In research on Massively Multiple Online Games and Worlds (MMOs) like World of War-
craft, Everquest or Second Life, the term “worldness” addresses how the various layers of a
virtual world–the animated 3D pictorial spectacle, the interactive world of mobile non-
player characters, the virtual community of other players– all hang together as an
autonomous “world.” This article deploys Bakhtinian concepts of chronotopes operating at
different scales to explore the worldness of one such online “world” (Ryzom’s Atys). I will
show that these different layered chronotopes become visible at moments of crisis. In each
crisis, the chronotopic worldness of Atys affords developers and players not only a domain
for potential conflict, but also political collaboration and engagement.

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