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Whirled
Whirled was a virtual world website and video game created by Three Rings Design. Its Open Beta stage was announced at the Game Developers Conference in 2007. It makes use of Adobe Flash as an applet embedded into the website while also having pages of HTML and JavaScript in a sidebar to allow players to manage their friends list and browse various categories of user-generated content. The concept is comparable to the virtual worlds in the PlayStation 3 game Home and Second Life, while also incorporating aspects of feed-based social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. It pushed to make all content user-created, mainly with its approach to creative accessibility using Flash's affinity for 2D vector graphics and various web compatibilities to make it simple for players to upload a wide variety of content using simple, conventional file formats. Some examples of this include uploading PNG files to create in-game objects, and MP3 files to create a music playlist for a player's room. More advanced creators could utilize Adobe Flash itself to create more intricate and interactive objects, such as intricate player-controlled Avatars that Whirled became well known for.
In March 2010, at the Flash Gaming Summit, Three Rings CEO Daniel James stated, "Whirled is at $300K revenue, $5M invested. Abject failure." He later clarified this statement on the Puzzle Pirates official forums, stating "Those are very approximate total investment in the project and total revenue to date. There are no profits. Whirled is wonderful in many ways, but its financial results are not yet good. We remain committed to trying to change that." After Three Rings Design deemed the project not financially viable in 2013, they handed over ownership of Whirled to Grey Havens and announced their plans to eventually dissolve the site, officially doing so on April 8, 2017.[citation needed]
Upon Grey Havens releasing the source code for Whirled under their BSD License, several mirror sites were created by fans. While they had no access to the original database, a lot of content was copied across to create a similar experience managed by the community; with only minor name, appearance, and feature differences.
Created on the 1st of August 2016, Synced Online was created as a moderated alternative to Whirled, using its source code. It was initially only accessible via Hamachi, to players who had paid at least $10 for a Founder Pack. It was later made public via a domain on the 25th of August 2016. In the 2017 Whirled shutdown, large parts of its database were corrupted in the process—this left whatever was copied across to Synced Online as some of the only remaining remnants of Whirled.
Ultimately, Synced Online persisted as the most popular mirror despite being plagued by poor management and regular DDOS attacks.[citation needed]
On the 31st of August 2018, Whirled Club was created to replace Glowbe. This mirror features 'Lampy' from Glowbe for this reason. This rendition also successfully brought back "parlor games" that allow you to play games that are directly embedded into the virtual world's rooms, a feature thought lost since Whirled's closure. During this time, Synced Online's succumbed to an attack that deleted their database leaving only an old backup. Upon finding this backup corrupted the site was closed leaving Whirled Club the only remnant of Whirled.
Multiple other mirrors of Whirled have surfaced from the community over various time periods:
After Adobe Flash was discontinued On January 1, 2021, Whirled Club was reworked as a downloadable client. Alongside Whirled Club, Synced Online was also resurrected using its backup at the same domain—though, without a client of its own, it can only be fully accessed by browsers that still support Adobe Flash.
Hub AI
Whirled AI simulator
(@Whirled_simulator)
Whirled
Whirled was a virtual world website and video game created by Three Rings Design. Its Open Beta stage was announced at the Game Developers Conference in 2007. It makes use of Adobe Flash as an applet embedded into the website while also having pages of HTML and JavaScript in a sidebar to allow players to manage their friends list and browse various categories of user-generated content. The concept is comparable to the virtual worlds in the PlayStation 3 game Home and Second Life, while also incorporating aspects of feed-based social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. It pushed to make all content user-created, mainly with its approach to creative accessibility using Flash's affinity for 2D vector graphics and various web compatibilities to make it simple for players to upload a wide variety of content using simple, conventional file formats. Some examples of this include uploading PNG files to create in-game objects, and MP3 files to create a music playlist for a player's room. More advanced creators could utilize Adobe Flash itself to create more intricate and interactive objects, such as intricate player-controlled Avatars that Whirled became well known for.
In March 2010, at the Flash Gaming Summit, Three Rings CEO Daniel James stated, "Whirled is at $300K revenue, $5M invested. Abject failure." He later clarified this statement on the Puzzle Pirates official forums, stating "Those are very approximate total investment in the project and total revenue to date. There are no profits. Whirled is wonderful in many ways, but its financial results are not yet good. We remain committed to trying to change that." After Three Rings Design deemed the project not financially viable in 2013, they handed over ownership of Whirled to Grey Havens and announced their plans to eventually dissolve the site, officially doing so on April 8, 2017.[citation needed]
Upon Grey Havens releasing the source code for Whirled under their BSD License, several mirror sites were created by fans. While they had no access to the original database, a lot of content was copied across to create a similar experience managed by the community; with only minor name, appearance, and feature differences.
Created on the 1st of August 2016, Synced Online was created as a moderated alternative to Whirled, using its source code. It was initially only accessible via Hamachi, to players who had paid at least $10 for a Founder Pack. It was later made public via a domain on the 25th of August 2016. In the 2017 Whirled shutdown, large parts of its database were corrupted in the process—this left whatever was copied across to Synced Online as some of the only remaining remnants of Whirled.
Ultimately, Synced Online persisted as the most popular mirror despite being plagued by poor management and regular DDOS attacks.[citation needed]
On the 31st of August 2018, Whirled Club was created to replace Glowbe. This mirror features 'Lampy' from Glowbe for this reason. This rendition also successfully brought back "parlor games" that allow you to play games that are directly embedded into the virtual world's rooms, a feature thought lost since Whirled's closure. During this time, Synced Online's succumbed to an attack that deleted their database leaving only an old backup. Upon finding this backup corrupted the site was closed leaving Whirled Club the only remnant of Whirled.
Multiple other mirrors of Whirled have surfaced from the community over various time periods:
After Adobe Flash was discontinued On January 1, 2021, Whirled Club was reworked as a downloadable client. Alongside Whirled Club, Synced Online was also resurrected using its backup at the same domain—though, without a client of its own, it can only be fully accessed by browsers that still support Adobe Flash.