obscure online game from 94 called Worlds

hello this is my first thread on ats so i hope i dont mess it up too much.

as title says there is this weird and very bizarre social network game called Worlds that allegedly exists since 1994. i stumbled on it by chance while researching about obscure and forgotten online games. the game is similar to second life just that it isnt very popular as far as i can tell and it seems to be even more bizarre than second life.

this is one of two game-play videos i could find on youtube (contains bad language,horrible music and a lot of weirdness)



after watching this i wanted to check it out myself -call me nuts- and went to the worlds website www.worlds.com... to download their "worlds-player"
the website looks all normal and nothing like the youtube video and some celebrities like DMC,Aerosmith,british telekom have spaces in worlds. same as in second life - nothing new there but still somehow awkward considering the bizarre youtube video ...

there is a youtube channel with one pompous advertisement video for worlds where celebrities like David Bowie and Spielberg apparently talk about the game.



also it looks like worlds incl tried to sue blizzard games because they claim that worlds is the first virtual world ever and they have it all patented so everybody else doing online worlds needs to pay them or something like that.

never heard nothing about this game before and found it intriguing.
looks like the game world has some really scary/bizarre places and weird users that show newcomers around and try to scare them. i like weird games so as said above i downloaded the "worlds player" but it says Java 6 is needed to run it. i could not find out how to install that old version of java. dont know if its even advisable to do that.

anybody ever heard of this game and knows if its still playable ? ( looks like it was one year ago) anybody that played it or can help to install this ?

Actually I remember playing it. When I played it it was supposedly set on a space station, and each room had a different theme. It was basically just a visual chat room where you could move your avatars around to type at people. I think there was a distance limit so you could only see the words typed by people nearby. My 14 year old self found it entertaining, but it was pretty simplistic honestly

a reply to: glowdog

I'm downloading the player. I am guessing it is still playable. There are a few similar games that were made and then just left behind for people to walk around in, kind of creepy.

aw seems like my second video doesnt work.

yes it seems to be very simplistic and is probably similar to second life. what got my attention are the bizarre avatars and strange environments created by users. i imagine visiting a game like this like a tour into an half-abandoned insane asylum.i logged once into second life and that was pretty awkward.

a reply to: reldra

oh cool ! please let me know how it´s going with the Java 6 problem - and if you manage to log ... i´m curious what you find.

I remember playing this now! The back of my head looks like a penquin. If i get VIP i could actually get VOICE CHAT! lol

you said there are other similar/abandoned games -could you point me to some of them ? i´m kind of cooking up a story and want to do some more research on weird online games.

yep- played it when it first came out. It used to be called World's Chat. I remember you could teleport between space-stations. It was pretty innovative for its time.

About that time there was another game, Meridian 59 ( www.meridian59.com... ) that was like a very early World of Warcraft. I worked for a game company then and remember talking to those guys.

a reply to: okachobi

thanks for the link to meridian59! very interesting part of game history i wasnt aware of.

originally posted by: glowdog
a reply to: reldra

oh cool ! please let me know how it´s going with the Java 6 problem - and if you manage to log ... i´m curious what you find.

It works fine. All fees are removed, so you can download every world. They are tiny files, they take a few seconds to download. Things that linked to other websites like jukeboxes and music stores don't function.

There is no one there, I think the avatars in the lobby were devs at one time.

Once in awhile you get a pop up saying insert disc and has java as a descriptor, but it doesn't really interfere, it closes.

The last room I went into before I logged out of the game last night was I think in the Polygram world and it was the 'David bowie' chat room. How odd.

This somewhat reminds me of Active Worlds.

I used to live in it back in 1998. Create your own tourist character, proper citizenship if you pay a subscription, building your own world. Glorified chatroom.
Google Images - Active Worlds

I was 10 and remember begging my dad to mail off money overseas to the company so I could be a citizen and not have my creations destroyed by random griefers.