TwilightVenom: Warrior of truth

I was reading the comments of a previous post when I found TwilightVenom posted some interesting URLs, which he was smart enough to back up. He did what many of us have done recently, which was question the numbers Home keeps talking about. The conversation had no insults, no violations of Sony/Lithium's laundry list of rules. However, it was deleted. Which can only mean one thing. It was a conversation that threatened Home's already poor credibility, so it was removed in order to prevent further damage to egos. For further reading I suggest checking out the url backups TwilightVenom posted there. His argument is clean and intelligent, even in the face of the worst people Home has to offer.

http://backupurl.com/53zqby
http://backupurl.com/b9z3f1
http://backupurl.com/9rr6uw
http://backupurl.com/yj6d37
http://backupurl.com/n58xvk
http://backupurl.com/ckygy1
http://backupurl.com/ggzhc3
http://backupurl.com/2ouqwr
http://backupurl.com/tstngz

Home says: FUCK YOU CANADA (Again)

In the past we have made effort to expose Home's bias towards the Canadian people. I think We've done it once or twice.... or three, four, maybe five times.

Well it's time for another episode of:

HOME HATES CANADA!

Over the last 24 hours I've gotten four emails from Canadians about their Canadian based topics being removed. In this time of World Cup, it's a possibility someone over there is a bit bias towards the threat to American spirit. First there was this topic, Canada's Top Avatar. This is in the long line of folks who have created these types of topics, however only the Canadian one has been closed. Then there was the "O Canada Dance Party" which was shoveled off to the Clubs & Events graveyard. Then there's this topic. Oh, and this topic. Honestly I could post links all day, but I think the point has been driven.

This is especially insulting to the top half of North America due to the fact that CANADIANS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN HOME EVENTS OR CONTESTS. Please, if you have an example of this constant Canadian bias, please email us to let us know.

Ask for refund, your topic is locked

On the tech support graveyard today I noticed a locked topic. Being the curious person I am, I was drawn to it. It made it to three posts and was locked. No explanation from staff. It seems asking about a refund seems to be the quickest way to get your topic locked. From the topic:

keeps freezing and kicking me and my friends off only have for two days I want a refund You shouldnt be selling things that are defective seems illegal somehow I just wanted games for us to play and we cannot play them in this space should be ripped out of estates

Email from a Lithium mod!

Via email:

Hello! First off, let me ask you, please don't post my name on your blog. I don't want to risk losing my position. I am [name removed] from the forums. I don't do too much on Home section forums, because frankly they are full of idiots. I actually never heard of this blog until after I saw multiple mentions of it on the secret moderator parts of the community forums. Let me say, I don't use home, and I don't have it installed. It's far too lame to really get into. I spent maybe a week wandering around it trying to find people to play street fighter with. I'm unsure why home is even needed to find other players, because truth be told, most games have easy to manage ways of meeting people IN THE FUCKING GAME. Home is a useless disaster and I applaud you for tearing into it, even if you enjoy using it or whatever. I wanted to let you know that even though I am a mod, I think your blog is awesome. It's really unfair that they went out of their way to block you. And yes, they did block you for no other reason then the fact that you present a risk to their profits. Playstation makes good money off stupid people. That's why they hired Lithium. Don't think just because someone is a mod that they like Lithium. They don't pay me a damn dime for the countless hours of nitpick patroling I do. All money in Lithium's pocket. Please keep up the good work and don't let them get you down, because you scare the hell out of them!

I love a good milking!

Each week, Locust_Star posts in his flamboyant-style writing the latest update news. Which can usually be summed up in five words: "New content, give us money!" However, each week folks post in the comments field all kinds of negative replies. I figured before it gets too large I'd post some of them:

i don’t get it, we are constantly forking out cash in HOME and we still don’t have features we’ve been asking for 3 years now, what are you guys doing with all that money?

NHL Jerseys??? come on…

Locust.. can you please answer this.. Are you all working on the missing main features, like televisions, and working radios, trophy room/hall of fame.etc. ?? would be gratefull if you reply..

I really wish you all would update the mall, specifically the treads stores, because it’s been going on 2 months since the last update, and there really aren’t any fresh articles of clothing out, especially for the men. I’m not trying to be demanding, I would just like to see, more clothes; pref-ably fashionable clothes. The mall has been very stagnate.

will the community items be free or will you be milking us from our ideas?

WHY ARE YALL KEEP MAKING THESE PERSONAL SPACES FOR..?? WITH NOTHING TO DO IN THEM ???

yawn

It’d be real nice if those Lithium employees didn’t give me a perm ban from the forums.

Okay neat on the event front, but seriously we need a features update. Even in-game music would be something at this point. Just the ability to listen to something else while in home.

But seriously, open voice chat (with friends only and off options for nay sayers), stereos and tv’s need to be implemented soon.

Please tell the guys who write code for Home, that the games saved on your harddrive need to be organized better

You know we can’t look in the playstation forums on our PS3 right. then why say go to the playstation forums for more information

Why does home keep getting so much junk. We are the cash cow of the Homes. Japan gets quality stuff. EU gets quality stuff. But US gets so much that it’s unorganized and most of it is just junk that isn’t related to anything. We need to get home back on track.

We need games or some type of game sharing for personal spaces. Something like the arcade machines that doesn’t kick you from home and something multi-player. chess table, some board games, Pool tables, old school games PS one classics ANYTHING to do in an apartment would be cool

I’m saying they’re giving us too much useless junk. We’re the cash cow. We just get stuff because they know we’ll buy it. I’m saying other regions have less stuff but what they do have is quality stuff.

I’m very dissapointed at the absolutely abysmal “updates” home has gotten. I’ve been on in excess of 9 months and not 1 single bug has been fixed. on the contrary they’ve gotten much larger, more frequent and more numerous and quite often lead 2 my ps3 having fatal crashes. I’ve deleted home and re-installed many times to no avail. People at sony need to wake up to the fact that beta testing is there to find and elimnate bugs not fob overpriced unwanted virtual junk on the public.

Censorship bypass

Since lithium is the bottom of the barrel when going with a web design firm, we figured our readers would like to know that the censorship on the forums is very easily bypassed. Enjoy!

Home-Watch: UK Invasion!

Well, check this out. We have gone international! A Home user in the UK has sent me this. It's the story of a group of Home users who were harassed and banned by a mod over in the old world:

Hi, Just to let you know, if you haven't already spotted my posts to the blog, I've been banned from the PS forum after just 5 minutes of posting, I used the home-watch sig jpeg, not sure if that had anything to do with it, as I'm not sure if the geniuses at Lithium have extended the puerile behaviour regarding home-watch across the pond the here in the UK yet. (Home watch update: It appears Lithium doesn't extend their pitiful moderation services to the UK forums, we believe this user was just confused as to who runs what. For future reference we will refer to them as the UKMODS until a better and more correct title can be found) I was complaining about corrupt mods after being banned for glitching, which interestingly I CAN'T DO, HAVE NEVER DONE, AND HAVE NO DESIRE TO. Unbelievable, the mod in question is called AKA_NERO, my new id I called AKA_NEROS_ATURD, so I'm not sure if that might have played a part either. Either way, this ban is completely for fabricated reasons, this mod harrasses and bullies one of my mates, and because we was all together yesterday that's why I think this shit has happened.I also mentioned Homewatch and it's brilliant exposure of corrupt mods and their special suck-up friends. Anyway, i asked for who I should talk to so I could get hold of screen shots as proof, and also I wanted the name of the mod who had witnessed me doing this. Hidden agendas and clearly a pissed off customer are not the qualities Sony devote their customer services too, I am beyond furious. And for the record, the other peeps in the group also got banned for the same reason, and nobody was doing anything! Sony = Arseholes.

Love the blog btw,

[name removed]. aka [this one too]

I did a bit of digging, and found a topic posted by the author of thise email, but it has been removed: Official PlayStation® Community -PlayStation.com: English Forums: Staff Room: Removed Posts: COMPLETELY UNFAIR BAN

Thusfar, this user has been pretty lighthearted over this. Their posts and voices are only those of people who are sticking up from themselves. Asking questions, and receiving crappy treatment. Apparently they also got banned from the PSN network too.

Updated email: (Trimmed for size and flow)

I have never been banned, ever, so this came as a total shock. I believe this is a direct result of being on home on 16th March, virtually all day, just hanging out with my mates. When up pops this mod in Home Square called AKA_NERO. He is infamous for being a catergory 1 asshole, and is regularly surrounded by his suck-ups and cling-ons, who in turn snitch on anyone they overhear 'dissing him, or them for that matter. (Home-Watch Note: Sounds very familiar, we have some trolls like this here.) I was with a very good friend Spankie_Jizzard, Z-Pint and a few others doing nothing more sinister than hanging out and chatting mostly crap like you do. Soon as AKA_NERO spots Spankie he starts making remarks designed to provoke a reaction, we all move to the other side of the square, cos this dude has thrown numerous bans on Spankie, the last one because he was snooping on our conversation again, and he saw that Spankie had said that most of the mods in Home were ineffective. Nothing more than that, no name calling, no childish crap, just that, and that was in response to us all talking about sex pests, and how nobody ever does a damn thing about it, despite reporting it. So by now I guess you're getting the general idea. Anyway back to the day in question. Now you know how when you move from one area to another and the chat log changes to include peeps in that area? well interestingly despite being waaayyyyyy over the other side, AKA_NERO kept popping up with inane and sarcastic remarks into our conversation! We all started discussing that we found it interesting that it's one rule for some and a totally different rule for others. We weren't being offensive, just [speaking] generally how we all felt more than a little bullied and intimidated, and how childish and unnecessary it all was. By this time I had really had enough of AKA_NEROS goading so I left, along with a few others. Yesterday morning I get up and check my email, this is what was waiting for me:


PLAYSTATION®Network: 1-day Account Suspension‏
From: Grief_Report@scee.net
Sent: 17 March 2010 15:03:01
To: [removed]

Dear [name removed],

We are contacting you regarding your PLAYSTATION®Network account and your
recent online activity.

On 16/03/2010, your online activity in Home was in serious breach of the
PLAYSTATION®Network Terms & Conditions for the following reason(s): Glitch.

As a result of this unacceptable behaviour, your PLAYSTATION®Network
account has been suspended for 1 day.

This temporary ban will be lifted on 18/3/2010. Please be aware that any
further breaches of the service Terms & Conditions may result in a longer
or even permanent suspension of your account.

We ask that you use this time to reassess your online behaviour so that you
are more considerate to other PLAYSTATION®Network users when you join us
again online. We hope you can appreciate our obligation to the community as
a whole and to the rights of other users not to be subjected to disruptive
or offensive behaviour.

Yours Sincerely,
The Community Team

So you can imagine my anger, I immediately knew it HAD to be him, I don't even know how to Glitch. He clearly just thought "oh I'll throw that in because the chat log doesn't show her saying enough of anything to warrant a ban." I immediately try to log onto the forums, but wait I can't because my account is suspended! So I can't even hop onto a forum now and ask questions? So I create another ID, I log on and hop into a forum, I did not save it nor copy the text. I stated that I wanted to know how I could find out a couple of things, a screenshot as evidential proof, the mods name, etc. Then I went onto say how enlightening Home-watch blogspot is, as it seems that Nepotism and corrupt behaviour by the mods is rife, and that if it stretches from one side of the globe to the other, then Sony SHOULD be concerned. They have a public image they like to portray after all. I asked who mods the mods? It seem to me that they got a free reign and do whatever they want. I also asked if any other forum user had experienced this. At the bottom I included the Home-watch signature jpeg and sat back to wait. Approximately 3 minutes after posting I hit refresh to see if any new posts had been made, and that's when I got the "YOU HAVE BEEN BANNED FROM THIS SITE" waffle. Anyway, incredulous I fire up the PS3 and try to sign in, stunningly enough the new ID is banned. What is also interesting is that I haven't received any grief report for the ban via email, nada, zip.

You will see the timestamp on the email showing 15.03pm. By 15.05pm today I was on the phone to Sony. I had checked to see if the ban had been lifted, it had not. I speak to somebody called RAM, Indian dude. I explain i want 3 things, a screenshot, the name, and the ban lifted immediately. He try's to fob me off saying he will "escalate it." I respond no he won't, he will tell me the managers name right now, he will also lift the ban right now, the other 2 things I'll wait for. He puts me on hold for 8 minutes, nice touch on a premium rate number. Anyway, he comes back and tells me the supervisors name. He then tells me he can't give me a screenshot. I ask why, he responds that "we don't have that information." I immediately call him on that, referring to the chat logs that are searchable way way back. I also inform him that as a very senior manager in the IT industry for a very high profile company, that he should exercise caution if he thinks I can be blinded by "tech talk." He maintains I can't have a screenshot. I ask for the mods name, not surprisingly he also refused this. Again I ask why, I get the same response. I point out that as a consumer I have a LEGAL right to know who my accuser is, even the cops send you pics of yourself if you break the law! Are Sony above the Law now? Seriously?

I now point that its over 24 hours since the ban was imposed, it clearly says ONE day on the email, now my school taught me that 24 hrs = one full day/night period, or has Sony got a whole other secret clock that we know nothing about? I point out that they are in direct breach of their own T&C and are also operating outside of the Law according to Trading Standards. IT'S IN WRITING MORON! I also advise that I will be emailing the CEO, jack_tretton@playstation.sony.com and will also be Cc-ing in Trading Standards to ensure the email doesn't "get lost". Ram maintains that I will be contacted in due course via email telling me my account has been reactivated. By now my teeth were itching and my eyes were bleeding. However, being a tenacious kinda chick I also asked for the Supervisors name, he eventually comes back and gives me the name. I then ask for his supervisors bosses name. Ram directly asked me why do you want all this information? what's it for? I respond with gritted teeth that it's my right to know, so please find out I'll hold. Another five minutes pass, have now ground teeth into stumps, he comes back, he gives me the name, and now for the best bit. I ask for the bosses job title. A relatively easy question to answer I think. He says, and I quote "he is the manager of the supervisor" OH MY GOD. So I say ok Ram, if I were to write to this gentleman, would I address it to Phil Rampley. Manager of the Supervisor, Sony, London? SERIOUSLY? I really wanted to ask Ram if he was on day release from idiot club. I end the conversation there. Remarkably enough upon ending the conversation I check my network account and good God above it's working!

Breaking News

Written by: Kapow

It's been brought to my attention that you can now be banned for simply mentioning Home-Watch. Not even the URL. Just.Home-Watch.

Originally, TwilightVenom posted on the Lithium forums:

"That's odd. Is that really what happened when BuggieTechnica left? I don't think I was there when it happened.

EDIT: Come to think of it, I don't even know anything about what happened to BuggieTechnica. I asked about it on PSN Home Watch, but nobody answered. Anyone care to fill me in?"

And here's the edited post:

"EDIT: Come to think of it, I don't even know anything about what happened to BuggieTechnica. Anyone care to fill me in?"

So I told him to edit it back and keep editing it until they PMed him with an explanation as to why they are editing his post. But No. No PM so he continued to edit his post back to the original until they finally banned him. The reason?

Violating the rules and policies of the community, with actions such as spamming and posting inappropriate content. Your ban will last for 30 days effective 03-15-2010. Please do not attempt to evade your ban in any manner, as doing so will only serve to increase the length of your ban.

When your ban has expired, please refer to the Official Rules of Conduct and the New User Guide to review the rules and policies of the community. Additionally, please adhere to these rules and policies in the future, as future infractions will result in an extended or indefinite ban period.

Spamming and posting inappropriate content. So not only has our URL been censored, but now you can't even say Home-Watch. Why? We don't know really. Well..I should say we don't have a poor excuse from the Lithium staff as to why this is going on. But we all know it's because they are terrified of us. They are scared of this little blog. We have put the fear into the Home and Lithium staff. And all of this proves it. But this is not the end. We are not going to stop. Yes, this is Kapow, I am writing this article. I'm not fucking afraid of you. Ban me from the Lithium forums, I'll be back in 3 months. As long as Home exists, as will this blog. And as of today I will be signing every article I write here so everyone knows what I have to say. Of course, there's already a bunch of cowards reading my Twitter page without actually following me. But that's fine, keep reading baby birds, I'll feed you. And if you have a problem with me, scrape the sand out of your vagina and talk to me one on one.

We're watching you, and we will.not.stop.

http://bit.ly/9dwcmt

Home-Watch Traffic

Hey it's me, the head honcho, not zkapowz! =D

Recently it's been brought to my attention that 21 followers isn't that impressive. Darn. Perhaps our traffic reports will make it a bit easier to see what's going on behind the scenes. Here is this months traffic:

		Page Loads	Unique Visitors	First Time Visitors	Returning Visitors
Total		17,654	6,384	2,844	3,540

Some quick math, it seems more than 1/3 of our traffic are new people. Probably why they went out of their way to censor our url. More than half the people who visit one come back.

More statistics: 38.8% of new people who visit, spend more than an hour reading this blog. Can't get too excited over that though, we do cover a lot of materials. 82.60% of our traffic is in the USA, followed by 12.60% in Canada. Out of the USA, California takes a lead with 14.40% of the traffic. Most links are relayed from the private messages of the Sony Forums, another good reason they attempted to silence us.

This blog has been viewed over 31 thousand times, just since adding the traffic reports. It's unknown what it was prior to that. Best statistic however, is the fact that it makes Home staff angry, childish, and butthurt. It's good to know they are reading this as well as their users, maybe then they could -attempt- to do a good job, rather then what they have been doing.

http://bit.ly/ddno1P

WHERE DO DELETED POSTS GO TO DIE?

Well, according to this topic that was deleted, they go to a secret place called:

PlayStation.com Forums : Moderators Only : Questionable Posts

http://bit.ly/asDyiS

SONY ATTEMPTS TO SILENCE CRITICS

If you are coming to this blog due to the incoming shit storm we have prepared for Sony & the crybabies at Lithium, welcome.

I am writing this as a bit of a mini-faq for the press or anyone else interested in censorship. Our missions statements can be seen in the right column of this blog. Simple, average stuff that anyone would want when paying for a service. What ended up happening is we have caused so much of a stir on the forums that they have attempted to hide our existence as much as humanly possible.

Originally the first wave was when people started linking us in their signatures. Their excuse: "bad language." At that time there was only one bad word on the entirety of the blog, which was a blog tag labeled "bullshit." Even after removing this, they still wouldn't allow people to link in their signatures. So users began to circumvent this by just pasting the address on their signature images. This too was thwarted with extreme prejudice. If anyone posted a link on the forums, even without knowing that this blog is heavily disliked by Sony, the post was deleted and the users warned or banned.

However this wasn't the end, as one of our staff sent one of the head Home staff a link to one of our blog posts, asking a simple question. "Is this allowed?" I guess a light bulb went off in their heads when they realized that the url to a Home criticism blog could easily be relayed via the forums' private message system. As can be seen in our previous post, they have taken measures to prevent this. Which is just as easy to circumvent as any of their other measures to censor their critics.

We have embarrassed Sony/Home many, many times. We have exposed them for everything from covering up rape threats, to exposing the fact that their forums are run by off duty school bus drivers.

So I am asking the fans/viewers of this blog to help show the egg-on-face censorship of Sony. I ask that you submit this blog post to some of the more respected video game journalism groups. And by respected I mean not IGN, Gamespot, Gamespy, or Yahoo! Games. More along the lines of sites that don't worry about how Sony might revoke their advertising. Sites such as Destructoid, 1up, Kotaku, or Joystiq.

Edit: as of March 13th, 2010 they have gone out of their way to censor the relay url as well: http://bit.ly/5iUhn0.

Breaking News!

This just in:

The Home-Watch URL has officially been made a curse word on the Lithium forums.

Don't believe me? Try it out for yourself.

http://home-watch.blogspot.com/ <==== just like that, it will appear:

http://**bleep**/

How to use Firefox's Adblocker to make forums run faster

I am so sick of these new forums. If you have firefox, and adblocker, add the following block rules and the forums load much, much, much faster.

|http://us.playstation.com/shared/forums/header/*
|http://webassets.scea.com/ucm/groups/public/documents/webasset/ps_mainnav.swf

Once these are blocked the forums should load faster in firefox.

Upset with Lithium?

Written by: Kapow

Why not give 'em a call: (510) 653-6800. Let 'em know what you think about everything they have done lately. Hell, if you're in the neighborhood, why not stop by their office. If not, maybe you could send them a nice letter.

Jesus Grape-Flavored Christ Lithium sucks!

As most people, I was super disappointed with the amateur effort of Lithium. So I wanted to check the forums to see what others thought, and what issues are going on.

I don't even know where to begin.

It maybe true that whoever worked on this "update" put a lot of time and effort into it, but please forgive me if I find that hard to believe, or that I think it was not nearly enough of an effort. I really don't even need to explain myself, it is self-evident to almost everyone. Why wasn't this "update" beta tested or at least tested by some QA department, I don't even understand how it got passed by the development team that worked on it.

Now, onto a bigger question, was this drastic overhaul necessary? Was it even ever asked for? Because I have not seen any benefit that is significant enough to have constituted a change of this size. In fact, glitches and loading times aside, what has been added that improves my experience? Is the forum easier to navigate? Is everything more organized? Do all these visual changes help me recognize and read things better? Does this now colorless forum have more substance and character, does it make my eyes and I more comfortable to be here? Do I have more options to customize/personalize, or at least the same amount of options that I had before? Are there added features that help me do more of what I want to do, and then some? For me, and many others, I think the answer is no.

Please, bring back the old forums and work on improving them by adding/changing things that WE want, not what you THINK we want. I think that we are all open to change, as long as it is change for the better.

It's so completely messed up that I have to use IE 8 ( I hate IE) to view the forums the way it's "supposed" to look. It's just broken all around.

The CSS isn't working and it shows everything in plain links with a white background.

Everytime I try and reply to a post i just get the "retry" "retry" over and over again

OK So I keep clicking the announcements and getting directed to post your opinion here no wait here so **bleep** that i can't even reply to any of those so I'm doing it here. This "update" sucks from what I see of it so far. The theme is awful and I think I read that it can't be changed? Why? How is that considered an upgrade? Also why do you kill off other features and still call it any kind of update? Should have left it how it was. Was just fine but now it's just a strain on the eyes. It is also unresponsive and slow at loading. And now I can't even seem to go to my messages

My god, not only could Hellen Keller tell you these forums look horrible, but now I am waiting 5 minutes everytime I click on something. Not to mention my top of the page wont even load.

The new forums are completely screwed up. For one thing I couldn't sign in. The normal sign it link kept timing out. The sign in link in the forums wasn't a link (I couldn't click on it). I finally managed to log in, by looking at the source code and finding the sign-in link. I couldn't use https since that's broken, only http worked.

Let me start out by saying I'd make paragraphs like I used to but I can't view the preview to prove it still converts code automatically so you'll have to read a wall of text instead. Now I can travel here and enjoy the new look and browse through the different boards, but when I select any thread the text doesn't appear. All I see is a big white box that says who posted it, when, and that I can even report them if I want to. Oddly enough it appears that I can reply and start new threads (I haven't actually hit post yet so I might actually just be talking to myself) but I have no idea what I'm replying about except for what is written in the title. All I can say is change can be good but shouldn't the Playstation 3 be able to utilise boardsus.PLAYSTATION.com? I hope someone can bring this to the attention of whomever can fix this. I won't even be able to see if anyone replies to this until I can get to a computer on Tuesday. I'll try to get to one sooner to be sure my complaint actually posted.

when im on a post and i want to go to the next page, say page 2, the next button or just clicking "2" doesnt work. anybody else have this problem? im using chrome..

these new forums are really frustrating..the white background burns my eyes and now this..sony please change it back

We'd like to send a shout out to the crew at Lithium, who just can't seem to keep their newly designed forums up. The Playstation forums have gone down more times then a white house intern today. But honestly, Lithium is a horrible web design group, and probably got hired for the incredibly cheap lowball offer they gave. Fuck you Lithium.

The State of Home? The Opinions of Home!

Jack Buser, the director of Home recently made a blog post, which we've covered here. I'd like to take this moment to highlight some of our favorite comments:

What I would like to know is when do we get the trophy room that was shown so long ago?

I’ve been buying Personal spaces this past week. IDK why, but it attracted me to be on PSHome more. Thanks guys, now I’m addicted :)

Jack Buser replied on February 22, 2010 at 1:57 pm:

Happy to hear it Jetup. We’re glad to have you with us! [editor's note: I'm sure you are glad to have someone funding your pockets.]

Lively conversation on the forums?

Hate to say it, but that just shows how out of touch you guys are. Have you REALLY been to the forums? People with opinions are driven out by your trolling HCVs, or shut down by Lithium staff. It’s “heavily controlled” conversation, not lively in any sense of the word. You can’t hear us, because we are moderated beyond belief. Some things we need to be respectfully frank about, but it just gets shoved to the side.

I’m curious Mr. Jack exactly what it is we have to look forward to? We’re constantly told for months on end “wait and something good will come,” and all we get are ridiculous dance offs and broken games. I’d like to know WHAT it is I’m looking forward to. I understand the gaming industry is packed with secrets, intellectual property rights, and non-disclosure agreements. But would it kill you to let us know what the status of the core update? Or when we can expect to not wait 10-30 minutes for bootup?

As for the “games” most are completely terrible. I wouldn’t use this as a bragging right. When they function, which is rare, most times the game is simply just duller then dirt.

My apologies for being brutally honest, but I’ve sunk HUNDRES of dollars into home, and it honestly hasn’t been worth it yet.

I don’t really care about new features, but please, PLEASE make sure you fix Home stability, load times when starting up, when using the wardrobe, loading new spaces, etc. Increasing the cache size feels useless right now so I reduced it back to 3gb and funnily enough, Home is now faster but can still use improvement.

Oh and let’s not forget the Central Plaza glitch which has been going on around the time 1.30 released.

Did Jack actually use the words “a renewed focos on OPEN DIALOGUE”?!!!

When have you ever focused on open dialogue?

You removed voice chat from HOME, and then HEAVILY censored the crummy little voice chat you left us with.

You never respond to comments or participate on the blog (other than to post advertisements for crap that nobody ever requested).

The state of HOME is a sorry one yet you’d paint it otherwise? No mention of how buggy it is? This program crashes my PS3 constantly like nothing else! That kind of stuff doesn’t slide with other PS3 software and it sure shouldn’t with HOME. Who developed this thing anyway? I can’t imagine it was any real game developer as Sony studios alone have put out many great games on the PS3 with open worlds and minimal loading, yet HOME is a bunch of tiny rooms and still chugs. Is it running off of only 1 SPU or something? I try to enjoy it for what it is but it fights me tooth and nail every step of the way. The long loading, extreme slowdown and crashing needs to go. Then you can get back to selling non-existant things that are now costing as much as actual games (for example LocoRoco apartment and LocoRoco Cocoreccho share the same price).

Yeah please focus on a few updates that would improve the functionality of Home. We don’t need new spaces and costumes every update when you cannot go from space to space without a loading screen or downloading the space over and over again.

I have been a daily user of Home for almost a year, And a some what daily poster on the forums. This is the first time upper management has even stepped up to give us some feedback. I may be wrong, But it’s the first iv’e seen.

Unfortunately, almost every independent ps3 based project I’ve seen Sony put out has been filled with potential but lacking in execution and PS Home is no exception. I believe the developers working for you are somewhat short-sighted.

Wow Home is the longest BETA ever and seems to be getting very boring to use…

WILL HOME EVER COME OUT OF BETA?

LOADING TAKES FOREVER, IT TAKES LIKE 10MIN FROM THE MOMENT YOU PRESS X TO START TO THE MOMENT YOU CAN CONTROL YOUR CHARACTER.

Home lacks focus and as a result I have always felt awkward when using it.

I deleted Home long ago. i did it to get my 3GB back and because it had no appeal for me. I want DA GAMES!!! thats why i bought a PS3 early, only to get short changed in the memory dept. Believe me, if i had the HD space id glady stroll around Home a little, but a transfer at this point is a hassle and of course $$$$$$

Its been quite a while since the open beta started. Is Home ever going to stop being a beta?

Hm, how do I respond to something like this.. Well, more power to you and home.. Personally, I know everyone looks at me as a complainer, but sorry, I’m just trying to watch out for other people and I posted in the TRASHED ASS lithium forums my concerns on false advertising and paying for items you never get, but Lithium doesn’t appreciate comments like that. I’ll be glad when the day comes when Sony does their own forums, and ditches 3rd party forum idiots who don’t know what they are doing, other then destroying Sony’s Rep. But other then that, I enjoy home and I use it a lot, and I will continue to support home as much as I can, even though there are several issues in home that need to be addressed, like unstable connections, lag, and not to mention one of the biggest problems which is the favoritism among home mangers and certain users of the forums.

PS. People asking for TV’s and music, you might as well forget it, I personally don’t ever see that happening.. I mean look at the constant F13’s, the lag, network errors. No, this will never happen. I mean heck go to Mui Mui boat, see how long you can stay there before you crash.. or better yet how long it takes you to leave!

Here’s to homes future!

@ mr. jack buser

maybe you’ll answer me about what happened to the wizards den? the rest of your team won’t…

LMFAO @ Home. The first time I tried it, I got some weird Hard Drive error after home installed. Uninstalled it right away and after that I never touched it.

YAWNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

HUGE waste of MILLIONS of development dollars. Not ONE of my PSN friends use home. EVER

There’s no point in asking any further qustions…Jack has already fulfilled his “Look at me listen” quota.

Now he’s back to ignoring the hell out of the PS3 community.

epic.

Fun Police Strike Again

Written by: Kapow

We all know Home takes a long time to load. I'm sure somebody somewhere is working on it (if not SHAME!!!!!). As we buy more things it just seems to take longer to load.

So let's get creative and have some fun with it. Post things you can do while you wait for Home to load. If you wish to complain about load times, please post in one of many other threads. This is for fun, please keep it that way.

Things You Can Do While You Wait For Home To Load;

Go outside and have a smoke

Time a 7 minute egg (last time I checked it took about 7 minutes for it to load for me)

Write a letter to your mom

Read War and Peace

Start a smoking habit

Read all the newest posts here in the Home section

Catch up with everyone on Facebook

Tidy your town in Animal Crossing

Find Waldo

Cure cancer

Now add yours.......

Ok, seems like a normal thread, I see no harm or foul here. A fun little thread about the things you do while you wait for Home to load, ok, cool. But wait, what's this? It seems the fun police arrived to put a stop to this thread. the reason:

Let's keep it directly related to Home. No game style threads please.

A game thread. . .or was it someone told you to shut it down because, once again, someone pointed out some flaws in Home? No wonder Home isn't getting any better, they won't accept any criticism of any kind, they're living in a fucking fantasy land.
Welcome to Home people, go fuck someone in their face and ride a unicorn, er sumpthin. As long as you praise Home you should be fine.

side note: check out that thread, it has some pretty funny responses to the OP.

No more beating around the bush.

This is an awesome forum post. Even though the Lithium rent-a-cops are editing everyone's posts. They kinda remind me of security guards at a mall. Useless unless they're irritated.

Lets have a look.

Home is a stiff and lifeless world with so-so graphics and poor ambience. As one review put it, the environment is sterile and very limited as far as interactivity goes. Many spaces are incredibly dull and mostly devoid of ambient sounds. The interface is bland and boring to look at. The only gaming-related feature we have is universal game launching. Except for the latter, Home is completely isolated from the PlayStation Network. The absence of the Trophy Room/Hall of Fame is especially jarring, since it's been in the works for a very long time. This space would make Home a much more interesting place for gamers, but apparently Sony doesn't care about what we want. All they care about is shoving content down our throats to make a quick buck and to take our focus off of Home's numerous issues.

As one user put it (can't remember your username, sorry), Home isn't evolving, it's just getting flabbier. Sony is taking on much more than it can handle with the weekly content updates, and we're the ones who suffer because of it. Here's a thought, why don't you get all the kinks worked out before you dump a boatload of content on our laps? Seems like nobody at Sony has the guts to say "Hey, we screwed up big time, we should hold back for a while and try to figure out what went wrong before we release any new content".

No doubt some users will tell me that I don't "understand" Home, or some such nonsense, but that's just evading the issue. Home IS riddled with problems, and some seem like they're trying really hard not to pick up on that. Pretending to be satisfied will not do Home or its community any good. The problem here is Sony, not us.

The original post had mentioned two people by name. Luckily some unnamed hero snagged a screenshot before the original was butchered. Here's the current post:

No doubt some users will tell me that I don't "understand" Home, or some such nonsense, but that's just evading the issue. Home IS riddled with problems, and some seem like they're trying really hard not to pick up on that. Pretending to be satisfied will not do Home or its community any good. The problem here is Sony, not us.

And the actual post:

No doubt Conrad_Max and Joanna_Dark_ will tell me that I don't "understand" Home, or some such nonsense, but that's just evading the issue. Home IS riddled with problems, and some seem like they're trying really hard not to pick up on that. Pretending to be satisfied will not do Home or its community any good. The problem here is Sony, not us.

Truedat. Here's a fun game, how many staff edits can we fit in one topic:

1. Message Edited by Avara on 02-08-2010 02:04 PM
2. Message Edited by shungokusatsu on 02-08-2010 11:52 AM
3. Message Edited by shungokusatsu on 02-08-2010 11:53 AM

Note to Lithium: you can't code worth a damn. Learn to stick to one timezone for things, otherwise your forum software looks crappy and confusing. Actually, nevermind, it is crappy and confusing.

Note: I also tagged this post as "locked topic" because I'm willing to bet it will be not to long from now. UPDATE: It was.

The Wheels On the Bus Go Round and Round

So I was browsing through the Sony forums looking for new things to bag on them for. What I got was so juicy and yummy I couldn't help it.



Cobra1, aka "Cobra Girl," Is a moderator for Lithium. The folks that work extra hard to make sure everything you do or say is censored. Well, luckily, she links her Twitter account in her signature. Why is beyond me, because of this little tidbit:

Bio I drive for King County Metro Transit and work with Lithium to moderate online communities. Video games in my spare time and walks in the park.

Beep beep. She's a bus driver. Not only is that hilarious in itself, but she actually lists it BEFORE working for Lithium. The forums that harbor the Home forums are run by bus drivers. (Well, one confirmed, the others strongly suspected) I always thought Sony's forums smelled like cigarettes and armpit. Let's check some of her tweets:

Remember: New #Metro Transit routes and schedules start Saturday, Feb 6, 2010. New timetables are now available for all routes.

Damn, could you be any more interesting? Thanks for the update Ms. Crabtree.

Watching #Forrest Gump again.... Who sits on a city bus bench for 3 hours waiting on 1 bus to arrive?

As much time as you spend on the Playstation forums censoring people's debates and conversations, I would suggest they're waiting on your bus.

I think driving through the tunnel with the #LinkLight Trains is going to be easier than I thought. Route 73 is a good route. #Metrotransit

Oh, you naughty party animal.

Dear Metro passengers. This is the 28 Express; we are not passing 34th St. so don't go expecting any miracles! <3

Just like a bus takes forever to go from zero to forty, it takes just as long for you to go from zero to witty.

I really think I stayed up too late playing #MW2.

Great, I'll expect to see a news story: "Playstation gestapo member drives bus off cliff. She will soon be replaced with stronger language filters." Go have a look at the Kings County Public Transit page, where their motto is "We'll get you there." The fine print says nothing about you being alive, however.