Since I have been playing VRChat for almost a year, I would like to share my story and VRChat history.
Note: I wrote the original article in Japanese. I’ll translate as far as I can but my English isn’t good enough.
First Play
I thought that I should experience VR since I was a computer engineer. So I bought HTC Vive in June 2017. VRChat was one of the games I played first.
Only few people, always 10–20, were in game at that time. There were few worlds and nobody moved from Hub. I’d say that VRChat was just a simple game for chatting in Hub.
It looked like the people who constantly played were Unity programmers or something. At least, I didn’t understand the fun in it at all. I hardly played from June to August.
Realize
In September, I realized that social VR game was very interesting because of Rec Room, which was getting popular within VR communities. I wondered “How about VRChat? I haven’t played for a while.” and launched it. Yes, so many things changed.
First of all, there were many people, still 100–200 though, I felt active. Second, people were in not only Hub but the other worlds that had been created by users.
I could hardly meet Japanese but met a lot of anime freaks. How come? Here is my guess.
As you know, you are allowed to use your own custom avatars in VRChat. Many high quality 3D models out there but they are not free.
Japan, on the other hand, has the MMD culture that distributes high quality 3D models for free. Many VRChat users chose MMD models, which were from anime. It attracted anime freaks. They chose anime avatars… Then, here we are.
It seemed that there was a conflict between the VRChat community and the MMD community because of neglecting ToS. However, I can’t talk about it since I don’t know much about the problem.
Early Days
I remember that how wonderful time I spent in October to November 2017. Everybody was in public instances, various people were speaking various languages, including Japanese. I heard “Omae wa mou shinde iru." and “Nani?” a lot of times. I danced at Void Club and MMD Nightclub all over night, sent thumb up emojis to the person who played the guitar at Penthouse at Night, applauded the performer who was doing freestyle at The Great Pug. At Gaia Night, somebody started to sing some anime song and I too started to sing, so did everybody, we sang together for a while. At Presentation Room, I talked with so many people, with drawing, speaking, and body language. I taught them Japanese and learned from them Chinese, Spanish, German, Arabic, and more. Avatar creators who had great particles or great shaders were immediately surrounded by many people. Conversations naturally started everywhere. Even everybody behaved as they want, I felt harmony somehow in such a chaotic mood.
Most of conversations we had were stupid or about anime but sometimes we had an intelligent conversation. I remember that I talked with a person who lived in inland China. We tried to communicate each other in English, Japanese, and Chinese. We talked about politics, economics, and global situations. It was a very interesting experience, like my brain was shaken with it and some sort of new circuits were created. That’s why we were talking all over night.
So many things happened to me. How wonderful time I spent. Even you lived in any city in any country, I could communicate with you like you were right next to me. We could communicate deeply regardless of national origin, race, language. I had no doubt that it would change the world.
As I noted before, public instances were de facto standard, private instances were optional at that time. Therefore, I ran into several events in public.
Open Mic Night, hosted by Gunter, was one of the events I met by chance. Some guys paly the piano, some guys play the guitar. It was very fun but recently I can’t attend because of summer time…
Storytime with Magnanix was also one of the events I met by chance. It’s the reading show of the Japanese light novel English version “Tensei Shitara Suraimu Datta Ken" on every Saturday. Magnanix reads it with his cool voice. I was very surprised when I saw the event for the first time. I’ve been attending it from that time.
Most of the events were open but close now because of trolling. You should know all the communities were not exclusive from the start.
Okay, let’s get back on track. The population increased suddenly in December. We got excited when the online users were over 1k. Moreover, it went to 6k on New Year’s Eve. I’d say that it was because of influencers, such as famous Youtubers, famous Twitch streamers.
On the same time, Japanese VRChat player population also increased because of Nekomasu and Mirai Akari. I met many Japanese people at Times Square New York in VRChat on New Year’s Eve.
It was good that VRChat became popular. However, where there is light, there must be shadow. The VRChat community was going to face a crisis in the beginning of the year.
Unquiet Times
On 13 January 2018, the VRChat online users went to 20k. It’s still the biggest number in the entire period of VRChat. The reason the population exploded drastically was not only because of influencers but because of some detonator and it literally exploded all the VRChat worlds.
At the beginning of January, the meme was born in VRChat, Ugandan Knuckles, the red small guy. It had several common phrases. The most famous phrase was “Do you know the way?”
When you hear that, you might reply “The way? What are you talking about?” then the Ugandan Knuckles would say “I’ll show you the way.” while opening a portal to the Ugandan Knuckles world that had its avatars. You would think “Got it. This is the way.” and change your avatar to Ugandan Knuckles, and talk to someone like “Do you know the way?”
Those situations happened in every worlds. The meme exploded at unbelievable speed.
The Ugandan Knuckles meme itself had racism, see the Racism Accusations section of the Know Your Meme article, it attracted unmatured people, and a lot of players who used the avatar were racist and malicious.
Wherever I went, I saw many raids of Ugandan Knuckles. I got racial slurs, I couldn’t block all of them because it was too many. Presentation Room didn’t work properly anymore because even you blocked them, they could still draw and erase.
The situation was uncontrollable. Some people left VRChat, some people locked themselves up in private instances. The VRChat team were aware of it, so they uploaded the open letter to the community on 10 January.
In spite of that, the situation was getting worse. As you know, the hack tool problem appeared finally. People were saying like “What is happening?” on 15 January. It seemed that the tool uploaded on 12 already though. Since everyone could obtain it, script kiddies thrived with Ugandan Knuckles from late January.
The tool had several functions. It was no problem that they could crash other player’s client because it would be okay just to restart. The worst part was stealing avatar. Even though the tool could steal ID only and use it as if using pedestal avatars, it was painful to those who created original avatars. They regarded their avatars as their own identities in the virtual world.
To make matters worse, one could overwrite one’s name tag and pretend to be someone else. You could find one’s actual name in the social tab though. I heard that some malicious users were trying to fall someone else’s reputation with the method.
Furthermore, along with the influx, the VRChat servers were frequently down. I’d say that January 2018 was the worst period ever in the entire period of VRChat.
The situation was not getting better in February. The hack problem was not solved completely. Time was just passing by.
Thus, once everyone was in public instances, now private instances. It’s New Normal.
By the way, current public instances are definitely better than before. You can communicate with people even in the popular worlds, such as The Great Pug, Presentation Room. However, it’s too late. The senior users spend most of their time in private instances. Recently I can’t meet my friends casually like before.
On account of those problems, I don’t think I can talk about VRChat as a whole anymore. The community is too big to follow. Once the community was like one country in the name of VRChat, it had been divided as many countries, states, cities, villages. They are a part of federation now.
So, the following sections are just about my own experience.
World Creation
I was not interested in world creation since VRChat was just a communication tool to me. Somehow I started it in late March 2018 after being inspired by my friends.
At first, I watched Nekomasu’s tutorial video. After 10 minutes, I could make my own world, upload the world, and join to the world.
I thought that it was easy job, but since I didn’t know about Unity, I watched primer videos on Dot Install. I learned basics, such as scenes, materials, prefabs.
After that, I noticed the VRC_WebPanel component when I was reading VRChat SDK Document. It seemed that it was for using web browser in VRChat. Since I was a web developer, I thought I could make something with it.
Then, here is the prototype of my virtual keyboard.
I thought I could make text chat. There was no world with text chat at that moment. I was wondering why nobody made it even there were needs. In that case, I should make it on my own.
It was the start of my battle with Unity and Blender. I developed BackSpace and Enter, typing with colliders, typing with animations, typing with real keyboards, made 3D models, brushed it up over and over again.
Then, here is the text chat system I created.
To be honest, this world was just for me to talk with my muted friends. However, it seems that many users use it now. I was so glad when I received some appreciative words on Discord.
On a side note, my life changed a little bit because of it. A lot of world creators contacted me and I’m in some groups now. I’m still a beginner of Unity but I can understand what they are talking about and can advice about WebPanel.
We test VRChat worlds, while we are in the world inside in VR, touching its objects, watching its Unity project with Twitch streaming on WebPanel, discussing about its bugs/features, and developing it immediately. It’s usual now but when I come to think of it, it’s fantastic. I wonder that we are going to able to develop VR in VR only.
Expanded Reality
Speaking of world creators, I have to say, what is their motive? There is no order, no reward. Is it just fun? Well yeah, but I don’t think it’s an exact reason. Something drives them to do it, discovering new methods, creating new worlds.
I do remember such things.
In the late 90’s, there was no SNS nor Google. We wrote HTML and uploaded it with FTP to have our own web sites which were connected in hyper links. We were anxious to create places where we could be ourselves. Once the Internet was just for geeks, just a weird place, now it’s a part of reality. I mean, reality changed itself while mixing it up.
In the beta period of Nico Nico Douga, we were just fool around. Nobody thought that Hatsune Miku would become the international virtual singer when we were watching her “Ievan Polkka” movie. Nobody thought that Nico Nico Douga creators were going to be able to earn money by their skills.
The following sentences are from my book I wrote years ago.
I’m sure that they wanted to expand the world, they wanted to go to beyond the world. As a result, they created the virtual world. Adventurers don’t adventure with adventurous spirits. Innovators don’t innovate with innovative spirits. They, misfits and losers, have to find a place they can live in beyond the world. I’m sure that they have been expanding the world. Misfits can’t fit the world. However, it means something.
“ハッピーエンドは欲しくない" location 1771
Misfits and losers expand the world. Since I do know it more than anybody, I can say, so do VRChat users.
VR is going to be infrastructure like the Internet was. VRChat creators are going to be able to earn money by their skills like Nico Nico Douga creators were. Actually, they are already.
I didn’t learn about programing in school. I got the skill when I used to run away from my emptiness. Now, I can earn money by the skill and stand on my own two feet.
We’ve been expanding our reality because of our anxious, because we had no other choice. It has been changing the world.
It is not special but nature. It is just a simple program which was embedded in life a very long time ago.
The program drives us to expand the world.
In the darkness, some weak lights glow, and grow, and grow.
It is now like millions of stars in the sky.
I can’t stop loving the sparkles.
