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Jul 3, 2000, 11:47pm

Activeworlds just published a new list of World Server prices. But AW
still seems to be going with its traditional "rent a browser, rent a
server" model. I reported last month that the new generation of
role-playing games are becoming more and more competitive with AW.
Vampire is out now--it looks as good as or better than AW 3.0, has lots
of cool Nonplayer Characters, & an involving storyline, with options for
online multi-player and gamemaster story-involvement. Lots of items
(objects) can be picked up & moved & used in the horror gameplay. (There
are problems with the save system & the AI.)

Vampire has delivered (free) a set of world-editing and world-scripting
tools, & I thought some people would be interested in some first
impressions, since this is the part that would be in competition with
AW. The editors do have the ability to design worlds as fascinating as
Vampire's medieval Prague & modern Vienna, & you can quickly recompile &
test out what you did, using the Vampire installation on your hard disk.
But to use the same tools that Nihilistic used, you need patience to
read lots of instructions & willingness to become sort of a computer
artist/designer. For $34.99 & a free download, you have everything you
need to make your own worlds, but it's not easy to do.

Likewise, the scripting tools let you do almost anything you want
within the animation capabilities of the game engine, but you need to
understand the Java programming language, or some other modern language
like it, such as Object Pascal (Delphi) or C++. Not only are these tools
free for the download, Nihilistic is making its own scripted maps of its
game world available for free. On the minus side, if your friends (or
anyone else that can dial you up over the internet) wants to visit your
new world & play one of the characters in the plot you have created,
they have to download your modified version of Vampire, & reinstall key
files. Still, they get a new world, & everybody only pays $34.99 once,
because from then on, all the new worlds are free to make & free to
visit directly over the net.

Next year Neverwinter Nights should be ready. It promises to be much
more serious competition for AW. Bioware, the makers of Baldur's Gate,
are doing it, & have been unusually forthcoming about its development.
Even though nine months is a long time, you can see from the preview
(http://www.dailyradar.com/features/game_feature_page_856_1.html) why so
many people are excited about it. NWN will give users free tools for
editing their own worlds, but as you can see on the preview movie, these
will be easy to use. (Like Worldcraft/Starcraft, you paint down scenery
or buildings--'artifacts' in the AW sense--but these are 3-D objects,
not just 2-D objects.) NWN will not only have a C-like scripting
language for manipulating the NPC's, monsters, movable items, status
points, etc. that constitute your world story, but it will also have
scripting Wizards that will do the C-like hard part for you. (Bioware
expects that 90% of users will work through the scripting wizards, & the
other 10% will want to get down & script with the C-like language.)

NWN is going to have a full story of its own, but the story has been
designed from the start as a model for game-buyers to use, after they
play the game & begin to build their own worlds and storylines. Bioware
will make money after it sells the gamebox by selling new objects, new
monsters, new textures, new items, etc. But once you've bought the game
($49.99?), from then on, even ordinary folks can design worlds & invite
people to come visit over the internet--for free. (8-64 people at a
time, depending on your internet connection, modem-cable.) You won't be
able to build while people watch; but you will be able to have dozens of
Non-Player Characters, move furniture & beermugs & dragonsteeth around,
& above all, involve your friends in a story that you composed yourself.

I wonder if AW will be able to match this kind of competition. Course
it might turn out not to be what it sounds like. But: if we can run
worlds off our own home computers for the cost of a single game, if we
can have as many bots as we want, with built-in AI facilities that we
can script ourselves, if we can have doors that move & gold coins that
we can carry, all for free, why should we pay to rent one of AW's new
world servers? What I think I see is still a cloud, small as a man's
hand, on the horizon. I hope by the time it gets here, AW will be ready.

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