A Region Free Home Lounge
by Phoenix, HSM team writer
Being a seasoned traveler as I have become in my avatar state. I have met friends in the many regions of Home. Canadian, Dutch, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Parisian – the list goes on. Some I met in the region-free lounges during the E3 conferences, and one I met at the Dust 514 conference. I have since been able to visit them and have them visit me – all in personal spaces. But what if there were a region free public lounge available all the time? Since region hopping is frowned upon for a variety of reasons, then this would be a good thing.
Could it be possible to have a permanent, region free lounge? Let’s say that it was – what kind of lounge would you want to see? Well, considering it would mean a visit outside a personal space, it would need to have some universally appealing, built-in attraction for that added social aspect. I have given some thought to this question, and found I have come up with three ideas for a permanent region free space.
The first style of lounge:
The space would be an amusement park like setting, like an expanded Pier Park. I would like to see attractions, like bumper cars and/or a carousel. And like the Ferris wheel, they must be accessible by the avatars. I know this is possible, as there was the sleigh ride at the recent Winter island. Unlike the Ferris wheel, however, when you moved your camera around, it would be possible of giving you entire views of the amusement park.
These rides would have the option of inviting a friend to ride along. Perhaps with regards to an attraction like bumper cars, as a measure to counter what would no doubt be a costly venture, Sony could offer tickets, like Mass Media’s Midway, for sale, and in order to play for an allotted amount of time, a player would have to redeem those tickets. This ticket exchange also lends an extra element of realism to the space.
I would also want some vendor stalls like those we had at Irem Square, with the food; elephant ears, corn dogs, soda, pizza, etc and merchandise stalls and of course a dance area. Perhaps an interactive area where friends could create a keepsake such as a photo, with a booth where a user can add custom graphics to personalize it, or some such item. This can be done as it is done at the LBP space, could be added.
The second style of lounge:
This next concept I envision would be along the lines of a street cafe or brassier. It would have separate areas to socialize, inside the space, and on the sidewalk. There would be waiters, NPCs like the characters at D2O and Avalon Keep, and again food items could be given as rewards when ordering, like those offered at the old Irem Square use to be.
Depending on the city of choice the developers modeled the space after, I would expect the scenery to be appropriate, and reward items could be specific to that locale. If it’s modeled after Paris, then that could be coffee or wine-like place setting; for a space modeled after London, it could be a cup of tea; in Tokyo, a noodle house, complete with a bowl of yakisoba; even Chicago’s Magnificent mile could be recreated.
This lounge would have the seated areas and a dance area. The attractions here would be socializing, the computer generated character’s, and of course the setting for the lounge. The street would have the street sign complete with name visible There could even be a keepsake reward as soon as you entered the space in the form of a pennant flag with the cafe name on it.
The third style of lounge:
This third concept is a ski lodge. Here, I envision a built-in game, such as skiing or luge, or perhaps snowboarding – perhaps all three. There could even be tobogganing races, where you race your friends one on one or in teams. It can be done, it already has been done to some extent in Europe.
Inside, there would be the coziness of a fireplace and seating. Avatars could mingle in one large open room, or it could be many rooms. The main purpose of the lodge would be as it is in a real lodge: a place for people to socialize when they aren’t on the slopes. Reward items, if any, could be skis or some other appropriate item in congruence with the theme. There could be a ski lift available to ride in that would take us up for a view over the snow covered area, and again it could be optional to invite a friend to join you on the ride.
These are the ideas for my region free permanent space. Of course, this would be unnecessary if Home were able to allow us to visit from region to region. Currently, this is not the case. The problem with region hopping is as I stated earlier. So to offset the crashes, lags and other undesirable events a permanent, region-free space would be great. At the very least, it could be a recurring space, something like the Winter Island.
That said, with all the changes that are coming to Home, and the PS4 on the horizon (and by association, the talk about cloud-based storage), it’s safe to say that this could soon be a reality.
February 2nd, 2013 by Phoenix | 6 comments
Phoenix writes poetry and is a photography enthusiast, along with writing for HomeStation Magazine. She is currently studying for a BFA in Creative Writing and BA with concentration in Photography. psn ID phoenixstorm21
youtube.com/user/phoenixstorm21
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Great ideas, I really hope this becomes a reality.
Some really good suggestions in here, from the 3 you’ve made, I think the amusement park is most befitting of a global space since it’s something that everyone is familiar with, yet dont feel an affiliation with. I’ve already asked for a continental cafe style space in EU and as far as Im aware, the idea has been taken under consideration. Although certainly not for a global space, pity that.
I think there’s a massive enthusiasm for a place in Home where users can connect with others from outside their regions, just look how popular global spaces have been in the past.
One type of space I think would be kinda cool for an open, global space is an airport. You could have V.I.P rooms for privacy, sections for pubs/cafe areas, shops that sell some region specific items and amusement arcade areas. Either that or a continually moving cruise ship with all the entertainment that comes on one of those like NPC stage acts, swimming pools, casino area and of course, dynamic moving scenery like LOOT’S yacht.
These are all great suggestions Phoenix. I think that all regions would benefit from something permanent like this. The Feva Arena was hugely popular til it left and it only had two mini games with lame rewards attached, but people flocked there til the day it left, long after those rewards were done with.
I like the amusement park one best as well. A video arcade would be a good choice as well since this is a gaming console. I proposed something like that in a wishlist awhile back, and if it was a global space it would do even better. Arcades are another thing that most people, especially those who game, can relate to.
Nice article.
Really good wishlist. How about an airport. There has to be something that could be made permanent.
It would be great to see a place secure enough to handle a global public space.
I wonder if something like that is fesible. It would require changing the TOS aggreement though.
Making a purchasable passport on PSN to places suggested might be an option. In effect buying the new TOS agreement.
Then they wouldn’t have to change the aggreement as it is. Just ammend it for the new aggreement.
There was a famous interview with John Romero when he was still at id Software where the interviewer was talking about playing “Doom” against people half way around the world. He responded that the experience would not be satisfying because of the lag. The John Carmack walking passed chimed in “Yeah. The speed of light sucks.” Which is actually true when you are sending things around the world. You just have to be careful to design games that are not realtime when playing people across the ocean.
I believe the restrictions are based on territorial laws and commerce. Not all things are available in all places. There is a reason all items are not available in all regions. Maybe it should be easy, but it isn’t.
I feel like progress is heading in the right direction, just really slowly. I think there even people working on that speed of light restriction. We will see.
Everything should be multi region apart from those spaces that cause offense in certain countries, like Neon downtown from Japan has a drinking game which in dry no alcohol countries could cause issues. If the clothing is deemed unfit for other countries there has to be a way so all the user from the region that deems it unfit sees is default clothes while users that wouldnt deem it unfit can see what the avatar actually is wearing. Then set up several types of home square with the prominent spoken language there, So you have an English home square, a Spanish home square, etc etc. So any user that can speak Spanish can go to that home square and find other Spanish speaking users from all around the world. Obviously cant do every language but Sony must know where the bulk of users are from, and just have a generic square for the rest. Currently we can visit any private space see any piece of clothing released in any region in those private spaces, so the only thing to sort is public spaces.