Supposing that the best place to begin is experience, perhaps we can look to how we learned in the browser. We all know what Active Worlds is; how to use it, where to go to find people... its various nuances that we like or dislike. Learning about that took some time -- even though I was hooked on my first day. Building certainly took a while to understand, even if my first attempts were pretty awful. (BTW, I know those coordinates in my memory even after all these years!) Despite a rough beginning, I did manage to learn about correctly spacing objects and I had a great time doing it! From my first build I went on to create my first town, and as I began interacting and collaborating with other users, very early on I understood that we all had a different level of competency with the technology, and looking back on that now perhaps that has to do with how we came to experience Active Worlds and virtual technology in general. One guy came in right from AWGate. I came to build after getting some help in AWNewbie. A few days later I brought in a friend from class and taught him myself! Back in 2002, there were plenty of ways for new users to learn and understand Active Worlds.Today, this is still true. Perhaps not to the magnitude, but AWGate is much more educational than it has been in the past, and AWSchool is more active than I've ever known it to be. AWNewbie has seen better days, but the framework is still there and generally, if a new user wants to learn, well, they'll have plenty of options. This is all well and good for the ones who have made it as far as AWGate, but I think our focus needs to move even further out. Out beyond our universe -- to the 2D web browsers that are the bread and butter of the typical internet user's experience. What does Active Worlds look like... to them?
