>1. Alternate Worlds.
>
> 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 ?
For me it (IRC) was another part of my real world which had virtual worlds
built by channel names. (I'm over it now, but I used to have quite a
problem *blush*)
I miss my friends from irc and I'm always really stoled to meet up with
them once every six months.
I actually wrote a big rant about VR and the imagination. I think that the
two blur in a very real way. The piece wasn't meant for the web so it's too
big, but if you're willing to brave it please stop by.
http://art.net/Studios/Visual/Aloudon/aloudon.html
>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. 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. How do you reward punish someone
>with no physical presence ???
Wow I wonder the same things.
As far as rewards I think the reward of normal exploration applies. It's a
natural translation. In the real world people explore, take time, dig
around to try and find something worthwhile. To set this up you need to
hint at something "hidden" and create suspense and design an interesting
path to the discovery.
Beautiful/interesting content is a great reward. Info, an amazing insight,
a painting, a story, the resolution of a set of questions.
Punishment is provided in many way already (although i doubt it's
intentional). Many worlds lack in interesting qualities. They have no
environmental appeal because they strip the dirt from everything. They
don't lay out any tasty bait, there are no people to share the space with
etc...
>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.
It's really frustrating, we're trying to develop world here (at Construct)
that are really inbteresting and have appeal other than NewVRML-value. The
hard core tech guy wrote a "datafat munger" which sped things up a lot.
I get really wiered out when I draw a cylindrical space with arched doors
and it gets turned into a hexagon with square doors. I think thats where
designers have to be more demanding.
annette :)