HSM Issue #5: Online Now!
Do you know how incredibly hard it is to sit on an awesome story?
Developing one of these magazine issues isn’t the easiest process in the world; articles have to be drafted, edited, rewritten, polished and published. Then they have to be laid out, layered in with art, and assembled into a cohesive issue. Then said issue has to be polished and tested. Only at that point is it ready to be released.
It is a process that HomeStation Magazine has now repeated five times. Whilst simultaneously handling a website, a YouTube page, a Facebook page, and various video and podcast projects.
Keep in mind, by the way, that none of us make a dime off of any of this. We all do it out of a love of Home and a desire to artistically express ourselves. Cubes, our web designer, runs this little-known side project called AlphaZone4. You might’ve heard of it. Jersquall mixes and edits our podcasts, and he also runs Club HOMEinformer. Terra handles insane amounts of copy editing. And poor Mike has to, with rare exception, lay out nearly every issue of HSM singlehandedly.
All of this work takes time to come to fruition. And when you’re sitting on a really awesome story or three, that requires Herculean amounts of patience.
Our cover story is an interview with John Ardussi — someone who knows a thing or two about what goes into creating Home. Now that’s an awesome story. And, just as it takes many, many months to develop, test and deploy a virtual commodity within Home, so it takes time to bring a story like this to light. But it’s finally here, ready for you to read. We’re truly, genuinely excited to be the news source bringing this story to you.
Issue #5 also contains the hotly-anticipated results of the HSM Community Poetry Contest. That’s another story we’ve had to sit on until now. All of the contestants offered up some truly outstanding poems — all of which can be read in the HSM forum on this website — and the five winners produced some truly superlative work. It is a distinct pleasure to publish the winners.
We also have some brilliant articles from the HSM team, as well as a guest contribution by Queen_Eli that should have everyone in stitches. It should be noted that this issue actually contains far more magazine-exclusive content than any other issue we’ve published so far.
HSM, from the beginning, dedicated itself to being a source of mature and literate journalism devoted to Home; in the process, we have built up a rather extensive audience, judging by our website traffic numbers. And thus, it is with great pleasure that we unveil our fifth issue to you; on our main website page, go to the right side and click on the issue’s cover graphic (under “Latest Issue”) to go to the page, and then choose whether you would like to download the PDF or view it in Flash (we also have a PS3-friendly version for those of you who are using that browser).
Once again, thank you for choosing HomeStation Magazine; it is our distinct pleasure to continue to serve both Home’s developers and the Home community at large, and we hope you enjoy the stories we’ve compiled for you.
Mahalo nui loa,
–Norse
May 31st, 2011 by NorseGamer | 15 comments
NorseGamer is the product manager for LOOT Entertainment at Sony Pictures, as well as the founder and publisher of HomeStation Magazine. Born and raised in Silicon Valley, he holds a B.A. in English/Creative Writing from San Francisco State University and presently lives in Los Angeles. All opinions expressed in HSM are solely his and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sony DADC.
LinkedIn
Twitter
Holee crapolee, my poem’s in the magazine! Well that just made my week :>
And, as I won PSN credit from HSM (and thank you for that), I promise i’ll spend every penny of it in Home!
Great job to everyone involved in this. The interview was great Keara as always and I am glad to see Queen Eli finally join the ranks of contributors. I am so glad we have maintained this level of excellence in our ranks and I am glad to be a part of this team. It has and continues to be a learning experience for me and a humbling one at that as I read and watch the wonderful people who have made this such a great adventure in literature. And Mike and Cube I am truly grateful for your continuing support and work for us, we couldn’t do any of this without you.
wow i never new anything abot this magazine and i find it very intresting ..
wow i never new anything abot this magazine and i find it very intresting ..many thx sue kop-2
Throughly enjoyed yet another epic issue of HSM! Finest in the district!
Excellent interview with John Ardussi Norse and the poems are just another outstanding indication of what talented people the Home Community harbors. Hat’s off to all!
*High-fives* to Johneboy
High fives and a woot woot backatcha!
Well, this was fantastic.
Now, where do we go from here?
Where no avatar has gone before :>
this should be interesting issue :), i’m curious what be on this 5th issue ? , well i can’t wait to see it known it gonna be very interesting issue
Nicely done guys! Great read as always and the design keeps getting better and better! Im actually surprised that this issue wasnt completely focused on the downtime we all experienced. Not saying it should have been, it seemed like it would have been an opportunity to not pass up.
Well done, as always!
Thanks for the opportunity to tell everyone about what it is like to develop for Home. It is great to have a chance to tell everone what is really going on.
BTW, Sony also reads HomeStation Magazine. So keep those articles and comments coming.
First and foremost I am highly honored to even be able to be in such an awesome magazine like HSmag. The feeling is unmatched by any other. I want to thank Norse, DarthGranny, all the readers, and the whole HSmag staff for even making this possible. Issue #5 really takes the cake, like a kleptomaniac in a bakery with one worker. I absolutely love it. You guys really nailed it this time. Great job!!…oh yeah and shout out to my ‘Lings!!!! Wooot!! Woooot!!
Mahalo nui loa for all the kind feedback on Issue #5! It really turned out extremely well, and there were some fabulous stories in it.
@Queen_Eli: I’m *still* laughing at the Homeling Horoscope. Funniest thing I’ve read in a while. When can we get another contribution from you?
@Gideon: The catch with covering the Great PSN Outage is that much of Issue #5’s article lineup was determined prior to the outage taking place (it usually takes about five weeks or so to assemble an issue). SealWyf’s “Echo Chronicles” installment, however, touched on how the outage affected the Homelings, which I thought was a great story. We’ll likely run another article or two on the outage in Issue #6, as a retrospective.
@John: Seriously…we can’t thank you enough. That was an amazing interview, and it’s produced the biggest single-day spike in traffic HSM has ever seen. I know that I learned a heck of a lot from that story, and it’s already gotten positive feedback on the Sony forum as well. I know the whole HomeStation team is *very* flattered that Sony reads HSM, and we’ll continue to do our best to deliver content worthy of such attention.
@Anubis: I’m really grateful you gave HSM a look at some of the glitches you perform in your private estates (the pics in that article are eyebrow-arching, to say the least). Thank you so much for taking Granny, HSM and the readership on a magic carpet ride!
@Norse: More Homeling Horoscopes or Homeling Tarot Card Readings?
How about BOTH! They are simply great.