“Bored” With Home? Try Club Hopping
by cajun4life, HSM guest contributor
A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving. – Lao Tzu
In Home, there are no road maps and no clearly defined objectives, where you start at Point A, perform Task B, get Result C, and arrive at Point D. As a result, many people only see what goes on on the surface and get “bored” of Home, never knowing what a thriving community it has that lies just beneath. It’s a place that isn’t too hard to find, and it doesn’t take all that much effort to look for it.
I’d like to share with you in this article about a personal learning curve of mine in Home, and start from the beginning. When I say the beginning, I am talking about the beginning of ‘Open Beta’ PlayStation Home.
When Home first came out to the public, I — like everyone else — gave it a try. During the time went it came out, Call of Duty – Modern Warfare was doing very well. I joined a clan with my friends in COD. As we all know, playing games with friends make it that much more fun most of the time. But I still found time to visit Home and give it a try.
When the clubhouses came out, I jumped on them. I figured it was a great chance to get my clan from COD into Home. A lot of them were not big fans of Home; I, on the other hand, was giving Home a chance. I got the clubhouse to try to get my clan to come into Home for meetings and battle plans. Even with these thoughts in mind, my clan was not interested in visiting Home.
So, giving up on that idea, I continued visiting Home from time to time. I enjoyed the new spaces and items that came out. I purchased a lot of the personal spaces, as well as items to fill those spaces up to the best to my ablity and imagination.
Now, I am in the military, and maybe I should have mentioned this at the beginning. I mention it now because this is where the story is going to start explaining its title.
I went on the first of two deployments that I have been on since PlayStation Home came out. Now, of course, while on deployment, I really don’t have time to visit Home. So when I came back from the deployment – which is about six months long for readers who do not know that information – I found the time to visit Home. I was surprised to see so many new things added. Once again, I tried to invite my clan from COD onto Home, but had no success.
As with the first deployment, I unable to visit Home while gone for my second deployment. When I came back, I was once again surprised with the new features, new spaces, and new items that came to Home while I was gone. And once again, I tried to get my clan from COD to visit the clubhouse I had made for them. Once more, I had no success.
Now, at the time, my friends list for the PSN was mainly for my clan on COD. I didn’t really talk to many users in Home. For the first couple of weeks I visited Home, went to my Dolphy spaces to work on my Dolphy, went to my Loco Island and got my pickories, went to all the new spaces to try some of the new mini games. But, after about two weeks of this, it got a little boring to me.
Actually…it got really boring to me.
Especially given the fact that I had spent a lot of money on spaces and items, and no one was visiting me so I could show them off.
I guess you could also say I was feeling lonely.
So, late one night, I was visiting the official PlayStation Forums. I clicked the PlayStation Home Forums and found the Clubs and Events section. I looked through the list and found the name of a club that sparked an interest for me. So I sent an application for the club, met the club leader, and found a whole new world of Home – it was breath of fresh air. This was my first step in finding out about the events in Home. I found more users with the same interest as me in Home, and I found the fun once lost by me in Home.
There are not just a lot of different clubs, but a lot of different types of clubs. Clubs for glitchers of Home, clubs for all of the Star Wars lovers, clubs for information about Home, and clubs for specific games. There are even some clubs that help you get those reward items from the spaces that have them, but are really hard to get. And best of all, most of them are listed in the PlayStation Forum Clubs and Events section. It’s like one-stop shopping. Easy.
Now, I am not saying that what happened to me will happen to you. But I am willing to bet that by visiting and giving a club a try, you might discover three things:
- Home is fun again.
- You will meet more friends who share similar interests as you.
- There are a lot of things happening in Home which were created by the community itself, and are not run by the Home Development Team.
Like I said before: you might not have the same reaction that I had, but it’s worth a try to find out. Some of the clubs actually have websites as well, where you can deepen your interactions with your fellow club members.
So, if you are ever bored with Home, make sure to visit the PlayStation forum and visit that Clubs and Events section. Read the list. If they have one that sparks interest in you, visit their website — and, maybe, find that part of Home you never knew about.
So true! After the EA Poker Rooms closed, I was left without my huge circle of poker pals to hang out with. I wandered around in Home visiting the places that I had never bothered to investigate because I was too busy playing poker. Then I met SealWyf who was obviously having so much FUN with the Homelings. Next thing I knew, I was playing the EchoChrome game to win the Homeling uniform and assimilated into outer space. Then I met NorseGamer and got pulled into writing for the magazine -- and meet a delightful group of talented loonies who spurred me on. Finally, I accidentally found another ‘older’ lady who introduced me to the Gray Gamers plus now I have been recruited into the Rich Girls Club. Bored? Who has time to be bored? (who has time to sleep…………)
Exactly Keara,I’m on day 3 with about 3 hours of sleep as of this writing.Meeting like-minded ppl and hanging out with them is more fun than most of the games on Home IMO.I too was cast out into the big wide world of Home when poker closed down,but honestly I’m kinda glad it happened that way.I would not know the many ppl I do now if poker hadn’t closed down,the trouble on Home isn’t making friends but trying to get by with just a 100 friend list and if your not having fun with your friends then there are always new ppl to meet and befriend.
I agree with all of you, clubs are a wonderful way to find like minded, or in the case of my Grey Gamers like aged, people to hang with and have fun with. I first came into Home almost immediately after buying my PS3 in December 2009. I was waiting for Final Fantasy 13 to come out as it was the reason for buying the console. Then I discovered Home, and it quickly became the reason I have this machine. I have met some wonderful people in here, from all over the world. Get bored in Home? I don’t know how you can. Clubs are a great way to meet others if you are new, I was unaware of the fact they existed for over six months of my stay in Home. I am glad people are writing these types of articles to put that info out there. Good Job cajun!
Another aspect of your article fascinated me. You played a lot of COD. You went into the military and are now serving our country (thank you for the sacrifices you are making). How would you compare playing war games on your PS3 and the actuality of being in a war? I wish you would write an article contrasting virtual war versus the real thing. You are quite an interesting writer. Keep it up!
(bon temps roulez, cher!)
Dang! No way to correct a misspelled word. Ok, here is the right way to say it:
“Laissez les bons temps rouler!” It is a Cajun expression meaning “Let the good times roll!” It strongly conveys the “joie de vivre” (“joy of living”) …
Stay alive and keep writing, soldier!