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World Review: PeaceCity 3D
Main
Review
Compatible with Operating Systems:
   World Status: Operational
PeaceCity 3D is an ActiveWorlds codebase based social VR platform. A single graphical world with its own installation program ? rare for an ActiveWorlds world, it is 750 metres wide and five kilometres long. A rectangular world with blank space around it, this unusual shape immediately sets it apart from the pack. Things seem a little off with this world right from the start, as the installation program in not called PeaceCity or anything like that, instead it is called ?GaiamAM?, and when you install it, it creates a directory called GaiamAM, and places the client program, also labelled GaiamAM in there. Running this program, produces as splash screen with the image above, then Peace City 3D loads, and this phrase is never referenced again. When you actually enter PeaceCity3D for the first time, you are met with an uninspiring entrance point, containing a few panels, a few pictures, and an entrance sign of a white size three font on a red background, which thankfully expands to legibility when you mouse over it. It turns out that tours are available, but only Friday and Saturday evenings, other than that, you are on your own.
Looking around, the first thing you notice is the road is hovering above the ground, for no explainable reason. The second thing you notice, is a red American truck parked nearby, which is rocking side to side. These form part of a growing theme of inexplicable, poorly thought out constructs that pervade this world. Some of the panels at the entrance do work, but most are dead links. The remaining two will teleport you to other parts of the world. The construction of PeaceCity 3D is haphazard, with overlapping buildings of radically differing styles, vying for space. Much of the construction itself is tacky, and low-grade. In many places, the different models simply do not meet up, with wide gaps visible between them. This is even true between pieces of the same road. In some places, buildings almost seem like they were constructed by a committee, each member of which understood a different language. The buildings lacking any aesthetic form, lumpy and haphazard, sometimes changing architectural styles, halfway up. In some areas, buildings have been erected with no thought to the flow of the terrain under them, with the terrain going one way, the structures another. The overall feel is cheap and tacky.
Even right at the entry point, you can easily slip under the models, as the terrain slopes downwards, whilst the road continues straight. The lack of texture on the underside of the road just compounds the problem, allowing you to slide under and see through the models, presenting a sort of half-world of missing polygon faces. A theme which repeats again and again throughout Peace City, like a run of cheap double glazing and used car adverts, is the cheesy sales pitch. Again and again you run across it. Almost every building is trying to sell you something, usually products you have never heard of before. Housed in flimsy 3D structures with little or no thought put to them, these offers are usually badly laid out and gaudy.
Sub Reviews
For some, its the thrill of discovery, the freedom to strike out, to pioneer. Whether its mapping new lands, or exploring unknown fields of endeavour, to be first, to boldly go, this is what explorers live for. PeaceCity 3D is a medium-sized world, of some 3.75 square kilometres, so there is plenty to explore. However, most of what there is, has been put together with construction which can only be described as shoddy, and slapdash. People exploring this world are likely to soon get fed up at glaring errors, inconsistencies and general lack of care.
The social life is the life for you. To chat, to roam, to gossip all day, and chatter all night. You are the heart of the party, and you are the soul. The drive to chatter, the need to gossip, stretching out, making connections, mind against mind, heart against heart. It keeps you going, it keeps you sane. During the course of this review, the highest number ever seen in the world was a total of five. The more usual number, from multiple visits, at different times of the week, and different hours of the day, was one.
Client OS:Win 2K, Win 98, Win 2K, Win 2K
World Purpose:
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