ThinkingWorlds - Authoring tool for MUVE

Another gem from Donald Clark.  I was not aware of ThinkingWorlds until today and now I can't wait to try it out.  

Thinking Worlds™ educational game
is an easy to use authoring engine that enables gamers and learners to
create, edit, play and share their own 3D learning based games, that
teach and entertain.

Ever since I started developing Interactive 3D simulations, some 10+ years ago, I've wondered how long it would be before someone created the MUVE (multi user virtual environment) equivalent of Authorware or Director.  Secondlife is a great step in the right direction but I can't purchase secondlife off the shelf and load it behind a firewall.  I haven't tried it yet but if its easy to use, this just might be what I've been looking for. 

Here's a great quote from Donald:

"The argument is simple, these games are strong on motivation, strong on visuals, strong on participation, strong on engagement and strong on reinforcement. They do everything that the duller side of e-learning does badly."

Donald also points out that, obviously, games are not the solution to all training problems.  But in most cases TRAINING isn't even the best solution for perceived training problems.

ThinkingWorlds might be a nice bridge between the stale page-turning WBT of old, and the new always-on, persistent, interactive, 3D social spaces of the future.