What is the crowd's opinion of
ActiveWorlds?
From 3.5 billion comments
3 reviews of this app found across the web:
I remember playing it back in 2003 or so. I flew around and thought "holy shit, there's so many long forgotten player built structures here from ages ago".
If you don't pay memebership to become a citizen, anyone can destroy and edit the things you build. So some friends and I teleported far away from everyone else's structures to build a "tourist utopia" in a hollowed out hill. We covered the top of the hill with grass so no one would know there was a town underneath. We had a bulletin board up so we could leave messages to each other if we ever visited again. I had saved the coordinates in a text file but that was on a harddrive that was reformatted ages ago. ):
I am HyperAnthony and I've had a recreational interest in virtual worlds since the late 90s. My first experience was in JumpStart's KnowledgeLand, and from there I went on to ActiveWorlds and a number of MMORPGs. I have been active in ActiveWorlds since 2002, and have contributed a number of projects there.
I'm currently a college student at the University of Kentucky, studying computer science.
Second Life is still very active, but as has always been the case, you have to join groups that appeal to you in order to really get started. Once you find a few events you like, you'll meet people you enjoy being around and the experience pretty much grows from there. It's always bugged me that there's really no "directory" of SL as such; Showcase almost works as one, but it's only a fraction of what's out there.
As far as newer virtual worlds with similar concepts, there is Blue Mars, which has a rather different approach to content creation (you have to be an approved developer, and content doesn't cross servers). Active Worlds and The Palace (which are ancient by internet standards; both started in 1995) are also still around, I think, but significantly dwindled.
Virtual worlds are sort of increasingly niche, I think. Most companies aren't sure how to monetize the concept and most people would rather use the technology to play games; simple and relatively noncommittal social networks have become the standard for socialization online.