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May 28, 2002, 11:45pm

Well, to tell you the truth, I would put these security features as #1 on
the list of the most needed feature since the introduction of AW itself.
Don't underestimate the importance of being able to eject by citizen number
or computer ID - it will dramatically cut down on the number of people who
disrupt the worlds consistently. At this point, I could care less if we
can't look up computer ID's, because the improvements are so drastic anyway
that they make a huge difference.

On this one, I'll actually have to side with ENZO. The time spent
implementing a lookup feature was much better put towards the other features
in 3.3, like the contact list improvements.

[View Quote]

May 28, 2002, 11:51pm

By the way, just a quick comment - if you haven't read
http://www.awnews.com, go take a look about the change in the board of
directors that's proposed. I'm shocked that so many commenters there have
such a negative view of this action. It's WAY past time for some new blood
to come into AW, and from what I've seen and heard of the blaxxun Contact
application, there are actually employees there hired to help out people
within its software. I'm not saying that the current directors are poor
businessmen - I can't judge that myself as I don't know them. What is clear
is that something needs to change to keep AW going, and this is certainly a
start.

This could be the start of some positive changes for AW. I'm looking
forward to see what the results are.

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May 29, 2002, 11:11pm

Well, how can you say that the plan "failed?" If it had failed, prices
would be back where they were a year ago. Obviously, if the prices are
still the way they are, AW much be making some money off the change, even if
over half of AW's population has left.

I'm not saying that it was the best decision in terms of helping the
community, nor has it convinced me to stick around if tourists aren't
re-enabled within the next two months. But in terms of money, I have no
doubt that more money is being made on citizenships than before. The
question is whether it will be enough to sustain the loss in revenue from
"corporate partnerships."

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May 30, 2002, 10:57am

Kind of like the people who say that open source is the future :) But I can
somewhat agree with that. In a perfect world, that would be how everything
worked.

Unfortunately, this is an imperfect world, but I can still see room for
improvement. AW has been tied up in too many business matters for years.
From offering stock to persuing "corporate partnerships" to attempting
mergers and takeovers, the executives have little time to deal with the
matters of its citizens. I don't think it's intentional - they got
themselves into a mire of technicalities and legal problems and now need to
get themselves out of it. It makes me wonder what AW would have been like
if they had not made a public offering of their stock (at least in the
beginning) and had concentrated on the citizens immediately. I would have
been willing to pay the current price since I first discovered AW in 1998 if
there were employees that weren't overworked and were able to go out in the
community more often and tourists were (as they had been) enabled. Anyone
agree with me?

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May 29, 2002, 11:20pm

I hope that everyone agrees with me that Beardo will be sorely missed. His
contributions to the Universe, most notably his website of backdrops and his
private projects like the 77 scenes he created for AWTeen, are unique among
the community. At this point, it's not just the lack of contributions to
the community that's hurting AW, but also the demoralization effect of
seeing so many friends leave the Universe, especially since they now can't
return as tourists to check in from time to time.

I'm seeing less and less reason to continue supporting this community that's
falling apart one by one. Why should we be improving AW when, as far as I
can see, its' creators care little about it?

-Brant

[View Quote] I'm soon going to remove all Activeworlds related stuff at my web site. If
you need any backdrops or textures now is the time to visit my site before
it all goes away.


--
Regards,

Beardo

Remove nospam for email reply. Free Bryce 4-5 textures and planet materials.
http://medlem.spray.se/beardo/

May 30, 2002, 11:55pm

It can be done - in fact, I had planned on implenting such a feature in the
Ultimate Paintball bot. I would do it before the Festival, but MrGrimm's
encountering some difficulties with the next version of the SDK, or so I'm
told :(

But it's somewhat impractical to hold a traditional game of paintball in
this manner because:

1. You can't whisper to the bot when it's out of your chat range. Thus,
you'll have to talk aloud when you're far away, giving away your location
and removing your "cloak."

2. Unless you plan on using a paintball bot with random teleportation after
each kill implemented, nobody will ever make it out to the ends of the world
because everyone will congregate around the GZ area. Anyone who tries to
make it out any further will either be killed, or be disappointed to find
that enemies out there are few and far between because everyone else is
clumped around GZ.

An alternative might be to program a bot or use an existing one that has a
network function enabled, and create several paintball fields within the
world, each with different rules. Thus, people can play where they choose
and will enjoy the competition better than if they were forced to leave
because they disliked the particular rules in effect for the single field.
You could set the world entry point to one of the fields andallow people to
travel between them with teleports in the first GZ.

Just some pros and cons. Hope this helps,

-Brant

[View Quote]

May 31, 2002, 12:22am

According to a chat log that I received two weeks ago, two things of
importance are supposed to occur today. While the release of 3.3 is
probably no longer on schedule, I doubt that the other event has changed.
For those of you who are unaware, Roland Vilett, AW's lead programmer, will
be reporting for his last day of work at Activeworlds this morning.

For those of you who don't realize the impact of this event on the
community, Roland has contributed too much to Activeworlds to recount. If
anyone had a technical problem, Roland was THE source on AW - period.
Having been around at least since the COF takeover of AW if not before (in
other words, a LONG time), Roland single-handedly programmed almost all of
the current browser, world, and universe software that we all use every day.

Putting aside some minor disagreements some might have, Roland has been
actively involved in the community since day one - holding TechTalks,
visiting worlds, and talking to people using his software. At times, he was
even moreso a representative of the company than his superiors. During the
days when corporate partners set the development order, Roland was at the
forefront, continually arguing to include more features aimed to improve
normal citizens' experiences.

I'm sure that everyone remembers an instance where Roland helped him or her
solve a problem. For myself, I still remember Roland's nonstop commitment
last Fall when AWTeen was continually being attacked by hackers and password
stealers. He must have been asked to resolve these problems at least a
half dozen times if not more, but he didn't complain once. Even when it was
past 10:00pm and he had to be off the clock, he was still working late into
the night restoring property, looking up world logs, and taking care of
vandals.

I titled this post "the end of an era" because Roland's leaving really is
just that, and cross-posted it to all these newsgroups because if there's
one topic that's of interest to all AW citizens, this is it. I hope that
I'm not alone in saying that Roland has left MrGrimm some very large shoes
to fill.

If you're reading this, Roland, I wish you luck in your future endeavors :)

May 31, 2002, 1:12am

Hey, why doesn't someone (or several people) E-Mail Roland asking him to
attend? I would suggest, however, that the ceremony be held in a different
world, because this should be a ceremony FOR Roland, right? Thus, the
community should involve community members making speeches on his behalf,
and that would require people to have PS and eject and other rights to keep
order - after all, Roland shouldn't have to provide all the entertainment
and do all the work at his going away ceremony.

AWTeen has a limit of 128 (which I'm sure could be increased if necessary),
and I'm sure that Mountain Myst wouldn't mind my providing a trusted
community member like you with some form of Caretaker or world rights access
(to add and remove speakers) for a few hours if you're interested in
organizing some speakers and getting some PK's to keep order. I know of
several stages in locations away from GZ perfect for the job if you can
convince Roland to attend (or even if you can't). Let me know in the
morning and we can talk about it :)

[View Quote]

May 31, 2002, 1:13am

Better yet, look at my idea - we shouldn't make him throw the party :)

[View Quote]

May 31, 2002, 9:55am

Well, why didn't you say that earlier? lol Anyway, I talked to Lara about
this - the only reason I suggested a change in location is because no matter
where it would be held, there's bound to be some troublemakers who show up -
and it would only take one person flooding the screen with obscenities who
can't be ejected to ruin an otherwise memorable evening, and Roland
shouldn't have to be the one taking care of security on his last day. But
since you have eject and PS rights there, you can do the dirty work and now
we can have both the informal ceremony Lara preffered and keep order at the
same time - sounds like a win-win situation :)

[View Quote]

May 31, 2002, 11:34am

Well, that chat log said that 3.3 is to be released within a few hours (i.e.
before the ceremony). I doubt that AW would release it after business
hours, and besides, release dates for any kind of software, no matter what
company, are always inevitably delayed, so don't be surprised if the log is
no longer accurate :)

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Jun 2, 2002, 1:51am

I haven't crashed at all today. But this reminds me of a problem I had with
the world server this morning. When I was trying to install build 41, I was
met with "old style cell database - run convert" errors. Someone told me
that the problem was Windows XP, but fortunately I was able to delete the
databases and it worked fine. Perhaps the browser crashes, likewise, are
mostly caused by application and operating system incompatibilities, rather
than an internal problem with Activeworlds.

Just a suggestion.......

[View Quote]

Jun 1, 2002, 12:01pm

I don't appreciate your calling these stories "crap." While I might have
posted this message in general.discussion or not at all, there are nicer
ways to share your opinion, such as saying "Thanks, but I'm not interested,"
not replying at all, or by E-Mailing Strike personally in a nice manner
suggesting to him that he post the message elsewhere.

If you actually read the AWTeen newsgroup recently instead of following
stereotypes, you would have seen that many members of the community worked
long and hard on these tales, and that you just offended more than fifty
people by calling creations they worked on for days "crap." When you've
worked for a year trying to create a sense of community (such as this story
contest) in a newsgroup like the posters in the AW.AWTeen newsgroup have,
then you can set the rules. This is almost as bad as the kind of stuff that
Eep posted when he was still around.

Go ahead and flame away.

[View Quote]

Jun 17, 2002, 10:41pm

Build 417 is a maintenence update to 3.3. Ever since the days of 3.1,
Roland made no restrictions on maintenence upgrades to AW. Thus, you should
encounter no problems upgrading if you choose to.

I suggested that people upgrade while Demeter, AWTeen's terrain editor was
tested, because there were several bugs fixed in this version that would
result in a crash while everyone was building using version 416. Most
likely, the version isn't "offically" supported by AW because the beta
testers would be more likely to find any additional serious bugs that may
have cropped up in it before it is released to all users.

[View Quote]

Jun 19, 2002, 1:40pm

I would have wished, however, that AW posted some release notes on what was
new in this version. The help pages at
http://www.activeworlds.com/help/aw33/beta.html only show what's new in
build 417, not build 418 :(

Jun 24, 2002, 3:11pm

I'd like to take this opportunity to invite members from all areas of the
community
to attend AWTeen's Generations Day, to be held this Thursday,
June 27, at 1PM VRT.

Generations Day was originally conceived as a simple ceremony to
announce who would take over the administration of AWTeen after I
fade out in August. Since its conception, the idea has grown to
include three related events that will usher in the next generation
of AWTeen visitors, and a concept that will affect the community at
large.

The day will begin with a demonstration of the current progress of
Thor 2. Those familiar with the original Thor will know that it
currently changes AWTeen's backdrops according to the time of day, but has
become outdated with the introduction of skyboxes into the Activeworlds
browser.
This demonstration will allow the community at large to gain a sneak
peak at what's going on behind the scenes, and to give their input on
how the new application will be implemented when Activeworlds 3.4 is
released early next month.

Later, AWTeen's terrain editor, Demeter, will be demonstrated. This
editor allows anyone, regardless of world rights, to edit the terrain
under his or her buildings. Demeter
prevents abuse as well, which will enable buildings of unparalleled
complexity and artistry to be created that have never before been
available in a public building world. After the demonstration, the
application will be permanently enabled for the community's building
pleasure.

Finally, the leader of AWTeen's next generation, who will take over
at the end of August, will be announced. Staff and community members
will then have the opportunity to chat with and share ideas with this
caring and dedicated person.

Again, I would like to extend an invitation to all community members to
attend to see the newest innovations that AWTeen and the
greater Activeworlds community have developed. The event will last
no longer than one hour, and is scheduled during normal business hours
because numerous Activeworlds Corp. employees will be in attendance. More
detailed information is available at
http://www.shoemakervillage.org/genday.html.

Hope to see everyone there! Comments are welcome below.

Jun 27, 2002, 5:32pm

I'd like to thank everyone who attended Generations Day. I'm not saying
this because I organized it, but this event was one of the most amazing
festivities I've ever witnessed, and many who were at the event would say
the same thing.

For those who weren't there, first, we demonstrated some possibilities for
Thor, AWTeen's weather simulator. Then, we introduced some new objects for
AWTeen. After that, Demeter was enabled. Finally, Chanty and Poseidon were
announced as taking over after me.

But as they say, life is what happens when the best laid plans go awry. I'm
not saying that in a bad sense, but that's what happened. Nobody had
counted on four AW staff members showing up and lending their support (thank
you Mountain Myst, Stacee, and Calpentera)! Lucrezia Borgia, the person who
created AWTeen and was responsible for a lot of AW's projects, also dropped
by, and ENZO himself came in to share a few words with the community, 85 of
whom were in attendance at the time. Not only that, but he floored everyone
when he enabled tourists in AWTeen in response to the letter that was sent
to him (http://www.shoemakervillage.org/ricknoll.doc). Let it go on the
record that the first tourist to enter was none other than "Mauz", who said
"yay!" in response to the announcement - lol.

For those that are interested, I posted a chat log at
www.shoemakervillage.org/chat24.txt. This chat log was made by Eric, and he
didn't remove the whispers from it, so it should be interesting reading, to
say the least. (I would post my whisper-free log, but it would require too
much work to remove all the IP addresses.) I wanted to make a post here
because I want to personally thank everyone who made this incredible day
possible. Demeter is now available and tourists are now enabled for those
who want to visit. I thought I'd copy the chat log because E N Z O said a
few interesting things about upcoming Activeworlds Corp. projects that
people here who were not in attendance would be interested in - feel free to
look it over if you're interested :)

-Brant

[View Quote]

Jul 5, 2002, 11:20am

Andras has a program that will analyze propdumps and create maps, as well as
lists of builders' land usage, and it will work in all worlds except
AlphaWorld. I forgot the name of the program, but try looking on andras.net
or contacting Andras himself.

[View Quote]

Jul 21, 2002, 1:43pm

For those of you who are unaware, AWTeen will (pending the outcome of a
vote) be holding its Inauguration Day next Monday, July 29, at 6PM VRT. The
purpose of the event is to instantiate Poseidon and Chanty as Caretakers.
Festivities will include awards, speeches, special effects, and more that
I'll talk in more detail about in a post later this week. In addition, I'm
planning a slideshow that will highlight moments in AWTeen's history.

Right now I have 110 pictures for the slideshow. The problem is that many
of those pictures are of the same things or are of poor quality. In
addition, I had hoped for each picture to display for seven seconds or so,
but a fifteen minute slideshow will require each picture to display for
close to nine with 110 pictures, even if I use every one of the repetitive
pictures I have now. (Don't worry, I'll be offering a "pre-load" zip so
there won't be download lag during the show).

Does anyone have any pictures of AWTeen that could be of use? They can be
anything - logos, pictures of buildings, pictures of people, big events,
statistics, the entire browser or just the view window, or almost anything
you can think of. Please send them to awteen at shoemakervillage.org so I can
include them in the "3rd generation" slideshow.

Thanks to anyone who can be of help,

-Brant

Jul 22, 2002, 6:32pm

In the post entitled "Slideshow" that I made yesterday, I promised more
information on the event. Please note that this information is also
available at http://www.shoemakervillage.org/festivities.html. Here it is:

-----------------

On behalf of AWTeen's community, I'd like to welcome anyone and everyone
interested in Activeworlds to attend AWTeen's Inauguration Day, to be held
on Monday, July 29, 2002, beginning at 6PM VRT. The location of the event
will be announced in AWTeen at 5PM VRT, so feel free to arrive early to get
to know your neighbors :)

Inauguration Day marks the end of the third generation of AWTeen leaders.
The first generation, led by TheCheese, set the groundwork for the world.
The second, led by Cahalane and Brock, brought AWTeen to the forefront of
public building worlds. The third, begun on July 13, 2000 and led by too
many to count, has allowed AWTeen to become the largest community in
Activeworlds, at times surpassing AlphaWorld in popularity. On July 29,
Brant will resign as Caretaker of the world while Poseidon and Chanty take
over to continue AWTeen's tradition of excellence in public building and
community events.

The evening will start with remarks by Mountain Myst and other Activeworlds
staff members. Shortly thereafter, Brock, one of AWTeen's second generation
leaders, will return from obscurity to share his opinion on governing a
large publicly owned world.

Next on the agenda is the AWTeen Community Awards, which Brant hopes will
become a tradition to be continued by future leaders. The awards, which
will be given in a wide range of categories, will be bestowed upon those who
have assisted the AWTeen community in the greatest manner during the past
two years. In addition to public recognition, each recipient will receive a
free citizenship, citizenship extension, or world. These awards were
conceived as a small effort to give back to the community that has supported
its leaders through both good and troubling times, and will not be announced
ahead of time.

Following the announcement of the awards, Brant will share a few words on
the successes and failures of his tenure, as well as his hopes for the
future. He will announce some things that have never been discussed before,
and will share some parting words with the community.

One of the highlights of the evening will be an eighteen-minute slideshow
featuring close to 200 pictures of AWTeen's history, from its humble
beginnings to its present day community. The show will utilize never before
seen bot technology and be set to lively current-day music. From pictures
of prominent buildings to events and AWTeen's citizens, the show will have a
little bit of everything. Who knows, you might be featured!

The night's climax will occur when Poseidon and Chanty take the oath of
office as Caretakers of AWTeen. Following the oath, Strike Rapier will
utilize his fireworks bot to provide a light show of epic proportions.
Chanty and Poseidon will then discuss their plans for AWTeen's future in a
session following the inauguration oath. The end to this memorable evening
will occur as Brant symbolically logs out to end one era and begin the next.

Be sure not to miss this historic day in Activeworlds history! The location
will be announced at 5PM VRT on Monday, July 29. Hope to see you there!

Jul 22, 2002, 9:33pm

By the way, I realize that this post is written in the third person - I
copied it from the website without remembering to change the point of view
:(

Jul 27, 2002, 5:53pm

This may be my last post to this newsgroup in quite a while, or perhaps for
good. With AWTeen's Inauguration Day coming up on July 29, I made a post
about the event last week, so I'm not going to repeat what it said - scroll
down to see it.

What I do want to let everyone know is that the "preload" ZIP file for the
event is now available at http://www.shoemakervillage.org/festivities.html.
I realize that the file is rather large, but with so many things planned
that day, the size is as small as I could possibly make it. For those who
are unaware, preloading is required in order to view the 189-picture,
18-minute slideshow that will be shown immediately before Chanty takes the
oath of office.

Directions on how to preload your cache can be found on that page. If
anyone has any problems doing so, please let me know as soon as possible so
that I can work to resolve the problem.

That said, I'd like to take the opportunity, since this may be my last post
in quite some time, to thank everyone who helped out with AWTeen and its
community over the past two years. It has been great, and AWTeen's current
state wouldn't have been possible without the help of countless individuals,
both regular visitors, and people like XelaG, Magine, Mountain Myst, mauz,
the PK's and others. While I might not be active in the community for much
longer, I consider the past two years a great time in my life, and I hope
that many people feel the same way. Congratulations on a job well done, and
I hope that Chanty and Poseidon have the help of as many great people as I
have had!

Till later,

-Brant

Jul 28, 2002, 1:36am

You know, this is the kind of comment that makes me want to filter people.
What's more, you were included in the slideshow, but I will be removing the
pictures of you after you put down everyone who visits AWTeen in that
statement. If you don't want to visit, that's fine, but don't go insulting
the hard work of those who have spent over a hundred hours now organizing
this event, more than any other event in AWTeen's (and probably high on the
list of Activeworlds') history without even taking the time to attend first
and find out what's going on.

I might be leaving the world, but that still doesn't mean I won't defend the
efforts of people who care about Activeworlds, even if they are younger than
you :(

-Brant

[View Quote]

Jul 28, 2002, 3:19pm

I figured as much :)

But seriously, I got a few telegrams about this post. Keep in mind that
this slideshow isn't your run of the mill thing where there's a MIDI or two
and a few pictures. This slideshow has been put together by more than ten
people, involves hundreds of pictures, is orchestrated (and synchronized to)
music, and involves custom programming. That's why the ZIP file is so big -
we had to make a sacrifice - so we figured that the best solution to the
problem of using these kinds of media was to allow people to download it
ahead of time so there would be no delay :)

[View Quote]

Jul 30, 2002, 8:18pm

No, but you can check out the news://news.andras.net/AW.AWTeen newsgroup and
download it for yourself - this way you can watch it whenever you want.

[View Quote]

Aug 5, 2002, 11:21am

Actually, this is old news. I found this out more than a week and a half
ago. I didn't think it was that big a deal, so I didn't post it - maybe a
lot of people felt the same way :)

[View Quote]

Nov 7, 2002, 10:37am

Hi,

Having led a large G-rated public building world before, I can say from
experience that much criticism is directed at the leaders. Many of the
times, citizens both in and out of the world talk about how keeping the
world G-rated is "impractical" or how "real life" should be R-rated.

It took me two years to learn that the people who offer nothing but
criticism will always speak much louder than those who are satisfied with
the direction the world is going. It's the same with anything in life,
whether it be the steps a company is taking, the President's views on the
country, or a Caretaker's actions. The supporters will never speak loudly
because they're already happy with things they way they are - why should
they complain? People will avoid controversy wherever possible.

In short, for every one who complains and cause trouble, there's usually two
or three others who offer their silent support to you. Keep those people in
mind :)

-Brant

[View Quote]

Nov 9, 2002, 12:55am

Hey Lara! Everyone had been talking about how you decided to abandon AW
after the huge price hike. Guess they were wrong.

It's good to see some old faces returning :)

-Brant

[View Quote]

Nov 10, 2002, 3:18pm

Just a thought - the NASDAQ listing doesn't really have anything to do with
the current AWI. That problem is the original Activeworlds Corp, the one
that inherited the lawsuit against Juno and all of the former Activeworlds'
problems. This AWI is privately owned, so I'm sure ENZO could care less
what happens to the other company right now.

[View Quote]

Nov 14, 2002, 8:42pm

Awesome! But am I the only person who is becoming somewhat disappointed
that 3.4 isn't going to be released soon? The original release date was the
end of June, and now it's five months later, and we're still adding features
instead of removing the last bugs.

I'm like anyone else - I'd like to see more features, but I think that
updating the documentation and releasing 3.4 should come first. There'll be
plenty of time to add more features in 3.5 :)

Comments?

[View Quote] Oh and mappable keys too...
http://objects.activeworlds.com/newbuild/pic2.jpg

Enzo

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