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Mar 16, 2006, 4:05pm

Oooh, clever!!. 4.1. :)

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Mar 16, 2006, 4:41pm

HINT: and AW version 4.1 is the same numbers as April's Fools Day. The 1st
day of the 4th month. ;) ;) :P :P :P :P.

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Mar 17, 2006, 12:47am

I apologize for thinking Enzo was making a clever joke. Please, forgive me.

Mar 13, 2006, 4:00pm

Hi Eep. It's your uncle Starax here!. :)

Hello AW folks. I come from that other world (Second Life) and I like what I
see here in AW.

As time goes on, Active Worlds is becoming more and more attractive to me. I
see a mass exodus on the horizon. The problems I see with AW is that it
needs more content creators. People will come if there is something to see.
But content creators wont create content without an audience/customers. It's
the olde boring catch 22 problem.

So this means the company that owns AW needs to hire content creators. This
should start the ball rolling hopefully. Yet what is very puzzling is that
there are already some lovely worlds in AW, but the company behind AW
doesn't seem too eager about promoting these worlds. If they can't even be
bothered to promote a nice world that's already made. What are the chances
of them ever hiring content creators to create nice worlds? Newcomers enter
the gate, they try a few crap worlds at random and leave thinking the whole
place is crap. Sad!!

Do the company behind AW actually want it to be successful? Perhaps they
have another source of income and aren't really eager to see this place
succeed. Or have they tried everything they can think of to make AW succeed,
failed and given up?

Tao is probably the most beautiful place in AW. yet I stumbled upon it by
accident. If I hadn't have seen that world then I may have just given up on
AW completely.

I think the core design/technology of Active Worlds is way ahead of Second
Life and appears to be more stable. Second Life is nice on the outside and
yet flawed at the core. Active Worlds seems to be the opposite, it's a king
in a tramp's clothes.

The team that develop AW could really make AW more appealing if they would
just make some alterations to its default settings. Controls, window size,
view distance etc. When I tried AW with the default settings, it was awful.
After tweaking them I found everything felt so much better. They'd be wise
to make the controls similar to Second Life's.and make the viewing window as
big as possible. Not opening the Web window on the initial start of AW would
help alot too. Even the nicest worlds can look crap through a small window.
A small window destroys the immersion. With a small window, you're aware of
looking into the world, rather than actually being in it. Perhaps the AW
guys are all peeping Toms? :)

I still think Second Life has alot of potential and Linden Lab could fix
alot of its problem. Ultimately though, it all comes down to the developers
behind either platform that will determine which one reigns. Active Worlds
might be a King in a tramp's clothes. But if it never changes those clothes
then it will continue to be ignored.

So my advice is:

o Make the AW gate much more attractive. First impressions last? Perhaps
transfer the gate to Tao? :)

o Make the AW default viewing window as big as possible. For immersion's
sake!. It's a world we're entering, not a spreadsheet!

o Keep the 'Worlds to Watch' area updated. Perhaps surround the main gate
with "Worlds to Watch" portals.

o Make the 'Worlds' list less obvious to newcomers, so that they don't go
wandering off into crap worlds, never to return.

o Most of all. Don't give up!! AW has potential and could one day rule the
world.

As for an economy, I don't think AW needs one. If visitors like AW and wish
to create their own world here, then they will be willing to buy their
virtual goods through websites. But again, those people aren't going want to
spend money on creating a world that nobody will ever see. It's all about
showing off!.



To sum up:- Total Population=Productive People*100;

Okay, I'm not an expert. I just made that above equation up! But hey, it
sounds good! :)

Mar 14, 2006, 12:05pm

Hey you! :)

Oh, I wasn't trying to say that the ONLY thing Active Worlds needs is the
default settings changing blah blah... I was just suggesting some simple
things that they could change to make it much more appealing from the start.
I'm well aware that they're maknig a new version - 4.1. But even if that
version has a small window and a crap AWGate then they're still not going
attract people. I think the AW gate alone is enough to put people off. It's
only when visitors get out of the gate and see worlds like Tao do they
realize what AW is capable of with a creative person inside one of its
worlds.

I hope I don't offend the people who made the gate. The gate is just out of
date. I'm sure it was very nice in the 90's.

SL and AW could never combine. Linden Lab stuggle just to make the simplest
of changes to Second Life. That's probably because even the simplest of
changes have far reaching consquences in a complex program like Second Life.

What could be possible is that Linden Lab could drop Second Life and take
control of AW. Then the king would finally have his nice new clothes. :)

You was right about the static models being boring. That was the reason why
I made the magic wand. :). Although I do think if a world creator can keep
their content changing then people will return to see what's new. I've been
to Tao, and as beautiful as it is. I now have the world in my head and if I
was to go back there in 2 months, it'll probably still be the same place.
Yet the creator of Tao does seem very active here. So who knows?

I'm starting to see that another problem with AW is that it's just not very
profitable for the people that own it. A company that owns Active Worlds is
never going to be able to make money from providing a service because the AW
client has been designed in such a way as to not really need a service
provider. You can compare AW to a web browser. A web browser that's owned by
a company that wants you to subscribe to use it. :)


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