Home gets home on PlayStation.com

There’s almost nothing you can do, it’s basically a glorified 3D chatroom and online store where you’re encouraged to spend real money on virtual crap. I wonder why it’s taking so long to make? What’s so difficult about it, considering that unlike online multiplayer games or proper MMOs there’s no actual game to fine-tune in there?

They’re probably trying to make it interesting.

Pat, the thing is out of NDA.

A beta tester said to me that the NDA expired for it at midnight GMT.

http://gamzsonev3.wordpress.com/2008/11/25/nda-for-playstation-home-is-gone/

Didn’t they also say they were putting in an SDK for the creation of player/third-party content? In that case, it’s likely going to be another SecondLife, and all that Smarty said stands true to SecondLife, and yet that’s going through a popularity boom at the moment.

In fact, SecondLife is so popular that Home isn’t the only clone. Life on Blue Mars is another that looks particularly interesting, but I won’t go into that right now.

I suppose it depends on whether they provide an SDK for user created content or not, goodness knows it’s kept the rotting cadavers of Oblivion and Morrowind alive, and left good games where there would only otherwise have been uninspired shite. User-created content though is what keeps a number of forms of entertainment alive, and you don’t even have to have a large amount of people creating content.

That’s why I think that LBP will go through a bit of a popularity boom itself about six months or so down the line, when the learning and the efforts of the creative community there come to fruition.

Even with an SDK though, Home might be a bit bland at launch, so I suspect not many will spend much time with it then, but providing Sony has an SDK in the wings, it could go through a renaissance just like the aforementioned. That’s how these things go.

Second Life is uncensored though isn’t it?

Sony won’t allow people freedom to create stuff. Look at all the LBP levels they are pulling from the system.

A corporate entity like Sony will never really allow freedom in user created content.

I thought the only people actually playing Second Life were journalists and corporations who think that it’s chock-full of real people because they read it in the Daily Mail?

Yep, extremely boring so far and the adds are very annoying, especially when you hear the same trailer 30 times while playing billiards.
But so far it’s only taking up a few hundred MB so there are around 3GB that are waiting to be filled.

You got on it Syrok? Nice one.

Yes, well I wasn’t chosen by Sony but someone had a spare code and was so nice to give it to me.

Well, aren’t you lucky.

It can take up 3gb? Holey moley. That’s a lot of adverts.

i think the reason why its taking so long to CUM out is because the longer they wait the more eager people will be to get it, so more people will get it then more people will buy virtual shit.

Eager!?!?!?

I think you’ll actually find that interest levels are inversely-proportional to development time.

I would go as far that my interest has dropped to zero thanks to the beta.

Got an invite yesterday and played with it for a bit. It’s really pants. Just as I feared, a lot of people running around aimlessly, breaking into dance moves and emoting like spazzers every 30 secs. I think most people will have a giggle with it once it comes out, then it’ll become a barren place once people realise it doesn’t do anything apart from losing them what little time they have to play games to start with.

My friend who got Home said that there was barely any customisation options in Home so that maybe why it’s not so good right plus the fact there isn’t that many people in it.

Come open beta time, it should alright.

Yep, the customisations are very limited at the moment, but I guess that will improve once they unlock more areas and move from the beta to the real thing. For now I deleted everything in the apartment and then put dozen of tables and chairs on top of each other in the hope to break the game, which didn’t work.

What I do hope is that they get some people on board who have a sense for fashion and hairstyles. Both are really horrible.

As for the customisation of the character, I would say it’s at the same level as Oblivion and such (limited to humans, obviously)

Can you make them fat? They never seem to allow that.

Not fat by American standard but you can make them overweight. And old.
Obviously few people are doing that.
What I’ve learned in the few hours is that making a good looking female character is not a good decision if you just want to walk around with no one bothering you.

”Yep, the customisations are very limited at the moment”

so what can you actually customize? i don’t have a ps3 so lemme know guys!
how does it compare to the wii/360?

Well, the face, hair, colour of your skin, height, weight and clothes of your avatar.
In the apartment you have a selection of two chairs, one couch, two table and a lamp. You can place them wherever you like. Oh and you have a choice of I think 5 wallpapers.
That’s about it. So the apartments all look the same, people wear more or less the same clothes and since most people want to have good looking characters or don’t care about it at all, the avatars all look a like.

Edit: To sum it up, the range and style of clothes needs to be upgraded and more furniture is needed. Undoubtedly both will happen at some stage.

kinda dissapointing no?

Not if you were sceptical about it from the start. Although I have to say it managed to be even more boring then I thought and judging by the comments and voice chats I listened into there are a few who didn’t enjoy it all that much.