ActiveWorlds Gate 5.0 launched on November the 26th 2009, in readiness for the launch of ActiveWorlds 5.0 on December the 1st 2009. This still is from that launch, and shows the ActiveWorlds logo, going through a loop of disassembling itself into a cloud of pixels, spinning round then reassembling itself in the style of the effect shown in the old-school VR film Lawnmower Man.

That effect is somewhat cheesy, but the company like it: it has been in every version of the Gate world. But , that is not the real atrocity here. For that, kindly direct your attention to those trees.

This is the entrance world for ActiveWorlds, which every newcomer to the various worlds sees when they come in. It is thus in their interest to make it as flashy and awe-inspiring as possible. Those trees are all around the outside of this small world, and if you look at them and then conclude that they are nothing more than an irregularly shaped rock retextured with a leaf pattern, masked, and then dropped on top of a bark textured flagpole, you would be dead on the money. That is precisely what those are.

Things that were behind the technological times in 1995 when ActiveWorlds first launched, adorn the landscape of their flagship new entrance world. As the screen also shows, a lot of the other angles are off too. The platform is actually capable of a lot better than this, they have just for whatever reason, chosen not to show it on the entrance world.

Link: World Review: ActiveWorlds Gate 5.0