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The Grand Canyon

In around 2005, my family and I visited the Grand Canyon in Arizona during the summer. My experience seeing the canyons, crevices, cliffs, etc. in real life almost looked like a gigantic real-life painting just by looking at the entire landscape. From a distance, it looked like a painting, mostly due to the land being static because I wasn't close enough to see that the wind was likely shifting the land and fauna. The glowing yellow-orange afternoon sun, combined with the strong, cold winds made the journey to take a step outside a challenge to see the natural canvas that is the Grand Canyon. I could feel the cold wind hitting me as I walked around the canyon, taking photos with my family, proving to friends and family that I was there, known for its rich, geological landscape and a "Wonder of the Natural World".

My experience visiting the Grand Canyon in Second Life seemed a bit tad disappointing, mostly because I couldn't feel the physical attributes of the environment with my senses (touch, smell, taste), although I did get to hear and see the virtual Grand Canyon with the use of my avatar, as seen here in the two pictures above.

Most of my time spent was flying, due to the size of the place and the thought of walking as a means of exploration seemed bland. Using flight has its benefits in this virtual world, where you can quickly take yourself from one canyon and downwards. It was easy to get to one place to another, although it seemed a bit too easy and the use of flying made the experience dull as time came by. One reason that could be pointed out is that it just got easy to explore everything without taking the adventure of getting down to the crevice.

But considering how much physical time and money it would take to see the real Grand Canyon and the fact that we can't fly, unless we were biologically mutated to have limbs that could make us fly and possibly become light in terms of weight, we instead have the ability to use a digital replication of our imagination and memory in order to explore a digital Grand Canyon like the one I explored.

Overall, my experience with exploring the Grand Canyon made me reminisce the days when I went to the Grand Canyon years ago. Memory became an important aspect of my journey and it especially made it personal, as others may not have had the chance to go to the Grand Canyon.

Toontown Research Questions

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

-A limitation to the chat is certain words that you cannot say. Words I found interesting that are blocked are "politics, killer, tongue, and printmaking." You're only limited to words that tend to be superficial to what the idea of this particular world brings. You can't bring out your own ideas, express yourself, or ask people what your real name is. This helps protect people's anonymity outside the virtual world and pre-establishes an identity within the virtual world, with no chance of bringing uniqueness to sharing ideas, thoughts, and feelings.

For fighting cogs, you're given a limit of actions to fight the cogs. When teaming with other people, especially when people come in at any time, you must wait for other players to make their choices, which they must also choose their gag in a time limit.

11. The concept of “health” of each avatar is a key element in all online virtual worlds. In Toontown, how is “health” managed and its status displayed?

-Health is managed through the use of a displayed counter in a form of a cartoonish face. It is showing it's maximum health on the right eye and what your current health is. Displaying your health in this game is suppose to be simplistic, but also visualizes your health in a form of bar by the face's teeth. The teeth displays colors that shows the place you are in terms of health, which also makes use of traffic light colors (green means you're healthy; yellow means caution, think about your health; red means you're in danger.)

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

-An incentive that is given us to complete tasks are more exploration into items, expansions of power-ups, upgrades, and especially customization of your character and your virtual house, for example. Jelly beans, which is basically currency in Towntown, helps you give some incentive in purchasing your own pet, which you can buy in the pet store, for example.

In a way, completing tasks and goals creates this sense of adventure for each player and progressing through each goal is suppose to have more rewards in the long run, for example.