Before arrival in the futuristic landscape of Calypso, players must create their own avatars to their liking. The software responsible for this allows a very large number of possible physical appearances apart from just male/female.

Some prefer to exude sex appeal, whilst others go for the heavy metal look:

The programmers have allowed for many different ways to make a living on Calypso - working at a 'regular' kind of job, building up particular skills to enhance income or trading with other inhabitants to make a profit. One popular way of earning some cash, especially with 'newbies', is to find and kill monsters and enemy robots. If not slain himself, the victorious player can then collect whatever valuables his opponent once possessed.

Battle can be an individual effort or, to combat more deadly foes, can be done as a group - utilizing the particular skills of each member:

Winning battles is one way of earning money - and that in turn can enable the player to buy better weapons:

Of course, as well as earning one's living, there are also opportunities to get together for a bit of fun or just to take time out to smell the flowers:

Although a lot of people obviously spend considerable amounts of time on Calypso, we need to ask ourselves if they can be said to constitute a 'virtual community'...