Old MMOs and virtual worlds

[cyberdreamz]

I made a post talking about obscure kids' MMOs I remember playing but I didn't notice that the topic was in the "cinema" category so I think it's better if I move my ramblings here.

First, lemme ask, have you played any MMOs/virtual worlds as a kid? Or any other similar online games? Feel free to talk about them here!! I think I still have some interest in finding more

Now, I did play Club Penguin and Shararam (club penguin's russian clone, it was really popular over here and I'm pretty sure it's still up), but I wanted to highlight some lesser known games/websites. Here they are:

- Tvidi/Tweegee/Shablol/Tipez (the name's different for different countries) was basically a social media website for tweens. You could create an avatar, decorate your profile, write blogs, play flash games, make comics and chat with other users. The virtual world was only one part of the website. There was a lot and I probably didn't list all of it. My favorite part was probably the comics section - I liked creating little stories and games and watching what other kids made as well. The virtual world let you walk around as your human avatar, but you could also pick a second, animal one. There was a dedicated spot where all the warrior cat roleplayers hung out and that's where I found out about that book series
As I got a little older I also started reading through blog posts. There were these mascot characters that had their own profiles and wrote blog posts about their interests. I think I was most interested in what the computer geek guy wrote about... He mostly talked about pop culture and games from what I remember. I found other virtual world websites through his blog I'm pretty sure.
I remember the site was really heavily moderated. Pretty sure all of the chat messages were monitored by moderators 24/7 - I don't know how I kept getting banned like 10 seconds after I typed something that broke the rules and bypassed the automatic filters otherwise >__> And basically anything you did on the website - leave a comment, make a blog post, change something on your profile - had to be manually approved before being shown to other users. I guess it's a sign that they really cared about the safety of the userbase.
During its last year online, however, they swithed to a fully automatic filter system, and it was horrible - anything could get flagged and earn you a ban, even if you didn't say anything bad. Then they decided to remove the chat entirely and replace it with premade messages. This obviously wasn't popular with the userbase and pretty soon after the website shut down.


- In Rulimony you played as an animal riding a skateboard. You could also buy rollerblades, cars or other vehicles. You lived in a garage. If I recall this one was meant for really small children - there were minigames teaching how to write numbers and such.


- Toonix - a game by cartoon network. Don't remember much about it as I didn't even get to play for more than a couple of days before it shut down. The servers were always empty when I logged on and I don't think I ever got past the tutorial... I only remember it because I saw a youtube video like a year ago talking about it


Oh and for the last one, I went down a rabbit hole recently trying to find any information about it.
I remember when I was like 3 or 4 I played a game where you could befriend this creature called "Bibigosha" and play minigames with it. The game had a built-in timer that stopped you from playing after a certain time and only let you come back the next day, saying "Bibigosha is tired and you both need a break". When I played I was only able to walk around the house and the backyard, as other locations were still in development. This was all I remembered about this game before I searched it up.

Turns out the website was split into two parts - a game for the kids and a forum for the parents. As the kid played the game, it was supposed to make note of how they played and then send the analysis to their parents' email. I thought that was interesting. I'm really curious how it described me because all I remember I did was playing battleship with Bibigosha. Asked my mother about it and sadly she doesn't even recall getting any emails :( I wonder if I could find anyone who actually got their analysis and remembers what it said. There's barely any info online outside of news sites just saying "here's a new website for kids and parents" and I never heard anyone else talk about it.
Also I really like the room designs. Look at this

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

First, lemme ask, have you played any MMOs/virtual worlds as a kid? Or any other similar online games? Feel free to talk about them here!! I think I still have some interest in finding more

I remember playing (other than a few attempts to launch a pirated WoW on my early 2000 hardware, which resulted in a slide show) a game called Fly for Fun and another one named Silkroad. Fly-for-Fun had a total candy store comic optic; I played it mainly because some friends asked me to, but it didn't stuck with me. I spent some more time with Silk Road, but was also rather quickly frustrated of the repeating "kill n x to gather n/10 y items"-quests - I'd assume that I played it for 20-40 hours, and what I liked about it was design of the cities, monsters and chars - even though Asian games were widespread, I believe many of them presented usually fantasy inspired (at least to some degree) by European models, while this game seemed much more Asian than most that I knew back then.

Other than WoW, the most popular game back then among younger audiences (who usually couldn't pay the fees for WoW :o) was Maple Story, and it was very common to see screenshots of it in my usual hang out places.

Also, if you are out for such stuff: Do you know about Meridian 59? Its ancient!

[cyberdreamz]

Also, if you are out for such stuff: Do you know about Meridian 59? Its ancient!

The name sounds familiar! I think I watched Wayneradiotv play it on stream once..? He had a series of streams playing random MMOs. Now I wanna go rewatch them...
I also found out about Maple Story through Wayne's streams. Was curious about the game when I first heard about it but the website and the steam page are blocked in my country v__v oh well.

Fly for fun looks cute! I imagine I'd really enjoy flying around from island to island and exploring the game's world as a kid.

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

Why the fuck would anybody censor MapleStory? =D.
Does https://muahstory.com/ work for you?

Another thing that came to my mind: Messages of the Universal Graveyard is no MMO, rather a single player game with MMO-elements; but it is one of the best indie games I've played in the past few years, and it deals with the concepts and aesthetics of MMOs. You might like it.

[candycanearter07]

It's not a standalone thing, but I used to play a LOT of Wynncraft (minecraft server). It's still around, but it's not my kind of game anymore.

[bonkachino]

The virtual worlds I played as a kid were pretty mainstream. Moshi Monsters was the main one! I got introduced to it by a promo ad in a kids/tweens magazine that was popular with other girls in my grade when I was like, 7? Fast forward to some time later... I'd collected some of the official magazines and other merch, memorised the lyrics to a bunch of the Moshling music videos and would sing them with my cousin whenever we got together for the school holidays... and, of course, I had a membership because as much as I love the ethos behind kids' MMOs in that day, a lot of them were pretty hard to enjoy unless your parents helped you climb the paywall. I wanted that sweet, sweet Moshling-collecting gameplay loop. Also, Ecto was my favourite Moshling!



Still wish my little sister got to grow up with the virtual worlds of my day and before instead of ROBLOX, which isn't really any better on the paywall side of things lol - it's less 'pay to play this game properly' and more 'we will manipulate you into spending money on microtransactions and online street cred so you can make similarly-dressed friends and play games at a less lobotomising pace'. And this is coming from someone who grew up on ROBLOX before she did! It was the next big multiplayer game I played consistently after Moshi Monsters. But anyone around on the internet at least a decade ago can tell you that the curated-for-kids virtual world is dead now. God forbid any of the educational needs of young people and children are considered, because that's bad for business.

Other MMOs and virtual worlds I remember are MovieStarPlanet, Petpet Park, Monkey Quest, Wakfu (hazily) and Poptropica. I have a friend who's still into Wakfu I think? Grew up watching the TV show and loves the series' art direction.

[Evan!]

Virtual worlds were my jam, as I grew up a very socially anxious child I made most of my friends online through things such as club penguin or toontown  my absolute fav being club penguin of course

[Oceansandy02]

I used to play pretty popular mmos like animal jam, moshi monsters, and club penguin as a kid. Im nit sure if therlse games were alsobpopular, but I also played fantage, the pbs kids mmo, poptropica, and moviestarplanet!

I really wish a lot of them were still around... Like theres roblox, but it has gotten worse.

[Horsey Chobunso]

My Go To chatroom MMO was Virtual Magic Kingdom, although I also played Club Penguin like basically every other American child. I've tried to play the reboots of VMK, but it turns out that its just not that interesting when there are very few other players online. The shiny disney part of it doesn't really appeal to me as an adult either. I recently tried Habbo Hotel on a whim, but I didn't vibe with the community on there.

They're not MMOs, but I've had fun here and there with the modern chat room game Webfishing. The fishing aspect is just enough to keep me interested and I've been in some pleasant servers. A different forum I use also likes to meet up on Gikopoi, but I have yet to try it.

[fablefound]

boy oh boy, if this isn't a topic made just for me... a couple months ago, i counted up all the virtual worlds i inhabited as a kid. final count was over two dozen! i... uh... didn't get out much 

if i may share some highlights i haven't seen mentioned yet...


dizzywood is my one that got away. it only ran for, like, three years, but it had this really fun, kinda solarpunk vibe? you could get superpowers like invisiblity and levitation, too. really cool.
currently there's an effort to revive it, with approval from the previous creator! so wish us luck haha.


tinierme is one i also look back on very fondly, though in hindsight i had no business being on it haha (i lied about my age when it became 13+). it was my gateway into anime, though!


that and grand fantasia, of course. not that i was ever any good at the actual gameplay on this one 


woozworld is somehow still running. i do not have the fondest memories of woozworld (it had in-game popularity metrics and a very heavy focus on fashion and prestige) but it gets points for persisting as long as it has.


finally, i spent a good deal of the summer playing wizard 101. like, this summer. my friend and i got really into it after both losing our jobs lol. it holds up quite well! it's very grind-y and repetitive, but almost to the point of reaching a meditative flow state...


bonus honourable mentions to pixie hollow, pokemon crater, adventure quest worlds, freerealms, and buildabearville.

[hypergardens]

Whirled was the most fabulous thing of its time, it probably planted that "old web" seed in my head forever and it might have made me like this.

[Melooon]

Whirled was the most fabulous thing of its time

I’ve mentioned it a few times on the forum, but Whirled was defining for me as a web experience too Its one of those sites that has hovered at the back of my mind for years and keeps informing things I do in small ways. It was a huge inspiration in setting up the idea of the everyone site and mainstreet here, although we are still a long way from reaching the kind of depth whirled had! Baby steps!