On the third of November 1999 AWABA was launched. It is a free multi-user virtual world, 2km x 2km in size, designed to help Australian kids feel at home on the net and in VR. It is, more than anything, a social space where kids go to hang out and create buildings. AWABA is funded by the Australian Government with idea that if kids can be made to feel at home in a virtual world now then they will have the natural grounding to start the next generation of VR businesses.
The more than 600 citizens of AWABA are mostly very young, largely teens -- the youngest is 5. I was told by many people that dealing with lots of kids in there would be a major headache, but I have actually had a very easy time of it. There have only been about half a dozen kids who have been a hassle. Most of those either don't come back or return under a different name and become interested citizens. I think there may be two main reasons for this. One is that the kids are self-selecting anyway -- usually only the kids who are smart enough to "get it" come to AWABA. These kids are capable of understanding the incredible potential they are faced with there. The other is that I treat all the kids as reasonable and intelligent. Any psychologist will confirm that people tend to become what is expected of them.
Reproduced with permission of Online Australia
As creator of the world I have ultimate power in there, but I am very mindful of the danger inherent in such power, feeling that if someone wants power then they are exactly the wrong kind of person to be given it. I am very uncomfortable wielding any power over others. Accordingly I tell kids that my job in there is janitor -- I help people and fix things. The kids seem to respond well to that too.
We have begun holding regular chat sessions on various subjects in there and will be asking celebrities from around the world to participate in the near future. The purpose of these is to get the kids thinking in new directions, and make them realise that they can do almost anything. We will be having a chat on making fiction in virtual worlds on Monday 17th, Australian time.
There are also plans to link up with schools around the Earth in the near future. This would broaden kids' horizons immeasurably. And some teachers are interested in using AWABA for distance learning. So although AWABA is not really an educational project, many people are seeing the possibilities there.
I am hoping to be able to make use of Stephen White's brilliant VNet
software soon, so that the next version of AWABA can be cross-platform. At
the moment, because it uses ActiveWorlds technology, AWABA only works on
Microsoft Windows. Unfortunately many schools use Macs, and they can only
participate at present using an MS Windows emulator. Another reason to move
to VNet is that VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) is capable of much
more than RWX (Renderware Scripting), particularly when VRML is coupled
with Java and Javascript. But VNet needs a few improvements before I dare
make the switch. Join the vnet-interest
It will be interesting to see what young net and VR geniuses come out of
the AWABA project. I have already met a number of promising individuals.