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[Kedly]

Is it weird that this particular thread cheers me up more than the other ones do when I'm sad?

[miauw62]

Ye gods, I was wrong. That wasn't wrong, there are far worse things to see.

Holy hell that's horrifying.

That is really weird.
He pretty much summed it up:
"I... I got nothing. Not even witty commentary"

[Shadowlord]

Ye gods, I was wrong. That wasn't wrong, there are far worse things to see.

Holy hell that's horrifying.

First thought: It's so very windows 3.1. And then the laws of physics and sanity go right out the window, and my subconscious proclaims that THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG HERE. (Yes, in that voice)

[miauw62]

Actually, it seems as if it requires a minimum windows 95.

[SalmonGod]

It wasn't creepy back then.  It was actually a really exciting place, at least as I recall.

It was amazing to have this ability to customize your avatar and float around talking to other people with your own voice in this 3d space.  In 1996 anything 3D still felt like extraordinary technology on that basis alone, and the customization... I don't think there was anything else like that at the time.

What was really interesting in retrospect were the social dynamics.  Your voice got quieter over distance, so when you approached two people talking, it was just like doing so in real life.  It was a totally different experience from every kind of social space developed until then, where you're in this kind of spacial singularity.  Everyone is in the same space and everything said is equally visible to everyone, even in the couple other voice chat programs that were around at the time.  There are very few games even today where voice chat is handled spatially.  It's sort of this weird universal soapbox that everyone's standing on at the same time.  That program felt more like being at a real social event, where you wander around and talk to different people in turn.

Now it's seen a ton of use and towards the end of its lifespan, people probably only saw it as an amusing space for making things that would freak out whoever stumbles on them.  Some of it may have even been used for roleplay.  That's actually how I was introduced to it.  Someone mentioned it to me as a thing that he was considering using for immersive roleplay.  Now all that stuff has been left behind absent of context, and it evokes the same sort of reaction as wandering into an abandoned building.

[Loud Whispers]

Kill the calories...

[Kedly]

Kill the calories...

That video made me feel ill, I actually feel like vomiting now

[The Darkling Wolf]

Yes. That's a minus. It's counting downwards from 839 now

[Flying Dice]

Now all that stuff has been left behind absent of context, and it evokes the same sort of reaction as wandering into an abandoned building.

That's exactly what makes it creepy: the knowledge that at some point it was inhabited. I checked up on it a bit myself, and it seems like an interesting concept for a chat service, but now that's it's empty, everything is really creepy, more so than, say, an empty IRC channel or a forum with two posters.

All of that aside, I sort of wonder what kind of abandoned stuff people will be digging up twenty or thirty years from now.

[SalmonGod]

Now all that stuff has been left behind absent of context, and it evokes the same sort of reaction as wandering into an abandoned building.

That's exactly what makes it creepy: the knowledge that at some point it was inhabited. I checked up on it a bit myself, and it seems like an interesting concept for a chat service, but now that's it's empty, everything is really creepy, more so than, say, an empty IRC channel or a forum with two posters.

All of that aside, I sort of wonder what kind of abandoned stuff people will be digging up twenty or thirty years from now.

This thread

[Frumple]

Ah, mention in one of the other games thread made me remember. Been doing a lil' volunteer work again at the local library, and while sitting around waiting for something to happen, well...

Movie titles. The big one that I keep WTFing at is, Love, in the Time of Cholera. Who the hell thought that was a good idea, and how the blazes is it any different from love at other times?

Anyway, no doubt at all there's odder ones, but... this one is in a public library. It almost made me wtf as hard as when I noticed they've got Anthony's Firefly on the shelves.

[Flying Dice]

As I recall, it was a book originally.

[Vorthon]

Somebody decided to play Skyrim like he was a NPC.

[TheBronzePickle]

I remember being... about 5 or 6 and finding a book all about the real differences between boys and girls in the kids' section. It was totally written for my age-range as well. It also included pictures. As in, photographs. Nowadays, I remember it and think 'how did that book manage to not get immediately thrown away?'

[Flying Dice]

I remember being... about 5 or 6 and finding a book all about the real differences between boys and girls in the kids' section. It was totally written for my age-range as well. It also included pictures. As in, photographs. Nowadays, I remember it and think 'how did that book manage to not get immediately thrown away?'

What.