• Avatar body language

    Hours Categories Game talk
    Comments 15 Comments

    Regular blog reader mrseb has a blog post up on emotional avatars in virtual worlds inspired by this NYTimes.com article (it’s behind a reg wall).

    In short, the research is about how important blushing is as a social lubricant, as evincing embarrassment or shame serves to reinforce the social rules held in common by groups of people. It’s a sign that the person knows they are transgressing to some degree and is sorry for it, and people judging them tend to treat them less harshly.

    Which leads Sebastian to ask (emphasis mine!),

    Why are we still running around in virtual worlds with emotionless, gormless avatars?

    It’s not that the question hasn’t been asked before. For example, back in 2005 Bob Moore, Nic Ducheneaut, and Eric Nickell of PARC gave a talk at what was then AGC (you can grab the PDF here)., which I summarized here with

    The presentation by the guys from PARC on key things that would improve social contact in MMOs was very useful and interesting. Eye contact, torso torque, looking where people are pointing, not staring, anims for interface actions so you can tell when someone is checking inventory, display of typed characters in real-time rather than when ENTER is hit, emphatic gestures automatically, pointing gestures and other emotes that you can hold, exaggerated faces anime super-deformed style or zoomed in inset displays of faces, so that the facial anims can be seen at a distance… the list was long, and all of it would make the worlds seem more real.

    I was at that talk, and in the Q&A section, which was really more of a roundtable discussion, the key thing that came up was cost.

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  • The Sunday Poem: After Serious Sunburn

    Hours Categories The Sunday Poem
    Comments 3 Comments

    Stippled red striated speckles buttered deep
    In cocoa, aloe; the slide of cloth on skin
    Searing scars of sun and sand.

    Skin in sheets, shed sly like sidewinds
    Scrubbing rocks, sloughing like cicadas,
    Scattered food for mites.

    So starts the metamorphose, stretching
    To a higher self, a sentience sophisticated
    Now for SPFs of sixty-plus.

  • One is a Wise Crowd

    Hours Categories Misc, Reading
    Comments 28 Comments

    I have written about The Wisdom of Crowds before many times (see here, and here, and here…). In short, given a problem with a fully objective, quantifiable answer, taking the average of many, diverse people’s estimates will give a more accurate answer than the estimate of an expert.

    Now there’s a new study that shows that you can provide multiple estimates yourself, by putting yourself in a different frame of mind — then average them. And that average is likely to be more accurate than either of your two guesses, though not as accurate as involving another person. Neat mind hack!

    …participants were given detailed directions for making their follow-up guess: “First, assume that your first estimate is off the mark. Second, think about a few reasons why that could be. Which assumptions and considerations could have been wrong? Third, what do these new considerations imply?… Fourth, based on this new perspective, make a second, alternative estimate.” When the participants used the more involved method, the average was significantly more accurate than the first estimate. The “crowd within” achieved about half the accuracy gains that would have been achieved by averaging with a second person.

  • Metaplace event: poetry/writing open mic

    Hours Categories Game talk, Reading, Writing
    Comments 1 Comment

    Lots of events have been happening in Metaplace lately, but this one, you might guess, is near and dear to my heart: a poetry open mic. 🙂 It is happening in WritersForumWorld in about half an hour (1pm Pacific time).

    The WritersForum guys have been working to try to get a virtual workshop going as well.

    We’re gearing up soon for even more events, so it’s worth following along with the events calendar. In the meantime, stop by for this one!

  • State of Play VI

    Hours Categories Game talk
    Comments 2 Comments

    State of Play VI is coming up June 19th and 20th, and I will be keynoting there and doing lots of Metaplace demoing.

    I’m looking forward to this one — I haven’t made it to a State of Play conference since the first one, and it was incredibly stimulating. A great group of folks is gathering there this year, and the topics are nice and meaty: kids’ worlds, whether virtual worlds have reached a plateau, recent policy developments, and even government worries about terrorism. There’s also a Graduate Student Symposium where students will present their research.

    Here’s the press release:

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