Review of the Lockwood Sunlit Meadow Apartment
by SealWyf, HSM Editor
Our previous coverage of this space focused on marketing strategy. This was appropriate, since the “Sunlit Meadow” was the first personal space to be offered through the Lockwood Gift Machine. It was also necessary, because when these articles were written, nobody had seen the space in person. Now that we have the apartment itself, we can discuss how it stacks up against the other private spaces in Home.
The “Sunlit Meadow” is nearly unique in Home in having almost no manmade structure. It’s an outdoor space, a plot of ground set in a larger landscape. An “apartment”, if you will, with no actual apartment in it.
To realize how radical this is, remember that spaces in Home are constructed as a set of nested boxes. The outermost box contains the scenery. Within this, there’s the habitable box — the volume within which your avatar moves and places furniture. And, within the habitable box, there is usually a smaller box, which is the apartment proper — a set of visible walls defining rooms or a building.
Even the earliest Home apartments had some “outdoor” component, such as the balcony of the Harbour Studio or the lakeside deck of the Log Cabin. Apartments without a visible outdoors, such as the Magician’s Den and Villain’s Lair, and Comped Hotel Room, feel intensely claustrophobic. Even the Tree House, which has lovely views through its many windows, feels cramped because you can’t leave the room. There is simply no substitute for being able to walk out the door and look at the scenery up close. Some Home users take this principle to its logical conclusion — breaking out of the habitable box to explore the surrounding space is one of the grand challenges of glitching.
In some personal spaces, the outdoor component is dominant, and the building is incidental — the poolside area in the Mansion complex comes to mind. Some of the Lockwood apartments, such as Blaster’s Paradise and the Silicon Lounge, are mostly outdoor spaces. But there are still manmade structure in evidence, in the form of tents, walkways and platforms where you can set your furniture.
Lockwood extended this idea, by creating Home’s first completely outdoor personal space — the Midnight Glade, a free apartment, designed as a place to show off the Lockwood fireworks. Since then, it has become an excellent place to experiment with the PODI. When the Sunlit Meadow first appeared in Lockwood fashion shoots, it looked like a daylight version of the Midnight Glade. That was what many of us were expecting. But, in fact, the new space is quite different.
While the Midnight Clearing is a square space carved out of a wheat field or tallgrass prairie, the Sunlit Meadow is more natural and freeform. The habitable box is irregular in shape, and includes a grassy area surrounding a grove of trees in a landscape of gently-rolling hills. The space is unobtrusively bounded by a rail fence, boulders, and vegetation. There’s a pond at one side, where you can wade a short distance into the water.
The level of detail in the space is incredible. Every leaf seems fully defined. The ground is covered with grass, ferns, and colorful mushrooms. Butterflies are flying everywhere, rendered so precisely that you suspect they are based on actual species. The air is filled with birdsong. It is an idyllic outdoor location, with elements of fairtale fantasy — you can sit on the mushrooms.
There’s a humorous touch, a gift to the careful observer, in the form of a small population of skunks. I have found three of them, and there well may be more. Most of the time, they look like small, round, gray rocks. You hardly see them — until the rock uncurls and stretches, brandishing its furry tail, before curling up again and, effectively, vanishing. If you aren’t looking directly at a skunk when it wakes up, you would probably never notice it.
There’s a fair amount of burned-in seating, in the form of giant mushrooms, rocks and logs. The only human intrusions are the rail fence, the ghost of an unpaved road leading through the fence’s closed gate, and some lanterns hanging in the trees.
The lanterns made me hope there was a day-night cycle in play, but I have seen no sign of it. A time-of-day or weather option would suit this space well, if Lockwood ever decides to rework it. I would also consider spending some money on it, if it were a paid upgrade. The space would be lovely in twilight, or under a starry sky.
There is one unlockable item, a free-form tree-slab wooden table that would work well in combination with the now-vanished “Natural Wood” furniture. To find it, you locate the Golden Butterfly. This is not difficult — it’s quite large, and it doesn’t move around. I found the butterfly within my first five minutes in the space, quite by accident. Both apartment owners and guests can receive the gift table.
So how do you furnish an outdoor space? To be honest, you don’t really need to. The burned-in seating is extensive, so you could just leave the space as it is. But furnishing apartments is one of the great joys of Home — it’s the only way to distinguish your copy of a private space from everybody else’s. So you’re probably going to want to customize our Sunlit Meadow.
The first thing I added to mine was also the most obvious — a Drey Black Stallion Prop. This space practically demands a resident horse, and my much-abused prop horse needs a home.
There’s a hint of a fire circle in the grove, so I took the hint and added an Outdoor Campfire in the center of it. Then, since a fire implies people sitting around it, I added some more giant mushrooms for seating, and some other rustic furniture, as well as the unlocked Oak Table. A table looks odd if it’s empty, so I arranged a simple picnic — a cheese board and two silver goblets from VEEMEE’s Medieval Banquet items, and a dish of watermelon from Granzella. The Spring Log bench from the Easter egg-stomping game is so perfect for this space that I had to add it. And one of the flat grassy areas seemed designed for Lockwood’s picnic blanket, so I added that too.
I could have stopped there — I didn’t want to overpower the space. But with so many object slots still available, I yielded to temptation and sorted through my active items, looking for some appropriate animals. Unfortunately, everything I had available was designed to work in a traditional apartment or a barnyard, and this space is neither. I finally settled on the Bird With Cage — not that we need a caged bird, when the trees are full of wild ones. But the door of the cage is open, so the bluebird inside can fly around when he feels the need to be expand his horizons. And his voice adds to the pervasive birdsong.
One of the first questions I hear from other Meadow owners is, “What can I use this for?” It’s a reasonable question. With so many private spaces in Home already, how does this one fit into the collection? Which brings us to the larger question, of how personal spaces are used in Home in the first place.
For some spaces the answer is easy, because they include an enjoyable minigame. The MiniBots and Salt Shooter apartments are game-launching platforms. VEEMEE’s game-oriented apartments, such as the Go Fish! and Gnome Curling spaces, are much the same. The Blaster’s Paradise apartment, lovely as it is, may be seen by most people as a place to play TankTop.
Other spaces are decorating challenges, a backdrop to show off your flair for furniture arrangement. And, of course, some spaces are particularly good for glitching. Though not officially approved, there is something deeply satisfying about breaking through the walls and exploring the outer scenery. Decoration and glitching merge when a decorating scheme includes floating furniture.
Finally, some spaces are most useful as social settings for parties, meetings, and club ceremonies. The Homeling Collective is particularly fond of spaces with a sci-fi feel, and regularly uses them for Assimilations.
At the more intimate end of the social scale, there are spaces that are most comfortable when shared with one other person, for private conversation. This is where the Sunlit Meadow shines. As one of my friends said of it, “It’s good for chilling.”
It may seem strange that certain Home spaces encourage intimate conversation. But it’s not surprising — we see this in the real world as well. Sitting side by side on a bench facing the sunset wakes different moods and thoughts than sitting on a living room couch. And it’s usually the outdoor spaces — the apartments with the best scenery — that make the best conversation backdrops. In the few days I have owned it, I have found that the Sunlit Meadow is an excellent conversation pit.
In closing, I would like to revisit the Sunlit Meadow’s marketing strategy. Would this space have been a success if it had simply appeared in the Estates store? Would many people have purchased it?
I don’t think so. Home users are getting picky about their apartments. Most people won’t think they would get much use out of an outdoor space with little potential for decoration. But, being a gift makes this space special. The idea that it is only available as a gift adds a level of mystique and desirability. Not everyone is going to have one of these. You either have to be lucky in your friends, or negotiate a trade. Or, you can handle the transaction from an alternate account and gift it to yourself. But it’s going to take some thought, and some work — not just a visit to the Estates store.
I’ll go further, and guess that, if this had been a purchased space, many people would have found it disappointing. It’s not going to appeal to the same crowd that loves the Mansion. And it doesn’t have the special features we have begun to take for granted — EOD screens, an embedded minigame, or multiple unlockable and giftable items. But, for the people who appreciate atmosphere, beauty and a gentle humor, the space is a treasure.
I’m giving the Sunlit Meadow 4.5 Bubble Machines. The number is a compromise. If it had been a purchased space, I would probably have given it an even four. If it had included a day/night cycle or a significant embedded game, it would have received a full five.
It is what it is — a small and lovely addition to your collection of personal spaces. You probably won’t make it your default space. On the other hand, you might. I find I’ve been heading here, rather than to the Harbour Studio, to change outfits and load other spaces. And sometimes when I need to attend to real-life chores, such as working on an article, I leave my avatar there, sitting among the butterflies while birdsong fills the room.
- a beautiful, unusual personal space
- ideal for quiet conversation
- the skunks are charming
- hard to decorate
- not much of a party space
- why are there lighted lanterns, in broad daylight?
August 30th, 2012 by SealWyf_ | 2 comments
SealWyf is a museum database programmer, who has been active in online communities since before the Internet, and in console gaming since the PS1. In games, she prefers the beautiful and quirky, and anything with a strong storyline. She is obsessed with creating new aesthetic experiences in PlayStation Home.
I too like the ambiance of this space. I am having fun trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t for decorating it as well. But that is kind of fun, as something being a challenge like that makes it a bit of a game for me. I agree with your assessment Seal. Nice job on the article and nice job Lockwood for letting those of us with the means gift those without it in this way.
I used a ton of the Mercia rewards here. The traveller’s tent and the stone bench. I too have a fire pit and even used the cat tail plants from minibots in the water as well as a canoe on the shore of the pond. I love the skunks and they are a blast to watch, though I may have personally picked a different animal. I smell skunks too much as I travel through a canyon to get to work so it’s not a pleasant association, but visually it is great. I built a small hip high stable for the 2 drey horses from the fencing from the minibots game. I found it a fun challenge and am glad that my lady friend MaeBell (thank you) gave me such a cool place. It would be nice with the one update of a day/night cycle, I love those. Anyways, good job SealWyf on the article and good job to Lockwood. I do love this place. Wait I just gave out my ideas for decorating, darn and I can’t take ‘em back.