Virtual World

The Art of Halo: Creating A Virtual World
$24.95
Very nice look at the art of Halo....

I recommend it highly!

Exodus to the Virtual World: How Online Fun Is Changing Reality
$14.95
This is a thought provoking book with an excellent tour of what goes on in the game design world. But let your own thoughts occur without being led by those of the author. In that way the read will be productive.

The title is an accurate prediction but not a good indication of the content. I think increasing numbers will get involved in virtual reality for the fun and psychological rewards it brings, but they will do it for escape to a kind of pure and controlled environment, something the physical world can never be.

Having been a character in World of Warcraft, a game I played with dedication for 9 months, I opened this book with anticipation.

But the central premise that the fun to be had in the virtual world will bring demands for the real world to be more fun is more than a bit wacky. I get the impression that the author wanted to make some kind of broad statement in defense of virtual reality and settled on the transfer of fun.

The real world is full of entertainment and fun already. Neil Postman wrote a book called Amusing Ourselves to Death that questioned it. That was a far better thought out book than this one.

Castronova wants us to believe that the politics that work to make an online game can be transferred to real life but there are differences that make this all but impossible. For one thing, the risks in real life are real. You don't get to die and come back to life, you don't get an infinite number of tries to achieve a goal. The real environment is not magically regenerative so that once you have taken something another copy appears to be taken by others. There is no infinite supply of anything here on Terra Firma.

Throughout the book, I kept wondering if he had read Brave New World, a dire warning of a world where pleasure for the masses has been achieved while the whole thing is watched over and directed by hidden managers. Castronova implies that it would be a good thing for virtual world game designers to step into positions of authority. Aldous Huxley is turning in his grave.

The book increases in silliness, reaching a peak in the fantasy in the epilogue of a Senator logging in to World of Warcraft.

But Castronova's effort is not a waste of time. Read it for enlightenment about how and why game worlds work as they do...and they do work very well.

Virtual Worlds on the Internet (Practitioners)
$90.50
In recent years, computer graphics has evolved into four major disciplines: computer animation, image processing, visualization, and virtual reality. Now these technologies are converging into one seamless digital medium resulting in various tools that will transform the way we work in the next century. Virtual Worlds on the Internet examines how the latest developments in virtual environments, computer animation, communication networks, and the Internet are being configured to create revolutionary tools and systems. Vince and Earnshaw have selected twenty papers they believe will influence computer systems of the twenty-first century. The topics discussed in this book include:A toolkit for the development of virtual environment applications for education and research Behavior descriptions used in expansive virtual environments. Different uses of VRML in information system interfaces. An examination of research in virtual reality environment interfaces. Five approaches to supporting changes in virtual environments. How ATM networks can support multi-user 3D virtual environments. The transmission of vector graphics and animations over narrow-band transmission channels. An exploration of an implicit modeling system including an interactive editor for building models. A description of the advantages of 3D environments for shopping applications on the Internet. The prototype of a software tool that automatically generates 3D models of virtual supermarkets. A "VR Workbench" that displays strategic information viewable by a user groups. An overview of a VR display system describing its workbench technology and its applications. How to separate the functionality of a multi-user 3D modeling system into functional tools with interface specifications.

Jumpstart 3D Virtual World: My First Adventure
$19.99
Buyer beware! Game REQUIRES a monthly subscription of $8 in order to complete it. The game includes only a few token games for free. In order to access the rest of the game, which is the majority of it, JumpStart requires an $8 a month subscription. Outrageous! False advertising. Nowhere on the box does it say that a monthly fee is required to access the game!