11/9/2018 Virtual Worlds 11/9/2018

Contents Intro Second Life Popularity of MMOGs World of Warcraft Are we in a virtual world? Cover picture is from www.globalkids.org/?id=30 11/9/2018

Introduction A virtual world (VW) is a computer-based environment in which its users interact via avatars. For this course we are interested in VWs supported on the internet, so these are typically multiuser. These worlds are classified according to: Are they like the real world, e.g. conference calls vs fantasy. Are they massively multiplayer? What is their purpose? Education, entertainment, business, etc. Within entertainment, are they violent? Which of you has used a virtual world? 11/9/2018

Second Life Let's first look at SL for a moment. 11/9/2018 Second Life Let's first look at SL for a moment. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2yGqDecBzs Never have a bad hair day, successful virtual entrepeneur The Math Department has an estate in SL called Portland Connection. Have any of you used SL? For what? How would you classify SL? Is it a game? Real world vs fantasy? Massively multiplayer? Violent? What is its purpose? Education, entertainment, business, etc. Login: Len Nirvana 11/9/2018

Popularity of MMOGs 11/9/2018 11/9/2018

World of Warcraft (WoW) 11/9/2018 World of Warcraft (WoW) The preceding graph was from www.mmogchart.com WoW has over 10 million customers, who pay approximately $15/month to play. In contrast, SL (free) had 1.4 million unique users log in during the last 2 months tinyurl.com/n4gkbd . What is so seductive about VWs? Let's watch Second Skin to get a partial answer to this question. 11/9/2018

Are we in a virtual world? 11/9/2018 Are we in a virtual world? http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/254?in=47:20&out= 11/9/2018