Alone in a Virtual World
Ever walk into Second Life and have a feeling of loneliness overcome you? No real feeling of being immersed (almost like walking in on a fantastic party location and not knowing a soul to talk to and mingle with). Depending on your personality you may feel a bit awkward and out of place…Yes, I know if Second Life were a ‘real’ physical place it would roughly be the size of Houston, Texas (but that still doesn’t make up for the fact of feeling lonely).
Coming into a new virtual world/ environment does sometimes present no real sense of presence/ or being for the avatar. The landscape can be gorgeous with interesting buildings and cool places to explore, but no clear path of where you should navigate exists and the environment is often devoid of others. Sure some locations in Second Life use the arrows to guide visitors but is it really enough? With little to no avatar interaction is the visitor drawn in enough to stay and participate in the virtual world? Would you stay?!
However, we are able to turn this bleak scenario around by immersing the participant from the point of entry to the virtual world. Now enter: Non-player characters (NPCs). They are there to guide the virtual world participant to learn and explore the virtual world space and to give the learner/ trainee tools to use and distinct and clear paths to explore. This essentially injects life with believable social interactions into otherwise lonely virtual worlds. Remember, when entering a virtual world for training/learning being social is not at the top of the list; however it is an important aspect to consider. Rather than leaving the trainee to their own devices to discover the virtual world all alone- why not pepper the environment with intelligent NPCs? I think it’s the ‘Second Life’ type of environment that scares some people off when virtual worlds are brought up as a solution for an organization’s training approach. But let’s not let Second Life’s sense of desertion lead to the ‘all virtual worlds have no interaction’ mentality.
Excellent post! I have certainly been there, done that. That is to say, there have been times when I got into SL to do some exploring and felt isolated, despite that fact that there were 50K+ people in-world at the time. And sure, I could find a party with dozens of people participating, but the mindless banter (particularly from people I didn’t know) just didn’t do much to warm me up for a lengthy stay. Because I had significant experience in-world, these rare occasions where I was apt to wander a bit aimlessly weren’t enough to turn me off to the whole experience and value of virtual worlds. But what if it had been my first time? And even worse, what if it had been my first time and I had the opposite problem? What if I had been harassed by the appendage- wearing noobs looking for that first “virtual encounter? Chances are I wouldn’t be back.
The idea of NPCs or even a proliferation of true “ambassadors” for the common points of entry would certainly improve these scenarios greatly. Giving people a stable platform to step onto when they get to the virtual world would greatly improve the chance that they’ll visit again and become a permanent resident.
Thanks for the thought-provoking post…I may have just been inspired to actually update my own blog with some similar thoughts. Thanks!
Bill
aka Greever Wemyss in SL