What is online 3-D world?
It is a world of virtual being moving around in front of a screen and is accessible via the Internet. You cannot touch it. You can only imagine that you are in it.
It is usually built into the client by a simple primitive based 3-D modeling. 3D modeling is the process of developing a mathematical, wireframe representation of any three-dimensional object (either inanimate or living) via specialized software. This can be used in combination with a scripting language called Linden Scripting Language which can be used to add functionality to objects. More complex three dimensional Sculpted prims, (colloquially known as sculpties,) textures for clothing or other objects, and animations and gestures can be created using external software.
There are many online 3-D worlds such as Second Life, Moove Online, Audition Online, Kaneva, etc.
Let’s take Second Life as a specific example because it launched for a long time and was honored at the 59th Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards.
Second Life is a virtual world developed by Linden Lab that launched on June 23, 2003. A free client program called the Second Life Viewer enables its users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars. The Second Life Terms of Service ensure that users retain copyright for any content they create, and the server and client provide simple Digital rights management functions.
Second Life has an internal currency, the Linden dollar (L$). L$ can be used to buy, sell, rent or trade land or goods and services with other users. Virtual goods include buildings, vehicles, and devices of all kinds, animations, clothing, skin, hair, jewelry, flora and fauna, and works of art. Services include "camping", wage labor, business management, entertainment and custom content creation. L$ can be purchased with fiat currency from Linden Lab, independent brokers or other users.
Technology involved:
- Real-time 3D Streaming
Able to share videos and play it in-world!
- Endlessly Expandable Landscape
Exist on Scalable server grid running Linux that can support thousands of immediate Second
Life Resident
- Contiguous, Persistent World
An ongoing world without duplicate servers where it is always evolving
- Infinite Avatar Customization
High-resolution character where there are endless possibilities to design the appearance
- Cost-effective Thin Client
Only a 20Mb download is sufficient to the enter world of Second Life
- Cross-platform Portability
Industry-standard cross-platform technologies like OpenGL, UDP networking, Linux servers and Ogg-Vorbis compression for audio
- Built-in Custom Scripting Tools
Simple yet dominant in world scripting language that can input special effects by just modifying the existing scripts.
- Up-loadable Textures and Audio
Able to upload personal preferred textures and sounds
- Rigid Body Physics Simulation
All objects in the virtual world are collideable and can be dynamic and moving
Stakeholders involved:
Residents can explore, meet other residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, and create and trade virtual property and services with one another, or travel throughout the world, which residents refer to as the grid. A single Resident account may have only one avatar at a time, although the appearance of this avatar can change between as many different forms as the Resident wishes. A single person may also have multiple accounts, and thus appear to be multiple Residents.
Left 4 Dead – new game
America cities overrunning with murderous zombie intent on devouring the living in just two short weeks… Only four survivors managed to survive and they are ready to fight their way through….
In the virtual world, players used their wits, teamwork and exceptional weapons and armor to move on to another chapter. It is a movie-like set up which is divided into five chapters. The players have to deal with specialize zombies :
Boomers - spew at victim to blind them and attract other zombies
Hunters – knocking down players
Smokers – lurk on roofs and in dark alleys to attack and strangle players with super-long tongues
Witches – [solitary zombies] sobs uncontrollably and lash out at anyone who disturb them
Tanks, Brutish berzerkers – flips cars, throw chunks of concrete and pummel enemies into bloody bits
Left 4 Dead supports 2 players locally or up to 4 online. In addition, there is also a versus mode that can hold up to 8 players. 4 of the players will be the survivors that tries to score points and the other 4 will play the role of zombie that tries to stop the survivors and once they succeed, the game flips. The side that scores the most points wins.
Technology
The AI Director is used to generate a unique game play experience every time a player plays. The Director tailors the frequency and ferocity of the zombie attacks to his performance, putting you in the middle of a fast-paced, but not overwhelming, Hollywood horror movie.
AuditionSEA
An online dance game with awesome graphic and multiple game features. Players can compete with each other in different modes to be the best dancer in stage. Players use the arrow keys and space bar to dance according to the melody. Players can design their character at the start of the game by giving their character clothes and hairstyle that they like.
Friday, 16 January 2009
Chronology of creating Online 3D Games
1969
United States Defense Department creates ARPANET, which evolved into the internet.
1978
First MUD (multi-user dungeon) developed; it can still be played at http://www.british-legends.com/
1980
Tim Berners-Lee develops Enquire, a hypertext system that was an early precursor of HTML and the Web
1982
William Gibson publishes his short story Burning Chrome in Omni magazine, in which he invents the word cyberspace.
1983
ARPANET is split into a public ARPANET (today's internet) and a classified MILNET.
1984
Islands of Kesmai, the first commercial MMORPG, was launched on Compuserve.
1984
William Gibson publishes Neuromancer.
1985
LucasFilm launches Habitat for Commodore 64. Habitat is the first MMORPG (massively multi-player online role-playing game) with a graphical user interface.
1988
Habitat launched for public use as Club Caribe, on the online service QuantumLink (later became AOL)
1988
LucasFilm licenses Habitat to Fujitsu for use in Japan
1990
- Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau communicate between two computers using the first web server.
- Fujitsu implements Fujitsu Habitat on its FM-Towns personal computer
1991
Tim Berners-Lee makes his web server available for download via telnet
1992
Mosaic, the first web browser in widespread use, is developed.
1992
- Ultima Underworld is the first 3D game. It was based on the Ultima RPG, that first appeared around 1980.
- Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash was published, creating a new vision of virtual worlds.
1993
- The Web goes public - Web technology and program code are placed in the public domain.
- Cybertown - first prototype
1994
Fujitsu licenses and modifies Habitat for distribution as WorldsAway. It later became Vzones's Dreamscape; the other two Vzones worlds are newHorizone and Second Kingdom.
1995
Cybertown launched
2002
The Sims Online launched
June 2003
Second Life launched
Oct 2003
There launched
2004
World of Warcraft launched
2007
Multiverse - Build your own virtual world!
United States Defense Department creates ARPANET, which evolved into the internet.
1978
First MUD (multi-user dungeon) developed; it can still be played at http://www.british-legends.com/
1980
Tim Berners-Lee develops Enquire, a hypertext system that was an early precursor of HTML and the Web
1982
William Gibson publishes his short story Burning Chrome in Omni magazine, in which he invents the word cyberspace.
1983
ARPANET is split into a public ARPANET (today's internet) and a classified MILNET.
1984
Islands of Kesmai, the first commercial MMORPG, was launched on Compuserve.
1984
William Gibson publishes Neuromancer.
1985
LucasFilm launches Habitat for Commodore 64. Habitat is the first MMORPG (massively multi-player online role-playing game) with a graphical user interface.
1988
Habitat launched for public use as Club Caribe, on the online service QuantumLink (later became AOL)
1988
LucasFilm licenses Habitat to Fujitsu for use in Japan
1990
- Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau communicate between two computers using the first web server.
- Fujitsu implements Fujitsu Habitat on its FM-Towns personal computer
1991
Tim Berners-Lee makes his web server available for download via telnet
1992
Mosaic, the first web browser in widespread use, is developed.
1992
- Ultima Underworld is the first 3D game. It was based on the Ultima RPG, that first appeared around 1980.
- Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash was published, creating a new vision of virtual worlds.
1993
- The Web goes public - Web technology and program code are placed in the public domain.
- Cybertown - first prototype
1994
Fujitsu licenses and modifies Habitat for distribution as WorldsAway. It later became Vzones's Dreamscape; the other two Vzones worlds are newHorizone and Second Kingdom.
1995
Cybertown launched
2002
The Sims Online launched
June 2003
Second Life launched
Oct 2003
There launched
2004
World of Warcraft launched
2007
Multiverse - Build your own virtual world!
The legal and/or ethical issues or pitfalls or problems, implications or results
There are many legal ethical issues, implications and results of playing a 3D online game. When the fun of playing turns to addiction and when money becomes a question, there are bound to be people resorting to unethical ways to get what they do not have.
The first ethical issue would be cheating in the game. There are two ways which you can cheat. That is either by human botting(spell correctly or not?) or downloading a system known as the “cheat engine” which modifies the game system to work in ways to your benefits, such as winning the game to level up fast and thus earning online tokens unethically to purchase online items. It is simple as you don’t have to put in any effort to win the game; the system does it all for you. However the implications would be such as the intention of playing the game will be defeated if everyone cheats. Online games are for people to have fun challenging each other in terms of their skills. Nobody likes to play with someone that cheats. If there are people who cheat, it disrupts the whole game. What’s more if someone files a complaint against the person who cheated to the general manager (GM) of the game, the “cheater’s” account will not only be banned, but his or her efforts in training the character of the game will go down the drain.
Second ethical issue faced will be the buying of virtual items using cold hard cash. As there isn’t a price tag to virtual items such as the cost of producing it etc, it is difficult to gauge the actual monetary value of virtual items. You might end up paying someone a $100 just to help you level up your character, or even using cash to purchase a virtual item worth 1million tokens in “virtual currency”. Worst still, when comes to online transactions between two players, there isn’t any contract signed. Hence when fraud cases occur such as the virtual item was not given to you after paying up; it is difficult to nail the guilty party.
Third ethical issue faced would be the use of profanitites in the game. As much as there isn't any law stating it is illegal to exchange vulgarities online, but it affects the quality of the game and mood of the player if such language was to be used. Which explains why nowadays games are installed with anti-profanity filter to prevent players from using vulgarities, else they get banned from playing.
This brings me to the fourth ethical issue of defamation online. Defamation is punishable by law, however there isn't much control over defaming someone in a game. After all conflicts happen between players. But the implications can be serious to the extent of affecting a player's emotions and self esteem in the real world. This does the player more harm than good to play that particular online game.
The last ethical issue would be hacking into another person’s account to gain their personal info for own use. Most players hack into other players’ accounts to steal their items or sabotage the characters to bring about the player’s downfall. The victim involved will definitely feel demoralized as he or she has to restart a new character all over again after all the effort that has been put in. Besides that, hacking is a crime. The person found hacking will face not only a fine, but a possible jail term too.
The first ethical issue would be cheating in the game. There are two ways which you can cheat. That is either by human botting(spell correctly or not?) or downloading a system known as the “cheat engine” which modifies the game system to work in ways to your benefits, such as winning the game to level up fast and thus earning online tokens unethically to purchase online items. It is simple as you don’t have to put in any effort to win the game; the system does it all for you. However the implications would be such as the intention of playing the game will be defeated if everyone cheats. Online games are for people to have fun challenging each other in terms of their skills. Nobody likes to play with someone that cheats. If there are people who cheat, it disrupts the whole game. What’s more if someone files a complaint against the person who cheated to the general manager (GM) of the game, the “cheater’s” account will not only be banned, but his or her efforts in training the character of the game will go down the drain.
Second ethical issue faced will be the buying of virtual items using cold hard cash. As there isn’t a price tag to virtual items such as the cost of producing it etc, it is difficult to gauge the actual monetary value of virtual items. You might end up paying someone a $100 just to help you level up your character, or even using cash to purchase a virtual item worth 1million tokens in “virtual currency”. Worst still, when comes to online transactions between two players, there isn’t any contract signed. Hence when fraud cases occur such as the virtual item was not given to you after paying up; it is difficult to nail the guilty party.
Third ethical issue faced would be the use of profanitites in the game. As much as there isn't any law stating it is illegal to exchange vulgarities online, but it affects the quality of the game and mood of the player if such language was to be used. Which explains why nowadays games are installed with anti-profanity filter to prevent players from using vulgarities, else they get banned from playing.
This brings me to the fourth ethical issue of defamation online. Defamation is punishable by law, however there isn't much control over defaming someone in a game. After all conflicts happen between players. But the implications can be serious to the extent of affecting a player's emotions and self esteem in the real world. This does the player more harm than good to play that particular online game.
The last ethical issue would be hacking into another person’s account to gain their personal info for own use. Most players hack into other players’ accounts to steal their items or sabotage the characters to bring about the player’s downfall. The victim involved will definitely feel demoralized as he or she has to restart a new character all over again after all the effort that has been put in. Besides that, hacking is a crime. The person found hacking will face not only a fine, but a possible jail term too.
Surveys
We have surveyed a group of 30 gamer ranging from 14 – 22 years old. A large percentage of the gamers think that online 3D world is fun. Even though they think that it is fun playing in the virtual world, 56.7% of them seen other gamers and some including themselves using underhand means to level which means no purpose in playing. 43.3% of them had been hacked and seen cases of people being hacked. This demonstrates the vulnerability of the game, where many gamers will lose confidence in the game and choose other games instead. 33.3% of them are cheated. The unethical gamers use certain technique to cheat money, either virtual money or real.
46.7% gamers had no reaction to the unethical act. 30%will take a screenshot or replay and report it to administrators. 10% feel disappointed and angry. 13.3% choose to quit. It is quite shocking to see the high percentage of gamers ignoring the unethical act bring carried out. They themselves are also gamers, this would seems too unfriendly and unlike the care and concern for the fellow gamers. This in other words means that, surveyed gamers do not really care if the online 3D world is corrupted or unfair. Not everyone playing ethically is important to them. It is they themselves who is important.
Suggestions given by the gamers:
- Do not play with people who cheat
- Just inform admin to banned the IP of gamer
- Update your security system regularly + ban hackers immediately
- Just track down
- Repair bugs
- Let gamers be a part of game producer
- Enhance the security
- Impose serious fines on those who commit the pitfalls
- FREEZE THE ACCOUNTS OF THE GUILTY ONES
- Game creator could perhaps have more games regulator to supervise and ensure that illegal acts are not being carried out
- Identify the loopholes which allows players to cheat
46.7% gamers had no reaction to the unethical act. 30%will take a screenshot or replay and report it to administrators. 10% feel disappointed and angry. 13.3% choose to quit. It is quite shocking to see the high percentage of gamers ignoring the unethical act bring carried out. They themselves are also gamers, this would seems too unfriendly and unlike the care and concern for the fellow gamers. This in other words means that, surveyed gamers do not really care if the online 3D world is corrupted or unfair. Not everyone playing ethically is important to them. It is they themselves who is important.
Suggestions given by the gamers:
- Do not play with people who cheat
- Just inform admin to banned the IP of gamer
- Update your security system regularly + ban hackers immediately
- Just track down
- Repair bugs
- Let gamers be a part of game producer
- Enhance the security
- Impose serious fines on those who commit the pitfalls
- FREEZE THE ACCOUNTS OF THE GUILTY ONES
- Game creator could perhaps have more games regulator to supervise and ensure that illegal acts are not being carried out
- Identify the loopholes which allows players to cheat
What Linh thinks
There are more and more people who join online 3D world these days. It's a virtual world but so many people once played the games will be addicted to it. I myself think these games can help us to release stress and we can make many new friends also. As it is 3D so the characters are so real and the virtual society is so much interesting to explore. But I think they should not spend so much time to play it until they get addicted and waste your time playing all the virtual games, forgetting about their real life. And when they are so into the 3D games, they will tend to cheat to level up and stand the 1st among their friends. However, luckily almost of them never got caught.
Don't ever make yourself addicted to a 3D virtual game.
Don't ever make yourself addicted to a 3D virtual game.
What Sylvia Thinks
Online 3D world is virtual yet realistic. I am not a gamer but when I saw my friends playing, I tried too. It is so fun and I feel as if I can communicate even better with my friends in the game itself. It is not just a game, what I feel is that it is a platform for people who do not know how to socialize, to communicate and interact with people. Though I am not an introvert, I too made friends in the game. We even met outside the game. Actually, some of my “game friends” do play unethically, including me. We used a program to help us level. Luckily, we are not caught. The problem we found out is that, WE DO NOT ENJOY THE FUN AS WE ARE IN THE GAME. I believe some gamer had this problem also.
Developing a game is not a 3-day thing. It involves many professionals and of course, us, users, players. Not to mention, the long process and the costs and technology needed is huge. Therefore, I think that we have to appreciate the game that we can get so conveniently. DO NOT cheat. DO NOT hack. This applies to both the players and game administrators.
Developing a game is not a 3-day thing. It involves many professionals and of course, us, users, players. Not to mention, the long process and the costs and technology needed is huge. Therefore, I think that we have to appreciate the game that we can get so conveniently. DO NOT cheat. DO NOT hack. This applies to both the players and game administrators.
What Jolene thinks
Personally I feel that one should not be addicted to 3D online games as it leads to many pitfalls once you’re hooked on it. There should be a limit on how much we can play these games.
Online 3D games help us to immerse ourselves into the virtual world to escape from the stress of our daily workload. Otherwise how do you explain the number of gamers all around the world? Friendships have been forged online and I dare say that I've made a few good buddies just through these online games!
I myself admit that I've hacked into people's accounts in the past when I was in secondary school (oops! =x) just for the fun of it or to bring the downfall of that particular player. But I've learned that it is a childish thing to do and have since stopped doing so. I think that we all should play fairly in order to enjoy the game to the fullest, else it defeats the purpose of playing.
Another point is that one should draw the limit on how much they should immerse themselves into the game. When you see signs that you’re becoming addicted to the game, stop yourself before you sink in any further.
No matter how much laws we set for 3D online games, there are bound to be people breaking the laws, so it all boils down to each individual to determine for themselves if what they are doing is actually morally right, or the mindset that “so long as I don’t break the law” is more than enough. Do we compromise on our moral values just because “the law did not say we cannot do this”? I believe moral values are worth more than that. Thus, I would like to conclude with this phrase; "PLAY FAIRLY PEOPLE!"
Online 3D games help us to immerse ourselves into the virtual world to escape from the stress of our daily workload. Otherwise how do you explain the number of gamers all around the world? Friendships have been forged online and I dare say that I've made a few good buddies just through these online games!
I myself admit that I've hacked into people's accounts in the past when I was in secondary school (oops! =x) just for the fun of it or to bring the downfall of that particular player. But I've learned that it is a childish thing to do and have since stopped doing so. I think that we all should play fairly in order to enjoy the game to the fullest, else it defeats the purpose of playing.
Another point is that one should draw the limit on how much they should immerse themselves into the game. When you see signs that you’re becoming addicted to the game, stop yourself before you sink in any further.
No matter how much laws we set for 3D online games, there are bound to be people breaking the laws, so it all boils down to each individual to determine for themselves if what they are doing is actually morally right, or the mindset that “so long as I don’t break the law” is more than enough. Do we compromise on our moral values just because “the law did not say we cannot do this”? I believe moral values are worth more than that. Thus, I would like to conclude with this phrase; "PLAY FAIRLY PEOPLE!"
What Dung Thinks
Online 3D world becomes more and more popular nowadays. In my opinion, virtual world is a good place for us to hide away when we feel tired with our busy life. It is such a good way to release stress. Moreover, an online world can help people to build social skills by making social connections with other players. A lot of real friendships have been developed. However, people, especially youngster may forget their real lives, real friends and stick with the virtual ones. Another problem is the unethical and illegal issues related to 3D online world keep increasing. The game administrator should establish some rules and give punishment to people who violate the rules to make it fair to everybody.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)