From: cph@dmu.ac.uk (Chris Hand) Subject: Re: DESIGN: Is there really such a thing as text-based VR? Date: 24 Feb 1996 19:02:58 GMT Message-ID: <4gnnd2$abl@macondo.dmu.ac.uk> Organization: De Montfort University, Leicester From: cph@dmu.ac.uk (Chris Hand) Robin Hollands (R.Hollands@sheffield.ac.uk) wrote: : I'd like to hear people's views on text-based VR. OK, I'll bite. :) : I've used three very general criteria for defining : VR in the past. That is, for an application to be VR it must be: : 1) Representing a 3-dimensional environment Why 3D? When you say "representing" a 3-D environment, presumably you insist that it's being represented *as* a 3-D environment? Does that make stereoscopy a requirement? What about 4-D worlds? 2.5D? : 2) Must be updated in real-time : 3) Must be interactive (even if the interaction is limited to purely : moving and looking around) I agree with 2 and 3. Personally I think it's possible to represent a synthetic environment, with which one may interact as though it's a "real" environment, using any interface technology you like. 3-D graphics, 2-D graphics, sound only, text-only, whatever. Some modalities will be tricky since the interface technology is much less mature (eg. tactile displays), but it's feasible. : The user's experience of a MUD environment is purely : through the medium of the MUD creator. Nope. I think what you're saying here is "if the person who wrote the descriptions didn't describe it, you can't experience it". You could just as easily say EXACTLY the same thing about the fanciest, zillions-of- polygons-per-second, texture-map-o-rama VR system you like. If the person designing the world didn't put it in there, then it's not represented in the interface. So what? When we interact with a world (real or virtual), the mental models we create aren't just based on what we perceive, they're also based on our experiences, memories and expectations. The world designer has very little control over these, if any. : In a real VR environment, the best : facsimile of the environment possible is created, and interpretation : is left up to the participant, but in 'text-based VR' its not. That's totally unfair... the "best facsimile possible" using a 3-D graphics interface is DIFFERENT from the best facsimile possible using a text-based interface. You're comparing apples and oranges. : Looking at comparisons with real reality, a graphical/audio VR system : will provide you with a cartoon like representation of an environment : where at best you have a ghost-like presence. In a MUD, its a bit like : perceiving the world by steering a third party around with a radio, : and in many cases a pretty uncooperative third party at that! The comparison with radio and TV is a fair one. I doubt that anyone would denigrate radio-based plays in a similar way, complaining that they're not in colour or cinemascope! A friend of mine loves to relate one the of the advantages of MUDs thus: When Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy first appeared on the radio, it was a throw-away line to say that Zaphod Beeblebrox had 2 heads and 3 arms. When they came to make the TV series, they had to go to all the trouble and expense of building a radio-controlled head and arm for the actor to wear, and it didn't look at all convincing. The moral of the story is that some representations/interface paradigms are better suited to certain tasks than others. : Call it cyberspace if you want - but it's not VR. Let's hear your : views on sci-vw. I say that it's possible to create am interactive, synthetic virtual environment using any modality you like. Whether or not we choose to call it "VR" or not is less important than making sure we don't completely ignore whole avenues of investigation through sheer snobbery. For example, if researchers find that users of MUDs experience a feeling of "presence" when using the text-based interface, surely there's NO WAY that can be ignored by other people working on the concept of presence. Unfortunately I don't think this is the case, which means that valid areas of work are being left untouched. Chris -- Chris Hand, Senior Lecturer | Dept of Computer Science, e-mail: cph@dmu.ac.uk | De Montfort University, The Gateway WWW: http://www.cms.dmu.ac.uk/~cph/ | LEICESTER, UK LE1 9BH talk: cph@helios.dmu.ac.uk "In Cyberspace nobody knows you're bald"