Virtual Worlds as Tools

The third way that virtual worlds are viewed by researchers is as tools. In this situation, virtual worlds are interesting purely because of what they can be used for, rather than for any intellectual merit of their own. This isn’t to say that researchers in these areas disparage virtual worlds, it’s just that their focus is different. If such an attitude were a crime, it’s one that virtual world designers would themselves be guilty of. They rely on computer scientists for the hardware and software expertise they need, but are only really interested in what this allows them to do design-wise (or, more likely, prohibits them from doing); computer science provides the tools they need, but is only a curiosity beyond that.

Some of the fields that use virtual worlds as tools do so because they can derive new techniques in their own fields that way. Virtual worlds can therefore expect to be the immediate beneficiaries of such techniques. Incredibly tempting though it is to look at what these fields promise for virtual worlds, this is not the book where it’s going to happen. My mission here is to promote virtual world design as a subject worthy of serious attention; although the general development of virtual worlds may benefit from an examination of worlds-as-tools research (I certainly hope it does), these don’t actually validate virtual worlds as a worthy pursuit in themselves. Thus, I shall restrict myself to giving a very limited overview of the fields concerned as they impact on virtual world design; designers who are sufficiently enthused can hit a few search engines if they want to find out more.

Computer Science

I re-read the previous paragraph immediately after having written four pages about computer science and virtual world design. I bit the bullet and cut them.

Many virtual world designers ¹ have a soft spot for computer science because their own backgrounds are in this area. However, the fact is that computer scientists in general are not tremendously interested in virtual worlds except when they’re working on them ², in which case they have a direct relationship with the designers anyway. Designers who are former programmers can call on their own experience, of course: Program design methodologies can certainly help in the process of virtual-world design, and systems analysis techniques are invaluable, too. The greatest benefit of computer science training to designers, however, is perhaps the understanding it gives of what can be programmed (and how long it will—or might—take).

When it comes to using virtual worlds as a research application, though, computer science’s interest is very limited. There are some programming languages that have been designed to support virtual worlds (most notably LogiMOO ³), but other than that, virtual worlds are used either to show off some object-modeling system’s capabilities or to explore distributed processing/programming ideas. Both of these are likely to have an eventual impact on virtual world design, but only through the additional weaponry they provide for the programmers who implement virtual worlds.

So, although there are many computer science papers I’d like to tell you about here, I have to concede that basically I only want to do so because that’s my background, not because there’s anything hugely relevant to virtual world design there.

Artificial Intelligence

I also have a background in artificial intelligence (AI). I did my BSc in computer science but my Ph.D. was in AI. Why? Because AI is highly relevant to virtual worlds.

The reason AI is relevant is because of mobiles. Okay, well there are other reasons, too—object representation, pattern recognition, route-finding, parsing, and so on—but mobiles were why I went for it. Virtual worlds are places, but (except for heavy role-playing or educational worlds) they’re places that are better for having denizens. The virtual world designer has to create not only the environment, but also the occupants of that environment. This is where AI comes in.

Next to me as I write this is a stack of 26 AI research papers, every one of which I’d love to write about here. These represent perhaps 40% of the AI-and-virtual-worlds papers in my collection—the ones I pared it down to. Unfortunately for me, but perhaps fortunately for you, I’m only giving an overview here. So, here it is.

As far as virtual worlds are concerned, AI is all about agents. Agents are what AI people call independent entities capable of action (they also call them actors). In virtual worlds, we call them mobiles, NPCs, and, if they’re not integrated into the virtual world itself, bots.

Mobiles don’t have to be clever. You can implement wind as a mobile. Bots don’t have to be clever either, but there’s not a lot of point to writing them if they’re not. AI researchers like virtual worlds because they’re shared, complex environments that human beings and AI programs can interact with on equal terms; they therefore use them for bots (although they might actually implement them as mobiles; go figure).

Bot research integrates many aspects of AI. Bots need (among other things) natural language understanding, planning, knowledge representation, learning, plan recognition, and the ability to model their own thought processes. Some of them are created with particular applications in mind (interactive drama or storytelling, for example), and there is an emphasis on making them “believable” (for the benefit of humans), but the great thing about AI is that bots are interesting purely for their own sake. They don’t have to show off any theory: They’re AI in action.

From the point of view of virtual world design, AI promises great things. If virtual worlds could be populated by intelligent NPCs, all manner of doors would open. Examples: Quest generation becomes contextual; reputation becomes intangible but works better; the economy behaves like it should; PC clans can’t dominate politics. Worlds will seem—will be—so much more alive.

I could go on and on about this, but restraint has prevailed. To find out more:

• Read Andrew Leonard’s book. Bots ¹.

• See Leonard Foner’s paper ² about the famous bot Julia.

• Consider the Skotos ³ approach, which comes at bots from a different angle.

• The American Association for Artificial Intelligence ⁴ has been sponsoring yearly symposia on the subject of AI and Interactive Entertainment.

Oh, I would like to add one more thing….

Don’t try to make your virtual world itself be intelligent. Don’t make it spawn creatures that are appropriate to the skills of the players who are about to try kill them; don’t make mobiles in combat act clever against clever opponents and stupid against stupid ones; don’t make the treasure that people find adapt to whoever finds it. This will not only be perceived by the players as unfair and frustrating, but it will seem to mock them. A constant challenge is constantly beatable and constantly patronizing.

Education

I had 26 AI papers I would, given a free rein, have liked to have discussed here. I have 37 such education papers. Yes, I have a background in teaching, too.

Computer games and education have an uneasy relationship. Computer games are fun, education isn’t. Educationalists figure that by marrying the two, education can be made fun; unfortunately, all too often computer games are made unfun instead. It is this precedent that puts off many game-style virtual world designers from looking at educationalist virtual worlds. This is something of a shame, because there is a lot of very interesting work going on in the area. Books could be written about virtual worlds in education; indeed, books have been written about them ¹.

Virtual worlds offer educators the following features:

• They are collaborative.

• They are motivational.

• They involve language use.

• Children find it easier to express themselves in them.

• They are a change from classroom learning.

• They can be used remotely.

• The interface is easy to learn.

• Disruptive behavior is easier to deal with.

Almost all educational virtual worlds are textual, using mainly TinyMUD-heritage codebases. MUSHes and MOOs are favored because of their flexibility; text is favored because it is inexpensive. That said, there may also be educational reasons for using text over graphics, the first 3D graphical educational worlds having performed less well pedagogically than hoped ².

The use of virtual worlds for educational purposes has a long history. The first such world, Stan Lim and Barry Kort’s MicroMUSE ³, was founded in 1990; Julie Falsetti and Eric Schweitzer’s schMOOze University ⁴ and Jeanne Butler McWhorter’s Diversity University ⁵ have been running classes since 1994; Amy Bruckman’s MOOSE Crossing ⁶ began in 1995. Educational virtual worlds are used primarily used to teach:

• Second/foreign language use

• Simple programming skills

• Composition (that is, writing)

• Team skills

This is all very interesting, but as I’ve been at pains to point out throughout this book educational virtual worlds share many characteristics with social- and game-oriented ones. Why give their use by educationalists any kind of special mention?

Well, it’s because all virtual world traditions have the same aim: learning. With social- and game-oriented worlds, players learn about themselves; with educational worlds, players learn whatever they’re taught but also about themselves. Educationalists know about teaching and learning; does it not make sense, therefore, to look at how they design virtual worlds and in-world courses for teaching purposes, to see if these ideas can be applied to what virtual worlds are, at heart, all about—the search for the self?

Two papers, two perspectives, one aim:

• Marina Bers, 2001 ⁷. The creation of a 3D virtual world with the specific intention that it be used for identity construction.

• Dianne Butler, 1999 ⁸. What players of a regular adventure-style virtual world consider that they learn from it.

Law

Lawyers are almost all concerned only with real-life laws as they apply to virtual worlds. They are overwhelmingly not interested in the design of in-context legal systems for virtual worlds. Even so, for this reason alone virtual world designers should listen to what they have to say; there are also other reasons, however, that we shall come to shortly.

Virtual worlds raise several issues for real-world law with which legislators have yet to get to grips. These include

• Ownership of data. Can players sell characters and property? Can the virtual world owner ¹? What are the liabilities that the virtual world developer has in either case? What would PD mean in such a world? Do players of loss-making virtual worlds have any grounds for complaint if the developer shuts it down?

• Ownership of intellectual property. Do players have rights concerning anything they create in the virtual world? Does it make a difference whether it’s in-context (they made a picture from colored stones) or out-of-context (they created a complex of rooms)? Can they claim usage royalties? Can they insist their creation is removed? Is joint ownership between player and developer a solution? What if the virtual world uses a licensed franchise?

• Employment law. When does what people do for fun become work? Should volunteers be able to claim the minimum wage?

• Governing law. If I as an Englishman interact improperly with an American in a virtual world that has its server in Canada, under which country’s laws can I be sued? How are disputes in virtual worlds resolved ²?

• Responsibility and liability. Are virtual world designers responsible if their players become addicted? Can they be held to account for real-world violence meted out for virtual-world reasons? Are they liable for repetitive strain injuries incurred by players performing activities that the designer has encouraged?

The country where virtual worlds are taken most seriously by the legal establishment is Korea. In 2002, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced changes to its online game rating system that effectively meant virtual worlds featuring PKing could only be played by people aged 18 and over. NCSoft’s shares fell dramatically with this news, as the realization that Lineage could lose half its players sank into the minds of investors.

The Korean government acted because of incidents of real-life unrest that were apparently resulting from activities undertaken in virtual worlds. Virtual worlds were associated with reports of suicide, violence ³, and prostitution (selling real-life sex for in-world reward ⁴). That their response was something of a knee-jerk reaction is clear from the way that it linked PKing to the intention of the PKer to steal virtual goods from their victim (presumably as a means of disambiguating the Counterstrike-like PKing of nonpersistent characters with the Lineage-like PKing of persistent ones). Nevertheless, as virtual worlds become more and more mainstream, it’s a sign of things to come.

I did say that there were other reasons that virtual world designers should look at what lawyers have to say apart from the obvious one of being possibly bankrupted if they get things wrong. These are those few (and they are very few) occasions where case studies of happenings in virtual worlds are looked at from a lawyer’s standpoint; these constitute the beginnings of a jurisprudence for virtual worlds, and should be welcomed. My only concern here is that laws may be drawn up prematurely, without proper consultation with those who “get” virtual worlds ⁵, and we could be stuck with something unsuitable or unworkable as a consequence.

I’d like to finish this section on law by mentioning a book ⁶ by Tim Jordan that isn’t about law at all: It’s about government. Ultimately, laws are made by people with political power, not by lawyers. Jordan looks at who has this power in cyberspace, and who wants it. If you know who’s going to make the rules, you can get a good idea of the rules they are going to make.