Virtually Not There
When I first got the computer game, The Sims, I thought how cool is this. I can take these people and control every aspect of their lives. I can make them eat. I can make them drink. I can make them have fun, decorate their homes, and even force them to go to the bathroom. I was playing the game just as it was intended to be and it was such a good time. Pretty soon, about a week later, I figured out that making these actions take place in game time was actually just as time consuming as doing them in real time. Since there was no real goal to the game, I got bored when I figured out that these actions weren't fun, they were just time consuming. So I did what any other Sims player would do and make a family, lock them in a room with no doors, windows, or
bathrooms, and just watched what happened! The results were pretty much as I expected. Soon after I just stopped playing.
bathrooms, and just watched what happened! The results were pretty much as I expected. Soon after I just stopped playing. A few months later, The Sims Online! Oh wow! I can now share this experience in a huge world full of other people?! My virtual neighbors are now controlled by real people and they speak real english!? (Not that Sim's gibberish.) A whole society of people living virtually with virtual real estate. This is wonderful. Wait. No, it's not. Why? First, it wasn't as seamless a world as they made it out to be. People couldn't just stroll to your neighbor hood. You were stopped by long load times and glitchy gameplay. Again, the goalless gameplay made it rather boring very quickly. Instead of just me killing time by myself, there were hundreds of other people. This time, I had to pay for it monthly though!
So what's my point? There is a huge buzz about these virtual worlds. The only they are going to be found useful is if the user experience isn't hindered an instant by technological issues. These worlds needs to be just as reliable as the real one we live in if we are expected to trust them!
PS The Sims Online is actually now free! They renamed it to EA-Land. Take a look?
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I, too, created a family only for the purpose of locking them in a room with no doors or windows. However, I also gave them a stove and encouraged them to set the place ablaze.