Dove Lane

A lively cheer or clapping, a broad laugh, a back flip or spontaneous dancing can be effective and expressive social interactions in virtual worlds, if timed right. Avatars, however, are sadly lacking in the kind of social development that could make immersive worlds even more realistic and expressive.

In some virtual worlds, for some specific applications (like raiding in WoW), voice chat works. For purely conversational socializing in 3D, the jury is still out. We are still learning how to use the tools that can make a 3D conversation as informative as a face-to-face chat. We seem to have mastered the sound quality issues. Now we just need to make it more intuitive to use. That won’t be a quick fix.