Welcome to V-Snack!
V-Snack is a Microsoft V-Chat 2.0 server which currently provides access to many of the remaining V-Chat 2.0 worlds on a permanent basis.
If you're unfamiliar with Microsoft V-Chat, information about it exists in a few places:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_V-Chat
http://timigi.com/Stuff/Archive/vchat/vchat.html
Microsoft V-Chat was an exceedingly bizarre 3D chat that originally ran only on Microsoft Internet Chat servers. (This includes Exchange's chat server and the Microsoft Internet Chat server included with Microsoft Commercial Internet Services for Windows NT.) For Version 2.0, however, Microsoft updated the software to use exclusively features present in standard IRC to implement V-Chat's avatars and movement: the whole thing uses CTCP for side channel data.
Microsoft V-Chat 2.0 was released in 1998, and you can download it here. It won't run on anything past Windows XP, so you'll need to install it on your favourite old computer, or a virtual machine of your choice. We won't be covering that here.
Once you have V-Chat installed, you can either replace your Microsoft V-Chat\Worlds\Homespace directory with the contents of this, at which point the homespace's links will direct you to V-Snack automatically, or you can simply connect from the menu to vchat.snacki.ca:4001 - note that the port is important.
Various permanent channels on this server provide access to specific worlds. These are:
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#V-ChatCartoon |
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#V-ChatCompass |
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#V-ChatEuroStadium |
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#V-ChatFishbowl |
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#V-ChatGallery |
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#V-ChatHanami |
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#V-ChatHelp |
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#V-ChatHutchSpace |
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#V-ChatKiva |
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#V-ChatKivaUnderground |
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#V-ChatLavaLoveLounge |
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#V-ChatLittleHouse |
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#V-ChatLobby |
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#V-ChatLodge |
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#V-ChatLunarIslands |
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#V-ChatMall |
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#V-ChatOuterworld |
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#V-ChatParasideIsland |
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#V-ChatRedDen |
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#V-ChatStandingStone |
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#V-ChatTabletop |
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#V-ChatTheaterChat |
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#V-ChatWaterhole |
If you want the 'classic' V-Chat experience from 1998, join #V-ChatLobby on connect. You can also create your own channels, and as long as you have +o, the V-Chat 2.0 client will allow you to select a V-Chat world (or 'artwork') to display when users join.
If you have any V-Chat 2.0 worlds which are not currently hosted here, please feel free to send them to me (kvanderlaag at gmail dot com) so that I can add them as permanent channels.
I'm currently working on some tooling for creating new V-Chat worlds, if that's a thing that interests you, so stay tuned for more "exciting" updates from the world of 1998.