Information AboutVirtual World |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT VIRTUAL WORLD | |
| video game gameplay | |
| virtual reality communities | |
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OVERVIEW The world being simulated typically appears similar to the real world, with real world rules such as gravity, topography, locomotion, real-time actions, and communication. Communication has been in the form of text in current examples of an online world. This type of virtual world is now most common in Massively Multiplayer Online Game s ('' Second Life '', '' The Sims Online '', '' There ''), particularly Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game s such as '' EverQuest '', '' Final Fantasy '', '' Star Wars Galaxies '', '' Ultima Online '' or '' Lineage ''. The first large scale virtual world was WebWorld, which later evolved into Active Worlds . As virtual world is a fairly vague and inclusive term, the above can generally be divided along a spectrum ranging from true Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games , and Massively Multiplayer Online Real-life/rogue-like Games -- the distinction being that in RPGs, the fact of the user playing a specific character is a main feature of the game, whereas in RLGs, the user can edit and alter their Avatar at will, allowing them to play a more dynamic role, or mulitple roles. One perception of virtual worlds requires an Online Persistent World , active and available 24 hours a day and seven days a week, to qualify as a true virtual world. Although this is possible with smaller virtual worlds, especially those that are not actually online, no massively multiplayer game runs all day, every day. All the online games listed above include downtime for maintenance that is not included as time passing in the virtual world. While the interaction with other participants is done in real-time, time consistency is not always maintained in online virtual worlds. For example, ''EverQuest'' time passes faster than real-time despite using the same calendar and time units to present game time. SINGLE PLAYER GAMES Many single player games also exist in a virtual world where the same rules and perception of a graphical reality exist. Many of these allow you to save the current state of this world instance to allow stopping and restarting the virtual world at a later date. (This can be done with some multiplayer environments as well.) The virtual worlds found in Video Game s are often split into discrete Level s. IN THE CLASSROOM Some teachers and university professors have adopted virtual worlds for educational purposes. Educators create an online community that students can log into and interact in. Within these educational virtual worlds, students will use their avatar to learn about new assignments and to create projects that are viewable within the virtual world. For example, students taking a computer manufacturing class can log into a virtual world in which they are the inhabitants of a burgeoning village that needs their expertise for the construction of houses, furniture, machines, and other goods. HISTORY The earliest virtual worlds were not games. The first virtual worlds presented on the Internet were communities and Chat Room s, some of which evolved into MUD s and MUSH es. They attempted to create sets of avatars for virtual interaction. Community virtual worlds allowed access to the environment and encouraged creating buildings, art, and structures (and many did not include avatars). One of the early prototyptes was WorldsAway , a prototype interactive community featuring a virtual world by CompuServe called Dreamscape and Avatars representing the participants. IN OTHER MEDIA The concept of a virtual world has become a popular fictional motif and setting in recent years. The most well known example of a virtual world in fiction is, of course, The Matrix , a virtual reality so realistic that the great majority of those humans plugged in cannot tell the difference. Another example is the virtual world called Lyoko in the French animated television series '' Code Lyoko ''. EXTERNAL LINKS
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