2012 Survey: Education, Nonprofits, and Virtual Worlds

Last year, in the wake of the decision by Linden Lab, I posted a poll of educators and those in the non-profit sector. The results can be found here.

One more year on, I'm repeating the survey. It is open until Feb. 1.

Update: Jan.  12: Hamlet Au reports Tyche Shepherd's figures on the number of private regions lost in SL in 2011: 879. I presume that most of these would not be educational sims.

Online Surveys & Market Research

Students and Academic Roleplay: Some Responses

 
Location: Virtual House of Usher, Second Life

The work in Jokaydia Grid last semester gave my students the chance to sound off about roleplay. I was pleasantly surprised how many of them slipped into character. In a post last month, I looked at ideas students had for improving future expeditions to the House of Usher: new settings, characters, effects, and props. In this post, I share some reflections about what students felt they did well to make the improvisational roleplay work, or not.

My student Elon, who is drafting an academic article about the nature of story in the game Mass Effect, replied a great deal with useful information. Like a good academic, he's drafting ideas for the later project.

• Logan: students were required to think critically and put effort into the simulation if they expected to gain a better understanding of the story, and quite possibly change the story altogether within the simulation.
•  Elon: In order to be a proper role-playing character, the user has to continuously maintain the world’s setting and authenticity. To do this, I had to first find out about the House of Usher by reading the story, and then I had to carefully maintain who I was within the simulation.
• Emily:  A character must be created and maintained, usually conforming to some specific guidelines but otherwise left up to the player. For example, my character was given a motive of holding a grudge against the Ushers due to the fact that they had denied her a loan. 
• Elon:  I decided to tell Roderick I admired his paintings and wanted to wander around a bit. I still couldn’t find the family papers. I was panicking by the time Roderick called for us to see our quarters, but luckily Mark drew Roderick away to explore the island with him. This gave me the opportunity to find the papers, detailing his family history and more information about the nature of the land.
• Emily:  If my character had not chased Roderick out into the swamp, then [a major clue] would not have been found. Since my partners were convinced at the time that Roderick was evil, it is likely that the ending of the story would have played out altogether differently if I had not possessed that proof of his innocence.
• Elon:  The interactive experience isn’t purely just with the game engine, but also with other users . . . . The result is an experience where everyone has their share of invested time, choices, and manipulations of the plot.

John Norman Meets Edgar Allan Poe

 
Location: Trident Main Store

When building in Jokaydia Grid, I really missed the availability of good sculpted content for a few hundred Linden Dollars.

Now that the build is going up at Glasgow Caledonian's campus, I ventured out again to find some Medieval and Gothic decor. That's how I happened upon Laufey Markstein's Trident Main Store. Now I have a blacksmith's kit for the crypt of the new Usher build. More to come!

While I'm not fond of Norman's books or his philosophy, some of the builders serving the Gorean-roleplay community produce amazing wares. I'm less interested in slave-silks than I am in the impedimenta of daily life: blacksmith's tools, kitchen items, gardening hardware. These things did not change much over the centuries, so for a build set in the year 1847, lots of Gorean accessories would do just fine.

I have long lamented that Morris Mertel's shop has vanished form SL, but Laufey's offers me a good deal of merchandise to finish the new build.  And the cheesecake shots made the trip fun, too:


No, I did not buy the Bath Girl from Trident. It was only a costume, anyhow...Bath Girl not included...I don't think Poe ever went that far.

Miss, Mr. Usher needs a towel!

2011: The Year for Virtual Worlds Arts

 
Location: VWER meeting

It was a pleasure, back on December 15, to interview artists Wizard Gynoid, Soror Nishi, and Miso Susanowa for our Roundtable meeting.  The year for the virtual arts ended badly, as Bryn Oh's work at Immersiva became unavailable for reasons still not clear as I publish this post.

In our meeting, we talked about work by our three artists in SL, their moves back and forth from OpenSim, and the nature of art itself in virtual and physical spaces. A full transcript of our chat can be found here, but I'll tip in some highlights.

On the "medium" in VWs:

• Wizzy Gynoid (wizard.gynoid): i belong to a group called NPIRL Not Possible in Real Life. most of what i do is not possible in RL. . . .due to the scale landscaping as an art form is almost impossible in RL.
• Miso Susanowa: but there’s also the exploration of what is native to this environment that is ONLY possible in this environment, like… say… AM Radio’s The Far Away.
•  Wizzy: if someone can see the beauty in a mathematical object, then i have succeeded.

On Second Life and OpenSim 

• soror Nishi: I have a sim in InWorldz, it’s far cheaper, less restrictions on building sizes and better support.
• Wizzy Gynoid (wizard.gynoid): the open sims allow me to build bigger and link bigger stuff.
• Miso Susanowa: also… the chance to build and not be overwhelmed with socializing.
• Wizzy Gynoid (wizard.gynoid): there is no clear driving direction that Linden Lab has. where are they going? 3D prim versions of PacMan?
  

That remains to be seen...as does SL's growth under the Electronic Arts alumni Rod Humble and Will Wright. All three guests believe that 2012 will be a year when more VW-native art becomes tangible, as more galleries recognize the promise of the online spaces and 3D printing matures to enable more items to be exported to physical space.

Happy 2012, all!