I am of the old guard, the early adopters that came to Home for the social aspects, the ‘break’ from gaming to chat to people in some fantastic settings, i hope Home doesn’t lose sight of this any time soon.

I now can never really describe Home as a ‘Virtual World’, as it has a completely different structure when compared to it’s PC brethren. That doesn’t make this a bad thing. A ‘Gaming World’ is now far more apt. But it delivers on it’s promise. It is for that particular brand of service. It’s aimed at a casual, and hardcore gamer.

I hope to play the many games that now spring out of Home soon.

*Condesend

Right now Home (to my mind) is still a glorified chatroom, which is fine, but also means as long as that’s what it looks like, that’ll be the demographic it draws in. Home is still an odd, mish-mashed mutant of everyone and no one’s DNA right now, but a good splice of gaming and maybe even a little gaming blog surgery would help turn it into something the more “hardcore” gamer (ugh) might condensed to use more frequently.

The main change is that the new wave of Home games builds from the Novus Prime formula; they are experiences unto themselves, with a bit of strategy and detail to master.

Already we’re seeing a shift in Home where users can pick and choose the kind of experience they want to have. Like shooters? Here’s Minibots and No Man’s Land. Like space combat? Enjoy Novus Prime. Like creating things? Blueprint and Home Tycoon. Like RPGs? Avalon Keep and Mercia.

It’s now possible to spend hours immersed in these particular styles of games, which is a huge departure from the beat-it-and-forget-it minigames that ruled Home’s first few years of development.

Granzella still excels at creating socially oriented spaces, and there are a couple in Japan that will strengthen that reputation when they arrive here, but these are geared more toward people who want to socialize than those who want to play a game.

So Home will split along the lines of those who come to socialize and those who want gaming experiences, and the gaming experiences group will further split according to the type of game they want to play. Ultimately, this is a great thing, because Home soon will offer a wide range of quality gaming experiences, many with deep social elements, but it will come at the cost of the general socializing that once happened at Central Plaza.

Unless you’re all Home all the time, there’s just no way to keep on top of the deeper gaming options and keep a regular social schedule. On the plus side, it may be easier to make friends if you have a Home game in common. On the minus side, it’s likely to incentivize management further away from overall community events in favor of more genre games and experiences.