Making Virtual Worlds

Author : Richard A. Bartle
Publisher : New Riders
ISBN 13 : 9780131018167
Total Pages : 768 pages
Book Rating : 4.67/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Designing Virtual Worlds written by Richard A. Bartle and published by New Riders. This book was released on 2004 with total page 768 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text provides a comprehensive treatment of virtual world design from one of its pioneers. It covers everything from MUDs to MOOs to MMORPGs, from text-based to graphical VWs.

Author : Thomas Malaby
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 0801457750
Total Pages : 176 pages
Book Rating : 4.53/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Making Virtual Worlds written by Thomas Malaby and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2011-01-15 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The past decade has seen phenomenal growth in the development and use of virtual worlds. In one of the most notable, Second Life, millions of people have created online avatars in order to play games, take classes, socialize, and conduct business transactions. Second Life offers a gathering point and the tools for people to create a new world online. Too often neglected in popular and scholarly accounts of such groundbreaking new environments is the simple truth that, of necessity, such virtual worlds emerge from physical workplaces marked by negotiation, creation, and constant change. Thomas Malaby spent a year at Linden Lab, the real-world home of Second Life, observing those who develop and profit from the sprawling, self-generating system they have created. Some of the challenges created by Second Life for its developers were of a very traditional nature, such as how to cope with a business that is growing more quickly than existing staff can handle. Others are seemingly new: How, for instance, does one regulate something that is supposed to run on its own? Is it possible simply to create a space for people to use and then not govern its use? Can one apply these same free-range/free-market principles to the office environment in which the game is produced? "Lindens"—as the Linden Lab employees call themselves—found that their efforts to prompt user behavior of one sort or another were fraught with complexities, as a number of ongoing processes collided with their own interventions. Malaby thoughtfully describes the world of Linden Lab and the challenges faced while he was conducting his in-depth ethnographic research there. He shows how the workers of a very young but quickly growing company were themselves caught up in ideas about technology, games, and organizations, and struggled to manage not only their virtual world but also themselves in a nonhierarchical fashion. In exploring the practices the Lindens employed, he questions what was at stake in their virtual world, what a game really is (and how people participate), and the role of the unexpected in a product like Second Life and an organization like Linden Lab.

Author : David J. Chalmers
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393635813
Total Pages : 544 pages
Book Rating : 4.12/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy written by David J. Chalmers and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2022-01-25 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A leading philosopher takes a mind-bending journey through virtual worlds, illuminating the nature of reality and our place within it. Virtual reality is genuine reality; that’s the central thesis of Reality+. In a highly original work of “technophilosophy,” David J. Chalmers gives a compelling analysis of our technological future. He argues that virtual worlds are not second-class worlds, and that we can live a meaningful life in virtual reality. We may even be in a virtual world already. Along the way, Chalmers conducts a grand tour of big ideas in philosophy and science. He uses virtual reality technology to offer a new perspective on long-established philosophical questions. How do we know that there’s an external world? Is there a god? What is the nature of reality? What’s the relation between mind and body? How can we lead a good life? All of these questions are illuminated or transformed by Chalmers’ mind-bending analysis. Studded with illustrations that bring philosophical issues to life, Reality+ is a major statement that will shape discussion of philosophy, science, and technology for years to come.

Author : Brian C. Nelson
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136863036
Total Pages : 263 pages
Book Rating : 4.35/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Design for Learning in Virtual Worlds written by Brian C. Nelson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-05-22 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Design for Learning in Virtual Worlds, the first book focused specifically on how to design virtual worlds for educational purposes, explores: • the history and evolution of virtual worlds • the theories behind the use of virtual worlds for learning • the design of curricula in virtual worlds • design guidelines for elements experienced in virtual worlds that support learning • design guidelines for learning quests and activities in virtual worlds. The authors also examine the theories and associated design principles used to create embedded assessments in virtual worlds. Finally, a framework and methodology is provided to assist professionals in evaluating "off-the-shelf" virtual worlds for use in educational and training settings. Design for Learning in Virtual Worlds will be invaluable both as a professional resource and as a textbook for courses within Educational Technology, Learning Sciences, and Library Media programs that focus on gaming or online learning environments.

Author : Charles R. Hardnett
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.64/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Virtual World Design and Creation for Teens written by Charles R. Hardnett and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Tim Guest
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 1588366723
Total Pages : 289 pages
Book Rating : 4.26/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Second Lives written by Tim Guest and published by Random House. This book was released on 2008-02-19 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We’ve always dreamed of perfect places: Eden, heaven, Utopia. Imagine gambling without loss, love without heartbreak, sex without exposure, experience without risk. Welcome to the fascinating world of online virtual reality, the land of invented places and populations that is entered and inhabited every week by nearly fifty million people worldwide. Each participant creates a virtual body, works at virtual jobs, and makes virtual friends and family. In Second Lives, Tim Guest, an internationally acclaimed young journalist, takes us on a revelatory journey through the electronic looking glass as he investigates one of the most bizarre phenomena of the twenty-first century. From Second Life to EverQuest and beyond, here are the computer-generated environments and characters that can easily become more engrossing and fulfilling than earthly existence. With the click of a mouse you can select eye color, face shape, height–you can even give yourself wings. Your character, or avatar, can build houses, make and sell works of art, earn money, get married and divorced. In this fascinating and groundbreaking book, Guest meets people who found meaningful love and friendship despite never having met in person, catches up with the companies that have used virtual worlds to make big money, investigates the U.S. military’s massive online global model that trains soldiers to fight anyone anywhere, and travels all the way to gaming-crazed Korea to get a taste for just how big this phenomenon really is. At first glance, these new computer-generated places seem free from trouble and sorrow. But Guest examines the dark side of this technology too, including the online criminals who plague imaginary worlds, from cyber mafiosos and prostitutes to real hackers and terrorists. It seems that one cannot escape greed, corruption, and human weakness–even inside a computer screen. Are these virtual worlds a way to enhance life or to escape it? Guest explores this question personally as he lets himself be transported into myriad parallel universes. By turns provocative, inspiring, and disturbing, Second Lives is a crucial book for this millennium. After all, real life is so twentieth century. Advance praise for Second Lives “Tim Guest is a young writer with the literary goods. My Life in Orange, his hit memoir of growing up in a commune, looked at his past; his riveting new book, Second Lives, looks at our future: the world of virtual reality and the spellbound people who inhabit it. The book is some kind of revelation–by turns compelling, chilling, and illuminating. Curious, intelligent, offbeat, and artful, Guest is at the beginning of a big career.” ——John Lahr, senior drama critic, The New Yorker, author of Prick Up Your Ears: The Biography of Joe Orton Praise from England for Second Lives “An anthropological adventure but also Guest’s personal voyage . . . a fascinating portrait of rainbow landscapes and their inhabitants.” –Time Out London “Rich and colourful . . . an important mapping of a new social frontier.” –The Guardian “Remarkably timely.” –The Sunday Telegraph “Astonishing.” –The Sunday Times

Author : Makzan
Publisher : Packt Publishing Ltd
ISBN 13 : 1849690375
Total Pages : 599 pages
Book Rating : 4.79/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Flash Multiplayer Virtual Worlds written by Makzan and published by Packt Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2010-08-16 with total page 599 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Build immersive, full-featured interactive worlds for games, online communities, and more.

Author : William Sims Bainbridge
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 184882825X
Total Pages : 318 pages
Book Rating : 4.54/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Online Worlds: Convergence of the Real and the Virtual written by William Sims Bainbridge and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-12-08 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William Sims Bainbridge Virtual worlds are persistent online computer-generated environments where people can interact, whether for work or play, in a manner comparable to the real world. The most prominent current example is World of Warcraft (Corneliussen and Rettberg 2008), a massively multiplayer online game with 11 million s- scribers. Some other virtual worlds, notably Second Life (Rymaszewski et al. 2007), are not games at all, but Internet-based collaboration contexts in which people can create virtual objects, simulated architecture, and working groups. Although interest in virtual worlds has been growing for at least a dozen years, only today it is possible to bring together an international team of highly acc- plished authors to examine them with both care and excitement, employing a range of theories and methodologies to discover the principles that are making virtual worlds increasingly popular and may in future establish them as a major sector of human-centered computing.

Author : Thomas Malaby
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 0801458994
Total Pages : 179 pages
Book Rating : 4.96/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Making Virtual Worlds written by Thomas Malaby and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2011-01-15 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The past decade has seen phenomenal growth in the development and use of virtual worlds. In one of the most notable, Second Life, millions of people have created online avatars in order to play games, take classes, socialize, and conduct business transactions. Second Life offers a gathering point and the tools for people to create a new world online. Too often neglected in popular and scholarly accounts of such groundbreaking new environments is the simple truth that, of necessity, such virtual worlds emerge from physical workplaces marked by negotiation, creation, and constant change. Thomas Malaby spent a year at Linden Lab, the real-world home of Second Life, observing those who develop and profit from the sprawling, self-generating system they have created. Some of the challenges created by Second Life for its developers were of a very traditional nature, such as how to cope with a business that is growing more quickly than existing staff can handle. Others are seemingly new: How, for instance, does one regulate something that is supposed to run on its own? Is it possible simply to create a space for people to use and then not govern its use? Can one apply these same free-range/free-market principles to the office environment in which the game is produced? "Lindens"—as the Linden Lab employees call themselves—found that their efforts to prompt user behavior of one sort or another were fraught with complexities, as a number of ongoing processes collided with their own interventions. Malaby thoughtfully describes the world of Linden Lab and the challenges faced while he was conducting his in-depth ethnographic research there. He shows how the workers of a very young but quickly growing company were themselves caught up in ideas about technology, games, and organizations, and struggled to manage not only their virtual world but also themselves in a nonhierarchical fashion. In exploring the practices the Lindens employed, he questions what was at stake in their virtual world, what a game really is (and how people participate), and the role of the unexpected in a product like Second Life and an organization like Linden Lab.

Author : Tom Boellstorff
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691264856
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ethnography and Virtual Worlds written by Tom Boellstorff and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2024-08-06 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A practical guide to the ethnographic study of online cultures, and beyond Ethnography and Virtual Worlds is the only book of its kind—a concise, comprehensive, and practical guide for students, teachers, designers, and scholars interested in using ethnographic methods to study online virtual worlds, including both game and nongame environments. Written by leading ethnographers of virtual worlds, and focusing on the key method of participant observation, the book provides invaluable advice, tips, guidelines, and principles to aid researchers through every stage of a project, from choosing an online fieldsite to writing and publishing the results. Provides practical and detailed techniques for ethnographic research customized to reflect the specific issues of online virtual worlds, both game and nongame Draws on research in a range of virtual worlds, including Everquest, Second Life, There.com, and World of Warcraft Provides suggestions for dealing with institutional review boards, human subjects protocols, and ethical issues Guides the reader through the full trajectory of ethnographic research, from research design to data collection, data analysis, and writing up and publishing research results Addresses myths and misunderstandings about ethnographic research, and argues for the scientific value of ethnography