Homespace Overhaul
Yup, it certainly has been mentioned several times over the years but I haven’t seen anything recent regarding homespaces, so let’s take a shot at this topic again, shall we? I’ve rarely seen any homespace being used at all, most of them are blank, as is mine. When I first started back in 2020 it was neat after the tutorials. But after getting into Dream Shaping and getting to know all the tools, the homespace quickly became a very lacking feature. So here’s a few ideas for an overhaul that I think would make sense and give players the incentive to use this feature.
First off, I see the home space mostly as wasted potential to create some sort of profile/gallery/portfolio. Anything that’s there to show off your work, what kind of things you do, what kind of person you are, something along these lines. For this to work though, there need to be “a few” adjustments:
1. Rather than having a fixed “scene” that is a player’s home space, let us assign any scene (no dreams) as homespace scene. This way you can be flexible in what you’d like to have on display. Working on something big and want to advertise this but not lose your more general home space due to a rework? Simply create a new scene and set it as home space. Halloween is around the corner? Time to set our dedicated Halloween-themed scene as home space!
2. Less restrictions. Since it’s a regular scene we can build in Dream Shaping mode, we have access to (almost) all the tools. For a proper scene to work in home spaces, there are still some restrictions needed imo. Since it’s not a Dream (and it’s not supposed to), Doorway gadgets should be excluded. Also scores, checkpoints and persistent variables aren’t really needed. Although some might still find interesting uses for these things. Thermo-budget could be tighter or the available space could be limited to avoid huge open landscapes as home space. The space give in the current home space should already be sufficient in that case. Anything else is fair game!
3. Since it could be any ol’ scene, the DreamQueen interaction (for Imp-quests) and main menu “highlight zone” would be removed. Both of these are always accessible anyway. This is where I see an issue though, as the tutorial part for new players needs a bit of rework, too. Although I honestly don’t remember much of it anymore.
All in all making the home space more of a regular scene would do so much in terms of usability. And since more is possible, players should also be able to report home spaces in case of offensive content etc. The list of credits when other Dreamer’s creations were used should also apply.
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I reckon that the homespace was originally intended to become part of the online/multiplayer experience. It would explain why it has not really been improved over the years. Probably just a wild theory as usual from myself but it would be great. Your "homepage" in the Dreamiverse!
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I still think that the homepage should be used as a custom 3D hub world where you can run around and access all the same areas that are on the Dreams main page. Users can choose which mode to boot up in, and can swap back and forth. Also an added potential bonus, you could set your default the the homepage of someone you follow, so you could see all they are promoting as well as if you arent great at creating your own hub world...
Whatever they decide, the homespace needs a complete overhaul
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Agree with everything posted above.
I'd add that Homespaces could also be used as a "main menu" of sorts to showcase and list all official content from Media Molecule, being it Art's Dream, Ancient Dangers, the Mercedes collaboration thing and so on. They always get kinda lost in the surfing at it could serve as a nice "official staring gaming point" for newcomers.
There could be different rooms with one "personal" room you can customize, and another "official" room where you physically access games via arcade machines, like they already did for some previous event hubs.
And, of course, have them as personalized hub worlds for the community in the future.
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