Page 79 - Complete_advanced_students_book_with_answers_Neat

Unit 7
Unit
7
5 Work in pairs. What do you think the phrases in
italics from the article mean? What clues did you use
to guess the meanings?
These worlds differ from multi-player online games.
… eventually a forerunner of the Internet.
… as long as they couldn’t hack into the system.
The Palace was a more chat-oriented world.
The media buzz led many more people to explore
virtual worlds.
These business spent money … but then got little
payoff.
… making it diffi cult for companies to get their
attention en masse.

6 Discuss these questions.
What kind of new online virtual world would attract
you?
A However, while other worlds were withering, Linden Labs
What would your avatar be like?
was developing their new virtual world, Second Life, which
still exists today. Here you can create your own objects and
Exam advice
buildings, and you have ownership rights over them. ‘Linden
dollars’ are a currency which you can trade with real dollars. t First, read the main body of the text carefully to
Real-world businesses can sell just about anything you familiarise yourself with the contents of each paragraph
could possibly want in the virtual world. Universities offer and how the whole text is structured.
courses through Second Life, and bands play live shows and t Then read each of the missing paragraphs one by
chat with fans in special in-world venues. one. Pay close attention to the content and place each
paragraph in a gap after you have read it.

B That presents a problem for the many marketers such as
Coca-Cola and Adidas who set up virtual spaces in Second
Life, only to have them largely vacant. These businesses E The media buzz led many more people to explore virtual
spent money – in the tens of thousands of dollars – to build worlds for the fi rst time and Linden claims to have registered
a virtual island as an experiment, but then got little payoff. nearly 10 million avatars for Second Life since its inception.
Residents are dispersed throughout the virtual world, But many users ended up disappointed.
making it hard for companies to get their attention en
masse, and there’s a limit to the number of people who can
F The next stage was when Lucas Film Games, a video game
congregate in one place without crashing Linden’s servers.
publisher, developed Habitat, a more two-dimensional
environment that included humanoid avatars, and people
could access the game through an early online service called
C Later, with the rise of the web, virtual worlds started
Quantum Link. Developers Morningstar and Farmer, who still
booming. The Active Worlds platform allowed people to join
maintain a blog about their experience, say they generally
for free or pay a monthly fee for premium features, while
allow Habitat residents to set their own rules governing the
The Palace was a more chat-oriented world that became
world – as long as they couldn’t hack into the system.
popular in entertainment circles.

D Second Life is built from user-generated content: its G These worlds differ from massive multi-player online games
software provides the tools to design a dress, construct a (MMOGs) because they don’t offer battles against monsters
building or carry out a range of other real-world activities. or have an overriding mission for players. For example, a
Its population includes a pet manufacturer, a nightclub resident of the virtual world Second Life might spend time in
owner, a car maker, a fashion designer, an architect, a tour that space accumulating virtual land, rather than striving to
guide and a property speculator. complete quests as they would in many popular MMOGs.

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