Critique of OZ Virtual

Team: Marisa Ramirez, Catherine Meiners, Mark Freeman, Megan Mccasky, Fred Yoo

Edited by: Fred Yoo

	Throughout this semester, we have had the chance to inhabit and participate as visiting community members in different virtual worlds. These virtual worlds have ranged from verbal, online communication to text based communication, while utilizing synchronous communication. The world which we have expereinced this past assignment is OZ Virtual. This virtual world is a 3-D based world utilizing the latest in VRML technology. We had all expected such a world of magnificient detail and utter ease of use, but this was not the case. Far from our hopes of encountering a revolutionary design in 3-D space design, much of our experience was with unstable and often confusing aspects of the world and its design.

	In understanding the history of the design of OZ, can be the beginning of why the world is designed the way it is. The designers of OZ were envisiong a place where people could actually go ‘dance’ and chat with others. This space could then be used as a chatting area where they could both enjoy themselves by watching others or by participating in routine chitchat. The design of the rooms were very techno in appearance, taking a very similar style to Chicago's large clubs in huge industrial buildings, complete with its hip and dance-savvy crowds. The rooms would then incorporate music based upon one’s spatial position within the room. This allowed for multiple audible experiences of different beats of music and also allowed the user to go to the areas of the room that were acceptable to them.

 Our group was unable to truly enjoy the feature rich aspects of OZ for a variety of reasons, but two reasons stand out amongst the rest. The number one reason for our lack of enthusiasm for this world is the fact that the intuitive design of the browser for this world, was really not the least bit intuitive. Ranging from intermediate to advanced levels of computer users, even our group had a difficult time just utilizing the chat window, one of the core elements of this world. The lack of helpful direction from the help files only increased our wariness in journeying ever further into the realms of this world. The designers in spending so much attention on the avatars failed to recognize the clunkiness of their chat window. There is no two ways about it, the chat window is far from being intuitive and easy to use. The second most important reason, an unplanned feature of this world, was the instability of both the browser and the server. The browser itself was the cause of great many crashes during average use. As opposed to a soft crash, the inevitable ‘blue screen of death’ on the Pentium II’s caused much alarm amongst the group. Even the servers lag time was no benfeit in trying to hold decent conversations. The use of chat and motions seemed to greatly increase the uselessness of this world, in terms of any amount of community building of any kind, with its unstable foundation both on the client and server sides.

	The greatest achievement that we did concede to was the virtual bliss of movement that the avatars had. The use of body motion captures and the innovative use of VRML code stirred the imagination of our entire group. The avatar being able to do the Macarena, or even a curtsy with ease is something to be highly comendable. The avatars in OZ world are by far the most intuitive and cleverly designed avatars that we have come across, hands down. Even the Avatar Editor window allowed customization of the handful of avatars, that there hypothetically could never be two of the same avatar in OZ world. With the ability to alter body parts and change colors to almost any aspect of the avatar helps to increase the sense of individuality within the user. This single, great achievement on the part of the designers was also their greatest error.

	The designers for OZ world made improvements to a virtual world by leaps and bounds with its awesome avatars, but in the process lost the sociological and interactive aspects of what makes a virtual world turn into a virtual community. Amongst our group, the verdict for this world is a resounding thumbs down. The avatars, though innovative and spectacular in many ways, could not do too much to save the crashing client side browser, or the lag in the server. Even over an ethernet connection, the packet information handling within this program and world is much to be desired. Unfortunatley, the designers of this world did not take enough time into the actual use of the world. Rather, they designed it to be a world where people would use it the way that they wanted, and this by its very right was doomed to fail. Without other users ever visiting this world, the unfortunate demise of such promising avatars and the potential of the world design, will never gain the chance to flourish.