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|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Numedeon |
| Publisher(s) | Numedeon |
| Designer(s) | Numedeon |
| Engine | Java |
| Platform(s) | Java |
| Release | March, 1999 |
| Genre(s) | Virtual Reality |
| Mode(s) | Multiplayer |
Whyville is an educational internet site geared towards preteens and teenagers. Its goal is to teach students about science and business through games and roleplay. It is, similar in part to the popular site Neopets in that you control a character and live in a virtual community, where you can interact with other players.
Community
Whyville is an online community which appeals widely to kids aged 8-15. It was originally created by educators to provide online science learning for kids. Each user has an avatar they can personalize to present their online identity throughout the community. Citizens in Whyville earn their own salary (clams) to buy their face parts and clothes, entertainment, whypox vaccine, and even a Scion car. They earn their salary by interacting with different science games, writing articles, or even starting their own businesses. There is a scroll down menu to take the user to the beach, the checkers room, the games, Bub's house or the CDC. Once you go somewhere, you can interact with other users who appear on the screen. You can also interact with other users through Ymail, a service where you can send emails to users within the whyville domain. Whyville uses it's many Ymail Helpers as a service to newer Whyvillians, or "Newbies". Over the past 3 years, BBG has been the most popular group of the whyville community. After dominating the scene in 2003, they suddenly dissapeared for nearly a year but then came back viciously, building an empire that terrororized the whyville scene. Currently they run a quiet operation which creates major clam flow throughout the community. BBG was created by MCVC, Abudarta, and biffbabe (retired). Dareon1 was a recently seized name and is now used by the BBG.
Salary
Whyville uses a currency, called Clams, to buy face parts, projectiles, furniture, bricks, and other things. In order to earn a salary of "clams" you must play different educational games. Once you reach a certain score on a game, your salary is raised accordingly. You get paid your salary each time you visit the site on a new day. The higher the salary, the more you can sell your face factory creations for.
Rules
Like other games online, safety is important, with tools like "Silence", "Vaporize", and "911 Report", and a language filter. Whyville also has City Workers, real people who work on Whyville with special jobs to be done, who also moderate chat.
Government
Just like the real world, Whyville has a place where you can post your own petition and have it signed by other citizens. If it gets enough votes, it will be taken to the poll booth, and if it has enough petitions in the poll booth, it will be send to city hall for the city workers to consider it being made true in Whyville. Every three months, there is a senate race (though most senators don't do anything), and everyone who has been a citizen for at least four week and has not been punished for any crimes in the last 90 days is legible to start asenate platform. The three most voted for platforms are taken to a special chat room to debate for the senator. Whyville is not a democracy like it says it is. Instead it is an oligarchy, with the City workers dictating everything.
Scion/Car
One of Whyville's top sponsors is Toyota and Scion. As a part of this promotion, Whyville offers use of customizable Scion xB cars as a part of avatar interaction and as an additional means of transportation through the site. These can also transport other users in addition to the car's owner, by invitation. The introduction of the Scions to Whyville has met with some controversy; as the Scions are also very expensive (14,000 clams), meaning that generally, newer members would be unable to attain them without using multiple accounts. Scion owners are often pestered with requests from other users to be invited into their cars.(Anti-Scion Article. Written in response to high Scion prices...) In response to complaints about pricing, Whyville has since introduced a loans system to allow different payment options. Whyville Scions Now have seat belts activated in chat by saying, "seat belt" without the quotes.
Projectiles
In the many rooms of Whyville you are able to throw what they call "projectiles" at other people. This includes: Food, water balloons, bubs, mudballs, paintballs, and gross stuff too.
Daily Games
Twice a day, Whyville has a game hosted at the "Greek Theater". It is either at 1pm Whyville standard time, (pacific time) or six pm Whyville standard time. One game is called Letter Squash, where a mish-mash of scrambled letters and a source word are displayed on a screen in the center of the theater. All the letters in the mix-up are synonyms of the source word. The other game is Math Expressions. This is where they show you a source number and five other numbers. You must use these numbers to make an equation to equal the source number. An example may be:
Source Number: 5
Root numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
On answer may be: 5-4*3+2*1 Please note that the equations do not follow the order of operations.