There.com

The first thing I noticed when dealing with There.com is that there was a video tutorial immediately. I think I really prefer this to Second Life, where everything has to be read, since this seems to have a very casual audience, and video examples are always great. Bonus points for including a pause button.

I noticed a lot of large billboards with instructions too. Very good technique, since some people read slow, and pop-up messages sometimes fade out too fast.

I saw some people playing with a ton of dogs. That was kinda neat. They were playing music too, it looked like fun. I don't really see this kind of thing in Second Life, at least, not from what I saw of it.



I decided to check out an area with a big old Coca Cola logo and the red and white was pretty much plastered everywhere, even the arcade. I couldn't actually PLAY the games in the arcade, though. I was a little disasppointed there.

Second Life Exercise 1

Hisame Rae is a shy junior high student. She likes cute fuzzy animals. She tries to avoid getting too much attention, but she wants to be recognized when she does something good.

On Orientation Island, most of the other avatars largely ignored me while I learned the basics. I was pretty glad since I didn't want anyone to bother me while I was trying to learn how things worked. I decided to make only a few minor changes tot he avatar since I didn't want to spend too much time changing things up.


I went to a place that sold furniture since it was listed as an event, but found that it cost real-life money so I didn't want to mess with that. I also found that for some reason, the furniture shop had slot machines in front of it. That was a little weird. The place was empty, so I left to go to a Game.



The game was a medieval fantasy role-playing game. It was dark and empty of other people, and kinda spooky-looking, but I was kinda impressed that they managed to make it look alright. There were a few issues with water effects, but I think it might have been my laptop.

I'm not sure why, but none of the places I went to had people in it except for Orientation Island. I'm guessing I went during non-peak hours or something. I'm not really sure I care much for Second Life right now, but I'll probably appreciate it as a creation tool when I have to start building structures and objects of my own.

Toontown Socializing

10. Attempt some collaborative actions such as EZ Chat and teaming up to fight Cogs. Describe the basics of what you did and the results. What were the limitations you experienced?

I tried to team up to fight Cogs. Attempts to communicate were slow and very limited. We entered commands and waited for everyone to finish before the commands were executed. I am not sure what would have happened if someone stalled. I'm also surprised that you can't form a party with people. You just walk into fights talking place and if there aren't four players involved, you just dive in.

This game's really built with kids in mind, and it really shows. It's a world made out of perfectly safe foam padding where nothing could go wrong. I can understand why it's important for the primary audience, but as an older person playing it, it's a little perplexing.

Toontown Goals

6. Name several ways that you are encouraged to complete tasks and attain goals.

You can get jelly beans which you can spend on more items. You also accumulate more experience with a type of gag the more you use it, and can eventually earn more powerful versions. Just like in real life, everything's about acquiring skills and getting money.

Yes, someone will sell you an entire cupcake for a single jelly bean. If Goofy values the jelly bean as much as I value that cupcake, it's fine by me. Who knows what he does with it. Eats it, I guess. I wish I could eat the cupcake, but it's apparently stale enough to do some serious damage if thrown.

Toontown Questions

5. How are various tasks and goals communicated to you at the start of the game? How and why does this evolve as you gain more experience?

An NPC directly explains short-term goals to you. As you gain more experience, new parts of the game are explained to you. There are also little boxes and arrows pointing at everything of importance. And I mean everything. They even have a little box above your character just in case you forget your name.