Oh, the Humanity!
by FEMAELSTROM, HSM team writer
Herbert Morrison cried those very words as he watched the explosion of the German zeppelin Hindenburg. Let’s see if we can avoid this on Home, in the Blimps game at Aurora.
Like many in Home, I have my dailies that I run. For me, it the first stop is the daily pull at the Casino Concourse free slot machine. I like this one because it is a fast in-and-out, and when my balance is high enough, I even try some of the slots or War. Sometimes I get lucky and score a win of 20 chips, and once I even scored 100. This is fun to do and I am grateful to Digital Leisure for the free fun.
The other place I go is the Aurora space, by nDreams. I love this place. I go daily to run the Orb Runner game. As I write this article, I am at level 113, and have had fun the whole time I was getting there. Recently Aurora underwent some changes that have some people not so in love with it, but it is still worth running around and gathering the orbs because nDreams does make it fun with all that they give out for free! All anybody has to do is level up by scoring points as you collect orbs, and eventually the prizes will come. So if one has the patience and wants to simply run around and snag some free swag as they collect orbs, this is a great game to have in Home.
Me alone at the Blimps game, Oh the (lack of) humanity!
I will admit I don’t play the other games at Aurora. No particular reason — I just fell into the habit of running after those multi-colored orbs. Aurora does have other things to do, such as Skyfishing, The Teller of Tales and the OMG Trap-O-Matic, as well as access to all that is Xi and FUBAR.
Then there’s the Blimps game.
I was in Aurora, roaming after the Orb Running was done for the day, when I saw the four steering wheels that serve as the kiosk for the Blimps game. I play Orb Runner every day, with the occasional off day, but for the most part, I’m there every day. It is during these daily visits that I came to realize that I simply never see anybody play the Blimps game. I have seen a few souls wander over to look and even enter the “tag-you’re-it” styled game. But with nobody else playing, it becomes a matter of the random person entering the game and soon afterwards backing out, realizing that there is nobody to play with.
I began to wonder why people don’t gravitate there much. nDreams makes fun games, the king of all probably being Orb Runner itself. Of course there may be a friendly debate over that with the Xi and FUBAR fans, but that is something we can debate at another date. And in the end, the debate only confirms that nDreams is a top-tier developer with great games under its belt.
But why is it that people don’t play Blimps? Or at least don’t seem to.
A quote from Joey at nDreams states that there are no prizes. My apologies, if what comes next seems like a greedy and shallow thing to say, as I believe that nDreams has given so much that I actually feel bad writing this. However, there are a lot of people who simply hunt treasure and freebies on Home, and without prizes, these people will not congregate there.
Without prizes, people will also not buy upgrades, and there are purchasable upgrades available for this game. The power ups come in the form of blimp companions that give the owner’s blimp extra maneuverability. There is the one-star blimp that is the entry level blimp and free for all, though you do not get a companion. The rest are various color schemes that give you extra maneuverability ranging from one to five stars, five being the best. The color schemes are fun. There is a watermelon, a bomb, a checkered flag and of course a gold blimp, which is the best of all.
Don’t get excited, these are unmanned drones for display at the game site.
In the end, it is still basically a game of tag. You can buy upgraded blimps that will help with agility, but these are locked until purchased, which creates a funny paradox: with no prizes, why play? And with nobody playing, why buy a power up?
nDreams has shown that it can and will change if needed to accommodate the masses here in Home, and this is a very good sign that they want to be part of a lucrative community. The fact is that nDreams openly wants any and all input from us users. This is a great idea, as this shows that nDreams wants to hear from the people and work with them. Joey at nDreams is well in touch with the community through the forums, and people I know have had good communications with nDreams through Joey.
Back to the “Oh, the humanity!” part. nDreams puts out fun and creative games, but for every home run, there is a chance of a strike-out. Fortunately for nDreams, this is something they can still work on and make changes that could put this game in the forefront, rivaling games like Orb Runner and Xi from their very own stable of games, as well as games from other developers.
What will it take?
Well, the obvious first answers are of course prizes (sorry nDreams, you do already give us so much), then maybe a leveling-up system tied into, or similar to the Orb Running game. Perhaps an expanded play set for private homes with the ability to play with friends? Or perhaps, as Digital Leisure did with weekly free tokens for use in their casino, make it possible to win something one can use in other parts of Aurora, like tokens or coins. In this case, maybe a consumable for the Orb Runner game.
The catch, of course, is that games are notoriously hard to successfully monetize in Home, and the prevailing belief is to not throw good money after a bad investment. But by the same token, how can you expect to monetize a game if you haven’t designed it properly to do so?
Me, in my clubhouse waiting for a better Blimps game… it can be done.
The blimps game is far from done, and with the ability to update, there are vast possibilities, infinite even. I would love to see nDreams do what it does best: make this a great game. nDreams already has a great bead on the way that things should be here in Home, and I hope that enough people can contact them with ideas and encourage them to make this as much fun as the Orb Runner and Xi games.
Until then, I will keep my eyes open as I play Orb Runner, hoping that one day the Blimps game will be filled and people will be as excited about blimps as other nDreams commodities.
May 30th, 2013 by FEMAELSTROM | 8 comments
FEMAELSTROM came to Home in June 2011 and never wanted to leave, even at weekly maintenance when he usually gets booted. The sand box environment appeals to the explorer in him and often is out and about as he ‘geeks’ out dressed like some sort of sci-fi character, while he people watches in popular public spaces. An artist and writer, FEMAELSTROM loves making friends and meeting people. He loves sci-fi and decorating Home estates and loves to respond “here” when people ask “where are you from?” in public places.
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Good article Strom. I tried blimps once or twice but as you said there didn’t seem to be much purpose to it as no one else was there to speak of so no one to tag. Great suggestions, I think if they revamped the game a bit people would return to it.
Making money by making games in Home is hard. The reality is that a majority of the people in Home never spend anything. So getting them to spend something is hard. I think the major problem has been this free-to-play idea, not realizing that Home itself is free-to-play. Too much free and the need to buy goes down.
Another thing I have learned is that selling someone a better gun when they already have a gun is a hard sell. But selling them a gun when they have no weapon is easy. especially when everyone else has a weapon.
But you are right that this create and abandon pattern makes little sense. It is cheaper to fix a game then to write another.
I can’t say it’s going to happen anytime soon but I wouldn’t be surprised to see something happen with Blimps in the next two or three Aurora updates.
We all know everyone loves rewards and maybe one way of bringing blimps in line is to add Aurora XP to blimps instead of it being it’s own standalone game with it’s own rewards. “play for 10 minutes a day and earn X amount of Aurora XP”.
Nice article Strom, it has brought up things we actually have discussed internally. The most interesting thing is the idea that rewards are things that are completley free, decent ones cost a lot of money to make which is why you might not see many developers going back to an old game to update it with rewards.
Interesting to see what HSM readers, and the Home community in general think -- does Blimps become it’s own game with it’s own rewards (we would need to find something to monetise then in order to pay for the development of that) or do we try and bring it inline and allow users to earn Aurora XP with it…
Joey, I wonder if there could be some way to play Blimps solo? A lot of the problem is that you need at least two people to play. Unless you go in with a friend, you quickly get bored waiting for other players. If there were no other players in the game, could we use the blimps to chase down AI blimps? Or even Orbs or cloud-squids?
Aurora XP would be an acceptable reward, I think. Especially if the level cap is going to be raised again. One thing I like about Aurora is that all the XP goes into one “pot”, leading to some awesome rewards for OCD XP collectors.
I am real cautious about calling for freebies, especially from nDreams. You guys are already sooooo generous, that I feel real bad even saying that word, but for the masses, it is a draw. One thing I really would like to see expanded is this: 2 friends of mine are level 120, so XP doesn’t help them, and I am a level 117, so I have very little to go. Maybe if you could put into the game something like the OMG Trap-o-Matic, where it reads if you get a free item or xp. It may bring people back to play to possibly get a free item or not, or if an item is one the user already has, then the user can get XP. RE: Deuce_for2, true the ‘abandon in place’ idea is not a safe model, but fortunately, we are on a media that allows for updates galore, so it is comforting to know that something with such potential can be updated.
Free-to-play games need to provide the option to spend a lot of money, without forcing it. Perhaps you could spend a week of intensive playing to gather enough gold to buy a horse, or you could spend $10 to get a different horse instantly. I don’t have tons of free time anymore, so I’d take the second option. Consider bigger things, too- like spending months to save up for an estate, or spending $100 to get an estate and a bunch of other goodies instantly.
I have not asked Sony recently, but they used to say we could not sell items for real money that you could earn through gameplay. I believe it had something to do with how the items are represented on the server and not a generic philosophy, but I may be wrong. The thing that has changed since then is the creation of monetary systems by the developers. For instance in the Casino, you can buy and win coins. If you use coins as a medium to buy things, a la Cutthroats, then you have bridged the gap. There is a market for people to buy items that others will grind for. The problem is making sure it generates enough revenue to justify the game. Making a game for $300,000 and getting $20,000 back will lead to companies stop making games. That is the problem at the root of everything.
Some nice ideas.
SealWyf, turning it into a single player game would cost a considerable amount (even though it actually sounds relatively simple) and I think that is what a lot of Home users forget at times. It’s a nice idea and I think that was the original plan for CloudHunter but its not something we have gone with.
I think as a large amount of people hit 120 we will keep raising the level cap and offering more rewards (and never be afraid to say you think there should be even more rewards, the worst we can do is say no!!).