Rick van der Wal has shared some thoughts on how second life could be more immersive. Discussion there is going nice but it also provokes some (side-)thoughts on the questions of immersion and the experience of being in second life.
Rick states five interaction/interface related elements that, as been said, ruin the immersion:
- Teleporting (vs. traveling)
- Ability to fly
- Full control over display (weather) settings
- Opt-in physics
- Altcamming (manual camera controls)
No matter if those features are usefull or can be controlled by options on your land (so you can disable them as you wish or need to). I want to address something else here. Most of them are not something we see and experience in our first lives so they are accused as possible dangers to our immersion in virtual world.
But virtual worlds largely exist by the grace of immersion, the ability to tell our brain this is real, and how we would (re)act. It triggers real emotions just like a good Horror movie is able to trigger fear. This is the experience that adds added value and justifies the use of Virtual Worlds when compared to the 2D web.
Seeing a plywood box or somebody flying around should not ruin the immersion and second life experience. Anybody who say so should leave virtual worlds this very moment and grab a good book and watch some cartoons. Imagination and immersion skills are on alerting low level there!
Problem is that so many people are not aware that virtual worlds are not the copy of the meatspace. Just as web is not a copy of the books and newspapers. Have you ever heard that hyperlinks should be disabled because there is not such a possibility in printed media? No, you haven’t. Virtual worlds are inspired by so called real life, but there is no need to recreate "real life". And one’s immersion is not endangered by the things that are not a part of the world out of our monitors. Otherwise, you would never stand to see a sci-fi movie.
It is not the meatspace we are depicting here, it is our imagination.
Let’s face it. We are avatars, we do have wings, we fly, we teleport (even without asstachment issues – thanks Nicholaz!). That is the nature of the world we live in. We are neko’s and furries, and some of us are seeing fairies or marmaids every day. Our bodies can change on will and we look old only when we want to. Things do float in space and weed grows from the neon blue marble. Come see my place if you don’t trust me. Don’t let your immersion break because of the pleasures of our world.
And our humans are dealing just fine with all that issues that cannot be seen in their world. We are their avatars. It is them that are smiling while we are living here.
Leave a Reply