Cult in a Dead MMO

Oh [Music] welcome to world's online the Internet's first 3d virtual world platform in continuous service since 1994 in one shared virtual space online users can shop watch movies listen to music play games and collaborate with each other today's web user is looking for an intimate connection with friends with celebrities and with trending brands that reflect their values and lifestyle in both the real world and the virtual [Music] by investing in worlds you are investing in the future world's not come building better worlds together throughout the mid-2010 an urban legend would surface about a mysterious MMO by the name of worlds comm having been launched to the public in the mid-1990s the game was believed by many to be dead discontinued and lost to the inevitable void of internet history unbeknownst to most this couldn't have been further from the truth as world's calm was very much still running but there was a catch venturing into the game today presents you with a barren wasteland of nothingness a relic that was once bustling with life and a deserted memory that's clinging to life supports the game expectedly is completely empty mostly you see rumor had it the world's calm was hiding something a shrouded purpose that's been kept from the public rumors involving endgame cults daxing graphic imagery and virtual stalking had let curious minds too hesitantly venture into worlds themselves and hopes of finding out if these allegations were true let's throw it back this is the story of worlds calm [Music] you [Music] and aside the 1990s for a magical time in the world of entertainments and the advancement of society being what I can only describe as the calm before the imminent mid-2000s technological storm we were living in an era that brought us some unforgettable treasures in the realms of video gaming movies and television in the gaming world for instance new and unforgettable IPS such as Mario karts banjo kazooie fallouts Resident Evil and Sal and Hill were born and with these came game consoles that have stood the test of time and bringing us unforgettable experiences such as a Super Nintendo PlayStation 1 and the Dreamcast [Music] being in an era that predated the modern interconnected society that we live in today a lot of nostalgia is carried inside of many as the mid 1990s are remembered as a time when the internet was just barely getting its footing into mainstream culture personal computers during this era were nothing but an expensive novelty at least for my family and the ones that did have one use them primarily for work in August of 1995 Microsoft would release a revolutionary competitor to the Netscape Navigator the pre-existing og of internet browsing called the Internet Explorer if you were lucky enough to get your hands on a PC in this era then combined with the tools at your disposal in Windows 95 you're able to venture into the vast Wild West of an enigma known as the world wide web in today's culture things have changed social media discussion boards and web sites in general have all become inherently sterilized being pushed to the brink of minimalism and moderation this isn't necessarily a bad thing but a lot of the magic and charm that existed in the wacky and terribly designed you eyes of the past are largely gone replaced by logos containing simple shapes any shred of creative color being replaced by whites and all encompassing oversimplification of pretty much everything as you've heard in my incessant rambling so far the arrow was magical and a lot of newfound creative mediums were on the rise while video gaming via a conventional console was the primary method of escaping into a mystic world the rise of the Internet paved the path for a new form of interactive storytelling an interconnected social experiences and those were a little something we now know as mmo's or massive multiplayer online video games you you of the many websites that were available to early adopters of the Internet's one would be launched in April of 1995 by the name of worlds calm the website was created by a company simply named world's Inc and housed a public 3d chat room that players get into her and explored to their heart's content according to the websites the minimum configuration is a 90 megahertz or faster processor with 32 megabytes of memory the recommended platform is a Pentium Class processor 133 megahertz or faster with 48 megabytes of memory Windows 95 98 2000 or NT a whopping 80 megabytes of free harddrive space and an active internet connection the game was a big success mostly attributed to the novelty of virtual online chat rooms at the time and garnered the attention of various big names including David Bowie Steven Spielberg and a digital artist by the name of Tammy co-ceo the latter two actually teamed up at one point and created an in-game environments called the Starbright world which was aimed at giving seriously ill children an outlet to interact the gameplay is mostly what you'd expect from something out of the mid-1990s at the outset of registering your profile players are given the opportunity to choose between various avatars to represent themselves in game among them are a human a penguin a monster a kangaroo and a clown advertised on the web sites are various realms that are available for you to explore at your leisure among the hundreds that you're able to choose from a few notable ones include worlds themed around David Bowie the New York Yankees the band Hanson the sky an animal house and a funhouse venturing out into worlds for the first time you'll be thrown into a central hub with other players from around the world the various themed environments that we mentioned prior are accessible through tunnels and doors that are next to their labels and entering these immediately loads whichever one you so choose movements like any 3d PC game is achieved using your keyboard and mouse and also available to you is a chat box allowing you to communicate to others in real time now this seems like nothing out of the ordinary along with the primitive graphics the game is pretty substandard today at the time though this was absolutely groundbreaking and PC owners flooded this thing giving it a burst of life though a demon world calm a massive success as with anything that's been crafted in the digital age though the user base began to decline over the years with the advent of various competitors the mid-2000s brought with it the inevitable desertion of the world comm user base as players moved on to bigger and better ventures Second Life runescape toontown vmk my coke and habbo hotel or becoming viable alternatives that not only looked better but gave players more to do with their own distinct charm you may have noticed that most of the names I just read off are now defunct the toontown vmk and My Coke Live Support plugs were pulled as their developers encountered an existential problem that was prevalent from the starts they couldn't find a way to monetize them combined with this the fact that these games were all run with the help of moderation teams and ongoing servers it became evidence that as long as these virtual worlds were online whoever it was that was running them was losing money at this points you'd expect worlds Inc to pull the plug with the dwindling user base and Ageing game mechanics it seemed like this was the only sensible way to go either cut your losses or release something new and optimized for the next generation of online gaming but they didn't as a matter of fact WorldCom is still downloadable and accessible to this day and stands as an uncanny and deserted relic of the past rumor has it that the game's creator Tom Kidron is simply running the server costs himself and running it out of his own home but that begs the question why on earth would an individual be fronting the costs to keep a dead video game alive what part of this abandoned online landscape is so pivotal that it's still in existence over 20 years later [Music] in the short span of time that I've been here it suddenly dawned on me but I'm visibly the new guy everyone here seems to know it I'm not a regular hope you're comfortable down the rabbit hole we go you in the early 2010's rumors began to spread about the game thanks to certain anons from for chance via NEX boards allegedly there existed potentially illegal and cult-like behavior from the game's handful of players during that time period as you'd expect upon catching wind abyss the rest of 4chan did what they do and went into investigates before we continue I wanted to make something explicitly clear in my hunting it dawned on me that these allegations surfaced at a point in time that predated the Year 2012 I say this because the oldest records that I've been able to dig up are from that year unfortunately most of the archives images and audio files they were going to get into have been lost a time however there are some that allow us to piece together a cohesive story line as to what actually went on and world's calm so let's talk about the game itself a major element at the games core was the ability for users to create and host their own customized universes utilizing a tool known as the world shaper much like minecraft if someone chose to do so they could create their own server build what they wants and invite certain players through a downloadable file that's accessible through shaper many of these became archived on various websites and even today there are download links out there to access certain custom worlds effectively the possibilities were endless and harnessing the creative freedom that they were given players were able to create some admittedly impressive worlds now that it's died down though things have become a bit darker a bit more controversial so to speak while there are groups of people that are or might be strange in their own rights there are two that have struck leased it out to me as the most mysterious to users Jim bleah and annex II a list interestingly both have crossed paths in the game however their stories couldn't be further apart contrary to nexi analysts the stories surrounding Jim Lee seemed a bit more grounded in reality though we'll get to observe a [Music] first I'd like to introduce you to nexi a list according to an early 2012 blog by the name of forgotten world's calm the profile piece on him states the following nexia list is irregular at world's calm that has been trying to pull into V in exports to play this game next see Ellis is a successful user that's been able to get a cult following in the game which is hard to do he constantly reaches out the dedicated players to join him as he seems to be called the key bearer and gives some players tours around the game without chatting this isn't even close to covering entirely who this guy is rumored to be so allow me to pick up where they left off according to Fortune and various message boards neck see a list is abstruse a shred of indecipherable mystery that's lurked world's calm for what some believed to be as long as the early 2000s encountering him in the game happens at random and it's been rumored that you don't actually find him he finds you upon discovering you he'll approach you without words standing is what appears to be a lifeless corpse as you begin to quietly panic at his disturbing avatar after the initial shock dies down you're told to follow him and as a results you'll bark on a journey through hellish customized corridors that bear satanic symbolism and graphic imagery after your tour next Ellis will begin sending you disturbing audio files audio files that I wasn't able to find archives for but if we go by descriptions from 4chan errs it's safe to assume that these sound like that distorted debts of dying animals once you're scared to your wit's end and you leave the game he already knows that you're going to go to 4chan to talk about it because that's what he wants you to do spread the word get people talking and the next sucker that grows a sliver of curiosity and decides to check it out is this next victim [Music] unfortunately this all reads like an urban legend people have been able to capture screenshots and video of nexi honest over the years but not much aside from very few outliers have been found that outlines put on describing because events I'd like to put a pin in this arcane figure and circle back on him later because there's an even deeper rabbit hole then I'd like to bring you in to Jim Lee's a different story the hidden world's website that I mentioned earlier serves as a diary of the experiences that a man named George Costanza had witnessed when he first played worlds according to his blog he found a bizarre Network that this Gimli guy seems to be running and the entries on his web sites outline a considerable amount of information that I'd like to dive into and unpack the very first post on the web site was made on January 5th 2012 it reads as follows well I started playing this game called world's calm seemed in a sense but according to V it has some [ __ ] up things from the past everything's forgotten here and in a group we explored the game and the coming days we'll share our stories and pictures here further on that day another post was made outlining Gimli supposed network and its inner workings the game started this in a sense we had gangs while we explored the world's skeletons pumping outs and finding Pegasus things a person could expect from playing roblox or other games where he creations are welcome but things turned bizarre our friend grant as we call them was showing us these rooms that I mentioned and eventually we ended up in the lobby filled with brown doors with text on them these doors have the creator's name and a description of the level or world this guy Bilbo 99 had messed up levels with Easter eggs everywhere we praised him for his creepiness and then I noticed at the right corner of my window said erotic and Gimli this map was Jim please creation it was a town filled with shops like Starbucks however things would take a turn you see there was a person that contacted me named mcgillich her or his avatar was of a bird or an angel she claimed that she was new in the world as I was but she's been playing this game for a week and already got dirty and knew what this [ __ ] was really a bounce to act new is a common trick to bait new players anyway Jim Lee had a network a network that was serious how serious to enter his network you need to provide mug shots for example here's Bilbo 99 there were a total of 30 rooms though with different mug shots of users but rope 2 was dedicated to Jim Blane so we scavenge for mcgillich and found this and there were so many pictures of other users that I'll include but one thing I found that was standing out was a user named Kelly car she was in the porn gallery and I compiled this it seems like someone has stopped there and the rooms were labeled Kelly Katz this user must have been a fat cat in the network as you can see Kelly Katz written there so what Jim Lee does now is retrieving nude pictures of regulars that are still left mcgillich was the proof that we needed since she'd only been playing for a week tops below this George displays the various screen caps that he was able to take of the various mug shots of different users of the bunch he was even able to grab a few of Jim Lee himself intrigued by the say typical finding he decided that him and his group of friends wanted to investigate a bit on their new friend mcgillich as it turns out there was a bit more going on with them than they initially thought and yet another post from the same day titled mcgillich a man or a woman he describes the following mcgillich snooze that could be found in the other post seemed too good to be true her head was cropped out and with the body of a young woman while her mug shot shows an older woman in her 40s and that pictures really old what does that leave us with she could have faked him because she doesn't want to show a real body or it could be a man playing as a female that doesn't want to get cons after chatting we discovered her real email although was linked to a man by the name of John John's and his 50s seems to enjoy mmo's while his wife doesn't show any interest of games and has her only Facebook activity labeled as kids so yes mcgillich might be or is the man posing as a fragile woman while baiting for pictures those pictures up there except for his profile picture is a year old the pictures are from 2009 and then he used a picture of his wife to verify himself and thought how cool it would be to send a fake picture of a pair tetes to make him look like a god in a game as we're beginning to see Jim Lee's network encompasses some extremely odd people people that are impersonating others and using real-world mug shots to gain access to whatever it is that he's running one might go as far to say that nexia list isn't the cult leader here but rather it's Jim Lee as most of the rumors about the former seem to relate to what we found with the letter in a third post I'd like to focus on titled Jim Lee's inner circle George proceeds to explain the following the last post was about this weird map about a man going by the name Jim Lee that was trying to get naked pictures from regulars or old players that were still active so we stopped him he hung out at a beach but once we arrived they'd all scatter and disappear thankfully though the friend tool in a broken avatar tool could let his teleport to them all being invisible but Dallas for later meanwhile we scavenged the net for Jim Lee we found his website Jim Lee world's calm and where he stored his pictures Jim Lee world's calm slash picks only to show a black screen with red typed text that said darkness below this Gorge reveals publicly accessible information about Jim Lee including an email address before closing his post with the revelation that also Jim Lee's into traps this can be found in his porn gallery with this in the back of our mind you know I couldn't just let this go I had to get in I had to find out if this was real I emailed Jim Lee and began my hunts under the guise of a Jeremy Erickson I start a message and write the following good evening Gimli I've recently started playing world's and was interested in joining your in-game network to congregate with yourself and other players upon consulting with a few anons from X I was told to reach outs I've downloaded a few worlds from your websites and I'm currently trying to get them working just let me know what I need to do when I'm n thanks Jeremy you so it's been a few days after attractor worlds a lack of a response and dwindling time to weights it's beginning to seem like Gimli either isn't currently active or simply doesn't play this anymore though I have a hard time believing that considering the fact that the Whois domain search on his websites reveals that it was updated on November 5th of 2019 I'm not entirely sure if Jim please the kind of guy that would have a sudden change of hearts but if you ask me it is a bit recent anyway with that under our belts unfortunately heading back to the blog reveals that most of the other threads outline mundane discoveries while exploring various official and user crafted worlds a few notable highlights include some of Jim Lee's bizarre creations but not much other than that is even remotely relevant to our investigation even so the discoveries surrounding Jem are nothing short of unnerving so what's actually going on here [Music] over the years the primary consensus surrounding worlds primarily due to nexi analysts was that it's a front for some sort of satanic cults rumors are powerful things I won't deny that but there are a few points here and I'd like to unpack contrary to nexi analyst Jim Lee surprisingly hasn't generated much buzz online this bizarre cold light network that he seems to have created effectively cements him as somewhat of a wild card in my theorization what this guy is doing is weird from the mug shots to the vast database of supposed network members to a secret repository of graphic imagery it seems like he is the one actually running the rumored cult while it doesn't deal with Satanism and death like the urban legends claimed this guy is whether he knows it or not effectively catalyzing a situation in which people run the risk of being dogs it took George not even one full day to piece together the real identity of the wife and man behind the mcgillich muck shots and it's unclear how many other selfies that he has stashed away in the world that he's according to the blog been building since 2005 to be frank aside from the lack of a response I wasn't able to find much else surrounding the sky and it's safe to assume that there are others like em a game that's largely abandoned aside from a few key players is surely something that would catch the eye of somebody trying to run some sort of network under the radar with that being said I encourage you to make your own conclusions about him with the evidence at hand and does appear that at one point in time there was something going on behind the scenes whether or not it still is or if the mysterious chimbley is still active remains to be seen well I haven't been able to track him down maybe you can but keep in mind that if you're so curious as to venture in on your own your potential discoveries may be new various but remember we're talking about Jim Lee's custom worlds stay in the official game and it's safe to assume that you'll be all right but that brings us to another point of discussion nexi honest [Music] you might recall that I mentioned the fact that users are able to create their own worlds this was actually a pivotal mechanic in the game and gave players an extra layer of interactivity in a sense I could see the developers feeling as if their future proofing their game as it allows creative freedom that was unheard of before the point of its release with this in mind we have to remember that most of his so-called cult activity was happening in these after mentioned user worlds regardless of his eerie demeanor nexi honest was eager to give newcomers a tour of many of these as it turns out though he's apparently come off as quite ordinary too many players in one post on reddit's by a user named goomy Lord they claim that they even encountered necks and that he's merely a normal guy apparently he switched his avatar to sanic at one point and began spamming the words there is no cult on worldcom and the chat take it for what you will but I believe it so let's think about this logically world's is at its core creepy in and of itself the barren environments combined with the uncanny primitive textures naturally gives any unsuspecting players a sense of uneasiness especially if you've caught wind of the various allegations surrounding Nexus mysterious character to me I believe that he's playing along leading players to the belief that he's some sort of cult mastermind as a long-running joke the worlds he frequents are creepy on purpose and in my opinion he was capitalizing on it for a bit of fun his avatars nightmarish he comes off strangely when he wants to and he executes this with a group of willing friends the same friends that we see in the so-called cult screenshots that were captured in game Isle weird hobby but to each their own I'm not judging now with all of that out of the way there's still one glaring question that remains why does world still exist nearly 25 years later you allow me to redirect your attention to the games owner Tom Kidron and as many years as the world's owner has become somewhat known as something called a patent troll patent trolls essentially purchased many different elements and ideas of a particular product and squat on them for years filing lawsuits against anyone that violates them the reason that these people are called patent trolls mainly rests on the fact that the ones they purchase are typically what they perceived to be a sought-after in core elements of a particular product in this case kid ruins been squatting on patent number seven million one hundred eighty one thousand six hundred ninety which is titled system and method for enabling users to interact in a virtual space this was filed on August third 2000 with further detail and the following the invention provides a highly scalable architecture for a three-dimensional graphical multi-user interactive virtual world system in a preferred embodiments a plurality of users interact in a three-dimensional computer-generated graphical space where each user executes a client process to view a virtual world from the perspective of that user sounds broad doesn't it that was on purpose and he's used it even as of this year there are articles all over Google explaining legal cases that worlds Inc has filed against companies and IPS such as Second Life Blizzard Bungie and more and according to a vice article from 2015 Kidron rakes in a whopping $200,000 a year from his court proceedings this effectively explains away the server cost when not many if any players play your game at all the result of this MS cheap upkeep low bandwidth low server costs ergo he's raking in cash with a positive net income in the u.s. the typical patent lifespan is 20 years so at the time of writing this we have just short of nine months before kidron would either have to renew or simply let it expire as a result of this if he so chooses he could let it run its course and retire from his relentless court proceedings if he does I wouldn't be surprised if the world's game goes down with its effectively and permanently leaving this artifact of a game to die so all in all as it turns out Jim Lee is the real enigma here the custom worlds that he and potentially others have created are an indisputable testament to the underbelly of this archaic MMO today it's unclear whether he's still active in the game or not even so the inner mechanisms of this fabled network are something that perplexes me as I see no end goal other than to hoard a repository of images for his own enjoyment why he chose worlds dot-com to do its is and will forever remain beyond me regardless worlds while they're still online by the various reasons or nots stands as somewhat of a time capsule to the primitive era of social gaming today with the official non custom worlds it stands as a corpse of the past a window into what once was and a sliver of mystical nostalgia sending us back into a time when we all first discovered the world of the Internet's as far as we know servers are to this day willingly being kept alive alongside this the inevitable date that the game permanently goes offline is unclear so if you're eager to experience this curiosity of old then he better get on its own stay in the official servers and you'll be fine soak it all in bask in the gritty mid-90s setec otherwise you'll run the risk of missing the nostalgic boats leaving it to sail away and for us to watch it go thanks so much for watching I'll see you in the next one I love you all and good night [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music]

Channel: undefined

Views: 2,960,834

Rating: 4.8667493 out of 5

Keywords: worlds online, worlds game, worlds mmo, creepy mmo, scary mmorpg, worlds.com

Id: p9LWzr-_ibI

Length: 34min 35sec (2075 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 26 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Just_Some_Eggs]

Oh, hey, worlds.com. I joined abooooout less than a year ago? Sometime in 2018. Dont remember.

IIRC, Nexialist is (literally) some autistic dude. Though, I dont know how much merit that claim has. Its roleplay. Not an actual cult. Obviously. A player in the game (snitchen) told me a little bit about the history of the game. Though, I dont remember what he told me. I might be able to pull up some whisper logs later.

I also got an onion link from one of those cult members. If one of you are insane enough to check it out, go ahead. Doubt it even works, though. Here's the link : EwdfW453efSW"#$"53#$Dfgsd.onion.eq"#42s (I copied this from a screenshot, if you believe I may have done this wrong, I can PM you an imgur link of it or something.)

EDIT 1 : I think the chat logs I had with snitchen are lost. However, Nexialist does seem to still play, but he was apparently harassed when the nexpo video came out. Poor dude.

[u/[deleted]]

dude does creepy stuff on the internet for a meme sometimes

"SECRET UNDERGROUND MURDER SEX CULT???!??!?!?!?"

[u/Imasgrohn]

Yeah I'm not a fan of this video. Over sensationalized, pointless and will just bring annoying creepypasta fans to the worlds ecosystem.

[u/Orthopraxy]

Does this dude have a filter on his voice? At first I thought that my speakers were blown, but I think it's just this video.

Voice filter 2 sp00ky /s

[u/Rickstein_s]

Nothing great about this video I mean, seem like another shitty mmo like second life and those sites for creepy losers in their 50s Not a bad investigation tho

[u/[deleted]]

Cool, now the regulars on Worlds will have annoying Youtube tourists flooding their server in addition to the usual annoying /x/ tourists.