More than two months ago, a visitor to Ohio University's virtual campus in Second Life pulled out a gun and began shooting other visitors, prompting the university to briefly block access to the campus as they pondered what to do next.
The shooter was unsuccessful. Nobody was virtually killed.
Today, the campus is back up with new rules and an access log that records who enters the university's main Second Life island and when. The university has invested about $30,000 to buy and develop multiple islands ' plots of virtual land.
Second Life ' with almost 8 m illion registered characters ' is similar to many massively multiplayer online games, where players choose avatars to represent themselves and interact with other users in a large virtual world.
But Second Life is unlike other games because it allows residents to write their own programs and create items within the game. Additionally, Second Life does not have a central theme or revolve around combat, as many other games do, but is instead driven by interaction between players.
There is violence in the game and some landowners enable options that allow players to hurt each other or themselves. This option is not used at the university's Second Life campus, said Christopher Keesey, the university's Second Life administrator.
Even if someone pulls a firearm and shoots a firearm at you on the OU campus
it won't damage you Keesey said, adding that firearms are banned on the virtual campus, just as they are on the university's actual campuses.
Online, this kind of behavior is called griefing, where one player harasses another for the sake of doing so. Griefing is usually more prevalent in environments where players cannot attack each other ' and end the confrontation. It is not an unusual occurrence in Second Life or in other multiplayer games.
In December, flying penises disrupted a CNET news reporter's interview in Second Life. Two months later, John Edwards' campaign headquarters in the virtual world was vandalized and visitors were harassed by griefers sporting Bush '08 insignia.
You don't expect these types of things to happen but they do
said Muriel Ballou, director of Ohio University Without Boundaries.
Ballou added that the virtual shooting was a minor incident and it would not disrupt the university's educational and research activities in the virtual world.
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