CVE, MUVE, MMOE, MMORPG…What’s the difference?
I’m working on a book chapter entitled “’CVE, MUVE, MMOE, MMORPG…What’s the difference?’: Virtual Environments as Compositional Models.” In the chapter I attempt to delineate between different types of digital environments in which communication/composition can happen. In effect, what I’m doing is laying out the qualities that an instructor may be looking for in an online environment for a specific educational goal. Because the audience is largely readers who have never explored such environments, I’m hoping to lay out the most important differences to help light the way to informed pedagogical decisions.
So, of course, the first major task is to define what the differences really are…the differences that will matter to instructors choosing an environment to use for composition instruction, anyway. I’ve wrestled with the list for several weeks now and I’ve narrowed it down to nine important elements.
I. Number of Users:
a. Multiplayer: this may consist of a few users logged into a local environment or it could be multiplayer on a massive scale with millions of users. (World of Warcraft, wiki)
b. Single: only one user can access the environment at a time or in one iteration of the environment (single-user blog)
II. Dominant Content Form:
a. Text: the environment is built from text and not images. (blog, MOO)
b. Image: graphic environments where image is the dominant form of content (any game other than MOO or MUDs, Second Life)
III. Network:
a. LAN: environment is locally hosted on an internal network (local Halo game, corporate internal blog)
b. WAN: environment is hosted at a distant location and allows users to log into it (Wikipedia, any MMORPG)
IV. Persistence:
a. Persistent: the environment exists when users aren’t logged in. changes in the environment remain from one use to the next (wiki, Second Life, WoW)
b. Non-persistent: environment is instance-based. Only exists when called upon by the user (Halo, word processing program)
V. Stigmergic:
a. Stigmergic: users can make changes to the environment that will remain (wiki, blogs, second life)
b. Non-stigmergic: users are unable to make changes to the environment or the changes made are reverted by the environment (Mario Bros, Halo)
VI. Object Ownership
a. Private ownership: users can “own” objects and limit others’ access to these objects (Second Life, WoW, Blackboard)
b. Public ownership: users cannot “own” objects; everything is shared (Wikipedia)
VII. Public access
a. Public: environment is open access to anyone wishing to enter (Wow, Wikipedia)
b. Limited: environment is limited to only those granted access through a special procedure (Blackboard)
VIII. User’s relationship with other users:
a. Collaborative: users collaborate with each other in a non-antagonistic manner (Second Life, Wikipedia)
b. Antagonistic: users compete against one another (Halo)
c. Conditional: users are collaborative or antagonistic depending on the situation (multi-player games with team option)
IX. User’s relationship with the environment:
a. Collaborative: users collaborate with the environment (Second Life)
b. Antagonistic: users compete against the environment (Mario Bros. )
c. Conditional: users are collaborative or antagonistic with the environment depending on the situation Dominant forms (games in which NPCs can assist)
Refining the important elements in environments down to only these characteristics makes for some interesting contrasts and comparisons. For example, we find that the only real differences between Wikipedia and Second Life are object ownership and dominant content form (Wikipedia is text based and Second Life is image based). Below is a chart with a few examples.
I welcome any and all feedback on these categories.
December 26th, 2006 at 9:27 pm
Hi Intellagirl.
An important distinction you haven’t included that I would encourage teachers to consider when choosing tools would be synchronous/asynchronous.
And a minor language suggestion - you might like to use “Asset Ownership” or “Data Ownership” rather than “Object Ownership” (I wouldn’t call Wikipedia entries “Objects”).
Other than that it’s shaping up to be a good list.
Merry Christmas!
December 26th, 2006 at 10:07 pm
Hey Intellagirl:
This looks great! I, too, suggest adding a heading on synchronous/asynchronous. Perhaps, too, you might want to add a section on weapons/non-weapons. EduFrag is an example (orgo chem and English games can be played in either format).
December 26th, 2006 at 10:15 pm
I think this is a solid starting list. Off the top of my head, I have nothing of substance to add - the basic shape seems right, so I’ll just toss in my perspectives on top of your solid base.
Some of these may seem pretty small. No worries, just collaborating.
In a way, I agree with Sean (above), but I would call it ‘Artifact ownership’.
Point (1) should be consistent - multiuser instead of multiplayer fits better, I think.
Point (2) Text , visual, audiovisual and audio… I say these because of many things, but mainly because of equal access for those with better ears than eyes, etc.
Everything else looks solid to me. I’ll think about it some more tonight, add anything else in the morning.
December 27th, 2006 at 5:09 am
I believe that #8 and #9 for Second Life should be changed from collaborative to conditional.
December 27th, 2006 at 5:57 am
Wow! What awesome feedback! I’ll change all “player” references to “user.” And “data” may be better than “object.” I think I was thinking about object-oriented programming when I used “object.” “Data” would be more widely applicable, though.
Oxyryxo: I think I used “collaborative” to describe SL for 8 and 9 because even in the PvP areas of SL you have to agree to be involved. Would you agree that about 90%+ of SL is collaborative rather than antagonistic?
Thanks to all of you!
Intellagirl
December 27th, 2006 at 8:05 am
A next challenge will be translating the terminology to something more layperson approachable (I had to look up “stigmergic”).
Other possible category areas:
* Communication modes (may only apply to multi-user, but is inter-user communication chat, IM, voice, etc?)
* Mentions dominant content form (tex/image), but including others available may be important to teachers (e.g. audio, video, etc).
* Technology type- proprietary vs open-standards, may not mean much to newbies tho
* Degree of environment extensibility (ability for it to use plugins to extend functionality)
* Creation - persistence and stigmergic refer to making changes to environment, but perhaps something that touches on degree to which users can create content within the ____
Interesting discussion!
December 27th, 2006 at 9:03 am
Sarah,
I think two of Janet Murray’s broader ideas here apply as well–she says that digital environments are both immersive and participatory. I think these are useful–if broader–ways of thinking about digital spaces, partiucularly from a literary point of view. Could your categories point to some broader descriptors like Murray’s?
RR
December 27th, 2006 at 9:41 am
What a superb approach! I’m really hoping to use this in some January workshops; would you mind?
I agree with Sean’s comment, and would suggest “document/object ownership” as yet another alternative.
Dominant Content Form: have you considered podcasting? In that case sound becomes the dominent form.
(I wonder if you want to consider sound as part of some games and SL)
Speaking of content, what about photo sharing? Flickr is a lot like blogging in this scheme, so maybe you could subsume it under that header.
I’m not sure one can call Blackboard users’ environmental experience collaborative. Most of that environment is beyond student control (design, structure, readings, etc), and students are the typical user.
Somewhere betweeb VII and VIII (User’s relationship with other users) is the question of distributed conversations. These are impossible in closed silo environments (Blackboard), essential to open access blogging, segmented in other blog setups (private/public levels in Livejournal, Flickr.), segmented in SL (in-person chat versus IM across locations).
Is VII, Public access where export comes in? Again, I’m thinking of different levels. Blog/wiki is relatively easy. Sl export is very limited. Blackboard export is awkward and sometimes broken. Etc.
Again, thanks for this! Just blogged at Infocult.
December 27th, 2006 at 10:48 am
RR’s comment has got me thinking about the whole immersive/augmentative debate, and the magic circle - you know, the extent to which people engage in total fantasy and anonymity vs. the extent they are willing to reveal aspects of their ‘real’ selves and see what they do in VE’s as an extension of, and integrated with, their ‘real’ lives. Another distinction to add, perhaps?
December 27th, 2006 at 11:11 am
And so the grid grows! and grows!
You guys are awesome!
S/I
December 28th, 2006 at 10:23 am
Thanks for this very useful taxonomy. I’m wondering if it would be useful to include some reference to the way sound functions in these environments, which is a potentially important feature for educational applications — for example, the voice-enabled environment of Halo is very different from the text-based interactions of SL.
December 29th, 2006 at 11:54 pm
I would suggest adding “Limited”,”Local”, or something else to distinguish itself from LAN and WAN, to the networking section.
I say this because the Mario Bro’s entry doesn’t really fit into LAN as it cant be played on any sort of network as we know it.
Also, unlike the rest of the games it is the only one that doesnt have a multiuser network experience. You can, however, play multiplayer on a Local system with some Mario games, just not anything over a network.
January 5th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
[…] What these people (an interactive media strategy as a body of knowledge) need is a new media decision framework which could be used both when choosing the most appropriate interactive tool as well developing new tools. Intellagirl over at “The Second Life Education Research” may be laying the foundation for such a framework unintentionally with her research in the categorization of online environments. Although not specifically written from the business strategy perspective, her attempt at breaking down interactive environments into basic building blocks may be an appropriate method of developing a new media development framework as well. […]
January 12th, 2007 at 5:47 am
Very interesting article and a super interesting discussion.
Thanks and cheers to you all!
-Balaji S.
January 13th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
[…] As I began here in a previous post I’m working on a taxonomy of virtual environments. By describing the ten most important defining characteristics of virtual environments I hope to help educators (and others) learn to define environments, choose the space best suited for their own use, and begin to create a matrix that will pave the way for the development of new environments that will fill the gaps between what is now available. […]
January 25th, 2007 at 11:25 am
Fascinating taxonomy. I’m interested in the ‘informal’ aspect of learning and this is a very useful starter for thinking about the many online possibilities
April 5th, 2007 at 6:19 am
The site looks great ! Thanks for all your help ( past, present and future !)