nDreams Changes the Personal Space!
by BONZO, HSM team writer
Home Tycoon will soon change the game in Home by introducing a city you can build and explore. The game has many people excited, because it will let them change the city to their liking and control its future. While the level of control within the city is similar to that of a personal space, the game itself is based in a public space, and you will not be able to furnish the buildings you create. So, for personal spaces, we must still depend on the developers creating new content.
Lately, personal spaces have reached the saturation point. A simple box-like apartment is no longer enough. Developers need to think outside the box, and listen to user suggestions, to motivate us to buy. It’s no surprise Granzella’s “My Private Hideaway” sold so well, not because the space itself is great, but because of what offers: integration with a public space, exclusive access to a limited area of a public space, and an expansion of a public space game. So this apartment isn’t really a stand-alone space either.
Lockwood has implied that it may expand the Dream Yacht with their new Drey line ad. At present, this is only speculation based on publicity images. But if it isn’t an expansion of the Dream Yacht, it is new content related to it. Either way, they are keeping the Dream Yacht space alive by expanding content related to it.
LOOT regularly updates the spaces that include EOD access by expanding the entertainment content. The portable EOD previewed in the Stage Set open house has limited entertainment access. If access is limited in the finished product as well, the EOD screens in LOOT personal spaces would have a permanent edge over the portable screens.
Now nDreams has listened to the users, and has changed the game for the personal space as we know them. When you look the future lists of the top ten selling items, don’t be surprised to see nDreams Blueprint there for a while.
Blueprint is giving us what we have wanted and asked for from the day we first entered the Harbor studio, or when we bought our first personal space and wondered why we couldn’t build our own. This has been a recent trend in Home changes — there is more content that lets the user get creative. User-generated content has been the driving force of Home for a long time. Anyone who enjoys Home enough to be a core user understands that what draws us here are the community, and the content we create.
We have traditionally created our most ambitious works within personal spaces, since personal spaces give us the most control. However, as much as we can rearrange the furniture, we have never had the ability to build our own personal spaces from scratch. Until now. nDreams’ announcement of Blueprint is a revolution for the Home user.
Blueprint will bring some of the elements of Home Tycoon to a smaller format. This isn’t intended to be a game — but who are we kidding? The users will make it a game. You want a hut in an island? Build it. You want a skyscraper? Build it. You want a castle? Build it. You can change rooms, doors, windows, flooring, wallpaper, ceilings, feature objects, exteriors, skies and the environment. The extensive control is mind boggling, and the possibilities are endless. Make your own playing field, make your own mazes, make your own set for machinima.
The initial teaser image released by nDreams was vague, and on the heels of the Home Tycoon announcement it seemed like a competing concept. However, it is its own monster within the limitations of the personal space. One of the major complaints about Home Tycoon was the inability to place items inside buildings. Home still has limits. But the new changes are showing us what a major update to the core has been implemented, to allow these new products. Home Tycoon will let you build your own city, one that anyone can come visit. Blueprint will let you build your own personal space, your own edifice from the inside out, and give you control of every aspect of it. And when you’re done, you can decorate it however you want.
How big can your new space be? Avatar 3D models are developed in sizes equivalent to real world measures. It’s all implied sizes anyway — a 6-foot avatar won’t take up any more memory than a 6-cm avatar. The unit of measurement is just used as for comparison, and to keep proportions consistent. In the video, the interface shows the blueprint where you design your space layout. There is a label that says “60m” to the left of it. Does this suggest the area you have to work with? Sixty meters would only be about 30 avatar lengths. Could it mean 60 miles? That seems huge, larger than most cities. Some of the creations shown look longer than 180 feet, so it’s unclear how big the area you have to work with will be. But in the announcement video, there is an entire Island where buildings from the size of a hut to the size of a state prison are suggested. So this is going to be huge! Most interesting of all, there is a “Build and Save” feature. Does that mean you can save multiple layouts? At the top of the interface there is also the label “Blueprint 2″, which could suggest that the blueprint will be split between an interior layout and an exterior layout. It makes sense to separate the two. Or it could also suggest a loadout of multiple blueprints to chose from. Without more details, tons of questions arise. But it is still a very exciting prospect.
User-generated content existed before we could do more than place items in a personal space. We have now caught a glimpse of what the future of Home holds. Home Tycoon will let you build your own city. The PODI system will let you design your own fireworks displays. And now nDreams is blowing the roof off Home, and giving you the power to put it back on.
July 4th, 2012 by BONZO | 5 comments
BONZO is an editor and artist for HomeStation Magazine.
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Nice Bonzo, I’m not sure if sticking furniture inside the city building being “missing” from Home Tycoon is really that big a problem though, I think people are missing the point of it. It’s a bit like playing GTA then complaining that there are no chickens to chase -- a tad irrelevant. I’m not picking on you here Bonzo, it seems a fairly common comment.
The other Devs need to think long and hard about what kind of content they’re gonna dangle infront of our noses though, this much is clear. Veemee’s medevil range came outta no where in this weeks EU update, and has some quality rendered objects to re-create a medevil setting, but even for as much as there was altogether, is it even enough? What would you rather; a big bag of new toys to play with, or a blank canvas and unlimited paint? For me the decision is a simple one, but I know not everyone likes complete creative freedom. In fact, it even scares some people.
I’ll say again that this Blueprint from nDreams looks good, but as always I’m cautious of promises and campaigns put out by developers, it’s their job to make stuff look good afterall.
I agree with you, I am not the least bit bothered about furniture inside buildings. I rather thought it a silly complaint, considering the scope that Home Tycoon is turning out to be, I am curious how much memory will be available once you build your dwelling though. Some of the constructions looked huge on the blueprint video, would you really want such a huge place to decorate anyway? With a hundred items, if you get that many, for something the size of a castle it wont be nearly enough. I checked out some people wearing the medieval stuff and it does look impressive, I am starting to think that the Home core has seen a memory upgrade to be able to handle all this new content. I am pretty confident Loot and Lockwood have a lot of stuff up their sleeves, Blueprint looks very impressive, Home TYcoon sounds very impressive, but Lockwood and Loot have a tendency to pull out some impressive stuff when you least expect it.
Very true about Loot and Lockwood. As for the furniture thing in Blueprint, I’m sure I read somewhere that they’ll also have their own Blueprint tailored furniture that won’t take up any spaces at all. That could be a good work around to a filling a massive space up with stuff. The problem there however is image quality comparison. No point and putting well rendered furniture next to other stuff with bad textures really. Time will tell though.
“No point and putting”
*in
Did they show anything or just announce? I am not a fan of the pre-announce. Takes the thunder out of those actually releasing things.