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Dec 29, 2000, 4:55pm

During 2001, two online role-playing games will be issued that are
likely to supersede AW. First there will be Neverwinter Nights, which
will give everyone who purchases the game a free world server (with up
to 64 visitors at a time), a set of objects (avatars, seqs, scripts,
bots, etc.), and a toolset for building one's own world (offline). Then
there will be Atriarch, which will offer a massive online world (for a
monthly fee), in which visitors will be able to build online, play a
full set of social roles (not just fighters, but merchants, artists,
bankers, etc.), and interact with bot and visitor characters (the
world's ecology evolves as decided by the players). Both of these
"real-time, multi-user, interactive environments" are appearing on all
the year-end forecasts for Best of 2001. (See
http://www.neverwinternights.com and http://www.atriarch.com.)


[View Quote] > The main point I was making (perhaps poorly) was that the end result from a
> level editor is a fixed environment ... basically a set of predefined rules
> which equates ONLY to a fixed, completed world in AW (replace this wall with
> this one when someone shoots it, crumble the floor when someone walks on
> it). What it cannot handle, as AW can, is the scenario where one "player"
> can be on the third floor of a castle when another "player" comes along and
> replaces it with a rose garden. This is where I see the fundamental
> difference to AW which is focussed as a real-time, muti-user, interactive
> environment.
>
> If it is used to create a world which is then baselined and published, then
> yes, a comparison can be made, but I don't see how the central supports of
> the AW "community" (basically AlphaWorld and other public building worlds)
> could still be provided in that case.
>
> I have to agree that there is a likelyhood of new, better alternatives
> overtaking AW, but then that's how things work in the world. Its inevitable
> that someone else WILL come along and steal (at least) some of AW's market
> share. Its how AWCI respond to that intrusion that will decide their fate. I
> doubt they are a big enough company right now to pre-empt it.
>
> Final comment ... I know I've expressed this opinion before and I'll try to
> make it the last time. What AWCI do and how they do it is their business. A
> little more recognition of citizens as "customers" would be nice, but at the
> end of the day, if they don't want to concentrate on placating existing
> customers, then they don't have to. If they want to run the company into the
> ground (which I am not saying they are doing by any means), then it is the
> shareholders they answer to, not the customers (us).
>
> When there's comparitive competition, then we'll see what happens.
>
> Grims
>
>
>

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