The Story:
Excite experienced many problems in the past, from the lost merger with AT&T to a shortage of funds, the "@Home" bankruptcy, to it's battle with iWon for ownership. For whatever reasons ... the old Excite VP is no more.The "Addy" Players:Currently Excite.com has set-up a program called Super Chat. It is similar in many ways to the old VP, and a small download (majority of the program runs from their servers using Java technology). While there are a lot of bugs to work out ... it appears to work. Recent upgrades even allow for surfing the internet, and gestures.
In addition, a company called Halsoft has purchased rights to the old VP chat program. They have started a site that can use the old VP download to chat. The upside of this is that is almost exactly what old VP was, and it is up and running more often than not. The downside to this is that it is a "pay" site - (When I last checked in December of 2002 the cost was about $10 (US) per month, or $80 per year. A bit on the pricey side for my tastes, but for those who live and die for VP chat, it is available, and probably the closest thing there is to the old vp.
On the "I'll fix it myself" side we have some new folks in town, and each of them wants to be sheriff. With the increased 'connectivity' advances in computers, some folks have tried to make use of the old vp technology either by writing their own code to talk to the VP users (clients), or by using various chat server programs they have acquired. There are several servers out there which can allow your old vp program to get back on-line with just a minor tweak or two. What needs to be done, is once you start the program (and it will give you an error that it was unable to connect to Excite or talk.excite.com) is you need to give it a new server address to connect to. This is done by clicking on the "Tools" menu, and picking "Community Server". From this point, you need to add the new server, Fill in the top line with a name you want to call this new chat - then on the bottom line you need to fill in the "address" to connect to.
The address can be either a URL (called a dns name): chat.vptalk.com , ... or a number: 216.239.10.147 (IP address).
Several of these available servers are run by folks who know one another, have been partners at one time or another, or perhaps have had a falling out over the rights to the server software, or proper rules to establish for their chat program. For whatever reason, you may find that a server is down from time to time, sometimes perhaps due to their own hardware problems, or due to being hacked by an angry ex-partner, or because there is an issue with the root server that hosts their own connection. With some options for DNS (Domain Name Server) being offered out there by places like d2g.com, and dns2go.com there has been a lot of bouncing around of server names and address between a few folks
Rumors: There was talk about the chat community for a while that 2 fellows (who go by the names World, and Deth) were once partners in the resurrection of the entire VP chat community after Halsoft purchased the rights from Excite. The story goes that one (World) paid the bills, and the other (Deth) did the programming. For reasons unknown to almost everyone except themselves, there was a falling out. Each had unique abilities, and started a "war" on one another from different servers. This caused a great deal of down time for both. I believe that each of them has their own server up and running at this time. I've spoken to both in chat; however, I don't know either one of them, and I won't take sides on who was right and who was wrong. I've heard that they have put the bad blood behind them, and are now on good terms with each other (I hope so). I wish them both the best, and am grateful for the efforts they both put forth to bring life back to the VP chat experience.
The Question: The big question for many, is where do I get a copy of the VP chat software? That is difficult to answer due to the fact that both Excite, and Halsoft have campaigned strongly against other sites offering the client software with claims of copyright infringement. At the time Excite offered the download, there were very few restrictions or copyright laws in place, and many feel it should be widely available. However, due to these legal issues, many servers will not offer the program download. The solution? Do a search for VP, client, build ... and try to find a person who has a site that still has the program available. I strongly suggest builds 162 or 163 for stability, and compatibility reasons. Some sites that offered various downloads in the past were: babbleon,and Wicked Creations. I wish I could offer more help than that, and if you want to send an email to webmaster@web-friend.com then I will try to find a link for you. I can not offer to supply the download from my site however. I just don't want to get involved in the entire legal mess.
Now for a collection
of various addresses you can try in your Community Server options:
| Community Name: (not as important as putting in the proper Server Address) |
Server Address: (must be exact) |
Notes: |
| Babble On | babbleon.d2g.com | This is where I chat if I do log on. Maintained by a guy named Deth, a very nice place to visit. Their web site. |
| Visual Palace | visualplaces.d2g.com | I believe this one belongs to World. Nice folks here as well. |
| Virtual Places | chat.visualplaces.com | same as above, one of the splinters from previous servers |
| Zone | 014.0334.0123.0372 | good up time - can be cliquish |
| The Zone | thez0ne.d2g.biz | same as above. |
| VELOCITZX | chat.vptalk.com | fair number of users, up most of the time |
| Dark Chat | dvp.myip.org | *** Not evaluated at this time |
| Weird Chat | weird-chat.dns2go.com | have heard it's a pretty mellow group - when it works |
| Power Chat | PowerChat.dns2go.com | *** Not evaluated at this time couldn't get this to work |
| Dark Chat | Dark-chat.d2g.com | *** Not evaluated at this time have heard it was a good group of folks |
| Dummy World | 216.239.10.147 | *** Not evaluated at this time |
| VP Talk | talk.vptalk.com | *** Not evaluated at this time |
| E Talk | e-chat.d2g.com | *** Not evaluated at this time |
| Virtual Reality | virtualreality.d2g.com | *** Not evaluated at this time |
The Other Options:
- Excite Super Chat: What VP evolved into at Excite.
- voodoo chat: similar to the old vp, not many people there yet, but good solid program
- Halsoft: The company that bought the rights to the old vp proggie, ... now a pay site ($10 per month, or $80 per year). Can't evaluate it myself, simply cause I won't shell out that kind of money for a chat program. can also be found at vpchat.com
- ICQ... perhaps the most used - Very good for individual / private chats.
- Yahoo Messenger - good for one on one talk. Also now has a chat community.
- PalTalk... has voice and email (nice .. lot's of advertisement)
- Absolute Agency ... Has both "pay" and "free" membership, features such as: avatars, private rooms and whispering, text size and color settings! (I haven't tested it)
- Fool Moon ... looks promising.
- IRC ... pay site, geared more toward the geeks.
- Village IRC ... the more public version - they also have a $20 client proggie you can download
- Web CQ ... Create your own chat
- My Info Chat ... html based, but you can create your own chat rooms.
While I no longer spend much time in chat, I have to give my thumbs up to the voodoo chat program, and I do visit there once in a blue moon. I also check in on other chat clients from time to time; just to evaluate what's going on in the chat community.
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page by: CH Davis
updated: 08.23.2003