End of an Era

See, Active Worlds has been free for the past two years.   Free software, free access, the works.  Well, of course you can tell right away that this is not a money-making state of affairs.  People often wondered how this could be.  The answer is: it can't. 

The hope was that enough advertising dollars would come this way to defray the cost of running the thing and actually make some money too.  Unfortunately, Circle of Fire Studios, the people who have possession of the AW technology (there is some debate as to who actually owns it), have not been able somehow to successfully sell potential advertisers on the idea of hawking their goods in AW. 

So, with finances getting tight (some employees haven't been paid in awhile, and the banwidth had to be narrowed to conserve funds) the President of COF announced a charge for citizenship.  Now lots of users had anticipated an eventual charge for the software, but a charge for citizenship, i.e. the right to have an identity, the right to have a name of your own, to choose an avatar, and to build structures undeletable by another ordinary citizen, was something of a surprise and a shock. 

Well the rest is a long story and an even longer debate.  Who was wrong, who was right, and who didn't give a rat's ass.  If you want to see all that, see Dataman's newsgroup.  Most of this was hashed out there. 

The important thing is that there were a lot of disgruntled people, and also a lot of people annoyed not at COF but at the disgruntled people. 

It's been said over and over again that it's not the $20.  Most of us can spare that for doing what we want to do.  It was the short notice, and the added sting that the structures built by people who don't pay up will get deleted, despite the oft-repeated statistic that only 1% of Alpha World has been built upon. 

Anyway, all the unhappiness is causing a transformation in the community at large.  I don't give a damn about blame or who is right, I just care that things are changing, so I picked the night before the changeover day to open up some prime real estate I got when a dear and disgruntled friend removed his property from it.  I knew some belligerent things might be said.  I hoped some positive things might be said also.

Well what happened was that pretty much everybody had a good time.  Some folks built outlanddish things, some syrupy ones.  Some constructions were openly hostile, and some sentimental.  Some had nothing whatsoever to do with recent events.  The huge crowd stood around and cracked jokes and acted pretty much like any other set of partyers.  Except for the occasional dig at COF, or its most beloved (shyeah!) member, Cryonics.  It really was quite a successful event.

Anyway, midnight came and went without incident, and I stand here now, building, just as I did day before yesterday.  As Dataman predicted, nothing changed.  At least not right away.  Except for one thing.  I have a great memory of one hell of a party.