Time to Chat
The mysterious Mysterio
Figure 11.11 ch4c.jpg
Engage
in a one-on-one chat with Mysterio.
I had just entered the Entry Plaza, and kept seeing this mysterious
character called Mysterio. I clicked on his avatar name in the
work frame and then selected the 1:1 Chat button to send him a
page. When you receive a page, you can hear a telephone ringing
(if you have a sound card and your speakers are turned on), and
you will be presented with a dialogue box saying ìxxxx
would like to chat with you,î where xxxx is the avatar nickname
of the person calling. Mysterio accepted my offer to chat, so
a new window opened in the work frame, and we started to chat.
Chatting is easy; you just type into the text entry area below
the chat window in the work frame, and press Enter to send the
message.
Figure 11.12 ch4n.jpg
Chatting
with Mysterio
The preceding figure shows more chat with Mysterio. His conversation
sounded suspiciously like that of a bot (an automatic piece
of software with no person behind it). He kept saying, ìI
did not understand your comment,î and talking about riddles.
Often, when you see long-winded talk like that coming at you quickly,
you have a bot on your hands.
Figure 11.13 ch4o.jpg
The
View Mysterioís own CyberCardô
I decided to find out more about this Mysterio riddle bot, so
I selected his avatar name from the list on the right side of
the work frame, and pushed the Xchange button to offer a card
exchange. Passport supports technology which
allows public, business, and private cards you can fill
out for yourself and then exchange. This idea came from Neal Stephensonís
Snow Crash, in which the lethal Snow Crash virus was passed
to the virtual Black Sun club owner/avatar Da5id. Donít
worry about the cards in Passport, though, as they cannot carry
a virus! As in real life, you can build quite a collection of
cards. You can find your card, and your collection, by clicking
on an icon called CyberCardsô at the very bottom of the
list of people and chat lines on the right side of your work frame.
(This is called the Participant list. You can see an example of
the Participant list in the previous figure of the one-on-one
chat with Mysterio.)
Mysterio agreed to exchange cards, and his appeared in my collection.
Clicking on it brought it up on the screen,
as seen in the preceding figure. From his card, Mysterio
seemed like a well-informed riddlemaker. I decided to invite Mysterio
to join my Home Chat line, so I clicked on his avatar name in
the Participant list and pressed the Invite button. Now, Mysterio
is a member of my permanent private chat group, and has an entry
under my Home Chat Line icon. Mysterio had asked persistently
that follow him and click on him to enter a riddle game, which
I did, and like magic, a miniature Web page appeared in the work
frame offering to let me play in the
Keys of Mysterio riddle game. So thatís how bots operate!
Figure 11.14 ch4l.jpg
Mysterio
Bot offers his game: The Keys of Mysterio.
More about communicating in Passport
Types of chat
Passport supports three types of chat: private (described in the
previous example), public (a free-for-all), and group chat lines
(these can be moderated discussions on specific topics). You can
access all the chat lines by clicking on Chat Lines in the control
frame on the upper left-hand side of the window.
Note that you can also see chat entirely as HTML Web pages by
pressing Logs on the controls frame on the left-hand side of the
window. This may be an easier way to chat, especially if your
computer is on a slow connection, or the 3D scene is just too
slow. More information about chat logs and 2D chat can be found
in, ìA Closer Look at the Passport Interface,î earlier
in this chapter.
Beam me to you, Scotty!
Another useful option is to use Beam to move your avatar toward
a person in a scene. To do this, just click on their avatar name
in the Participants list and then press the Beam button. You will
travel until you are facing that personís avatar. Quickly
type Hi, or something to let them know of your good intentions.
Mute and give me a break
The Mute button will turn off the chat (from your viewpoint only)
from a particular person you find irritating. Their avatar will
even disappear! Use Mute as a last resort, as it is a pretty severe
measure in a social virtual world.
Start button and chatting with a CoolTalk voice
The Start button will start a selected tool. The Passport client
provides an interface for a variety of extensions, such as voice
chat, and a virtual whiteboard. The list of installed tools is
available immediately to the left of the Start button. CoolTalk
is distributed with Netscape Navigator 3.0 so that users of this
browser will have CoolTalk installed automatically. Try clicking
on an avatar name in the Participants list, then select CoolTalk
from the list, and press the Start button. If the user you are
trying to reach has CoolTalk, a microphone, and speakers, you
will be able to talk to that person in your own voice. Of course,
it is a good idea to text chat with a person first to see if they
can run CoolTalk.
Avatar gestures
Figure 11.15 ch4w.jpg
Clicking
on the Avatar gesture buttons and the resulting chat lines.
Your avatar may have a whole range of gestures. A row of buttons
underneath the chat area lists the gestures you can make. Clicking
on these buttons will create a gesture in the world by your avatar,
and send a text version of that gesture into the chat area. If
you want to see what your gestures look like, simply go to the
Avatar Gallery by clicking on the Avatar button on the control
frame in the upper left-hand corner of the window. In the gallery,
you can look at your own avatar in the mirror and pick the gestures.
Filling out your own CyberCardô
and changing your nickname
A big enabler in communications is to fill out your own CyberCardô . To do this, scroll down to the CyberCard icon in the Participants List and open up your own card. You can fill it out when it appears in the work frame, and press the Store button to save it. There are three separate cards to fill out for the different aspects of your personality and activities:
- Public Card: This is your own on-line advertisement, consisting of the nickname by which you want to be known, and a few lines with which you want to be associated. Optionally, you can also choose to publish your real name (i.e. the one that is associated with your personal and business cards).
- Business Card: This is information about your profession.
- Personal (Private) Card: This tells where you live and/or play.
The CyberCardsô you exchange
with other visitors to the Passport client are stored in a local
database archive (its default location is C:\blacksun\passportclient\cards),
which you can manage from this panel:
Note that in this release of the Passport client, your whole set
of CyberCards is exchanged at once: if you give someone your business
card, they get your personal card as well (unless you leave that
blank!). In the future, you will be able to distribute these and
other customizable cards selectively.
Fine-tuning Your World
The Options panel (which comes up when you press Options on the
control frame) is a tabbed dialogue with settings for fonts, preferences,
and firewalls. The About tab gives you the version of Passport.
I will describe some of the Options panel settings.
Under Preferences
Figure 11.16 ch4u.jpg
Preferences
are on the Options panel.
- Show Information Messages For: This sets up how long are you willing to wait for an answer, specifying your patience in seconds.
- Show Chat/Xchange Requests For: This sets up how long are you willing to wait for a response to a chat request or exchange of cards.
- Show 3D Worlds: This allows you to shut off the 3D world and just chat.
- Play Sounds: This lets you turn off all Passport sounds.
Under Fonts
Figure 11.17 ch4r.jpg
More
about options: fonts
The text appearing in the work frame is under Java control, and
not directly affected by your Windows Font preferences. You must
specify the font size for chat transcripts, avatar lists, and
other parts of the interface independently from Windowís
settings.
Under Firewall
Figure 11.18 ch4v.jpg
Firewall
is on the Options panel.
The Firewall options allow you to set up Passport to work through
a firewall and proxy server.
Under About
Here you will find information about the version of Passport client
you are using. The version number, its date of release, and copyright
information are available here.