Abstract
Research in virtual worlds has sought to distance itself from the perception that it is about games and appears to have achieved this distinction. However, in the process, valuable contributions and concepts from game-based research have been incorporated into virtual world research. We seek to outline how various game-based elements can improve the role of bots in a way to increase their utility so they become non-player characters (NPC), increasing the utility of virtual worlds even further in education. Bots are a valuable addition within virtual worlds and distinguish these simulations from other simulated environments. However, their use is still limited, allowing them only a small role to play within the educational use of virtual worlds. We link this to the technology and lack of game-based elements within virtual worlds in education and highlight how bots may be better incorporated in the future. We discuss the use of bots and examine some of their key characteristics and how they have been employed. Next, we examine the literature on game-based design and attempt to overlay these concepts on a virtual world framework. This allows us to extrapolate the changing role of bots and the requirement of more non-player characters in virtual worlds. We propose a framework for the incorporation of advanced NPC in virtual worlds in a way that can support educational processes. Our review of the role of bots and NPC and the advances in technology indicate that this is an important step forward. We present a five-stage model of different phases of bots and NPC development, allowing instructional designers to appropriately engineer bots and NPC to support their needs. Low-level bots may be appropriate for certain uses, allowing resources to be invested; the different categorisation allows sensible allocation of resources to achieve desired system-wide outcomes.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
This scenario is valid for most major cities. Unless you live in Perth, Australia, where the CBD area at night is a perfect representation of the average location in virtual worlds; in 9 out of 10 occasions you do not see any human life form; while in the remaining case the other person is surprised to meet someone as the expectations targeted for reclusiveness.
References
ACS White Paper (2009) 3D Learning and Virtual Worlds. Retrieved March 13, 2013 from http://www.trainingindustry.com/media/2043910/acs%203d%20worlds%20and%20virtual%20learning_whitepaper%20april%202009.pdf
Ashby, W. (1956). An introduction to cybernetics. London: Chapman & Hall.
Bernhard, R., Rojo de Rubalcava, B., & St-Pierre, D. (2000). Collaborative online distance learning: Issues for future practice and research. Distance Education, 21(2), 260–277.
Boerger, F.,& Tietgens, H. (2013). TÜV NORD IN 3D: Avatars at work | From second life to the Web 3D. In A. Hebbel-Seeger, T. Reiners, & D. Schäffer (Eds.), Alternate realities: emerging technologies in education and economics. New York: Springer.
Bresciani, M. J., Morsi, K., Tucker, M., Siprut, M., Stewart, K., & Duncan, A. (2010). Designing and implementing an assessment plan for a virtual engineering lab. Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture, 4(2), 277–285.
Cornelissen, F., Neerincx, M. A., Smets, N., Breebaart, L., Dujardin, P., & Wolff, M. (2012). Gamification for astronaut training. Technical report, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Cronk, M. (2012). Using gamification to increase student engagement and participation in class discussion. In: World conference on educational multimedia, hypermedia and telecommunications 2012 (pp. 311–315). Denver, Colorado, USA: AACE.
Dieker, L. (2011). Teachers learning in a virtual world. Impatient optimists. www.impatientoptimists.org/Posts/2011/10/Teachers-Learning-in-a-Virtual-World.
Dron, J., Reiners, T., & Gregory, S. (2011). Manifestations of hard and soft technologies in immersive spaces. In: Proceedings of world conference on e-learning in corporate, government, healthcare, and higher education (pp. 1895–1904). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.
Ellul, J. (1964). The technological society. New York: A.A. Knopf.
Flatla, D. R., Gutwin, C., Nacke, L. E., Bateman, S., & Mandryk, R. L. (2011). Calibration games: making calibration tasks enjoyable by adding motivating game elements. In: Proceedings of the 24th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (pp. 403–412). Santa Barbara, California, USA: ACM.
Friedman, D., Steed, A., & Slater, M. (2007). Spatial social behavior in second life. In C. Pelachaud, J.-C. Martin, E. André, G. Chollet, K. Karpouzis, & D. Pelé (Eds.), Intelligent virtual agents. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Vol. 4722, pp. 252–263). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.
Gregory, S., Dalgarno, B., Campbell, M., Reiners, T., Knox, V., & Masters, M. (2011). Changing directions through VirtualPREX: engaging pre-service teachers in virtual professional experience. In G. Williams, N. Brown, B. Pittard, & B. Cleland (Eds.), Changing Demands, Changing Directions. Proceedings Ascilite (pp. 491–501). Hobart: University of Tasmania.
Guetl, C. (2008). Enhanced computer-based support for personalized learning activities. Post doctoral lecture thesis, University of Graz, Graz, Austria.
Han, L. (2012). Green button program: an analysis of business opportunities. Technical report, Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise, Michigan.
Hebbel-Seeger, A. (2013). Pedagogical and psychological impacts of teaching and learning in virtual realities. In A. Hebbel-Seeger, T. Reiners, & D. Schäffer (Eds.), Alternate realities: emerging technologies in education and economics. New York: Springer.
Heller, B., & Procter, M. (2010). Animated pedagogical agents and immersive worlds: two worlds colliding. In G. Velestsianos (Ed.), Emerging technologies in distance education (pp. 301–316). Athabasca University, Edmonton: AU Press.
Herrington, J., Reeves, T., & Oliver, R. (2010). A guide to authentic e-learning. London, UK: Routledge.
Landers, R. N., & Callan, R. C. (2011). Casual social games as serious games: the psychology of gamification in undergraduate education and employee training. In: Serious games and edutainment applications (pp. 399–423). London: Springer.
Liu, Y., Alexandrova, T., & Nakajima, T. (2011). Gamifying intelligent environments. In: 2011 ACM multimedia conference, MM’11 and co-located workshops: Workshop on ubiquitous meta user interfaces, Ubi-MUI’11, Scottsdale, AZ (pp. 7–12).
Perlin, K., & A. Goldberg (1996). Improv: A system for scripting interactive actors in virtual worlds. In Proceedings of the 23rd annual conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques (pp. 205–216). New Orleans, LA, USA: ACM.
Pivec, M., Dziabenko, O., & Schinnerl, I. (2003). Aspects of game-based learning. In: I-KNOW 03, the 3rd International conference on knowledge management, Graz, Austria.
Predinger, H., Ullrich, S., Nakasone, A., & Ishizuka, M. (2011). MPML3D: scripting agents for the 3D internet. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 17(5), 655–668.
Reiners, T. (2010). University of Hamburg in 3D: lesson learned. In Proceedings of the international conference on computers in education.
Reiners, T., & L. C. Wood (2013). Immersive virtual environments to facilitate authentic education in logistics and supply chain management. In Y. Kats (Ed.), Learning management systems and instructional design: metrics, standards, and applications. Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
Reiners, T., Wood, L. C., Chang, V., Guetl, C., Herrington, J., Gregory, S., & Teräs, H. (2012). Operationalising gamification in an educational authentic environment. In: IADIS International conference on internet technologies and society 2012, Perth, Australia.
Shin, D. H. (2009). The evaluation of user experience of the virtual world in relation to extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 25(6), 530–553.
Slater, S., & Burden, D. (2009). Emotionally responsive robotic avatars as characters in virtual worlds. In: Conference games and virtual worlds for serious applications (pp. 12–19).
Swift, A. G., & Nitins, T. (2011). Building engaged, sustainable online communities: A case study of an adventure travel website. In: Proceedings of the 5th GCA conference: Global power shifts—impact on economy, politics, culture and media, Hotel Istana, Kuala Lumper.
Thompson, C. W. F., & Hagstrom, F. (2011). Modeling healthcare: logistics in a virtual world. IEEE Internet Computing, 12(4), 100–104.
Tüzün, H., Yilmaz-Soylu, M., Karakus, T., Inal, Y., & Kizilkaya, G. (2009). The effects of computer games on primary school students achievement and motivation in geography learning. Computers and Education, 52(1), 68–77.
Ullrich, S., Bruegmann, K., Prendinger, H., & Ishizuka, M. (2008). Extending MPML3D to second life. In H. Predinger, J. Lester, & M. Ishizuka (Eds.), Proceedings of the 8th international conference on intelligent virtual agents (pp. 281–288). Berlin: Springer.
Varvello, M., Ferrari, S., Biersack, E., & Diot, C. (2011). Exploring Second Life. IEEE/ACM transactions on networking, 19(1), 80–91.
Wark, M. (2007). Gamer theory. Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard Business School Press.
Wood, L. C., & Reefke, H. (2010). Working with a diverse class: Reflections on the role of team teaching, teaching tools and technological support. In: IADIS international conference on international higher education (IHE 2010), Perth, Australia pp. 72–79.
Wood, L. C., & Reiners, T. (2012). Gamification in logistics and supply chain education: extending active learning. In: IADIS International conference on internet technologies and society 2012, Perth, Australia.
Wriedt, S., Reiners, T., & Ebeling, M. (2008). How to teach and demonstrate topics of supply chain management in virtual worlds. In: Proceedings of ED-MEDIA 2008. World conference on educational multimedia, hypermedia and telecommunications (pp. 5501–5508). Vienna, Austria: AACE.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wood, L.C., Reiners, T. (2014). Game-Based Elements to Upgrade Bots to Non-Player Characters in Support of Educators. In: Hebbel-Seeger, A., Reiners, T., Schäffer, D. (eds) Synthetic Worlds. Integrated Series in Information Systems, vol 33. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6286-6_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6286-6_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-6285-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-6286-6
eBook Packages: Business and EconomicsBusiness and Management (R0)