CompuServe Forum Posts

These are recovered posts from the CompuServe forums.

1995

May

CC's long painful death

Subj:  CC's long painful death		Section: Island Caribe
  To:  Lee Abraham, 71273,373		Friday, May 12, 1995 8:45:30 PM
From:  Hunter Brown /Sysop, 75371,3477	#4158

Hiya Lee,

In looking through some messages here, one popped out on the sad thoughts about Club 
Caribe dying.   You mentioned, "it is VITAL that the creators do not withdraw their support 
from either the staff or the customers."

What exactly happened with Club Caribe?  We here have a Member Support Deparment 
(us friendly sysops), a whole World Design Team, Programers, Systems and Server 
Admin, Marketing People, you name it!   Hopefully we won't go the same course that 
doomed CC's eventual demise into not reaching 256 colors unlike the latest and greatest 
which WorldsAway will be. 

Also, it has been required reading for every team member to read "Snow Crash" by Neal 
Stephenson and the team is genuinely interested in having WorldsAway be a great, 
unique electronic social entity on the Cyberspace frontier. I feel we've all been hand 
picked to help create this wonderful environment for all the real world to play and be in.  
It's our mission too for WorldsAway to be consistent and visionary in it's attempt to be an 
experience appart form the real world.  "Dreams and Cyberspace are the only two places 
that exists nowhere, yet somewhere..."--Anonymous (Amen!)

What might you think could go wrong with WorldsAway? How can we avoid the same 
snafu and eventual tradgedy?

Your message almost sounded like there was a philosophic and visionary falling-out with 
Club Caribe? What happened?

Hunter /sysop   we want to know!:)

Subj:  CC's long painful death		Section: Island Caribe
  To:  Hunter Brown /Sysop, 75371,3477	Saturday, May 13, 1995 10:11:07 AM
From:  Halthron/Cntrstrike, 75606,3136	#4202

Hunter,
   I left Caribe about 9 months before its final demise. Support had left and there really 
wasn't any drive to keep it alive from the upper  management. They  frequently did not 
even show up in Caribe for weeks and when they did, they never answered mail even from 
their staffers. Nerves got very frayed by the lack of concern and one by one, staffers 
started to leave. 
   The best way not to let WA go the way of Caribe is to stick by your product. Try to 
keep new ideas and new blood filtering in by adding new staff as much as possible. If you 
do decide in the distant future to let it drop, kill it fast and don't let it dwindle down to 1 
person per night and decide you finally have had enough.

Carolann/Cntrstrike/CCH Kitty

Subj:  CC's long painful death		Section: Island Caribe
  To:  Hunter Brown /Sysop, 75371,3477	Saturday, May 13, 1995 7:29:24 PM
From:  F. Randall Farmer, 75703,3137	#4252


It was simple economics (as far as Quantum was concerned.)  They were winding down 
support for QLink, and ramping up PCLink (which became America Online.)  Though CC 
was very popular, it was a game, and AOL doesn't do games.  The margins are thinner 
than store-and-forget information services and downloads.  The C-64 market was slowly 
dieing.

What I find amazing was how strong the support the CC community was in reconstituting 
a fully-user-run support group. I once downloaded the story of the 'Return of the CCG's', 
which gave the organizations start a mythic flavor.  Perhaps one of the folks here still 
hase a copy?

Anyway, things have changed (economically), and WorldsAway will ship on the two most 
popular computer platforms in the world.  I *KNOW* that the citizens will make it 
profitable for all concerned :-).  Otherwise Fujitsu would have never signed up for the 
project, I assure you.

Randy

Subj:  CC's long painful death		Section: Island Caribe
  To:  F. Randall Farmer, 75703,3137	Saturday, May 13, 1995 9:38:07 PM
From:  Hunter Brown /Sysop, 75371,3477	#4268



Working for Fujitsu and as a partner with CompuServe, these two HUGE companies, I feel 
that there will be a nice long life for WorldsAway.  There is nothing shotty about these 
organizations, that is for sure!

BUT, I want to add to Randy's comments that beyond the economics of this venture, I 
think we'll do our best to keep Kymer alive and support you all, right to the bitter end (an 
end which would only come I bet by act of a HUGE upgrade somehow.)  I really don't 
think there will be an end though!  This is much too much fun!

Anyhow, we won't treat you bad if we're having a bad day:)

Hunter  /sysop

Subj:  CC's long painful death		Section: Island Caribe
  To:  Hunter Brown /Sysop, 75371,3477	Saturday, May 13, 1995 11:51:15 PM
From:  Lee Abraham, 71273,373		#4283

Hi Hunter -

Randy pretty much answered the practical side of your question, and Carolann made 
some excellent comments. But I'll answer your question from my point of view. One word 
of warning: this is probably gonna be long. I'm not noted for brevity. <wink>

As Randy said, it was an economic decision by Quantum, and Caribe's death was set in 
motion in January, 1991 when there was an inhouse layoff. The inhouse team which 
supported CC, the Casino and another game called Puzzler was cut from four to one, with 
occasional assistance from someone who'd been transferred to the PC area. The person 
most familiar with how CC operated was one who was laid off. The one person remaining 
had little knowledge of how CC worked and was also responsible for ALL of Q's games. 
Thus, she had little time to devote to CC. Soon after this inhouse layoff, our staff of 23 
CCGs was cut back to 7, our hours were cut in half, and our CCG titles were taken away 
from us. Many of our events required assistance from inhouse staff (the creation of books, 
special items, etc.) and we no longer had the support we'd once had. This greatly affected 
our ability to continue hosting events that would keep customers occupied. All growth 
came to a halt -- at least while I was still on the staff.  Thus, to keep customers satisfied, 
the staff had to try to keep them occupied with events. But with only 7 staff members and 
the severe cut-back in our hours along with insufficient support, this was not easy to do.

To add to all that, the remote staff supervisor who'd been with us since CC's birth quit in 
mid-March, primarily because not even he could get the kind of support that he needed to 
support his staff. The one last thing he was able to do for us  was to get us the QCC titles 
so that we could be distinguished from non-staff Avatars. But as he told me later, he had 
to fight tooth and nail for even that.  He was ultimately replaced by a staff person from a 
"competing" game on Q, who continued to work in the competing game and who offered 
even less support to the remaining staff than we'd had between January and March. I 
could see the writing on the wall. It was July, 1991 that I finally turned in my feather; I 
could no longer handle the stress and pain of watching CC in the throes of death -- 
something I'd worked so hard to help build and was trying so hard to keep alive . Shortly 
after I quit, a couple others who'd been on the staff from the birth of CC left as well. 

That CC hung on to life from early 1991 until early 1994 I attribute to the dedication of the 
remaining few staff members and the Acolytes who loved it too much to leave. They 
literally had to be cast out of the Island before they'd give up.

Carolann said it well when she said: "The best way not to let WA go the way of Caribe is 
to stick by your product. Try to keep new ideas and new blood filtering in by adding new 
staff as much as possible. If you do decide in the distant future to let it drop, kill it fast 
and don't let it dwindle down to 1 person per night and decide you finally have had 
enough."

I am VERY glad that WorldsAway is on CIS and not AOL. I like the sound of your 
message and the kind of support that will be available. I like the fact that you WANT to 
hear from us, get our ideas and opinions and will act on them to the best of your ability. If 
the WA team continues to have that same attitude, I doubt very much that WA will go the 
way of CC.

As for the sound of my messages being "a philosophic and visionary falling-out with Club 
Caribe", I get emotional on the subject because Caribe was a ::major:: part of my life 
during my time on the staff. It wasn't unusual for me to devote 150 online and offline hours 
a month to it on top of working a full time job. It was the most gratifying, the most intense 
self-growth period, the most challenging period of my entire life. I discovered in myself 
things I never knew I was capable of. I put a lot of myself into Caribe. For the staff (and 
me) to have been treated as we were devastated me. It took me a good year to recover 
from the loss, even though my quitting was my decision. Yet, even today, there is still a 
touch of that old pain whenever I think of CC -- it meant so much to me to be a part of that 
thriving community.

As for that particular aspect of the demise of CC, I would say that the WorldsAway team 
needs to be sensitive to the Acolytes -- to realize that these remote staffers are 
essentially volunteers and that they wouldn't do it unless they loved the environment they 
were in, were willing to dedicate themselves to its growth, were willing to challenge their 
creativity to aid in the development the WA environment, to devote the kind of time 
required to do all this. They need the support of inhouse staff in order to meet the needs 
of the customers, because the Acolytes will be the ones dealing with customers on a 
day-to-day basis. They need strong and fair leadership, positive motivation and need to 
know that their efforts are appreciated, that their ideas and thoughts (and problems) won't 
go ignored. If the staff feels appreciated and is recognized for their efforts, they will 
become more motivated, more dedicated and more creative, thus helping to keep more 
customers satisfied. And that, really, is the ultimate goal.

Even though we are now preparing ourselves to enter a bigger, better and brighter 
environment than CC ever was, I still believe that QLink's management never really fully 
understood just what they unleashed when they opened up Caribe -- it had phenomenal 
potential -- and we were not able to achieve even half of what it could have been -- even if 
they would never have released a Version 2, it still had tremendous potential.  They 
should they advertised it more -- they should have supported it better -- they should have 
treated their customers and remote staffers better. It probably would have died anyway as 
the C64 fell by the wayside to PCs. Although, if CC had been better supported and 
allowed to continue to explore its potential, I truly believe that CC lovers would have hung 
on to their C64s or 128s simply for the CC experience. The CC part of AOL/QLink could 
still be thriving, and not be the economic drain it became at its end.

Well, it wasn't as succinct as I would have liked, but you asked!  ;)

	Lee 

Subj:  CC's long painful death		Section: Island Caribe
  To:  Lee Abraham, 71273,373		Sunday, May 14, 1995 9:33:04 AM
From:  Halthron/Cntrstrike, 75606,3136	#4307

Lee,

 So true! I agree that Eric would have had a bigger struggle to get me to a PC if it hadn't 
been for the loss of Caribe. I needed to fill the void caused by the loss of my friends so I 
got the PC. The fact that QLink never supported Amiga users should have been a big 
indication that they never intended to keep QLink as a longterm investment. I went to the 
World of Commodore Expo and QLink party back in 1989 and most of that was devoted to 
the Amiga. Yet, QLink maintained their NO AMIGA stand. Such a waste!

Carolann/Cntrstrike/CCH Kitty

Subj:  CC's long painful death		Section: Island Caribe
  To:  Hunter Brown /Sysop, 75371,3477	Sunday, May 14, 1995 11:52:22 AM
From:  Lee Abraham, 71273,373		#4317

My previous post in answer to your question was written in the wee hours of the morning. 
In rereading it in the light of day, I noticed a glaring error which I would like to correct.

I wrote:  "That CC hung on to life from early 1991 until early 1994 I attribute to the 
dedication of the remaining few staff members and the Acolytes who loved it too much to 
leave. They literally had to be cast out of the Island before they'd give up."  I ::meant:: to 
say that I attribute CC's continued existence in that three-year period to the staff 
members and the "Avatars" who loved it too much to leave.

Also, since getting up this morning and while doing some household chores, I've been 
thinking about just exactly WHAT Quantum unleashed when it opened Caribe. 
Everywhere in this forum people have been trying to figure out if WA is a game and we 
former CC'ers have tried to respond to this by saying it is not. We've tried in a variety of 
ways to explain why we felt this way; but somehow, I don't think we really got to the heart 
and soul of WHY we say that. I'm going to try to express just what I think it was that they 
unleashed and perhaps in doing that, out of it will come a better answer to your question: 
"What can we do now to prevent WA from going the way of CC?" (paraphrased, but in 
essence what you asked).

Nancy came close to expressing what I'm about to relate. In a previous post, she referred 
to Whizzie's Bookstore. Nancy is a booklover, a writer, among other things. CC provided 
her an environment in which to run a bookstore, be a publisher, edit/write the weekly 
newspaper -- things that she couldn't do in the "real world".

Q's management considered CC a "game" and that is where they made their first 
mistake. They failed to really understand that Randy Farmer and Chip Morningstar had 
created a world. It was a brand new world, waiting for customers to populate it and turn it 
into a thriving community. Customers who in real life would never have the opportunity to 
own their own businesses, set up their own religions, etc. were now provided an 
environment in which to do this. We did not inherit a political system or society. Rather, 
we created our own from scratch. We in essence built our own world based on what WE 
wanted to see in it. We dealt with the flim-flam of our community in a way we believed to 
be fair to all. And I use the word "we" to include everyone who was a part of CC, not 
merely staff.

Yet, through it all up to its end, Q's management persisted in viewing CC as nothing more 
than a game which ::should:: be self-supportive. By this I mean, they forgot that users 
could not create items, could not build new buidings, new areas to explore, etc. Because 
CC was not an objective-oriented game (such as many of the multi-player fantasy role 
playing games -- or even Q's own casino for that matter which ::could:: be played all 
alone), it required the support of inhouse technical staff to create the tools the inhabitants 
needed to keep it a thriving, growing community.

They never saw that what they unleashed was a world that WE created ourselves. The 
technical nuts and bolts of it were there for us but we BUILT it up from nuts and bolts to a 
social community -- not based on what politicians, religious leaders, etc.  wanted for us, 
but on what we wanted for ourselves. And in a real world that is in the chaos it is, 
retreating to that which we created for ourselves was our "salvation" (for lack of a better 
word). It gave us a feeling of control over our lives, a feeling that we ::could:: make a 
difference in that world, and we were able to take that outside the world we had created 
and into the real world. I think every CCer who was a serious devotee could say, if they 
really thought about it, that CC made them better persons in real life.  For me, it not only 
did that, but it also actually changed the way I viewed myself and by doing that, it 
changed the course of my life. For that, I will be eternally grateful to Randy, Chip and 
QLink for providing the kind of environment which allowed me to grow in ways I never 
thought possible.

WorldsAway has an even greater scope than CC ever did. It is on a network that is 
international. Just imagine what we will create for ourselves! The mixture of the political 
systems under which we live, the religious beliefs of people everywhere in the world -- oh, 
it gives me shivers of excitement just thinking about the kind of community we will be 
building from scratch -- what Randy, Chip and Fujitsu are handing us -- an even greater 
opportunity to build a world that we can be truly proud of. Our activities in the 
Dreamscape can and ::will:: carry over to our "real world".

So, to sum this up, I would challenge Fujitsu and the WorldsAway team to never forget 
that WA is not a game in the way we have come to view games -- to understand that it is 
a living, breathing community which gives users the opportunity to do things or express 
themselves in ways that they may never be able to do in the "real world". Yet, by 
providing this kind of atmosphere, it gives people the courage to give their real life dreams 
more serious consideration and to make a more honest effort to achieve them. It will give 
people the self-knowledge that they CAN make a difference, no matter how "small" it may 
seem to be. And from that self-knowledge will come a greater sense of self-esteem, which 
in turn leads to a better world for all of us.  That may not be the objective that Fujitsu and 
the WorldsAway team has in mind, but it is a very real byproduct of the environment they 
are providing to users from all over the world. 

And on that note, I think I'll shut up now.  ;)

	Lee

Subj:  CC's long painful death		Section: Island Caribe
  To:  Halthron/Cntrstrike, 75606,3136	Sunday, May 14, 1995 1:48:20 PM
From:  Lee Abraham, 71273,373		#4329

Yep, a :real: waste.

And yet ... just look at what has happened! We've got a whole new world to build and to 
explore, with a company which is sincerely interested in their product and in us.

I, for one, think the Q (AOL) management is gonna be sorry that they didn't realize what 
they had.  ;)

	Lee

Subj:  CC's long painful death		Section: Island Caribe
  To:  Lee Abraham, 71273,373		Sunday, May 14, 1995 5:18:09 PM
From:  Sabertooth, 76645,3012		#4354

Lee,

I WAS surprised to see this(WA) here when AOL had the inside track with Club Caribe. I 
think you're right though. They couldn't see the forest through the trees so to speak. I'm 
glad to see CIS involved here. CIS has such a worldwde presense that you don't find 
anywhere else. Should make for a really interesting place, indeed.

I, for one, will be happy to just have a new home. I'm glad cyberspace worlds like Club 
Caribe and WA exist at all. It has been many years since Lucasfilm's Habitat was first 
created, they've sure taken their time getting here. ;-D

I'm sorry things soured for you with Club Caribe. In much the same way it was the same 
for me but in another area. I have only fond memories of Club Caribe. At the time I left, 
you could tell things were going south for Q. Especially as was said, when they failed to 
support the Amiga, at the time the only upgrade path for Commodore 64/128 users. The 
stupidity of Commodore International...now that's a topic for another thread. Talk about 
blowing it.

Sabertooth (who doesn't mind long posts when they're so interesting)
76645,3012

Subj:  CC's long painful death		Section: Island Caribe
  To:  Lee Abraham, 71273,373		Sunday, May 14, 1995 8:31:17 PM
From:  Halthron/Cntrstrike, 75606,3136	#4376

Lee,

 I agree with that!!! It is very much a world that is SOOO much more than a game.

Hunter,

 Many of the friendships that were built in Caribe are lasting through the trials of time. Eric 
and I met in Caribe, got married in Caribe and later on got married in real life. Our 
daughter, Lee Ann is named after a good friend that we both made in Caribe. <Gee, I 
wonder who that is ;D> Caribe became more than a game...it was a meeting place and a 
lifestyle. If WA can accomplish that (which it is well on it's way already) then it achieves 
so much more.
 When I first started becoming friends with Eric, I was criticized by people that worked 
with me. They thought that I was naive to think that a friendship  with a person living on 
the other side of the country and having a "computer game" as our only connection would 
last. They told me to drop him since I couldn't know him well enough. What made them 
angry was my refusal since I knew Eric much better than some guy I would met in a 
singles club. We talked, did events together and became friends.  That is why it was hard 
to see Caribe die since it was so paramount to our early relationship. I still miss many of 
the old places and events but I am looking forward to seeing what the new "world" will 
bring.

Carolann/Cntrstrike/CCH Kitty

Subj:  CC's long painful death		Section: Island Caribe
  To:  Sabertooth, 76645,3012		Sunday, May 14, 1995 11:07:03 PM
From:  Lee Abraham, 71273,373		#4397

Ah, Sabertooth - Caribe may have gone sour for me, but I have a million or so wonderful 
memories :)  Even after I quit the staff, I did visit now and then and didn't finally cancel my 
Q account until some time in late 92 I think it was. By that time, I had my PC and was 
ready to cut the cord to my first online experience. I made many wonderful friends during 
my time on Q and three have become offline friends I hope to have for the rest of my life.

Yeah, they blew it -- Commodore International blew it -- ah well, if they hadn't have blown 
it, we probably wouldn't all be here now, would we? <grin>

	Lee :)

Subj:  CC's long painful death		Section: Island Caribe
  To:  Lee Abraham, 71273,373		Monday, May 15, 1995 6:46:12 PM
From:  Nanzzie, 75664,663		#4449

You know how often people would ask me when I was going to get a ::real:: computer?  
Finally giving in and switching from an Amiga to a PC was a real wrench ... even the 
'lowly' Commodore 64 was built with graphics and sound integral to the design ... which 
made it a perfect platform for Habitat (at a time when PC's couldn't do much more than * 
beep * at its users); I can only drool to think of what could have been done with Habitat 
technology on the Amiga. 

     Of course, I expect WA for the PC and the MAC to be nothing short of  ::great:: ... but 
with all those differing configurations out there ... I wouldn't want to be the software 
engineer trying to make everything work perfectly together.  (Which is why I admire the 
s/w folk who DO manage the job!)

     But this is drifting further and further off the thread ...  

     ... so let me just add that I think you said it all, Lee, and spoke True, as you always 
do ...

     If I were to add another 2 tokens' worth ... it would just be to say that WA no doubt will 
be, as CC was, like a live creature ... leave it out in the cold without food and water and it 
will die (and no amount of hasty resusitation will revive it) ... but give it nourishment, 
encouragement, and the wherewithal to try new things ... and it will grow and flourish, 
likely beyond all expectations.

                                                  -- Nance

1997

April

Message #199483 in the Dreamscape Topics Section:

Dear Dreamscape Citizens,

 Thank you for your feedback and suggestions regarding the current token inflation situation. At this time, we have not been able to isolate the origin of this disruption in our service. We are still investigating the situation to determine the cause and prevent it from happening again. At this time, we do have a plan to reduce the sheer number of tokens in the Dreamscape.

 We have decided against any sweeping changes in the database because the token economy is only one layer to Dreamscape. Rolling back the database to a previous date will effectively reduce the number of tokens in the economy, but it will distrupt the lives of too many customers in the process--especially anyone who created a new avatar. Logging in to find that they no longer exist is not much of a welcome. Rolling back the database may temporarily solve the token problem, but the fact is, life in Dreamscape continues on and inconveniencing the greater part of our population in order to attempt a solution does not seem to be the wisest choice.

 After reviewing the information we have available, we have decided to pursue recovering the tokens on an indivudual basis. We are in or will be in contact with individuals with abnormal amounts of tokens in their possession in an effort to remove those tokens. We greatly appreciate the efforts the community has given in order to solve this problem, and we ask that you continue to support the world through those efforts.

 We understand that not everyone favored this particular method of handling the situation and we assure those who do enjoy the economic aspects of the Dreamscape that we will make every effort to have as little impact on your enjoyment as possible. In the larger picture, this will become a part of the Dreamscape history which will provide entertainment and lessons for many.

 Sincerely,
 Oracle Vaserius
 Oracle Uni
 Oracle Teresias

May

Dear Dreamscape Citizens,

It's been almost a month since our last letter regarding the token problems in the Dreamscape.  We regret that schedules and conversion work has not allowed us to address this issue in a timely manner.

First, let me acknowledge that we were able to determine that the sudden inflation of tokens was due to an error in calculating avatar time.  We are still investigating all the conditions which would generate the error and working to prevent this from happening again.  The good news is that since April 28th, no new incidents have Occurred.  The T1 is as stable as it has been for the past year, albeit elevated.

This brings me to the second point.  During the height of the problems, the T1 rose to a high of 660 million tokens instead of the more normal 15 million tokens.  To date, 630 million tokens were turned in through volunteer effort alone which brings the T1 down to 32 Million tokens.  This amazing effort is a credit to everyone who helped out.  

When we announced that the Oracles would handle the situation as it was presented, there was positive and negative reactions regarding the choice in handling the recovery of the tokens.  There are still some more tokens to return the economy to it's original status and, though we may not achieve an exact return, we will be able to come close largely through the personal efforts of many of you.

Regardless of any particular opinion of the solution, those who voice an opinion did so because they care about the Dreamscape and their fellow citizens.  To mark the occasion of the massive volunteer effort put out by all of you and to honor every person who has taken action to help out another, the Oracles have planned a monument for the city of Phantasus.

On Sunday, May 25th at Noon WAT, gather at the Pawn Machine at the corner of Temple and Gnarled Oak Streets where there will be a new link to have your first look at a monument dedicated to the people of Phantasus.  It is as yet unnamed and the Acolytes and Forum Staff will be handling a naming contest so you, the people, can have a direct influence on the monument.  More details on the naming contest will be announced on Sunday and here in the forum.  We are planning some additional suprises at that time.  We look forward to seeing you there.

Sincerely,
Oracle Teresias
Oracle Vaserius
Oracle Uni