It would probably make sense for us to start a post every August for the academic job openings that virtual world specialists might be interested in. To keep it simple, let's only have positions open to people with the standard university-level terminal degrees - PhD, JD, MFA. After our "high energy" presentation, the questions were even stranger. Someone asked why humanities research got left out, and we had to say that we couldn't find it to be directly relevant on our top 10 list of bulleted points. Ian made the point, and I agreed, that doing the research for this panel made us think differently about academic research. While I'm not going to say that what we've done personally has no value, it was a definite challenge to try and make it *directly relevant* in a BULLETED POINT for developers. And there are huge gaps in what we don't know.

Richard Bartle: we'll see some creativity in WORLD creation, not in object creation Mechanique Thirty: We're moving from simple VRs made out of love, to bigger and bigger ones made for commerce... After our "high energy" presentation, the questions were even stranger. Someone asked why humanities research got left out, and we had to say that we couldn't find it to be directly relevant on our top 10 list of bulleted points. Ian made the point, and I agreed, that doing the research for this panel made us think differently about academic research. While I'm not going to say that what we've done personally has no value, it was a definite challenge to try and make it *directly relevant* in a BULLETED POINT for developers. And there are huge gaps in what we don't know.

Richard Bartle: Qwyneth L. some people express themselves better in text than in graphics others don't it depends on many factors, for example the fact you can backspace before you act in a stupid way is quite sueful in text whereas in graphics, everyone knows you're a pillock the moment you hit the keys on the otherhand, it's quicker to hit a single key, so the responses are more instant. So that can be useful for some people, especially if they're shy so if you're an extrovert, you may prefer the graphics or a text macro...

Valadeza Anubis: question that keeps driving me insane is ...how that might apply to "why do people in VWs engage in so much repetitive and sometimes pointless tasks in them?" (i.e. level grinding in MUDs and MMORPGs, club dancing in SL...) SNOOPYbrown Zamboni: Didn't mean anything like that... After our "high energy" presentation, the questions were even stranger. Someone asked why humanities research got left out, and we had to say that we couldn't find it to be directly relevant on our top 10 list of bulleted points. Ian made the point, and I agreed, that doing the research for this panel made us think differently about academic research. While I'm not going to say that what we've done personally has no value, it was a definite challenge to try and make it *directly relevant* in a BULLETED POINT for developers. And there are huge gaps in what we don't know. Where is the research about sports games, to take just one example?

Richard Bartle: Look, graphics are newbie-friendly. if you want newbies, you gotta have graphics[,,,] Graphics are easy to assess quickly, but more superficial. Text is harder to get into but can give greater immersion Some people prefer one, some people prefer the other [,,,] So: newbies prefer graphics to text. graphical worlds will always have more players than textual ones however, for some people, the ability to use their imaginations more in text means more for them. now you have a trade-off: do you play with other people in large numbers or do you play in a textual world with fewer players but more immersion?

Richard Bartle: of course there are. if you're blind, you can't see a visual emote it's just an interface issue though I suspect that the difference here comes down to one's view of embodiment, the avatar-as-self, and the distinction between game worlds and social worlds. They looked friendly enough--at least, no one had fruit ready to throw at us. It was simply kind of surreal, after reading the comments on TN this past week and hearing other things at the conference about the problems with game studies and developer/academic relations.

The public policy agenda seems to be to conflate certain groups of people who self identify as a community with virtue in order to resist the demonisation of these groups – which is all well and good. I suspect that the difference here comes down to one's view of embodiment, the avatar-as-self, and the distinction between game worlds and social worlds. They looked friendly enough--at least, no one had fruit ready to throw at us. It was simply kind of surreal, after reading the comments on TN this past week and hearing other things at the conference about the problems with game studies and developer/academic relations.

What struck me immediately about this were the implicitly normative assumptions suddenly being loaded into the idea of Community. In the interests of full and partial disclosure, readers should note that this is a heavily edited version of the transcript. I’ve gotten it down from 53 pages to 12. Because of the massive amount of cross threading I’ve ended up stitching some of the dialog together, I have also added section themes as a very rough guide to what was being discussed. In places where I know I’ve lifted a question from somewhere and put it next to the answer I’ve put the question in these ‘[]’. I have left all names as SL names (Richards SL name was Richard Bartle), if people want to out themselves, feel free. I suspect that the difference here comes down to one's view of embodiment, the avatar-as-self, and the distinction between game worlds and social worlds.

“The recent terrorist events were not committed by any community” Yes, it may be that an Asian internet cafe culture presents a particularly volatile mixture. Perhaps that is less relevant. In the end however we're still talking degrees of separation. The question is how to insert the spacings and how to lubricate the points of friction that fiction alone can't address: "dude, don't take it personally." What might be some of the rules, the devices to deflect these passions? I suspect that the difference here comes down to one's view of embodiment, the avatar-as-self, and the distinction between game worlds and social worlds.

Quite simply - players will be who they are in real life. You can pretend to be somebody that you're not for a while, maybe a few hours, maybe even a few days, but eventually your true personality will shine through... I suspect that the difference here comes down to one's view of embodiment, the avatar-as-self, and the distinction between game worlds and social worlds. They looked friendly enough--at least, no one had fruit ready to throw at us.