I'll drop the following on the table:
Immersive Environment - a virtual environment which draws the participant
in to make them feel an active part of that environment and which
distracts them from their surrounding real environment.
the above would make a lot of things Immersive Environments, from full VR
headmount systems to possibly even Tetris. That's actually ok by me.
Virtual World - an Immersive Environment that has a sense of a specific
place, real or imaginary.
I'm not too happy with the Virtual World def. Should multi-participant
be part of the definition? What about things like persistance (if I drop
a spoon in the virtual world and come back tomorrow, is it still there)?
Now what is meant by story isn't really different it the above two
definitions, which makes them possibly less than useful, but it's a start.
KEvin