Dr Melanie Middlemiss provides an overview of virtual worlds with examples of recent academic work done in this area.

1. Virtual Worlds
Dr. Melanie Middlemiss
Department of Information Science

2. What is a virtual world?
 Multi-user interactive simulated environment
 Also known as:
 MMO(massively multiplayer online game)
 MMORPG(massively multiplayer online role-playing game)
 MUVE(multi-user virtual environment)
 Features:
 Shared Space
 Immediacy
 Interactivity
 Persistence
 Socialisation/Community
 Graphical User Interface
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3. A brief history
1969 ARPANET
1978 MUD
1984 Island of Kesmai
1992 Ultima Underworld
1985 Habitat
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4. A brief history continued
2002 The Sims Online
June 2003 Second Life
Oct 2003 There
2011
2008 Small Worlds
2004 World of Warcraft
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5. Examples of current virtual worlds
http://secondlife.com
http://opensimulator.org
http://realxtend.org
http://openwonderland.org/
Image sourced from: http://www.kzero.co.uk/blog/?p=2717
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6. Types of virtual world
Content creation Socialising/chat
TV/film/books
(existing IP)
Casual gaming
Sports Misc
Education/ Mirror worlds
development
Fashion/lifestyle Roleplay/
fantasy/
quests
Music Toys/
http://www.slideshare.net/nicmitham/kzero-radar-q2-2010
real world games
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7. Socialising/chat: Small Worlds
Images sourced from: http://beta2media.s3.amazonaws.com/smallworlds-press-resources.zip
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8. Casual gaming: Club Penguin
Image sourced from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wfryer/530958185/in/photostream/
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9. Mirror worlds: Twinity
Images sourced from: http://blog.twinity.com/archive/2010/02/02/virtual-london-grows/
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10. Roleplay/fantasy/quests: World of Warcraft
Image sourced from: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics/images/guide/ss04.jpg
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11. Content creation: Second Life
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12. Educational uses of Second Life
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOFU9oUF2HA
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13. Virtual Worlds for Education in NZ
 Foundation Learning students programme
 A Second Life Education NZ (SLENZ) Pilot initiative
 http://slenz.wordpress.com/
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14. Virtual Worlds for Education in NZ
 Interview training
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15. Virtual Worlds for Education in NZ
 Midwifery project – virtual birthing unit
 A Second Life Education NZ (SLENZ) Pilot initiative
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16. Virtual Worlds for Education in NZ
 Medical simulation example
 Dr Scott Diener, University of Auckland
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17. Limitations of Second Life
 Owned and operated by Linden Lab http://lindenlab.com/
 US-based servers
 Millions of users (not all active concurrently)
 Used by businesses as well as academic institutions
 A lot of “recreational” content
 Costs
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18. Opensimulator
 Similar to Second Life
 Open source project
 Advantages
 Free
 Host on local servers
 Use KAREN – Kiwi Advanced Research & Education Network
 Develop a NZ community
http://opensimulator.org
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19. NZ Virtual World Grid
 http://nzvwg.org
 Collaborative project
 Open access national virtual world grid
 Aims:
 Undertake both experimental and routine use of virtual worlds
in teaching and research
 Develop engaging, interactive in-world content customised for
NZ use;
 Develop new context-specific plugins enabling interaction
between the virtual and real (non-virtual) worlds.
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20. NZ Virtual World Grid
Internet
MySQL
MySQL
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21. NZ Virtual World Grid Projects
 Real-world  Virtual-world interaction
SIP Phone
Streaming Media
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22. NZ Virtual World Grid Projects
Performance Evaluations Modelling Social Expectations
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23. NZ Virtual World Grid Projects
Geovisualisation Otago Virtual Hospital – http://ovh.otago.ac.nz
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24. Summary
 Virtual worlds are multi-user, interactive simulated
environments that enable shared experience in a real-
time and interactive manner
 Virtual worlds have many uses, including gaming,
socialising and education
 At Otago, we focus on the educational aspects of virtual
worlds, developing the New Zealand Virtual World Grid
to provide an alternative learning environment for new
generations of students
 Try out the NZVWG at this weeks lab
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