Newsletter-February 2004

SW City's Official Newsletter - February 2004

EDITOR'S NOTE

If you read the newsletter before you read this, you may have noticed that Syntax has a large, um, presence in this edition. :) Well our old pal Synny is expired from AW. But fear not! He shall return. In fact, he... never really left.

Yeah.

You can find him still slacking around the forums or in AW as a tourist on occasion. Well, when he's not imprisoned behind a drafting table up in Nova Scotia. Yes, friends. It's a little known fact that architecture students have no lives whatsoever during their first year at college. It's even worse than being an engineer. But somehow Syntax has kept his life uh, for lack of a better term, alive, and well.

And quite frankly, we don't know how he does it. It's quite a miracle. And so, Syntax, we in the press room christen you a real man of genius. Yes, you certainly deserve this award if you can avoid going insane after being cooped up inside a drafty (pardon the pun) room up in remote Nova Scotia and still have the mental capacity necessary to deal with the likes of us at the end of the day. This bud's for you. *clink*

Cheers,
SW Chris, Editor-in-Chief

AW 3.5 Beta Released

If you've logged onto Active Worlds within the past few weeks you will have noticed that 3.5 has been released to public beta. Many of the inhabitants of SW City have had a chance to try it out. Here are some of their comments:

"Theres an INVITE feature. So far, it doesnt work, but the only reason this is good is because im hoping it will stop those stupid spam tgrams for useless events no one cares about" --AlaskanShadow

"I think it's too lame to be even considered an update. It's just tons of useless stuff. No new building commands either :P All this update did to AW was add a pretty frame to the picture." --Ferruccio

"My main beef with 3.5 is that now you cannot resize your AW window width-wise since there is no menu there. I guess you could run a minimized window like Mauz does.. (check out her 2003 screens for example at http://mauz.info)" --Syntax

The reception came off kind of lukewarm. But this is beta, and things are still changable. :) I myself think that it's a nice GUI upgrade and that it's nice that there are some more things for world owners to add to their worlds. But it would be nice for us slackers who don't own worlds to get a few new interface features as well. Skinnable avatars, anyone? But they threw us a bone with tourists, move and rotate, and 3d axis rotation. So I can't complain too much!

Add your opinion here! - http://www.swcity.net/yabbse/index.php?board=16;action=display;threadid=1689;start=0

SW CITY WEBSITE SHOWS OFF CITY'S BEST

Hey all, it's your resident web-head Syntax here writing to tell you all that there are some new links to check out on the SW City website! There hasn't been much activity on the website in terms of updating but now that my account has expired, I want to do something to keep me connected to the city.

Anyway the new webpages are for the Central, Estate, Palm and River Districts. Each district page has a new link on it which takes you to a screenshot page with roughly 8 amazing screenshots from places around that district. I have done this because the website has barely any pictures that actually showcase what SW City has to offer.

Each screenshot also has it's own caption as well, to give the viewer a preview of what the build is like or some history behind it. There is also a rating system to help the person make the right decision on what builds to teleport to first. All are amazing buildings but they can't all be five stars. Of course, the rating system is just my opinion on the builds.

So browse on over to www.swcity.net and check out some of the screenies. It may inspire you to visit or re-visit some of SW City's best. (Editor's Note: It's nice to know that James River is only full of broken (but good-looking) stuff. :P)

SW City District Pages - http://www.swcity.net/districts.htm

SYNTAX EXPIRES, BUT NOT GONE

Our resident arcky student Syntax has let his account expire due to his studies taking up all of his free time. Unfortunately the cost of AW doesn't justify how little time he is able to spend with it. He said he will rejoin the citizendry towards the end of the semester. But for now you can find him running things behind the scenes, on the forums, and occasionally as a tourist in-world. Syntax is currently studing architecture at Acadia University in Nova Scotia. Wishing the best for you.

If you would like to contact Syntax, please send him a private message via the SW City Forums: http://www.swcity.net/yabbse/index.php?board=8;action=imsend;to=admin

SYNTAX'S SW PICK OF JANUARY/FEBRUARY

Way back in 2001 when I started construction on Syntax Mansion, I really didn't know who Ferruccio was. I remember him visiting the few odd times coming to see what I was doing when he was bored. I knew he had awesome building skills at this time so I asked him if he was interested in building a mansion beside mine. At this time, I had not constructed the mountains that are now to the east of my mansion. He said he would try to make a mansion but it didn't happen. I constructed the mountains and the land that Ferruccio's mansion was suppose to be on was now gone.

2002 rolled by and Ferruccio and I became better friends. I asked him again but he was busy. Finally in August of 2003, Ferruccio approaced me and asked me if I could spare some land for a mansion he was interested to build. I was excited to hear that he was building a mansion so I quickly gave him a gigantic plot of land that was south of Syntax Mansion.

Within a few days, Ferruccio had a gigantic shell of a building constructed. Within a few months, he had a full-fledged mansion complete with a reactor, tennis courts, pools, bowling lanes, restaurants and other exotic rooms. What was once a two year old thought was now an amazing building that many people have seen since it has became "completed" (mansions are never complete, hence the quotations :P).

I suggest anyone who likes fine architecture visit the Palais de Ferruccio because it is certainly one of SW City's finest buildings.

Palais de Ferruccio - AW 2211s 3984e 0.0a 180 http://objects.activeworlds.com/cgi-bin/teleport.cgi?aw_2211S_3984E_0.00a_180

SW QUICK LINKS

Website - http://www.swcity.net Discussion Forums - http://forum.swcity.net SW Outfitters Tours and Expeditions Store - http://store.swcity.net Charter - http://swcity.skywalkeronline.net/yabbse/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=134