Watersheds: 1.75 hits Home
by SealWyf, HSM Editor
It’s unusual to know the contents of a core update ahead of time. They usually just arrive, and we have to deal with them. However, we have had a few weeks to anticipate update 1.75. Consequently, the angst that accompanies many changes to the way Home works has the added dimension of nail-biting anticipation.
The advance notice was a courtesy from Sony, extended because of how one of 1.75’s key features, cloud storage of furniture layouts and other data that is currently stored on the user’s HDD, will change how we operate in Home. Cloud storage means we can no longer back up apartment states and game save manually, using a USB drive. The data on the HDD at the time of the update will be copied to Sony’s servers, and become the active copy.
Although most Home users did not do so, there were some very good reasons to go to the trouble of maintaining a personal backup, and many of us took advantage of this flexibility. Sometimes it was useful to save different states of same apartment and switch between them. And sometimes the furniture layout in an apartment would “go bad”, and it was useful to be able to restore it. This was one reason that local backups were part of a glitcher’s toolkit. If a painstakingly-created effect broke, as they were apt to do, you could recover it. This has been even more important since the simpler methods of glitching were patched. I have some complex furniture floats that I will be sorry to lose, when virtual gravity takes its inevitable toll.
Worth backing up
However, there were more problematic uses of save files. Accessible data can be modified, and some of the modifications have allowed users to get content from other Home regions and manipulate it in ways that caused problems. If losing manual backups can help freeze-proof Home, it’s probably a worthwhile trade. But it does make it more urgent that apartment-state save capability be added to Home’s core code, so we can save multiple states and backup copies of each apartment. This ability would make the multiple apartments of Blueprint: Home truly useful.
Was eliminating item server exploits (ISE) the reason that Sony is moving our local data to the cloud? Or are there other reasons as well? I have been asking my tech-savvy friends this question, and the answer that seems most plausible is that cloud storage makes Home more portable. Once the save data is on a server, you can log into Home from any console and see the same apartment layouts. This will disappoint those who use multiple consoles to maintain multiple apartment states, but it is a benefit for the rest of us. And we may be approaching a world where Home does not live only on the PS3. We might someday be able to access Home from our portable gaming devices. And if Home survives the transition to the PS4, which I think is likely, it will be good to find our apartment layouts there when we first log in.
So cloud storage of data was the big news, a definite watershed in Home evolution. But core update 1.75 includes some other good features, as well as some that are good, but intensely controversial.
A definite win is the ability to change clothes in a friend’s apartment. You have to wonder whether this is related to cloud storage of apartment layouts; perhaps one issue preventing this was rebuilding the apartment when the user emerged from the wardrobe. Or perhaps it’s unrelated. In any case, this is a much-needed feature, and we’ll be glad to have it.
Another welcome addition is the ability to add club names or tags to an avatar label. This will be very useful for members of large groups such as the Homeling Collective, and has long been requested by Homeling elder Nosdrugis. It’s true that this will be the name of a specific clubhouse, rather than that of the overarching organization. But soon we will all be able to advertise our MotherShips when we are at mass gatherings. That’s a definite win.
The controversial part of the update is a set of features linked to PlayStation Plus membership. The most important of these is the ability to create custom colors for hair and makeup, which will include a color picker and a saved custom color palette. The other PS Plus exclusive features are an increased number of character save slots — 48 instead of the present 24 — and eight additional exclusive popup colors. PS Plus subscribers will also be able to add a special icon to their character label.
This subscriber-only content has predictably caused much anguish on the Forums, where anything that requires actual spending of money is often greeted with alarm. And indeed this is a major change on Sony’s part. However, it is in keeping with the proper “freemium” philosophy, which is to sell convenience and cosmetic improvements, but keep the important parts of the playing field level. The basic structure of Home will remain the same for all users. Nothing that is currently free will be moved behind the subscription wall. More avatar save slots are simply a convenience, and custom colors are, literally, a cosmetic improvement. This feels fair to me, although obviously not to everyone.
The angst is understandable, because this is a definite watershed — a change in the basic pricing structure of Home. While add-on content has long been monetized, this is the first time that Sony has charged, even indirectly, for core updates. However, things that look a heck of a lot like core updates have been on sale for a while now, as custom locomotions. These items change the way your avatar moves and reacts to the world around it, adding gestures and dances and whole new abilities. Behaviors that were formerly part of the basic avatar definition can now can be sold as add-on content. This has resulted in an explosion of creativity as developers find new ways to persuade us to buy their creations.
Meanwhile, in another part of the memory budget…
What if additional parts of the avatar’s memory real estate had been offered to developers, and features like expanded save slots and custom color palettes had been offered for sale? Would there have been as much uproar? I think not — we accept buying content created by developers to enhance our Home experience. It is only because Sony itself is selling expanded capabilities that people are upset. They see this as the edge of the slippery slope — today a loyalty program, tomorrow a subscriber-only Home.
I, frankly, don’t see that happening. Home works very well as a freemium platform. I doubt that is going to change. And I like loyalty programs. I have recently re-upped my PlayStation Plus subscription, even though it did not offer much to a habitual Home user. I had always thought the Plus program should include more Home content, and now Home users will benefit from being part of it. The enhancements being offered are those that will appeal to an advanced Home user, many of whom are already Plus subscribers. I see this as win, despite the clamor to the contrary.
It will be interesting to see whether the sale of PS Plus memberships increases because of these new membership benefits. And it will also be interesting to see whether we get multiple apartment save slots any time soon. But I am especially interested to see how the new implied portability of Home plays out. Will Home appear on the Vita? Will a new, re-coded Home arrive with our PS4 consoles? Time alone will tell, but the future is starting to look very interesting.
January 30th, 2013 by SealWyf_ | 14 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.
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” And we may be approaching a world where Home does not live only on the PS3….if Home survives the transition to the PS4, which I think is likely, it will be good to find our apartment layouts there when we first log in.”
This.
Hence why everyone complaining about Home 1.75 really ought to be quiet right now.
Some people are just whining as usual, but some people are really worried about logging into home on they ps3’s and not finding they layouts or more importantly they avatar when they first log in.Is it because when it goes right no one remembers it, and when it goes wrong it really goes major league wrong and everyone remembers that. But its coming, theres no stopping it, If it goes wrong then users should do what they have to but till then its a waste of time whining about it.
Looks like it’s time to renew the Plus
Am excited about these new features!
I went to my nephew’s house and fired up Home on his PS3. I went to show him my apartments and they all had no furniture. So if they do migrate Home to other platforms, this is a required step.
Once able to be saved and recalled from the server, one can imagine being able to save more than one set up. That seems like a natural evolution.
“natural evolution”… For a price ; )
I may be bundled in with all the nay-sayers and the whingers, but I’m honestly just concerned about my Home stuff. And a bit miffed that an “up-grade” includes taking *away* my options and control, rather than giving me more. The fact this update has been delayed is rather worrying also, now we have no due date for when it actually will be ready. Sayin’ that, I’m glad they’re not rolling it out until it’s properly ready for us. If anything this new delay gives me a bit of confidence that when it does come, my stuff *might* be safe… for a while.
I understand completely. I think time will be the judge of whether this is a good idea or not. Let’s hope they are doing something great.
.
User-discovered workarounds do not equal options.
Other than that, I think you’re spot on.
It looks like we will have to wait a few more weeks for 1.75. Sony is still tweaking it. I think one of the great and overlooked things about 1.75 is we now have the ability to access our wardrobe totally in another persons apartment.
Home 1.75 is one of the most important updates ever assembled. It’s not that hard to look into the future, put two and two together, and figure out that the only way to have Home (or, indeed, anything PS3-related) on the next console generation is via cloud-based emulation.
People are screaming about losing (possibly temporarily) some of the power-user workarounds they’ve figured out for Home, and in so doing are completely missing the much larger picture: that it’s now feasible that Home could be enjoyed beyond the PS3, if Sony chooses to make it available on the PS4 or elsewhere.
Of course, something like that could never be explicitly stated by Sony, because legally it could constitute a forward-looking statement, and you don’t want someone investing in a new platform for a feature which may or may not occur. And so the screaming continues. It has to be driving the guys up in Foster City insane.
(What’s that old aphorism? No good deed goes unpunished…?)
I know there will still be no shortage of knee-jerk invective over 1.75, but seriously: it’s easy to see how beneficial it is in the long run. It means that Home’s lifespan potentially just got a lot longer.
None of us can see the future so we don’t know what we will happen or perhaps even what is supposed to happen at least in all cases. So we wait and see as with everything in life when a proposed change occurs.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if we looked at this change(s) as a novel and started reading from the ending.
Sony is making a big change. Some people are worried, even afraid. Let us hope SONY gets it right.
9-9=0? There is no zero!
“We fear change.” -- Garth, Wayne’s World
Great article Seal!
this is truly the way to view changes. Keep it all in black and white. I personally am looking forward to the new plus content. I’ve been a member for a while, I got it for the un-locks to the personal spaces, there wasn’t much else with the membership as far as home. It’s about time. There’s only so many times I visit x7.
lol *let me clarify I got x7 membership after plus because there was nothing in the way of rewards for Home through plus service. Glad there are now. yay.
This is such a great article!I tried Plus for the first time about three months ago and so far I’m happy with it.I planned on renewing just for the games then I read about this update.There are some fundamental changes coming that I feel won’t really change the way I approach Home.I’m looking forward to experimenting with the color palette and the extra pop up colors are kinda cool but I hardly use the save slots as it is so doubling them won’t change much for me.One thing does concern me.I have had past and present issues when trying to place active items.Recently I freeze when trying to place the Essence of the Seven Winds at Red Bull House of Skate.The only way I know of to fix this is to delete the saved data file on the XMB for the space and download it again in Home.Same issue at Harbour with telepads but I’ve been able to fix it using the above method.How will the update affect these kind of issues I wonder?We shall see,I guess.