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majority of the protocol for proper communications between the client and server. Without David's mentoring of
Jameson Heesen, Palace Chat would likely not exist, as David shared much of his findings with Jameson, including the XOR(xtlk) encryption used to encrypt chats and generation of client registration codes, prop encoding and decoding, and so much more. Much later(circa 2010) and after numerous source code leaks, Open Palace was developed by Brian McKelvey. Jameson utilized Brian's open source Open Palace to implement scripting support into Palace Chat. Brian also spearheaded the development of Type 1 avatars, which Palace Chat adopted and continues to utilize.
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497:. One of the unique features of the Palace for its time was that the server software was given away for free and ran on consumer PCs, rather than being housed in a central location. Two of the original beta testers, Ben LaCascia(Now Bethany O'Brien), and Justice LeClaire are still active(as of 2/2024).
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Official Palace software development ceased when
Communities.com declared bankruptcy, but a few developers have created viable Palace-protocol compatible clients since then. The earliest contributions came from David Lee, Lead Developer of Phalanx. David worked for many years reverse engineering the
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purchased the rights to the Palace software and technology as part of a bankruptcy settlement. The software is currently unsupported by Open Text or any of its previous owners, and many members of the community now provide unofficial support for existing versions. The original thepalace.com domain
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Dollz became popular with the users on The Palace, particularly teenagers, with several rooms dedicated to unofficial Dollz editing contests. Teenagers also used Dollz as avatars as a sign of rebellion against The Palace's older users. The popularity of Dollz has inspired several personal websites
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Each room in a palace is represented by a large image that serves as a backdrop for users. By clicking on certain areas in a room called "doors", users can travel either to different rooms in the same palace, another palace server, or an address leading to a different service, such as websites and
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Signing into The Palace does not require any registration or personal information. To begin chatting, users download the client, set their user handle and login to a server. A child filter is enabled on the client by default, which filters out chat servers with an Adult ranking and inappropriate
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From around 1997, artists began to use the Palace as a site for experimental live performance. Notably, the group
Desktop Theatre staged interventions and performances in their own and public Palaces from 1997 until 2002. In 1997 they presented "waitingforgodot.com" at the Third Annual Digital
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The Palace was originally created by Jim
Bumgardner and produced by Time Warner Interactive in 1994, with its official website launching to the public in November 1995. Bumgardner incorporated many features of Idaho, an in-house authoring tool he had previously developed for making multimedia
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While there is no longer any official support for the original program, a new client has been developed and is actively maintained by
Jameson Heesen. Many chat servers are still operating and can be found on the Palace Portal Live Directory. Palace clients and servers are available for
556:, took place at the Palace. This collection of essays, entitled Life at the Palace, consists of an analysis of Palace history, social relationships, "addiction," and deviance. Suler's work focused on the unique aspects of interacting via avatars and in a graphical space.
603:, written by a former Palace lead developer. The Manor includes embedded Python for user and room scripting with an encrypted data stream. Supports importing Palace avatars. Both new incarnations of The Palace support larger room sizes and 32-bit color avatars.
369:, in which users may interact with one another using graphical avatars overlaid on a graphical backdrop. The software concept was originally created by Jim Bumgardner and produced by Time Warner in 1994, and was first opened to the public in November 1995.
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The Palace has an avatar system that allows users to combine small, partially transparent images. Once a member has created an avatar, the member can pick up various pieces of clothing or other accessories. By default, users are represented by
577:, created by Jameson Heesen (known in the community as PaVVn), which supports all original features of The Palace, as well as high-quality backgrounds and avatars, larger rooms and videos. This is the primary client in use.
501:
Storytelling
Festival, which took an interesting turn when another Palatian changed their name to Godot and arrived in the performance. Other artists working in The Palace include Avatar Body
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had their own palace chat room that fans could download from their official website. Palace's popularity at this time could also be attributed to a palace which focused on the cartoon
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credited the creation of Dollz to
Rainman, who based his "Sk8er" doll on his comic strip. Other sources claimed that Melicia Greenwood created the first Dollz, basing her avatar on
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In Q3 1997, several users began using doll-inspired images as avatars with a customizable appearance. The avatars were known as "Little People" before later collectively named
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email. In some rooms, users are allowed to paint on the backdrop using a simple suite of drawing tools. User messages appear as chat bubbles above their
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All of these new clients support improved high-color avatars, larger room backgrounds (also in high-color), and modern sound formats (such as
549:), and are designed for modern operating systems. However, only Palace Chat is presently maintained and is the present-day client of choice.
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dedicated to creating and customizing Dollz, outside of The Palace community. The majority of Dollz creators were female.
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Phalanx, primarily developed by David Lee by meticulously reverse-engineering the official client and was released by
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One of the first comprehensive psychological studies of avatar communities, conducted by
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590:. It's currently abandoned, but was the first viable alternative to the official client.
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was bought by a long time Palace user, and is now used as a directory for other sites.
468:. Other popular Dollz used on The Palace were Wonderkins, Silents, and Divas (based on
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The Palace was the subject of a number of sales between companies until 2001, when
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as well as the Sci Fi channel's
Mothership palace. There was even a link to the
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The Palace's popularity peaked around 1999–2000, when
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735:"On 'The Palace,' you can be anyone you want to be"
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664:"Psychology of Cyberspace - History of The Palace"
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419:"Dollz" redirects here. For the girl group, see
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456:while catering to counter-culture audiences of
27:Computer program to access graphical chat rooms
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905:"The Palace Legacy Project - Palace History"
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64:Learn how and when to remove these messages
932:. Archived from the original on 2014-04-12
485:CD-ROMs. One of the features of Idaho was
361:is a computer program to access graphical
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241:Learn how and when to remove this message
223:Learn how and when to remove this message
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889:. 15 November 1999. Archived from
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172:"The Palace" computer program
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796:Greenwood, Melicia (2003-09-11).
45:This article has multiple issues.
733:Carpenter, Nicole (2018-03-29).
595:Incompatible Palace-like clients
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53:or discuss these issues on the
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825:Borgeson, Mitch (2003-10-07).
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694:"Palace Portal Live Directory"
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858:"www.avatarbodycollision.org"
772:"Where do Sk8ters come from?"
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668:Psychology of Cyberspace
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588:Brainhouse Laboratories
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798:"The Originz of Dollz"
611:user-generated content
421:The Dollz (girl group)
407:, similar to those in
148:relies excessively on
535:Open Text Corporation
530:website at the time.
930:"Life at the Palace"
893:on 15 November 1999.
827:"Playing with dollz"
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934:. Retrieved
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913:. Retrieved
909:the original
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891:the original
887:"South Park"
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870:. Retrieved
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802:the original
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47:Please help
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740:The Outline
640:Second Life
432:smiley face
409:comic books
335:Proprietary
964:Categories
936:2013-09-17
915:2016-10-09
872:2015-03-23
843:2010-03-29
808:2010-03-29
782:2021-07-24
751:2021-07-24
704:2016-08-11
647:References
575:PalaceChat
554:John Suler
524:South Park
519:South Park
470:Diva Starz
359:The Palace
348:.thepalace
254:The Palace
183:newspapers
150:references
95:improve it
50:improve it
832:Salon.com
770:Cyberia.
634:CyberTown
616:OpenVerse
601:The Manor
503:Collision
495:Pig Latin
435:emoticons
429:spherical
363:chat room
213:June 2007
111:July 2018
99:verifying
56:talk page
945:cite web
866:Archived
837:Archived
776:Archived
745:Archived
698:Archived
678:June 24,
672:Archived
623:See also
510:nu metal
487:IPTSCRAE
379:Mac OS X
375:Mac OS 9
299:Mac OS X
295:Mac OS 9
607:Worlize
560:Privacy
480:History
466:skaters
450:fanzine
415:Avatars
398:Palaces
367:palaces
341:Website
330:License
197:scholar
93:Please
581:Linpal
464:, and
454:Barbie
439:bitmap
405:avatar
385:, and
323:client
305:, and
199:
192:
185:
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170:
512:band
491:Forth
462:goths
458:preps
446:Dollz
383:Linux
303:Linux
204:JSTOR
190:books
18:Dollz
951:link
680:2020
514:Korn
489:, a
448:. A
350:.com
314:Type
176:news
547:MP3
472:).
346:www
152:to
97:by
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