There Social Event

I kept my persona from Second Life for There except that I have a different avatar name so I could more easily compare and contrast my social events between the two. I felt it was difficult to find a social event where there were actually people. Most people gathered at common places such as the Cosmogirl Village instead of at planned social events. At Cosmogirl Village, some people were sitting around logs and having idle conversation while many people were spamming so it was hard to keep up.


When I finally was able to find some people having a karaoke event at Beach Mountain, most people did not talk there. Randomly, people took turns to go up on the stage and some others made clapping gestures. Occasionally there were a few comments saying "hi" or something very minimum. Compared to Second Life, people in There didn't seem as friendly and talkative. Also, their tone of voice and actions seem more immature than people in Second Life.

First Impression of There

After going through the orientation in-world for There, I noticed many similarities between it and Second Life. To me, There seems like a very simplified version of Second Life as I felt like I understood most of the controls within an hour of being in-world rather than the hours I spent in Second Life trying to figure things out and still not knowing how to do many tasks. The orientation was similar in that both had a short how-to session at the beginning, but in Second Life, you were on your own on orientation island while in There, most of the things that they taught you were from popups. The lessons were also much less wordy in There.


Also, the graphics were very simple as well unlike the complex and realistic graphics in Second Life. To change your avatar's body, you must go to a Spa. There are very limited choices about what you can change unlike in Second Life where you can change almost every physical feature. If you want to just change clothes, though, you can do that anywhere. Almost everything must be bought in the world with ThereBucks or you can rent them out for a few hours. I rented out all the hair and clothes for my avatar Fragollina in the screenshot.

Second Life Social Event

I attended the Blackhearts Cafe at Central Park for their '80s music dance event. There were about 15 people when I arrived and after saying hi to everyone, about two people responded back. They invited me to join them to dance as they were all lined up and danced together as a group. There were also couples there who prefered to dance together on their own. While dancing, a guy began to talk to me and asked how I was doing. The conversation was very basic and short simply about if I was having fun. He soon left after inquiring. I felt the avatars stayed in character as they only talked about the dance in this event.

Second Life Popular Places

For the Second Life popular places, I chose to go to the Inspire Space Park. One of the guys I met in the Orientation Island wanted to explore new places with me so I gave him a teleport to me in the park. We parted ways as he had to leave but eventually a women whispered to me about joining a game they all played called Tiny Empires. From what she described it as, it was a role playing type of game in Second Life. She noticed I was new and eventually she gave me lots of items including clothes to help me start out as she said she remembered it was really difficult to start out in Second Life for her. She eventually invited me to her house and gave me a tour of it. The women was very helpful and answered any questions I had regarding the world. She also shared some of her stories in Second Life with me.

Second Life Help In-Game

As I was wandering around aimlessly in Orientation Island, I met another avatar who was as lost and confused as I was. Eventually this other guy came along to us while we were talking about how to do basic things in Second Life. Apparently the second guy made all the tutorial images in-game on the island and wanted to ask us for feedbad about how much the tutorial helped new users such as us. I thought this was interesting because this kind of event never happens in any other virtual world I've been in. Anyway, he helped us with very basic controls in Second Life and linked us to their website, showing us the schedule for some in-game Second Life classes such as with sculpties, scripting, and many more.

http://nci-sl.org/

If you look under the Education tab and view the schedule PDF, you'll see many in-game classes that can help you get started. Just thought I'd share this information.

Second Life Persona

My Second Life persona is Karrie Bloobury: she is a lively, energetic, bubbly girl who always seems to beam with happiness. Some of her hobbies include going out, socializing, and eating so much it's a wonder she still looks like a toothpick. At times, she can be somewhat naive about general knowledge but that doesn't stop her from talking in all her confidence. Karrie is a really great cook and loves cooking all the time for her friends. She really hates insects, especially large spiders with extremely long legs.

Toontown Research Part III

Comment on 3 aspects of Toontown that relate to the HOH-Agency chapter.

The chapter talked a lot about spatial navigation in vitual worlds. In Toontown, the world has many features which gives players satisfaction for exploring. The chapter said that exploring new places for the sake of just exploring can be fun. To me, it was both frustrating and somewhat exciting exploring the world in Toontown because I was lost yet at the same time it was somewhat fun as I liked building a mental map of the area.

The concept of the rhizome was explained in the HOH chapter: it is boundless and is not linear. Toontown began with a linear story as all players had to go through the initial tasks to have the freedom of going around the virtual world. Afterwards, players can see that nearly all of Toontown is connected. The player can go back and forth as they please (or if their avatars are strong enough.) There is also no ending in Toontown: players can continue to explore, gain experience, play games, fish, role play, or do whatever they wanted as long as it was within the limits of what the program allows.

One of the last aspects the chapter talks about is constructivism. Players are free to role play as their avatar of their choosing in Toontown. Players also are given their own house to build, modify, buy furniture for, and more to share with other players. They are able to create their own things within Toontown.

Toontown Research Part II

What features would you add to help yourself navigate better?

I remember during my first hour in Toontown, I found myself getting lost quite often because the entire world was so colorful that everything almost blended in together. The map you can open up in the menu did not offer much help because it lacked a lot of detail.


Eventually I became used to the area in the Central Playground, but I feel I will become frustrated with each new area. Perhaps it is Disney's intention for the player to explore, much like the HOH chapter said that players simply like to explore if it was not to complete a task.

I think exploration can be much more satisfying if there was a mini-map on the HUD that permanently showed your location in relation to other buildings on the map. Your avatar should be represented on the map as well, in the center, perhaps as a simple dot or an arrow.

Toontown Research Part I

Attempt some collaborative actions such as EZ Chat and teaming up to fight Cogs. Describe the basics of what you did and the results. What were the limitations you experienced?

Generally my fight with the Cogs went like this: I would either join up with other players who were already in combat or other players in the area would join me in the middle of a fight. Each player would choose their gag and then wait for everyone else to finish with their decision in a turn-based battle. After the players used their gags, the Cogs would either die or they would attack a player.

During the battle, sometimes players would use gags that healed other players' happiness. The healing only works on other players, not yourself, so this is an incentive for people to team up with others and not engage in battle yourself.


After the battle, each player involved in the battle would then get their gag experience points and/or complete their task(s). Usually the players would not talk to each other and just go their separate ways after the battle.

Perhaps it was because I only had weak gags, but I felt that having few gags was limiting in creating a strategy for fighting the Cogs. It makes me wonder if it is possible to later on solo harder Cogs if you are unable to heal yourself in battle. Also, players can only use the EZ Chat during battle and not type even if they enabled it. This makes it more difficult to talk to other players and come up with a plan if necessary. Choosing from the list of available phrases also takes a while unless you are familiar with the entire list.

And also, way too many people kill-steal by doing absolutely nothing while I use my hard-earned jellybeans for the gags.