jus wana quickly say, the Beatbox stereo and Shimmer Sphere are my 1st ever purchases on PShome and i'm enjoying them very much
Is nDreams looking at an item that will extend the xp cap on their games? (Orb Runner and Island defense, to be specific)
I guess it's all a matter of your point of view. I remember as a kid how my little sister loved little bits of bling and such for her dolls. I remember and still do drool over hot expensive cars. (Like the Aventador-J. WOW!) On Home we are all "rich", since we all can afford to pay for $60 games on a playstation if we want to. And we can afford most anything in Home. But I'm a little uncomfortable with encouraging in Home the kind of mindset people associate with Paris Hilton, Kim Kardassian or Mitt Romney. The "I'm rich and you're not" attitude. Or any type of elitism. I guess in Home years I'm kinda old. I remember the days where there wasn't much to buy, and Home was centered around bringing people together with fun free events that would. (and there would be free stuff to win and stuff to buy) And every step away from that kind of world leaves me a bit sad. That's not to say I don't think it's unfair if developers make a healthy profit in Home. But for me, cost should be driven by quality and not "bling". And definitely not cheap gold texture maps. Instead I'm looking for artistry in the sculpting of folds in clothing. Good normal maping that gives the illusion of much more 3d geometry in content. Or something that's innovative, and creative.. Or just plain fun. Like I said, it's all POV. And I'm sure many others will find my views worth only 2 cents.
Very nicely put I share this POV. The main reason i bought the Stereo is because PShome is a way i keep in touch with my brother while he's away, and we often chat in a quiet, dull (to the point of lifeless) studio apartment. So when i heard that the Stereo can be heard by both of us i was like "perfect!!" and he liked it so much he went a bought one too. I kinda hope that music genre packs of some sort could be available in the future, I wouldn't mind some nice ambient lazy Sunday type tunes for casual chit chats or games of chess.
nDreams is holding a pirate day competition on twitter and face book! Ahoy! In Honour of 'Talk Like A Pirate Day' I think we should have a little competition. Climb on board your Pirate Galleon and take a photo. Post it here or tweet it to @ndreamers using the hashtag #ndreamspirate and I will draw 5 winners. Losers will walk the plank! I will delve through the treasure chest to see what prizes I have. Deadline is 8am GMT 20th September, one prize per person, entries put into a hat and pulled out. When Home comes back online, get snapping! nDreams Ltd (nDreamers) auf Twitter nDreams - Official Fan Page | Facebook
Rootin' tootin', damn straight, and fraking-A FF! :thumbsup: Couldn't have said it better myself. You and I both have far-too-many hours of hands-on experience in 3D modeling & texture mapping techniques. But many users do not… and therefore don't truly realize how quick & simple it is to apply a standard "cheap" gold texture onto a 3D object. The 3D packages every developer uses contains a built-in library with countless color & texture variations… and it takes but mere seconds to select and apply such standard textures, whether it's going onto a simple flat plane or being wrapped around a hat, clothing or other object. Select what you want from the list and the 3D program applies the appropriate RGB value, texture and/or reflection map. And if what you want to use isn't found in the program, they just use one of the licensed texture collections they have on a separate disc. Which means for most Home 3D objects, there is no difference at all between applying gold, silver, platinum, red, black, blue, marble, wood, leopard, or countless other colour & texture variations… aside from some minor tweaking of values. There is certainly nothing here that would account for such a vast difference in pricing between a gold "bling" wall and a "boring" eggshell white wall. :no: Oh, and for those who don't know, a majority of the actual 3D objects we've seen in Home over the years (both virtual items and Home spaces) weren't modeled by hand — they are actually pre-made objects licensed from the well-known Viewpoint catalogue (among others), which are then textured & used as needed by the developer. Getting back to the gold "bling" pack, don't forget that the costs involved in doing that pack were minimal… just take an already-existing template and spend a couple hours reassigning all the texture values to gold. It's an easy process, and only needs to be done once. Remember, since it's digital, the manufacturing, packaging and distribution costs are the same whether they sells a single copy or a million. That's why companies are pushing microtransactions so hard — It's nearly pure profit (and a healthy profit could still be had if they charged but a few cents per item). We already have an ever-growing problem of reward/item elitism in Home; we certainly don't need this horrendous trend artificially inflated any more than it already is. 'Nuff said.
dont think joey would mind that i copy and paste some answers he gave on the forums yesterday. its good info i would like to share: Regarding some questions on the forums and inhere, I thought it might be helpful for you guys as well. Where to Begin... Firstly, thank you for picking up Blueprint. I've said from the start that the version of Blueprint was just the start and that there is so much that can be done with it in the future. I'll split off some points from your post and answer below for ease of reading: "Blueprint is no longer the rage" I'll be perfectly honest here, you are right. But don't think that because there aren't blog posts and forum posts about it that it isn't being used. Blueprint is doing very well and being used by a lot of people who have purchased it. In Home us developers really have a week, two weeks if we are lucky to be the main thing due to the amount of great quality items / games / spaces being released by the other developers who work hard to keep new content coming. Style Packs The style packs and extra environments were released over a six week period to keep fresh content coming straight after release, this was always planned to help those who wanted to purchase everything Blueprint related to do so without taking a huge hit all at once. There was a nice mixture of style packs available (with varying prices) where hopefully one or two were of interest to everyone. Some might not be of interest to some of those who purchased Blueprint and I have been keeping an eye on suggestion threads and trying to find out what people want (more on that later). Bling Pack This is actually something that I posted over on the YourPSHome.net forums so excuse the copy and paste job but it answers the query: It's expensive, not everyone is going to like it but it sells, it sells better than I ever thought it could before I started this job and we need to continue to release things people will buy (simple supply & demand). Again, not everyone is going to want to pay that for a Bling Pack but a lot of people do so we have to offer that. There are plenty of other packs at varying prices to allow as many people as possible the opportunity to own them if they choose to. So hopefully we cater to everyone, those who have loads of money (and want to spend it with us) and those who need to be more "considered" with their spending. Furniture Save Slots This is something that we are pushing for, I have made it clear in other posts that it isn't something we have any say over unfortunately. The powers that be are aware and are working to help us offer this, it may not be as soon as some hope but it's actually pretty amazing that we managed to create Blueprint in it's current form. Future Updates We are actually currently working on updates to Blueprint: Home as I type this. second stories are certainly quite a way off but on the back of the feedback we have received we will be tweaking a few things and offering new style packs and furniture to help create a more Homely feel to Blueprint. There will also be some more off the wall Style Packs available. Again, these aren't going to be for everyone but it will be impossible for us to please everyone. Release date wise, your guess is as good as mine, we have a couple of other big projects we are working on at the moment but we want to get next Blueprint content done and out there for those who use Blueprint and want to see more of it and some of the little things fixed. Feature Items The reason the feature items aren't usable by your avatar are due to the furniture slot restrictions. Feature items were created to help fill out the rooms without having to use up any available furniture slots. If we made them items you could sit on / use then they would just be regular furniture items and they would go towards you furniture slot allocation. It's safe to say that we have learnt that feature items should be more decorative items as opposed to items that could possibly be used, so that's something we have learnt. Box Beats / Street Moves Not really Blueprint but I'll answer this as well. Box Beats and the club thing, it's more to do with the music that we have paid to use and the reason it can only be used by the owner and that isn't going to something that changes (the repeat function is something that we are keen to work on which has been mentioned by people). Street Moves, well, the quality of the Dance Moves is above anything else (I'm sure some people will disagree, but hey!) and they are fully motion captured with a defined start and end point. We took the choice not to loop them and again, I don't see that as something that will change I'm afraid. Conclusion Wow, that was a long one! I hope that answers your questions, I'm sure some of the answers won't be to your (and others) liking, I apologize for that but I'm trying to be as open and honest with the community as possible. If there's anything I have not answered fully enough, or something I have missed out completely, let me know and I will. Joey nDreams Digital Product Manager Thank you joey for answering you doing a great job!
I think the Blueprint format would sell much better if they changed the format a little. Rather than sell a single apartment and then buy bundles to change the style, the additional packs could be separate apartments themselves. I was excited by the concept of Blueprint, but was put off when I realized the price of an apartment was huge when you considered additional design packs. And I could only have one apartment at one time. Especially since redoing furniture each time you used a different saved layout was a bit impractical. The Gold Mansion has a unique pricing plan that no matter which section of the Manor you buy, its $14. Then the whichever you buy next is $9. Then $5. Home's store checks what you bought and gives you a customized price change. I think more developers should use this feature. This could apply to blueprint where you pay full price for the first blueprint apartment. But then you pay less for the second blueprint apartment (with a different style pack). And the customer feels they are getting alot more bang for their buck! Alot of content in Home is just a copy of another item with a different texture map. Devs save money by not having to remake new art, since texture maps are easier to make than a new mesh. And a small portion of this saving should be passed on to the costumers. If you sell a table for$1, sell us another for 50 cents with a different color. I'm not going to buy TWO for the full price. But I'm alot more enticed by getting more if you drop the price. yada yada... anyways, I type too much.
Just as a Lambo need to be It´s a shame that Polyphony Digital is more interested in japanese cars , at least they released the coupe in GT5.
You know about those Gold items, I am not a big fan of them, but I've met folks who go bonkers over them. I've been to the Mansion as a guest, and picked up about all you can from there, but never really use any of those items. I think they look cheap actually, but I've been invited to private places, as well as personal apartments, and the only things in the space are Gold. So I imagine there are a group of devoted spenders that are picking up these Bling packs, and loving them. I'm a big fan of Sims, just about Sims anything, so when this project came down the tube, I was very excited. It is a bit pricey for the amount of money I make, and that's why I haven't bought one yet, but I do plan on it. I know with Sims they released a butt load of extra content packs, and they sold by the butt load, so I don't think there will be a direct problem with selling these items. What I would like, and this is asking a bit much, is an activity in the space. I mean like in Aurora I bought the island apartment to help me get to Aurora Champion, I also got the London Pub, but haven't been back after the first week since there isn't much to do there. I also would like these activities to have rewards that can be won. I'm not a big fan of those apartments where you go to them and then the owner just "gives" you a reward. It would be fun to play for the reward. Just my little bits of two cents.
Wow. I've tried to be an ndreams supporter for long time. I really like the recent music machine you added. But sweet suffering Saint Sebastian on the sousaphone in a short story by Susan Sontag, to jack up a price then justify it to the point of copy/pasting the response is... awful. Are there people who can throw their money away? Sure. Is it a good idea to capitalize on that by alienating your common and loyal customers? I understand. You're looking at the big picture. The big bright sunset ahead, dripping with sweet sweet money. But while you're looking off to that, you haven't noticed the bear traps, holes, and rocks to trip over. But you can afford new legs now, right? I'll speak with my wallet. I won't buy what I don't agree with. But I will share my opinion with pretty much everyone I know. I completely stopped purchasing items from Veemee because of their insane prices. I like nDreams' products though. I don't want to have a moratorium on purchasing nDreams goods. Product? Meh. Price? Whoah. Response to concerns: holy arrogance and short-sightedness, Batman. But hey, if you're cashing in on it, why worry about me, right? Right? Keep up the good work, Joey.
looks like a good update to the space, the revamped xi island look great and blimp looks fun. Might hold off in upgrading my blimp tho, due to past experiences. Yes, I want both please Joey
Hey Carver, Thanks for that, not everyone is going to agree with how every company runs and like the products that come out. We can't please everyone as much as I personally would like to. If Bling isn't for you then hopefully something else is. We have made mistakes before and I'm sure we will make more going forward but we will learn from them. Bling isn't a mistake though, it's simple supply and demand, a practice which all businesses work to (and remember we are a business as well). It's not what everyone likes but hopefully there is something else in our range people will like and find more affordable. That's really all I can say on it, there's nothing left to say but I appreciate the honest feedback. All the best Joey
