Yellow World -- From ascending mountains to flowing streams, Maple Valley is a practical home away from home. Situated in Yellow world, this fertile valley is the latest update to the world by its watchful caretaker, Digigurl.

Maple Valley is a pre-terrained building area, sporting customized terrain for the builders. Such features are a far-cry from the standard flat grasslands of the world. In this area, builders can now have a lakeside home or mountain cabin without having to build the entire environment themselves!

Written by Garrick - AWMyths Correspondent

AWMyths World -- Do you think you have a cool idea for an adventure-type quest that people will enjoy? Build a rough sketch of it in a public building world such as AW, AWTeen, or Yellow world! If you're not a good builder, then assemble a team of builders to collectively work on the project! All ideas will be judged on July 15th with the winner receiving build rights in AWMyths on July 16th to put his/her/their creation into action! In addition, every member of the submission group will receive 5,000 SP (in-game money).

AWForums -- Draedan Entertainment announced today that it was looking for Alpha Testers for its current project, Ashianae's Journey. Responsible for the AW world AWRPG, this new pay-to-play game is on its own galaxy server and is set to be released next year.

A representative from Draedan Entertainment, Poseidon, posted the following release on the Active Worlds Official Forums.

AWTeen World -- Ready to show off your Custom Avatar? Wasting no time after the release of 4.2, AWTeen announced that it would be holding a CAV Contest on Saturday, June 28 at 8:00 PM VRT. The location will be announced before the event begins.

There is no general theme to judge by, so feel free to make your avatar as outrageous or as sophisticated as you please. Participants will only be able to submit one avatar, and the best male and female avatars will win a prize.

SW City -- Complimenting the release of Active Worlds 4.2, Martin rounded out this week by updating the AWForum's vBulletin software to version 3.7. Such forum updates are usually worth a passing mention and rarely add new features, however this update may have forever changed the way we use the forums.

Written by Matthew
AWTeen Correspondent

AWTeen World -- Tuesday marked the last day of building in the AWTeen “Buildings of Babylon” building competition. Started about a month ago on May 19, contestants were given one month to build any recognized Wonder of the World, as listed by Wikipedia. Because of this theme, entries were vast, ranging from the Panama Canal to the Coliseum of Rome to a wireless router, representing the Internet.

Written by Absolute Monarch
Note: This is an opinion piece and reflects the opinion of the author.

Over the past few days, I have begun to notice a striking anomaly. Despite the fact that (at best) the Active Worlds universe having a user count of about 200, the AW Forums has an active user count of about 60. There are, in fact, 89 users with over 100 posts, but I am disregarding a few who only visit the forums to post updates and news and do not actually contribute to discussions or enriching of the community.

AWFX World -- Reopening last week after extended downtime, the popular world to gather and share free matfx, particle, and zone effects was reopened by Active Worlds, Incorporated. Following recent events concerning the expulsion of the previous caretaker, AWI assumed direct management over the world and restored the world to a backup from mid-2006.

Between this development and the prolonged closure of the world for updating, AWI Community Liaison Flagg felt it necessary to restore the world so it may be used as a public resource once again. When prompted to comment on the current state of the world, Flagg commented:

Winter World -- After several months of development, Winter opened today for public viewing. Slated to be Active Worlds' next public building world, Winter world is a massive (p-500) winter-themed island that is covered with snowcapped mountains and sleepy valleys.

Led by Talisan, Winter is being developed by a small team of builders, modelers and bot developers. Their work includes a unique land-distribution bot, and various builders who are producing areas for sight-seeing.

The Active Worlds Press Corps, a new organization devoted to promoting news organizations and writing news, unveiled their new blog today and their initiative to jump start the press community in Active Worlds. The blogspot hosting is intended to be in place for a short time, and they will upgrade to a more permanent setting should the project be successful.