I think a virtual world dosen't have to be a virtual reality world,
(You prob. know this if you'v read my previos posts), but my main alter-
native is Text based MUSH/MUD/MOO's. Are there any other alternatives
out there you can think of? IS Irc A virtual environment, If you imagine
that the ppl you are chatting to are with you (and I find it hard not to)
maybe it is ?
I think we should distinguish between the "medium" and the "world."
IRC is a medium. People could enact Hamlet on IRC if they so chose,
or they could just gossip. The latter is probably not Art. Same can
be said for film. You can try to tell stories, or you can turn the
camera at the ceiling for 4 hours (some say that's Art! I say it's
Conceptual Art, and Conceptual Art is capable of being really dorky.)
A virtual environment is just a medium. It doesn't become a "world"
until it does something artistically compelling to make you believe
that it is, in fact, a self-contained world.
2. Rewards and punishment.
It would seem that there is very little to hold a person's interest
in a virtual world after the initial *Experience* Has worn off.
That is true of all Art.
Ok if
you are rewarded by your interaction with other ppl or you get a chance
to be creative that that is it's own reward. But are there other ways
to reward ppl for thier involment in a VW? And if you reward ppl to
encourage them to join your VW community, should thier actions there
be rewarded, or even punished somehow.
I don't see any intrinsic reason for VR Art to be about "reward and
punishment." But certainly you could make an artwork that is mainly
about reward and punishment.
How do you reward punish someone with no physical presence ???
Bore them. Play shrill noises. Inflict them with ideas they don't
like to hear. All you really have to do is get them to suspend
disbelief, and get them to start acting as though what they have in
the game actually "matters" somehow. People's basic personality types
often carry over into activities which are not "real," or don't
"really" matter in some sense. A Miser will probably be very careful
with their game resources, for instance, even though all the resources
are virtual and really don't matter. A bossy person will probably
spend their time trying to get things to work their way, or will enjoy
ordering other things/people around. One must merely recognize the
different possible "motives" of the audience, and play them accordingly.
At university they had an adventure game on thier network, and doing
right things gave you credits that you could then use in other games.
I think you need to decide whether you want to make Art, Art with
Game-like Qualities, or a Game with good Artwork in it. You need to
decide whether you're prioritizing an aesthetic experience, or a
competition between human beings.
3 The Need for Speed.
What are your views on VRML ? I think its a good Idea but its execution
on my m/c is soooo Slow, I think I'd need a Sun SPARC workstation before
I could really enjoy it. Are we going to see different solutions for
modeling 3d worlds or are we just going to have to wait for affordable
hardware.
Come on there must be some Techie ppl out there with some Ideas on this.
Speed is a combo of hardware and software. Both of the latter cost
someone time and money to develop. As someone who's working VR tools
that will probably be freeware someday, I can certainly tell you that
it's a lot of work. But "eventually," stuff will be available at a
manageable price point (cheap/free). If you want it before then, then
you'll just have to cough up the dough. :-)
Cheers,
Brandon