Guide:Creating A Community

This is a guide concerning the creation of Communities (towns or cities) in Public Building Worlds that is intended for new users to Active Worlds.

I want to make a town!

Creating A Community is a fun and potentially rewarding labor of love that is unique to the Public Building Worlds. Communities have historically been loosely defined in the Active Worlds Universe, generally referring to towns and cities that exist in public worlds such as Alphaworld and AWTeen.

Practically anyone can create a community with a small amount of initiative, charisma, and talent. Communities on the whole are extremely undefined entities, so users are free to organize a group around whatever project they choose in Active Worlds. Historically, most communities have been building-oriented, acting as a group to further a particular building project, such as a town or city.

Organizing A Community

Creating a community is simple, and by utilizing the tips below you can seed a community as early as today!

• Find a large, clear tract of a land in the world you wish to start a town in.
• Seed an object in the area you wish to build your Ground Zero. It's often best to start on an easy coordinate (ex. 1000n 1000e) to remember!
• Build your ground zero and begin promoting your community!

Finding Land

Main Article: Finding Land...

Finding land is an important and potentially frustrating first step in the process of creating a community. There are a lot of decisions that have to be made about where a community will be located, as the physical location of a community usually plays a factor in its topography.

In the case of New Arklay City, a user had built a large project nearby that had been abandoned by the time the city was founded. This project was obstructive to the design efforts of the city, so the staff worked to find a way to hide it. A decision was settled on to build a lake and make the abandoned project an island, so that the area would not generally be visited by people in the city.

Such projects of integrating existing builds can be fun and challenging, but they can also be very time consuming and require some degree of building skill. If possible, steps should be taken when searching for land to avoid having to integrate large, existing builds.

After making decisions concerning the placement of the community, many tools are at our disposal for finding land. They are listed below. For general land finding tips, please read the main article for this section.

Finding Land in Alphaworld

New Arklay City, a successful community in AWTeen from 2004-2007 founded upon this method.

Land in Alphaworld is found primarily through use of the AlphaMapper. Land closer to the world Ground Zero is more dense, and land further away is generally open.

Finding Land in AWTeen

Several world maps exist in-world in AWTeen, however the maintenance of them is often spotty and highly depends on the current world leadership. World staff is usually available in the global chat relay, and would be happy to assist users looking to start communities.

Land closer to the world Ground Zero is more dense, and land further away is generally open. This is especially true of the new southern and northern themed areas.

Building From The Ground Up

How you build your community is very important and will define its success. Before you begin, you should give special consideration to planning elements. Will the community be themed, or have themed areas? Will you have roads or paths? How do you want to organize the community? Keep these in mind as you are building.

Seeding and Entry Points

The first step in organizing your entry point is to seed an object. Ideally, you will want to seed this object in the center of the area you intend to build. For seeding methods, you can visit this article.

It is recommended to seed your entry point at a coordinate set with nice, easy-to-remember numbers.

Ground Zero Design

The ground zero of Horizon City. The entry point is flanked on all sides by informative signs and decor.

The entry point, or Ground Zero, will be where most of the user activity in your community will take place. Ground Zeroes usually end up being the most populated areas of a city, with the most dense builds located nearby as well as useful or informative buildings.

To make your town easily accessible to new users and potential residents, it is recommended that you build variants of the following types of builds at your ground zero:

Information Center

A central location for your town's important facts is key to quicky aquainting any user. People will want to know who the mayor is, how many residents there are, and where they can build. Your information center should be able to address questions people may have about being a part of your community. Interactive sign objects, pictures, and a warm atmosphere are key in these types of buildings.

Teleport Area

People love to teleport. It's how they got to your new community, and its more than likely how they will get around. Your ground zero should have an area set aside to let people teleport to other parts of your community, and maybe even to other communities or worlds that you like. Be creative!

Meeting Hall

Staying in touch with your residents is important, so you will need a common place to meet them in world. For more formal communities, a meeting hall is important and can be a lot of fun to be in.

Infrastructure

Community Infrastructure refers to how users navigate and interact in a community. Road networks, paths, teleports, and even movers can get people moving and where you want them to be. Again, be creative! Impressive infrastructure reflects you as a builder and can mark your city as a more interesting place!

City Planning

Grids are useful and interesting in reality, but any child can make a grid city in Active Worlds. Builders and residents are attracted to unique and exotic places to create their works, and a simple street1.rwx grid doesn't cut it for most people. Give some thought to how you will place different areas of your city... will there be subdivisions? Where will the roads go? Try to innovate, and your city will be better off for it.

For this particular point, the Builder's Academy is the definitive guide and defacto source for innovation within Active Worlds. SW City is a good field example of how city planning makes collaborative building spaces more unique and attractive to builders.

Promoting Your City

Promoting your city is an important part of getting people to come visit and build! Nobody will come to see if you don't get the word out! When New Arklay City was founded, as soon as the ground zero was finished and land was covered, friends and contacts started hearing about the city. Before long, a dozen people were all building and having a good time!

These days there are many ways to promote a new city. See below on how.

Via ActiveWiki

Just register an account and go to town! You can write up an article about your city, and even include photos and teleports! If you can't obtain webspace for a site, this wiki is a fantastic alternative!

Via Active Worlds Newsletter

The monthly Newsletter is probably the most read publication among AW users, and writing an ad for it would surely net you some interest across the broad AW community.

Via AWPortals

AWPortals is a useful website to post from due to the occasional email newsletters that get sent out to a large portion of the userbase.

Via Chat

Chat with others users in popular worlds! Be sure to be cordial, and don't give off the impression that you're just spamming.

Via Forums

The official AW forums are a good place to keep a topic including updates about your town and events you may be holding. Keep it fresh there, and people will always see it!