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| I’d like to thank Leslie Miller for her great article about Q-Link which appeared in the February 10, 2000 issue of USA Today. It was a pleasure to be interviewed for the article. :-)
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| A creation of Lucasfilm Ltd., Club Caribe was an immensely popular online resort island. Members could create their own persona (called “avatars”) and move about the island, interacting with other members in a variety of ways. I never spent too much time in Caribe, but some people lived for it. After the demise of Q-Link, Fujitsu took the Club Caribe software and developed it into a virtual playground called Worlds Away. It’s interesting to note that in their General FAQ, Fujitsu mentioned the original Lucasfilm software, called Habitat, but did not mention either that Habitat had been developed expressly for Q-Link or that, prior to its public debut, it had been reworked and renamed Club Caribe. At any rate, Worlds Away apparently no longer exists. What does exist (at least for now) is a virtual 3d world called Cybertown. Membership is free, as is the Blaxxun 3d software that makes it all work, which makes me wonder how long they’ll be able to stick around. They have made it long enough that as of June 29 of this year (2002) they had 946,607 members. I’ve tried it myself, and so far I’d have to rate it a so-so experience. (But then I’m the guy who loved all the other technological marvels of Q-Link and ::yawn:: was hardly moved by Club Caribe.) I do wish them well with their endeavor. When I published the first version of this article back on 10-31-98, AOL at that time had over 13 million members, and even then people were comparing it to a big city. By that same yardstick, Q-Link was the small town that many of us grew up in. Most of the “regulars” knew one another, and we were for the most part like one big family. Like many “real world” families, our Q-Link family was a bit dysfunctional, and yes there were a few jerks from time-to-time. However, for the most part we all got along reasonably well. |
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