Home Alone
by ted2112, HSM team writer, with input from Gideon, HSM team writer
Home is a social game, right? Remember your first time going on Home, not knowing what the hell was going on and fumbling your way through those first awkward moments? Part of the tutorial was making a friend. I remember looking around the Central Plaza, thinking, “I know absolutely no one here.”
My first time was the very first day of open beta, so fortunately everyone else there was new and in the same boat as well. I ended up getting a friend request before I could figure out who to send one to, and that person has been on my friend list ever since, even though we haven’t hung out once all these years I have been on. I haven’t deleted my first friend because, well, what can I say — I’m a sentimental guy. Much of the time I have spent on Home is with friends, but then again many times you’re solo.
What do we do when we are alone on Home? Is it a place that we can even have a good time minus a friends list? I feel the answer is yes, but it’s been a very long time since those first days of not feeling connected yet to Home, and most of my alone time is spent in my passion for decorating my personal spaces. So, how could I be sure? Fellow team writer Gideon had a brilliant thought of putting it to the test. So this is what we came up with: create an account, leave all social aspects of Home behind, and see what kind of experience you could have. The test would run for one week, and I came up with and stuck to these rules:
1. Create a new account with a neutral name.
2. Turn off the chat feature.
3. Do not make or accept any friend requests.
4. Only go in public spaces.
5. Play every game in Home.
6. Try and stay away from my real account.
7. Try to have as much fun as possible.
With these rules I created a new account – 1001001BOC, a seemingly n00b – and set out to explore Home with fresh eyes.
And I’ve got to tell you: it was an experience.
I started out with my default clothes, hoping I wouldn’t run into the n00b haters. Now I had an advantage because I knew where everything was, and didn’t have to stumble around the navigator, unsure of what’s a game and what’s not. I started at the top of the featured game list and worked my way down. I also tried to explore every nook and cranny of Home.
I ended up with a ton of clothing, three personal spaces and enough reward items to decorate them. It really was a blast! The experience was something I could totally recommend to anyone; however to be totally honest, I missed my friends and that feeling of belonging to something bigger than myself.
This will not be a review type of article; here at HSM we have some amazing writers who really nail the reviews. I am more known here as the “Painting by Ross” writer. I like happy little clouds and trees. To me it’s about the why and the experience rather than details. It took a week to play forty-nine games in total, although I will be sharing only a fraction with you — otherwise this would be a novel. So here it is in an abbreviated diary form.
Day 1: N00b Time! I do feel a little guilty for lying to Sony about my address. For this totally new account I needed to come up with a new address, so I used 4 Yawkey Way, Boston, MA. Yes, that’s Fenway Park. I do wish I lived there, but for now it has to be a little journalistic liberty.
For my look I choose the default blue t-shirt, jeans and sneakers. I knew there was some cool free stuff, like the Marvel T-shirt, but I tried to approach it like a total rookie. On this, my first day as a solo, non friend-list explorer, I jumped in right away with the games in the Hub, and was generally disappointed. The Star Wars game looks about 100 times better than the brain-dead button pushing “game” itself. The Axe game was a bit better, because who doesn’t enjoy walking up to complete strangers and sniffing them? I totally blew the Uncharted trivia game because I’ve never played the game. I did figure out some guy name Drake was involved with things, but after humiliating myself I wanted to get as far away from Drake as possible. Things improved drastically when I played the Street Fighter/Tekken game outside. I played this over and over and it was as fun to lose as to win. I got two friend requests here and felt guilty ignoring them; they seemed nice.
Day 2: Featured game day! It was also my first time feeling the n00b heat. At the Yeti vs. Hunters game, a couple of the chair glitchers started in on me while I was starting a game. I’ve got to remember to avoid crowds more. The game itself was a lot of fun and a gold mine in free swag. I like being the Yeti more than the hunters, because I’m sure they were just minding their own business in the Himalayas when these jerks show up trying to shoot them. Now, if there was a way to control a Yeti and take out the chair glitchers! The Cogs game was difficult and empty so I headed for the bright lights of the Casino. The reward of a free room and free chips let me milk it the rest of the day here on house money, playing blackjack and slots and the War game. Again, I received a ton of free shirts and a cool plant to decorate my empty Harbor Studio. I crashed there for the night and got an early start the next day.
Day 3: Off the fence. If a new player was on the fence about liking Home or not it could very well end the day they discovered Sodium Salt Shooter. VICKIE might have been the only person I have interacted with so far alone, and the game is a blast.
(NorseNote: I credit the Sodium Hub, and especially Sodium One, with being the one thing that kept me hooked on Home when I was brand new and had no keyboard. So, thanks to Lockwood, I’m still here to annoy everyone.)
As much as I enjoyed earning the bronze trophy over again and vowed to come back, I moved on to Novus Prime. The space shooter was very similar to the Battlestar Galactica On-Line game. The ranking here really brings out my competitive side and I want to keep playing, but I have miles to go before I sleep. I also felt like I was gravitating towards too many of my favorite haunts, so I focused instead on going to spaces I didn’t normally go.
Indie Park was my next stop, and a real gem. It was so easy to jump in and out of a game. Gnome Curling was my favorite, and again more friend requests. Over at Sodium2 it was a free item bonanza and a place I could have stayed and raced all day. It’s amazing to me that all of this is for free! Ending a day tired from gaming is a great feeling!
Day 4: Nooks and crannies. The explorer bar is like time traveling back to the beginning of Home. I decide to stroll down memory lane to the Resident Evil Studio Lot. This was the big deal in those early days; now it is totally empty. The same is true for the Resistance 3 Diner. The game here is very challenging, but it seems depressing somehow, now that it’s empty, so I move on to the colorful world of the Little Big Planet Playground and have a blast. The photo hunt game was fun and groups ended up forming to work together. Our group makes our way through the quest in no time and now I have a cool Sack boy to keep the lonely plant in my Harbor studio company.
Day 5: Diving in. I rip through the games one by one and find my focus on being alone changing a bit. I am amazed at how truly social Home is. Most game spaces are filled with people and getting paired up with strangers for a game or two is actually very fun. I am coming to understand that it is rather difficult to be alone, and because I wasn’t hiding out in my personal spaces I was never truly alone here.
Day 6: Going with the Flow. All the apprehension of being alone is gone. I consider this experiment to be a success, although still not totally sure why yet. I have in these few days become fond of my character. I am personalizing his appearance and wearing some of my favorite free stuff and generally having a good time. I am still only sticking to public spaces. I haven’t been hassled by trolls in a while and wouldn’t care at this point if I was. I finish up with a marathon of gaming. Red Bull Air Race has new and fun racecourses that I was completely unaware of. Loco Roco I still can’t figure out. Dead Nation is a great casual shooter game, and Hudson Gate was a place I am really glad I went to. I never spent any time there before and it was a wonderful experience.
Day 7: Saying goodbye. I decide to finish up with some Zombie time at the Siren Lounge and Burn Zombie Burn. Both great fun and again at the Siren Lounge groups formed up and worked together. I get my last friend request at Dead Island space, and it pains me to ignore it. For the first time I spend some real time in a personal space, Darla’s Den, sorting through all the free items I have acquired throughout the week. I snap off a few pictures of good old 1001001BOC and say my goodbyes. Although I am happy the week is over and can get back to my main account…as I delete the account, I feel strangely sentimental.
This week I feel like I have finally seen all of Home. It is a much bigger place than I thought. It has great quirky places like the Motor Storm Carrier and ghost towns like the Xi Museum, every space with its own character and vibe. I also discovered that I am more attached to the Home community than I thought, and that this place is one I truly care about. The more I care, the more I want to see it prosper. I keep thinking of the friend requests I received by people willing to befriend a n00b and hope I get a chance to run into those people again and shoot them a friend request.
The biggest lesson learned by this was that Home is a social animal. It is the very heart and soul of it. Being alone took a ton of effort and went against the very grain of the experience. I see potential friends everywhere and wish I had the time to get to know everyone. Yes, Home is a place that could be enjoyed alone, but then again why bother? Home if given a chance could live up to its name and be a kind of home filled with friends and good times.
That, and several metric tons of reward T-shirts.
March 14th, 2012 by ted2112 | 7 comments
ted2112 is a writer and a Bass player that has been both inspired and takes to heart Kurt Vonnegut words...."we are here on planet Earth to fart around, and don't let anyone tell you different."
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What a thought provoking article. Great job!
Heya Ted, I have to say the article is a head on the nail. I my self about 8 months ago, created an alternate me on Home. How ever I kept my other account. I still use it to play games, with no out side messages or side track. To date I do have a few friends on that acct. now. How ever I only use it when I want to be alone. Ya know keeping that account to play games 1st, has made it easier to get reward on my main account. One thing I did was friend my alternate, so I can send gift to it from my main, via the Lockwood gift machine. I feel less like a nooB that way, But still remain anonymous. Glad to see you enjoyed seeing Home in a new light again.
OCR
What a great article and such a great experiment. I am tempted to try it myself!!!! When I am on Home, I enjoying hanging out with my friends and don’t have time to try all the mini games and earn rewards. I would love to spend a day doing this! I don’t think I realized how many games/rewards there actually were. Thanks for opening my eyes to this!
Sometimes when i go on Home, I do enjoy being alone if I want to set up a personal space. This way you don’t ignore your friends. But my favorite times are with my friends, joking around and catching up.
It’s too bad 1001001BOC is gone, because I bet he was a cool guy, who I would have loved to be a friend of!!!
Great article and idea!!!
I did something kind of similar to this when I created my newbie account for the article I wrote on all the free stuff in Home.I took about a week and tried to find as much free stuff as I could muster. I was able to fill my apt and closet quite well, and this was before there were all of those free items in the stores. I didn’t make any friends then either, I was just focused on obtaining the things I could through games and visiting spaces. But at least I also spent some time in my real account in between then, this must have been quite an eye opener for you to see things with a fresh perspective. Great article Ted, I always love your take on things.
I totally need to try this! Thank you for writing this, ted.
Wonderfully done Ted! I really enjoyed the flavor you poured into this. You really hit a truth about Home being a social animal. As great as the games are, as fun as they can be, it really is the people that keeps players going back time and time again.
Ted, I like reading your articles! That is a great perspective. I wonder what region hoping would be like? I would love to see what you come up with. Being lost in translation is a really good experience. I enjoyed that growing up. Don’t know if that’s your cup of tea, but I am willing to bet you would cover it quite well. Go Gonzo!!!