOO 3D VRML models.
• Currently used Active Worlds, Virtual Worlds,
  Adobe Atmosphere and bahaviour-based Virtools.

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Active Worlds and Networking Communities

• The architecture of Active Worlds
• The virtual reality of Active Worlds
• The window to Active Worlds - The Client
• Interface areas and related elements
• World organisation and Navigation
• Designing in Active Worlds
• Setting-up a networking community
• Close-world development
• Community documentation and presentation in AW?
• Links to Web pages
• Combining 3D/2D navigation

M E T A P H O R S
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The architecture of AW

• Universe, populated by Worlds

• Universe server
• universe.activeworlds.com
• vds.arch.usyd.edu.au

• World servers
• anywhere on the Internet

• Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
• Enter the Universe
• Select and enter a world in that Universe

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The virtual reality of AW

• One day, few years ago, I entered the universe
• vds.arch.usyd.edu.au and went to the world VDS99.

That was all I saw .
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The virtual reality of AW

• sometime later in the universe
• vds.arch.usyd.edu.au, in the world VDS99
• there was
• an avatar
• virtual embodiment of person in AW
• building blocks (objects)
• the building material in AW
• the blocks are active - they can respond with
  some action, or provide additional information.

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The window to an AW universe/world
3D area
Web area
Multifunction area
Synchronous communication area
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The window to an AW universe/world
Avatar selection
Avatars gestures
avatar
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The window to an AW universe/world
Web browser controls
Web area
Back
Forward
Stop
Reload
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The window to an AW universe/world
3D navigator controls
3D area
Previous position
Next position
Look up
Level view
Look down
1st person
3rd person
Mouse navigation
Path history
First person view
Switch view perspective
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The window to an AW universe/world
Worlds
Contacts
Help
Telegrams
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World organisation

• "Meter" is the measurement unit inside the world.
• The world is divided in "logic" squares, each 10
  x 10 sq meters.
• There is a limit of how many objects one can
  place within a "logic" square (you can't build in
  that square if you reach the limit)
• The size of VDS'99 is 1,000,000 square meters

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World organisation

• Navigation is based on the world directions and
  coordinate value in each direction.
• East, West, North, South
• Orientation ("facing direction") follows the four
  main directions and four intermediate
  coordinations

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World organisation

• World VDS'99 and available objects

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Developing a community in Active Worlds

• Setting up a project
• setup communications between members of the
  community
• each member of the team should form a contact
  list which includes at least the members of that
  team
• having a contact list is necessary for
• awareness of who is in AW at the same time
• support for asynchronous communication
  (telegrams)
• develop approximate plan of your site
• identify an area where you will place your site
  so that you don't have conflicts with the other
  teams
• put a sign near the entrance, which allows to
  teleport to your site

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Community archive

• Worlds communicate with the Web

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Virtual Worlds Technology tricks

• Computational burden is shifted to the client,
• Transmitting the basic packet (x, y, z, heading,
  velocity, communications)
• Streaming and caching of world objects
• Client side rendering, rendering technologies
  Renderware, Direct 3D, openGL, sprite/mask, 2D
• Scene description languages (VRML, RWX, Web page
  or GIF backdrops)

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Virtual Worlds Technology tricks

• Dynamic frame rate driven delivery
• Collision detection, hidden object calculation
• Horizon clipping
• Mirroring and load distribution across multiple
  servers is common

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Virtual Worlds Technology tricks

• 3D spatialised stereo sound processing
• Emulates natural environment
• Allows natural privacy (e.g. you can setup the
  distance

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Virtual Worlds Technology tricks

• People Embodiment
• Representing the people as avatars
• Variety of avatar representation flat images,
  animated images, full 3D models
• Avatar gesture palettes, facial expression
• Morphing, 'flashpics' textured avatars
• Photorealistic avatars

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Virtual Worlds Technology tricks

• Avatar Communications
• Text chat versus synthesized chat to voice versus
  full voice support
• Text chat areas, saving the dialogue, external
  chat support
• Finding other users, paging, private chat, muting
  
• Body Language gesture, facial expression
• Posted notes and billboards
• Indirect communication and social statement
  vandalism

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Virtual Worlds Technology tricks

• Time virtual world and real world clocks (good
  for sinchronisation of geographically dispersed
  communities
• Travel and position in space coordinate systems,
  area naming
• Change through time persistence of objects
• Habitation human inhabited only, or bot (agent),
  or mixed.
• Point of view first person, third person 'Pew
  view', 'over the shoulder view' or 'God view'
• Flexibility 'canned' versus 'buildable' worlds

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Virtual Worlds Technology tricks

• Building capabilities leaving your mark on the
  world
• Inclusion of served music (MIDI, WAV)
• Inclusion of inline web links and reverse
  teleports into worlds
• Animation of features in the world escalators,
  elevators, flowing water
• Scripting languages, behavior enablers
• SDKs and applet support games and extensions

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Virtual worlds - summary

• No special equipment (such as heads-mounted
  displays) are required or needed for working
  there
• The worlds run on standard computers, requiring
  no special graphics hardware or more than dial-up
  (28.8) modem connection to the Internet
• The worlds are primarily designed for
  communication and the formation of communities of
  interest, not in representing or visualising
  environments

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Languages for VW

• In 1996, Virtual Reality Modeling Language, VRML,
  became the defacto standard for viewing 3D on the
  web.
• RWX Renderware language, used by Active Worlds

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Markup language

• Combine different media using text descriptions

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Languages for VW VRML

• Virtual Reality Modeling Language
• To some extent - similar idea to HTML and XML

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Languages for VW VRML

• Simple objects then can be grouped in a
  sophisticated scenarios