Good piece on Mindjack on the rise of body-language cues in Massively Multiplayer online games with emphasis on Second Life's toolkit:
"V-Chat," launched in 1995, was an early contender in the ballooning collection of larger-scope chat spaces that encompassed both 2D and 3D graphics. V-Chat's avatars, although primitive, were both customizable and capable of expressing a range of emotional states. Microsoft's 2D "Comic Chat" built upon the facial expressions Microsoft had tested with V-Chat. Comic Chat displayed text in speech or thought bubbles, allowing users to express not only their public, but "private" thoughts; AI-detection of user-typed acronyms would cause one of the illustrated avatars to assume an appropriate pose, such as waving if the user had typed "BRB" for "be right back." While both the 2D Comic Chat and 3D V-Chat gave users more expressive outlets, it was ultimately 3D space that would offer the greatest potential for interpersonal dynamics. After analyzing logs from V-Chat sessions, Microsoft Research found that "Overall, V-Chat users appear to be using the 3D features of the program to reproduce the social conventions of physical proxemics."2 The opening up of chat to 3D space allowed users to communicate nonverbally simply by establishing location and facing relative to other participants.
(Thanks, Donald)
