Friday, August 7, 2009

Loved Vside?

1. Smallworlds
2. Frenzoo
3. Gaia Online
4. Kaneva
5. There.com

1. Smallworlds

Smallworlds is a 2.5D avatar chat world that lives in the browser. The avatars are small and cartoon like, so that's either a good or bad thing depending on your personal preference. If you're familiar with Habbo, it's like a more modern version.

The environment there is pretty friendly, and safe compared with more adult themed virtual worlds like SecondLife. Like vSide you can hang out in spaces with lots of other people and chat, and also even play simple games together like pool.

The biggest difference to vSide are the graphics. vSide had great realistic looking avatars and let you really lose yourself in the beautiful 3D spaces, whereas Smallworlds is simple and you can't zoom up close to the avatars. There is no creation of your own things though in Smallworlds, but if you don't mind paying for stuff from the shop its a good option.

2. Frenzoo

Final Fantasy XII, there’s no doubt I love you. But I have to tell you: I’m having an affair. I’ve been swept off my feet by the most unsuspecting obsession: Frenzoo.

Frenzoo is dedicated to creativity.

Frenzoo lets members create a look for their realistic 3-D avatars by combining backgrounds, clothing, and poses. Here, people create and design their own clothing based on a variety of clothing templates for free. If the creativity is lacking, members can always buy and mix-and-match outfits. Better still, the community is the friendliest I have come across. Apart from creating there are contests, socialization via Facebook like walls and 3D chat coming this soon.

Yes, Frenzoo has its flaws. Sometimes the servers are slow, or the cutting tools in the designing webtool are stubborn. Still, I manage to spend hours a day fixated on Frenzoo. If a website can hold my attention longer than FF12 has, it definitely deserves a standing ovation.

Frenzoo runs in the browser so there is no separate program to install, and works on Mac and PC. It's free to use.

3. Gaia Online

Ok, there are no 3D graphics but hard to exclude this avatar site. I knew Gaia before its mass of advertisements, pixels for real money, theatres, and virtual chat rooms. When I joined, the default outfit for new members was a ragged, colorless peasant outfit. Now, Gaia has evolved into a virtual civilization. Newbies and noobies get colorful choices for their first outfits. It even has its own economic system and code of laws. Perhaps this is what makes Gaia so fun.

A member can have fun dressing up their avatar, decorating their personal homes or cars, and upholding (or torturing) a lovely family of pixilated water creatures in Gaia Aquariums. There are movies, fishing, minigames, social spaces - despite running into an occasional avatar orgy, these virtual chat rooms are immensely entertaining. The most popular, however, is the Gaia MMORPG zOMG! Here, a member’s avatar can run around a menacing virtual Gaia ravaged by evil ex-inanimate objects.Indeed, Gaia has become a successful virtual world.

Alas, many Gaian oldbies share a nostalgic perspective of peaceful times. My delights have been crushed by disrespecting noobies who prefer to prove their point in impolite ways. More disturbing, the proliferation of advertisements on Gaia astounds me. Nonetheless, Gaia depends on its sponsorship. Thus, while being attacked by advertisements is excruciating, Gaia continues to be an awesome retreat from the real world.

4. Kaneva

Kaneva is one of the older virtual worlds out there and like vSide it's fully 3D. Personally I prefer the vSide style of graphics with the cell shading and cool themes though, the avatars in Kaneva just don't look as interesting compared, but that's just my opinion, you may feel differently?

Kaneva also puts a lot of emphasis on music and dancing in the world, and that can be quite fun, and there are some small mini-game elements you can enjoy.

Unlike browser sites like Frenzoo or Smallworlds, it's a big downloaded program you must get and install. That's one of the big problems is that it quite slow to start up and takes a lot of memory. On the positive side though, unlike vSide, it lets you modify textures so you can create your own styles of clothes, although it costs money to buy the clothes in there.

5. There.com

There.com has also been around a long time, by far the oldest virtual world out of the bunch. Like Kaneva, it's a download client, and the graphics are very simple, and more suited towards a younger audience of tweens and young teens.

Unlike some of the other 3D worlds, There.com is a safe and moderated environment so you're less likely to run into unwanted "content" (to put it nicely). I like that the chat is very simple and easy to use, and the world, like vSide, is easy to use and navigate.

Unlike Kaneva or Frenzoo, there also has a lot of real world brands and content like Coca Cola, CosmoGirl and other fashion, it has taken more of a controlled real life approach- there is no open content creation allowed in the site, which is either a good or bad thing depending on how you view it. All up, There is a fun, simple and safe environment and worth to try.


Taken from http://www.alternativestovside.com/

7 comments :

  1. Onverse is totally awesome too!

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  2. omfg Karla u gotta check me out...

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  3. I'd recomend Onverse, There, Frenzoo and all that stuff too, but one great one is Meez. You can create an awesome avatar, no download, lots of clothes to chose from, etc. Also, i am 13 but i have a 10 yr old sis and she is looking for a safer place without that.. unwanted stuff. For ppl like that, try GirlSense and The Travels of Wiglingtonn & Wenks. Very fun. Also, for people 16+ (i think), try Island Oasis or InWorldz. Not to forget VSide (closing) and The Sims online. And dont overlook TinierMe, Small Worlds, IMVU, HiPiHi, Meet-Me, Gaiaonline, Twinity, and Second Life. Hope this helps!

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  5. Great website, continue the Excellent work!

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