The Top 5 Ways To Chat With Friends in Virtual Worlds - 2019
I remember when I first saw Disclosure, the steamy suspense drama featuring Michael Douglas as a corporate executive who designs and uses a 3D computer interface system. Each person that logged in had an ‘avatar,’ and they could communicate within the virtual world, and of course, while Michael’s avatar is searching for files online, another user approaches and threatens him within the world.
The idea of interacting with others in a virtual world seemed unreal at the time.
Years later, 3D is a standard in computer applications, and in fact, several great chat services hinge on virtual worlds to enhance the ability for people to communicate with one another. I take a look at these below.
I guarantee some wiseguy reader is going to say,
“the best way to 3D chat with friends online is to talk with them in real life.”
To you, I say,
“Very observant of you, thanks for that.”
This list is about ways to chat online if I must distinguish:
1. IMVU
If 3DChat makes sense because it targets adults, then IMVU is a great place for teenagers to hang out. It’s one of the most popular virtual worlds on the web with 6 million monthly unique visitors and over 100 million registered users. They’ve been advertising on teenage web hangouts for years, and that’s paid off in a lively community today.
When you join up with IMVU you’ll not only notice a plethora of rooms and people; you’ll also notice 4 million virtual goods and 100,000 content creators creating those goods. This means that there is a real variety of personalities and rooms in the world, and that is one of my favorite elements of IMVU. And the most interesting thing which you love to do is Collecting free IMVU Gift card codes.
2. 3DChat
3DChat, which we recently covered, has just opened its doors to users around the web. The service is a standard virtual world where you can customize your avatar, deck out your penthouse, and travel the extensive virtual world available to users.
The unique features of the site are its adult-focus and ability to verify people’s real identities. They use a service called Aristotle to verify that a user is who they say they are, so if you approach someone who is marked as “verified,” you know that they’re a real person with the real demographics that they’re stating.
3. Moove Online
Moove is another popular virtual world, but one of the key aspects is that you create your virtual world that is then available to other people to come visit. The idea is that each person has their own world that they share with a Universe of players. The graphics can be a bit rudimentary because it really is up to the user to create a visually appealing room.
The selection of risqué clothing items means that this is definitely targeted towards adults and has a more provocative theme, although the flexibility of the engine means that you can turn the virtual world in what you need it to be.
One of the key features that draw people into Moove is that when someone jumps into your virtual world, there is no overarching administrator that is monitoring the conversation or the virtual world. You really are the owner.
4. Second Life
Second Life is one of the oldest virtual worlds on the web, and one of the most popular. There are 18 million registered accounts, and not too much data on persistent usage but Linden Labs did reveal that in January of 2008, residents (including bots used to simulate traffic for better search rankings) spent a total of 28,274,505 hours "inworld", and, on average, 38,000 residents were logged in at any particular moment. The maximum concurrency (number of avatars inworld) recorded is 88,200 in the 1st quarter of 2009, according to Wikipedia.
The game is famous for emphasizing realistic avatars that live within a realistic world, similar to ours. You create a character with a personality and then proceed to live within that world and socialize with others. The game began with the goal of being goal-driven, with targets for users.
But the most exciting parts of the world were the collaborative elements, and the designers chose to emphasize the marketplace and to give users the ability to create their own virtual goods. This marketplace has become extremely popular; the Second Life currency has even gained a real-world valuation based on the amount of commerce going on in Second Life.
5. World of Warcraft
The final entry in the list is World of Warcraft. The only reason I am going to include this one is that if you’re looking for a vibrant world of other users and a 3D experience, you can’t go wrong with this game. It’s the most popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game ever to exist and has 62% of the world RPG market, and the last report in 2008 had the game at 12 million registered users (although that must have increased by now).
If you’re interested in meeting other people, you’re most likely to get lucky in the worlds of Azeroth, where millions of players interact every day.