Growth Through Retirement
by BONZO, HSM team writer
Home would have lost the devoted community it has developed, or likely the community would never have formed, had it stayed exactly the same as it did on launch date. Thankfully though, Home has developed and continues to evolve.
At times, in order to facilitate that evolution and growth, a little trimming is in order. Thus we part with Ratchet & Clank Time Travelers, the Gamer’s Lounge, and the Mod Nation Racers space. Three spaces that have been outdated for some time — Gamer’s Lounge being a part of Home since the beginning. Each of these spaces has its fan base, and clubs and groups have held events and used them as meeting points on occasion. They are spaces that will be missed, and many of Home’s longest habitual users will feel the loss of the shrunken virtual world.
The adjustment reflects even further change at the core of the Home infrastructure. We have lost spaces for various reasons: from the development company responsible for the space taking its leave as part of Home’s partners, to spaces concluding their promotional purpose, or campaigns running their course. Official statements declare that the spaces are being retired due to the technology used to maintain them being outdated. Just as we update software for the operating systems that run our computers, so must software for the Home processes be updated as well. It helps to smooth the progress of evolution for the application.
If you feel the recent problems the software has experienced defy that statement, consider what running Home was like only two years ago. The lagging, and loading times we have now are minute compared to what we had to endure back then.
We have seen both small, incremental changes and some substantial changes to the core. Remember that Home has been running on the same foundation since it launched. Most games have the benefit — if they are fortunate enough to be successful, that is — of being franchises. So once version one becomes outdated, we get part two, which is often built from the ground up — sometimes even updating the very engine that runs it.
Home hasn’t had that benefit. It’s had to update on its roots in order to supply the games and content that draw us in, while continuously running live.
Home 1.5, which was mostly developer facing, brought us enhancements which undoubtedly played a factor in the creation of more visceral gaming experiences such as Sodium2. This was also the update that introduced real-time multiplayer APIs to Home, which we have benefited from with Cutthroats and more multi-player games coming over the horizon.
Home 1.6 brought us more flexible memory allocation for virtual furniture for our personal spaces, and improved use of our portable items like our companions. Most changes may not seem so huge to us, because they are mostly seemingly minor visual or interactive changes, but the core of the update is meant to benefit the developers. To give them better tools to be able to develop better games and interactive experiences for us the users.
So maybe you wonder why, instead of retiring old spaces, they aren’t just updated. Well, consider: if you had the option, would you prefer to use your resources to update your old, outdated computer, or would you use those same resources to apply to a new one, which can run much more modern and updated software and tools? It’s simply a smart economic decision to use the resources towards creating new spaces rather than update the old ones. As much as they will be missed, change needs to happen.
Take a glance over the forums — particularly the suggestions threads — and just take a quick inventory of how much we as a community want more and more from Home. In order for any, even a few of those changes to happen, there have to be periodic updates to the matrix.
Home runs much as an MMO video game does; its functionality may be vastly different, but it is built on the same principles. It doesn’t run off of one single engine. Games run multiple engines at the same time. Whatever you see while traveling through all the spaces are the result of the graphics engine. This is what allows for textures and the little effects that make things look pretty; that glossy shine on the table, the sparkle on your jewelry, and the glow from flashing lights. A different engine is responsible for bumping into a wall, or having to walk around a couch, or just have a ground to walk on. Different software elements are responsible for the sounds you hear, for your character’s animation when you dance or walk, for the ability to communicate with each other, for the streaming on the EOD, for your interaction with your dolphin. All these things have to work together, and adapt to new changes introduced as Home develops and evolves. Sometimes that means they become obsolete as better updated technology replaces it.
Bumblebee? Bowie?
The loss is only in the spaces they provided, and the themes they represented. Gamer’s Lounge was a means to launch games once, but Home has evolved to where it is unnecessary. You can launch a multi-player game at any given time. It was a nice atmosphere reminiscent of a mall café and it was conducive to a simple sit-down meet and greet. Mod Nation Racers event space had a fun ModSpot mini game that rewarded you with a good-sized replica of a blank mod racer with the Home logo on its belly. Mine guards the entrance to my Dolphy pen. It was a neat reward, and though the space is mostly empty these days, it served as a great arena for users who enjoy avatar tag. Ratchet and Clank Time Travelers had a fun whimsical atmosphere with a few mini games including the shooting range and escaped sheep, but it was often used for user-generated community events.
There’s no doubt these spaces will be missed, undoubtedly by some more than others. It represents a level of nostalgia for the early users of Home. Much as learning your high school has been torn down, you’ll look back on it with fond memories, but will just move on to new adventures in new better and greater spaces that become available, as the evolution of this virtual world we have grown so fond of advances. Let us bid a sullen nostalgic farewell to the past, but look with expectant optimism to the future.
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I agree with you Bonzo. I guess you could say memory is 20/20, things always look better to us after they are gone than the did when right in front of us. Look at all the moaning after the plaza when it finally left, we used to call it jokingly “Central Pervia” as it is where a lot of the trolling we experienced happened. Now everyone wants it back, why? The same thing will happen with every new change-out of older spaces.
Irem beach is one of the few that everyone wishes was back, but I think that is more because of the fact that the only beach we have now seems cramped by comparison.
The future of Home is very bright I think, and like you said, no change equals stagnation, change is an inevitable part of the movement that is needed to grow and evolve. Without change none of us would be here at all talking about this, we would have left Home bored a long time ago.
Sony and the developers in Home are here to make money, they are a business not a non profit. It is in their best interest and ours if they constantly look for the next big thing to enhance our experiences here in Home. Many new incredible changes are on the horizon for us, we should embrace the future, and let go of the past, it will only hold us back in our enjoyment of things to come.
Nice article.
I’ve always felt that the removal of old spaces in Home is a lot like pruning back a fruit tree or rose bush. In order for it to thrive, older growth needs to be cut back or removed altogether to give new branches to grow (or even appear).
There was a time when I knew every single space in Home. Nowadays, there’s far too many for me to do that, and this is probably the same for other users as well. Cutting back the spaces that do not see the traffic they once did, or are simply running on code that is outdated compared to the rest of Home frees up space for developers to offer new innovations. No, it’s not going to happen overnight, but like with the rose bush or fruit tree, new branches take time to develop.
Good food for thought article.
Two interesting points:
1. There are a lot of older spaces being removed in a short period of time;
2. Aside from Cutthroats, the second quarter has been rather quiet in terms of major Home events.
This leads me to believe — and it’s just a hunch — that there’s some *massive* stuff scheduled for Home in Q3 and Q4. Some of it’s already been announced, but I get the sense that even more is on the horizon.
2012, for Home, will be remembered as the Year of the Game. I’m more certain of this than ever.
I’m sure we’ll see 1.7 by the end of the year. I have a feeling they may integrate the Vita at some point.
Great idea to integrate the Vita, they would sell a ton of them. I have been on the fence about updating my 1st gen PSP and that would be enough for me to get one.