002: Week 10 Exercise - Active Research Assignment: Virtual Worlds

Virtual World: Yoville

Name of avatar: Luffyko

Who she is: Luffyko was inspired from a ‘what if’ design drawn by Oda Eiichiro, the author of the manga series “One Piece” where he draws the main protagonists as the opposite sex. Modeled after this character, my avatar is easily amused, amazed, and is constantly hungry for salads. It would be almost impossible to see her say anything without the use of 3 or more exclamation marks or in all caps. She lacks a lot of common sense and is striving to be the king of the pirates. She excels in fighting (will constantly challenge you or accept any challenges to a hardcore game of tic tac toe) but is unable to swim so she strays far from the beach as possible.

When socializing with others, or to be more precise, when she’s around any number of people in the public, she will announce she will be king of the pirates and demand to know where the salads are. If someone looks promising or strange enough, she will ask them to join her pirate crew. In fact, she’s thinks you qualify, would you like to join the Luffyko Pirate Crew?

Social Events

The social event that sounded fun was entitled "my party come come!!!!" After all, why would Luffyko turn down such a welcoming statement like that complete with four exclamation marks! Along with her comrades, Usoppko and Hanmock (friends I made join the game with me) they headed off towards this exciting party.

Upon entering, Luffyko asked about salad and announce her life goal of becoming the pirate king. Unfortunately, no one paid her any mind except for one "Hanmock" (who within the "One Piece" universe is someone romantically interested in Luffyko) lets it be known that Luffyko will like you if you make her a salad!

After three or four inquires for for salad, Luffyko was kicked out. However it looked like Usoppko was also kicked out. One "lil lala white" notes that she thinks the owner of "my party come come!!!!" was kicking out the girls in particular. This was largely supported by the fact that Hanmock, a male was not not kicked who was just as talkative as his two friends. Luffyko is not so easily discouraged and carries on with her life, power jumping her way.

Design

Three ways to get TEXT-based information:

1. Yoville has a "Help" section that comprises of separate links to a F.A.Q (a site comprised of Frequently Asked Questions), a forum where anyone who signs up can actively post each other questions, invites or any other form of discussion, and support, where you can post a question that will go directly to an employer.

2. Pop-ups like this appear if you try to enter an area that is restricted and can only be entered upon reaching a certain "level" in the game from being active or as the pop-up suggests, inviting more neighbors, facebook friends of yours that aren't Yoville players.

3. NPCs. Blurbs of text will hover over them, telling you what purpose the area you're in serves be it at "work" or at the "store". In this case, you're at the factory and every 5 hours or so you can click you yellow helmet donning employer for money instantly.

Three ways to get NON-TEXT-based information:

1. Hovering the mouse over non-animated objects will "glow" and emit bright colors, opting you to click them and depending on the object, your avatar will perform a specific action. Such as shown here, this couch will have Luffyko sit down.

2. Arrows. In every area, there will be arrows indicating how to go from one area to the next. This arrow here is telling me how I can enter "Vinny's Diner". If I click on the arrow itself or beyond it, I will go to the indicated designation.

3. Icons. On the bottom left of the main frame of the game are little pictures that quick shortcuts that indicate (from left to right): go home, explore, attend an event, decorate your home, or change your look. You can access each one by simply clicking them.

How the world functions through sight and sound:

1. Music. Certain music plays in specific areas such as a playful, upbeat melody when exploring outside your home, giving the feeling that there is peace in the air.

2. Color. The world of Yoville comprises mostly of bright colors that give it a much more positive ambiance. The town map is dominated by green, sending off the feeling of being close to nature and peace.

3. Shape. The avatar and ways to personalize it are very simplistic and cartoon-like, with the oversized head complete with big eyes and simple outfits such as the "50s" style shown here with cel-shading. The options are seemingly limitless so you can always layer some of these on top of each other if you wish or add as much as you can such as having your avatar wear every accessory possible, even fairy wings.

Tasks and goals:

At the start of the game, you first establish your avatar's gender and proceed to customize his/her look, warming you up to the idea of customization and then start you at "work", letting you know that this is one way to make a living in the game and earn "Yopoints", almost any sort of action that will increase your Yoville experience and "level up" once you accrue a certain number.

You are encouraged through the promise of unlocking certain actions, such as dancing and poses. As shown above, the 'I'm hot' pose here gained at level 12. More actions give you a better range to express yourself to other players to enhance your social life within the game.

Feeling immersed (or not):

One of the features that really makes me feel as if I'm "there" are naturally the customization and chat features. To get so much control over a comfort zone, such as decorating your "home" and getting to socialize with others in a similar way you would in real life by sitting down on a table in the diner or coffee shop. You can especially gauge a feeling of mutually having a good time when you're saying all kinds of crazy stuff (especially when attempting to stay in "virtual identity" character) and making your avatar act in certain ways or with exaggerated emoticons.

What breaks the

immersive

feeling are the loading times. Even two whole seconds is enough to remind you you're playing a computer game and especially this case, an application of a social network site. Another way the illusion is broken is if you're online the chat feature of facebook, a friend may suddenly IM you while you're browsing through the latest hairstyles and then you have to "leave" the world to talk about what you did at school or work today.

Socializing:

The avatars I conversed the most with (that were willing) were my friends who I also made recently join the game with me. Since I was going with a "One Piece" character, they joined me with other characters of the same series. One of them being Luffyko's comrade, Usoppko and the other an ally, Hancock (Hanmock here as "Hancock" was originally censored by the game to "Hanyada").

Staying in character, Luffyko is one easily surprised and her friend, Usoppko is a compulsive liar. Here, Luffyko witnessed Usoppko flying and had to ask out of excitement And apparently, Usoppko has mastered the art of flying at a young age! Impressive! We continued that night with more excitable shenanigans involving wild stories of flying and defeating warriors and throwing snowballs at each other.

I tried socializing with strangers outside my home which is where people tend to gather the most outside an event and sometimes I would be able to strike up small talk or straight up demand them to join my crew but the limitations I faced were how willing the other party was to talk and how much they would talk about. Sometimes you would come across rather...lonely people asking you to PM your age and if you would like to see their private parts. Rather unsettling given the endearing charm of the game itself.

Economy:

The basic economy of this particular world are "coins". Coins are earned through "work", which is clicking your employer every 5 hours in real world time, through taking snapshots during a "friend mission" (you would get a pop-up every now and then opting you to visit a friend's home to fight/dance/cheer up/etc), and through games like "Tic Tac Toe", "Rock, Paper Scissors", and "Racing".

People can also buy 'YoCash,' which help you buy more things (or certain items only attainable with Yocash), with a credit card or paypal, but it can cost anywhere from $5 to $100.

My favorite activity:

Tic tac toe. It is simple and an easy, quick five coins unless I somehow lose. Strangely enough its not very easy to find a stranger to be as willing to participate as much as yourself. Makes me wonder if people have no troubles earning money in this game at all or already have an array of limitless friends to play tic tac toe with...

In-world objects:

As mentioned earlier, in-world objects operate by hovering the mouse over them and the object would then "glow" with a bright, yellow outline around it. As shown here, hovering the mouse over the "chair" and then clicking would have my avatar sit and if I wanted her to get off, I would hover over the chair again that would this time, also have Luffyko "glow" to indicate I can have her get off the chair.

Yoville and HOH:

One aspect of Yoville that relates directly to a HOH-Agency Chapter would be Transformation through customization of appearance. In this world, I was able to completely set up myself to act and appear (to an extent) just like a female version of Luffy. I would act completely oblivious to disturbing offers and questions and only trace it back to asking about food (and you guessed it, salads). I would only go around asking people to join my pirate crew (only to get constant "lol no"s) and say things in a clear cut and straightforward manner that no one should do in the real world if you wanted to make friends. Such as straight up asking "Are you an idiot?"

At one point, a friend of mine changed herself from Usoppko to Sanjiko, another crewmember of the Luffko Pirate Crew that is a cook and boy crazy. She persistently chased after Hanmock (much to his chagrin) while Luffyko pestered Sanjiko for salads and laughed at their game of "tag". The ability to change our appearances on the spot within minutes to represent a different personality goes hand in hand with Murray's mention of the Kushtov effect to create juxtapositions. We already have "morphed the story environment" by having Sanjiko/Usoppko meet Hanmock, who within the canon of the actual story hasn't yet. Not to mention, we're all the opposite sex of the canon counterparts. And just as Murray mentioned, there is refused closure. The "world" we engage in can end and last for as long as two people want with no dramatic end and roll credits.