Greetings everyone!
Alright so I would like to show some of my brainstorming! For the moment we mostly archive old Active Worlds content and use a old browser that we were licensed to use.
Lucky the protocol of 5.2 allows 6.2 and onwards, I have been asked a few times by users will we support the latest versions of Active Worlds, no this is something we will not do, and do not wish to do, if you prefer to use the latest versions I will point you to the official website that runs Active Worlds, using any modern browsers like 7.0/9.0+ would be considered illegal as our white label license would not support such upgrades that require fees, our servers are not even compatible anyway!
Moving forward with DeltaWorlds 6.x
Live Client Updates - I will be pushing out an update soon that updates our engine to the latest open source code, I am just having to redo a few client calls to get everything working, our integrated browser which is Chrome Embedded Framework (CEF) has also been updated to improve compatibility with new websites, all http calls will soon be blocked and everyone hosting ops/images will need to start using HTTPS only. Our embedded player has had a new compile and fixes to playlist management so embedded youtube videos work once again. A release should be live in the next few months.
VOIP - We are working on ways to integrate WebRTC with the current live client, as embedded voice is very crusty. I will need some volunteers for this test as I am mute in real life and have to communicate with ASL
Future Client/Server - Some fantastic community members are spearheading progress on our own SDK that does not require anything to do with Active Worlds, we are also working on efforts of our own browser and world server/universe authentication that will step away from anything ActiveWorlds. The browsers graphical engine will be based on Unreal along with a entirely new browser coded in .NET making it much more compatible with Linux without us needing to use Wine. These are vast brainstorming ideas, but progress is being made and I hope you all will be along for the ride, I am very happy to see people appreciating our efforts, and I appreciate the help I am also receiving from the community, great to see new builds and also people appreciating our archived worlds from AW.
Engine Ideas (UE or BGFX) - Depending on where we go with our live client, the best form of action would be https://github.com/bkaradzic/bgfx This is what we currently use a very primitive version of in 6.x and would like to expand its use, or move entirely to Unreal Engine, its currently a balancing act, as creating a VR chat platform on Unreal may bring in costs and legalities with Unreal Engine, more users who use it, UE may start wanting a license fee.
Bingo/Events - I am currently in the process of reviving Bingo and a few in world events, that will award the user something called fun tokens, that can be used for free in our upcoming shopping mall and world upgrade tools. I would like to keep the community stimulated with events, and anyone who wishes to host such events get as much help as they need from myself and staff.
VR Banking - Work in progress, a fun banking system for buying plots of land in our main building world (in development) these credits are acquired from participating in events, or just generally logging into DW daily, none of this will be done for real world cash.
We are also in development of DeltaWorlds - Grid which is based on the open source code of OpenSim/SecondLife, this will not take over DeltaWorlds 6, this will be a separate project that will not impact anything on our main universe.
Many thanks for reading
-Xan