The Big Question
by FEMAELSTROM, HSM team writer
What are we all doing here, buying and amassing the stuff that we do?
Why do we clamor for the newest items in Home, regardless of how lavish or common the item may be? What is it that drives us to spend real money on a virtual environment?
This question was raised at our last production meeting, and I thought on it a little bit and came to a conclusions of my own. You may not agree, but at least think it over and see what your reasons are for you.
Why do we buy or collect the stuff that we do in Home?
My answer: because it deepens the experience of Home to degrees never before thought of. Because it helps to share experiences we may never really have in the real world with people we care for and love, but truly may never see.
When you think of Home, consider this: it could have been a static, simply rendered white room like what is used in the voice chat rooms of the XMB — but it became more, far more. Why did it become more? Because we, the consumer, wanted experiences to enjoy and share with those around us. We wanted reality in a virtual world.
There have been many references to Star Trek’s Holodeck, and with good reason…anything’s possible here.
When I first came to Home, I entered the Central Plaza, walked around and took my virgin steps in a world that was unbelievable to me. It was unbelievable that a place like this could exist. Keep in mind, I had never been in a virtual environment. The things around me made me believe that this was a world unto its own self. There was a fountain, there was a mall, there was a bowling alley. There were many elements there that were there to make it as real as it could be, and that is what all the things we buy here are there to do: make it all as real as virtually real can get.
Yes, there are things that are there for fun. There are costumes that are sci-fi or fantasy, which allow us to be many things, from zombies to vampire bat people, from mech robots to glowing dancers. These elements are fun but still created so well that we can enjoy the virtual world as these fictitious characters with a certain level of realistic acceptance coded in.
There still is an element of wanting it all to be a real experience, and that is the root of this topic. Why the picnic baskets and dining tables and diners, and vast fields of clothes and items that are sometimes so mundane as to simply sit as an accent in a kitchen or office or space station?
Simply put, it makes the world more real to us. Look around where you are right now. What do you see in your environment? For me there is a radio that my iPod sits in to give me the music I want. There is a soft drink I am consuming, near me. I have a room fan blowing on me. I am near a stapler, a phone, and a second computer. These are all things that make my environment real in the real world, and with the ‘mundane’ items of Home, I can create that again in my Home estates. I have the computer, the soft drink, the stapler, the phone, even an mp3 player in Home, and this allows me to replicate the real world in the virtual and that makes the experience so much more engrossing.
This is the same reason that 3D movies are so loved. It does its best to bring the movie in to the audience and bring it closer, more in your lap, and if you drop your popcorn in the process, then they have done their job.
This is what Home is doing day by day, with each and every item that they bring out. It makes it a more sensory-pleasing atmosphere filled with the things that are often common to us — and even in the uncommon, it is designed to feed our senses as something we can sink into like a pool.
Total commitment to a reality even takes it form in cosplay devotees.
The other day I was with my special lady in the new Acorn Meadows Park, and we sat and had a picnic. We have never met before, in the real world, but this in its own way helps to bridge the distance we have between us. We sat and used our microphones to chat and laugh and enjoy the fact that we were in a park and having what looked like turkey legs and drink, enjoying each other and enjoying a park that is rendered so very well that at one point it is reasonable to believe that you can get lost in the moment.
There are times that I will go to a private estate and just decorate, whether it is a realistic place or a fictitious place. The things we own help to bring the level of reality to us that we want. Though I have my default space set as the Eden-Primarch’s Vigilarium, I have decorated it with basically all real-world items, making this place look like a real home — just set in a futuristic estate. Many of my homes are realistic and decorated to be so down to elements that are so ordinary, that when viewed, it seems almost “baked in” as it were. My Harbour Studio, for example has a kitchen and a bathroom. These things are available to us shoppers because the growing trend in Home is that we want a more realistic (even if fantasy) experience in Home. So many companies are making things that fit in right in a fantasy environment that serve to complete an idea of what a user wants to convey.
Think of how wide our appetites are in Home, and see that the developers are working tirelessly to satisfy that appetite. We have the new Club Luminosity dance studio and clubhouse that does in fact feed a whole sect here in Home. We have sci-fi places like LOOT’s Space Station, and there are city homes that feed that group that want to surround themselves with the trappings of that genre. There are the penthouse-style homes which cater to those wanting to live a richer, more luxurious life than perhaps they do in real life. We have got so many avenues that we can go down and fill our bellies with, which let us create a reality to us that it is amazing. And all for sake of making Home so much more than a fancy-schmancy email application.
Movies have gone the extra mile to make a more immerssive experience, and so is Home.
It makes it real in that I may never go to the movies with Godzprototype, but in Home I can; I may never dance with Burbie in the south pacific, but in Home I can; I may never share a drink with NorseGamer at a fashion show, but in Home I can; and I may never people-watch in a mall with Olivia_Allin, but here in Home I can — all because the creators of Home have labored to make this a place where the people I listed above can gather around a table that allows for those gathered to enjoy each other and simulate a real world event of eating with friends and enjoying a time that one can see themselves really having, and sharing that fun with people. Through technology, we can build bridges across these vast lengths.
This is why we buy and collect the many things we do. To live out a fantasy and to deepen the experience of how we walk through this land and to make the exchanges that we have between friends and strangers more fulfilling and realistic in using everyday items and objects like clothes and accessories. Home grants us this and makes it possible to be real and near tangible in its own reality, even if viewed on a TV screen.
August 6th, 2013 by FEMAELSTROM | 3 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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I love Home coz I’m a Kleptomaniac with OCD…
No, really though; this raises some good points. I was very different about any digital content when I first started using Home but since the industry’s become bound in virtual red tape with stupidities such as season passes and DLC that shouldn’t ever have been DLC, I’ve become used to throwing my cash at non-existent virtual fluff.
And the only reason I do this article has already said; to find deeper meaning and enrich the experience.
Great read as always Strom. I love Home and all that it offers us to enhance not only our virtual but also our real life. I have made some good friends here, people I talk to on other media besides Home and I would have never had this opportunity if I didn’t come here.
Home is what you make it as I have said many times, and that includes the “stuff” and effort you put into it. Here I have a thriving club, some estates I love to decorate and redecorate as I obtain new things. I am part of fashion shows and events I would never be a part of in real life, nor would I want to really. But the most important thing to me here is and always will be the people.
D8 Norse enjoys fashion? o.o
More like he enjoys beating people up! He can do that in real life.
In Home, he can’t. I’m safe. :3