Crystal Seashores: Just Another Pretty Face?
by Burbie52, HSM team writer
This week, those with early access to Home content through x7 could buy a new personal space called Crystal Seashores. I was invited to my friend’s space on update day to take a look. And though it is a beautifully designed and constructed space, once again, it was nothing I would buy into.
Personal estates are a very subjective thing, like clothing or decorating. People all have their own preferences and dislikes. But many of the new spaces almost seem to be produced with cookie-cutters. This one is no exception; it is very reminiscent of the recently-published French Chateau and Gothic Manor. Crystal Seashores comes as both a club and personal space, with very similar designs.
(Take a closer look at that chandelier. Seem familiar? –Ed.)
When you spawn at the front door, you are in a huge open hall with sweeping staircases on either side. Sound familiar? This is almost a copy of the Gothic and French spaces. A fair-sized balcony with fashionable green curtains is at the top of the stairs. It offers a view of the outside courtyard, which this time contains a swimming pool instead of a pond or gardens.
There are no rooms off either staircase. A smaller, slightly partitioned room, has been added just before the back doorway, which leads outside. This room has a burned-in table and useable shelving, which is always nice. The space is large and airy, and there is great detail in the windows and decor.
The outside area is the best part of the space. It has a large swimming pool, which I am told has a floatation device that only the owner can use. The thing is, neither I nor anyone else who came to the space could see it. To us, it looked like the owner was in the pool underwater, lying on their back. Although the perception is obviously a glitch that needs fixing, it was a mistake to make it so only the owner can use the device. It alienates those who come to spend time there.
Glitched pool floatation.
The rest of the area is quite nice, and there are burned-in outside lounge chairs that work like the ones at the Desert Haven club skin. You actually look comfortable when lying on them, which is always a nice touch. There are also burned-in sunshades around the chairs.
The view is wonderful, like many in Home, with the house set on a beach overlooking the ocean with a moving cloudy sky and palms and tropical plants scattered about. But that is all this space has to offer. It is just another pretty face in a crowd of pretty faces. And, like the new ingenue in Hollywood trying to make a name for herself, it can’t succeed without that something extra, which it simply doesn’t have.
There is the obligatory furniture bundle, which includes a sofa, two tables, a chair and a lamp. The lamp is nice, but the sofa and chair seem a bit low, and the so-called coffee table is more like a dining room one — it is way too tall and over-sized, another misstep that has occurred many times. It seems like there are different people working on the space and furniture designs, and they don’t talk to each other much.
You can gift your friends with one item, a very nice potted palm tree. Of course this gifting won’t work in the club skin. There are twelve picture frames scattered about the space — a nice number, but this too won’t carry over to the club skin, though why this is the case I will never understand. If they would allow people to use pictures in a club skin, storing the images online with the club’s furniture layouts, that extra feature alone would sell a lot of club spaces. Clubs are social ventures, and the owners take a lot of pictures of the groups involved, but they have nowhere to display them.
So once again we are being presented with a product that is well rendered, but sorely lacking in anything that merits purchase in a saturated market. With other developers creating exciting concepts like Blueprint: Home, Cutteridge, Space Station and MiniBots Arena spaces, soon this type of space won’t sell many units at all. Many people, including me, don’t see much need in buying another space that just collects virtual dust in their inventories.
Useable shelves, nice details.
If this space was made into an expandable complex like the mansion, where you could buy more $4.99 spaces that would connect to an upper floor, or a front drive and side rooms, then I could see some potential in it. But I doubt those ideas are in the works, since it looks like they just threw some of the previous spaces a bit sideways and changed the outside scenery and sent it out to try and muster some sales. I doubt this or any space like it will ever be in the top ten sales list.
Home’s management has promoted the Mansion spaces every way they could, through exclusive access and bonus items, but I think the time has come for them to change strategy. If they want us to buy into spaces like Crystal Seashores, they need to do something similar to the Mansion without the gaudy gold and high price tags. If they did that, or changed the club functionality to add pictures, this might sell better.
Or — heaven forbid — they could try creating an estate that isn’t a not-so-subtly reskinned mashup of previous estates already released. The market needs to innovate.
- Nice interior touches
- Lay down loungers
- Decent free gift for friends
- Twelve picture slots
- Same old, same old
- No new or added club functionality
- Glitched pool float
- Pool float unavailable to guests
July 10th, 2012 by Burbie52 | 13 comments
Burbie52 is a 62 year-old published author and founder of the Grey Gamers group within Home. Born and raised in Michigan, she has lived there her entire life, with the exception of a twelve-year residency on the Big Island of Hawaii. She enjoys reading and writing, as well as video games, especially RPG's. She has one son in his twenties.
When I first heard of this space I was excited they were doing something about the pool/swimming thing, But it just kind of looks like a dead body floating in the pool. I hope they fix that.
LOL Ted that was the first thing we all thought when we saw what happened to the owner in the pool. It looks very much like the owner drowned in their pool to everyone, but to the owner they are floating on the pool with a drink on a big raft thing.
It’s so similar to other large mansion type spaces that it’s not needed.
Because of it’s it’s size I can see where someone might want it as a clubhouse.
It has continuous quiet music inside that will get on some people’s nerves. It can’t be turned off.
If the floating body is not fixed and it looks like a corpse, pretend that Humphrey Bogart will solve the case. Or call Mr. D.
Having said the above, I bought it and it’s OK with me. But as to other mansions of this ilk, I think not unless they have something special.
People will buy this, if not for its limited appeal then for the fact they buy EVERY space that’s released. I know people like this. As you said Burbie, I also don’t expect this to chart very high in the sea of Home sales either. “Cookie cutter” is becoming more and more obvious now to the more well versed Home users, which means innovation can’t be far away, I hope.
Fresh ideas and places are needed now, things like the underwater apartment are rare. I’d be impressed with a series of houses plonked on places like Mars, Saturn or one of Jupiters moons. This is a VIRTUAL reality, we don’t need more houses by the beach lol. A couple more places I’d like to see would be maybe a tree house on the top canopy of the rain forest, a half-house built around Tibeten ruins, a moving barge on a canal or just something inspired by those Eco-friendly houses that are built into the countryside. You know the ones that kinda straddle lake edges and things.
I’m with you, Krazy. We don’t need “House Beautiful”. We need impossible dreams and outrageous fantasy. But that’s just me.
yes! I don’t want a big house on the edge of a lake anymore. I want a little house and a boat that I can take out on the lake. For me all that tantalizing scenery needs to be included. Like the Yacht for instance. Too flippen big! There is not enough scale furniture choices to decorate it with any authority… but if I could just take that Zodiac to the lighthouse or the beach I could dig that. I say cut the boat in half and then give me the privilege of exploring the outdoor spaces. What about a space that is a bubble in outer space with comments and stars floating by. Make a glitch space without the glitch.
Totally agree, riff. The great thing about Home is that we are NOT tied to physical reality. I would love to have an Escher House where I could walk up the walls, or, as you said, a bubble in outer space. What about a private space based on the tiny planet in “The Little Prince”? Or the Sky Pirate ships from “Gauntlet: Dark Legacy”? (Just about anything from that game, really — it’s still one of my favorite fantasy playgrounds.)
Home is about telling ourselves stories. And most of us want a story that is more complex than “I can afford to live in a mansion.” It’s one reason I love the new Gothic Cathedral. The story I’m playing there is that it has been taken over by a coven of alchemists, who have magicked cherry trees and fog into the nave and are fabricating gold in the side-chapel. That’s a lot more fun than “Look at all this tacky gold furniture!”
Someone has to use the dead body in the pool for a murder mystery.
I second this statement.
Already got some footage of it the day it came out, it was the first thing I thought of when I saw that. It is too funny looking.
I keep thinking of the opening of “Sunset Boulevard”.
Great read as always Burbie. Yes when i first arived at this space i thought for sure I had seen the layout before. It’s odd to me to have basicly cloned spaces with small diffrences.
There are some good ideas for personel spaces in these comment boxes. Im a pick space shopper on home but some of these ideas are worth haveing. Seeing a planet super close when you walk out side would be nice I think. An to float in space, I could just see all the new glowing men doing that one. A treehouse atop the rainforest i’ll take two of those.
“Planet super close” -- Planetland Estate
“Float in space” -- Admiral’s Quarters (Novus Prime)
“Treehouse in a rainforset” -- Treehouse Apartment (almost)