There are five senses that keep me from becoming thrilled about a virtual vacation. Scent which ties things to memory. The aroma of foreign restaurants when you walk down the sidewalks of a down town. Touch, the feel of sand in your toes at the beach. Sound, the combination of people's random conversations and traffic or the sound of silence while waves crashing or birds chirping as your background. Taste, oh this is important, the taste of exotic foods or fresh salmon from the Pike Place Market. Sight, the massive scale of giant old trees towering over you and filling your vision with green and all the colors of fall. Sight, sound, smell, touch and taste will keep me traveling to new places and physically soaking in the feeling of freedom from home and the newness of a brand new landscape.
For this class assignment though, I will take a look at how people like to escape reality using the internet and avatars (which are extensions of their own identities) to go on a virtual vacation versus flying somewhere and exploring this earth. Utilizing the internet for a virtual vacation is a relativley new concept for me if you couldn't tell. I love traveling and going on vacations, so this virtual network will be interesting for me to grapple with.
I have a small guess that the idea of social virtual worlds came from interactive video games. I was talking to an avid World of Warcraft gamer recently and I asked, "So what is the purpose of the game?" and he replied without two seconds of thought, "It's a social network." I was kind of suprised, becuase of the intense point system and quests in the game. I thought he would have gone into a speech about killing zombies and defeating the enemy, etc. Nope, to him the main purpose of WOW was to be social with other gamers. Therefore creating a subculture that goes beyond chat rooms and forums. A couple of geniouses figured this out I think and decided to make worlds where people can become avatars and make freinds online! Two examples are IMVU and the Second Life. IMVU is a 3d virtual chatroom basically and is purley designed for socializing, while the residents in Second life are able to go shopping, visit places, buy land (with Linden dollars) and dance in clubs. In other words take a vacation from reality while entering into another dimension.
I have had an avatar on IMVU before a long time ago and it added a 3 dimensional aspect to an otherwise one on one chat on IM. I took a daring leap into World of Warcraft this weekend just to see what all the hype was about and I found that this third dimension that is added to relationships gives socializing an exciting new purpose. The people I was interacting with and vacationing with were killing zombies, wolves, flying dragons and going into all sorts of weird places. On the Second Life, people can shop for things they can't afford, create images of themselves that they wish were true and talk to people they don't know but consider freinds.
If I were to take a virtual trip, I'd gather all my freinds on facebook and myspace tell them to go on Second Life or IMVU or WOW all at the same time, so we could add another dimension of fun and creativity to our freindships. Build on what is already true in reality, instead of start to base my life off of the life within my computer. That's just me though, the real world will always call me and I will think my face to face foosball games with freinds will always bring more joy and excitement into my life than typing up virtual interactions.
For this class assignment though, I will take a look at how people like to escape reality using the internet and avatars (which are extensions of their own identities) to go on a virtual vacation versus flying somewhere and exploring this earth. Utilizing the internet for a virtual vacation is a relativley new concept for me if you couldn't tell. I love traveling and going on vacations, so this virtual network will be interesting for me to grapple with.
I have a small guess that the idea of social virtual worlds came from interactive video games. I was talking to an avid World of Warcraft gamer recently and I asked, "So what is the purpose of the game?" and he replied without two seconds of thought, "It's a social network." I was kind of suprised, becuase of the intense point system and quests in the game. I thought he would have gone into a speech about killing zombies and defeating the enemy, etc. Nope, to him the main purpose of WOW was to be social with other gamers. Therefore creating a subculture that goes beyond chat rooms and forums. A couple of geniouses figured this out I think and decided to make worlds where people can become avatars and make freinds online! Two examples are IMVU and the Second Life. IMVU is a 3d virtual chatroom basically and is purley designed for socializing, while the residents in Second life are able to go shopping, visit places, buy land (with Linden dollars) and dance in clubs. In other words take a vacation from reality while entering into another dimension.
I have had an avatar on IMVU before a long time ago and it added a 3 dimensional aspect to an otherwise one on one chat on IM. I took a daring leap into World of Warcraft this weekend just to see what all the hype was about and I found that this third dimension that is added to relationships gives socializing an exciting new purpose. The people I was interacting with and vacationing with were killing zombies, wolves, flying dragons and going into all sorts of weird places. On the Second Life, people can shop for things they can't afford, create images of themselves that they wish were true and talk to people they don't know but consider freinds.
If I were to take a virtual trip, I'd gather all my freinds on facebook and myspace tell them to go on Second Life or IMVU or WOW all at the same time, so we could add another dimension of fun and creativity to our freindships. Build on what is already true in reality, instead of start to base my life off of the life within my computer. That's just me though, the real world will always call me and I will think my face to face foosball games with freinds will always bring more joy and excitement into my life than typing up virtual interactions.
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