There is a very real reason why I don’t touch social MMOs. The people that live in them are a bit too weird for my personal tastes. I’m not talking about people who play to enjoy themselves, or buy property or even to discover others whose tastes might be comparable. I’m talking about the people that dress their avatars with bunny ears and refuse to use any variant of language other than "rabbit." If anything, one could easily say that there is an odd culture that accompanies these avatar driven games.
Thankfully, flying penises and furry costumes probably won’t be allowed in Home. If you fell off the bus on videogame news for the last year, Home is basically the Sony version of Second Life. Unlike Second Life though, Home restricts players to just walking around, conversing, and exploring the tools of the Sony dashboard in a 3D environment. Players will have the option to create unique avatars, decorate their own apartments and even watch trailers.
The reason I bring this up is that on our wonderful nation’s holiday, PSN director Eric Lampel tried to reassure PS3 owners that the oft-delayed Home will come out for real this fall. Unfortunately, despite Sony’s attempts to coddle my expectations, I feel that it may finally be time to just suck it up and say that Home could possibly blow.
Click on to allow me to elaborate.
I have to start out by saying that I am a happy PS3 owner, even in the lean times. I enjoy the fact that patch 2.4.1 will not brick my system, and I will probably even enjoy collecting Trophies whenever a developer decides to actually utilize the functionality. I especially enjoy how all of the PSN stuff is set up. When I turn on my PS3, I’m not being told about how amazing Battlefield: Bad Company is, nor am I forced to traverse a different ad every time I desire to switch to a task that I want to accomplish on the dashboard. Yet, this fall when Home comes out, I am afraid that may all change.
The simplicity of PSN is what draws me to the service. There is very little clutter and few distractions on the way to downloading whatever I desire. Home isn’t just an endeavor to be the one place where PS3 gamers can finally collide. It will be also utilized as a marketing tool, and heavily so. Just think of it this way. You create your avatar, complete with a pair of Nikes and an Old Navy Tee, and then traverse to your apartment furnished for free by Home Depot, with the option to buy more furniture from Ikea.
It could keep getting worse. You take your avatar outside the apartment and immediately differing retailers assault you. A GameStop is on the corner, pawning shitty mini-games. 3D Realms is across the street with an ad for Duke Nukem Forever stating “sometime this year.” The movie theaters where you can watch trailers all have commercials before they start. Or maybe someone could even walk up to you and offer you a product as a limited time offer.
These aren’t just the dreams of a scared editor. This is the realization of what Sony wants with Home. Sony wants a living, breathing version of Qore, set for eager people to consume.
If the bulk of that doesn’t worry you, then perhaps the clutter will. PSN is awesome because you can find what you need, when you want it. It’s much unlike the Live service where you have to sort through Shitty RC Fun-Fun Adventure and Kinda like Pacman but Isn’t before you can find N+ or Penny Arcade Adventures. Home could welcome in a ton of new content that neither I nor Sony is probably adequately prepared for. Will there be tight restrictions? Who has the qualifications to say that content created for Home users is not up to snuff?
As I mentioned previously, in Home, we’ll never have to worry about seeing an avatar with a penis for a face. What about a video of a guy with a penis for a face? How about a picture? Uploading pictures and videos have been confirmed for Home. While I am sure it will be policed just as heavily as YouTube, we all know that stuff falls through the cracks. Really creepy, gross or provocative things fall through the cracks on a daily basis. I really don’t want to see a grotesque thumbnail of a video anytime I peruse the user content for cool videos.
One of the things Eric Lempel said was that Home was going to be an interactive beta process. He even likened it to the way Google handled their Gmail client. While Gmail has always worked in some capacity, it took the service awhile to truly be superior to its competition. I don’t like the idea of any game, social networking tool or not, releasing in some format outside of finished. Unfinished means "open for exploits, bugs, crashes, patching, and lockouts." How exciting does that sound?
I really want Home to be a cool experience. I want to look forward to walking around in a perpetual environment and interacting with people between games. I’m just afraid that it isn’t going to happen. Between the ads, user-created content, and beta format, the software has quite a few cards stacked up against it. I think at this point, it may be safer to consider that Home could suck, instead of hope for its greatness.
Contest:
10:19 PM on 07.09.2008
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So Home will be no different, yet people who like SecondLife/MMO's will be the early adopters, and once Sony brings cool exciting features (Like live pre-battle planning, watching live races on plasma screens, or a giant LBP character eating people at the movie theater) then the rest of the average players will jump in as well.
Just so you know, it actually means "an accidental stroke of luck". Which, actually, I guess home might have?
You have been promoted to UberGrammarFührer.
That's what Home is to me.
It's also the fin of a whale. He was really using it wrong.
As for Home, I'm excited about what it's going to bring to the table. After watching that video you guys have up a while ago about inviting friends straight into game scenarios, I was more excited than ever.
Also, as far as simplicity goes, I think you'll still be able to just use the regular XMB to make things much faster. I'll probably be using that more often than anything else.
Let's see how that works in context...
"i say its better than nothing. in fact, its a lot better than nothing. it will have its flatfishes, just because its impossible to make something like this without flatfishes, but it will still be enjoyable, not to mention free."
Yup! Makes sense to me :D
Out of interest, how long do you expect it to stay free for??
Sounds like someone is a little bitter about paying for Xbox Live.
Maybe I'm just missing it since every MMORPG I've played I go "oh, I got a house I can decorate", put a potted plant up, then never return there again.
Same here. I don't understand any of the enthusiasm Home. It's as pointless as second life, but even more so in that you cant actually do anything. It's merely a cumbersome way to chat with people seeing as how you have to move your character around to look at things rather than skim a dashboard page or press a few buttons/clicks of a mouse. And since when was looking at other people's trophies and achievements anything more than a waste of time that you inevitably regret 5 minutes later? Only this time, you have to move an awkwardly dressed/nerdy digital avatar around to see them. I'm usually all for being nerdy, but this is crossing the boundary into incredibly lame.
Also if you don't like the clutter, don't use home. It's not like it will be mandatory to use home anyway. And if you need extra quick access, there is in-game XMB now.
its quite similar to home.
You ma'am, are an utter noob.
And no, you're not a guy, anymore.
I fail to see where exactly this becomes the revolutionary application everyone seems to think it is?
And the Live menu complaints are a little ridiculous, aren't they? It makes no sense to complain about flipping through Live's menus when the PS3 UI was so slowwwww and unresponsive for so long.
Hell, we PS3 owners just got XMB, and I remember PS3 owners practically begging for background downloading. Home is the wrong direction for the PS3 to be heading in.
Menus > 3D avatars.
Home isn't really meant for everyone....can't you see where this appeals to girls more? It entails dressing, buying, socializing, etc..... This is meant to appeal to a group of gamers that aren't part of the hardcore, which you and I certainly are a part of. There is no excitement for us really in the basic Home function, the specialized rooms set up by Insomniac or Ingoc are where we'll be going to set up strategy's for our clans. Personally I think Home is neat, but I'm sure I won't spend much time in it. There are sure to be people that spend LOTS of time in it though.
@PixelJunky
"This is meant to appeal to a group of gamers that aren't part of the hardcore, which you and I certainly are a part of."
Thank you sir, you just made me puke my guts out.
I've always thought Home was just a trojan horse to get marketing for sony's 'brands and partners' onto the TV's of their key demographic. (I'm thinking the 'key demographic' in this case would be idiots who want to dress up a Mii and walk it around a Disney version of Second Life chatting with other idiots about how much they hate playing videogames on their $400 console.)
No offense taken. I didn't really mean to come off as a fanboy though.
I was just pointing out some inconsistencies in Brad's posting. Brad states that Live's ads are intrusive, then turns around and mentions that Home will probably do the same thing, only in 3D. Honestly, what sounds more intrusive: a Live menu ad (or Steam for that matter), or a 3D avatar? Protip: one is more avoidable than the other.
I see Home's appeal, especially with the War Room, video sharing, and other social aspects. But I don't see casual players buying a PS3 for it, especially with Second Life and Google's offering now available. They rather waggle with their Mii's I suppose, if you follow current sales stats.
Like I said, I'm a PS3 owner. I spend a lot of time navigating through Live, Steam, and the PS3 UI. I find Live to be the least obtrusive of the three. Steam's pop-ups are annoying, and I find the PS3 to be not as snappy as Live or Steam. The PS3 really needs to concentrate on making XMB the best it can be, rather than copy Second Life
And, even then, Home is and will always remain optional. You're not losing your sleek, non-advertisement laden, accessible, quick XMB.
I'm confused though, is Home going to replace what the PSN is now? If so, why would they do that? That's completely asinine. At least give people a fucking choice instead of just taking away their options.
My "bias" is the thought that gamers sitting at their gaming machines during their gaming time might not be that interested in wandering a 3d chatroom located in a mall as they would be, oh I don't know, playing games.
http://www.lively.com
This is why you suck. Instead of writing what your concearn is, you take every step to shit on what you aren't talking about.
Anyone who actually owns a 360 and has it connected to an internet connection knows you fail. I'm shocked this was even allowed on the front page with is fanboyish bile packed to the tee.
There are things I'm interested in about it: 1) Virtual Events. 2) Streaming media in your apartment. 3) Nothing else
It already looks better, but, since I can't demo it or play it yet.. I'll be waiting to see.