Home Development: Expectations
by Burbie52, HSM team writer
My newest investment in Home is broken. I spent a good sized chunk of real money on it and it doesn’t work.
What can I say about this? What should my expectations be?
First lets talk about expectations. When I purchase an item from anyone, be it in Home or in the real world, I expect it to function as it is supposed to. I expect that whomever made it tested it before production and made sure that there were no big problems with it.
Now I know that we are all human and mistakes can be made from time to time. Just look at all of the recalled cars people have purchased over the years as an example. Sometimes a flaw is discovered long after release because it takes a bit for them to appear. The only difference here in Home is that the flaws tend to surface immediately, rather than later on. In our digital world, code is king. and when the code is flawed, things can go downhill quite quickly.
Big recall, fiery death trap
This time the product I am dealing with is the new Haven of the Skies Clubhouse from Lockwood. I love the space, I love the public one as well, but several, severe bugs have popped up. The game is broken, and there have been several different issues here, from being booted altogether from the game to the game not appearing to be played at all. From getting stranded on one of the islands because the flying carpet no longer works, to gliding around on all fours on an invisible carpet. All of these things cause you to have to leave the space and return, hoping it will work the next time.
Now I won’t complain about the public space as it is free, and unless you own the personal space, you can’t do much there anyway. But I do have the right to say that though I love the architecture and the game in my clubhouse, I did pay for it and it doesn’t work properly. It has the same affliction the public space has. There is also some collision issues there with the rewards I got, like the active harem pillows that work in all of my other spaces but gave me fits trying to find an area they will work in the space that gave them to me.
Can’t sit here
I am not a person to complain much; I don’t use the forums or any of that like some do to spout off. But I feel I should have an expectation of good service from something I paid $10.00 for. I know that Lockwood is usually good about fixing things, at least things that are successful. In point of fact, they may have already fixed it by the time this article prints, but that isn’t the point I am trying to make here.
The thing I don’t understand is how this passed Sony’s QA process. They are supposed to have a rigorous testing schedule that assures quality control when products are brought into Home. Even taking into consideration that yes, bugs can crop up in a live setting that don’t appear in testing, it feels like someone seriously dropped the ball on this one.
I wrote a nice review of Kingdom of the Skies the day it came out. That was based on my first impression, I got in early in the morning and didn’t seem to have too many issues with it. It was only after the fact that these problems appeared. If I was to give it a score right now it would be a 3 bubble machine instead of the 4.5 I gave.
Works perfectly
The next question is what can be done about it. My concern is that quality control is getting a bit lax somewhere in the chain of command. It seems they are so eager to quickly produce things they aren’t taking the time to really test and that is causing many people in Home – people I know to be what we call “whales” – to be a bit upset. That isn’t good for anyone.
There is a another side to the coin that needs addressing as well. The developers that get it right almost one hundred percent of the time. Two quickly come to mind for me – Game Mechanics and Juggernaut. Now I know that there were a few issues for people at the new Serenity Plaza when it came out, partially because for some reason people got access before it was meant for release, but it seems they were fixed very quickly.
That being said, I find that all of the products I have purchased or gotten from Juggernaut work perfectly for me without fail. Bramblenook Farm is a great example of something with a lot of functions that could have gone wrong, but didn’t. That is a testament to the quality control they exert in-house.
Wonderful work that works
The same is true of Game Mechanics. They have created some wonderful products for us that use low memory to give us a lot of flexibility in our spaces for decorating. I love what they do and they have always been extremely consistent with their quality control. I can’t wait to see what will happen when they create their first personal space or public one. I bet they will be well done and work perfectly.
In keeping with our policy here at the magazine to be constructive in our criticism, I think the obvious solution here is for Sony to be more stringent in their QA and for those developers who create to do the same internally. There is nothing more frustrating to a consumer than to purchase something that doesn’t work and have to either deal with it or send it back if possible. It will deter new people from staying in Home to deal with broken things they encounter early in their exploration, and it will cause those who buy regularly to question whether they should wait to see if it works first. And in such a Eiffel Tower economy like Home’s, that can be disastrous for developers who have a small window for sales because of the quick turnover each week.
July 22nd, 2013 by Burbie52 | 8 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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I don’t mind anyone making mistakes but it’s the way they deal with them mistakes. I respect granzella for taking several of they public spaces down in Japan because the boss said they were not good enough, they put them right and released them again. They have had to wall off the dance floor in neon downtown but as I remember this is the bit they haven’t managed to repair. This is the biggest flaw of Lockwood that if its not successful it will get fixed up to point they don’t have to issue a refund but that’s it. Thing is I now don’t buy Lockwood stuff until a few weeks after its been out to make sure its not faulty and if it is, it gets a decent repair. Problem is there are so many people that have to have everything on day of release and it would take something really drastic for any developer in home to be disliked, remember Lockwood have upset people before and it’s all forgotten about weeks later,that is why it doesn’t really matter to Lockwood. If I shop for an item in real life and the place I buy it is good then I go back, if its bad I never go back for years. Doesn’t apply in home. Good article
Like most things, there’s always a “bad apple” somewhere allong the lines, sadly code is no different. I’m not excusing LKWD here, it’s my understanding that a lot of companies push product out the door in a state we gamers call “half baked”. Broken goods are a usual thong in the games industry now. Some might say that it was never like that back in “the good old days”, but I know bedroom coders of yesteryear that got bored and just DIDN’T FINISH the games they were making! I’m for seriously you guyz. lol
But really, the public version of this space is very broken, I’ve decided not to visit till I hear words of smoothness -- that’s all you can do in these situations; have patience.
I just (FINALLY) got my flashy new Vita yesterday. I tried very hard not to dance in the street like a child as I walked out the shop! When I got it home and started my fiddle-a-thon however, things started to go wrong. From what I can discern, it’s not reading my memory card properly, it’s forcing me to do boot-starts every time I turn it off properly too. Basically, it’s broken, and I need a replacement. But I can’t get one since I’m working for the next week, and the shop I got it from is in the next city over from me. So I gotta wait a full week for a unit that’ll work as intended.
I’ve waited over a year, I can wait another week. My point though is that regardless of how much testing CAN be done on a product, there’s always gonna be that “one bad apple” that slips through.
Let’s hope LKWD can quickly find the wonkey code and sort it asap.
This was a fantastic article Burbie, and one that needed to be done.
The thing that bothers me most about problems with spaces in Home is the total lack of communication. For example the Pottermore personal space. It had so many problems and was taken down. However, there was no mention of this anywhere, in fact they kept on advertising it. Devolopers need to address the problems better, because frankly they happen.
We get there might be issues with things, but keep us in the loop, so we don’t think it is a problem on our end
Nice one Burbie
A fair and honest review, as always. Thank you, Burbie.
I’m really sorry about the issues with this space -- we’re working to get them fixed at the moment.
Good article Burbie.You are right with your expectation of a product to work as it is intended,yes there will be flaws,but there should not be so many.I am still somewhat new to home,but I have already adopted the policy of ignoring the new and recommended section as these always seem to be flawed.I get on home to have fun and I would much rather entertain myself with something old and reliable,than new and frustrating.
Thanks for pointing out our hard work. Writing code for Home that does not crash is hard. Luckily I have been doing it for long enough I automatically do a lot of things right.
It is good to point out when we do poorly as well as when we do well. I have been in meetings trying to convince people it matters and articles like this are good evidence.
What a great mention! We will try to live up to it.
Interesting article as this is always seems to be a topic of conversation in Home. However some companies seem to keep shoving out spaces and products well before they are ready. In my opinion this is the second strike against Lockwood as their Mercia space comes to mind. That still sits broken and abandoned. Its these types of things that make me think before I buy their products.
The word of mouth issue is such a big one. I don’t have this place,but knowing that there are glitches, makes me hesitant to buy the space, like it would with any developer and item. This is an aspect that the (guilty) developers have to keep and eye on as well as Sony.Poorly crafted estates and items are not good business seeing as so many of us see things and get recommendations from friends. Sorry for the buy and great article Burbie.