Sony Home - The official thread*

Well I think it might help if Sony decides to make Home open to more platforms such as PC's like Second Life does and also develop it beyond the Playstation related features.
 
This is one of the many ways to come up with a metaphor to organize and spice up "open-ended" 2D/3D virtual worlds:
http://xkcd.com/802/

... but there are other ways. e.g., generating a world based on search keywords or tags (like Google TV).

EDIT:
Home's XMB-based world selection is good (because it's fast to get into) but may not be suitable for an open world. The Home menu speed is also slowed down significantly by the pre-caching.
 
I hope the Home team reads this:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...Ds_Soul_Design_Must_Want_To_Say_Something.php

"It was all to do with freedom," he says. At GDC Online, Bartle presented a surprisingly subversive history of MUD, elegantly masking a critique of modern design values and the class system in the guise of a history lesson about MUD.

…

"We wanted people to be able to escape the confines of the real world, to try on new identities, to be... not so much new people, but to try to find out the people they really were."

…

Nowadays, given any budget to conceive a world game, people would conceive of the world or genre first -- an approach to conceiving games that Bartle says is premature, as it makes assumptions about what's possible. Developing the "physics" of the world first can create room for conceiving new ideas the developer couldn't have previously imagined.

[Talks about immersion]

"There are, however, more legitimate reasons not to put this kind of thing in," he concedes. One of them is that it can annoy players: would they really have more fun if their character's movement was encumbered by the actual weight of all the gold coins they had collected? MUD's original maxim of conformity to reality in the absence of a reason still applies: a good reason to overlook some principles would be not annoying players, he says.

"[If] you're simulating for no purpose, you can just abstract that out," he suggests.

…

At the beginning of MUD, Bartle and Trubshaw might have been a little bit over-ambitious. They wanted to make a world richly-featured enough to be self-sustaining, but unable to do so, Bartle suggested "game-ifying" MUD a bit, hence implementing the equipment, scoring and leveling mechanics that helped it resemble the RPGs of today a little more. Players needed something to do.

…

And therein Bartle revealed one of MUD's goals that he'd never publicly disclosed before: He and Trubshaw ultimately decided in favor of implementing levels as a response to the "current social order". It was an intentional political statement, he says.

…

But the MMOs that followed, he says, took those foundations and implemented them without context; mere achievement-oriented leveling without a purpose is just consumerism, and lacks any purpose besides "get stuff."

"The why is important," he stresses. "All these choices that Roy and I had... you can still make those choices today."

MUD was "a contrivance... it was Roy and I ripping into our awful situation in the British class system," he explains. "What we wanted to do was to say unpalatable things about the real world through the protected frame of 'it's just a game.'"

Designers working on games "must want to say something... if you're a game designer, you have to have some of your soul in the game design. Because otherwise it's just superficial, there's no vision to it, no substance to it. And that's the biggest lesson I'd like to give you from here," he concluded.
Click to expand...

As a 3D world, Home feels like a "void" because of a lack of purpose and identity. It's also not "real/immersive" enough (Look at the emotionless characters). And no, statements like "We are a 3D world for gamers" doesn't count.

Yet if we want to connect PS3 gamers together, why make it difficult with so many useless 3D buildings and structures ? Where are the meat ? Why are they so scattered ? Why is the ClubHouse abandoned ? What can I do to meet PS3 gamers that are similar to myself ? Or at least play the same games ?

"a good reason to overlook some principles would be not annoying players, he says. "[If] you're simulating for no purpose, you can just abstract that out"
Click to expand...

[ECHO]

[echo]

[size=-2][e-c-h-o][/size]


[size=-2]EDIT: God, I so ph*cking hate it when I see people in large organizations waste resources like that. Even if the Home team is on a lean budget, the management is wasting opportunities and blocking progress - IMHO ^_^.

There are more gold in PS Home ! ...still waiting for you to uncover after 2-3 years.[/size]
 
Something for Sony's Home team to chew on...
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...er-created-content-store-earns-modders-USD50k

Royalties from the new in-game user-created content store in Valve's multiplayer shooter Team Fortress 2 have approached $50,000 for some players.

Five modders, who won a competition to have their creations featured, earned five-figure sums from the in-game Mann Co. Store - which opened just a fortnight ago.

Creators keep 25 per cent of all item sales, with the rest going to Valve. The highest-revealed royalty payment to date is $47,000, meaning Valve would have taken approximately $140,000 from the sales of just one modder's content.

...
Click to expand...


EDIT: May work for LBP 2 also.
 
I would hope so. Although LBP2 suffers from stuff getting lost, the LBP.me website and hotlinks to queue levels makes it easier to find an audience. A lot of work can go into creating the best stuff, and it seems fair to give something back to the creators for their time. Even if it's more something from Sony, a kind of sponsorship, rather than actual payment. But certainly for Home and I feel for LBP, something like Valve's UGC incentives is going to generate more content (not really a problem with LBP!) and higher quality content.
 
Home needs an update. They need to replace the 2xAA with MLAA, and improve framerate in general. Load times need to be faster and texture filtering could be improved too.
 
http://www.alphazone4.com/2010/10/playstation-homes-sodium-one-hits-1-million-players

With over a million eager Home fans having skipped merrily through the Sodium Salt Flats and 100 million Scorpions triumphantly stomped, it looks like Sodium Fans have voted with their feet (all 2 million of them).

As Sodium rapidly approaches its first birthday there is, perhaps, no finer gift than the 1 Millionth player stepping through the neon arches of the Sodium Hub.

Before we go any further a massive THANK YOU to you, our players and friends.

Over the next week we are opening up a few treats to celebrate this momentous event, including:

* A Golden 1 in a Million Emoticon

* Increased Credit Rewards for Scorpio Bar Staff and customers

* Sodium One – Salt Shooter now discounted to an amazing € 3.49//$3.48//£2.99

* Plus Extended Free Access to Salt Shooter levels

If your club is holding its own celebration do please let us know via the Sodium One facebook page!
Click to expand...
 
Dungeonscaper said:
Home needs an update. They need to replace the 2xAA with MLAA, and improve framerate in general. Load times need to be faster and texture filtering could be improved too.
Click to expand...

It is getting one... but may be just mundane server upgrade ? :p
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2010/10/27/playstation-network-regular-scheduled-maintenance-7/

PlayStation Network will undergo maintenance tomorrow, October 28. Maintenance is expected to start at just after 7:00 am Pacific and will last for several hours, until approximately 3:30 pm Pacific. During this time, users won’t be able to access the PlayStation Store, PlayStation Home or Account Management, and may encounter difficulty while signing in to PSN.
Click to expand...
 
Dungeonscaper said:
Home needs an update. They need to replace the 2xAA with MLAA, and improve framerate in general. Load times need to be faster and texture filtering could be improved too.
Click to expand...

I don't think I can fully agree with that the load times need to be faster at this point though - they've come a long way on that front.
 
Yes, they have come a long way; but the load speed is still too slow for quick access. For heavy users like me, I like to have a quick glance of what's new every time I go in. But the launcher prevents me from doing anything useful for a good 10 - 15 seconds.

The text message of the day doesn't really explain a lot. And the other problem is, they don't highlight the goodies at all. So the common experience is to wait, walk some more, wait, etc.
 
Ah, it's not just the distribution part (RSS, web, podcast, whatever).

First, there is the community backend that's missing. They don't have a mechanism to analyze and identify what's hot in the PSN or Home world (from the consumers' perspectives, not business intelligence/CRM). It's all up to the 2 (or more) community managers. The managers don't have the latest insights into the gamers' playing habits and events. It's too time consuming and "buried" too deeply to check manually. A good community will surface these interesting user activities/behaviour.

Then there's the mechanism to allow the user momentum to sustain itself. For the most part, this means *persistent* user content (like forum posts).

Home is relying on "hard" real-time traffic to keep the place populated. It is very difficult to grow this way due to timezone differences. Imagine Arwin, Shifty and I can't see each other. Many of our exchanges wouldn't exist.

Then at the top, a good and speedy UI to help navigate through the mundane info. All the meaningless activities (like walking ? ^_^) should be skipped, or at least skippable.

EDIT: Okay, Home does have its own forum but it exists on playstation.com. Should be integrated into the Home world in a fun way so that people will read them from Home, rather than from the web browser.
 
http://www.siliconera.com/2010/11/0...ser-spends-70-minutes-in-sonys-virtual-world/

Speaking at the Digital Media Conference, Peter Dille, Senior Vice President of Marketing at SCEA, talked about PlayStation Home. Sony’s Second Life style service has 16 million users and the average time spent in home is 70 minutes. "And, users are spending money, which is a big reason why we’re doing it [PlayStation Home]," Dille commented during that portion of his talk.
Click to expand...

Dille also mentioned with PlayStation Network they are starting app-like initiatives such as Netflix. "Later this year we’re going to be introducing a music service that we don’t have today," Dille announced. He may have meant Qriocity, which was announced for Europe, but not confirmed for North America.
Click to expand...

2 more million users since June this year.
 
If they try ? I think they are trying already, albeit with a timid budget. :p

There is a random, (completely unreliable) Home 2.0 development rumor.
I'll eat my shoes with peanut butter if they release something that is close to what I wish for. ^_^
 
Home 1.4:
http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2010/11/05/playstation-home-client-update-1-4/

PS Home client update 1.4 will be released during maintenance next Thursday, 11th November.

...

Wardrobe Improvements

* The ability to mark items you use commonly as “Favourite” items – making them easier to relocate.

* Newly acquired items will be marked to make them easy to locate. This marking will also appear on categories that contain new items.

* Options for filtering and sorting items have been added, giving you more control over which items you see and how you see them.

New Group Feature and Chat Improvements

The new Group feature will allow up to 8 people to join together in a group. Groups have dedicated voice and chat channels that work regardless of where in Home each group member is located. New voice and chat channels will also be made available for clubs, making communication with your club friends much easier.
Click to expand...
 
New Group Feature and Chat Improvements

The new Group feature will allow up to 8 people to join together in a group. Groups have dedicated voice and chat channels that work regardless of where in Home each group member is located. New voice and chat channels will also be made available for clubs, making communication with your club friends much easier.
Click to expand...

OOOOOOOH! Finally. :) That's such a vital addition to Home!
 
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