Active Items Revisited
by Burbie52, HSM team writer
We all love our active items, be they games, music or something else. There have been many great ones made through the years I have spent in Home. I have bought quite a few of them and enjoyed their use for a time.
Ever since the memory footprints in Home were opened up to developers so they could create new fantastic active items for a fraction of the cost to our inventories, I have had a dream. A dream that the developers and Sony themselves would revisit and alter the memory cost of previous products we were given in Home.
This is something that only one company has done, Heavy Water, when they changed the memory allocation on their line of Peeps from twenty two down to six slots. They also did this with their Vampire Bats and Ghosts for Halloween. Why they are the only company who has done this, I don’t know, but I wish that other companies would consider doing the same with some of their products, especially their games. I don’t know how much work it takes to change the coding and make these products usable again, but I would like to find out.
Three actives: 66 slots, or 18?
I know that it is money that talks where Home’s new items are concerned, and I have bought my fair share. However, the fact that we have great products like VEEMEE’s pool tables and their wonderful Brimstone poker game, as well as Sony’s Chess and Solitaire games from previous Home updates that just sit in our overburdened inventory storage unused because of the memory they use is sad to me. These were wonderful products for their time. Many people bought them, and I think that if they were either redone to change the memory constraints or even made over as new products they would be very popular.
One of the biggest complaints I have heard about the pool tables when they first came out was that the people expected them to play the same as the ones they were used to in the Bowling Alley. They don’t — in fact, they are very clumsy by comparison, and that was a big disappointment for many. But that could be fixed with a newer rendition of the tables.
I would definitely buy a new pool table or poker table that is usable in any space I own as long as it consumed fewer slots. We could have poker tourneys and pool tourneys in our clubs if we could have multiple games going on at the same time. There are other card games that could be utilized as well, like Canasta, Cribbage or Pinochle, all favorites of mine in real life. These card games are extremely popular in online play in places like Yahoo! Games. There are a lot of different games like these that could be brought into Home in multi-player format. These types of gaming experiences would bring a lot of social elements into Home and strengthen the community here.
Ooblag table, snowman, birdcage and old boombox collecting dust
The possibilities of reallocating memory for active items is huge. The people who already own these things would benefit greatly as it would allow them to actually use them, and it would also open up a new market for these objects with those who are newer to Home and never owned them. People will buy things in Home that they can relate to their real world life, and the popularity of these types of games is already there, waiting to be tapped.
Remember Ooblags Casino? Those of you who have been around for a while do, I bet, though I doubt that the great game that was brought into Home because of it is used anymore. It is like a space age edition of the craps game in the casino, and it is a lot of fun, but once again you have to use twenty-two furniture slots to play it, so it collects dust in our storage.
There are a lot of other great items that sit unused in my inventory, like the early boomboxes and my LOOT Photo Telescope. Also the Sneak Attack items from Mass Media and things like the musical gift and White Christmas snowman from Sony. I also love the active bird cage, and then there are things like the flying saucers and Robo-Dog, all of which would be used more often if they consumed less memory.
Now I can understand not wanting to go back and change things that were given us as rewards for free in the first place. But if we paid for them, I think it would be great if they were changed like Heavy Water did — free of charge, I might add. However as mentioned, some of these are things I would be willing to buy again in a different format. I wish that someone would consider this. All of these products were great for their time, they still are.
June 8th, 2013 by Burbie52 | 5 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.
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Agree. Agree. Agree!
I just bought the Mystic Arcade space (who didnt see me buying THAT lol) and the first thing I thought when I stepped into the space was “damn this place is small!”.
But actually, now that it’s been filled with arcades and a make-shift bar, it’s the perfect size for the amount of arcades we currently have available -- even though I didnt use all of them.
Now imagine if each arcade needed 22 slots. If that were the case, then I wouldn’t have bought the space in the first place, simply for the fact there’d be no point. I’d get maybe 4 arcades in there and then what?
I WANTED to add my pool table too but, no one really ever asks for a game of it and I’d rather have a 140″ screen behind my bar as a distraction than use those slots for an unused obstacle.
I dont get how a single chess game can possibly need more space than THIRTEEN FULL arcade games!?
Ooblang’s Casino game is pretty cool, and would have made a nice little addition to the place too, but again it comes down to usefulness Vs item count, and as it stands, LOOT’s TV will still be used more I think. A retroactive update to squash these old 22 slot-hungry actives would go down VERY well in my world.
I hope someone who can help reads your article Burbie.
I’m a saddo when it comes to furniture items, I’ve got every item I own out in a space somewhere, so if I want to play pool I go to that space or if I want to watch fireworks I go there, but I’ve purchased and won enough spaces to do that, but now I’ve forgotten where stuff is lol. Perhaps having a comment box for each space would help.
Remember 50 slots allowed per space? Yi Yi Yi Yi Yi!
Things have improved so I’m not complaining about those who don’t make the 22 slotters less. The new ones are mostly less than 22.
We need new pool tables. VeeMee’s are not that great. Maybe it happens maybe it doesn’t.
There is so many interresting active items out there I want but would never buy at 22 slots. Of course, pool table and poker as well as dart are on top of the list. (Those I already own.) But electric train, model car track, astrolab, house pet… The list could go on a full page.
I wouldn’t mind paying for new version of those I own. I wouldn’t mind a “better” pool game either
Strangely, I find it even more a problem now than with the old 50 items cap. Back then the cap included 2 active items. You just had to choose wich ones. Now with a more flexible system I am less incline to use 22 slots items.
I remember when I bought my first personal place. I wanted to do a “guy place” A pool table here, poker there, throw in a brimstone dancer…. No! can’t do!
There is so many possibilty with active items. I wish dev would slow down on LMO’s and create more of these.
I totally agree with this. I would use more active items than i do now, and would Certainly buy some “old” things if they were revamped. Great article!!