Issue 13
Issue 13
Change.
It’s the one thing we all universally loathe to experience, be it in our real lives or our virtual ones. It invokes all sorts of stubborn posturing and outright heel dragging, as if we’re being forced to drink a cocktail made of castor oil and arsenic. Paradoxically, it’s the one thing that we must embrace, if we want to continue living a successful, secure life. There are many subtle yet massive changes that we accept unflinchingly on a regular basis.
Here’s random bit of trivia that might bake your brain: eighty percent of all the technology we’ll be using in ten years hasn’t even been invented yet. I read that statement in a book called The Learning Paradox back in 2001, and it’s absolutely true.
Think back twelve years ago – could you, back then, conceive of a life where you could access the entire web through a touch screen phone? How about help your preschooler learn to read and do math on a tablet (like I did right before I began writing this) the same size as a large greeting card? Or even going online and interacting with others halfway across the world using a three-dimensional representation of yourself? If you were like me twelve years ago, you were just grateful if your DSL connection was stable enough to stream a ridiculously small, grainy image of yourself through a bulbous looking webcam that had no sound capturing ability whatsoever on Yahoo’s instant messaging service.
Back then, we would have looked at what we now take for granted in gob-smacked wonder.
Why don’t we still?
It’s what continually leaves me scratching my head whenever someone goes off in a blind rage when something doesn’t work with anything less than laser-precision perfection in Home. It’s like that Louis CK monologue on the old Conan O’Brien Show about four years back – “everything is amazing, and nobody’s happy.” If you have not seen this, drop everything – and I mean everything – right now and give it a listen. Do it. Now. And if it doesn’t compel you to slap people in possession of an overblown sense of entitlement whenever you see them, then you need to listen to it again.
In order for Home (or any social MMO) to continually feel like a vibrant, living place, it too has to change. Last year saw Home’s purpose shift to a predominantly gaming one. And yet, even during that time, the groundwork was being laid to bring to the community what we now enjoy today. Could anyone for a moment say that at this time, last year, they could have foreseen just a fraction of the locomotions that have been created since the 1.7 core update? And yet, should anything be remotely less than perfection itself, there’s enough of a furor riled up among the masses that would put my five-year-old’s temper tantrums to shame.
Somebody put that Louis CK video on again before I go on a tangential rant.
HomeStation Magazine has gone through many changes, especially since the beginning of this year.We knew that, if we wanted to continue to progress, change was necessary. All the while, our readership numbers grew. Last year, we saw two major goals reached – having our EOD channel go live, and reaching over 100,000 unique visitors for the year. Sure, there are Home fan projects who have more visitors and those who claim to have more (although really, if you’re going to lie, at least use a number that’s reasonable, not one that even IGN and Game Informer combined can’t reach). However, the only true yardstick of growth is our own history – and no one else’s.
It is amazing to see how in just two short years how much this team has accomplished. And yet it must never be forgotten that HSM is still an all-volunteer project; the people who put their time and talents into it do so because they want to, not for any monetary gain or personal glory. We all have personal lives and responsibilities outside of the magazine, and they must come first.
These magazine issues in particular are an extraordinary effort to put together, and while Issue 13 isn’t nearly as ambitious as its predecessor, it still faced it’s own challenges – namely in capturing the data we gathered from the survey and putting it into easy to understand graphics. This was made all the more so by the fact that BONZO, who edits articles and creates artwork for the issues, returned to active military service. This left all the work to be done solely upon the shoulders of our Art Director, Mike, who has had to face his own challenges regarding his health this year, and who is – thankfully – on the mend. Much credit goes to him in seeing this through.
So what will you find in this issue?
- Reflections on Home 2012 by team writers Burbie52 and ted2112;
- A letter from Game Mechanics President and HSM Special Guest Contributor, John Ardussi, aka deuce_for2;
- An interview with Digital Leisure about their massively successful Paradise Springs Casino;
- The collective Dispatches from Xi, in their entirety, by KrazyFace;
- An interview with Juggernaut Games on the clever space reducing programming they put into their active items;
- A collection of winter fashions, courtesy of Jin Lovelace;
- A super tasty recipe, courtesy of our Art Director, Mike;
- And the long-anticipated results of our survey of Home users.
As 2013 reaches its midpoint, and Home’s future itself is still not in sight, it’s worth keeping in mind that change and uncertainty are inevitable no matter the topic. Likewise, HSM will change and evolve in order to provide you, the reader, the best writing to be found anywhere in the Home media scene, and beyond.
On behalf of everyone here at HSM, thank you for taking this journey with us.
Terra_Cide
Editor-in-Chief, HSM
Twitter: @HomeStationMag
VERY good read here! Great to finally see this published.
Great job! Juggernaut, Digital Leisure, Game Mechanics. You guys keep doing what your doing. Thanks for the good times your products have given us.
That survey is a must read!
KrazyFace’s review of Xi Continum is right over there. Very cool. >>>>>
Excellent issue guys!
Do you guys have an app?? I’d love to read this neatly on my ipad. Unless pdfs work. I’m a bit of a noob with apple products.