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Apr 7, 2002, 12:37pm

All that does is bring you to another Web site that is using the
LinkShare network/program. I don't believe that you can sign up for an
affiliate program to promote AW using those graphics on the left side of
the April newsletter.

-Builderz

[View Quote] *sig snipped*

Jun 4, 2002, 12:17am

Just block all incoming tgrams when you don't want to be disturbed and
then allow them once you are available again or want to chat.

-Builderz

[View Quote]

Jul 2, 2003, 12:34pm

So you want like an "away message" in AIM or something? Why not just
click on the AFK button so the "AFK" logo appears next to your name on
the contact list, or just close the browser down if you aren't going to
be using it for a while?

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

[View Quote]

Jul 2, 2003, 3:46pm

Good idea and it wouldn't take long to add (since they have the sound
code for other events).

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

[View Quote]

Jul 6, 2003, 1:40pm

While the feature you want isn't built-in to the browser, these links
may help: http://www.ricta.net/ethaw/multipath.html and
http://oct31.de/aw/ls/index.html

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

[View Quote]

Jul 6, 2003, 1:54pm

See my comments below:

[View Quote] You can make it so that certain people can't see if you are online,
can't send you tgrams, can't join you, etc. by right-clicking on their
name in the contacts list, going to Privacy Options for <name> and then
selecting the item you want to block. You can even mute them whenever
they speak.

Now, about other people not seeing/hearing you when you talk... I think
there is a new feature in the 3.4 world server that can be enabled which
allows everyone to see who is in the world without them having to type
anything. And like you said, people with certain rights (as well as
bots) will be able to see everyone in the world, too. I don't think
there is any easy solution to those problems. However, I like your idea
about adding a feature where instead of muting someone, they can't even
see your text in the first place. As always, go bug the dev team. :)

> This would be very helpful in many cases such
> as stalkers, who I find very annoying >.< You can block your status,
> t-grams, and mute the person, but a lot of times people can find ways around
> that, such as getting others to contact you for them, or going to worlds
> they know you visit. If this was harassment, you could get PK's involved,
> but its really just an annoyance. So I think something like this would be a
> good solution.

Do you really have THAT many stalkers after you? Maybe you should
consider getting another citizenship with a totally different name and
use it for the sake of your privacy? Or going in as a tourist to some of
the worlds you visit and talking with your friends over a IM program? If
they really are that bad, maybe you could send an e-mail to AW or their
ISP's abuse department about it. The only other thing I can suggest
would be to run a software firewall, find out if any of your online
stalkers have a static IP address, and then block them by IP.

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

Jul 18, 2003, 3:49am

A lot of good ideas were "lost" or ignored that were posted ages ago in
various newsgroups, not just wishlist. I think Eep kept a record of some
of them on his site, but there are still many more that have vanished.

As for being opposed to plug-ins: think of the people that download bots
from unsafe sources (for example, M A T T's malicious bot). Now imagine
if there was a plug-in or add-on that could be used in the browser or
the world server that could send passwords out, allow anyone CT access,
"piggyback" on other data, etc. There would need to be some type of
limit to what it could do, or else some real nasty stuff will be going
around.

I'm not on the beta team and can't get into NewAW, but I heard rumors
that there is a plug-in for the world server that AWI is using for it.
I'd love to see plug-ins or an add-on feature, but security will need to
be a priority if it is to be implemented correctly.

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

[View Quote]

Jul 19, 2003, 12:38pm

Call this a bug, hidden feature, or just a simple oversight, but I found
something interesting when using the world server's remote admin tool.
If you login to it remotely and try to save a propdump of a very large
world (say, over 100,000 objects in a world), it'll take a while to send
all of that data to the user over the Net. So guess what happens?

There is no limit in the admin tool to only transfer at a certain speed,
so most of your upstream bandwidth is being used to send the propdump
and there is hardly any "left over" for the users/bots in a world.
Someone has tested this with a popular world and it ate up so much
bandwidth that it kicked everyone from the world and showed it as
offline in the worlds list until the propdump was done being sent! O_O
One might even go so far as to classify this as a denial of service
attack of sorts.

A simple "transfer limit" feature in Kbps or something in the admin tool
or as a setting in the .INI would be nice. You could limit it to like
1/2 or 1/3 of your total upstream bandwidth so this wouldn't happen. It
would still send the propdump fine, just slower.

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

Jul 19, 2003, 1:15pm

I didn't say I was talking about 3D HOst inparticular -- it was another
host. I don't want to mention which host or which world it was (at least
not right now), I'm just stating that it is a flaw in the admin tool.
Take this as an example:

Say you are hosting a very popular public building world with 100,000
objects in it on a 128Kbps upstream broadband connection. Someone on a
T1 (1.544 Mbps) or a fast downstream broadband connection (768Kbps)
downloads the propdump via the remote admin tool. Well, they will be
able to use up your entire 128Kbps upstream to download the propdump
until it has successfully been sent in full, kicking the users from the
world and taking it off of the worlds list because there is no bandwidth
left over for anything else.

If the admin tool on the server side could be set to a limit, say 64Kbps
upstream (50% of the host's total upstream bandwidth in this example),
then things would be much better. Sure, the propdump would take a bit
longer to download, but you'd just need to be patient or make propdumps
less often. This "bug" won't work with dial-up users (in most cases)
because their transfer speeds are so slow that it won't effect the host.

It isn't really a problem with attribute or terrain data since most of
that is very small, and it only effects worlds with lots of objects in
them. So unless you have an extremely large world with lots of objects,
have access to the remote admin tool, do a remote propdump, and your
host doesn't have a very fast connection to the Net -- then it isn't a
problem for you. :)

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

[View Quote]

Jul 19, 2003, 1:22pm

See my reply to your other post. Also, the same effect can happen if you
are uploading a very large file to an FTP server, uploading/sharing
files over a P2P network -- or just about anything that uses most or all
of a host's upstream bandwidth. If a host's server is in a data center
with a 2Mbps or higher connection and there is little upstream activity,
then the problem wouldn't matter. However, there may be quite a few
people who host their own world on their own dial-up or broadband
connections and may allow remote admin access to others -- that's why I
wanted to point this out. It may not effect very many people, but it is
still an oversight, IMO. Of course, you can always turn off remote admin
support as well.

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

[View Quote]

Jul 19, 2003, 3:17pm

True, you could use the broadcast feature or other means to warn users
in the world before doing it, but I still think it would be nice to
somehow "cap" the transfer limit. Most FTP servers have the option of
using transfer limits, so why can't the admin tool or world server have
that option? Also, most game servers allow you to specify how much data
can be sent per player. I know admin tool and world server are a bit
different, but I don't think it would be very hard to add.

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

[View Quote]

Jul 20, 2003, 7:17pm

I just found a handy program called NetLimiter
(http://www.netlimiter.com) that can limit both upstream and downstream
bandwidth on a per program basis for Windows. Used in conjunction with
the admin tool on a Windows host, this should help resolve the problem I
talked about in my original post.

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

Nov 3, 2003, 6:15pm

The GIF patent did indeed expire and I think adding GIF and PNG support
would be a nice touch.

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

[View Quote] > I remember AW saying, years ago, about not supporting GIF because they would
> have to pay royalities. But they did imply interest in using use once the
> patent expires, which has happened several months ago.
>
> ...so? ;)

Nov 1, 2003, 12:57am

Good suggestion, CodeWarrior. :)

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

[View Quote] > seems like a bit of an oversight.

Nov 3, 2003, 6:10pm

I know this was suggested a few months ago and I'm aware that there are
programs that allow others to talk to each other while in AW, but I
think a built-in voice chat feature would breathe new life into AW. The
VR universe There has this and it works fairly well. If a user has voice
enabled, there is a special icon above their avatar's head. Volume is
also adjusted depending how far away you are from others. There not only
has voice, but the ability to also stream music from a Shoutcast server.

Just think of the possibilities here -- it would bring a new meaning to
telecommuting. Businesses could hold virtual meetings or conference
calls entirely within ActiveWorlds. Parties and events would be a lot
more fun. Playing games in AW would be more enjoyable. It would add a
more human touch to one's avatar.

I assume there would be some "trouble makers" that would cause some
havoc with this, but the mute feature could be expanded to mute not only
text, but voice or audio from a user as well. And the ability to turn
voice on or off entirely (just like other settings in the browser) would
work just as well, IMO. If you hate the idea of voice chat, simply
disable it and be on your way.

There are already open source and patent-free audio codecs for
speech/voice that the AW development team could implement (Speex at
http://www.speex.org is just one example). I think it would add more
"value" to the overall AW experience and liven things up a bit. At least
think of the uses for other galaxy or universe owners.

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

Nov 3, 2003, 10:21pm

Roger Wilco is a decent third party program to use for voice chat,
Bowen. But what if I owned my own world, universe or galaxy and wanted
to hold a live "virtual seminar" about a certain topic? I'd love to be
able to use voice chat and speak to the people there (without having to
inconvenience everyone by telling them to go download additional voice
chat software such as Roger Wilco or TeamSpeak). It'd also be nice to
hear the audience members ask me questions quicker than it would take to
type them out.

If I wanted to do such a thing currently, I'd either have to type
everything out via text to the audience, setup some type of streaming
audio outside of AW, or have a bot rotate large prerecorded WAV or MP3
files. It would be so much easier if AW had built-in voice chat. And I
really don't see a reason why they shouldn't add it, since members of
other VR communities will most likely be "expecting it" if they ever try
AW and there are numerous free or cheap speech codecs out right now.

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

[View Quote] >
> Roger Wilco.

Nov 4, 2003, 2:17pm

I agree that it'd be nice to use different font types, font sizes, and
font colors. But there would have to be a limit to it. You wouldn't want
someone at GZ typing "Go visit my awes0m3 world d00d" in red, bold, size
72 text. Maybe limit it to certain areas (like the bot radius limit at
AW GZ) or hard code it so you can't go over a certain font size.

As for the IM features, most of the IM programs have a similar GUI -- a
list of contacts and then a box for you to type and a box or window for
the other person's text. To be honest, I don't have many gripes with the
current telegram system that AW has in place. Sure, it could look a
little better and be tweaked a bit, but I'm used to it I guess.

But I see your point and I think it would be best to have a choice of
using the current telegram system or a system more like traditional IM
clients. And yes, it would be nice for AW to upgrade their text display
system (I think they use the RichText dll). Having the option to enable
or disable emoticons (e.g., smiley faces) wouldn't hurt, either.

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

[View Quote] > As far as I'm concerned, AW is still playing major catch up with the IM
> networks...
>
> It's a lot easier to communicate via AIM, Yahoo, MSN, <insert other IM
> network here>... because of their ability to use various fonts, font sizes,
> font types (bold, underline, etc), graphics smilies, intagrated image/file
> transferes, and voice chat. Everyone loves the features that these IM
> programs offer. Personally, I'd love to have them in AW. To me, this is one
> major *glaring* place where AW is lacking.
>
> AW is still stuck in the IRC age of the late 80s using simple text chat and
> \commands for bots. Why don't we bring the *text* chat up to the current
> deccade's technology and *then* worry about voice chat.
>
> -Jeremy

Feb 4, 2004, 2:05pm

You mean a bot that would read the text on the screen to you aloud
(text-to-speech)? I think that'd be pretty handy to have.

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

[View Quote] > It will be nice Bot could make chat turn to Telling chat for a voice

Feb 4, 2004, 2:03pm

Have you tried Tony M's ChatRelayBot at
http://www.homeunix.uni.cc/aw/relay/ ?

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

[View Quote] > As a world owner I'd like to be able to use a feature such as that offered
> by a chat relay bot but via the browser. I've had terrible luck trying to
> use a chat relay bot. I'd like my little world to allow users to chat from
> all over the place. Other world owners may wish to decrease the auditory
> distance. A feature world owners can set that would set the chat distance
> would be a delightful option. I'd just like to be able to set the chat
> range manually. Some would set it so you cannot hear farther than a few
> meters and others would set it so you can hear world wide, etc.

Feb 5, 2004, 3:46am

Well you never know, there could be two Tony M's with the same name and
the same software out there somewhere... ;)

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

[View Quote] > It's exactly what she's talking about :P

Feb 4, 2004, 2:01pm

Good ideas, Uber and Fett. Different avatar speeds would certainly make
it easier for those of us making games in AW. And a "weight" or gravity
variable would also be good for avatars. I was able to change the
gravity settings once in a world and was able to mimic the "jumping" or
jet packs in Starsiege Tribes, but it took a bit of work to get it
right, and everyone (whatever the size of their avatar) all had the same
"weight" like Fett mentions, which made it a bit unrealistic.

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

[View Quote] > Also a gravity or weight settler variable for each avatar. So that if you
> are a heavy avatar, you cant jump very high/far, but if you are a light one,
> then you can go the full distance that the gravity in the world features
> allows you to.
>
[View Quote]

Feb 4, 2004, 6:51pm

I was able to import some terrain and nice looking hills using Andras'
DEM2RWX tool, made some hovering/floating bases, and lowered the world
gravity to try and do a "ghetto Tribes" in AW a while back. But of
course, AW doesn't have any inventory support (need a bot), weapons
support (you can only click on others) and light, medium, and heavy
avatars would all have the same physics when they jumped. Then I thought
about making a Grand Theft Auto-type game (since it uses the RenderWare
engine), but also came upon several pitfalls there, too.

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

[View Quote]

Feb 5, 2004, 3:45am

Yes, I've been to the GarageGames site before and saw some demos of the
Torque engine. You don't get any of the copyrighted models, textures,
maps, etc. from the Tribes game when you purchase the engine, though.
But I think the engine itself is a great deal, money-wise.

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

[View Quote]

Feb 4, 2004, 1:57pm

Your ranking idea reminds me of the different ranks or titles people get
when they post to forums (for example, they start as "Newbie" and after
X amt of posts they are now a "Regular" or something, and the title
keeps changing the more posts they make).

While I don't think a ranking idea is bad, you need to think about
*what* criteria to rank to be fair. If you want to rank online time,
that's one thing. But what about ranking the number of days you first
became a cit? Or the amount of worlds you've been to? Or something else.

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

[View Quote] > EG:
>
> I have clicked "User Rank" on [Customs Aide]...
>
> It has displayed a smallish box, showing 3 icons, one on the left "Low" one
> in the middle "Regular" and one on the Right "Extreme"...
> Customs Aide, being on 24/7, is ranked "Extreme...
>
> It would also be kewl to display a "Most visited world" ... users may make
> ALL their ranks non-viewable for privacy if they want..

Feb 4, 2004, 1:52pm

Streaming audio and built-in voice chat would be nice. There (another
virtual reality program) has voice chat capability and the the ability
to play streaming SHOUTcast stations. Of course, there would need to be
a way to tell voice chat users from non-voice chat users apart and an
option to mute any music stations in the area (or an option to disable
the feature entirely in the browser settings).

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

[View Quote]

Feb 20, 2004, 3:23pm

Are you sure it is really coming from AWI and not someone else's
computer? The other recent e-mail worms spoofed the "from" address of
the e-mails they sent out.

For example, let's say that I did not have the worm and all of my
anti-virus signatures were up to date. However, one of my friends had
*my* address in *their* address book and *they* get infected with the worm.

Now, that worm looks through my friend's address book and sees that *my*
address is there. So the worm decides to use it and sends out mail using
*my* (not their) address as the sender. Even though my system is totally
nice and secure, uneducated people will think *I'm* the one sending the
worm, when in reality it is from another computer that is just forging
the sender's address.

Look at the e-mail you supposedly got from AW and post the headers here.
We can then tell if it really did some from them or not.

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

[View Quote]

Feb 20, 2004, 5:44pm

Just wanted to make sure we are all on the "same page." :)

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

[View Quote]

Mar 8, 2004, 2:47am

I have to agree with you on this one, The Lady. I have all of the
computers on my LAN sync to an atomic time server and I've noticed that
the AW VRT clock can be different from as little as thirty seconds to as
much as three minutes. I assume their clock is set to an atomic time
server as well, but to which one and how often it syncs, I'm not sure.

If you want to know the official time, check out http://www.time.gov

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

[View Quote] > VRT Clock adjusts itself to a different time when I adjust my computer
> clock. Never the same same, always off a few minutes.
*snip*

Mar 10, 2004, 1:48pm

Just out of curiosity... can you use unlimited light sources on software
mode? I know the graphics wouldn't look nearly as nice, but I imagine
you could place as many light sources as your CPU could handle.

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

[View Quote] > How hard would this be to impliment into the browser? It's the only way I
> can see of removing the 8 light source limit that directX 8 has. Many
> computers can handle a lot more lights than eight.
>
>

Mar 29, 2004, 5:20am

<rant>I wish AW had some good "PR" and was featured in some mainstream
computer magazines. I feel that if AW 4.x doesn't live up to its
expectations that other VR programs will eat it up and spit it out. I
feel that 4.x will be the "make or break" point of AW.

There used to be so many more users in the past (up to 400 or more each
day) and that has since about halved in number. I talked to a lot of
cits a few months ago that have now left AW, I haven't seen any posts
from the AW staff in quite a while in these groups, and TechTalk has
long since been stopped.

I keep hearing about There and Second Life and other "AW clones" or VR
programs and I think to myself, "Why can't AW get some press like these
others, it has been around a lot longer?" Does anyone else feel the same
way, or is it just me?</rant>

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

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