There.com History Timeleine - Recently Updated Pages

06 There Version 2

therecon — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 13:04:52 CDT

Version 2

2-18-04 Version 2.0 of there released. New card tables, clothing and more bugs than you can shake a stick at! 8 seater group seating, about takes on items,

New things include: the Cannery funzone, Marrooned island, now hairstyles, Fancy exterior on the Oro Longue and Wharf houses. Oh and the Cascade Bar in Dune Valley. Don't forget 16 person team platforms. The new Moroccan building set comes out. New emotes added included a series of number 0-10

2-18-04 UFO vanishes from the skies of There

2-18-04 First set of pier houses releases for 50k monthly rent each.

2-19-04 Second set of pier houses released.

2-20-04 There are Second Life are featured on a KCLA9 special news segment (add backblast link here)

2-26-04 There Museum of Art releases an Easter egg' model for artists to paint on.

2-27-04 Levi makes a State of There address broadcast on many There radio stations. He announces remaining houses and the Cannery will be placed in auctions instead of being released. The membership is outrages and the forums set ablaze.

2-27-04 There deletes 'inactive' clubs and a bunch of active ones. Luckily none of them seem to have had clubhouses attached to them!

03/16/04 There Goey announces that all quests will be reset and progress on current kits lost.

3-8-04 Levi Jones called for the membership to nominate a second group of MAB members. Nominations due March 15 with a limit of two nominations per member.

3-9-04 Levi announces Quest Kits will be off due to gaming of the system.

3-10-04 A new version comes out with quest kits renamed form Adventure maker to

Quest Kits. Adds the teleport to first clue link. New Perviewer and a Texture Theft policy is posted. Pony and dancer now have right preview images in the catalog!

3-10-04 St. Patrick's goodies appear in the There catalog including green hats, green t-shirts and green beer!

3-11-04 There opens its community top 20 bug list web page. This is seen very favorably by the membership.

3-12-04 Helper Support warns people not to use scripts to skill and reprints a section of the TOS for clarification.

3-?-04 There announces the end of the event host credit program. This program paid members for hosting events. Event hosts are outraged.

3-16-04 CalvinJ4 forms EHAP (Event Host Activist Party) forms. Within 5 days it attracts over 100 members.

3-21-04 EHAP has its first meeting with There staff. Miachel Wilson and Baloo attend a heated meeting.

3-23-04 Levi announced iVillage is coming to There soon!

3-29-04 After a storm of forum posts, Evan Driscoll posts about how people are selected for the beta and how they can be removed form the beta.

3-37-04 ncraine announces monthly charge for voice is going away until further notice.

3-31-04 Levi announces iVillage island is in world, but not on the maps.

4-1-04 As a prank There newspapers run a story announcing Levi Jones has been fired. Turns out to be a prank! 'doh

4-3-04 Away Team starts helping. Former MAB members helping out offering some limited help on weekends. Team members include Sue_G, corbin, icedoll, Digital_Signal_X, WildChild, Calvin_J4, Deathany, phedre, Virtual_Vikki, and CrystalShard.

4-2-04 Michael Wilson introduced Vice President, Infrastructure

4-5-04 after people wondering if their mail is getting to There, There announces a canned response system designed to let people know their mail has been recieved.

4-12-04 Tech Live and The Screen Savers feature segments on There's military project. (insert Backblast link here)

4-21-04 Gamespot runs a story on the Military There project.

4-13-04 Levi Jones announces nominations for the HAB (Host Advisory Board) in response to member demands. EHAP makes a large part of the membership.

4-17-04 Neckromacr semi-officially opens the There Buggy Museum. It has been operating before in a house. It moved to a Large PAZ.

4-20-04 There announces deeds and Tyr Houses will be delayed.

5-15-04 Griefers from Germany plan an invasion which ends up irritating a few people in Karuna.

5-9-04 First "red Spider" sighted

5-11-04 New version introduces real estate deeds, and developer bunny slippers! The Demand Bunnies campaign comes to a close. Portahomes are out, but not released yet. Tyr houses are in world, but not rentable yet. Rustic house decoration items now all in Shop Central

5-12-04 Pulse Radio stops operation.

5-12-04 UFO spotted in the skies of There again!

5-12-04 All signs pulled form Shop Central

5-14-08 New version New sky spoted over island near iVillage island. New version brings harser restrictions on existing there signs. New time out limits and the number of documents and signs are now tied to skill levels.

5-16-03 There employees, including Ken Duda, attend the E3 trade show and participate on panels. Gamespot covers briefly the Ken Duda panel.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/05/17/news_6098657.html

5-17-04 There announces a 'violent item' survey for members to participate in.
____________________________________
The purpose of thi survey is to measure the community?s feelings on the approval of items with varying degrees of ?violence,? and use that information to revise our current approval guidelines. Our current approval guidelines state ?Objects must be consistent with the playful and fun-loving nature of There and must not be of a violent nature or theme. For example, no guns.?

We have received feedback from the community that this description is not specific enough, and that there may be certain items that we have rejected in the past for being too ?violent? which we should reconsider.

We understand that the perception of ?violence? in any given item is subjective, and we would like to get a feel for how you perceive various items so we can revise our guidelines accordingly, to ensure that the community is receiving the products they want, while maintaining the playful, fun-loving nature of There.

Note: Your answers below will not result in items which were previously approved being removed from game. They will only influence future approval decisions.

How do you feel about violent items in There?

- All items should be approved, regardless of content.
- Extremely violent items should be rejected, but all others should be approved.
- Mildly violent items are ok, but all others should be rejected.
- No violent items should be approved.
- It should be decided on a case by case basis, by There.
- I don't care one way or the other.

Please rate the following categories of items, in terms of their level of violence. 1 being not violent at all, 5 being moderately violent, 10 being extremely violent.

- Clothing with blood.
- Clothing with historical weaponry painted on, such as swords.
- Clothing with modern weaponry painted on, such as guns.

- Vehicles with blood on them.
- Vehicles with historical weapons painted on, such as swords.
- Vehicles with modern weapons painted on, such as guns.

- Vehicles built to look like scale replicas of historical weapons, such as a cannon.
- Vehicles built to look like over-sized or under-sized replicas of historical weapons, such as a giant sword.
- Vehicles built like historical weapons, but painted in such a way to drastically alter its appearance, such as a green and yellow polka-dotted cannon.
- Vehicles built to look like scale replicas of modern weapons, such as a scale army tank.
- Vehicles built to look like over-sized or under-sized replicas of modern weapons, such as a fighter jet hoverboard.
- Vehicles built like modern weapons, but painted in such a way to drastically alter its appearance, such as a purple dino-themed army tank.

- Decorative historical weaponry, such as swords.
- Decorative modern weaponry, such as guns.

- Items with violent words in the description or title, such as ?murder,? ?death,? ?carnage,? etc.
- Items with violent words painted on.

Are there any other categories of violent items that we missed? Please explain and rank as above, 1 ? 10.

Based on your rankings above (1-10), what number level of violence do you feel should be the cutoff for approvals?

Which of the following describes your thoughts on violent items in There? Check all that apply.

- Playfully violent items could add to the fun in There.
- Only overtly, offensively violent items should be rejected.
- It should be up to the approvers to decide what is a ?fun? kind of violent and what is a ?bad? kind of violent.
- There should be strict, specific rules which dictate what kind of ?violent? items are accepted.
- Violent items will make There feel unwelcoming, and take away from its fun playful nature; therefore, I think all violent items should be rejected.

Which of the following changes made to an item, in your opinion, would reduce the ?violence? of an item which is made to look like modern weaponry? Check all that apply.

- A disclaimer in the description, stating that it is a replica and cannot actually be used.
- A cartoony look, created by brightly-colored paint or exaggerated scale.
- Something which visually indicates that a ?weapon? is unusable, such as a cork in the tip of a gun.
- An item which is clearly undersized or over-sized, such as a fighter-jet hoverboard.
- The above shouldn?t matter, because all modern weaponry should be approved, since we know it is all currently unusable in There.
- None of the above, modern weaponry should never be allowed.

Please use the field below to add comments or expand upon your answers above.
____________________________________________________________

5-20-04 There goey posts about new and improved There Documents to be released in the next version. This is delayed on account of Black Friday

5-21-04 Neckromacr announces the official opening of the buggy museum

MAB Minutes

therecon — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:00:45 CDT

What was the MAB?
The MAB is a small, rotating group of There members who have demonstrated leadership and passion in the There community. This highly-engaged group works with There staff to improve the There experience for all members.

Mission of the MAB:
To create an effective dialogue between There staff and a committed group of community leaders who represent the diversity of There.

Who was on the MAB?
Members who could qualify for the MAB include:
Leaders of specific in-world communities
Members who spend a lot of time in the There community
Active club leaders and event hosts
Racing/paintball/etc. enthusiasts
Neighborhood owners, Funzone operators and PAZ building enthusiasts
Publishers/Writers of major fan sites
Active designers, builders, and merchants

What was the MAB’s role?
The MAB members are community liaisons who work to do the following...
1. Gather issues and questions raised by the community (through forums, in-world discussions, etc.)
2. Work together to prioritize these issues and questions for presentation to the staff
3. Present the items to staff for discussion and help staff to understand the wishes of the community
4. Relay the results of this discussion back to the community in some format

MAB members also promote the interests of the community as a whole by generating ideas and insights on such topics as:

Community Health
Behavior Guidelines
New Features

A complete list of MAB members who served thier virtual ommunity 2003-2009

Inagural MAB / transition MAB / 2nd MAB
Akia
AmyJo
Banshee_Kate
Bobita228
Bunny_Fu_Fu
calvinJ4
Catlyn
corbin
cristiano
CrystalShard
David_DM
Deathany
Digital_Signal_X
dreamspree
Droopy
Espen
gabi23
giga_i3ai3y
hannigan
icedoll
Jade
Jim_Ellisim
Jinx_tv
june_uruTMP
Kalala
Kayla
KittenKat
Kysses
LossAngeles
lukas
Mackie
Mboffin
Meret
Mescad
Myrmex
mystic_1
Paladin
Phedre
Ponder
Randra_Loqqet
rejeanne
Sharlee
Storm_Chan
Sue_G
Sugarme
swen_wu_kong
Teara
Tinksterl
UncleJohn
Virtual_Vikki
WildChild
ZsaZsa

Fall 2004 MAB

AllisonChains
Amxscott
Celtic
Chagall
DocD
DreamWeaver
Geea
Ishmael55
Kally_Lunch
Malika
mrf1xit
Nep
oli
UBER_GEEK
xThor
ZachC

Here is a sytarical look at what the members of the Fall 2004 MAB will be doing once they leave thier term.

Spring 2005 MAB
CarCus
Daemona
Dakotaman
Dazee
DisneyLinz
EmmaJean
Fazzerelli
Francis_7
inoit_sowell
Matttt
Mr_Rush
Neckromacr
NigelBlackthorne
Rickpa
Stungthumbz
Xeryus

Spring 2006 MAB
A_Kalashnikova
CapeCodBob
Colax
Delightra
DocD
Dweeb
EvanK
fem50single - inherited some land and was replaced)
Kasss
Navarre722
TessJ
WiKKeDeVA (a.k.a. Wikked_Wench)
theenterprise172 (replacement for fem50)

Winter 2007 MAB
Angelius
Aveena
BlueGrassTIGGS
Country_Squee
Dihtri (did not complere her term as she was hired by There)
Gabi23
Haloeighty8
JDin707
Neema
Ravenzia
Stungthumbz
TBelle

Summer 2007 MAB
1BlackBelt
albinovulcan
Celtic
Chagall
Elaur
ForSheetzNGigglz
Geea
juliaaedans
Nema
PrincessPebbie
Shivaki
susanszy

Winter 2008 MAB

12 There in 2009

therecon — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:14:09 CDT

Feburary 2009
2-27-09 in a tie in with Hush Puppies There releases a specialty Hush Puppies dog!

March 2009

New partnerships included Spin Magazine (with some clothing and magazine covers) and Viz.com with Bleach anime gear!

Coke added more specialty itemws to thier store.

More island hoods off Aurora were released.

There offered a contract position for writing a basic help tutorial for developers.

March 2-8 There holds a neighborhood fair. 50 spaces were provided, and many were filled in time for the start of the fair at a neighborhood with remarkably flat land! There Fair Grounds!

3-11-09 The new MAB ( ) is introduced officialy - after several members are mentioned at a developer meeting acccidentaly.

Delonya
dj_tam_urradio
DLMcKenzie2004
FemmieD_GayGrrl
Lynn88588
MeadowAngel
nikidaeman
Pressleigh
softlydreaming
Spookie
Trent7
Wabbs

3-19-09 Brings a new Beta Test
-- card game MotuMotu (based off the card game MauMau) which allows 2-4 players.
-- updates to the Welcome Walkway - new blimp exit area. Removal of building models.
-- 4 new hairstyles for women (without hats!)
-- verification of the Cards and Quests functionality prior to the upgrade of those servers in production
-- Real Estate functionality verification
The card game causes many people to seg violate upon starting a new games. The Hairstyles look fantastic and are well approved of. The Blimp on the welcome walkway meets with some confusion. While many agreet that showtinging the walkway was a good thing, several are upset over the loss of the beautiful cruise ship. The replacement blimp features the frist new rotating obejct animation seen in there since the introduction of the flying hot tubs.

3-26-09 VIZ Media partnership starts with There.com selling colthing inspired by the Bleach anime series. There hosts a special event to celebrate at Tropical Adventures theme park.

3-27-09 SPIN magazine beings it's partnership with There offering posters of magazine covers, clothing and more.

3-28-09 The MAB holds it's first Meet The MAB event at the MAB Boardroom.

There auctioned off even more fizones (auctions ended on March 30th)

Red Bowl HoverBoard Park - nor relaly a race track, but the description makes it seem like it is!
http://webapps.prod.there.com/funzone/funzone?op=view&id=535447164

Pinnacle Hill - Paintball Zone
http://webapps.prod.there.com/funzone/funzone?op=view&id=40001010

Spice Slope Stage - Trivia enabeled stage
http://webapps.prod.there.com/funzone/funzone?op=view&id=108911628

And causing a bit of minor forum controversy the Sleepy K Memorial Racetrack
SleepyK
http://webapps.prod.there.com/funzone/funzone?op=view&id=535294293

Also on March 30th Vertex announces "Alpha Testing" of the new Unser Interface. At first There is looking for 20 volunteers in the following post. Screenshots which came with this shoewd a UI that allowed for a new IM window that could be displayed outside of the clent and an easier way of configuring some settings via a checkbox sheet.

Hello,

As many of you may know, we've been updating the client everyone connects to There with. One of these areas is the "User Interface" or "UI". By this we mean the menu bar at the bottom, buddy windows, chat windows, everything you see which isn't part of the 3D world or a web page. The system we have in production is a mish-mash of different technologies each designed for a single purpose. Needless to say, it's quite difficult to expand them. So we've uprooted most of them and replaced the UI with a software framework from Nokia (formerly Trolltech) known as "Qt", which has been developed since the early 90s. Along with all of the other niceties Qt brings, work done on developing the Qt UI will be supported on Macintosh OSX and other operating systems. This doesn't mean we'll be releasing an OSX client soon, but Qt has already simplified the complex process of porting.

The major goal in this release is not to improve the way the UI functions but to replace the technology behind it so our eventual redesign will have many more options available. It may not seem like a large improvement, but we've specifically tried to retain the original There design until we can take a proper look at designing a UI that's accessible and inclusive to new members as well as old. That being said, some of us frankly couldn't help ourselves in trying out some of the new functions Qt gives us and we've included some small tweaks which we think you'll enjoy.

We're now ready to start a very limited alpha test of this new technology. By "limited", we mean that we're going to start with 20 very brave volunteers from the community, and go (slowly) from there.

We know (from previous testing endeavors) that many, many people will want to help us test, but we believe that by going slowly we'll be able to deliver an incrementally better product as we expand the program, as opposed to delivering a less good product to more people.

So those that are still interested in being squeaky guinea pigs, here's what to expect:

1. This is ALPHA software. In addition to having nearly every interface for controlling your avatar reworked or at least touched, we've moved to a different compiler. Please keep in mind that this client may not work at all for you. We certainly hope that isn't the case, as we've done quite a bit of testing internally, but we can't guarantee anything for our first release into the wild.

2. Installing this will probably mess up your ability to patch your normal client. Patches may stop this client from working correctly. We may block everyone from being able to enter There with this client if we find a major issue. Upgrading to new versions of either the production There client or this UI client will likely require a full reinstall.

3. We'll need to get detailed bug reports when you find an issue. The phrase "Organizer is freezing my client" may also apply to the case of "I have 2000+ items in my inventory, and any time after the first that I open Organizer my client freezes for half a minute." but the former is relatively useless in reproducing and fixing the problem described in the latter. And yes, that is a bug that we recently fixed in the production client. So we'll need you to follow the following guidelines when submitting bugs.

1. What client version number you're using (it's printed on the title bar of the client in windowed mode)
2. A detailed description of the issue:
2.1. Include screenshots to help describe the issue if appropriate
2.2. In the case of an error or crash, what you were doing at the time it happened. If you can consistently reproduce it those instructions are very helpful.
3. Please provide the log files from C:\Makena\There\ThereClient [ There.log and any crashdump files ].
4. In the case of an unexpected result, describe what you did, the actual result, and what the expected result was.
5. To help us reproduce what you are seeing, please provide a dxdiag report of your computer:
5.1. From the Windows desktop, click the Start button. Choose Run... type in dxdiag and run
5.2. Click Yes on the dialogs that come up, wait for the application to finish (there's a progress bar it the bottom left), click the Save All Information button and sent it to us.

4. Please don't pass around or host this software. Screenshots, tours, first looks and the like should be fine, but we can't accept bugs or offer support for anyone but those we give the software to. It makes our lives simpler, which in turn makes the next phase of testing come sooner.

5. If you aren't in the test group and use super black ops ninja skills to get the Alpha software (or someone sent you a link, see #4), then all bets are off. Please keep in mind that this software will likely mess up your current There installation and if your avatar turns into a goat or something equally unpleasant, we can't help you.

If, after all that, you're still interested, post your name here. We'll begin selecting our first 20 victims.

Let the games begin!
April

4-13-09 Michael Wilson announces there will be no official real life gathering this year.

Hi folks,
Over the past weeks, a number of you have asked whether Makena plans to host an official real-life gathering this year. According to the schedule of past gatherings, this would be considered "our" year to have one.

We have decided /not/ to proceed with a real-life gathering in 2009. We know that many of you enjoy attending these gatherings (as do we) and will be disappointed by this news. However, we also hope you will understand that in this economic climate, travel - both for us and for our members - has to be far more carefully considered.

As many of you know, when Makena hosts a RLG, we feel compelled to make it as complete as possible, and this year, we even felt we should have it other than far-away-a-fornia. When we added it all up, and compared it to that cost of, say, an CS or Community or Engineering staff member, we decided you'd rather see us spend the money there than on a RLG this year.

Even though we won't be seeing you in person, there will be opportunities for you to meet and mingle with each other and with staff in world. For example, next Wednesday (April 15th) is the Makena Anniversary party, a special event to celebrate our 4th year as a company. You can sign up here:

http://webapps.prod.there.com/eventmgmt/eventmgmt?op=view&id=667758844

Also, we hope to have another special in-world event later this summer, around the time we would usually be doing the RLG and/or State of There address.

We hope we will see you at next week's Anniversary party. And where possible, we also encourage you to organize your own mini RLG events, so you can meet and connect with other Thereians in your area. It's always great fun to get to know the people behind the avatars.

And, as always, you'll continue to see the staff and I in-world, in the forums, and via email. Since we won't be seeing you in person this year, we'll make sure we spend more time staying in touch.

P.S. BTW, if you're about to say "Well, michaelwilson, I don't see _you_ in world for more than a few minutes", it's because I'm helping out on the OSX / Mac client, and it's not quite ready for long visits or voice yet :-).

In late April as part of a spring event a differen thandheld item was given out for free at special locations and on arrivial island via the new despenser tiki signs. The itmes included
A special spring time drink
Animated swarm of butterfiles
Animated pinwheel and popcorn
Animated kite ( a second version was given out at the Makena celebration on the 15th)
Animated bubble bottle and wand blower

4-15-09 Makena Technologies hosts a celebration of the fourth years. Several layers are set up and decorated. There is a special Spring Kite that was only avalible at this event, and only to participants in various events. Two of the layers had no prior setup and lacked many of the events.

May
5-2-09 Voting begins in the Super Hero Designer Challenge
Disky won first palce for Insecta Alien, Virtual Vikki took second for Super Proto Vixen and the beautiful Pink Violet took third place.

5-4-09 Inactive club deletions are announced to be coming soon.

5-14-09 Multip layered prom event proves to be a huge draw! With the theme Fly Me To The Moon" this event was something speical. There were meny free items to collect including a limited Coke Can, some lipstick and hair, and a moon shaped chair. Members could have thier pictures taken and posted on Flickr. There was dancing and more!

5-15-09 Spring Gardent contest Winner announced
We're pleased to announce that Aradriel has received 1st place for the Smugglers Grove garden.
Congratulations to Jeli for winning 2nd place in the 2009 Spring Garden Contest for Catalina Island Gardens!
Congratulations to Tumble_Weed for winning 3rd place in the Spring Garden Contest for TumBlin Garden Pond!

5-21-09 Town Hall Meetin with Michael Wilson and membes of the MAB.
http://www.therefuntimes.com/ThereTownHallMeeting052109.mp3
Mr. Wilson mentions the words "Black Friday" at one point.

5-27-09 FUNimation specialty shops opens with some ubber cute cat and mouse hats for women and men!

June
6-1-09 Michael Wilson announces the reevaluation of realestate products, while some There House prices went down, some fuzones rent increased by over 200%
__________________________________
Members,

Over the past few weeks, we have been reevaluating the lineup of Real Estate products we offer you, our members.

Many of you may not know this, but there are over twenty different kinds of real estate offered in There if you count the sizes and varieties of Lots, Neighborhoods, PortaZones, ThereHouses, FrontierZones, FunZones, etc, etc. On top of that, we discovered we had at least that many price points, some of them apparently set without rhyme or reason many years ago.

The goal of this review was threefold: Establish a framework for the introduction of new features, simplify the pricing structure where possible, and, finally, make sure we cover our costs in developing and operating various offerings.

The ?new features? I mention is that the drop counts for many zone types will be upgraded on July 1, 2009! We know that this has been one of the ?Top Ten? member requests for many years and we?re happy to (finally) make this available. In fact, there is already a 100-drop zone in world (There Community Gardens) which you can drop by and visit if you like.

I will provide a link at the end of this post to a Help Central article where you can see a breakdown of the new drop count increases.

Now, adding this functionality was not free. Contrary to urban myth, we just didn?t go into the There code base and change all occurrences of ?50? to ?100?. This work required significant work from engineering (we had to add support for ?64-bit support? for one thing, for all you geeks out there), we had to QA it, and we had to upgrade the operating systems and, in many cases, the servers to support it.

So, after reviewing everything, we decided we needed to makes some changes, and, for the first time in several years, will be adjusting the monthly rental pricing for Neighborhoods, ThereHouses, ClubHouses, FrontierZones and FunZones starting July 1, 2009.

In some cases this means your rent might go up. For others it might stay the same or even go down. In all cases, you?ll have more drops to play with.

Some of you might ask why we updated some areas and not others, or only updated zones on request to use this technology. We looked at that and decided this wouldn?t be in line with our goal to simplify things.

We have just posted a Help Central article that contains more details about how each type of zone will be affected.

A few things to keep in mind:

? If you currently own a Lot or PortaZone, your rental rates will not be affected. Instead of retroactively upgrading and changing the existing Lots and PortaZones, we will be offering new 100-drop PortaZones and Lots in large decorator-friendly sizes.

? If your rent is changing and your next rental due date is in June, you will not see the changes yet. If your zone is affected, the change will take place on the first rental due date after July 1.

Because these are some pretty big changes and adjustments in pricing are involved, we wanted to give everyone a full month?s notice ahead of time. We also plan to send a follow-up reminder of the impending increase 1 week before the prices actually change.

After reviewing the Help Central article, please post any questions you might have to the forums. We will also hold a special Town Hall meeting where I will answer questions about the upcoming changes.

Help Central Article
http://www.fuzeqna.com/makenasupport/consumer/kbdetail.asp?kbid=1560

Michael Wilson
CEO, Makena Technologies

There were several quick revisions to this plan changing prices to make the break even point possible for hood owners whi say inside there's guidelines for neighborhood drops.

6-9-09 Beta test for:
--Golden Ticket Skill Reward system
--New Installer & Patching
--Updates to the Useage Hud
--Changes to There Forums
--Motu Motu and Gin fixes

6-10-09 Special Town Hall meeting with Michael Wilson - Vash_community, Alex, Spiritus, Helper_Yoko and There_RealEstate were on hand to answer questions as well. Listen to the recording here: http://www.therefuntimes.com/TownHallMeeting061009.mp3
Mr. Wilson used the opportunity to explain to the community why these rent increases were necessary as well as to answer concerns.

6-17-09 There encourages developers to pitch thier developer items to Coca-Cola in a second round of these developer items.

6-17-09 _emma challenged the members of there to look for the hidden tiki idols and upload pictures of them to Shutterbug.

6-18-09 There partner, Spin magazine, unleased a prop guitar in thier specialty shop today.

6-19-09 There decides to release 100 drop PAZ's and lots BEFORE hood owners can take advantage of thier 50 foot additional hood drops on July 1st. Themed hood owners were hurt the most by this unexpected change.

6-26-09 There reorganizes realestate products, and deeds into one section on the auctions, as well as getting rid of the Build-a-Zone section of the shop, by placing many items under Home and Garden.

6-29-09 There gets brand new forum software!

July
7-24-09 New beta test for:
- Our newest card game Habanero Holdem - Habanero Holdem is kind of like Texas Holdem. You can purchase chips, place bets, and even set up and play tournaments. Unlike Texas Holdem you can't actually win $ by playing. To help ensure compliance with online gambling laws, Habanero Holdem winners will simply get the honor and glory of winning and will "skill up" along the way.
- Update_There Patching <bugs fixed>
- High capacity sectors <bugs fixed>
- Dropping from altitude <adjustment made on member request/feedback>

7-?-09 Several staff members are lad off including three greeters and _Emma. Emma's job will be taken over by Mackie (who returned form VMTV shortly before it closed) many members of the community are upset.

August
8-1-09 New house rents, and clubhouse prices go into effect lowering the price on the second largest tiki houses in there to 14 while adding 10 additional drops, and raising the small 'birdhouses' rent to 18k! Many large houses (which were at 21k and higher) were lowered to 18k. The tyr houses droped even lower in price!

8-13-08 Two funzones were openly avalible for the cost of rent at the same time.

8-14-09
There Summer Games 2009 starts with a day long opening ceremony. Free gifts included a There Games t-hisrt and a special summer Coke can free from dispensers. Skill gifts his year included a green There games branded watter bottle at the first skill level. __________ at the second skill level, and hand held gym bag at the third skill level.

8-24-09 MAB disbanded
In a surprise move There ended the MAB in the following announcement:
____________________________
More Ways to Meet with Staff

Dear Members,

In September 2003, the There.com staff invited a core group of members from the beta community to form the first Member Advisory Board (MAB). Our goal was to create a point of contact with the members that enabled us to get regular feedback on all aspects of the There experience. While we knew that this group would be a small representative of the total membership population, we wanted to make sure that we included the most important aspect of the world (its members), during this important period of technical development.

Over the past 6 years, more than 150 members have served on the Member Advisory Board and demonstrated their passion and dedication for our virtual world. Their suggestions have helped us improve There by leaps and bounds. We've seen a significant increase in new members, and most importantly, the development of a loyal and passionate community that embraces and engages a diverse influx of new members daily.

With the MAB's help we've grown by leaps and bounds. But we've also listened to many of you discuss whether the MAB is still the best way for Makena to gather feedback from a growing and increasingly diverse community. After much thought and consideration, we believe that it's now time to shift the focus and the format of our conversations with you in a new direction. On September 17th, we will be formally retiring the MAB program, and moving forward with a new set of communication opportunities that will enable a greater number of members more ways to connect with staff.

First, we're excited to announce that starting next week we'll be introducing several new regular in-world events hosted by staff members. These will include weekly chats and social events with the VP of Member Experience (bsquared), the Director of Community (Alex), and our Community Manager (Vash). We'll do our best to accommodate different time zones so we can meet as many of you as possible. Since this group's area of focus is Community, we'd specifically like to hear your ideas for ways we can improve community events, get more people involved, and generate ideas for sharing your vast knowledge and expertise about everything from hosting to designing with new members. The goal is to make these events very casual, easy to attend, fun and social.

We'll also continue organizing the popular quarterly Town Hall meetings with our CEO, Michael Wilson. All members can participate in these meetings and Michael is able to address many important questions immediately in this format. We have been extremely pleased with the success of the Town Halls and look forward to having more of them, starting with this Wednesday's event.

Other opportunities to meet with staff include the monthly Island Guide Huddles with our First Visit Coordinator (Greeter_Josie), the weekly event planning meetings and social events with our Events Manager (Mackie) and the bi-monthly developer chats. These events allow members with specific skills and interests to talk directly to the staff members who specialize in these particular areas.

We're also planning some special social events with staff from other departments such as Real Estate and Engineering. Again, our goal is to be inclusive rather than exclusive to our rapidly growing active membership, and allow as many people as possible a greater number of opportunities to meet with us.

None of these events require time-intensive applications, selections, board meetings or administrative duties. We'll simply post a schedule of more than 20 staff-run events to choose from each month. Just find one that's convenient for you, come on in and talk to us!

If you're not able to come meet with one of us in-world, there are still plenty of ways to give us feedback. You've seen the changes to our new and better forums which help us find and track your comments more easily. You'll also see us start to make more frequent use of forums polls as well as Zoomerang surveys for members who aren't avid forums users. All of these things will help broaden the frequency and scope of our discussions.

We're really excited about the new plan and hope you will be too. As we turn toward the next phase of our history, we want to reiterate how helpful and valuable the MAB has been in helping the company and the Community get to this point. We know our esteemed MAB contributors will continue to lead the way sharing their expertise with us and with other community members. We sincerely appreciate the time, service and dedication of everyone who has served on the Member Advisory Board and look forward to continuing our conversations with you in a more fun and informal way.

Keep an eye out for more information about in-world staff meeting places and times and we'll see you in There!

______________________________

8-24-09 There Summe Games 2009 end
Gold Medal - Peach
Silver Medal - Olive
Bronze Medal - Yellow

07 Black Friday and Beyond

therecon — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 21:04:16 CDT

* 5-19-04 *
Apologies, for some reason I had the wrong year on this top line. I have no idea why. If you noticed all the dates that followed has 04 on them. Apologies for any historcial confusion this may have caused.

Most of the remaining There staff (including Levi Jones and Minai) is laid off in one of the saddest days in the history of There. Members, including the MAB and other groups, rally to the support of the reaming There employees. At a special (packed) MAB meeting, attended by X-MAB and Current MAB members alike Michael Wilson addressed concerns raised by the membership.

Michael Wilson also posted the follwoing to the news section of forums.

"Today I would like to announce that There is changing its strategic direction to focus on our technology platform.

We will continue to run the consumer service, but will need to make changes so that we can better align our costs and run this service profitably. As we go forward we will continue to evaluate the consumer service and our ability to meet our financial goals on an ongoing basis.

All of us at There have poured our heart, soul, and in many cases, significant financial investment into There these last few years. We have been inspired watching you, the community, also pour yourselves into making There great and unique and so incredibly fun. We believe that virtual worlds like There will continue to evolve, and want There to continue to play a key role in this evolution. By focusing on There as a platform, we believe it can play a role in any number of virtual worlds, including the one you've helped to build.

Effective today, these are the changes we are making to the consumer service:

1. We'll be open the same hours we are now, and we'll continue to offer customer service through Live Help and email. (We haven't determined if customer service hours will change, but will let you know if they do.)
2.We'll also continue to have in-world moderation to help control griefers.
3. We'll still be accepting developer submissions, although the approval time may take a bit longer.
4. We will still accept new members (monthly subscriptions only), and you'll still be able to purchase Therebucks.
5. We will no longer be making regular updates to the software, and we will not be fixing bugs.
6. We're not sure yet how we'll handle There Central, but will get back to you when we do know.
7. We'll likely have some kind of newsletter, but it may be sent out less often than the twice a week it goes out now.
8. We'll be updating the Terms of Service soon to offer a 30-day money-back guarantee on membership fees.
9. We will no longer be sponsoring the Mentor or Event Host Credit (EHC) programs, nor will we be paying Refer a Friend bonuses.
We will be posting a Q&A which will hopefully address some of your questions shortly.

Michael Wilson
VP, Community "
_______________________________
A few days later a Question and Answer was also added.

Important Changes at There, Inc. : Q&A
Here are some Questions which we anticipated you may have, and some answers:

Q: Will There be reducing it's open hours?
A: No. There's service hours remain the same.

Q. Will it be harder for me to reach customer support?
A. It shouldn't be. As always, the best channels to reach us are email to help@there.com, and Live Help.

Q. What about griefers? Will you be doing anything about griefers?
A: We will continue to offer in-world moderation, and will do what we can to help control griefers.

Q: Who will help users in-world with problems/training considering cuts to community helpers?
A: We hope that our Mentors will continue to greet new members, although we will no longer be paying them in Therebucks.

Q: How will There change now that the company is focused on building out the platform?
A:We will run the service across the same hours, we will still have customer support, and we will still accept and approve developer submissions. We're not yet sure how we'll handle There Central updates. We do know we will no longer be updating the software regularly, and will not be fixing bugs. Our engineering resources will be entirely dedicated to building tools and functions for our technology platform. In general, we will really be turning over the There experience to our members – its actually you who have been driving the bulk of the experience for awhile now.

Q: Is There going to close?
A: No. The company has just received new funding and will continue to operate; only we will now be focusing most of our resources on building out our platform.

Q: What happens to my account if There shuts down the consumer service?
A: Again, we plan to continue to run the consumer service, and will be evaluating its financial performance on an ongoing basis. If at some point, we determine that we can't run the service profitably, we will at that time notify you of any changes, and will let you know the status of your account.

Q: Are my Therebucks at risk?
A: As long as the service continues to run, you'll be able to use your Therebucks just as you do right now.

Q: Is There being set up for acquisition?
A: No. The board of directors and the management team are all very positive that we have created a valuable technology platform, and that we can remain independent as we continue to strive toward our milestones.

Q: Why is the membership only finding out now?
A: This change is a business decision, and we're sharing it with you just after it was shared with the employees.

Q: Is this going to turn into a situation like other online worlds which have closed recently?
A: There is already succeeding on numerous levels – financial, partnership, technological and commitment levels. We will continue to develop our technology platform, and will continue to keep our eyes open for the best opportunities for us in the consumer marketplace.
_______________________________

5-26-04 There announces Levi items and Nike items will no longer be sold.

5-28-03 Bacios and Portahomes released in shop central! Including the large portahome which was originaly going to be issued only in small numbers.

5-29-04 Elliot Beasley releases his "Dedication" video.

6-5-04 Rick Slick releases a please don't close there slideshow/video

6-8-04 There sends out a community letter telling the membership that Raffle Tickets have been discontinued , forum reorganization announced too.

6-9-04 Brett gives his "Follow the Bouncing ball" State of There Address inviting all the members to follow the bouncing ball and sing along "There in NOT closing"

6-10-04 Chagall releases the "Party There" video

6-13-04 There releases a ton of 'test items' in catalog including ramps and hoverpack hoops.
Other items were added to staff catalog, but did not work at all. Including many drinks.

Most interesting of all these itmes which did not work was a 'image sign' which evidently would displace an in world taken screenshot.

6-15-04 Members find unlimited paintguns in catalog.

6-18-04 The very first ThereCon starts. originated by Hula this week long series of events had the misfortune to be the first full themed event to occur after Black Friday, although planning started in early Feb. With the exedous of several builders many projects for this event were scrapped. Miracle Pictures premiers Broc Lee and the movie as well as a movie quest called Land of There Lost during the event.
In a contest the ThereCon Mascott was named C'ThereLu! by Narile!

6-24-04 gaultier releases a video about g0d

7-9-04 The very first Aloha Friday, organized by Hula, takes place.

7-23-04 Hula introduced the University of There

7-30-04 Quest Kits and Card Tables pulled from Shop Central 'temporarily'.

8-11-04 Brett gives an forum update as There approaches the 90 day period.

8-16-04 ThereCare launches!

8-19-04 Caldera Sun Times closes.

8-23-04 There Inc becomes Forterra Systems.

8-23-04 ? There releases more clothing items in shop inclluding more skirts and rave pants. Advertising in Karuna moves into sacred PAZ's ending the wall of karuna - or at least pusing it back further. The rave jeans billboard (shown at right) featured an animated scrolling texture. The skirt with the neon writing flashed on and off. Previously the giant skirt with the writing has been seen just past the Monkey Pool near Karuna. Now it moved near the spa end of Karuna Plaza.

8-26-04 First post Black Friday update add in monthly rentals on funzones.

Unofficial There Gathering in Southern California is a ton of fun! Baloo, Vash, Jack and other There staff drive south to attend!

8-28-04 Giant drain discovered in ocean! Bacios released in world in several greta pastel colors!

8-30-04 Fat Hamburger releases a trailer for his Austin Powers movie.

9-13-04 Annual memberships announced

9-18-04 Meret unveils his statue of liberty!

9-30-04 Brett leaves There

9-30-04 Alex Community announces the nomination process for the Fall 04 MAB

10-1-04 Pineriver releases the Keep on Jumping video.

10-1-04 New Kansas and Comet become PAZ dropable.

10-?-04 Phedre releases her wonderful western hats and Indian braids (for women). The men's long hair does not work out and later she brings out "The Brave" hairstyle.

10-4-04 Helper Nilla leaves There.

10-13-04 Mission Slightly Difficult begins casting

10-14-04 Next beta test announced and NDA is lifted. Most members invited in.
Previous beta tests (form V2 Beta till October 04 still covered under NDA!)

10-14-04 Phedre's Wild West hairstyle the braids is released in several colors. Men's braids were delayed then later canceled and the brave was created to replace it. Cowboy hats came out a week or so later.

10-15-04 The Avie Who Shagged Me is released by Fat Hanburger.

10-20-04 Kangaroo releases The Old Wattering Hole music video

10-27-04 Fall MAB members announced.
AllisonChains Amxscott Celtic Chagall DocD DreamWeaver Geea Ishmael55 Kally_Lunch Malika mrf1xit Nep oli UBER_GEEK xThor ZachC

10-28-04 new version runs a program that cleans out inventories. This makes log-ins slower for the first few times you log in then later it becomes faster. T-Bucks change from 1787T/$1 to 1800T/$1. Skin colors are changed again to better match clothing colors. Shop Poster try=outs increased to 10 minutes up form 30 seconds. Hoverboats can now fly up to 50,000 meters (the old limit was 10,000) There hands out a 1 year anniversary gift to al current members! A nice shirt celebrating the first year. Cafe Press shop opens and introduces a few related items including a hoodie and a mouse pad have the same image on them. many vehicles have lower prices (like hoverboats (down about 10k) and Bacios (about 4k less) many catalog items are also significantly cheaper. Some items, however, go up in price.

10-29-04 There opes Cafe Press shop for real life There goodies!

10-29-04 Giant religions statue appears on top of Mt. NeNe in cplporter's PAZ. Statue designed by Jinx_tv

10-29-04 New Fall MAB 2004 announced:
AllisonChains
Amxscott
Celtic
Chagall
DocD
DreamWeaver
Geea
Ishmael55
Kally_Lunch
Malika
mrf1xit
Nep
oli
UBER_GEEK
xThor
ZachC

10-31-04 Kangaroo releases the cool I Shot The Sheriff video

11-12-08 a memorable 'live quest' occurs in There featureing many there staff members. Hosted by the "There Live Quest" group it is an elaborate quiest and diffult to finish in the time alloted, but the overal result was turly memorable! The quest was called "Where's Hula?" and it was the first quest to ever be promoted with a video commercial!

11-22-04 ? Baloo introduces a proposal to the membership detailing developer submission price increases for builder items, lower prices for many clothing items, and the removal of the free developer copy. This goes through many revisions before implementation.

12-3-04 Mackie returns to the programing team to take over from Hula as Programing and Activities director. Hula decided to pursue other activites.

12-2-04 Mission Slightly Difficult holds a wrap party on completion of filming the epic feature length motion picture. Editing proves problematic and the film is not released until the follwoing year.

12-7-04 All auctions are all going to be canceled as part of the change in pricing of developer items. New submissions after this point are moved to the 'resourced based pricing model' However tis is delayed until the start of the following year.

12-7-04 includes a new winter themed island claled Frosty, which turned out to be shaped like a snowman!

12-10-04 Hula has her final day working for There.com

12-22-04 Droopy and members of the group "Kindness Awakened" invite the there staff to ahve a good time on them and present the There staff with aproximately $675 worth of therebucks! Like most events there was some entertainment (in the form of Oli doing an interpretive dance to "You are my Sunshine" and then things degrade into a paintball match.

Janruary 05

1-19-05 There staff members had a night on the town paid for by the members of there through a fundraising event by the group "Kindness Awakened" led by Droopy. Members of the There staff deceded upon Dave and Busters in Milpedis for fun and food.

1-28-05 Kittenkat gets her 1000th approved item!

1-31-05 All Auctions end on Jan 31 to make room for the new version of the developer program.

Feburary
2-2-05 New version includes more developer templates including large scale (shops config 2-5) , Higher polygon chairs, decks, knicknacks, etc. Cuban heels, High resolution testures for clothing, single texture animations, Low res clothing testure too, and strangely enough someting I hav enever seen in there an animated there house door painter, acio painter, flutterbug painter.

?? ?? There closes for a day as they move thier co-location facility. There suggests that people pick up thier PAZ's rather than loose a day of rent. No mention of what house or zone renters should do though : )

3-3-05 Steve delivers a State of There address outlining his vision for the future of There.

11 There in 2008

therecon — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 19:17:16 CDT

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

01 Public Beta I

therecon — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:07:24 CDT

Public Beta 1

PBI introduced the following features:
Included Aussie hats and bunny slippers as well as the developer program.

From there.com Jan 9-2003
"The There team shares a powerful vision of fundamentally changing the way people interact with each other online," said Jim White, Managing Partner at Sutter Hill Ventures. "After four years of hard work, they have the product and the team to make it happen."

Evidenly there were many in world structures on Caldera that were removed later on. Including cute cliff like houses which dotted the canyons near Tabu that look very similar to the cliff houses later added in Tyr. Though my personal favlorite was the split level cave.
Some features promoted never seed to materialize.

Other houses popped up (and some othese evidenly never appeared in world) similar to the tiki houses that later gained interiors. At first they all jsut had an opening with a wall directly behind to give some sens of privacy. The one on the right was included in directories but it had no inside. Not sure if it was ever in world or not. No one I ahve asked seems to ahve a memory of it.

Jan 12 2003 Developer Program Announced

2-10-03 Colombia releases a map of the Tiki Ilsands (anyone have a copy of this?)

2-13-03 An 800 number for beta testers to call for help starts up.

2-?-02 Fat Hanburger releases the first There movie. A credit sequence from The Six Million Dollar Man with some cool footage of an avie running in place in slow motion on a stage (stuck between two books)

2-14-03 Featured auctions cost 800t

3-1-03 Hoverpack prices jump from 8999 to 17999

3-2-2003 Tom give a public speech in There and announces hoverbaots are coming.

3-4-03 Techzen pays real cash to leaving member for their stuff. First Pawn Shop

3-5-03 Minai posts some pictures of costumes form Saja and the Saja Dragon picture.

3-6- 2003 First Theremail flood comes from Minai : )

3-7-03 First Male nude top with tatoos approved. Made by ThereDevil

3-7-03 First Live DJ for there with Way Out There Radio broadcasts from Island Tours.

Ealy march 2003 Jeep Sightings

3-7-03 New beta download. Size jumps form 66mb to 79mb Introduces 'burp and 'flowers

3-7-03 New previewer is introduced as well as new prices.

3-8-03 There_community asks members not to build any more sky houses
"We know how hard you’ve worked to build these houses, and it must be frustrating to lose all that work. We’re working on both the short term and long term solution to solve this issue. Until this issue is solved, however, we’d prefer that you try not to build new skyhouses until we work things out, because after all of your hard work, the house you build may be retrieved by the system if it notices too much load in a sector... "

02 Public Beta II

therecon — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:40:50 CDT

There Public Beta II starts on 3-12-03

New features included a bunch of emotes and new vehicles in the shop.
Like the over the rainbow pack and the Tow of Hearts Pack Regular Price: T$ 17,999 .
And a bunch of dune buggies and new board designs. Buggy Racer Three Regular Price: T$ 10,499
Nebula Hoverboard at T$ 13,999 and Seamonster Hoverboard T$ 13,999
Beanies were also new
Bumblebee pack goes down to $4999 after being jacked up to 6599 near the end of the previous beta.

There were a bunch of new drinks as well. Not sure which ones though.

There were four new land masses in this version. 1 big and 3 small islands.
Helpers at first denied they existed.

Emote list
afk/brb
eureka
burp
cash
flower
idea
New contact lenses included the red and yellow star contacts.

Skill laders still have unusual names. People constantly snicker over all the expert dog lovers in There!

Houses became decoratable with "furniture sets' which were limited but way cool! Basucly they swaped out models and textures on the tiki furniture (at the time which was bolted to the floor) the same way you now change a wall hanging.
Sets were released in a variety of styles.

Not show here is the Red Jazz set. These were also open to developers, but I think only Randra Loquett made one. Hers replaced the chairs with beanbag chairs.

____________________________________________________

3-18-03 There announces hoverbaord will learn new trick in the next venison (may 19) Also sends out survey letter with 5k bonus for completion to many members.

3-19-07 The first "There Class" starts.

"The idea behind the There Class Program is to make it easier for newbies to get to know people when they first join. Rather than joining and being thrown out there without any help, you're joining in groups and learning together with help from There and the member community.
Each week a new group joins, and each group is considered a 'Class'. You're not expected to go to 'class', which is sometimes the idea people get when hearing about the program. The whole basis of the program is, as I say, 'Join Together. Play Together.'
- Minai written in the fall of 2003

For a complete listing of class shirts check out the There Classes page here

4-1-03 New designer guidelines include censorship of many items.

4-1-03 Rayce make a map showing the location of existing islands including Tyr and Egypt. He adds Saja a few days later.

4-9-03 Developers discover there skin colors released by There are wrong.

4-9-03 Crystal Shard finds helicopter coming soon artwork in Saja folder.

4-10-03 Will Harvey Gives a speech Most of audience cant read the other half. First suggestion of building a There Stadium by CrystalShard.

4-15-03 Tom gives speech in There

There was some sort of Easter egg contest in there but I cant find any decent info on it.

4-17-03 Screensavers LAN party features There!

4-24-03 people taking over public buildings and landmarks spur a debate in the there forums and on There Universe.

4-24-03 Karuna becomes vehicle friendly for a few hours.

5-1-03 Drug related approvals create a uproar in There forums.

5-4-03 There Universe poll asks why would you leave There. #1 Bored/ Not enough to do #2 Are you kidding, why would I leave.

5-5-03 Meret proposes a multiple day end of PB II party which becomes a wonderful series of compeditive events. There offers special prizes to the top participants including new hoverbikes coming in PBIII.

5-7-03 DSX sees and hears a boombox.

5-12-03 DSX invents power jumping based on collision meshes.

5-20-03 There Fun holds a Q + A session in There and talks about the new version.

5-22-03 Tom gives another talk to the beta testers. He speaks about voice chat and asks for volunteers.

5-?-03 URU takes applications for beta

5-22-03 Limited Edition Hover Bike listed in Auction.

5-26-03 2:20 am There closes PBII

09 There in 2006

therecon — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 15:40:29 CDT

Janruary

Feburary

March

3-11-06 Michael Wilson aanounces the new community top 10

#1 New Emotes
#2 Developer Hair and Headgear
#3 Alternative Income Sources
#4 Long Hair
#5 Developer Sandbox
#6 New Pets
#7 Optional Invitation Pop-Ups
#8 Stylemaker Bottoms
#9 Atmospheres and Changing Daily Skies
#10 Yards for Houses

April

May

June

July

August
8-6-06 Michael Wilson makes a partial announcment of There teaming with a large Media company to create two new online virtual worlds. The first of which tunred out to be Virtual Laguna Beach. Also mentioned int he semi-anouncment is a 3 part upgrade to our profile system.

September

9-25-06 State of There address at real life gathering in Las Vegas. Mentioned several upcoming projects including interactivity and ThereIM, a new Instant Message client built around There technology.

9-27-06 There makes an anouncement that an upcoming race funzone will be named after Sleepy K a long time member of the racing community in There.

October

10-7-06 ThereCon 2006 starts up. Special new events this year included an ice cream social (with icre cream special ice cream objects made by Banshee_Kate and an ice cream cone mod by Francis_7) a new quest "Lost in There" was alos presented. Many events were held at the new convention/hotel facility designed by Francis_7 and located on cenic URU island!

10-18-06 Alex announces that C5 Studio's new winning Aral outfit would repleace all the images of Aral in There!

10-30-06 new funzones in Tyr open
Chaz's Chasm: webapps.prod.there.com/funzone/funzone?op=view&id= 530734046
Pocket's Paintball Park: webapps.prod.there.com/funzone/funzone?op=view&id= 530563276
Mackie's Moonlit Motorway: webapps.prod.there.com/funzone/funzone?op=view&id= 530563416
Vash's Venue: webapps.prod.there.com/funzone/funzone?op=view&id= 530803493

November
11-2-06 There Film Festival starts - Films are show in tiki movie theaters on many nights of the film festival and voting is done through Boomerang surveys. Flames burn in forums for many days making this a very uncofortable time for several contest entrants.

11-4-07 Miracle Pictures premiers Killboat II trailer written by Rick Slick.

11-11-07 Miracle Pictures releases the Tiki Trek 20 Year Reunion Mockumentary.

11-27-06 Nominations for the next MAB start to be seated in January.

11-27-06 There Film Festival Winners Announced
Best Overall - Wild Griefer, by Francis_7
Best Comedy - Machinima in There, by Rick_Slick
Best Comedy, Runner-Up - There Goes Our Lives, by Disky
Best Action - Wild Griefer, by Francis_7
Best There Commercial - An Amazing Day in There, by Chagall
Best There Commercial, Runner-Up - It's All There, by Elaur

December

12-12-06 Neighborhood owner and neighbrohood lot manuals released as .pdf files.

12-20-06 4 seater buggies released as a shop item. The very first few days they were avalaible they were not made lockable making these collectable. Shop 4 seater buggies sold after the 23rd were lockable.

12-22-06 The Winter 2007 MAB is announced:
Angelius
Aveena
BlueGrassTIGGS
Country_Squee
Dihtri
Gabi23
Haloeighty8
JDin707
Neema
Ravenzia
Stungthumbz
TBelle

.

08 Makena and the rest of 2005

therecon — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 14:09:21 CDT

4-19-05 A special last minute State of There address occurs.
There Inc no longer part of Forterra Systems. They will be adding engineers and Michael Wilson is new CEO, Steve Victorino continues as COO.

5-1-05 April fools arrives in There with a bang! Environments in key locations in there changed for the day! Daytime in tyr with no fog, Moon over Karuna Plaza, and Pink skies on Frosty island!

5-3-05 Mackie introduces the return of the There Classes program with the class of Odyssey. This class shirt was given out to anyone who arrived between June of 2004 and June of 2005. A sign was also create3d to promote the program and later a Kiosk was placed on BABS stations with a book linking it to class events.

5-7-05 Beta test included Dice (which could be shot or knocked around) avatar notes, and PAZ saved layouts, and the ability to name your PAZ.

5-8-05 Theremail Delay announced. A week or three later people get tons of backed up old event invites.

5-13-04 Pineriver leaves there and along with him goes his Virtual Mist movie productions and his unfinished movie which many people worked many hours on.

5-5-05 Deamona throws a wild party to welcome MAB members and say goodbye to Community Ales (who left There to work as another community manager).

9-6-05 Spliff announces There Universe forums and web site will be closing!

9-10-24 ThereCon 2005 - a week long series of sci-fi themed events takes palce in There.com This was the second ThereCon. The first was held shortly after black friday. The original idea came form Hula, whi wanted to have a bunch of sci-fi related events as a theme. This years convention featured the return of live stage plays to there (something which a stage had not been used for since the Beta days) in the form of Tiki Trek, a 30 minute romp across a rather cramped set wand with a cast limited to 5 members to allow for the maximum number of audience members. The month following this would be turned into a motion pictures with a few additional sets and lines of dialogue. Tiki Trek the Motion Picture A special 'phaser mod' was also constructed so that the paintguns used in the play would look like Phasers. The tricorders (seen in the movie version) were developed later for the film verison. This movie was later released on DVD with a special quickly made mockumentary called Memories of Tiki Trek. Other special events included the land of There Lost movie quest and the very first RomperBall matches!

October
10-31-05 Dune valley takes on a nighttime sky as a Halloween Treat. The zone reverted back to it's normal daytime sky the following day.

November

11-4-05 The member of the Fall 2005 MAB are announced.
_Blake
Duchess
Elaur
Fallan
Hawg_Rider
Jo_Bleaux
Kaylea
Kitte
Lister_4
MarineDude
Shaeri
Shivaki
Taelos
Tbone4
Thumdar
Ubber_Geek

11-10 to 17-05 Therestock 05 arrives in There.com. This is the third anual therestock festival.

11-19-05 The first neighborhood based shoping destination arrives in the form of The Village Marketplace! A grand opening celbration is truly grand.

11-21-05 TheChaz is hired onto the There staff.

11-23-05 Meret's wonderful Santa's Workshop is made a perminent in world landmark.

December

12-3-05 Miracle Pictures furst full lenngth movie, penned and directed by Rick_Slick, Opens to standing room only!

10 There in 2007

therecon — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 12:19:42 CST

January

1-15-07 Alex announces the release of "Virtual Hills" the second development project for MTV turned oued to be a section of VLB rather than it's own online world.

1-17-07 Four-Seater buggies and TUV's are now avaliable for developers to submit.

1-18-07 Dihtri gets a new job and leaves the MAB. Members quickly notice that she is still attending MAB meetings, but now as staff. Congrats Dihtri!

Feburary

2-2-07 There Fun Times web blog starts.

2-9-07 Vash announces the TFT mialings would be on hiaitus temporarily.

March

3-1-07 There Live Help for abuse reports now open 24 hours!

3-12-07 Developer pushes expand to three days a week adding monday as a new item day along side Wednesday and Friday.

April

4-3-07 Previewer 5.1 Released
* New Submission Wizard
* New exporter for 3dsmax 7 and 8
* An XP and Vista-friendly UI
* New menu items and time-savers
* Additional lighting settings
* Mouse scroll wheel controls camera zoom

4-9-07 Vash announces sweeping changes to the There Forums
Vash - "Over the years our forums have been a good source of information, member-to-member help, and a fun place to chat about the exciting things happening in There. It has also been a source of less-than-desirable behavior, and over the past months, one of the most common sentiments we've heard about the forums is "I stay out of them because I don't want to get caught up in the drama." Naturally, this isn't what we want for one of our best information resources. We have also received requests for posting guidelines that are spelled out more clearly. As a result, we thought this would be a good time to make some changes that we hope will provide a better, more welcoming environment for members (new and old) who come looking for help, news, and discussion.

The first change is a new, more detailed set of Forum Guidelines. These guidelines will be posted at the top of every section and provide specific detail about what is allowed and not allowed in our forums. (Note: With a few obvious exceptions, these behaviors are things we have been moderating for already.) Everyone should read through these guidelines at least once and become familiar with them.

The next changes are the addition, removal, or repurposing of some boards:

1. Advertisements & Announcements will be divided into two separate boards. One will be focused exclusively on the announcement of new developer items, and the other will be a general "marketplace", where members can discuss items they'd like to buy or sell. Announcements about in-world events should now be placed in Buzz.

2. Economy & Pricing - This section will be removed. Over time, the vast majority of threads in this area have become focused on the buying/selling of Therebucks or other items, which was not the original intent. These types of posts are more appropriate for the "marketplace" section.

3. "Developers: General Discussion" and "Developers: Builders" will be combined into one section.

4. Perhaps the biggest change is the removal of the "Rants and Raves" section. As stated in our new guidelines, "Ranting is posting irate, unconstructive (usually vague) comments to 'blow off steam.' This is considered a form of trolling since ranting does little but end up in flame wars." The R&R section has always been a place of contention within our forums. It is often misused, and we no longer want to encourage the kind of feedback and behavior we were seeing in that section. A large number of threads resulted in name calling, personal attacks and, most especially, moderations.

But we still want your feedback, which is why we are changing the name of the "Suggestions" section to "Suggestions and Feedback". We welcome your constructive criticism and comments about our new projects, old bugs, etc.

We hope these changes will help our message boards become a stronger community resource and encourage more people to participate in discussions about what's happening in There."

4-11-07 There annoinces that "customizable Cars" will be coming to There.
Alex - "Today I'm here to tell you that we're going to be introducing this capability to There as soon as possible, possibly as soon as the release following the next one (not this NEXT release, but the one after that). There will have the /same/ capabilities as the ones you see in Virtual Pimp My Ride, with two important differences:

First, we're going to introduce a new type of vehicle with this capability. I'm not going to say what kind of vehicle it will be but we're pretty excited about it.

Second, There's customizable car program will be primarily /developer/ driven. Instead of introducing a plethora of ready made parts, we're going to introduce a very few, and make all the parts (or as many as we can) available as /developer items/. We think this is the best way for everyone to get the most out of this exciting new functionality."

May

5-4-07 svengalibob announced as new Director of Customer Service

5-9-07 There hosts a second Developer Program chat

5-15-07 New release of there introduces weather and more!

June

June 1 - MAB nominations open

June 16 - New Top 10 List
1. Increased Drop Count - Increase number of drops in all types of zones.
2. New Games - A series of new ways to interact in There. Examples: Backgammon, Chess, Checkers, Poker, Mini Golf, etc.
3. Hugs.
4. New Vehicle Types - 8 seater land and hover vehicles, 2-seater hoverbikes, water boats, developer bacios, etc.
5. A pop-up system alert stating that an avatar is nearing a "No Fly Zone" or another form of early warning system for vehicles approaching "No Fly Zones".
6. Auction Redesign - Better searching, sorting, favorites, watched, new front page, new look and feel.
7. Improved Ignore - Make it so chat bubbles are not viewable by ignored members, kick ignored members from events, ignored persons items cannot affect you.
8. Improve 'My Things' - Creation of a better system for inventory management used for sorting, retrieval and decorating. Including ability to store items in a "closet".
9. Improved Environments - Optional rotating skies on a 4/6 Hour Clock, Aurora Borealis and other sky domes added to environmental toggle, adjustable lighting, etc.
10. Developer hair and/or headgear.

June 27 - There announces deal with Capitol Records
"At least five artists will make appearances in There.com over the next few months in the newly constructed Capitol Music Group venue, The Tower, an exclusive virtual nightclub environment where fans can meet and talk with band members and watch videos from Capitol Music Group artists. Interactive kiosks will be placed in popular locations throughout the virtual world, offering the sale of both virtual and real world merchandise."

June 27 - Summer MAB members announced
1BlackBelt
albinovulcan
Celtic
Chagall
Elaur
ForSheetzNGigglz
Geea
juliaaedans
Nema
PrincessPebbie
Shivaki
susanszy

July

July 3 - Beta test
Avatar shadoes, Developer SUV part 1, More sandbox testing, Donation Box

July 29- Aug 4 ThereCon 2007 explores outerspace in a week long series of themed sci-fi events! This year the con hotel is located in the Lagoland neighborhood and there were many new and excting events. Most popular was the Moon Lander hoverboat competition in which pilots tried to land inside of a series of craters in a specialy designed hoverboat. Also new was a pack of 7 sci-fi related mods for hand held items, and a brand new Romperball arena.

August

August 10-12 The third official There Real Life Gathering held in Dana Point CA.
Michael wilson gives a dramatic "State of There" presentation. Miracle Pictures screens a special thirty minute preview reel of upcoming productions including scenes form manu upcoming productions including "I Love Basya, The Wizard of Lag, and Broc Lee: Spitwads of Doom!"

There Summer Games has a record setting number of events!

August 20th - The Beastie Boys arrive in there for a chat session and visit the various Tower buildings.

August 24 - Alex welcomes the members of There Philipines into There.com with a forum post. The members migrated have thier own neighborhood set up for them before they arrived.

August 30 - Vah announces changes will be made soon to developer zones to make them less attractive to live in. Many develoeprs unhappy about this change.

August 31 - the second annual There Film Festival is announced. Films need to be turned in by October 31st at noon PDT.

September

September 9 - Evan and Mackine announce that Just Crazy Talk (There's longest running talk show) would be coming to a close after one more episode.

September 17 - Just Crazy Palk closes down production. Evan gives away the stage.

September 20 - Alex announces Chagall's wonderful guide to creating machenima in There.com!

September 24 - Stylemaker 5.2 arrives!
* Support for multiple clothing clothing items
* Additional fig leaf masks
* Save-able wire frame and fig leaf images
* Main window can now be resized
* Last configuration saved upon exiting
* 2 new boot templates (knee high boots & ankle boots)
* 2 new hat templates (backwards baseball cap & fedora)

September

October

October 4 - Vash announces the name of the new California shaped island is now officialy called AURORA, after a lengthy contest with members voting on thier favorite name.

October 10 - CosmoGIRL! Becomes First Teen Consumer Magazine to Enter Virtual World.. well ok the event did not happen until November, but the press release surprised many Thereians as much of the content of the CosmoGirl website did fell below the community standards of There.com

October 13 - There Fun Times returns as a shortened monthly e-mail newsletter with some way cool graphics!

October 15 - There hosts a 'Developer Chat' and reveals many upcoming things including node locations for props and upcoming plans for gorup seating releases as well as for customizable vehicles. Developers are happy with the new stylemaker releases including high heels and tall boots! Members still distressed over communication problems. FUZE is announbced as a solution to this. Developers still asking There to release a non butchered version of the Development Zone that would cost the full price of a similar sized PAZ.

October 17 - FUZE beta announced as a new method for communicating issues to there steff. The first step is a beta test phase.

October 23 - GamingVibe's "Thereopoly" Project has been canceled due to some legal and TOS reasons.

October 25 - There holds another beta test to test 'layers'

November

Voting begins in the seocnd annual There Film Festival.
The entries this year are:
Ain't No Thang by Chagall
The Assassinator by mrF1x1T
All's Well That Ends Well by Timothee
An Expedition in There by Deathly
BlackRose Show Maze by DamnEdge
Cowboy Adventure by Meret
Tall Buildings by Archie
There Scare by Elaur
TMPTAFEWLOAACAW by Francis_7
Spooky Haunted House by TrickedOut
This year's contest was only 1/3 judged by the membership and 2/3 judged by a panel at There. The film festival did away with catagories and offered only three prizes instead several per catagory.

Tiki cove plaza vanishes to make room for Cosmo Girl Village.

11-8-07 There announces an activity to paint the three Scion nightclub 'cars' exterior. Paintjobs to be rotated frequently.

Decemeber

03 Public Beta III / Preview Version

therecon — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 09:23:59 CDT

PBIII/Preview

Public Beta III / Preview Version

New features included: photo huts, Hoverbikes, and Hoverboats.
Accessories now include ear rings and glasses. The slider bars in the spa now allow for more customization. You can now build a paintball course with a 'gun kit' Tommyguns were introduced. Stylemaker arrives on the scenes to make women's tops. Flutterbugs arrive on the scene. Stages get buzzers. new hairstyles like the fro come out. Freestyle Hoverbaord make the scene. The Adventure Maker adds four new types of clues including lockbox, Bottles, and balloons. Oh yeah and personal force fields! And of couse the ever popular blockheads avie as a measure of crowd control. Name tags get bigger when you look at someone in a chat group. Waterfalls and hot tubs on Calderra also added. Still levels began to tel lus more about how close you were to the next level.

5-28-03 3pm PBIII starts up then quickly dies.

Auction winners and contest winners receive their stinger hoverbikes. Auction winners are not required to give back the auctioned wall hanging. Hoverbikes come in Red abd Blue, and the Moonracer. Despite positive comments in TU forums, this Moonracer design is never released (though you can still buy it through the store if you find the right page) When asked later a There employee said it was too ugly to sell.

Many new houses released before there opened, where repossessed. Some 2 room houses were as low as 8k a month while more expensive housing was at 12-15k. Some houses go as high as 20k a month!

6-1-03 Homesteader Zones announced.
"A Homesteader Zone is a member-configurable, personal space in which you will be able to drop any object, anytime you want. The boundaries of your zone can extend vertically up to 2,000 meters and any non-vehicle objects placed in the zone will not be auto-retrieved."

6-3-03 Hoverbaots go on sale to all for 45999 each.
6-3-03 White Light notices that it is cheaper to design your own free style board than it is to buy one from the shop.

6-5-03 Storm-cahn find stone block on Caldera but its texture is missing. It is the art team credit block.

-5-03 Voice Chat turned on for everyone. (It was previously being tested by small numbers of people)

6-9-03 myrmex releases his world map project. Very interesting work including drive times and directions from one island to another.
http://www.erraticism.com/there/worldmap.htm

6-9-03 Ara announces she is making a movie 'Party of 4" along with Tansy and taxpartyof5. The movie never comes out.

6-10-03 letters go out for people who had broadband. They can rent a sound system for 99t through August. the experiment goes horribly wrong and due to abuse all sound systems are quickly removed from game.

6-10-03 There Monitor goes on a hoverboat ride with Scottobear, Sluggo, Chasmodius and Paladin!

6-12-03 There employee Wubbly seen wearing mortarboard hat. There employees with these on are known as There Scholars. Later this item is released to the public.

6-12-03 Spiff finishes building the first Spacepad!

6-15-03 members start to notice that new vehicle skills have not be turned on (bikes, boats, flutterpacks)

6-20-03 Ken Duda There CTO did a Q-A session.

6-24-03 There Universe has a poll as to how much would people be willing to play for monthly access to There. $10 a month is the winning choice followed by $5 and "Nothing I am too cheap"

6-32-03 There announces longer beta hours! More than 90 hours a week more. In the end they cant live up to this goal and are frequently closed on days they were to be open. There is now closed Monday, 9 a.m. - 10 a.m. (PST) and Tuesday, 9 a.m. - Wednesday 2 p.m. (PST) and Thursday - Sunday, 9 a.m. - 2 p.m. (PST)

6-26-03 Star Wars Galaxies (another online world game) goes into Beta.

7-?-03 Well known beta tester, and 'pusher of the limits', Jopy decides to ignore over 1000 people in there. During this time people on your ignore list were represented by a stick figure with no head. Previously he was most well known for dropping signs over roadways, landmarks, etc. However he said (thir hand) that much of the signage was droped by members of his 'Jopy Army' and not him.

7-1-03 timon announces he is forming a company in There to make movies. He never produces any footage, but does sell a nice t-shirt : )

7-3-07 - There makes a new policy forbidding employees form making global messages unless they are of a technical nature.

7-?-03 There releases American Hoverboat (painted like American Flag) just in time for the first There flotilla! An event that threatened to kill a lot of servers.

7-4-03 There large themed event celebration for the 4th of July goes off well except for hoverboat flotilla issues. The employee Hula is extatic over how well it went.

7-4-03 Phedre suggests a protest to bring changes to there after loosing most of her friends.

7-5-03 CrystalShard spots a second There monitor called ThereMonitor2

7-5-03 Nyx starts the Photobooth Project where avatars create a strip of photo booth pictures of their avatars making interesting faces and then post them to TU forums.

7-11-07 There Universe Poll reveals that more users would like to have more development on the interactivity of there

7-17-03 There starts to release info to press sites about V1. The first announcement is about folder in change me, Copy and paste and hyper links in zone windows and IM's and chat balloons. And outside windows for browsers.

7-21-03 Miss P has a chat with Tom about her revolution.

7-22-04 "There Buddies" Mentor Program announced by mail to members who had reached a particular skill. Program was secretly started several months before this. Only a few are selected at a time.

7-25-03 More release info includes information about auction try-it buttons, new club feature, and try-it machines.

7-27-03 Phedre announces the Fall 2003 There Gathering.

7-29-03 Loose Yourself in There premiers at the Maidenflight stage.

8-13-03 New Skills unlocked including bike skill.

8-?-03 Therestock becomes the first big themed event in There. Closing ceremonies and protest sign contest draws 100 members together in one place without bringing the area crashing down!

8-18-03 - 8-21-03 There closes for server upgrades!

8-22-03 There In person launches.

8-23-03 News of new emotes is posted including dance moves in the 7th in the series of news announcements.

8-23-03 Caldera Sun Times launches.

9-4-03 Members Advisory Board formation announced.

9-4-03 Disky wins Real Life Gathering t-shirt contest.

9-7-03 There closes for Update

9-8-03 There Action News Clip released by Miracle Pictures.

9--03 There puts up pictures of card tables as a preview of things to come.

9-8-03 There sends out letters to event hosts offering them the chance to operate a funzone for six months.

9-8-03 Revisions to hosting skill change the amount of events, sound systems, and signs you can drop. The Oro Longue is mentioned for the first time.

9-8-03 There.com gets a new front page for the limited release version.

9-8-03 Droopy proposes first portazone community "Theresberg" into a crater on MotuMotu

9-9-03 TUV and Bacio model first spotted in client folders.

9-?-03 Digital Signal X hosts a official "Name There Planet" contest. The winner to be given 10k, a vehicle, and other prizes as well as having their entry selected to be the official name of the planet. Entrants has to write a essay or short story explaining how the planet got its name. The contest ends when DSX stopped hosting that web site. No winner ever declared, however Virtual_Vikki's entry Thereia has twice as many votes as any other name at the end of the contest.

9-9-03 Explore Pack Announced and everyone wonders why?

9-9-2003 with only 7 days notice there changes the prices on many clubhouses upwards. In some cases form 8k a month to 21K!

9-9-03 Tom announces beta member pricing deal in a spage chat and in forums.

9-9-03 Levi clarifies some pricing details for optional packages.

Home

therecon — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 16:10:19 CDT

Use the navigation bar at the left to navigate through time.

This fan site chronicles the continuing development of the virtual online world called There. You can visit There at www.there.com.

04 Limited Release

therecon — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 16:09:39 CDT

9-8-03 There sends out letters to event hosts offering them the chance to operate a funzone for six months.

9-8-03 Revisions to hosting skill change the amount of events, sound systems, and signs you can drop. The Oro Longue is mentioned for the first time.

9-8-03 There.com gets a new front page for the limited release version.

9-8-03 Droopy proposes first portazone community "Theresberg" into a crater on MotuMotu

9-9-03 TUV and Bacio model first spotted in client folders.

9-?-03 Digital Signal X hosts a official "Name There Planet" contest. The winner to be given 10k, a vehicle, and other prizes as well as having their entry selected to be the official name of the planet. Entrants has to write a essay or short story explaining how the planet got its name. The contest ends when DSX stopped hosting that web site. No winner ever declared, however Virtual_Vikki's entry Thereia has twice as many votes as any other name at the end of the contest.

9-9-03 Explore Pack Announced and everyone wonders why?

9-9-2003 with only 7 days notice there changes the prices on many clubhouses upwards. In some cases form 8k a month to 21K!

9-9-03 Tom announces beta member pricing deal

9-9-03 Levi clarifies some pricing details for optional packages

9-9-03 There hosts sucessful PAZ building contest It is amazing what memebrs can do with a roman set, a garden set, a few couches and only 30 drops!

Limited Release - officialy starts.

9-10-03 There launches Limited Release Version (aka Velvet Rope) and immediately crashes! New version includes Motu-Motu and the Oro Longue and a ton of new houses and Compas Island. Also included are new walking running and dance emotes.
Portazones arrive and There breaks into all the decorated houses, steals all the furniture and fixtures and raises the rent! Coordinates teleport system is removed and many map sites soon vanish as a result. The Templar in Tyr opens. Special photo signs are found in various locations. All the skill levels received new names.

A menu bar was added for sound. The Temple of Clucky was constructed overnight too! Level up rewards can no longer be sold. New campfires sprang up on Ootay along with a giant chessboard.

Everyone in there recieves a free casual portazone. Frontier Zones appear on Motu-Motu.

9-10-03 Changes to developer program have designers up in arms. Featured items go form 1k to 3k. Thre reduced several there made items to costs way below designer wholesale.

9-11-03 the flood of problems start with missing textures, unusable furniture, and upgrade issues. Also problems with using the CTRL key to override action mode plague racers. As a result of all these bugs the number of hours There is open decreases. A feature to turn off changing clothing is introduced.

9-10-03 Changes to the TOS forbid the selling of tbux for cash. Problem not resolved for some time.

9-12-03 Theresberg slowly forms in a volcano crate on Motu Motu.

9-14-03 Tom has an in world chat. It is to be his last public appearance in There.

9-16-03 Kittenkat is turned down on a submission until she gets approval from There_Monitor to use her image on a flag.

9-17-03 Beta testers get nervous as beta pricing deal is about to end and they still have not been contacted by There after providing a phone number to be called back at. When they do get membership they get a special beta mug.

9-18-03 Portazone Sculpting Contest held. Several prizes are give out including one for a giant version of clucky.

9-20-03 There auctions off several TUV's

9-23-03 There Real Life Gathering happens at There HQ!

Many exciting presentations happen at the There Gathering as well as tons of fun and games.

9-26-03 Tom is no longer CEO of There!!!

9-26-03 Krysss releases stereogram 3-D images of there. Just cross your eyes are you are There : )
http://www.angelfire.com/pa5/kryssscom/there/3D/index.htm

9-29-03 A Mr and Mrs. There Meta Competition is announced.

10-2-03 at 6:30 pm (Ok so they sad that but it was like 8pm before anyone got started) There releases funzones to operators in a game that was a bit like Russian roulette. For those selected, just get to the zone you want to run and be the first to plant an activity flag There! Many zones were held in reserve for free hosting and doomed the possibility of operators being able to make therebucks by renting their zones out. There promised many tools to help zone operators but only delivered on a few of those tools and not till version 2 launched.

10-5-03 Shaitan and FTR Eddie announced as Ms. and Mr. Beta!

10-6-03 There announces Halloween hats and masks.

10-7-03 There tries out 'limited supply' items in shop. "Buying and Borrowing: Limited Supply Items If you see a product you want that is in limited supply while shopping in the There Shop, act fast -- it's likely to be sold out soon. We can't guarantee when a product's inventory will be restocked"

10-8-03 New Nike shoes make you run faster!

10-12-03 Kingey introduces The Tiki Times newspaper.

10-13-03 There Classes gets its own web site.

10-14-04 Many beta members who had paid already are locked out of There and marked unpaid.

10-18-03 Minai gets the approval from there to create 'pre-class shirts' and holds a contest to design them. However Octavia Larkspur had already submitted a class of Atlantis shirt.

10-19-03 There botches remaining funzone rentals by renting all 12 of the zones twice to two people each. Later they make repetitions by offering some of the few remaining zones for rent or a paz preloaded with time.

10-22-03 TUV's appear in shop central for 60k!

10-03 There releases new hours. Less than promised before as There gets ready to become a pay service.

10-21-03 There appears in a Time Magazine full page article!

10-22-03 - 11-3-03 To celebrate the public release of There, There will be open for 13 days straight! From Wednesday, Oct. 22nd to Monday, Nov. 3rd you can go There, almost! anytime you want. Long live the fun! (I recall buying some extra tv dinners this week in preparation for this : )

10-23-03 People notice their skills are starting to degrade

10-23-03 Miracle Pictures first feature length movie, Killboat, opens with a permier at NeNe's Wake funzone.

10-25-03 CalvinJ4 holds another town hall meeting gathering input for future MAB meetings

00 Early History

therecon — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 15:52:00 CDT

Private Beta

July 2001
There starts inviting people to participate in this beta without saying much about what it actualy is.

There starts sending out video cards to women who apply to get more women participating in the early beta tests.

The first tests take palce on Caldera island with members gathering at Island Tours. Neaby is Nada island but because of water it is difficult to reach.
Ootay is nowhere to be seen.

Single Seater buggies came in different speeds. Faster ones has darker colored fenders. Slower ones had basicly solid color bodies.

Monday Oct. 22 2001 6-9pm First Private Betat Test ?
I am unclear if there were earlier groups let in or not. the original plan was to have the betas starting on october 10th.
The beta CD came with a Quick Start Guide as well as technical support information.
__________________
What is There:
THERE is a new kind of consumer online service -- the first virtual universe where you can express your identity, communicate visually, and enjoy spontaneous experiences with others. An ever-evolving place, THERE grows based on what you create and contribute. People who have experienced THERE say it's like a next-generation 3D AOL.

The THERE universe has planets, and the first one resembles the Earth. The first place you'll be able to go in THERE is a tropical island. When you arrive, you get to create a 3D character, or avatar. Be yourself, or someone you've always wanted to be -- we provide the tools to experiment. Once you've created your avatar, you can roam the island - meet interesting people, discover new places, and do fun things. Best of all, you can communicate in ways you'll have to see to believe. THERE is not a game - you don't play THERE, you are THERE.

Players were given 75,000t to start.
____________________

Wednesday Oct. 24, 6-9pm (used same CD as sent out earlier)
Testers now able to post to forums 24 hours a day.
Attempt to fix buggy rubberbanding that was effecting some members.
Price drops for some items in catalog
Improved catalog navigation
Improved stability on various Windows operating systems
Attempted to fix random log-outs and unsucessful gives and purchaces.

At the time There was busy working on requested features including:
The ability to emote outside of chat props. The ability to point at something.
Developing houses members can own and hold private parties at
A mirror so you can see yourself
A way to try something for free before you have to buy it
Ways to earn Therebucks

Oct 29th Halloween Party test (new CD sent out)
The first annual Halloween Party in There
Tick Or Treating
- Pick up free "treats" from secret locations around Caldera Island. The first 5 people to collect all the treats win special Halloween prizes like the MonsterPak Jetpack and the Doom Buggy. You can also take your time, Trick-or-Treat for fun and keep all the treats as collectibles forever.
Costume Contest
- Showcase your creativity and win prizes! Use our costume combinations or create your own!

There created costumes including skeletons, chicken girl, biker dude, uberman, robots, western outfits and more! Some of the head worn items made it into production later (masks) while other never appeared again (chicken head and hatchet head)

Early beta testers were paid to participate in the series of beta tests At this point they were offered the ability to turn that future payment into in game therebucks. $5 real money converted to 125,000t

During this beta test There Central was updated several times. Global messages were used.
_______________________________________________________________________
Trick or treating went well. People visited many out of the way places. The winners of the costest were
Beeker, Andar, Jboogie, e, and jbodhi

The beta test ended during the middle of the costume contest so it was only narrowed down to five finalists before the end.

This test also featured the first ever treasure hunt in There! It got off to a late start but teams raced off solving riddles and finding the next clue. Kane and Valentine won that contest.

Many bugs were fixed from the previous test, but others cropped up. Some members were dropped from conversations mysteriously. other members snapped from one location to another. This was the result of having too many people in one place ending up with an overloaded server.
_____________________________________________________________________
October 31st ? - ? Used previous verison of the CD
The Halloween celebration continued.
Final voting for the costume contest
Members were to check There Central for informaiton on how to vote.
There Demons of Speed! This night 8 selected members were invited to participate in an experimental buggy race, the first buggy race in There history at 7pm! At the time There was deciding the best method to make races work.
The problem with giving itmes and not having them show up was islolated.
The servers were re-load ballanced. This caused some avatars to vanish or disconnect in rare occasions.

Monday Nov 5th 6-9pm
The give bug was stomped out.
No other information. the planned CD for this test was canceled.

Wedenesday Nov 7th 6-9pm
Join us in our first Scavenger Hunt
- a thrilling, fast-paced race through There. You and a partner will answer 20 Scavenger Hunt questions. Prizes will be awarded to the top 3 teams. The Hunt starts at 7:00 PM sharp. Please sign up for this event in a topic called "SIGN-UP NOW: Nov. 7 Scavenger Hunt" in the Buzz section of There Forums.

Guided Tours
- Are you getting tired of the same hangouts? Would you like to discover secluded areas? Come explore some scenic spots with us! We'll show you places where you can have fun or just sit and soak up the view. You will be teleported around the island by a local guide in 20-30 action-packed minutes with 2-3 people in a group. No special equipment is required.
Tours run from 6:00pm - 9:00pm on Wednesday, Nov. 7 in There. You will be summoned by a Greeter to start a tour. You may sign-up for a guided tour by going to the Buzz section of There Forums. Reply to a topic called "SIGN-UP NOW: Nov. 7 Guided Tour of There".

Monday Nov 12 6-9pm (Beta enters its second month!)
More ThereBucks
-You thought tax refunds were exciting!...We have reached the one month mark of the There beta program and have given all members their new monthly allotment of 75,000 ThereBucks. You'll see this allotment in your gear when you log in on Monday.

Sign-up for "Incognito"
-Have you ever dreamed about being a secret agent? Here is your opportunity to test your powers of subtlety and smooth. Find out more and sign up in the Buzz section of There Forums. Look for the post titled "SIGN-UP NOW: Nov. 12 Incognito".

Greeter_Rich gave a crash course on buggy driving There was volcano racing, and a new twist on soccer,

Wednesday Nov 14 6-9pm
Demolition Derby
-Join us for an evening of buggy bashing! Find out more and sign up in the Buzz section of There Forums. Look for the post titled "SIGN-UP NOW: Nov 14 Demolition Derby".
Also Scavenger Hunt and a Guided Tours of There

Monday November 19th 6-9pm
There continues to attack the lag problem now know as rubberbanding.
New improvements included:
The ability to use expressions anywhere (not just at the spa)
The ability to type an expression as a word, an emoticon like : ) or just typing the word smile in a conversation. The function keys still work as well.
An indicator that the avatar is looking at a web page so you do not think they are ignoring you
New views were also included including First person, Face Mirror, Body Mirror, and super zoomed live map.

Hours expanded for Monday and Wednesday tests. Open visit time was added on Fridays and Saturdays.

Date ???? First There stage (Manoa Stage) is tested ???

Private Beta Testers also recieved, as a spcial thank you, a leather embossed CD container.

ThereDocs History

therecon — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 20:48:34 CDT

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

05 There Version 1

therecon — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 10:05:43 CST

Version 1

10-27-03 Leo Laporte does a large feature on Tech TV (opening day)

10-30-03 Auctions end for the gothic home improvement set. Winners received a gothic set weeks in advance (11-26-03) of being in shop and a special wall hanging. Shame it is not in time for Halloween.

11-03 ATI offerers special There deal with Radeon cards.

11-03 Kittenkat releases her snow patch which turns There into a winter wonderland! Amazing!

11-03 Elliott_Beazley announces his yearbook project. It never comes out but it was a great idea.

11-5-03 First UFO sighting in There by teara

11-6-03 There places missing level up prizes into many members inventory.

11-7-03 There sends out a survey. On completion There offers 10k.

11-11-03 Popular Science puts up There as one of their best of picks for the year.

11-11-03 USA Today does an article on There.

11-13-03 Steadmania starts to build with the discovers of Steadman items in folders.

11-16-03 Caldera Sun Times closes a day in memory of Renea. A flaming banana light vigil goes on all night

11-17-03 Steadman rocks the frontier zone at Napea in a live in world concert!

11-18-03 Renea turns out to have faked her own death. Community spirit is shattered.

11-21-03 There cancels auctions of items in exchange for houses.

11-20-03 Duda Bay PAZ bridge spans Duda Bay on a huge structure. Structure gone in late Decemeber.

11-27-03 There announces new hours. Now open every night of the week, but still closed on Tuesdays most of the time.

11-30-03 Kingey unveils the first episode of Exile. The first TV show in there.

12-1-03 Design the Buddy Mentor shirt contest starts.

12-2-03 Christmas items arrive in catalog early. Some people buy while there is closed and do not get their items. Bah! humbug!

12-3-03 There Clubs reorganizes. Club leaders needed to pick new categories or end up with a default.

12-7-03 Miracle Pictures Noob Hunter premiers in There.

12-13-03 Noob Hunter Bloopers released.

12-20-03 gaultier announces he has finished building the first international space station.

Jan 7 - 2003 Many more there workers laid off including Greeter Canuck, River, Greeter July, and Mackie.

1-8-04 Members prepare to test V2 of There in Beta.

Jan 9 - 2003 Levi Jones delivers a Stare of There address and reassures the membership.

1-17-04 Articles on There's military project star to appear.

1-20-04 Levi makes a post about massive changes to the mentor program including removal of some mentors and pop up messages for visitors to click on to say mentors are doing a good job or not. This also allows visitors to select another mentor.

1-28-04 There Museum Of Art announces the release of art models for painters to use.

1-30-04 Minai and Hula come to California and hold Mini There Gathering.

2-12-04 There Museum of Art releases more art models for members to paint great art on.

2-12-04 Uncle John announces the release of the first MAB web site.