As of friday I received an email from Sony. Apparently that lame Wallpaper and theme I downloaded a few months back had made me eligible to join the Home Beta.

I popped into irc to see if anyone else from DLP had been invited but apparently not.

I figure I might as well give an inside look at the much anticipated Home from PS3 and a place for people to discuss or put down their user names if they got the invite as well.

Getting in:
First thing I had to do was download it after putting in the redeemer.
80 mb Download was surprising considering I expected a installer in the GB range.

Thats it.

After installed It showed up in the game icon of the XMB and I was in.

Creating the character:
I'm very impressed for the customization of the characters. I was able to make 6 characters in an hour that looked like spitting images of my friends and myself. Though the girls characters need more work at the moment. The hair is very unrealistic, and you cant give them boobs the size of by head.

So far the choice of clothing is fairly decent and realistic... though limited. You can't buy anything yet but thats to be expected for a beta. There is talk within home that you can unlock clothing and features but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The Home Space:
Next stop is the loft like apartment . Astheticly its well done, you get an awesome view over a harbour and ocean. Your own balcony, lots of different furniture and objects to move about every which way. The thing I like the most is every object is interactable. If you drop a couch on a table the couch will roll or the table will slide. you don't get bricked stacking.

You can get more furniture from the mall.

The Home universe:
To get outside just walk towards the door. Then a separate space is downloaded at approximately 45 mb.

You only download it once, then never again. The main location is the central plaza for my region. I should note that they are different. The japanese server is a garden enviroment where as the north American enviroment is like a city slash disneyland resort.

I'm not sure if its because of the limited beta users or whether there are different central plaza servers... but its not overcrowded at all. At any given moment there are perhaps 40 users in a given space. I doubt I'm one of the lucky 40 in all of north america so I'm leaning towards the other possibility.

The different features of a space are docks, video screens and posters.

Docks are different location that you can interact with. Like Music stations that project music into the space. That others can listen too, or pool tables you can play by yourself or with others. Arcade stations or bowling alleys.

Video screens and posters are fairly self explanatory. So far they only show trailers and pictures of games, but presumably they'll give us more later on.

Different spaces
The Summer home:
An additional home space you can download which is a 2 floor mansion style space with balcony overlooking a forested lake.

The theartre:
Self explanatory, following the same rules of the video screens.

The mall:
Well designed space where you can download other objects, get your additional home spaces, as well as a section on the second floor to play chess.

The game plaza:
Where you play pool, a variety or arcade games, watch the video screens, and bowl. The games aren't bad, and there's a nice interface for the bowling. Though you can't change difficulty as far as I can see.

Interacting with people is fairly good, and theres a nice interface for premade phrases and gestures. Which aren't too hokey. Their realistic gestures and things you can use in real life.

Though you pretty much need a keyboard attached for it to be bearable or a headset because using the controller is annoying as hell. Good news is any usb keyboard including wireless seems to work with the ps3, and sony coming out with one of those mini usb mini keyboards for those who like that.

Otherwise its fairly limited but I assume thats only because its in the beta stage.

Now here's the ingame hearsay. The japan server apparently gets events and the unlockable inventories and clothing. You can invite people form different countries into your server. There is Country specific swag, but no trading(yet).

Is anyone else on DLP in the beta?

Edit:

Also the psp interface each character gets is very clever and detailed. If my psp actually did that I would be so freaking happy.

 

/me feels left out.

 

As you should... Unclean!

 

Ignore me, I'm a shit-eating cockmonger.

 

Ugh. Lucky, not only did you get into the beta for Home, you have a PS3!

I wan't a PS3...

 

There's no way I'd be able to afford a PS3, so I don't torture myself with wanting one. :/

Sounds cool though Quazi.

 

While yes having a ps3 is nice...

...

I got nothing.

To be fair I bought it specificly for the home theartre system instead of going for a regular $300 bluray player I went for the PS3 which allows me to go on the internet and store music and video ontop of playing games.

 

My PS3 is broken . Don't just switch it off at the back, it fries the disc reader so you can't play anything on it.

This also sounds pretty cool, kind of like Second Life, though not quite so complex.

 

While that really and truly sucks ass, you should've known better than to do that my friend.

That's pretty much the only reason I'm getting one, although Home sounds legit.

 

UPDATE

Couple things, first thing. I finally made it to the japanese server. It's big, but a little dull.

Theirs hardly anyone there, but that could be because its like 3 am over there.

They're central plaza is like a university campus. Big open spaces, large buildings.

They got an area called a cafe but you don't really do much other than sit down, which personally I don't see as being truly riveting game play. The best part of that space is that theres an upstairs with a very detailed office setting, which I assume will be available to the public later to walkthrough.

They're mall is exactly like ours except they don't get the chess games.

They also don't have an open music dock like we do. But their game area is awesome. They got all the games we do, but also some namco clasics like pacman and others. unfortunately foreiners like me aren't allowed to play those ones.

Nothing much else to say. Its just a design difference.

Now onto the bigger news. The awesome News

They've developed another space.

This one is based on Drakes uncharted fortune game.

Sully's bar:

IT has another set of arcade games... And the most fun part. 3 rooms which require you to figure out the code for to get in. The codes are tricky and smart and so far we've only worked out 2 of the 3.

If home developes aroudn the Drakes room... then Home will be beyond awesome.

Also they plan to come out with 2 more settings around warhawk and another game

 

Hahahaha, ninja'd. I stand corrected. :awesome

 

Uh... what's the point of this?

 

That's what I was thinking...

You're not going to become a fur-fag now, are you? (Some of us still remember your dolphin porn)

 

I'm making a female avatar when Home comes out. Maybe I'll get more attention than I do in real life.

This is what happens when you immerse yourself too much into something that isn't real.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/11/14/second.life.divorce/

 

Actually they removed alot of features while they do the load testing with the influx of new users... including the new spaces.

but they've created club houses.

I was toying with the idea of making a dlp clubhouse but I didn't see the point if it was just me in there.

But yeah your right it is pretty boring.

Unless you have a sofa fight. Thats always a hoot. Whats your user name... I'll send an invite.

Edit: the full home package when done will be 3 gb on your ps3. So far we've only downloaded 300mb max including the update into version 1.0

Fair to assume that there is alot we haven't seen yet that may make home awesome. Do you have access to the ps3 beta forums?

Edit 2.0: Does my user name not still say Dolphin boy NW.

@Jolly; did you download qore or something along those lines... because if you did then you got an immiediate invite. Its been advertised for a while now that you will. I wouldn't bother cause you have to pay for Qore, but still anyone who wants in... you know what to do.

 

Oh thats you... I have hard times remembering who all you are once you change your names...

Well back at you

You don't want to go on the beta boards. I wish there was structure. Its so cluttered and laggy that its horrendous to try and sort through everything.

They need one our moderators to go make some geeks cry or something.

Its nice though that they discuss events ahead of schedule and we get a heads up of updates and stuff. Plus when we got puzzles its the best place to go to decode them. No walkthroughs anywhere else.

 

Lol, this. /me mushrooms stamps those of you who keep changing your names.

 

So...is this supposed to be like the Sims but with no building? Sounds like an absolutely terrible/boring game.