HomeStation Presents: The Upload, Episode #25 — What’s Your Favorite Home Game?
by Jersquall, HSM Podcast Editor
Home is, by design, turning into a gaming platform. And though the core of Home is and always has been its social scene, there is absolutely nothing wrong with introducing a steady stream of new and increasingly complex gaming experiences to the community.
So this begs the question: what’s your favorite game in Home?
For some, it might be Lockwood’s Sodium games; they’re arguably Home’s finest and most graphically intensive gaming experiences, filled with non-stop adrenaline-pumping action. For others, it might be Hellfire’s Novus Prime: the first true multiplayer game in Home, released before the multiplayer API enhancements introduced by the Home 1.5 update.
Of course, many will cite Xi — nDreams’ Alternate Reality Game — as Home’s high-water mark in Home. But why? What made it so unique and special?
With Mass Media and Digital Leisure tearing up the sales charts with gaming microtransactions, gaming in Home is going to become increasingly popular, and represent a larger chunk of revenue for Home and its developers. So let’s join Norse, Terra, Cubehouse and I as we explore the gaming of Home!
March 23rd, 2012 by Jersquall | 5 comments
Jersquall is a retired Home Community Volunteer, co-founder of Club HOMEinformer, and podcast commentator for HomeStation Magazine. His views expressed in HSM are his own.
I came after Xi was gone. I was confused by Salt Shooter in that why would I go online to play a single player game? It was kind of cool, but the overhead of getting online and getting into the game was too much for me to finish it. Bowling was too hard. Playing pool against people I never met was weird. The fun thing about Gnome Curling is that since the game takes a few minutes to play, when you finish, you are paired up the same player again a lot of the time. I have played informal best of seven series against the same player many times.
I think that Home is still finding its place in the gaming community. Building a game that you can play outside of Home, inside of Home to me is a waste. Developers need to look at the potential for interaction and community and build games that cannot be done the same way outside of Home. It is not about the game, it is about the community.
Why aren’t there Sodium 2 teams facilitated by the game itself? Why aren’t there Sodium 2 events organized by the community themselves? In my mind it is because they don’t have the tools.
Building the tools to take advantage of technologies already built into Home and the community that already resides in it is the next Holy Grail.
BTW, I pick on Lockwood because they are the most successful developer right now. They are doing great things based on how things are. But I would argue that with a little more effort they could take it all to a new level. Of course, that leaves an open opportunity for others to step in. I don’t think we have seen any true Home games yet.
I agree with you on this one Deuce. I believe the community needs to be allowed to become more involved in a game within the confines of Home. When I recently wrote about Rpg’s being missing in Home, that wonderful Steampunker space was featured. That sounded like the type of thing that we need in Home, something that the community could get involved with. Using the current questing system would be a smart move as well to facilitate this kind of game. Like they did with Xi they need to find something that everyone can get involved with on some level. I wasn’t here for Xi either, but many times I wish I had been just to see what it was all about.
The big benefit of easily understandable games (including single-player stuff like SodiumOne) is that it can serve as a bridge for those who are looking for something familiar while getting used to Home. When I first entered Home, I’d never been inside a social game before; I had no keyboard, I had no idea what to do (because I was looking for the traditional objective-based handholding of a game), and the whole thing was so mystifying that it was rapidly growing frustrating.
When I stumbled into the Sodium Hub, and discovered an in-world currency with objectives — some of which involved limited interaction, such as Scorpio’s bartending — it made sense to me. And SodiumOne, being a single-player game, was like an anchor of familiarity I could return to while slowly assimilating Home and learning the social mores of a virtual society.
That said, I completely agree that Home still lacks that compelling “killer app” that gives it its own identity. Xi was the closest to this, but it was a limited-run experience and probably ungodly in cost.
My personal view: Home could really benefit from taking on more of the trappings of an MMORPG. No, it doesn’t have to be some obscenely expensive competitor to Warcraft or The Old Republic, but imagine if Home *itself* was more of a game. Imagine a Home with jobs and guilds, similar to Ultima Online. A central currency. A proper utilization of the Activity Board. These things would make a huge difference in making Home feel more like an actual society and less like a chat room with graphics.
I’ve always loved your ideas like this for Home. I can’t help but believe that if people could hold “jobs” and earn “money” for purchases (even limited ones) that they would care more about Home. And if we could buy and sell from each other, most people would be more courteous, so they didn’t scare off prospective customers.
At the time Salt Shooter was developed there was no way to do real time multiplayer games. So it couldn’t have been one. What they did with the hub space was as much as could be done for the time.
Sodium 2 is cool, but it has not yet come anywhere near maximizing what can be done. This leaves room for others to come in and pass them by. I would say Novus Prime is slowly passing them by.
In my mind, Xi cannot be the best Home game ever because a large majority of Home users never played it. And you cannot play it today. I made a demolition derby game for PCs that released in 2001 that people can still play today. Starcraft 1 is still huge on the tournament tour. Games can last forever. Xi didn’t. Longevity should be a part of the greatest ever.
I agree that using the quest system to develop an RPG like environment is a great idea, but a platform wide currency can never happen. If one developer unknowingly unleashed an exploit on the system such that everyone was suddenly rich, they could take down all developers. By keeping currency within a system, a developer mistake can only take themselves down. The cross space currency is real dollars and I don’t foresee that you will ever be able to earn them in Home.
We are just beginning to see what can be done with the tools we are getting. As much as we have progressed in the last year, I think we will progress more this year. The Core Home Team is finally giving us features faster than we can use them. And things I asked for 2 years ago are actually here. And a few of my requests have gone from “No” to “Maybe.” The bar is going to get higher.