What the Literature Says About Using Game Worlds and Social Worlds in Cyberspace for Communicating Technical and Educational Content

摘要

When Marci first joined Second Life, she called her friend Tim, who often talked about a virtual world he played called EverQuest. Eager to share his EverQuest experience with her, he asked what kind of character she created, noting of his own, "I've got a level 30 barbarian!" Marci responded, "I decided to be female, and her name is Lola. She loves shopping. Where do you buy stuff for your... um... barbarian?" "Buy things for him?" he laughed. "He needs to earn them in battle! So, have you killed any monsters yet?" "Monsters? All the people I've met have been nice and very helpful." "So no battles or monsters to kill in Second Life?" "And no shopping for clothes in EverQuest?" Marci realized that, although they were both talking about virtual worlds, they were talking about two very different worlds. Virtual worlds are persistent online environments in which several users simultaneously interact with one another through a digital character that represents them. This character is called an avatar. These online environments are called "persistent" because the environment does not shut down when individual users logoff, and the identity and history of their avatar remains intact the next time they log on.