Returning Home
by NorseGamer, HSM Editor-in-Chief
Well, now. Although it’s been a few weeks since the Great PSN Outage of 2011 started, for many it feels like it’s been going on much, much longer than that.
Time is an interesting and remarkably subjective experience. Whole evenings in Home disappear in what feels like minutes. Life seems to move faster online. And, when deprived of our virtual lives, it seems like every day is an interminably slow drudgery.
Man is a luxury-loving animal. Strip away his ability to play, and you leave a sluggish creature with barely enough motivation to eke out a basic subsistence. Life, it seems, requires something worth living for. And, for many, virtual reality is our creative outlet. Our means by which we fulfill ourselves.
As you have likely seen by now at http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/05/14/play-on-–-psn-restoration-begins-now/, Home and the PSN have been restored to us.
Although certain functionality is still disabled, the important fact remains that Home is back.
Yes, you should probably change your password. Yes, you should keep an eye on your credit card. But the important fact remains that Home is open.
What did you learn from this downtime? Did this withdrawal from Home and the PSN drive you away from Sony, or make you appreciate Home that much more? Do you value your virtual life more, now that you’ve been away from it for a while, or has it lost some of its importance to you?
Will you pick up right where you left off, as though nothing had happened, or is this an exciting rediscovery of Home for you?
Did your virtual life exert too much control over your actual life? Or did you not even notice its absence?
There are many, many people for whom virtual reality provides psychological experiences and relief that the real world cannot provide. How joyous must this moment be, then, to return Home?
The last few weeks have provided a fascinating sociological ripple effect, which we here at HSM have done our best to observe and report on. Now that Home is restored, a new effect is taking place: the return to the playground. And, for many, the Great PSN Outage of 2011 was an interesting mirror held up to them, showing them just how much psychological importance and value they had placed on their digital lives.
So. You tell us: how does it feel to return Home?
May 15th, 2011 by NorseGamer | 26 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.
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I cried… yes, I am that happy. It truly was a home coming for me. I saw some friends, I danced in CP, I relaxed in Blasters Paradise and my world was made right again. Call me a junky, tell me I am eat up with it, I am both. When asked by friends what I did while the outage was happening I coild only say “I jonesed”. But now a smile from ear to eye! If I smiled any bigger my head would fold over backwards! WELCOME HOME YALL!!!
RELIEF! I’m proud to say that after all the paranoia surfacing the internet and along with my own disconnection of routined services i’ll remain a sony consumer, but my once casual pursues has been threatened and therefore questioned . Making lively aspects questionable resuming insecurity unless I make my personal involvements closer and during the outage not having other resorted contact was the most difficult procedure. Gratefully my friends are back and now home is better and much finer than before. WELCOME BACK EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just feels amazing to be back on PSN, Home, and to meet with and see friends again. I so love my friends list.
JOLLY GOOD SHOW CHAPS! (Drinks English tea with Chimps)
As my IP address is UK based, Im going to have to wait a little longer until my PSN is fully restored here in good old blighty.
There are questions as to wether I can still access my Sub account, but we’ll just have to wait and see.
Can’t wait to see you guys.
You have pet simians, Cheeky? And they drink tea? You should take that act on the road.
I m sooooooooo happy to know that, but please , can somebody tell us, poor european (^^)!how to proceed when psn ll be back for us? i mean with my US account? and can we have feedback about eventualy some bugs? thank you very much, i hope i can join the home community tonite for the biggest party ever’!!!!! And , let me say to all the hsm staff a big thks to stay onboard during this major crysis, i love you ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
HOOOOOO! sorry, but just an idea for your next hsmagazine, why not a “special issue” about home down and home feel the users?somethings like that,with IT etc….?
ok ^^ ,sry, i m so enthousiast about the return of the ” enfant terrible “!!!
i can’wait anymore^^^^^^
the first hour im back on, im in the secret basement of the sodium hub talking dirty to vic in his homeling suit. ahh, home again. no big bad bugs yet, kicked out trying to load a place, but thats it so far.
Returning Home. Ahhhh…
HSM, please forward the following message:
Dear Real Life,
It’s been a slice. But since Home has return, we just can’t keep seeing each other like this.
Will be seeing you.
Nos
— end transmission --
I was surprised that I wasn’t elated. I was just like….”cool deal”. Sort of a return to a different way of doing things. Not better… just different. I actually enjoyed my time off of Home immensely. I stayed incredibly busy the entire time. So I guess I’m feeling a little melancholy about the whole thing.
I just wanna know… When did you write this Norse, did you have it waiting on the sidelines for as soon as Home came up?
::laughs:: Nopers, didn’t have it pre-written. Home came back online and I dashed out this article as fast as I could.
I’ll admit that the Great PSN Outage didn’t affect me as it affected many, simply because I rarely have the chance to get into Home these days anyway. Between work and HSM, I rarely have leisure time.
That said, I ran a few celebratory laps around SodiumTwo’s tracks last night, just to enjoy having Home back.
I spent 5 minutes jumping up in cheer. Then within 10 mins I was solicited to be in a family and had my crotched sniffed twice….Ahhhhhhhhh…..good to be back on Home….
Have you employed the strategy on how to deal with the crotch-hounds I suggested in chat the other night yet?
I made the rounds of all the old hangouts. Then wandered down to the beach. Talked to some new people and added them to the FL. Still looking for the old gang. Maybe some of them didn’t get the news yet? Maybe they gave up and left? Not quite ready to celebrate.
Something was different last night,couldn’t quite put my fingers on it but it seemed to me like every1 i met was a brand new user.Lot’s of unrecognized names and lots of questions about how things are done,maybe this outage brought more ppl in than it chased away,not sure entirely about that.It is good to be back Home but now rebuilding old relationships begins,hope it is easier than it seemed it was gonna be last night.Out of my entire friends list only 10 ppl or so were on last night,i’m hoping it’s because the return caught them unawares and not indicative of something else.The very 1st thing i did was to send a message to a friend of mine,in this situation i missed ppl much more than any area on Home or even Home in it’s entirety,btw i noticed last night that the leaderboard scores for “Trigger Happy in a Box” were gone there were zero’s the whole way down and any new scores didn’t get saved on the leaderboard.I hope this gets fixed but if not i guess RayBladeX and i will have to re-new our rivalry for the top spot,lol.
Just like Gideon, I thought that I would be more elated than I was, when I finally was back online. It was sure good to say hi to those I wasn’t able keep in touch with, but Home doesn’t have the allure that it once had. The downtime gave me a chance to play some of the games that I have had lined up to play. I’m right in the middle Dragon Age Origins and loving it. Read Keara’s review of DA2 and can’t wait to play it next. I’m sure that in the weeks to come I will be drawn back into Home, but for now I’m just having fun gaming.
Just in case people from the UK haven’t checked yet, PSN is up for you.
I think they went to sleep.
Real gamers don’t sleep. They wait.
I’m holding my breath til the dolphins start to sing again.. and re-learning how to play the air defense game for Aurora >.< (my scores are now pitiful)
Please help out a starving writer: do a head count of how many friends have returned and how many are still out. I want to write an article about the social impact of this outage. I started a topic in the HSMForum for this purpose. Please put your head-count in there. So far, I am amazed at how many bounced back within the first 12 hours.
Wish I could help, but the network is down for maintenance. *insert furious rage face*
keara, i saw vic, debbie and eddie baby while i was on. other than that, some of my odd friends were on.
oh, and olivia, who asked to add me, which i soooo gladly did. WOO HOO!
I went into Home for a few minutes on early Sunday morning after I noticed it was up. I only stayed for a few minutes as I was tired and needed sleep. Just wanted to check and see if my stuff was there and it was. I talked to 2 friends who asked for invites for a few minutes then left. In the morning I messaged all of my Grey Gamers about this coming Friday’s Big Meet which we will use to reconnect as a group, then later in the day I played RDR with a few friends to reacquaint myself with the online portion of the game, but I didn’t go into Home, I was too busy IRL to do it, I am sure I will get back into Home a bit today, Monday, but during this outage I have just become more busy in my life because of work and family, so it may not be as much as it used to be. I believe this would have happened irregardless of the outage though, as my life has changed a bit in the last few weeks.
I jumped on Home and went straight to CP and up on the bench. It felt weird and disorienting. Was I Home? I saw some friends and we re-connected. It was great, but was I really Home? I went to Aurora and collected some orbs. Was I dreaming still? So, having glitched, re-connected and mini-gamed, what was missing? I went back to CP and “my” spot on the bench to think. I listened to random conversations and then I noticed it! A PM from an unknown that read “Hi, sexy”. Yes! Yes!!! This is Home. I am Home at last!