Sony Home - The official thread*

[Arwin]

Patsu, there is one thing I dont' understand. I could use my friends list in Home and simply click on a friend to join him and instantly I was in a (German ) bowling alley chatting with him. When I created a game for warhawk, I could configure how many I wanted open for all, and how many reserved for friends ... so that's all there?

 

[goonergaz]

Does anyone know if you can meet up with friends from different regions? For example, I may have a Japanese friend but I'm on the EU server and he's on the JP server...

TIA

 

[patsu]

Patsu, there is one thing I dont' understand. I could use my friends list in Home and simply click on a friend to join him and instantly I was in a (German ) bowling alley chatting with him. When I created a game for warhawk, I could configure how many I wanted open for all, and how many reserved for friends ... so that's all there?

It's my fault.

I haven't tried any Friends List interaction @ Home yet. Once you have found him/her/them, how do you go to a new space at the same time ? Will the party feature make sure the entire party is always in the same Home instance (as long as the party is still intact) ?

I was also referring to finding new friends. e.g., Will the above feature work with the "Recently Played" list ?

Generally speaking, I am looking for an @Home way to learn about PS3 gamers; both in the same space and those outside. It helps to come up with chat topics (or improve the social experience). The MyPSN/Portable Id feature would be a start. Basically make some of those profile information public and accessible from Home.

Does anyone know if you can meet up with friends from different regions? For example, I may have a Japanese friend but I'm on the EU server and he's on the JP server...

TIA

You should be able to in 1.0 but you may need to use accounts from the same region (which sucks). Previously, we were not able to visit other regions at all.

 

[Arwin]

Just when I was b*tching...

Now EU people are on par with us.playstation.com for the Portable PSN Id feature: http://www.community.eu.playstation.com/playstationeu/board/message?board.id=138&thread.id=15419

I actually like it better than the all-black US one.

Quick, integrate a gamer friend search with Home.

Great. I updated mine. Now it still has to work with Beyond3d ...

 

[goonergaz]

you may need to use accounts from the same region (which sucks). Previously, we were not able to visit other regions at all.

Thanks, but that totally confused my fried brain!

If they're the same region how are you visiting a different region!?

 

[patsu]

If both of you are in different regions (say US and Japan), the Japan guy will need to create a US account to visit you in the US region. You will need to create a Japan account to visit him in the Japan region.

 

[tuna]

I don't care about many of the shallow things done @ Home (Bubble machine, static 3rd party game spaces). Even for apartments, it is very difficult to position furniture and items properly (because of parallax problems). I hate it when I can't align them against the wall, or w.r.t. each other. If it's such a hassle, why not just give me a polished 2D items interface ?

I haven't tried HOME, but doing what you are describing is pretty difficult, and I get paid to develop such stuff. Have you tried any other interior design software such as Configura's CET, and if so, how do HOME compare?

 

[patsu]

I am speaking from a user's standpoint

Is it possible to show me a top-down view of the layout (and let me shift the furniture in the 2D layout) ?
Or have some sort of grid snap to help align them ?

 

[Arwin]

It's my fault.

I haven't tried any Friends List interaction @ Home yet. Once you have found him/her/them, how do you go to a new space at the same time ?

Will the party feature make sure the entire party is always in the same Home instance (as long as the party is still intact) ?[/quote]

Well I'm not sure, but you can always choose a party leader and then choose 'join ... '.

I was also referring to finding new friends. e.g., Will the above feature work with the "Recently Played" list ?

Recently Played will only show people that you have actually played a game with outside of Home. Inside Home, however, you can simply select the user and choose 'Add to Friends List', which is awesome. I played a really exciting game of Chess with someone who was a pretty close match for me and he's now on my friends list so we can play a rematch sometime.

I also went to my friendslist today and noticed one of my real life friends also got into Home, and I simply clicked 'join xxx' and I found him. You can also choose 'Invite ... '.

Generally speaking, I am looking for an @Home way to learn about PS3 gamers; both in the same space and those outside. It helps to come up with chat topics (or improve the social experience). The MyPSN/Portable Id feature would be a start. Basically make some of those profile information public and accessible from Home.

You can choose 'view profile' on any player you see. So that already works just fine.

You should be able to in 1.0 but you may need to use accounts from the same region (which sucks). Previously, we were not able to visit other regions at all.

Yes, as mentioned, cross region interaction is only possible in clubhouses and private spaces for now. Still, that's not bad. Certainly good enough for online parties (for, say, Killzone or Resistance 2 Coop).

I have to say, in terms of party system, friends interaction and meeting new players, Home is already pretty good! Would be great if we can start all online games from Home, rather than just Warhawk (the rest you can obviously start from 'in-game' XMB now of course. I'm expecting the GT5 Prologue party features will probably be in Home then, which is good.

My wife loves all the attention she gets and has been interacting with some people. I'll have to be careful. There is no 'game' (except maybe Buzz) she's spent as much time with as this, and the only one she's wanted to play even when I'm not playing along.

As for the furniture, I haven't tried, but can't you move furniture down to the ground before you drop it, and then move it until it hits the other furniture? I haven't played around with this much yet.

 

[DJ12]

Has anyone tried sharing the "openish" closed beta?

 

[patsu]

Has anyone tried sharing the "openish" closed beta?

Yes, someone in GAF tried that.

I also went to my friendslist today and noticed one of my real life friends also got into Home, and I simply clicked 'join xxx' and I found him. You can also choose 'Invite ... '.

That's great ! I don't have any friend or game to party with from Home right now since I am abyssal in Warhawk.

You can choose 'view profile' on any player you see. So that already works just fine.

Yeah but I am looking for something deeper. On the web, you have their home pages, facebook or myspace profiles to check out. Those informal info provide a lot of context for fooling around and making new friends. Come on, Portable ID profile.

Yes, as mentioned, cross region interaction is only possible in clubhouses and private spaces for now. Still, that's not bad. Certainly good enough for online parties (for, say, Killzone or Resistance 2 Coop).

What do you mean interaction ? I can visit Japan Home using my Japan account. Are you saying that outside a clubhouse or private space, a player in Japan will not be able to add me to his friends list or party with me from Home (even when I'm using my Japan account) ?

I have to say, in terms of party system, friends interaction and meeting new players, Home is already pretty good! Would be great if we can start all online games from Home, rather than just Warhawk (the rest you can obviously start from 'in-game' XMB now of course. I'm expecting the GT5 Prologue party features will probably be in Home then, which is good.

Almost but I think it can be confusing.

My wife loves all the attention she gets and has been interacting with some people. I'll have to be careful. There is no 'game' (except maybe Buzz) she's spent as much time with as this, and the only one she's wanted to play even when I'm not playing along.

Ha ha ! I know that feeling. It was the opposite for me last time although I have outgrown it somewhat.

As for the furniture, I haven't tried, but can't you move furniture down to the ground before you drop it, and then move it until it hits the other furniture? I haven't played around with this much yet.

Not with 0.9.8. I think 1.0 hasn't changed that part.

 

[goonergaz]

If both of you are in different regions (say US and Japan), the Japan guy will need to create a US account to visit you in the US region. You will need to create a Japan account to visit him in the Japan region.

Thanks, that's a bit pants isn't it

 

[Arwin]

Yes, right now you cannot visit the Home spaces of other regions. This is simply because otherwise they have trouble getting the licencing stuff right, which to me seems fair (e.g. they could have a deal with certain clothing type brands in one region, and different in other, and different arcade machines in yet another, etc.). So the solution they have right now is that they have the clubhouses and private spaces still accessible from all regions. So I can invite you into my clubhouse or private space if I'm from a different region, and therefore it still works for a lot of stuff just fine (like setting up a party for a game, for which a clubhouse is perfect). Who knows eventually they'll manage to sort out licencing issues, but it's easy to imagine how that could be difficult, and they need to focus on getting all sorts of external parties on board first. If it is a success, they can always try to renegotiate things differently at a later stage from a better position.

 

[wco81]

So I checked it out a bit.

What are the transparent people? Those people who are not online but their avatars are persistent?

Why can't you have a pool table in your own apt?

Where do you go for game launching or is that only Warhawk?

What's there to see besides the alley or the mall?

 

[patsu]

You can bypass the region lock if you use the "right" account. So I guess the situation is this:

(A) Use your own native account => Need to use clubhouse, private space to meet players from other regions

(B) Make a new account in a different region (e.g., Japan) => You can meet people over there without using clubhouse or private spaces.

So I checked it out a bit.

What are the transparent people? Those people who are not online but their avatars are persistent?

It means that either you or them have just entered Home and the avatars are being loaded right now. I use that to gauge the players' latency. ^_^ (If it takes unusually long to load an avatar). If you're idle, you'll fall asleep in Home (See "ZZZ" and "Be back soon" indicator). If you idle for too long, you'll be logged out.

Why can't you have a pool table in your own apt?

I believe Phil Harrison mentioned, once upon a time, that you will be able to in the future. I just think that they may want some strings attached to it (like you have to pay for it or work for it in Home).

Where do you go for game launching or is that only Warhawk?

Press ^ and check out "Help". Game launching is also one of the primary menu option there. Yes, Warhawk is the only one that supports Home, but you can launch any game from Home.

What's there to see besides the alley or the mall?

Depends on what you want to do. Besides Warhawk game launching, the mini-games in the Alley and Mall are it. People who hang out @ Home right now are the chatters. The theater is playing some trailer and Listen@Home (in the Central Plaza) is testing out some elevator music.

The developer game spaces have been removed in 1.0 (The 3rd party beta spaces didn't add much to the experience really, so you're not missing anything).

 

[Arwin]

You can bypass the region lock if you use the "right" account. So I guess the situation is this:

(A) Use your own native account => Need to use clubhouse, private space to meet players from other regions

(B) Make a new account in a different region (e.g., Japan) => You can meet people over there without using clubhouse or private spaces.

Correct.

By the way, I was right about the decoration of your personal space. You can move existing furniture around until it hits something else, just like in real life, and you can put new furniture in by moving it downwards until it hits the ground, and then moving it again sideways until it hits something else. It's fairly intuitive really. It's always possible to make things easy, but this is pretty decent.

So I checked it out a bit.

What are the transparent people? Those people who are not online but their avatars are persistent?

Why can't you have a pool table in your own apt?

Where do you go for game launching or is that only Warhawk?

What's there to see besides the alley or the mall?

Transparent people are people who are in the same Home 'dimension' (instance) as you are. Their avatar and information is being downloaded and they should become regular Home people within seconds, depending on your connection speed.

You can't have a pool table in your own apt now. You can't buy anything right now. This is understandable - Sony will want to not sell things that will be erased in a later stage of the beta. This is why it will be interesting to see if this changes when the beta goes public. Because if it does and you can in fact buy stuff, then Home 1.0 is basically released and the beta name is just a name.

Right now only Warhawk is supported for game launching. You don't have to go anywhere for it, you can do it anywhere where you can be together with other Home people.

In the EU Home area, there are only 4 locations, so there aren't too many locations available yet. I'm expecting that when the beta goes public, we'll get the support for more games and locations as well.

 

[patsu]

Correct.

By the way, I was right about the decoration of your personal space. You can move existing furniture around until it hits something else, just like in real life, and you can put new furniture in by moving it downwards until it hits the ground, and then moving it again sideways until it hits something else. It's fairly intuitive really. It's always possible to make things easy, but this is pretty decent.

Ah, must have improved that ? I was pretty p*ssed off after trying to rearrange the furniture in Home last time. Either that, or I just don't get the UI. I have seen people piled up their furniture in one corner like a garbage dump. Will try again. Thanks !

 

[macabre]

Great. I updated mine. Now it still has to work with Beyond3d ...

I successfully switched from an US link to the EU link, too bad you cannot have the same link for all regions.
B3d still displays the US picture though the link is dead now...

 

[wco81]

So anyone making a B3D clubhouse?

Game launching only makes sense if it provides some features and options that the game itself doesn't offer, like easier ways to find players you want to play with.

Doesn't seem likely that developers, especially those making multiplatform games, will compromise their schedules with putting in that kind of support.

 

[Arwin]

Clubhouses will be deleted when the beta goes public with a chance that the name can't be reused. So I made one called Arwin Test (tag: Arwintes). If someone makes a B3D one, then I suggest doing something similar.

I think the complete opposite. I think most developers will add Home support, because it offers quite a lot 'for free'. What home does, using xml, is very efficient I think and easy to use for developers. However, how exactly they will use it we'll just have to wait and see. Hybrid approaches seem to be more common sense for multi-platform support for instance, where your in-game party will be filled with Home party information and such. Besides those, however, I think there will be a fair number of games that branch off more extensive party support to Home, but we'll see. I can see how it would be risky for developers to rely fully on Home when it's not something that everyone has or needs to be using by default, so it will really be all that they can meaningfully do extra outside of the XMB and the in-game party system.

One very powerful aspect of Home's party system is basically that you can use that same system for all games in a consistent manner.

It's hard to guess how things will turn out, but if you take Warhawk as an example, setting up the game from Home certainly has some advantages already.