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Jan 3, 2002, 10:42pm

I never responded to a news group before but once in a great while I
actually read some. Like most of you I too am in shock over what is being
decided by the big brass of AW and not by a citizen vote, which would
normally happen in a "community". We were NOT given the choice of upgrades
and up until recently had the choice of whether or not to accept them when
logging on to AW. Like some of you out there, my puter is an older model and
I can't afford a new puter or the graphics cards to upgrade it. So every
time I HAD to upgrade AW, it messed me up more and more.
Finally in August I gave up on building. Especially since "someone" in
management thought it would be cute to play with the weather in Alphaworlds
and create night time and fog. Ever try to build in fog and the dark??????
Then a few times in Sept and Oct, AW wouldn't let me in at all for days at a
time. Now recently some "genius" redesigned AW GAte to make it more
attractive to the new folks. Ok, it's prettier. Got some giant eyeball
things in there and several VR clocks, but is it worth the lag? You can't
fly up past a certain altitude anymore to escape the lag, and shift is
disabled. Instead of concentrating on creating new and bizarre shapes for AW
gate, they should have put their imaginations to work on creating some new
objects to use in alpha world. Were we as citizens given a choice in
this???? NOOooo!!
I have to admit it is really handy to be able to access the websites of
some of the people on my contact list just by clicking on their names.
However I don't have much need for all that, especially more than one visit
to each website. Did I ask for that option?? Nooo.
The main reason I stayed a citizen in AW for almost 3 years?? For the
wonderful lifetime friends I made from all over the world. I don't have the
ambition or the time to build anymore, so most of the little time I can
spend in AW is spent in chatting with my friends and occasionally exploring.
I average about 4 hours a week if I'm lucky, chatting on AW. Some weeks I
can't devote any time to AW, though I want to. Since I don't have a social
life, my leisure hours are spent in AW. It is my means to escape stress in
RL like so many of the people there.
I don't understand why we need all these upgrades or why AW needs so
many employees. There are tons of people already in AW who have volunteered
their time and services to help in many different ways. Why is the AW
administration earning those top bucks and yet they are demanding such an
impossible figure from lower middle class people like me who only earn $8.50
an hour and have bills to pay?????? There's something not right about all
that. I feel awful for the folks living in other countries who are worse off
financially than us here in the states. I feel terrible for the disabled
folks who cannot get out and socialize like some of us, who are looking for
friends and love and can only find it in a place such as AW. There they can
walk, run, fly and do things they cannot do in real life with their
disabilities. There they can be a normal average person. The deaf can hear
there, the crippled can walk, the lonely can find love, and a child can
build castles. All that for only $20 a year is more than worth it for a 3D
chat program. Heck, I am willing to pay $60 a year for something like that.
But I cannot afford over a hundred bucks for chatting only a few hours a
week. It's not worth it to me and unfortunately not worth it to many
citizens there.
I once was a tourist for three weeks. It took me that long to figure out
if it was worth paying 20 bucks a year for certain benefits. You need to
give our tourists more than 2 weeks to decide if paying $120 bucks a year is
worth the few benefits they will recieve. Like I said earlier, do we REALLY
need the website links on our contact lists? Do we REALLY need weather
changes? Does the AW administration REALLY need to earn so much money? AW
will go down the drain if this plan goes through. People will leave in mass
droves. People will tell their friends and family NOT to go to Active Worlds
or anything owned or operated by Active Worlds, including Dreamland Park and
Cybernet Worlds. World owners will pull the plug on their worlds. People
will nuke their properties. Nobody will go to Bingo and there will be no
Bingo prizes or anyone to run the games. Nobody will want to buy universes
from Active Worlds. The mere name "Active Worlds" will have a stain upon it.
It happened to Dreamland Park only 2 years ago. They almost went under. They
are STILL trying to recoup their losses and recruit new visitors. There was
a mass immigration from Dreamland Park to AW. But that was a different
scandal. I foresee a terrible loss to AW if this is allowed to happen. How
sad. ~ TheLioness o ;-"<

Jan 4, 2002, 11:16am

Lionness,

You speak for me entirely in all you have said. I agree with your "forced
unwanted" upgrade comments and feel we are now having to feed the egos of
AW's programmers.

To add to the tourist issue...would you...or anyone..really input their
credit card details for a programme they haven't even tried? I think not -
and without attracting new citizens who is going to replace those cits who
leave..? AW will become stale and if they think they have problems now-they
soon will have a lot more.

I applaud your comments re-the disabled...to have a VR life helped many who
could not do "normal" activities in r/l. These people too are on a limited
income and I am sure they will go to other 3D chat programmes. I was in
Outer world yesterday and saw MANY AW faces in there. All new...all asking
about cit prices and world prices.

I too do not mind paying extra for AW and keeping the present browser for
awhile..but the ridiculous charge they are talking about is way too
excessive. It seems we, the citizens who have made this community..are now
having to pay for their past bad business planning.

AWCom..get your thinking caps on again and get this sorted - sooner rather
than later for the sake of the future of Active worlds.

Jan 5, 2002, 7:13am

I just wanted to say.. EXCELLENT posts ! I cried reading the truth so well
put. These 3-D chats saved my emotional life during a year of chemo... and
if what they are doing today.. had been in place then.. I wouldn't have
been able to be there.. and as I had to go through all of the illness
physically alone.. I dread to think what would have become of me if not for
a place to go...
So.... I totally agree. (I am just too burnt on the subject to expound on
it now.. too upset and too hurt)

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