Re: AV98 (Wishlist)

Re: AV98 // Wishlist

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mauz

Nov 23, 1998, 6:52pm
[View Quote] (cross-posting to Wishlist)

Well, since nobody else is answering, I'll give you my
(very heavily edited) version of Roland's presentation:

"
Immigration Officer: ALL: Roland will be giving a talk on the brief history
of the development of AW and features developed and to be developed..
BIGBOARD NOW
so I don't really have a formal presenation prepared for this...I've been to
busy watching the Star Wars preview again and again...
and again...
but here's what I'd like to do
I'd like to start out with a brief history of the development of Active
Worlds
this should be a fun review for those of you who have been around since the
beginning
and interesting for those of you who are more new to online VR :)
then I want to give my brief opininon of where we currently are, and where
we are going
and then open it up to a general discussion about the AW technology,
inclyuding Q&A
so let's start with the histry of AW...I'll try o cover this as quickly as
possible
development on AW first started in early 1995 at Worlds Inc
for the first six months or so all work was done by a single programmer, Ron
Britvich
aka Protagonist
I joined Worlds Inc. in September of 1995 and started working on AW with Ron
shortly there after
By then Ron was already up to build 38
so I don't know much about the builds befor then :)
so I'm not sure how many people remember build 38, but it was a...tad...bit
less sophisticated than what we have now :)
basically we had a three dee window and a field for entering chat text
there was only one avatar, the immortal Cy
there was only one world, AlphaWOrld
you could build
most of the time :)
to become a citizen, you had to immigrate via a web page
the system emailed you back an "immigration number" that you had to enter in
order to be come a citizen
it was an ingenious way to keep people from creating a zilliion
ciitzenships, since you could only have one citizen account per email
address
the first thing I added to AW was the first "action" commands...
teleport, bump, visible on/off, etc...
this allowed people to add a little bit of behavior to their buildings
it was very primitive, but a big step forward nonetheless...
most of those action commands are still with us today...amazingly enough
they are starting to show their age I would say :)
yes they work ;)
however I also fear they may be a little bit much for some new users to
grasp...someday I'd like to see something a bit more user friendly...
but anyway :)
Moving on to around February 1996
that was when AW first became a 32-bit app
back then of course most of us were still on Win 3.1
but this new beast Windows 95 was starting to make the scene
so going to 32-bits was the first step to movingover to Windows 95
completely...
also at that time, the amzing concept of "dynamic downloading" was
introduced :)
if y'all remember, the early AW browsers were shipped with all the art
included, all textures, sounds,everything
the install was 4 megs...in 1995
with most people on 14.4 modems still...that was a hefty dowload
anyway we added the ability for the browser to download the art files on the
fly, from a web site
removing the requirement that all art be shipped with the browser
to this day that was probably one of the most difficult-to-implement
features I ever added...it was surprisingly complex
anyway...that feature allowed us to move quickly to April 1996
when we first introduced the amazing concept of...more than one world!
wow
it's not just AlphaWorld anymore...
at the time, we first called them "zones", but over time that term was
dropped in favor of the less-techy sounding "worlds"
Version 1.0 of AW was released in summer of 1996
for that we also managed to add....multiple avatars!
wow
not just Cy anymore...
and also, I believe at more or less the samem time we added avatar
animations
something we pretty much take for granted now...but once upon a time
everyone was looking pretty...stiff
now for some reason my records of 1996 are sketchy...I don't recall exactly
what was added when
but fall 1996 saw he first best version of version 1.1
build 133 I believe
that was when we introduced the integrated web browser
which was a huge step forward for integrating 2D and 3D content seemlessly
well, for people that had IE anyway :)
we also added the amazing "picture" command :)
something else I'm sure we all take for granted now :)
but there was a time when you were limited only to the textures on the
object path, nothing else
the picture comman allowed people to customize their buildings and creations
to a degree never before possible
we also added linking to WAVs and MIDIs anywhere on the web at the same time
version 1.1 also allowed textures on avatars...
it was all flat-shaded polygons before that :)
MP3! yeah :) I want that too... hehe
anyway...we managed to release version 1.1 in December 1996
just in time, because...
in January 1997, Worlds Inc., unable until even the very end to understand
the value of what they had...
cancelled AW and laid everyone on the project off...
fortunately for us, however, instead of just tossing it in the trash, they
put it up for sale...
so certain other individuals who DID perceive AW 's value worked their butts
off for two months in order to acquire AW from Worlds
by the way, I wasn't one of those people...I took a two month vacataion :)
but by March 1997, Circle of Fire had full rights to the AW technology...and
work resumed!
first day of official operations I believe was March 8, 1997
By May 1997 we had version 1.2 out
version 1.2 introduced the concept of tourists for the first time...we added
this because it was becoming apparent that we needed a way to get poeple
into AW quicker
the immigration process, although simple, was confusing enough people that
we felt we needed an easier way for people to see it
somewhere around then we also introduced the amazing"sign" command :)
allowing people to customize their work even more...
actually I 'remember exactly when we added the sign command...but it was
sometime around then
sorry, I mean, I can't remember...anyway
version1.2 also introduced the object password...since object theft was
becoming a rapant problem
rampant
it allowed people to protect their hard work with a password so others
couldn't just take their models and use them elsewhere
an ability, interestingly enough, till completely missing from the web today
still
also summer 1997 saw the first introduction of a new product...the uniserver
for the first time, someone (with a a lot of money :) could run their own AW
universe separate from COF's
this is still an emerging concept...but now there are at least half a dozen
different AW universes that I know of
more on that later :)
August 1997 saw the release of 1.3
in my opinion, probably the most significant new version of 1.3 to date
it introduced most of the new features that shape AW as we know it today
including...
the worlds list'
the contacts list
telegrams
joining
eject
privilege paswords
and fully integrated HTML hel
yes Q&A later :)
those were just the biggest chnges:)
and then, with build 177, in September 1997, something shocking and
terrifying appeared...
the registratinscreen :)
oops
registration screen
since this is a technical presentaation I don't want to go into the details
of why that was added :)
suffice to say, it kept us busy for a good month getting it in :)
and on October 8. 1997. registration was first switched on
and AW citizenship was no longer free...ah well
then work started on version 2.0
in some ways, less of a major version feature-wise, but behind the scenes
2.0 involved an ambitious re-implementation of much of the underlying
client/server architecture
AW was growing fast, and it had outgrown some of the limitations present in
1.3
among other things, the avatar limit was raised from 12 to 50
making discussions like this one possible :)
multiple objet selection was added, a nice tool for builders
and everyone's favorite new feature, the VRT clock :)
we also raised the infamous cell data limit
keeping the hated building inspector at bay for a little while longer :)
more on the techy side, we dropped the use of an internet protocol known as
UDP
UDP had been used since the beginning to implenent the chat and avatars
it was a great solution in theory, unfortunately in practice it didn't work
for too many different people
so it was dropped...and th reliability of AW went up quite a bit
also 2.0 introduced message sets for the first time
allowing the creation of non-english versions of the browser for the first
time
this summer saw the release of the beta of the new SDK
this is a powerful new tool for developers to add new behaviors to worlds
like weve never seen before
some of you may have witnessed the first ever SOCCER GAME we had in AW just
a few days ago
thanks to the SDK and the hard work of several determined AW citizens :)
okay..almost done
now we're working on versino 2.1
which will bring us whispering, and bot support
and file transfer
among other things
okay...that brings up up to now :)
so where are we going?
well..beyond 2.1...is 2.2, or 3.0, or whatever you want to call it
as usual, there are a million things I'd like to see in that version, and
we'll only get to a fraction of them
but some of the things high on the wish list include...
custom avatars
improved bulding interface...
I still think building is too hard :)
including the use of objects from anwhere...not just the one object path
the browser needs to have better support for multiple universes
or, any support :)
better 3D hardware support would be nice too :)
that's tough though...the only way I see that happening is with a native
Direct3D port of AW
i.e. no more RenderWare
that's a big one...
also an issue I would really like to see addressed is...
easier world hosting
the original vision of AW was one of fewer, larger worlds that people spread
out through...
but the reality has been one more of many, small worlds
people like to have their own, small private worlds...that they can control
completely
which makes sense
it's like having your own web page...same thing
but the hosting problem prevents a lot of people from having their own
worlds up 24/7
I have some plans for something I call a "macro sever"...a single server
that can easily host hundreds or thousands of worlds at once
it's actually not that hard...I would like to see that happen in 1999
well, that's some of the big stuff anyway :)
I see I've overshot my time...dang....
but I don't have anywhere I need to be, so if you want to stick around I
don't mind having a discussion now
okay...
so...not sure how to handle this :)
hmmm..gravity....what about it?
gravity ...as I recall...that was total spur-of-the-moment
I added it one night when I was fooling around with collision detection
we liked it so much we decided to keep it :)
a history of outgoing telegrams...yes, that would be nice
the whole telegram mechanism could stand for some substantial improvement
well "when" is the question I can never really answer :)
the best I can say is that I like the idea and I would like to see it happen
well one thing about telegrams was, we didn't want to wind up just
re-implementing email all over again :)
since we already have email :)
and it works pretty good :)
the idea was to provide a light-weight way of quickly getting in touch with
others
yes...ignore for telegrams falls under the category of "improved privacy"
which includes a variety of features...
including the infamous green checkmark...
my idea there right now is to make contact lists more reciprocal...
in other words, you can choose to only expose information to the people who
are on your contact list
hmm I don't know, I don't see a whitebaord happening soon
it's a nice idea but there's so much other stuff that is more important
offline building....welll
another nice feature to have
however building is so tightly integrated with the server, it's really not
possible to build without a server
however, that said
the ability to run a world server on your PC, and build in it without being
connected to the net...now that's possible
that is something I've wanted to do for a while
[Kasper Voyager: And how would you make sure that 2 ppl don't build in the
same place then]
well Kasper that is the problem...that is why you need a server
hmmm Zeke the world server may be doing more that you think :)_
mirror universe servers...another nice thing to have...difficult to
implement though
I do think about that one though
so far my experience with internet voice has been pretty negative
it works okay for one-on-one, sometimes...
but I don't see anyway we could have a group discussion like this with
voice...
not with this many people,. not with the current technologyu
since so much of AW is about group chat...voice doesn't seem like it would
help
okay...object rotation...hehe :)
maybe someday :)
"

By the way, earlier I heard some interesting comments by E N Z O:

"
I spoke with them [Truespace people] yesterday
they are very excited
perhaps a special AW bundling deal
and a building tool
along with the LF people
who need avs
maybee
i will tell you more when i know
"

And:

"
we are writing the code for Custom avs in AW
then everyone can have whatever they like... inside a few parameters
and world owners can dictate the use
There is a plugin being written for Truespace
they will have a low priced AW bundle that outputs into RWX
probly around 30 bucks
and Lifeforms is working with them to provide an animation plugin
was on the phone with both Seng from Credo and Terry from TS
there is also an av maker from cof
hopefully we can release it soon
roland is working on MP3
welllll... there will be implementation of direct 3d soon
(meaning in a year or so...)
and that would allow a better mixer
direct sound
"

--
Mauz
http://tnlc.com/mauz/

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