Wednesday, May 2, 2012

History of Online Worlds


Dear Joe Sanchez,

After reading your article “A Social History of Virtual Worlds” I was intrigued to see just how far online gaming has become.  From a personal standpoint, the only experience I have had in online gaming was in games such as Call of Duty.  For me, I never thought of these games as being anything but a place to collaborate with other people while accomplishing the same mission.  However, after being introduced to my Self and Society class, I was exposed to Second Life.  Here people meet in a virtual setting and people sometimes become emotionally attached to other people, an area I thought never existed in the online gaming world.  However, after reading your article it is interesting to see just how far the online virtual gaming worlds have become.



You talk about how online text games many years ago were considered virtual worlds back then.  However, today the idea of a virtual world has changed considerably.  With online software’s such as Second Life, people can now meet and interact in a visual setting with avatars that represent their real life identity.  In relation to the earlier years of online virtual worlds, I would assume that people would have a hard time connecting emotionally with anyone online due to having a lesser amount of visual effects whereas today we can see people in 3D.  Again, it is amazing to see just how far technology has come and how online virtual worlds have evolved with it along the way.

Regards,
Steve Schreck

 

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