A Glimpse Inside Sony's Gamer Advisory Panel... Topic: Ideas for home.

Note:

-This post was basically written by pixelsword minus the adjustments for critical responses,

-The NDA for home has been lifted

-This post isn't a "spoiler" on home. There is no idea if any of these ideas have been implemented, this is just a post written about a year ago, give or take, except for the "Qoin" concept, which was written a little over a month ago on the home beta forums.

-There may be switching between all three consoles +PC in terms of game concepts in future posts.


Now, on with the show!


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"But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization."

     -Agent Smith
      The Matrix

Since I was a child, I've taken the words of people seriously. An opinion of even a foolish man can usher words of great wisdom if coming from experience or heeding the knowledge of others. That being said, I studied the quotes of many designers, gamers, programmers, executives, critics, and antagonists of the Playstation, in particular the opponents of home. While even in it's alpha stage, home has the best potential of an online experience of any system bar none; to me, it looked great, to others "heavenly": which rang a slight alarm in my head. If some the best parts of Home are just given to gamers--the people who spend most of their time overcoming challenges--I fear that there may be some degree of apathy from many of the hardcore gamers ranging from slight to severe. So I studied many quotes and spin from several websites for a number of days and came with a few solutions that might at the least quiet the critics, but at the most be an ongoing and engaging opportunity for not only gamers but developers as well. In the next few paragraphs I will attempt to detail three or four issues that I pray might assist in the development of home in a way that everyone can benefit from and enjoy.

The first concept I want to tackle is the home concept itself. While I love the concept of having a lush house-like area, I don't think anyone off the bat should get one. I believe that like people starting in college, a person should get a small apartment. In time the user can work his way up to three or so levels of housing until he earns that pie in the sky. For example: if, let's say, you complete a certain number of accomplishments, you get a new wing in your current apartment, after three or so upgrades or so many trophies you will be able to move into a bigger apartment and repeat the process until you get the "big home". I think that way many gamers will appreciate the fact that his home is something he earned rather than something he was given. On top of that, it would be easy to spot an accomplished gamer by his house, as his house is his "high score".

I think I would address the situation of Casual gamers with a week-by-week analysis of online/offline play and achievements for let's say one to two months. If a person is categorized as a casual, moderate, or hardcore gamer, his advancement total should be adjusted so his playing is worth a certain value to balance out against a hardcore gamer. The analysis should continue afterwards so adjustments to a person's status can occur dynamically in case of a change of status. I even believe that all gamers should be made aware of the fact that advancement for hardcore gamers and other gamers will be advancing at different rates so casual gamers won't be concerned about their status. I also would allow the user to stay in any level of apartment he/she chooses, and I would likely use the "bonus" level ability towards skins and/or clothes/furniture acquisitions. If someone wished to "work" online at a Sim-job to level-up their house, That would also be a fun way for those who choose to go that route (an example would be to "manage" a resturant or play guitar hero at a club for extra Qoins); also, a monetery system should be established for getting Achievements, time spent on playing games, sim jobs within home (mods and such), and "Qoins" should be given out. "Qoins" should also be available for direct purchase (1 dollar = 5 Qoins) with the ability to buy clothes, furniture, in-home "food" when you go to the mall, send gifts to other people, to give Qoins directly, or go to the online theatre.

Clan and individual concerns are another home feature I would like to confront. Giving clans perks and organization could help develop gaming leagues on the PS3, so having a few key tools should help. As soon as one logs on to home, one should a connecting beacon that they can turn on. Settings should be to let the clan (or singles for other singles) know they're there and what type of game they have in their drive and what game type they want to play, so if a certain challenge comes up in a clan or single game they will automatically be "beeped" or left alone. If they are in another clan on another game, it should make the necessary adjustments, of course. You can give the Clan leader(s) the ability to send out a challenge beacon that can be adjusted to a ranked or unranked fight, number of available members and game type (Capture the Flag, Team Deathmatch, ect). Clan Alliances would be helpful for small and developing clans who may not have enough people in their clans to tackle a bigger clan, or for bigger clans who want to play but may not have enough people online at certain times. Giving people who play well that aren't in clans a "merc" status will motivate others to include these people to choice gaming opportunities. Giving players special points if they stay to complete the battle if they are on a losing team will motivate others to stay the entire game instead of jumping ship. Possessing the ability to know the ranking of a clan on sight would be useful as well. Giving clans benefits they can upgrade like a "team jacket" would be nice to earn, too. Using these and of course more suggestions would enhance the multiplayer genre to a more robust experience.

***A merc wouldn't be randomly inserted into anyone's match, especially a match between clans; the merc is a designation given to individuals that play well who did not or will not join a clan. Merc status can also be declined if desired, or picked up again if the individual changes his or her mind. These people are potential picks for clan leaders who, let's say, want to go into a match but do not have at the time sufficient people even with an alliance. Mercs could be on a list of available "outsiders" a leader would consider playing with, but such list is not required if the leaders do not want it. In the event of a match between two clans who want to employ the merc, perhaps some motivational gifts could be given to the merc like shared status with the clan if the battle was for a ranked game, or access to a gift or something. Mercs would also be available for any regular matches, of course.

The second concept I want to address is advertising on home and how that can benefit the gamer as well as the advertisers. Advertising, if done with thought and subtlety can be a benefit and not a hinderance. I have thought of a few ways that gamers will strive to accept advertising. I believe that one of the most effective ways advertising can be seemless is by art imitating life. If you have shirts that you can unlock with, let's say, a Nike or Coca-Cola logo, you can have advertisers pay for the product placement and it's ranking (seven goals, Cocoa-Cola/Nike shirt, ten goals, Nike ensamble), but have the gamers WORK for the opportunity to wear the nicely-designed clothes, and everyone knows that when you earn something, you tend to put it to use... and putting the money generated by advertising towards skins or levels a developer may make, keeping the developer downloads and other items free for the user. Another example would be to have advertising as a choice; for example, in the "movies" section of home you can have movie posters of actual up and coming movies. You can either have it as a static poster or, if the gamer chooses, they can click to watch movie previews (age appropriate blocking, of course). There are many ways you can implement advertising to be nearly invisible using tact and giving the gamer choice. Another example would be to put up guidelines to advertisers so that a theme will be maintained in respect to a game advertied so the ads will flow with the genre of the game, and not be obvious as ads. The most apt example would be if there's a racing game coming out and a developer puts a preview in his area, you can have Penzoil ads up or Goodyear tire ads in certain areas if the developer desires. The developer should also, if they choose, to have a very short "This preview brought to you by..." at the beginning so as not to be so intrusive that it ruins the feel of home so the overall experience will be pleasant. Requiring any animated ads be interesting and/or very short would help as well. I would think many would prefer this to allowing corporations to use their console for research, but that's just my opinion; granted my opinion was formed by reading many sites first, though.

My third and last suggestion would be to implement a grand strategy to the rewards that would involve developers more and yet less. The trophy is no doubt superior to just a mere list of points you can get from the XboX, but I beleive there's an opportunity for greater challenges and accomplishments from everyone. On the most grand level, I would suggest a 2-D and 3-D arena that mimicks the game-genre "Mugen". If you don't know what that is, take a moment to look it up on youtube.com or a serch engine, or read on. Mugen is a user-driven game engine built to include ANY 2-D character, whether they were in a fighting game or not and places them against each other in a game players can play. Basically, on top of trophys, you can have unlockable characters and backgrounds from any developer that wants to participate in the Mugen Arena. Imangine Liu Kang versus Homer Simpson, or Simeon Belmont versus Joe Higashi, or Wolverine Vs. Kratos. Yeah; freaking Kratos. The list is endless in terms of who or what could go in, and developers would have an arena to throw in older favorite characters that can be used in fresh and new ways. Developers who never made a fighting game can also get their feet wet making characters. Some ground rules may apply, and of course some tweaking may have to occur to some characters, which happens in Mugen all of the time, which is common and exciting. Now apply that to a 3-D arena, if possible! Tekken's king Versus Virtua Fighter's Wolf, or whatever combination, throw in some backgrounds, and you see the picture right here. That can be applied to multiplayer games, one rule possibly is that whatever skin you play, you can enable for your clan to reduce polygon overload, or play with others who earned the particular skin (an all-Helghast Vs all-Chimera, for example). Give them one special ability from their respective games, throw in a few battlefields and a multiplayer Mugen is born. For Example: The chimera skin can allow you to see through walls with their vision for a limited time, but an mgs4 skin will have you blend into backgrounds.

On a simpler note, you could have free, let's say, room posters for your "home" for the first 50 to 50,000 who buy a certain game, and that's it. The potential is overwhelming for opprtunity to award loyal gamers. Or an award could be an "honor skin" given to a few people for a month or so followed by a trophy. Giving the user the ability to trade all non-trophy items like Mugen characters will also enhance the experience akin to a Pokemon-like trading athmosphere.

Also, a science-dedicated room should be given to MIT so people can see Cell processor experiments from there, with the ability to interact with people who teach at MIT. As a matter of fact, there should be discussion rooms in Home in general.

The potential for home is limited to only the desires and goals of Sony, gamers, and developers. As the beta draws near to a close, I can only hope that all groups listen to, and respect the thoughts of, each other.

"When you understand the nature of a thing, you know what it's capable of."

     -Blade
      Blade