scenarios:

Scenario 1:

You are a programmer at Zapbrain interactive and you receive a gift from corporate thanks to working on Mindnet.

The gift in question is a free copy of Mindnet and the mindnet headset. Now you’ll finally try what you’ve helped build.

Scenario 2:

Money has gotten a bit tight lately, so you apply to become a moderator for Mindnet, getting paid about...minimum wage.

Live the life of a Metropia law enforcement officer, deal with and arrest other users who break rules such as.

-Saying profanities

-Spamming

-Selling real products or services to users without permission

-Counterfeit currency

-and more!

scenario 3:

Create your own dang scenario!

A tech company known as Zapbrain Interactive unveils the world’s first consumer grade virtual reality headset for home computers.

At launch, it supports only one program: Mindnet, an online MMO set in a massive user built city called Metropia.

Everything is made by the users, the law, items sold in the item shops, the digital economy which utilizes a digital currency called ‘Zap Kash’. All of it is player controlled.

Players create avatars, rent spaces, build “worlds,” and live alternate lives inside the system.

But something is wrong.

The new mayor of town was voted but he seems to be acting oddly tyrannical... banning players for no reason, making the Other moderators perform violent actions, people tried to kick vote the current mayor...but it has been not very successful...some say he might be a hacker, but those are just rumors...right?

Welcome to Metropia.

LORE:

In the year of 1979, two brothers named Phillip and Mark Gilmore were both students from the University of Arizona, Phillip was a professional computer programmer and mark was an expert in marketing and graphic design.

Home computers at that time were in their infancy, and were often very finicky to use.

In their parents basement the two brothers formed a small tech company called ZapTec, they created the first ever operating system for normal people in mind, specifically people who worked in offices, it was called ZapOS.

PICTURE OF THE GILMORE BROTHERS AND HAROLD CIRCA 1983

At first, the operating system didn’t sell very well in stores. That is until another rich computer programmer named Harold Garfield heard about it. He offered the two brothers to help improve their product and to sell it worldwide.

In 1982 ZapOS v1.0 released to the public and over 2 million copies were sold, many big corporations used the operating system and it helped improve the reputation of computer technology.

Throughout the 1980s, they improved the program and added new features until in 1992, they released a Zap92, home and office edition.

But after the popularity of ZapOS... the two brothers felt super burnt out and felt that their project has ran its course. They recently saw other tech companies such as IBM experimenting with a new fad called Virtual Reality and discovered MMO games like Worlds.com and Dungeonwars online. That’s when they first began developing their most ambitious project yet.

In 1995, ZapTec (now rebranded as Zapbrain Interactive), revealed their new project at ZapCon ‘95. There, they unveiled an early version of Mindnet.

A fully immersive virtual environment. A digital city. A place where users could create, interact, and talk

The demo was rough.

But people loved it.

Over the next two years, a small, dedicated team of programmers worked to bring Mindnet to life.

later in march of 1997, Mindnet was released to the public, on the first day over 1.7million copies sold worldwide, the servers were very laggy and in some countries, it crashed due to user traffic.

In order to get more money, Zapbrain has partnered with three companies, and added advertisements to the game, digital billboards are pasted across Metropia. Including User generated ads

THIS SECTION OF THE DESCRIPTION IS SPONSORED BY THE FOLLOWING COMPANIES.

Mindnet boot up screen, takes about 42 minutes to an hour to boot up.

Zapbrain interactive HQ circa 1996

Game geek magazine issue 14, march 27, 1997!

-What inspired me to make this bot?

When I saw that rec room was getting discontinued in June, it made me think about other old online games that I used to play; stuff like Club penguin, habbo hotel, and World of Warcraft, which made me interested in very early MMOs that existed in the mid 90s-2000s. Games like Worlds.com, Cybertown, and Second life. Not to mention I’m a huge fan of Hypnospace outlaw, so it kinda gave me a Eureka moment...

-How I made all the graphics:

I used a website called Heroforge to make most of the CGI models, I also Screenshotted Sketchfab models, and thrown them together via Canva, I did not use AI.

Tags:

RPG, 2000s, internet, 1990s, 90s, VR, office, office worker, cop, police, custom scenario, no scenario, virtual reality, virtual world, MMO, 00’s, internet, the amazing digital circus, TADC, tadc, Hypnospace, cyberpunk, dystopian, rpg, metaverse, digital, avatar, game, gaming, gamer, 3D, Y2K