Non-Disney Online Games Spineworld Update 8/20/09

[IliketheTitanic]

Register Link: http://www.spineworld.com/s/signup

Main Website: http://www.spineworld.com/s/start


Intro

Hello everyone, whilst searching for any other online games that might have been overlooked I came across a game called Spineworld. Spineworld is in, the best way I can describe it, as close to VMK imo (other then Virtual Family Kingdom). In what ways? Well the attention to detail is simply amazing, its like a cross over of VMK and Habbo though, it was not designed by sulake. And unlike habbo Spineworld is moderated way better.

Though it does not say it is in beta, I believe they are still making the game. My reasons for these thoughts are because they recently just added some major new features to the game.

One of the major reasons I like spineworld is because the have the navigation circle like VMK, which makes it a lot easier to move, for me anyway.

Registration is simple and they way they made it was very creative and the background music is beautiful.

For More Information Visit: http://www.spineworld.com/s/parents[/B]

Here is some statistics made by me:

Web Based Browser Game: Yes

Registration Difficulty: Easy, if not enjoyable

Suitible to play age group: All Ages

Safe Chat Availible: Yes

Open Chat Availible: Yes

Moderated: Yes

Filtered Chat: Yes, but can be bypassed.

Safe Environment: Yes

Mini Games: About 7 Single player, 1 multi player

Free: Yes, with optional subsription. (Though In my opinion, there is not a HUGE difference in a free account and a subscriber.)

Decorate Rooms: Yes

Pins: Unknown, there is however, a subscriber pin.

Decorate Character: Yes

Quests: Yes

Game Engine Type: 2D & Javascript

World Size: Small, still growing

Map: Yes, but you must pay to teleport to places

Mircotransaction system: Sorta, must have membership to buy items

Customer Support: Yes

NPC's: Yes

Trading: No, however this may be a feature later on. You may still trade with NPC's.

Friend List: Yes

Emotes: Yes

Magic: Not sure? There are some things you can do in this game, that might be considered magic.

Report Button: Yes

HOST Events: Most likely in the future

Company Currently Owned By: Playdo

Codes of Conduct (from main website):

Spineworld is designed to be comfortable and friendly places so we ask you to please respect the codes of conduct stated below.

We encourage freedom of speech but there is a big difference between discussing a topic and promoting your views in an offensive or disruptive way. This is NOT to restrict your rights to free speech but to create a pleasant environment for everyone. All rules and codes of conduct have been developed by users of chat rooms globally over time and represent the way we want the Playdo environment to be. This is a short version of the rules in Spineworld. To read the complete rules, click here.

Remember that being a member of Spineworld means that you meet people from all over the world so be a good global citizen. So you should not:


Use bad and offensive language (names, words, Urls)

Engage in any kind of sexual activity

Spam or flood the chats with repeated statements or messages

USE CAPS EXCESSIVELY - it means you are shouting

Any activity to disturb other user's online experience (hacking, trying to disconnect someone)

Abuse the report tools

Intimidating, harassing, threatening, embarrassing or distressing another user

Giving out or trying to get information that can be used to locate another user

Racism, discrimination, hate crimes, excessive nationalism and intolerance

Use any kind of software to interfere in any activity in Spineworld

Promote try to fool another user into any illegal activities (drugs, violence, crimes)

Selling or trading accounts, furniture or other elements in Spineworld

Any kind of fraud (ex. pretend that you're someone else)

Don't give out your own password or ask for another users password

Members that don't follow these codes of conduct can be kicked (means that you are bumped out of the chat by a moderator, equal to a warning), suspended (means that you are temporarily suspended from logging in) or banned (permanent exclusion from the service).

These rules are enforced by chat members called Moderators who may warn or send users to detention for unacceptable behavior. Moderators are not allowed to give information about new features or insiders from Playdo. They are online to help you with abusive users and technical problems.

We reserve the right to log and store all chat dialogues for use in crime prevention or crime investigations. Official events inside in Spineworld will be advertised by newsletter and in the News section only.

Images (also from the Spineworld Site):

 

[aengus]

Very interesting mic, I will have to check this out

 

[Adventuredaz]

Looks interesting, but I do not see where there are any mini games. This is the feature I am just not finding anything to fill the void from VMK. I spent 90% of my time playing games in vmk and could be there for 8+ hours a day easy. Currently I am not finding any game that can keep me entertained on it's own for more then an hour if that. I will check it outthough, thanks for the info.

 

[IliketheTitanic]

Looks interesting, but I do not see where there are any mini games. This is the feature I am just not finding anything to fill the void from VMK. I spent 90% of my time playing games in vmk and could be there for 8+ hours a day easy. Currently I am not finding any game that can keep me entertained on it's own for more then an hour if that. I will check it outthough, thanks for the info.

I'm not completely sure when the game was released but, it must not have been recently if hardly any game websites know about it, even Wikipedia didnt have it on record. Currently, the only way to obtain credits is through quests, though, at 15 - 50 credits a quest, there is going to have to be some type of new way to earn credits, on the map, there are only two lands, the main center and a castle, so this is another reason for me to believe that it is still growing.

Mini games or some type of multiplayer game is important to me too. So I have a strong feeling that they will add minigames in the future. Thanks for the reminder, I will add it to my statistics

 

[BlueSneakerGal]

Well, I saw a guy ask if anyone wanted to have <cleaned up> , and a girl asked if I was a <cleaned up> and said I had nice.... a nice figure.

If there are mods wondering around, they aren't obvious.

 

[aengus]

well to be fair, we saw way worse in vmk and the other games we have been in. Thats just another reason to keep in mind that no children no matter how safe the game is should be left on the internet unattended.

Its important that a game has a report system and an ignore system, beyond good moderation.

 

[BlueSneakerGal]

well to be fair, we saw way worse in vmk and the other games we have been in. Thats just another reason to keep in mind that no children no matter how safe the game is should be left on the internet unattended.

Its important that a game has a report system and an ignore system, beyond good moderation.

And they do, indeed have both a report and ignore function... though I didn't try either of them. But they are there.

 

[IliketheTitanic]

Well, I saw a guy ask if anyone wanted to have <cleaned up> , and a girl asked if I was a <cleaned up> and said I had nice.... a nice figure.

If there are mods wondering around, they aren't obvious.

It would have been interesting to see if you reported, and see how a moderator handled it.

Please keep in mind the world is not that big at the moment and I doubt they have a moderation team the size of VMK's staff.

But how are they going to be alerted if you never tell them? I have seem players in VMK get away with murder, I had even seen players giving out personal information, they were talking about how old they were, where they lived, etc. and they played until VMK closed. Just to show you that moderators are not always watching every room at every second, they may have other things or players they are busy helping at the moment.

A part of what makes a great game is not only the staff and the game itself but the community, myself, I feel that its the players duties to report and alert mods as well. That makes a good and strong community.

Like habbo's community, half the time players are running around breaking rules 24/7 and the moderators are probably running around everywhere trying to maintain it all. And it makes the job eaiser and it makes the game safer if we let them know "hey so and so is doing this, you might want to look into it".

 

[BlueSneakerGal]

It would have been interesting to see if you reported, and see how a moderator handled it....


....A part of what makes a great game is not only the staff and the game itself but the community, myself, I feel that its the players duties to report and alert mods as well. That makes a good and strong community.

Point taken.

I was just so shocked that I ran... Not very responsible, I admit. Just my gut reaction.

I'll continue to play and test the report and ignore functions and report back.

 

[IliketheTitanic]

I filed 6 reports in a matter of 15 minutes, 4 of the players disappeared. the other 2 walked off somewhere

 

[IliketheTitanic]

In total 6 of the 10 people I reported got banned, the way you can figure out if someone gets banned they say: "Sorry, but i've been.....*kicked*" So im guessing they got kicked/banned for some time. Also im guessing thats how the ban system works is like the person will say "Sorry, but iv'e been.....
*(replace whatever the moderator did here)*"

 

[Diva of Dragons]

Well, I saw a guy ask if anyone wanted to have <cleaned up> , and a girl asked if I was a <cleaned up> and said I had nice.... a nice figure.

If there are mods wondering around, they aren't obvious.

well to be fair, we saw way worse in vmk and the other games we have been in. Thats just another reason to keep in mind that no children no matter how safe the game is should be left on the internet unattended.

Its important that a game has a report system and an ignore system, beyond good moderation.

This game came up once before and then the thread disappeared. I checked it out and what is commented on here is nothing. The whole thing is one big pick up joint. You can say absolutely anything, even the "the bomb", if you leave out a letter.

It's barely apppropriate for someone under 18, let alone families.

 

[IliketheTitanic]

This game came up once before and then the thread disappeared. I checked it out and what is commented on here is nothing. The whole thing is one big pick up joint. You can say absolutely anything, even the "the bomb", if you leave out a letter.

It's barely apppropriate for someone under 18, let alone families.

But it is against the rules to say those things, and you bet I reported those people and those people were banned. Can you say whatever you want on Club Penguin? Yes, does it show up? Yes, but the server auto bans you for doing it. So even if you do play club penguin and you drop the "bomb" then kids are still going to see it, but your character will probably not see the light of day for a while.

What I saw was not a big pick up joint I actually saw more friends then "taken" people but what game isn't infested with "taken" these days? The rules are not too far from VMK's but the game has a high percentage of players that like to break rules. If you do alert the mods, they will ban.

And you left out that there is a safe chat feature, with pre-choosen phrases.

My only suggestion? Report, because once someone is gone and unless they know how to change their IP Address, they aren't coming back.

 

[aengus]

OK I do remember this topic before.

The thread was removed because they didnt have a working reporting system , but it seems they do now.

 

[IliketheTitanic]

The homepage format has been updated into adobeflash format, it features video and the same buttons. The appartment update has been removed.

Also the page around SPW has turned from light purple to black.

 

[Adventuredaz]

I liked the look and feel of the game but agree with Lisa on content. Whether or not you report and people are banned people were giving IM/e-mail addresses there is no real restriction untill after its reported. The damage is done. All of the public spaces were essentialy people picking people up.

The activities going on within the game are pretty common in online settings, even in gaia but it is difficult to remove yourself from the environment in this game.

There are restricted areas requiring a membership and from what I could tell you needed a membership just to get a friends list - private space has a premium assigned to it so no personal space without a virtual fee. In general, non-members are highly restricted.

I think it looked like a fun place but overall won't be visiting back. Thanks for the info again, it was worth a look.

 

[SharkMeal]

But it is against the rules to say those things, and you bet I reported those people and those people were banned. Can you say whatever you want on Club Penguin? Yes, does it show up? Yes, but the server auto bans you for doing it. So even if you do play club penguin and you drop the "bomb" then kids are still going to see it, but your character will probably not see the light of day for a while.

What I saw was not a big pick up joint I actually saw more friends then "taken" people but what game isn't infested with "taken" these days? The rules are not too far from VMK's but the game has a high percentage of players that like to break rules. If you do alert the mods, they will ban.

And you left out that there is a safe chat feature, with pre-choosen phrases.

My only suggestion? Report, because once someone is gone and unless they know how to change their IP Address, they aren't coming back.

Actually I did play club penguin for a little bit, and it has a filter like VMK's.
You can say anything you want, but if it has words in it that you aren't
allowed to say the message won't show up. It's really annoying because
you don't know if what your typing will show up on the screen or not >_<
I haven't played in a looong time so I don't know if it changed. I'll check
this game out when I have the time, thanks for letting us know

 

[Chimchimcharu]

I'm not completely sure when the game was released but, it must not have been recently if hardly any game websites know about it, even Wikipedia didnt have it on record.

Spineworld was a part of Playdo AB.

http://www.playdo.com/

This is probably why there is not a lot of information about Spineworld. Playdo has divided into two different projects, Lulilab, which seems to be a drag and drop blog space (this is where you will find the mini-games), and Spineworld the mmorpg.

Spineworld was opened in April 2008 and the homepage describes the various additions that have occurred since then.

 

[Chimchimcharu]

But it is against the rules to say those things, and you bet I reported those people and those people were banned. Can you say whatever you want on Club Penguin? Yes, does it show up? Yes, but the server auto bans you for doing it. So even if you do play club penguin and you drop the "bomb" then kids are still going to see it, but your character will probably not see the light of day for a while.

Primarily, there is a program that automatically "kicks" a player off the board for possibly offensive words. This is frustrating, when specific letter sequences causes one to be kicked. I have been kicked for writing "I'm on a quest, I'd like to finish it." and "the pen is a hair pin, not an ink pen." the offensive words are hard to spot, but sure enough they are in there. I was able to return immediately to the game. This auto kick replaced a warning pop-up. The program also prevents a player from expressing anything for several minutes if the word is not profanity, but could lead to misconduct. I was telling the story of the Emperors New Clothes and could not finish it because I wrote the word naked.

As with all rules and preventive measures, people can and will find a way to circumvent restrictions. Replacement of letters with numbers and symbols in a bad word, is now being moderated by the program where it was overlooked a month ago. There are huge improvements being made on Spineworld every week.

What I saw was not a big pick up joint I actually saw more friends then "taken" people but what game isn't infested with "taken" these days?

I see a lot of "dating" activity. Boys seeking girlfriends. Girls seeking boyfriends. Most of it is benign and really cute to watch. most of the kids don't go beyond kissing. They take several minutes to carefully line up their avatars, turn on the heart emoticon over the avatar's heads, write (action) kiss, and after a minute or so, they get bored and break up.
However, there are people who take it further, and are clever enough to trick the program. This is where in-game moderation is so crucially important.

Spineworld does not have in-game moderators.

This disturbed me at first. I asked myself... who is watching out for these kids...kids I know who are as young as 9. They lied, of course, when registering for the game. (The Terms and Conditions require all children under 13 have parental supervision while online. Without parental consent, children are on Safe Chat where they can only express and see Safe Chat.) There is no in-game moderation other than the players.

Who moderates the real world?

All players in Spineworld are citizens, whether they are members or not. It is the citizen's responsibility to actively participate in the creation of the world they want to be part of. Blocking is the easiest approach, but when a group of kids work together reporting abuse and sexual context and eliminating that variable from their play environment They Become Empowered. With each event they become a more responsible citizen and build a stronger community in that on-line world. This is a good thing. I would not want to see it changed.

Until mid-November there was no walk-through for Spineworld. Finding the quest, getting directions, and figuring out how the world worked was dependent entirely on player interaction. IMO, this is the most brilliant approach I have seen to a mmorpg. This wiki page appeared over night.
http://spineworld.wikia.com/wiki/Spineworld_Wiki
This is the hard work of a pre-teen kid, who is proud citizen of Spineworld.

 

[Kingdom Hearts530]

I would like to know why There no more free members anymore? It used to be if your now for 100 days your a free member.