Not Much to Do on There...

So...is this a party or what?


Human contact! Praise be to the Internet!


Wait...what? Where did everyone go? Did I just get teleported?


The word bubble says it all.

Either There has a small number or I just happened to log in at emptier hours. After going through social event after social event filled with nobody, I finally settled on the chat area viewed in my pictures. There were only two people there, but I only managed to get one sentence to them before they disappeared and I was teleported elsewhere in the area. Apparently, I was teleported because the system was busy repairing itself. Second Life, by comparison, was a much more stable experience. I was rarely ever randomly teleported in Second Life, which still ran smooth despite having a larger number of users and much more detailed environments than There. I'll give credit to There for having a simple enough HUD to explore and use, but Second Life is the better experience due to its greater deal of options.

Hugh Got Jacket!

Not too shabby.

Second Life: Meet Hugh Frostbite

Hugh Frostbite



Persona:
Hugh Frostbite is a stoic-natured man who lives up to his name. Hugh hardly ever shows any emotion, keeping the same dour and stony expression on his face at all times. Rarely does he ever speak in anything beyond two-word sentences and gravelly murmurs. He does exhibit some signs of kindness on occasion, but most of the time, his intentions are difficult to read.

Event Report:



As Hugh Frostbite, I attended an event on Second Life's Community Calendar called the Midnight Valentine's Ball on Angelic Island. It was an event set up for Second Life couples to dance or have Second Life singles find matches to dance. There were few people actually present, and there was only one unpaired dancer there other than Mr. Frostbite. Sticking to character yielded minimal response, especially since Hugh left very little room for conversation in his simple responses. The other couples were busy dancing while the only other unpaired person got bored talking to Hugh after three verbal exchanges.

Non-Event Report:



The non-event place I visited was the Welcome Area of Morris Island. There was a considerably larger number of people present in comparison to the Midnight Valentine's Ball. However, only two people were engaged in audio chat while three people talked amongst themselves in text-based local chat (mostly to comment on the audio chatters). I had Hugh sit down on a bench on say “Yo” to anybody that passed him by, which incidentally was not a lot of people. For the most part, Hugh went ignored while everyone else chatted amongst themselves or stood idly.

The lesson here is being stoic does not equal cool - for crying out loud, speak!

Run, Dusty, Run!

13. What features did you find the most difficult to use and why? How would you redesign them to operate better?
I found moving difficult because using the left and right arrow keys to turn with only the up arrow key to propel me forward a slow endeavor. It kept me from getting where I wanted to go faster and even got me stuck in a few places. If I could redo movement, I would have a function that would let you move to a spot on-screen by clicking on it with the mouse.

Read a Book

12. Chose ONE of the Book features and briefly describe/sketch how you would redesign it to be part of the HUD, i.e. omnipresent in the user’s view. Design both a compressed and expanded form. Add notes to your sketch to convey how it would work.
Rather than having my inventory of gags for Cog fighting in my book alone, I would have a side menu with icons displaying the gags at my disposal. It would be a two-column and vertically-oriented menu kept to the side of the screen, and the menu would be a grid of square icons representing my gags. Gags that I don't have would have gray icons while gags I do have would have colored icons and a number displaying how much of them I have.

Not Quite All for One and *select phrase*...

10. Attempt some collaborative actions such as EZ Chat and teaming up to fight Cogs. Describe the basics of what you did and the results. What were the limitations you experienced?


When it came to teaming up to fight Cogs, all I did was pay attention to my own items and attack when my turn came up. I assumed the other players knew what they were doing, and since the whole battle was turn-based, I concerned myself only with my status. Plus, there was little incentive to help my teammates since they were hardly having any difficulty fighting. EZ Chat limited me to only a number of specific phrases and emotions expressed through my avatar's movements. While I understand these limitations were put in place to 'protect' children, it was frustrating to not be able to say quite what I wanted to say.

Quack, Quack, Quack...

So this is what it's like being a duck...no wonder Donald and Daffy complain so much.