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Revision as of 08:22, 25 June 2007
| Habbo Hotel | |
|---|---|
| File:Habbo Hotel logo.svg File:HabboAUGuestRoom.png | |
| Developer(s) | Sulake Corporation |
| Publisher(s) | Sulake Corporation |
| Platform(s) | Cross-platform |
| Release |  August 2000  January 2001  September 2004 |
| Genre(s) | Massively multiplayer online game |
| Mode(s) | Multiplayer |
Habbo Hotel is a virtual community aimed at teenagers and owned and operated by Sulake Corporation that combines the two concepts of a chat room and an online game. The original conception of Habbo Hotel, Mobiles Disco, was created as a small project by two Finnish men, Sampo Karjalainen and Aapo Kyrölä.[1]
The chatrooms that make up each Hotel are large, computer-generated graphics that use isometric projection. The game is centered around Habbos, virtual representations of its members. Each character has a different name, and is identified solely by this name. The service's other focus point is virtual furniture which is often called furni by players', which can be bought by players using credits via a variety of payment methods, including (but not limited to) SMS, home phone, pre-paid cards, credit card and money order. This furniture and the credits used to buy them can also be traded between users.
The game also is centered around The Habbo Way, which are the standards and rules which all Habbo users are expected to follow. Users are urged to report any breach of it using a system which send an alert to the Website's moderators.
The service began in 2000 and has expanded to 29 countries,[2] the latest community opening in Russia. As of December 2006, over 66 million Habbos have been created worldwide and there are 7 million unique visitors to the virtual hotels around the world every month.[3]
In 2005 and again in 2006, Habbo Hotel Australia received the NetGuide Online Web Award for "Best kids’/youth website [sic]".[4][5] Then in September 2006, Sulake won the Deloitte's Fast50 competition.[6][7]
History
The major launch of the service in Finland was in August 2000. At the time, it was dubbed Hotelli Kultakala, Finnish for Hotel Goldfish. The company soon decided that a more neutral name for the service would be required to attract larger recognition. The word Habbo was chosen following the submission of a team member.
The second member of the Hotel chain was launched in the United Kingdom in January 2001. Since then, the Hotel chain along with its user base has continued to grow.
Features
Habbo Home
Habbo Home is a feature allowing players to customize their own homepage.[8] The homepage is located on the Hotel's website and is integrated into the Hotel with the player's character appearance and motto. Players can customize their page with a selection of widgets, stickers and backgrounds. Various widgets, stickers and backgrounds can be purchased with Habbo Credits to add to the small default range of features.
Players who subscribe to Habbo Club receive more benefits for their personal Habbo Home page, including advertisements on the side of the page removed.[9]
Habbo Exchange
One of the most recently released features to be integrated into Habbo Hotel, is the Habbo Exchange (also referred to as Bank of Habbo).[10] The credit system transfers credits into actual pieces of furniture which can be placed into private rooms and seen by the community. The credits can then be traded through the safety trade box for other pieces of furniture, making the Hotel sustainable in the effects of virtually "buying" furniture from other players. Habbo Exchange is currently available on all Hotels running on Release 12.
Habbo Groups
In Release 13 of Habbo Hotel, the Habbo Groups feature was released.[11] Players can create groups and design a badge to display on their Habbo Home next to their avatar while in the Hotel. Each group also has a homepage which acts similarly to a Habbo Home, but the group owner and group administrators can edit it.
To prompt activity within groups, a directory is included on every Hotel's homepage showing the most active groups, the newest groups and groups with the most active members.[11]
Inside The Hotel
Once a player logs in successfully, they are brought to a screen colloquially known as Hotel View. From this screen, players can edit their character appearance, contact another player via the Habbo Console, purchase a subscription to Habbo Club and use the Navigator to navigate their way to either a Public Room or a Guest Room (see below).
Virtual pets are another feature available on Habbo Hotel. Virtual pets can be bought using credits. The ways that players can interact with their pet do not compete with virtual pet giant Neopets, but the Hotel still provides players with pet commands like sit, roll, come here and others. Pet competitions are often held in the Hotel, and all players that own a pet are eligible to enter. Each guest room on Hotels running version 13 can currently hold up to three pets simultaneously.
Players can keep in contact with each other via the Habbo Console. The Console is the main form of contact between players inside the Hotel, as players can contact anyone on their friend list anywhere in the Hotel at anytime. The Console also allows players to check if a certain player is online, or offline. It also shows a customizable console mission, similar to the motto players can customize that appears under their avatar shown in the friend list.
In-game games
There are four free games available to be played in the public rooms. These are Chess, Battleship, Tic Tac Toe and Poker. The below games that require tickets, purchased with Habbo Credits, are available in the Hotel to play at anytime.
- Wobble Squabble — a game played on inflatables in a swimming pool in the Hotel. Players must nudge, slap and push their opponents off the inflatables and into the water using various keys on the keyboard. The obvious winner is the player that is left standing. Players gain points for every game played. Points are shown on the Users Home page under the Games widget.[12]
- Snow Storm — a game with 2-player-minimum teams. Players must throw snowballs at the opposing team. More snowballs thrown by a player that hit, the more points that player gains for their team. There are also many different scenarios and maps that players can choose to play in. Snow storm was introduced to the UK hotel in January 2007. The points you gain in Snow Storm are shown in place of your motto while in the Snow Storm lobby as well as on the users Home Page.[13]
- Battle Ball — a game played on "space hoppers". Teams of a minimum of 2 must try and "claim" as many squares as possible, by bouncing on them with their individual space hopper within the time limit set. When a square is bounced on by a player, it changes the colour to the team's colour. The team with the most squares claimed with the colour changed, wins the game. Points are added to the player's of the winning team's own personal score. This personal score can be viewed by all in the Battle Ball Lobbies as well as on the playes Home Page.[14]
- Battle Ball Rebound — an updated version of the original game. Updates to the game include 5 new arenas to play in, and 8 in-game powerups.[15]
Habbo Credits
Habbo Credits are the Hotel's currency (also known as coins in other Hotels). Credits are used to buy virtual furniture from the Catalogue, and to purchase Habbo Club subscription. Credits are also used to purchase game tickets. A new feature allows players to purchase special pieces of furniture from the Catalogue that can be redeemed for credits (see above for more information). Credits are stored in the player's purse accesable in any public or private room as well as on the Hotel view and while Logged in on the Main Habbo page.
Credits can be purchased using a variety of different services; such as credit cards, a telephone service and via SMS. Some countries offer prepaid cards which can be bought from video game stores and redeemed for credits.
Credits are often given out as prizes in management-run competitions as well as player submitted competitions such as Funky Friday where users submit a Habbo related competiton and choose a prize. The Winner and the player who submitted the competition both recieve a prize..[16]
Habbo Club
Habbo Club (often abbreviated to just HC) is a popular subscription club inside the Hotel, purchased using credits, that offers many additional benefits, unavailable to non-subscribers. Some examples include a wider array of hairstyles and clothing[17], a special rare piece of furniture for each month of subscription, additional guest room layouts[18], member-only Public Rooms[18], and three extra dance moves.[17] All subscribers to Habbo Club receive a badge, that is placed next to their avatar, and can be seen by all other players. Players who are subscribers for under 12 months receive a bronze badge, whereas players who are subscribers for more than 12 months receive a gold badge. Badges are kept only for the duration of the subscription.[17]
Subscribers have a separate queue from non-subscribers in public rooms[18], and is often used to the subscribers' advantage during events such as celebrity visits, etc. Subscribers also gain two new commands available to use inside rooms: the :chooser command[19]; a player types ":chooser" and a list of every player inside the room at the time is brought up; and the :furni command[19]; a player can type ":furni" in a guest room and it brings up a list of every piece of furniture inside the room.
March 2007 saw the release of 15 new pieces of exclusive furniture available to members. Some older pieces of furniture were removed, and replaced with newer furniture.[20] On several occasions, competitions are held exclusively for club subscribers, in which extremely rare pieces of furniture are given as prizes; an incentive for non-subscribers to subscribe.
The Navigator
The center for all navigation within the Hotel is the Navigator. The Navigator shows basic information about the room (e.g. name, description, owner) but also shows the total capacity and the current amount of players that the room can hold. Using the Navigator, players have two types of rooms they can choose to enter:
Public Rooms
Public Rooms are rooms common to a normal hotel, including lobbies, a kitchen, pools, lounges and a theatre. The selection of public rooms differs from hotel to hotel. Several public rooms contain an automated avatar, known as a bot, that proclaims comments that usually have something to do with the room itself. Bots are also sometimes programmed to reveal special information when a 'keyword' is said such as a clue to a new release.
Several public rooms contain banner advertisements for the Hotel's sponsors. Public rooms cannot be modified by players.
When a public room's status is full, then other players wanting to gain access to the room may join the queue (see more below on queues).
Guest Rooms
Guest Rooms are the section of Habbo Hotel which players can customize to endless lengths. Along with wallpaper and floor patterns players can buy with credits (see above), players can also choose from a range of room templates that determine what shape the room is. Members of Habbo Club have access to more advanced and larger room templates. Players also have the ability to lock their room with a password, or with a doorbell (if a doorbell is set on a room, players must ring the doorbell and the room owner inside must choose whether to let this player inside).
The Guest Room Navigator contains many categories. Players can choose which category their room can be placed in. Some categories are reserved for competitions, and therefore certain players cannot place their rooms in that category. There are also categories reserved for Rooms designed for celebrity visits.
When using the Navigator, players can search for certain guest rooms by either typing the first few letters of the room name, or the owner's user name into the search bar.
Furniture
Furniture or furni (as referred to by players) are virtual items which can be placed in guest rooms, trading amongst the community, purchased from the Catalogue and won from competitions on the Hotel's website.
Many players strive to collect more rare and exclusive furniture. Rare furniture is often up for sale in the Catalogue, but some items are never released into the Catalogue, and thus increasing their value. Some items are kept for big competitions and for managers to display in their own rooms.
The Giant Hand acts as a personal inventory for all players. The contents of the Hand can only be viewed by the player and can be viewed anywhere in the Hotel. Furniture traded via the safe-trade box instantly appears inside the player's Hand. If a player is the owner of a certain room, that player can pick up a piece of furniture inside the room, and then transport that piece of furniture to another room.
Special furniture pieces include a working camera; in which players can use to take a sepia tone snapshot inside the Hotel with a caption, and place the 'photo' in their room. There are also pieces of furniture which dipense items such as drinks . Players can also purchase a trophy from the Catalogue. Players choose the permanent enscription, and the trophy is sent via a gift box (see below). Because the trophy includes the user name of the player, some players strive to collect rare trophies from famous players or Habbo Staff.
A feature recently released to the United Kingdomand the United States Hotels is the Habbo Trax machine.[21] The machine allows players to play music inside guest rooms, and can be heard by all players inside the room. Players can also purchase in-game compact discs from the Catalogue, and are able to customise the tracks on the disc. The United Kingdom Hotel had their machines removed from the Catalogue, after receiving complaints about malfunctioning machines.[22] The machines were then returned to players' who had purchased them on the afternoon of their release .[22] Competitions are also being held for players involving the machines.[23]
Catalogue
Catalogue items can either be purchased with credits or traded between players. The Catalogue is a menu of all of the purchasable furniture at any one given time which can be purchased for Habbo Credits. Every so often, rare items are offered for sale in the catalogue for a short period of time. There are also themed items of furniture available at respective times throughout the year; for example, Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween, Olympics and Christmas.
Players can purchase items from the Catalogue and have them sent to another player, wrapped up as a gift box. The gift box contains a small description tag, and is delivered straight to the recipient's Giant Hand. This is traditionally the way prizes for competitions on the Hotel's website are delivered.
Trading
Players can engage in trading via the Safe-Trading box (pictured right). The Safe-Trading box is activated when a player requests to trade under another player's avatar. In the trading box two players drag their furniture into the box in exchange for each others. Players usually discuss what is being traded beforehand and then request to trade via the box afterwards.
Players can also create "trading rooms" in which the room is specifically for trading and discussing rare furniture.
Moderation and management
Each branch of Habbo Hotel has an office associated with it. Operated by Sulake employees, this office is the workplace of the respective hotel's senior staff. These staff generally include a 'Hotel Manager', or Content Manager, who oversees the hotel as a whole by communicating with the players through newsletters, creating competitions, and managing the content of the website; a Community Manager, who is responsible for moderation and guidance throughout the virtual community by managing in-game Moderators and Habbo eXperts; and a Country Manager, who manages the business side of the community such as sales, finance and administration.
Office staff may also consist of player support staff, who respond to queries sent via contact forms by players; and graphic designers who create the vast amounts of pixel imagery used both in-game and on the community's website.
Automatic moderation exists in Habbo's language filter, the "Bobba Filter", which replaces offensive text with the simple word "bobba". Replacement applies anywhere from mild to highly offensive words, phrases, and even websites. The filter also stops players from giving out personal information about themselves and others, for example, their email address. The filter varies from hotel to hotel, and is applied discretely: for example, words such as "harbl" and "shoop da whoop" that while seemingly meaningless, are censored for their association to, and usage by, Habbo trolls. In this way, the filter assists in moderation of Habbo Hotel.
Moderator staff
Habbo Hotel's moderation is covered by paid moderator staff. Moderators are police vetted Sulake employees who work from home.[24] Moderators can be recognised by the prefix "MOD-" in front of their account name and by a Habbo Staff badge.
Tools utilised by moderator staff allow them to send messages to individual Habbos in the hotel, which appear as in-game popups. As well as this ability, moderator staff can also kick Habbos from any room, mute them (prevent them from speaking) and ban them from the hotel entirely.[24] There is usually 2 moderators active at any one time within the hotel on a rotation set up by the retrospective Habbo office.
Habbo eXperts
Habbo eXperts (often shortened to just Habbo Xs – however, Habbo Xs are named Habbo Ls (Habbo Linces) on Habbo Hotel Spain) are Habbos who volunteer to welcome new Habbos to the hotel and explain its features.[25] They are not employees of Sulake and have no powers or abilities except for being able to enter rooms which have reached their occupant limit.[26] Habbo eXperts are given a badge next to their avatar to enable newer users to identify them easily. Habbo eXperts also host a series of games and other events. An example of this is "Carnival X" found in the US hotel, however the name of the event tends to vary on each hotel.
Sponsorship
As a website geared towards teenagers, Habbos Hotel often attracts sponsorship from outside entities. This sponsorship includes visits by musicians and bands[27] (such as The Veronicas, Gorillaz,[28] Skye Sweetnam,[29] Little Birdy, Stephanie McIntosh, Operator Please and Evermore), as well as corporations (such as Lego, Chef Boyardee, Garnier, Nintendo, Virgin Mobile, Wrigley's and Starburst).
Reviews and criticism
In November 2001, The Daily Telegraph ranked Habbo Hotel in seventh place in "Top 10 sites: chat and instant messaging" along with IRC.[30] They described it as "great-looking" and "proving popular with teenagers".[30]
In March 2005, the Hotel was reviewed by virtualwordlets.net.[31] They gave it a rating of 46.5 / 100.[31]
On October 21, 2006, an in-depth article about Habbo Hotel written by British travel writer Tim Moore was published in the Daily Telegraph's Telegraph Magazine.
Current hotels
There are currently 29 Habbo Hotels in operation[2]:
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References
- ^ "HabboDown.com - When You Want The Truth!". Scorbutic Entertainment. 2006-01-23. pp. Page 4, fifth question from the bottom. Retrieved 2007-05-23.
- ^ a b "Sulake: "Habbo"". Sulake Corporation Ltd. Retrieved 2006-12-21.
- ^ "Sulake Press Release". Sulake Corporation Ltd.
- ^ Link to Habbo Hotel Australia's website
- ^
"Australian NetGuide Online - NetGuide Web Awards Winners". ACP Publishing Pty Ltd. Retrieved 2007-05-14.
Best kids'/youth site: Habbo.com.au
- ^
"Technology Fast 50/500". Deloitte.
Template:Fi icon
- ^ "Sulake wins Deloitte's Technology Fast50 competition". Sulake Corporation Oy. 2005-09-15. Retrieved 2006-10-12.
- ^
"Sulake Press Releases". Sulake Corporation Ltd. February 1 2007.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "Habbo Club: For Your Habbo Home". Sulake Corporation Ltd. Retrieved 2007-05-13.
- ^ "Habbo Hotel February Update". Sulake Corporation Ltd.
- ^ a b "Get Into Habbo Groups!". Sulake Corporation Ltd. 2007-04-26. Retrieved 2007-04-26.
- ^ "Wobble Squabble". Sulake Corporation Ltd. Retrieved 2007-05-13.
- ^ "SnowStorm: How To Play". Sulake Corporation Ltd. Retrieved 2007-05-13.
- ^ "BattleBall: How To Play". Sulake Corporation Ltd. Retrieved 2007-05-13.
- ^ "BattleBall: How To Play". Sulake Corporation Ltd. Retrieved 2007-06-07.
- ^
"Habbo: HC Comp". Sulake Corporation Ltd. Retrieved 2007-05-15.
An example of a Habbo Club-subscribers-only competition run on Habbo Hotel Australia.
{{cite web}}: External link in|quote= - ^ a b c "Habbo Club: In The Hotel". Sulake Corporation Ltd. Retrieved 2007-05-13.
- ^ a b c
"Habbo Club: For Your Room". Sulake Corporation Ltd. Retrieved 2007-05-13.
When loading rooms, as a Habbo Club member you can jump the queue
- ^ a b "Habbo Club Extras". Sulake Corporation Ltd. Retrieved 2007-05-13.
- ^ "Habbo Club has been updated!". Sulake Corporation Ltd. 2007-03-21.
- ^ Lost_Witness (2007-06-01). "Music arrives in Habbo Hotel". Sulake Corporation Ltd. Retrieved 2007-06-11.
- ^ a b Lost_Witness (2007-04-06). "Trax Has Returned!". Sulake Corporation Ltd. Retrieved 2007-06-11.
- ^ Lost_Witness (2007-06-07). "Your song played in the Hub Club". Sulake Corporation Ltd. Retrieved 2007-06-11.
- ^ a b "Habbo Hotel Australia - FAQs - "Moderating"". Sulake Corporation Ltd. Retrieved 2006-12-17.
- ^ "Habbo Hotel Australia - FAQs - "Habbo X"". Sulake Corporation Ltd. Retrieved 2006-12-17.
- ^ "Habbo Hotel Singapore - FAQs - "Habbo X"". Sulake Corporation Ltd. Retrieved 2006-12-17.
- ^ "Habbo: Celebrity Visits". Sulake Corporation Ltd. Retrieved 2007-05-13.
- ^ "Sulake Press Releases - "Gorillaz live at Habbo Hotel"". Sulake Corporation Ltd. 2007-08-17. Retrieved 2006-07-03.
- ^ "SkyeSweetnam.com - "Skye Chats LIVE on Habbo Hotel"". Retrieved 2006-07-03.
- ^ a b
"Top 10 sites: chat and instant messaging". Telegraph Media Group Limited. November, 2001.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Unknown parameter|acccessdate=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - ^ a b
"World Review: Habbo Hotel". VirtualWorldLets.net. Retrieved 2007-05-15.
{{cite web}}: External link in|publisher=