Across the universe
So it is now time to consider the multiverse, or more particular the universe as it is defined by this new world…
Now it seems that Activeworlds offers licenses that enable a number of different configurations – “World” [hosted or not] which are a separate private place up to “Universe” which allows multiple worlds, remote hosting. We have chosen a U3000 license – this means [correct me if I am wrong please] multiple worlds, total of 9,000,000 square meters [that seems a lot right now] and up to 500 users online simultaneously.
This ties in with what I had envisaged: a “homeworld” of sorts, which I am terming “Offworld Homebase” and a cluster of related, connected worlds that you can teleport between. It allows a certain level of granularity that will allow other projects and space to grow in the future, but is suitable scalable as a model that it should suit our purposes nicely.
Users connect, initially, to Offworld Homebase as the initial login/connection point, and then from there travel to their chosen location if necessary. This level of abstraction could be useful, as the connection point is clearly not here – as in it is clearly on a different planet, so we have distanced ourself in the first stage. We might teleport to an “earth-like” place, but the distinction between reality and virtual world is a natural one. users should more readily accept the look and feel of the place if they know it is not trying to fake here, if that makes sense.
Transporter Room - enter coordinates
Homebase should have orientation, general skills, meeting and collaboration tools and places to select context, might have habitation and recreation but should also provide jump-points [a teleportery] to places of interest. These would include:
- Related learning objects – we can link to existing learning objects that can be used in the in-world browser – a lush and huge collection of existing multi-disciplinary interactive objects that are well integrated into existing curriculum
- Science Outstation – this could be on the same planet, or a different one but would provide additional bridges to sims that users could visit, explore, plan and create solutions for problems they perceive there
- Sandbox world – the builder’s play pen – somewhere people could go and learn to build – a mixture of tutorials and resources to allow citizens to explore construction options. It should include links of the web catalog of objects in the public object path.
- …other stuff [What do you reckon? What is IMPORTANT in the initial build? Is there anyone reading this?]
The design of Offword Homebase then becomes the next thing. I rather like the whole “cluster of domes” in a crater idea, each linked to each via passageways – if well thought out and modular this could work well, the layout of domes is an aesthetic challenge, but there are a number of visual aids, namely molecule pictures and a style of Indigenous Dot painting that symbolises “waterholes” that could be useful [and also provide useful graphical motif for later design work, textures and finesse]
I am still to find out the distance that chat drops out – if we have meeting rooms, chat in that room should not spill out into adjacent areas. Looking at big picture first, then will focus on minutiae when general layout is decided. Using design tenets, odd numbers usually look better than even numbers, and we can have domes of various sizes, orientations and materials.
