Wishing On A Star
by Burbie52, HSM team writer
How many of you have recently acquired the newest innovative apartments that have been brought to PlayStation Home?
Of course, I am speaking of nDreams’ Blueprint, which allows you to create your own space, and the wonderfully whimsical Avalon Keep from Heavy Water. I love both of these spaces and all of the possibilities that they represent in Home. They are at the forefront of what I see as Home’s future, and I must say that it is looking like a bright one. But I want to talk about what I see as missing from these spaces, what could use improvement and also what they might consider creating for them in the future. If I could wish upon a star, this would be my wish for these spaces.
First, let’s tackle Blueprint. I love this ability to create my own space, and I have been having a great deal of fun not only learning how to do this, but also what works and what doesn’t. I have a lot of friends who have created some wonderful spaces and others who have created mazes and the like. I also have friends who are really struggling with what to do with it because you have to go through a learning process to figure it out. Also they don’t like that you can only have one set of furniture saved at a time; what is the point of having five save slots is if you can only furnish one? Granted, we know it is because of technical issues. I think there is a way to save them, though it has to do with flash-drive saves, then using individual flash drives for each furniture layout so the previous one doesn’t get wiped out by overwriting it, and that is a lot of hassle for sure.
Where do I wash my hands?
I am a more traditional person, so all of my designs so far have been personal spaces and I am treating it like a decorating meta-game of sorts. I have built six of them, learning as I go, and furnished three different ones until I got it right with the tools I have at my disposal so far. Now I don’t know all of what nDreams has in store for us yet, but from the glimpses of the future packs coming out they give us in their menu, I can see a few things that I would like to add to it. I love the “features” additions in these packs they give because they allow us to keep a few extra slots for much-needed furniture allotments. You can build a huge space with Blueprint, but furnishing something that large with only a hundred items is daunting, to say the least. That being said, only having a few different “features” to use doesn’t help all that much in the scheme of things, especially when some of them are merely ornamental and not furniture, and the ones that are furniture, like the student desks in the classroom pack, can’t be sat on and are therefore are just ornaments as well.
The reason behind this is probably a technical one and I will give them that, but what I would truly like to see is a pack to buy that is nothing but “features”. These are the one thing we are able to use with any other pack we buy, no matter which it is. This is a great part of the building process as it gives you more leeway with your spaces. But many of the features offered so far are lacking in a universal appeal. Let me elaborate; I am not going to place a sci-fi steel wall in my “normal” looking apartment, nor am I going to use a whiteboard or school desks either. These things are great if you want to build something that is of that ilk, but not in the norm.
I would like to see a pack with more practical things for everyday use that could be universal, like built in bathroom/kitchen counters with a sink in a variety of colors, a shower stall with or without a bath tub attached, or perhaps a few renditions of both. Another thing that I would find extremely helpful would be free standing walls similar to the curved glass and metal available, but done in a straight line so I could create closets or smaller rooms within the rooms we do with the Blueprint. A variety of off white, pastel blues and greens or rosy pinks in these would be fantastic, as would the same colors made available with doorways built into them to expand the possibilities. I know there is a “wallpaper” pack coming eventually, which I am hoping desperately has more pastel colors in it for our use and these would be a great addition to those.
With pictures I could take out some windows!
Now I know that the counters will probably be like the other feature items and not be useable for putting things on; it probably has to do with the same reason you can’t use pictures within the space either. After all you are “creating” a space, so it stands to reason that putting a normal picture frame on a wall is not going to work. But another thing they could offer as features is picture frames with pictures already in them you could hang for some color on the walls.
Next comes Avalon Keep. I absolutely love this place, it has so many ways you can go with it. Its size is the only drawback so far; it makes it very hard to decide where to put things, and with them adding new areas in the future, like the bedroom they will add soon, I have a lot of questions about how they are going to handle this. If we are only going to be allowed the hundred items we have now, adding new areas isn’t going to help the situation at all. As it is I can only truly decorate one area at a time because of its sheer size.
I hope that when we are given the bedroom at the top of the stairs, it becomes another hundred-item area, kind of like the Mansion spaces are, but I hope it doesn’t have to be like they are in that you have to have your guests leave to see these areas, instead of the wonderful translation that now exists between the outer and inner keep areas. I don’t know if this is a possibility, but I would even be happy to have the inner keep and the outside areas be one hundred each, as I can see decorating the keep and bedroom easily with one hundred if I could have another to do the outside with.
When it comes to furniture and the like, I would love to see some more outside stuff. I built a medieval fair in my central courtyard near the sundial. I stood there wishing I had free-standing banners on poles, a maypole and some streamers of color I could hang about the place. A wooden dance floor would be nice as well; we have lots of colorful electric-looking ones, but none of these fit with the motif, and I think that parquet, or other wood floors that could be laid like carpets would not only be used here, but many people would buy them for use in their other spaces. For that matter, marble or granite ones would probably be bought up too if they were made available.
Other developers have given us some of the medieval ornaments I used to decorate my fair, but I would love to see Heavy Water come out with their own versions of a banquet table, food and cooking utensils like a fire-pit and spit, I would even be willing to give up a few slots if they made an active one that rotated on its axis over the fire. Hedges would be nice, as would moveable stone walls to add to the outside decor, I could totally see a hedge maze being built around the sundial in the huge open center area where I put my fairground.
I know that this space is new and is intended to grow and change; these are just things I have seen in the last few days as I put the space together, I love it a lot so far and would just like to say I am very happy with finally getting my castle. Feel free to add any suggestions here that you might like to see in these great new spaces; I am sure that many of you have seen things I haven’t that you would like to see as Home grows into much more than we could have dreamt of a few months ago.
August 25th, 2012 by Burbie52 | 7 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.
Great article, I bought Avalon but not blueprint because I’m a user of some of homes competitors and the sort of spaces I can create there are far far better than anything you can do with homes limitations. I’d like to see a generic pack of mundane items say hedges fences tea cups all the things I don’t want to see developers waste loads of time on or flood the shops with. Just one bundle of mundane items to help decorate.
I’ve seen your medieval fair and it’s wonderful! You were very creative with the idea in the first place and the items you used and combined from different developers were astounding. I like the “dance floor” you made and all the stalls with items for sale. You are a genius at decorating, I think.
Thanks Kass, I don’t know about the genius part but I do have fun with it.
Hedges would be awesome! The medieval fair does look really nice too.
Looking forward to what else Heavy Water has in mind for Avalon Keep too!
Flags come to mind as a hand or shirt item.
Hedges would be great! Fish (not koi) for the pond. It won’t let me put goldfish (Irem Square & Edo prizes) or anything in the water although I can walk in it, which is a nice touch; reeds, cattails, and water lilies to decorate the pond. A fishing game: the Go Fish one is the closest to Real Life of any I’ve played in Home but *any* would be better than none. I, too, hope the additional areas are Mansion-style (with better transitions for guests) because of the 100-item limit. How about some NPCs we can place where we want? Servants, soldiers, courtiers … and some plants with the proper scale, to make a garden or just to decorate here and there? Horses with the proper equipage, with and without riders?
As it is, it’s a fun *living* space of which I want more!
Great write Burbie. I have seen your fair and I think it’s great. I love the layout and the design. My comment is on the Blueprint home. I love the idea of making my own home, but yes when I found out that we could only save one furnichure set, steam came out of my ears like in cartoons. I hope that they fix that someday soon. The way I see it, I didn’t get the 5 slots, I got one home I could decorate, and I do love my decorating. One last thought on the Blueprint. I really hope that Blueprint comes out with a night sky complete with moon.
Burbie,
All of these things mentioned above are for the most part doable. Could you please mail me directly about this as well as copy Stephen on the mail? I don’t have your direct mail info. We would like to discuss this with you in further detail.
Thanks again,
Matt