![]() ![]() In this article, I will use the terms interchangeably. Props are objects that users may add to their avatars (say, a hat or cigar) or place into the Palace room or give to another person (say, a glass of beer or a bouquet of flowers). Avatars refer to pictures, drawings, or icons that users choose to represent themselves. Head? Body? This is the second visual feature of Palace: "avatars" or "props." Although these words often are used interchangeably, there is a slight distinction in the minds' of some users. ![]() Like characters in comic strips, you communicate with others via typed text that appears in balloons that pop out from your head or body. Users can move freely within and between the rooms. The oldest and one of the most populated sites is the "Main Mansion" (or simply "Main") which has consisted of approximately 30 rooms, including a bar, a game room, bedrooms, a study, a beach, a moor, and several surrealistic scenes, such as the orbit of an alien planet and an underground cave that looks like Hades. There are hundreds of Palace sites located across the internet, many with their own unique graphical themes for the collection of rooms that make up the site (e.g., a bowling alley, a futuristic Cybertown, a haunted house, etc.). The first is the backdrop or "room" in which people interact with each other. One excellent example of a multimedia environment is the client/server program called the "Palace." There are basically two visual components to this environment. The result is a whole new realm for self-expression and social interaction with subtleties and complexities not seen in text-only chat rooms. It allows people to express their identity VISUALLY, rather than just through written words. Rather than limiting users to text-only communications, as in most chat rooms, multimedia programs add a visual dimension that creates the illusion of movement, space, and physicality. As social environments, they are unique in that they are graphical. They are something of a cross between a MOO and a traditional chat room. Visual chat is a simple way to describe them, although they have gone by a variety of other names, such as multimedia chat, GMUKS (graphical multi-user konversations), and "habitats," a term coined by Randy Farmer, the first to invent them. When clicked, links in this article to the subpages will produce a "pop-up" window. The graphics are not necessary to understand the article, but they definitely enhance it. A list of the subsection pages also appears at the end of this article. NOTE: if you plan to save and later read this article off-line, I recommend that you also save the graphics that are located on subsection pages linked to this article (you might consider downloading the entire Psychology of Cyberspace hypertext book). In Multimedia Chat Communities or How I Learned to Stop Worrying The Psychology of Avatars and Graphical Space Psychology of Cyberspace - Psychology of Avatars ![]()
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