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Realistic Experience, Not Reality
Everyone [in Second Life] is a luxury consumer.Very few people go into a virtual world and decide they’re a hobo.
– Reuben Steiger, CEO of virtual world marketing consultant MillionsOfUs
As game engines evolve, they create increasingly more realistic environments, with both the landscape of the game and the characters. We, as gamers, relish these ever improving realistic worlds. We not only desire realistic looking games, but we desire a gaming experiences that feel real, not like we are just participants in a game. Many gamers, like myself, are looking for totally immersive gaming experiences.
I know that there are things in games, because it is a game, to satisfy the requirements of the game. Examples of these are: having the countryside littered with treasure chests or being able to enter anyone’s house and search through it, breaking items, without any complaints from the occupants. Although this is great for the gamer to be able to pick up items throughout the game, it takes us out of the virtual reality of the game and reminds us we are playing a game. Many developers of modern games are going away from this old gaming paradigm to create more realistic gaming experiences.
Bethesda is one such developer that has created a phenomenally realistic gaming experience with Skyrim, the latest installment of the highly popular series Elder Scrolls. The two examples, mentioned above, were addressed and incorporated into Skyrim in a more realistic fashion. Although there are a few, presumably forgotten, hidden chests to be found in out of the way places, the vast majority of the chests are in strongholds, outposts, bandit hideouts, etc. Doors in Skyrim are locked, as one would expect them to be. You have the option to pick the lock and enter at your own risk. If you are seen, a bounty can be placed on your capture, you may be thrown into prison or even attacked and killed.
Mad Scientist in Search of Spare Parts
Some gamers also seek a more realistic experience in general from the game. For example: in Skyrim, you can get married, buy and furnish a home and ride a horse through the countryside. If you read the Skyrim gaming boards, not everyone is thrilled with these real-world additions. Some get tired of their mate or their horse and they kill them off. So the question to be asked is: how real of an experience do gamers really want in their virtual experience?
Home is another virtual world. Obviously, what sets Home apart from games is that there are real people behind the avatars, but I think there are some of the same desires with Home to be a very realistic experience. Maybe, even more so in Home than in other games. Again, the same question can be asked of PS Home, how real of an experience does the Home user want? Or do Home users really even want a realistic experience at all?
In some ways, Home is similar to adventure games. You can be whoever you want and dress in a variety of imaginative ways. You can buy personal spaces and decorate them as you please. Some people want kitchen and bathroom fixtures to complete their realistic experience with their Home decorations.
I have friends who have desired to have me as part of their extended virtual family and call me brother. I know of women, who have Home children, who call them “Mom”. I have a friend who told me that she created her avatar to resemble her, as close as possible, because that was what she thought she was supposed to do. I know of both males and females that routinely are on Home with an avatar of the opposite gender. One can mold their avatar to appear anyway they want. In some ways, Home resembles a science fiction movie full default clones or genetically engineered perfect bodies. So, again, the question is asked, how real of an experience do we want in Home?
This question probably has as many different answers as there are users in Home. Virtual worlds are said to fulfill a desire to escape from one’s real world. I have spoken with so many people that were looking for in Home what they could not find in the real world.
We want our avatars to reflect the ideal person and not necessarily the real person.
I believe that what people are seeking is a realistic experience and not reality, per se. To a certain extent, we want a virtual world that is better than reality. This is why very few people create overweight avatars. We still want realism, but something better than reality. We want the ideal self reflected in our avatars and not necessarily reality. In Home, we are able to make things bigger and better than they are in real life. We buy apartments and furnishings that we probably would not be able to afford in real life. It reflects our tastes and what we like, but not necessarily the reality of our real life budgets. Home leans a lots on our imagination to create fantasy environments, “What if’s”. What if I was a millionaire, etc. What clothes would I wear, if I wasn’t limited by money?
I am an older gentleman and I would like my avatar to reflect that. With the tools provided, it is difficult to achieve a distinguished peppered gray look. I want my avatar to look distinguished and not have the straggly white and gray beard that I have in real life. In other words, an ideal view of reality. Enough reality to be like me and have my personality, but not too much like me to no longer be enjoyable. Some people may say that you should be proud of who you are and make your avatar to reflect that. I am proud of who I am in the real world, but to do that in a virtual world would defeat the purpose of having a virtual world, where you could be anything you want to be.
Some people are on Home to free themselves of the limitations of real life. An avatar may wear clothes that one would not dream of wearing in the real world; costumes or hair color that would seem strange in real life, clothes that are too revealing, etc. Virtual worlds are fantasy worlds, we want it to be better than real, but realistic. Would a disabled person want to be able to move around in a wheelchair in Home?
Maybe not, as in Home they would be able to do what they cannot do in the real world, walk around freely. It might be more desirable to have a wheelchair apartment item to acknowledge their reality, rather than having an actual usable wheelchair. We are not ashamed of who we are in the real world, but in a virtual world, we seek an ideal world, without the limitations of our real world lives.
Would you really want to travel between spaces?
Many Home users have wished for Home to better reflect the real world. Some of the things asked for might soon be tossed aside, as being impractical, once they begin to use them, on a regular basis. I have heard some Home users ask to have the ability to travel from one area to another via walking, car or some other mode of transportation, but in reality would the average PS Home user use this slower form of traveling beyond the first few times?
I don’t think they would, once the novelty of it wore off. When there is an alternate teleport option available in a game, how many gamers actually would choose to walk from one area to another? In Skyrim, the only time I travel on foot or horseback is when I have to, because I am carrying too much or I have not been there before, or the destination is unimportant and I want to explore the countryside. To make traveling from one area to another in Home viable, there must be something interesting in those in-between areas for the Home traveler. We see that perhaps the desire for realistic experiences must also be balanced with interesting experiences. The traveling must be an experience of its own or no one would ever use it.
As technology advances and realistic virtual environments are created, developers and users must ask themselves how real should they be and how should the realism be implemented.
December 14th, 2012 by Orion_NGC1976 | 2 comments
Father, husband, dolphy racer and sometimes Home world traveler.
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Interesting stuff. On the travel side ( particularly in Skyrim) I very rarely use fast travel, it just pulls you right out of its world and ruins the feel of the game.
“Ye traveled burdened soul! Go now! On the vast and grizzled journey to the very peek of the world! The journey there shall test your very mettle, if you can make it oh brave warrior!” -- Ohkay *ZIP* PING! Done.
Not exactly in keeping with the game is it. Besides, being somewhat of an alchemist ( and a cleptomaniac) I find walking not only brings goods and rare items and lore, but each encounter boosts your level and XP that little bit more. The bones squirreld in caves that tell stories, or the ravaged travelers carts and last remaining survivor, openings on the edge of a thick forest that reveals the majesty of the
world… No, I couldn’t miss all that for the sake of convenience!
Home is different in the way ( like you said) that pretty much everyone you see is a real person. Because of this the interaction is very different for obvious reasons, but how we choose to portray ourselves is the skeleton key that opens so many strange doors for us. I have a friend who’s lately taken to buying lots of sexy girly avatar clothes and wearing them. He’s not trying to be anything other than what he is, he simply wants nice curves to look at. But he’s not old enough to have the temperament or patience that goes with being a male in that form within Home. And quite often he ends up in arguments with other disgruntled teenage males thinking they were in for a shot with him. Heh, it is all rather amusing, but my point is: taking liberties with reality for the virtual is fine, but transforming yourself completely requires a more serious and committed attitude and shouldn’t be taken as a whimsical decision.
I enjoy dressing as a hobo at times or at least unkempt. It would be nice were there a video game of a hobo, male or female, who hops a freight train, freight train going so fast, with his clothes in a suitcase or bag and his guitar (her).
Something he discovers makes him realize he has the way to save the world but from what? But (s)he tries.
I read an article recently about a couple who have lived in a sewer for 20 years and while this doesn’t appeal to me, they’re apparently happy being where they are and I think dressed unkempt. How’s that for a virtual world? Good grief! It happens in real life so why not in a game.
Bob Dylan and Tom Petty look like hobos sometimes but they’re not because they have money and fine houses. But I betcha by golly that in their heart they are sometimes hobos at least in their minds.
Well, enough of this. I didn’t know I was going here. I make believe on Home just as I sometimes have done in real life mostly as a child.
Just be yourself. However… right now, I have a freight train, freight going so fast to catch. See ya down the line.