Finals Week

...ugh.

;)

AlphaMapper Progress Continues

Hey everyone!  I'm still on break through the end of this week, but I'd like to share a couple of things so it's not totally dead around here...

AlphaMapper Progress Continues


Byte has returned to work on the AlphaMapper and it's gettin ever-closer to being able to produce maps.  I understand the long wait-time may be frustrating to some Alphaworld builders, but I've been keeping up with Byte through the whole process and I can vouch that he's really taking the long, arduous road -- making all of the components himself -- so that when the product is finally done, the new AlphaMapper can be much more versatile than a simple mapper.  I think a lot of his recent promo videos and screenshots can attest to that.  One such video is below, where we see that he's got avatars and masks up and running.



Byte keeps a blog about AlphaMapper progress, which you can find in our 'What's new in AW?' sidebar links.  If anything new hits, you'll be sure to find it there!

Town Hall Meeting


This week's Town Hall Meeting will be today in AWSchool (Click to Teleport) at 6pm VRT.  From the looks of things there are a lot of big ideas floating around that need some dedicated volunteers.  If you've got the time and are up to it, feel free to step out and lend a hand.  :)


Annnnd that's it for me.  I'll try to get a new poll up this week, but I'm heading into finals so there's no guarantee.  Later!

BTW I'm on Break

In case you hadn't figured it out from the lack of activity here. ;)  School is very busy and there looks to be a whole heap of drama in AW at the moment, so I don't expect that I'm missing out on a whole lot.

While I've been away, Byte has released the latest version of the ActiveWorlds SDK .NET Wrapper on the forums. I'd like to dabble with this a bit once my summer classes have come to an end in early August, and if I make any progress I'll be sure to post it up here on the blog. :)

Another note... v4s were enabled for everyone in Alphaworld a couple of weeks ago.  Good news, right? :D

Classes Begin Today

Hey everyone.  Summer classes begin today and I suspect they'll eat away at much of my time.  Oh well.  :)

I also have a link to share:  a thread containing the changelog of my progress in AD&DRPG world.  You can review it here.  There are also some suggestions from other users posted there that are worth a view.  If you have any ideas, feel free to let me know!

Gaming - BuildCity Now Open for 'Off-Season' Play

Hey all, I've had some people contact me recently letting me know that they were interested in playing Builder's Challenge, and the game has been inactive for some time... so the other day I cleaned off the cobwebs in BuildCity world and have opened it in a setting that I'm tentatively calling the 'off-season.'

During the off-season:

• The chief end of the off-season session is to allow players to practice for times of competition.
• The world is not in active competition. The scoreboard will continue being maintained, but prizes will not be rewarded.
• Building lots will still be judged as normal, with a score and comments given to the builder.
• The global bot is not guaranteed to be online 24/7.
• Requests will be processed slower than usual. Expect turn-around times of up to 2 days during the off-season.
• Area restrictions are DISABLED -- this means that higher tier areas do not have to be unlocked like they normally do to be built in. However, the player still does have to lock them individually -- they must begin with a plot in Verdant Valley and progress to higher tiers on an individual basis. The only difference now is that they won't have to be held up by other players.

The global bot's online time will be sporadic until I have completed the semester and returned home. This period will last for about another week, and then the bot should be up 24/7.

The off-season will end when we're ready to hold another session of Builder's Challenge, at which time existing builds in the world will be wiped. There is no time-table at present for this, as I wish to automate much of the registration and judging process before I hold another session.

I'll post further updates concerning the off-season to this thread in the AW forums. In the meantime, here are a couple of images from the first plot of the off-season: A Cattle Ranch by Conqueror

Overview of the Ranch

Front-view with completed comment card for the builder.

 I'll have some more updates on this after I complete my finals.  In the meantime, give the world a tour.  It's a P-50 world and for the most part it's completely filled out (except for builder plots!)