Assalamualaikum & good day readers!

    First of all, it has been a while since I’ve written a blog and my writing skills ain’t that great as they used to be.

But no worries, the reason why I’m publishing this post is regarding a topic that you have read from the title itself.

“Experiences Before & During Pandemic in VRChat | Kampung Melayu”

Another view of Kampung Melayu

Yes, VRChat. The social game that has been booming with an increase of players this year (2020). VRChat community itself has been expanded especially for Malaysian players during the MCO happened. I, myself started playing VRChat when it was still in beta version in the year, 2017 but I left it for so long until I decided to play again during MCO last March because I was bored and I wanted to practice my communication skills. Not long after I started playing VRChat again, went into different world maps like Japan Shrine (home to Japanese players) and Hwabon Night (home to Korean players), one day I found myself a new world just published and recommended on the home page, named Kampung Melayu. I thought to myself that it must be from Malaysia because of the Melayu. I entered the world and the first thing I saw was a 3D model replication of a kampung house surrounded with coconut trees, a yellow Myvi car, and a car garage with another Proton car inside. Day by day, weeks and weeks, of entering Kampung Melayu, I have met a lot of Malaysian players and started to have a group of friends to hang out with. Not only that, it became popular to players outside of Malaysia too, especially ASEAN countries. Unfortunately, I had to go on hiatus on VRChat for a while due to focus on my internship. I came back during Ramadan month & stayed again till Raya Eid. We had lots of memories together especially online til we had to remind each other to have our sahoor and we even shared about what we ate for sahoor and breaking fast. Kampung Melayu existence from April 2020 has expanded its own community with various players entering with their interesting and unique avatars to exchange culture and learning Bahasa Melayu which is why I decided to choose Kampung Melayu’s community as my main focus on this research purpose. For this research, I interviewed some people who were in Kampung Melayu last Wednesday and Thursday. I mainly asked about their experiences in playing VRChat before and during the pandemic happened earlier this year.

You can watch the interview video here:

There’s a thing when it comes to VRChat whereby, us, players tend to take photos (screenshots) of us in a group of people in front of the mirror. It is usually because of trying out new avatars but we just have that instinct to take photos as memories as well.

Here are some photos that I found memorable for me:

We tried out new avatars wearing Baju Melayu in prepare for Raya Eid Fitri

Me trying out the markers feature and write out ‘Selamat Hari Raya’ in Jawi

Me (second from the right), and my group of friends having a photo session in the pondok (hut)

We chilling nearby the jetty in Kampung Melayu (credits to Toshi for the photo)

Me (right), Yami_Hime (middle), and Madsaitama (left)

(credits to Yami_Hime for the photo)

A photo of my Korean friend, Haru, after the first time I met him in Kampung Melayu

    In conclusion, I felt like Kampung Melayu feels right at home every time and have that sense of belonging in the VRChat Malaysia community. Socialising in VRChat has become a new normal for me as all of us are having a rough time communicating with each other in real life. I also get to meet a lot of new online friends that I never thought I will get along with until now even when I’m typing this post, I am chit-chatting with my VRChat friends. Not only that, at a time like this, VRChat has been a place not only to expand your circle of online friends but also be open-minded on getting know about other things like learning a new language, learning other people’s culture, exchanging thoughts on today’s issues, and many more. Being in VRChat during this pandemic has taught me a lot about how nowadays people be living differently with their new normal. Although sometimes I might not always coming into VRChat, but if I do have time, I would go and meet my Malaysian, and international VRChat friends and ‘Hi’, to them. It has been a great experience for me so far and I enjoy being in VRChat a lot. Are they any differences in VRChat from before and during the pandemic? I would say Yes especially from I had only a few amounts of friends, and now, I have over 50 people in my friends although some of them aren’t active anymore for 3-4 months when the MCO is over, even with RMCO they’re busy with their in real-life jobs most of the time.

That’s all from me and my experience in VRChat as a player from Malaysia! Till we meet again!