week 8 tute task

Activeworlds: It lets you create your own 3D world, and visit other people's created worlds. In these worlds, you become a character and so does everyone else, and it allows you to interact with each other in an imaginary world. You can talk to each other, and fly, swim and walk around, and see the other characters. When they speak, it comes up as a speech bubble in the created world, as well as in text-form in the conversation section underneath; that part is similar to the msn set up. The actual graphics of the created world are pretty cool too; there's little bunches of flowers growing, and lakes and grass and even brick walls. Those are all the qualitative differences between Activeworlds and msn, as msn doesn't have any of that except for basic chat. Msn allows you to chat to other people, but you have to already know them or at least already have their e-mail address. This is unlike Activeworld, where you meet people when you visit their worlds or have them visit yours. That's why the socialising is different; on msn you talk to your friends as yourself. On Activeworld you can create an environment, become a character and talk to others who have done the same. The fact that Activeworlds is 3D obviously makes a difference because it allows the creation of the worlds and everything that comes with it.

I've seen the ads for Habbo Hotel, and it looks to be similar-a place where you create a character and interact with other characters created by other people. The difference between it and Activeworld is that, from what I could gather off the ads, Habbo Hotel is more real-life situations, like the Sims, where you live in a house, maybe hotel from the name, and have parties, hang out with other people etc etc. Habbo Hotel is different from msn for the same reasons as Activeworld; characters fitting into a certain environment and interacting with others. Again, that is a big step-up from the basic qualities of msn. Habbo Hotel, like Activeworld, takes chatting and socialising to a new level by the creation of new worlds.