Generation 3D: Living in Virtual Worlds

Videogames have provided the killer application for 3D virtual worlds over the past decade. SIMNET was not a persistent world - it offered no central server to maintain the simulation's global state. Wolfenstein 3D and other first-person shooter games followed the same model. In a departure from more traditional videogames, some developers have begun creating large-scale virtual worlds such as Second Life (http://secondlife.com) for social networking. Educators have recognized the power of collaborative presence for students in the virtual world. More than 200 universities - including Harvard and Princeton - now experiment with MMORPGs as learning environments.