Active Worlds - A relic from the past.

Top_Dollar

Top_Dollar

kiwifarms.net
Joined
Dec 9, 2021
I just saw a YouTuber do a video on "dead games" and Active Wolds was one of the games that was featured. I was curious if any of the older farmers were around in the late 90's, 2000's or even the early 2010s? Could you tells us about it, or have any cool stories? Apparently this was a fairly big community back in the day and has next no people using it. Clearly Tower Unite on steam is way better, but Active Worlds could be a hang out spot if someone or a group of kiwis made a server.
 
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Worlds.com is also pretty neat and should still be live, has been on since some time in the 90s. Just a really neat web 1.0 setpiece now, with a small but still decently active community. Companies really were just investing in every bullshit project that had internet connectivity, the game has whole areas dedicated to ads for The Blair Witch, David Bowie, and I think a random Japanese medicine brand.

Just ignore all the videos sperging about a supposed 'cult' in the game, it was basically just one guy having a laugh. There was however some coomer lolcows who got their nudes posted to some boomer gooner's server years back.

Couple other decent videos of some explorations, but if you can I'd really recommend you try it yourself in your free time.
 
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Toolbox said:

Worlds.com is also pretty neat and should still be live, has been on since some time in the 90s. Just a really neat web 1.0 setpiece now, with a small but still decently active community. Companies really were just investing in every bullshit project that had internet connectivity, the game has whole areas dedicated to ads for The Blair Witch, David Bowie, and I think a random Japanese medicine brand.

Just ignore all the videos sperging about a supposed 'cult' in the game, it was basically just one guy having a laugh. There was however some coomer lolcows who got their nudes posted to some boomer gooner's server years back.

Couple other decent videos of some explorations, but if you can I'd really recommend you try it yourself in your free time.
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The new-ish community that I've seen establish enforces rules from the chat/game on their Discords and kicks out anyone breaking them, like some sort of self moderation on their dead game. It's a small but dedicated fanbase.
The "game" is something you have to experience at least once, it feels like a time capsule, eternally stuck in time.
 
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C. sativa subsp. indica said:
The new-ish community that I've seen establish enforces rules from the chat/game on their Discords and kick out anyone breaking them, like some sort of self moderation on their dead game. It's a small but dedicated fanbase.
The "game" is something you have to experience at least once, it feels like a time capsule eternally stuck in time.
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The appeal of it, I love the idea of going back to the "early" days of the internet to see what people where doing. I've been online for years and before 9/11 happened I was super active in the I-Mockery message board in 2002, I wasted a summer playing Everquest, in 2007 I was dealing with a break up and I spent an entire two months doing nothing but working and playing on someone's Icewind Dale server; but these types of "games" like AW and Worlds were something I was never made aware of.
 
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Tried AW back in the '00s. Mostly just explored various public access 3D worlds. Didn't really interact with any other players much.

(usually didn't see other players anyway)
 
Spasticus Autisticus said:
I remember playing this way back in the late 90s. I wonder if any of the shit I built is still around. Not sure I'd ever be able to find it anymore even if it was. Might still download it and try anyway for a little nostalgia trip.
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If you can remember the server you may be able to access it. When you were playing it in the late 90s how many people were normally online?
 
Top_Dollar said:
If you can remember the server you may be able to access it. When you were playing it in the late 90s how many people were normally online?
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I think there was only one server at the time I was playing. I don't remember what the typical player count was. I wasn't really interested in the social part of it, I was more interested in building and exploring (I was pretty young, like 11 or 12). I remember finding some pretty wild (for the time) stuff, like rollercoasters and weird mazes, not unlike stuff you might find on a creative Minecraft server these days.
 
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Nah they are from some video lol. I don't even know if its the same game. just thought they were funny and weird
 
Now theres a game I haven't thought about in a long, long time. I used to wander around AW back in the late 90s. Mostly in the yellowstone national park world. At least I did until I got followed around for an hour or so by a guy who apparently thought I was a girl for some reason i've never been able to figure out, then tried to get me to follow him over to his camp so he could start talking like he should have had a guest appearance on TCAP. Knowing exactly what was going on I told him I let him talk without saying anything for a few minutes then told him I was a cop and laughed my ass off while he tried to pull his best TCAP I totally wasn't serious panic freakout. I think that was the last time I bothered with AW for a long time after that

I wonder if anybody ever actually paid the absurdly high price to rent a full world server of their own. Never heard of anyone doing it but you never know. Seemed to be the kind of thing they were trying to push as a business model

Also they have some....interesting wording for their disclaimer for hosting services:

Disclaimer Hosting of worlds and accompanied services are provided without any warranty or fitness for any particular purpose. The provider is not liable for any damages eventually incurred.

For any damages eventually incurred? That sounds like something you'd say if you're expecting inevitable damages. Not something you want to imply about your product

Also seems to have become a hell of alot cheaper than it used to be
 
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Never heard of this, but it did remind me of something similar I used to play around on back in the day called CyberTown. I saw an ad for it I think in an issue of PSM and it somehow ran on our family computer over AOL, so instead of talking to strange adults in AOL chatrooms I switched to talking to strange adults with fucked up low-poly alien avatars in a blurry futurecity.
 
Does that guy with thr avatar of a skinned kangaroo in a black robe still hang around and pretend to be a creepypasta or something? I remember logging on once on a random day outside of the usual fluctuations of tourism popularity and caught him talking to some boomer players about weetabix.
 
Top_Dollar said:
When you were playing it in the late 90s how many people were normally online?
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There were lots of people but usually spread out. If too many were in the same place it would get really laggy and everyone was on modems capable of transferring 0.036mbit per second(if you were lucky).

It had a teleport system where you plugged in some coordinates and teleported there, so finding fun coordinates was part of it all. And trolling people, that was very important. I remember changing my model to an x-wing that took up a bunch of space in crowds, there was also a building component to the "game". It had a "lot" system of sorts where your stuff was protected and no one could mess with it. You could also attach small sound files to objects/models to enhance the 'experience'. So naturally you put some flashing blocks next to some try-hards house and made them play a toilet flushing sound. Then you wait. You can't touch his stuff, he can't touch yours.

ActiveWorlds had a competitor that I forget the name of during that time(95-96?), it was very similar. Looking at Wikipedia it might have been Worlds.com but that name feels unfamiliar.
 
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I remember someone made a saturn 5 thingy or something like that which you could follow upwards as it took off, they got a little lazy with the scripting at the end

It was near some kind of foresting area that had a little river/bay with jet bikes I think
 
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