Playstation Home Beta
polycounter lvl 18
Playstation Home beta came out today. It similar to the 360 avatars except you can walk around the virtual city and chat with other random people. Watch trailers in the movie theater, listen to music and dance with others, play pool, bowling arcades, purchase clothing and furniture for your virtual apartment using real money converted into psn account.
It's an interesting idea, definitely better than the current PSN online network.
Like all online social gaming, making an attractive female goth chick avatar will guarantee you to get hit on by numerous guys who think you are really a girl.
It's an interesting idea, definitely better than the current PSN online network.
Like all online social gaming, making an attractive female goth chick avatar will guarantee you to get hit on by numerous guys who think you are really a girl.
Replies
What a waste of Sonys resources. Thats tiem and money they could of spent on getting some half decent games out. I'm fed up with saying Uncharted is the best game on there. Metal gear sent me to sleep, Resistence 1 and 2 are like last gen titles... Get me some games...
Anyway on topic again...
The second coming of Christ is about the most boring thing I've ever tried to use. Seriously, it was so poorly done it made my eyes bleed. But not blood, that would be too obvious, it was actually shite.
Lets get the first thing out of the way. Presentation. On the whole its not half bad, what did you expect it to be, the best looking game ever? It gets the job done. Unfortunatly, when it comes to UI design and how to use it, I dunno maybe they hired one of the Sony Ericson guys to help them here... Its just really poor. Not to mention every time I want to do something, I have to wait ages for it to load... And then to download... And then to load again... And then while its loading, I have to load something else... While I watch invisible people shells walk around... Fail. Oh and setting invert view as default...? Score. Realyl well played on knowing exactly what everybody doesn't use.
The biggest thing here is the character creation... Well... They can call it that. If you like picking from about 5 options. I dare anybody to tell me they can make anything that looks anything like themselves, or wears anthing they would wear. I think I saw about 15 people standing there watching a video, all with the blue/white top on...
The actual "Make your home" part was... Wait, I must of missed that? I saw the option to add a chair. Or a table. But dont you dare pick anything with style, hell no. Yeah you can wallpaper, but why...? Most of the options you would pick were none existent, and it wouldnt let you use them.
Which brings me neatly onto the next point... Buying shit. Want a new table? BUY IT. Want a new pair of jeans? BUY IT. Seriously, bog standard sony made jeans at the store are 60p. To kit out your character would cost a couple of quid... But why? MSN didn't cost me a fucking dime, and I get to use my own picture too. Looks just like me. I didn't even want to go into any other stores, for fear of them raping my wallet.
Finally the whole point... Interaction... Withen 10 seconds of loading the space I got about 7 PM's (not ingame messages, actuall messages to ME inside the mail) saying "Wher r u frm?" and "I rule!". The rest of the time was spent trying to move away from idiots asking me what I look like, where I'm from, am I male, how old I was, do I want to go PM and talk... Fucking hell...
Seriously, I really did experience what it was like to be a virgin all over again... Anybody who spends time in this thing really has some social issues. Anybody who buys anything from here... Well your just fucking stupid. Period.
Spending money on furniture you can't actually sit down on defeats the purpose. Silly idea.
Actually I was able to create a pretty acurate Justin avatar.
Anyway, back on topic: bashing Insomniac Games... wait no, I mean Home!
Basically this is for the youngens who eat this stuff up, and I know the Asian market loves that microtransaction stuff. I wasn't able to check out the minigame stuff like bowling but if there's more of that I'd give that a shot.
there's some things about it that sound pretty interesting but I really need to reserve judgement until I've tried it myself, gotta dl it when I get home. from what I've seen though it looks pretty ass. ah well.
If I remember correctly it was a 2048x2048 eye texture in the WAYWO thread. The only concern/flame there was the screen real estate it took up on people's browsers.
Polycount is srs bsns. Calm down.
Back on topic:
I think Home could be fun. I especially like the mini games planned, the ability to have a trophy room full of trophies earned from your achievements in various games, and the ability to invite friends over to watch movies on your ingame TVs. Novelty, yes, but it's a neat idea, and should be fun.
I'll have to try it out tonight, and dress up like a girl maybe lee3dee and I can pick up some online folks.
i hope this is successful so my hideous bastard microsoft avatar will get a couch to sit on and a mall to run around in. i need a more convenient way to hit on 14 year old girls.
lucky ps3 sonsofbitches
Dude just hit up the daycare right outside your office.
B
AFAIK that's the plan. Atleast with Trophies and Posters.
Then I finally did.
I made my guy and walked around then got booted off because another connection error.
That just about did it for me.
It’s worthless until they can get stuff fixed on their side.
Also, no beards or goatees? Wtf?
They also need to remove ‘beta’ from the title sequence if this is the official release.
The whole thing just smells of being rushed out the door before the holiday.
Polycount is raw, but honest. Other forums are all about the touchy/feely backpatting; PC is about "get better or fuck-off". Not telling you to fuck off, btw.
I don't go in for this sort, but the avatars look better than the ones in second-life (not saying much).
I know they are planning to add more content but as already mentioned this just feels rushed.
What are the options for decorating your apartment like? This always struck me as a potentially entertaining aspect of the experience. Is it possible to put up posters featuring images that are stored on the PS3's hard drive? I would love to have a little virtual apartment that I pepper with my own work. I think a lot of artists would find this appealing. But I don't know if Sony would actually allow for this.
of course, dude, but this is more of a 'hype vs actual' thing
You make a character, walk around and talk to people, play cheap games and watch movie trailers. The whole thing is still a really sparse WIP. We've know this very clearly for a long, long time.
And yeah it's boring and barely works atm. Again, this is not a surprise.
I got a ps3 just months ago and its been sitting there collecting dust , while i did enjoy a couple of games on it i have yet to feel like i have justified purchasing this expensive paperweight, well i hope i can in the future.
Also i agree with the above post, completely.
I don't see myself walking around a virtual world to make friends, but I think it would be a different experience to navigate content.
So we're all clear, our new member count is on a huge increase in the past 3 months AND the quality of replies & posts in threads outside of General Discussion is fairly high. Technical Talk is my favourite forum at the moment.
And on this topic, one thing you guys can do to remedy specific users who may be pissing you off with their constant negativity or overall shitty post history is this:
- User CP
- Edit Ignore List
- Add Members name
From what I can tell, their posts & PM's will be ignored until you remove them from the list.Back on topic:
It's a shame there's such a negative reaction to this. I tend to enjoy these social-centric designs. I believe Sony is thinking super long term with Home, and like most ambitious ideas the beginning of the journey will be rocky.
Please keep future posts on-topic. I will be handing out infractions to those who don't.
Second Life 2. Coming to an overpriced media console near YOU. Honestly, this sort of thing worries me. Second Life...a virtual world where people can chat, watch movies, listen to music, and exchange real currency...is a scary place.
The aesthetic is very sterile. But in technical terms it is very capable. The character creation isn't as deep as I would have liked, but it isn't as shallow or lifeless as most people have been saying. By playing around with it I was able to create a fairly good character, even one with a bit of personality to it. I intentionally attempted to make my character less "pretty" and I think that really helped. He's no movie star, but he does stand out from the crowd of other Home characters.
Yeah, if I didn't have to WAIT for a table to clear up.
Bullshit. Their design is just flawed.
Oh well, no skin off my back. i don't know why I was expecting to play video games on my dvd player.
so, basically the same thing could be said about halo 2/3, CoD 2,3,5. etc etc.
every studio seems to be pumping out stupid sequals nowadays with nobody producing anything truly original. which is why i haven't bought anything in the last year (rental ftw).
what you seem to be forgetting though, is that they are all third party developers. where you seem to believe that resistance was created by sony themselves? or that sony had some part in its creation other than it being made on their machine?
get a grip.
fuck, burn.
Personally, I hate it. Maybe that's too strong. I STRONGLY dislike it.
The Good: Its finally out. Its a new way to meet other PS3 gamers. Umm,....
The Bad: I think that this may well be Sony's biggest f-up with the PS3. Years of dev, millions invested, and they give us a sterile, empty world. There's almost nothing to do besides weak chat and quincying. Everyone in the "game" looks similar due to the limited avatar choices and if you want a different pair of shoes or pants, BAM, $.49-$.99 please. Want to start a club? $4.99 please. I understand that Home is a free app but I'd have rather paid for a good app then been given a bad one that nickel and dimes you.
I'm not a fanboy, but I usually side with the PS3 with my gaming. Still, imo Home was a bad choice.
Now playing: I Set My Friends On Fire - Reese's Pieces, I Don't Know Who John Cleese Is?
via FoxyTunes
So I hear you can unlock a secret echochrome outfit by playing an arcade of it somewhere. That sort of thing is cool. If they start doing lots of things like that, along with trophy rewards, I could see Home starting to get more popular.
Planet Earth on Blue Ray.
BEST purchase I've made for my PS3.
And there is definitely some potential there. Having themed environments based on games? That's pretty cool. I'd love to see more of that for more games. Unlockables based on certain titles or promotional events? Hell yes, sign me up! Basically, the Home experience needs to start veering a lot more towards Animal Crossing, and away from Second Life. Animal Crossing and Second Life both represent largely aimless, pointless experiences. But Animal Crossing somehow manages to make tedious activities fun and involving.
I have to start getting out of this... I bought little big world because it's made in the UK. I take great pleasure in ranting to people about that.
The load times? What's up with that? It's installed onto the hard disk! Yes, it's supposedly an open world game, but Oblivion, GTA, Fallout, Crackdown, Midnight Club, they can all manage to stream huge maps.
Perhaps I'll give it another go in a few months.