Stagecoach Island defects to ActiveWorlds

I'm kind of interested to know if my roller skates or bubble gum have been "re-created" in this new version in AW. They were both used on Stagecoach in SL and no transfer of rights etc. were requested or given so I do hope they haven't been ported over at all (I don't know much about AW so I'm not even sure they could be reproduced there!?)

It also begs the question as to when we'll see the L$ from sales, which should be made when the project has finished. Pretty much looks like the project has finished now.

Did you sign any sort of agreement with Wells Fargo granting them the rights to reproduce your content on another platform, Cubey?

You're making big assumptions there. 1.) I didn't give permission to anyone to use my designs outside of SL. 2.) Where are you getting that 40k figure? Did you just pull it out of the air? Because I didn't get any part of it.

I have to be the first one to say it...I logged onto AW today with my work computer...500Mhz Intel PII, 256Mb ram, Intel 64Mb Onboard video and it worked just fine and ran good! I walked around without a single "jitter" of lag.

The coolest part was when I found a mixing area, people created beats and played them together when standing near each other and had virtual jam sessions as they created music. I will say the bits are much longer than 10 seconds that is for sure.

I hate to say it but SL needs some work, AW is rather old I remember playing it several years ago and they have improved that system so dramatically. I saw those side-by-side screen shots and all I can say is there was not much of a diff, even to go so far as to say their sky looked better.

Please don't flame me, this is out of pure observation. I have not used AW for so long I did not think to ever compare the two.

Way to go, Linden Labs. You get your foot in the door and blow it, and you sell out your own customers' content at the same time.

Sounds like Cubey needs to get a RL lawyer and file some RL lawsuits against Wells Fargo and any other company that might be involved in the design copying.

Maybe its time to check out AW, might fill the gap nicely until DnD online comes out.

Don't worry about being flamed. You are absolutely right - though I did notice some lag now that a bunch of people are in it, when I was riding a motorcycle, the sense of speed is something I have never experienced in SL, even as it was downloading buildings around me. The fact that a technology as old as AW can handle things pretty well is a testament to how well designed it actually is, and actually makes me realize there may be some comepition to SL after all.

Have you had the chance to play the DDO beta? sorry to sidetrack for a moment - if you haven't, you should pre-order - you get into the beta instantly, and it is worth it.

Thanks for the notice about this, Cris; it is a rather distressing turn of events for LL and SL. For allowing SL men's clothing I made to be sold in the SL version of Stagecoach Island, I was promised a (relatively small) US$ amount; I never received that money. I was never asked to sign an agreement, but was asked by a Linden to agree by email to the terms (allowing the items to be taken over by Lindens to be set for sale on SI) and the price they would pay to use them.

Also, Coco, the US$ amount I heard mentioned by several sources (Tony Walsh's Clickable Culture blog, for one) was more along the lines of well under US$20K for the total that Wells Fargo was supposed to have paid for development and content for SI -- beyond, of course, what they paid LL for the land.

DDO looks like it's going to rock - beta looks good. Release date is 2/28 last I heard.

Yes, I know I'm making big assumptions. That's why I said, "I am totally assuming..."

I was talking about Bedazzled, though, and not the individuals who had their things in shops for sale.

So - from what you have said, you didn't give permission, and yet we have that Cubey Terra stuff in those pictures in AW? That would be bad.

coco

I worked with AW from 1998 to 2003 - AW's model unfortunately isnt anywhere near as powerful as SL itself.

LSL alone makes the difference - AW's content is static, and the server wont 'spontaneously' update any content; the 'physics' they added recently was just a class of objects where things can be run clientside, and then have their position sent back to the server.

This design has a few advantages - the low CPU requirement means the servers can run on a 486, but. The world is pretty much static. The only way to do anything spontaneous requires building and designing 'bots' which lack any real finesse - although I would like to see the functionality integrated into SL itself, it's not at all a worthy replacement for a real scripting language and VM.

AW's lagless state comes from a few key areas.

First - AW doesnt pummel you with a minimum of 90,000 ktris in any one scene. People's hair doesnt exceed 300,000 polygons. AW forces you to use a real design application, and it shows; you have enough flexibility than you dont need to waste so much on the limitations of prims.

Second - what content is drawn, is very low poly. Most ActiveWorld's content I've seen is around circa-2000 in terms of polygon limits. Doom 3 displayed around 60,000 polygons (180,000 ktris) per scene. Activeworlds by comparison has no more than 10,000. Usually far less.

If you compare the ground layer, SL's is 'smooth', whereas in AW, you can clearly see 'straight lines' between the control points in the ground (which are in an infinitely sized grid.)

Unfortunately, AW has some very serious problems with it's design. Being entirely client-side, things like doors which open on one client, wont open on another person's machine who is standing right next to it.

This, and several other major limitations are the reason AW is still lingering very far back in the past. I think LL can gain a lot by taking some of AW's features (such as user custom meshes);

My bet is, WF chose to use AW simply because it's lower cost, and lower requirements. SL requires a beast of a machine to run because it uses a lot of experimental technology - and that is going to limit customers. I dont think it's a case of 'X is better than Y', but rather 'X is better suited to task Z', and it's probably the same recommendation I'd make TBH - for business demonstrations, AW while supporting less is going to be more accessible to those with older computers.

I'm curious to know what you and possibly others will be doing to remedy this. This sort of thing has my attention since it hits too close to home for me.

Oh yes, and that 40k was just a number I had heard, Cubey - and it was referring to what Bedazzled got. I assumed that what shops had been invited in by Bedazzled would just be getting the proceeds from their item sales only. Or some sort of payment, separate from that 20-40k or whatever figure. AND IF THEY NEVER DID, THAT SUCKS BIG TIME!

What is DDO?

And does somebody remember - it was Active Worlds that wouldn't allow the words Second Life to be used, wasn't it?

coco

Adam,

Oh I know that SL is far more advanced than AW. However, it's not just about technology, it's also about experience - and I have to say that while it was a bit odd, the experience was much more pleasant. The whole thing just seemed more compelling to me in that environment than in SL. There is a lot that can be learned from AW.

Yep. Even mentioning the words 'Second Life' in the gate or any AWC owned worlds will get you IP banned for a week.

AW's "government" is appalling. LL gives an incredibly amount of leeway by comparison.

Yep, definetely.

I was just outlining why AW runs faster than SL - there's no doubt AW is a bit more smooth. But it's the same argument as There vs SL - one has more flexibility and one involves a lot of hard coded content.

DDO=Dungeons and Dragons Online - it is a new MMORPG coming out next much that is based on the actual D&D pen and paper game series. You are correct, it is Active Worlds that was bumping people for even saying Second Life.

Oh, a friend of mine is working on that! *preens*

coco

It's a great game, I have had a lot of fun with the beta so far. It definitely will represent another pull away from SL for a lot of people for awhile, the way WoW has - I think it is is WoW's first true competition.

There's a favorite analogy I have, and it involves comparing Hot Wheels to Lego cars. Someone might observe, "Lego cars suck because they have all these bumps and if you drop them, they break so easily!" which is true, but that is only a fraction of the spectrum of flexibility. If your Lego car smashes, you can make a boat or a plane, or a giant fighting monster robot outta it!

I'm very much an AND person, so to see SL continue to expand innovation AND raise up the framerates (this is an area I'm personally very keen on), would be the win-win-win.

Most of the arguments I've heard in this area are variations on themes I've come across earlier, and too many of them are singular for my liking. I don't have the extensive experience in Active Worlds or There that some Resis have, but I realize I can learn a lot from their stories and what they like in other online worlds that could possibly be brought into SL, made better, so we all benefit in here.

For example, I thot the dogs in There were a real hoot. I really enjoy how they move and behave, and respond. I'd like to see that type of dynamicism here. It just makes me feel good.

Of interest is Oz Spade's Virtual World Comparion Chart.

BTW, I went into the Active Worlds Stagecoach Island and I realized (I didn't even notice until after the fact) that I said "Second Life" without being kicked out. More background for anyone who's curious.

Double-entendres about the word "defect" aside, I'd like to see Second Life scale so that it's both easier to get into and more powerful when you really get deep into it, just like the beauty of the ocean. As long as that sort of self-improvement bent flourishes and doesn't give way to complacency-as-laxatives, we'll be in good shape.

I would imagine that the reason they decided to run off to AW is that WF is dealing with casual users. Those casual users need to be instantly able to do everything, with no learning curve to speak of. We as SL residents have, and NEED, a huge amount of flexibility - much more than is available in AW. We need it and are willing to brave that tough learning curve because the resulting freedom and rewards are great.

It's a bit like WF deciding to have a drive-up lunch window. SL is a banquet that requires time to digest. AW is a cheeseburger, and ketchup-or-no-ketchup is the only bit of choice.

I teach a class inside Cornell U "SciFair" virtual worlds that use the AW platform. It's good to get those fifth graders learning about such things, however, it's a colossal drag for me, and the sooner I can log out and go home to SL the happier I am.

Well I am preordering my DDO tomorrow, that will give me ten days of beta to check it out, plus we will beallowed on a little before release. I'd love to see some cross over community from SL into DDO

Since you've already been told otherwise by Cubey et. al. regarding the permissions and the cost, I'll clarify my statement so you understand what I meant.

When I said "everyone involved", I didn't mean just Bedazzle, I meant everyone involved, specifically referring to Cubey's screenshots of his own work.

Regarding the shady manner in which I currently believe Wells Fargo is acting: when I or Tiny Seadog creates a build for a client, I will generally provide mod/copy/no trans versions of the custom textures upon request, included in the cost of the build. Full-permed textures or the original .PSD files are negotiable, sometimes for an additional fee, sometimes not, depending on the project. (I have yet to create a contract that states that the final project we create for a client will be "wholy owned" by the client, up to and including reproduction and resale rights.)

Now, given that Wells Fargo apparently spent at least some time conversing with Bedazzle regarding theme, design, etc., wouldn't one think that it would be far easier and less expensive to simply request the textures from Bedazzle that they had already paid for? Why get yet another graphics person on board, get them into SL, have them snapshot all the textures as they appear on the project, and then fix them so they can be applied in AW?

If a client decided to go that route as opposed to coming to me directly for the textures...well, I can imagine a few scenarios where that might happen, none of them very happy ones.

Regarding the contract - given that Bedazzle is a very professional outfit with some big projects under their belt, I am hoping that the contract they created for the work performed clearly outlined what Wells Fargo was and was not allowed to do with the textures created for them, giving them some legal recourse if the situation warrants it. Although, I have to admit, the possibility of someone reproducing my work in an entirely different online platform is something I had never considered until now, and will more than likely be working into my own contracts in the future.

Finally, to clarify, I'm speaking as a project developer in SL, along the lines of Bedazzle. All this is purely hypothetical on my part, based on what others have said in this thread regarding their experience with Wells Fargo.

According to Cory Linden, Bedazzle was paid $17,000 (of which I got $1,000). I've never heard any $40,000 figure. If you did, I would like to know your sources.