Hey everyone in Whyville! Maiko here. I have a story to tell you, a story of how my life has been on Whyville.
I remember it all, how everyone looked, how little clams everyone had compared to now, who was the best face part designer, who was the richest for a long time, and how at a time the richest person had 5,000 clams. I remember when Googles was Lemonmule, and I remember how few games there were, and how few good face parts there were, and how so few people ever swore or made fun of people. But that was only half of it.
It all started around March 2000, on numerous accounts that I only spent a couple days on. I just couldn't find the right name! This was back when we were given clams and given face parts when we started, and we could chat the very day we signed up for Whyville.
For those of you who are new to Whyville, you must think this would have been great. Well, the clams were good. There weren't that many games to play, though. And we only got face parts now found in the Bargain Basement of Akbar's. Speaking of Akbar's, the quality of face parts made by the citizens of Whyville was quite poor, but we didn't care back then, because we couldn't find anything better.
Eventually, I found a new name, Lilly2000. I had Lilly2000 up until a couple of months ago. I started making face parts. It was really hard, especially since we didn't have a zoom tool! My first face part was a rainbow necklace, and it was really... uh... ok, I'll say it, it was horrible!! No one would wear that thing today, and hardly anyone would back then either. Eventually I got better and made over 100 face parts.
But there was this one girl, Madeleine, who made the BEST face parts, and if she still went on Whyville today, with new tools in the face factory, she would be even better. She made the only good face parts, simply titled as Purple Eyes, Green Eyes, Glossy Lips and such. These are now known as the "rare parts" as I like to call them, because they have been sold out for ages! The best thing she ever made was this blond hair that was wispy.
Once people got the hang of making face parts, people started buying Madeleine??s whispy hair, along with parts made by Charity, the best designer for a VERY long time!! Everyone put the wispy blond hair over the blond charity hair, creating a new look. EVERYONE had Charity's blond hair, and a lot of people still do today!
Now that I think about it, there weren't too many newbies back then. There were always newbies, just not as many, but just about all of them begged for clams. If you wanted to give someone clams you just typed "clam (person who you want to clam's name here)". It was MUCH easier. And no one could cheat by giving clams to other accounts, unless they got a friend from another account to clam them, or used another account to send everything over, clam by clam.
Nowadays, most people hang out in the Pool, and only the new folks, and some not-so-new folks hang out in Whyville Square. Back then, the Square was the place to be. If you wanted to talk to someone privately, you would go to the Pool. Strange, huh?
Today, I would say that Googles is the most popular person. But what about back then? I would have to say Britmaria. Some people hated her, some people adored her, some people got to actually have a normal conversation with her without feeling weird. She was around until a couple of months ago, but even then she didn't come around as much as she used to.
So, what have been the main changes that Whyville has gone through since I first signed up?
- The balloon race
- WASA
- Smart Cars track
- The City Hall Building
- Polls and Petitions
- The first prom
- The Dance Studio
- We can't chat when we start out
- We don't get face parts when we start out
- We don't get clams when we start out
- Numerous towns in Myville
- More rich people
- Better face factory tools
- Better face parts
- WAY more people
- More people hang out at the Pool Party
- Whyville has had winter and summer
- More swearing
- More hackers
- More begging from newbies
- More popular people
There's SOOO much more stuff that's happened, but those are all of the things I can think of.
Whyville's technology has improved, but the way people treat each other has worsened. But that's not the point of my story. The point is that Whyville is like real life: it changes everyday, and you have to think hard to remember how it has changed in the past 100, 50, 10 or even 1 year. It's really cool to make new things, but we have to remember how good it was, "back in tha day." We have to try not to take our new things for granted, and make sure we don't abuse our new privileges, because they might be gone tomorrow. If we make mistakes then, we can learn from them in the future.
If any of you are thinking of leaving Whyville, I wish you luck, because its hard to quit, but if you do manage it, come back in a couple of months, or better yet, a whole year, and see how much has changed.
I hope you have learned a lot from this article, how I had to survive in Whyville when I was a newbie, and even in my first few months. Remember how good Whyville is now compared to a year or 2 ago. And think about how great life is compared to 100 or 200 years ago. Some things are bad, but it??s good for the most part. So enjoy it!!
This is Maiko, signing off!
