A system providing a graphical chat room and/or virtual world on a website in which users can control avatars or other characters to participate in activities and interact with other users' avatars/characters. The chat room or virtual world has a large common location where a large number of users might participate with their characters/avatars, but where because display of all of the participants and/or all of the area becomes impractical or otherwise unwieldy, the system determines an appropriate portion of the area and a limited number of avatars/characters to display based on some criteria.