Subject: Commonplace

From: [email-masked] (Kathryn Best)
Date: Sat, 28 May 94 14:21:25 -0700

"The Idiots' Guide to Virtual World Design" by Kathryn Best

Published by Little Star Press, Seattle WA.  ISBN 0-9641504-0-9

Excerpts from forward and introduction.

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Virtual worlds need to be designed. The world and the experience one can
have in it must be consciously shaped. So far those using virtual worlds
have never been caught up and taken away by the experience. The event
usually involves a bad copy of the real world, verging on the tedious,
tiresome and downright boring.

We need to create worlds that are worth entering - that are INVITING - and
worth spending time in - that are CAPTIVATING. They should be powerful,
interesting, pleasurable, a medium of expression and experience as well as
a way for people to interact with each other. It is time we stopped
tinkering with the equipment and started playing with the worlds.

Traditional design approaches are not entirely suitable. A new model of the
design process appropriate for the design medium needs to be developed.
Just as the invention of film was initially seen as a way of documenting
events, it took the artistic skills of the great directors to turn it into
the powerful communicatuion medium it has become.

This is a guide to Virtual World Design, to exploring alternatives. It is
only by exploring alternatives that we can gain conviction in any paticular
solution.

        "We shall not cease from exploration
         And the end of all our exploring
         Wil be to arrive where we started
         And to know the place for the very first time."  (T S Eliot)

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