The Hub!
by NorseGamer, HSM Editor-in-Chief
So. The Hub.
I mean, heck, it’s only the biggest Home event since Xi, right? This is a project that’s been in development for years, which suggests that SCEA Home decided, fairly early into open beta’s lifespan, to go in this direction.
Let’s break down what the Hub essentially is before we analyze it.
The Hub is a deployment of interlinked public spaces in Home. It consists of the Hub itself, which is designed to replace Central Plaza. You then have Pier Park, Sportswalk, the Action District, and the (at the time of this writing unrevealed) Adventure District. The general idea behind this revamp seems to have two main thrusts: to get people into thematic “neighborhoods” as quickly as possible (thus increasing user satisfaction and average session times), and to create a greater sense of a virtual world by having spaces you can “walk” to rather than being forced to use the Navigator.
It’s a triumph. An absolute triumph.
I’m not going to get into a full rundown of what the Hub offers. There will be no shortage of video tours and reviews and the like for you to enjoy. Rather, let’s take a look at some of the high points.
There’s a greater sense of immediacy with the Hub. Shops formerly located in the Mall are now available without having to use the Navigator. Cogs lures you in and serves much the same function as the old Saucer Pop game (which, I’ll admit, I’m rather nostalgic for), although it’s a single-player experience instead of a multiplayer experience. There’s an outside dance area with a wide selection of tunes and a great cityscape vista to enjoy. And, most notably, there’s an Activity Board with quests and user-generated events.
The biggest difference between the old Central Plaza/Home Square and the Hub is the sense of forward momentum. The Plaza was a rather large, semi-decentralized open-air environment which encouraged lazy social gatherings. The Hub, on the other hand, is a much more closed-off environment which immediately encourages you to play a game, join a quest or find a neighborhood that aesthetically suits you. Even the sound design creates a subliminal uptempo sense of urgency: instead of chirping birds under a pleasantly banal sky, there’s background walla and the constant mechanical whooshing of mass-transit commuter rail, similar to the AirTrain service at SFO airport.
The message of the Hub is simple: GO.
It’s a smart move.
Recall the first time you ever loaded into Home. You created your avatar (kinda sorta), stumbled around with the basic control interface (kinda sorta), and then arrived in Central Plaza for the first time. And that’s it. The brief tutorial that held your hand quickly came to an end, and you’re standing there wondering what to do next. You have no keyboard, you face social discrimination due to the default clothing, you have very little idea where to go or what to do, and you’re not at all used to being in a “game” that doesn’t hold your hand and give you objectives to fulfill.
Central Plaza was an experiment in putting a bunch of gamers in a room and asking them to talk to each other. It failed.
And frankly, I can see why: the PS3 doesn’t come bundled with a keyboard, console gamers typically look for gaming experiences before social experiences, and throwing a bunch of people together with disparate backgrounds and no common cause is usually a recipe for friction, not cohesion. The great failure of Central Plaza is that its designers forgot to take social dynamics into account. They assumed that the rest of humanity was a homogenized bunch of civil and rational human beings who wanted to get to know one another.
I know this is a horribly callous thing to say, but let’s face it: humanity is a salad bowl, not a melting pot. We, as a species, have a tendency to fraternize with people who are like us. Sociologically, Home’s one-size-fits-all approach made for a fascinating anthropological experiment; from a business perspective, though, it’s disastrous. However, the one thing that practically everyone in Home has in common, to some extent, is gaming. Indeed, games serve as a wonderful social glue for people who might otherwise not want to interact or know from each other.
The Hub is an experiment in putting a bunch of gamers in a room and asking them to find what experience best suits them. It will succeed.
It will succeed for one specific reason: Sony is finally implementing, up front, what was already taking place. People will naturally go their separate ways up front and find the experiences and social groups that they most naturally gravitate to. The difference is that Sony stands a much greater chance of holding onto new users during those critical first few minutes by giving them a greater sense of handholding and providing clear options as to where to go next.
It is entirely feasible now that someone can go into Home and enjoy a variety of gaming experiences without ever having to interact with another human being. Cogs. Bootleggers. SodiumOne. Sodium2. Conspiracy. Novus Prime. Dragon’s Green. Poker. The list goes on at length. At first, this would seem counterintuitive: isn’t the whole point of Home to be a social network for gamers?
Well, yes. But you’ve got to create enough addictive experiences for those gamers to want to stick around and experiment with socialization. Home, in its early days, had frightfully little to offer to anyone who didn’t have a keyboard and a desire to meet other people. Is it any wonder, then, that Xi is generally regarded as the high-water mark of Home? It was a game that brought people together.
The Hub introduces a bunch of games that will bring people together.
Gaming is good for Home.
Let me repeat that. As the head of a Home publication which shouts at the top of its lungs for improvements to the social interface of Home, I’m telling you point-blank that gaming is good for Home.
I’ll give you a personal example. I recently went to the Sportswalk and bumped into an HCV. Striking up a conversation was easy; HomeStation proudly supports the HCV program, after all. We played a game of poker. Now, I freely admit I’m horrible at poker. It’s just not my game. Poker, to me, has too many random elements left to chance, where the only reliable method of winning comes from messing with the psychology of the opponent(s) at the table. I’m much more of a chess guy. In chess, everything’s out on the board, and it’s a battle of permutations.
What made the game enjoyable, however, is that other people sat down at the table, and we started conversing about various topics whilst playing. Chess isn’t much of a social game; poker can be, however — because if you lose a hand, it’s easy to save face by saying that you just didn’t get a good set of cards. In the context of Home, the game creates a vessel for socializing, even amongst people who might otherwise have never spoken to each other.
(I do hope, by the way, that Sony has prepared the servers for the mad stampede of poker enthusiasts. I was just as sad as everyone else was to see the old poker rooms disappear, and there was certainly some well-reasoned questioning which took place after the fact, but after more than a year of near-nonstop BRING BACK THE POKER! invective from some of the less mature elements of the community — which drowned out the more reasoned and logical questions asked by others — I’m hoping those people will kindly shut the hell up about it now. Sony made things right. Okay? Sheesh.)
Do I have criticism about the Hub? Yeah, a few minor points.
1. Bootleggers ’29 is quite a fun first-person shooter. I’m sure hardcore FPS enthusiasts might find it overly simplistic, but by Home standards, it’s a hit. The only drawback I can see is that it really doesn’t have a single-player mode; like certain Novus Prime missions, you really can’t achieve anything if you’re by yourself. Now, granted, I was playing Bootleggers during the closed beta, and once it opens I doubt there will be any shortage of people (particularly male teens) lined up to play cops-and-robbers and shoot each other. But if there’s one bit of advice that I can offer: the best games in Home have both a compelling single-player and multiplayer experience.
2. Whose brilliant idea was it to put the Sportswalk’s dance music where the tables and chairs are? Dance music should have a dance floor, not a bunch of obstacles.
3. The Ferris Wheel. Lovely idea. But the limited camera control kills it. If I want to have a lazy ride on the wheel, I really don’t want to stare at the backside of a metal bench and the top of my avatar’s head. I want the ability to see everything around me. I want to swing the camera around and look at my avatar from the front — particularly if I’m with a romantic interest or a friend. And the Ferris Wheel is practically screaming for a cinematic camera mode similar to what the Loco Roco private estate offers.
4. Was it really necessary to rope off the Santorini Yacht at the Pier Park? It’s not like it has to go anywhere; it just seems that if you go to all the trouble of putting the thing in the space, you might as well make it accessible to run around in. Granted, Jack Buser hinted there might be special events when the yacht’s not roped off, so we’ll see what SCEA has up its sleeve. I will say, as a note, that whomever programmed the shadow effects on the pier next to the yacht did an awesome job. It’s a subtle detail, but it really does add to the sense of realism.
These are fairly minor quibbles, however. Refusing to enjoy the Hub because of these details is like refusing to date Mélissa Theuriau simply because you prefer blondes. Get over it.
Here’s what I find so interesting about the Hub: it’s free. It’s all free. Bootleggers is free. Poker is free. The RC racing game is free. Cogs is free. There’s a whole avalanche of free awesomeness for the community to enjoy. And only a complete lobotomy case could overlook the fact that this all cost a staggering fortune to develop.
Kinda blows a hole in that argument about Home getting overcommercialized, doesn’t it?
The face of Home has changed. For the first time in years, the basic Home experience feels markedly different. To quote Alec Guinness, “You’ve taken your first step into a larger world.”
HomeStation has never shied away from constructively criticizing Home when necessary. However, it is also important to, in the words of Ken Blanchard, catch someone doing something right.
And the Hub is right. Well done.
- Superior introduction to Home
- Lots of free games
- Impressive technological feats
- Will help grow and retain the Home community
- Ferris Wheel camera restrictions
- Bootleggers has no single-player mode
- Um...pie?
November 2nd, 2011 by NorseGamer | 7 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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Thanks for another fine look in to the Hub. it is a 5. it will get better. This is only the start. so much more to do and see now. It will not be to everyones liking right away but much like anything you take an interest in, it will grow on you.
I think it’s a fresh start to an even older idea. Games+Socializing is just that much more fun.
Mr. Jer S. Quall,
Hub is the garden
Hub is the square
Hub is the plaza
No, hullabaloo in there.
All around and everywhere is..
Hub, bub
Hubbub
Hubbub
Home is here at last.
Norse all your articles are so well written and you have the ability to look at subjects from different perspectives. Home Mag has a lot of talented people, you all do a nice job! If I wasn’t so cocky I would write something nice and informative, but it just wouldn’t be me
I got to level 11 in the full version of cogs, I was pretty horrified that 10 was not the final level…I see pipes when I close my eyes…*shudder*
I’m predicting this Thursday is going to experience an influx of traffic awfully similar to when the network came back online from the outage. It almost makes me glad that I’ll be too busy to enjoy it until later that evening.
Perhaps we should start coining the phrase “Black Thursday?”
I am absolutely excited for this update! I’ve been waiting for so long for something new! To be honest, I am going to remember everything that happened in Central Plaza.. the birds chirping and the leaves falling. All those memories I’ve made there, I will never forget. I enjoyed it so very much and I believe it is my Home. I don’t really enjoy my actual home life, so I escape to Home. Home SWEET Home. It’s been a huge impact on my life, and I would never want to let go of it. I am of course considered and addict to PS3, but I see it as a hobby. It’s something I am totally interested in a and what I like doing. I could go without it, but not for a long period of time like 2 months.. Haha. I even shed a tear today when I read the Daily News on Home.. I had no idea the actual update would be tomorrow. I want to thank all of you for being such a good community! R.i.p Central Plaza 2008-2011
Great perspectives on the Hub Norse. I haven’t been there yet, but I am going to truly enjoy this latest phase of Home. I am sure there will be kinks in the process as there always is when something new comes to Home, but I for one will be patient and wait like I already have all of these months already and give them time to work themselves out. We can only hope everyone else will do the same.