So many updates, where do I start?
Its been a while since our last blog post, but there is a good reason. We’ve been hard at work tackling a slew of User Voice requests and adding new features to enhance your Habbo experience. Here’s a list to summarize the changes we’ve done this year and some hints of things to come.
Duckets
Your new (Free) virtual currency that can be earned simply by logging in and being active in Habbo. Now everyone can customize rooms and own pets, even if you have no credits. Duckets will also be used within campaigns to reward active players ensure that certain items remain rare.
Searchable & Expandable Inventory
You now have a search field in your inventory as well as filtering options (about time…)
Removed: Stream
Our data shows this feature was used by a very small fraction of the community. We felt it was best to remove for now to make the hotel load faster while we rethink the concept. We apologize for the inconvenience if you liked this feature, but we think you’ll be happier in the longrun (hint: tired of notifications all over the place cluttering your right column? … hmm where should they go?)
New :Kick + :Kickall commands and Wired Kick Effect
These features give better means to self-moderate your rooms and also create lots of opportunities for new/improved wired game building.
New :MuteBots command
In a room with too many bots and want to clear the noise? :mutebots!
Love Lock Furni
A new type of social furni that works in similar fashion to our trophies. You and a friend can lock your avatar image and the date to be displayed on double-click. Although this came out specifically for Valentines we see potential to expand this functionality into new themes that are more friend or group oriented.
Relationship Status
A new way to categorize friends and display the relationship on your Habbo profile. Just one small step to bring Habbo friendships closer together.
Earn Credits & Prizes by Watching Videos
You can now earn prizes and credit furni by watching sponsored videos without leaving the hotel.
New Year’s Resolution Trophies & New Achievement Levels
These Achievement furni allow you to select an achievement to complete by a specified date which unlocks a new furni state proudly displaying your accomplishment. Along with this update we increased the level of many achievements and even added a few new ones for our Baby Pets.
We hope you are enjoying these new features as well as the daily events run by hotel managers and frequent furni updates.
New Account Safety Feature!
UPDATE: We have now updated the feature to automatically unlock your account when accessing from a trusted computer. We hope this prevents anyone from being accidentally locked from your own account.
We’ve just added a new way to keep your account safe and secure.
The account safety lock will automatically disable some features in the hotel if your account is accessed from an unknown computer. To unlock your account after safety lock, you’ll just have to answer a few additional security questions.
Features locked by this feature:
- Adding or removing credentials
- Changing password
- Changing email
- Linking and adding accounts to identity
- Trading
- Using marketplace
- Purchasing from catalog
- Dropping furniture to group room
- Deleting rooms
Visit your account identity settings to choose questions and enable this feature.
Looking forward to an exciting year 2013
The whole Habbo Team thanks Paul for his inspiring leadership during his tenure proudly wearing the habbo badge and we will wish him all the best for the future.
Together with Paul we have kept on listening to our users, the Habbo community – you are our stars. We keep learning from your feedback and during the coming year we will provide more of the classic Habbo features you love as well as continue developing new extensions to enhance the habbo experience, such as the recently launched Game Center and mobile application.
It will be an exciting year 2013 for the entire Community!
The Habbo Team
Paulwalla Departing
After 15 months of leading the Habbo community it is time for me to hand my Staff badge to new leadership. My time as Paulwalla has been amazing, working with a group of industry veterans to support one of the most vibrant and energetic communities on the internet. We have had our ups and our downs together, and through it all Habbos have stood strong in being proud of their community and making it about friendship and fun. I’ve learned much and truly enjoyed engaging with the community. Whether our work to improve the community was popular, or controversial throughout we have heard clearly that Habbos understand their community and know what they want. The interaction has been important. The voice of the community is the strength of the community. Proof of this was clear in the summer. The community weathered a tremendous storm together, and Habbos stood strong. The way you reacted with one strong voice was inspiring. You will be left in good hands. Our new Community Team will lead Staff in the Hotel to serve you. Engagement will increase, and the spirit of Old Habbo will rise again.
All the best,
Paul LaFontaine
Pocket Habbo is Coming on December 19th!
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Our new Pocket Habbo mobile app is launching around the world on December 19th. You’ll be able to download the 100% free Pocket Habbo app from the Apple Store on an iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad (compatibility mode).
Pocket Habbo can be linked to your Habbo Account from any hotel and allows you to talk with your Habbo friends from your mobile. You can also receive offline messages on your mobile and in Habbo!
As a holiday bonus, starting Thursday you’ll be able to redeem a daily gift for 12 days just for checking in on Pocket Habbo! Easy access to Habbo and daily rewards, what could be better? Make sure to download early to get all the gifts!
We hope you enjoy this new way to stay connected.
New Room Moderation Settings and Offline Messaging for All
Great news! We’ve just added more control over your room rights. You can now assign the ability for others to Kick, Ban, or Mute people in your room. This is a highly requested feature straight from our User Voice forum. Learn more about the feature on our FAQ: https://help.habbo.com/entries/22562247-room-moderation-tools
We also made an update to our recently piloted Offline Messaging feature. The feature no longer requires VIP to send or receive.
We hope you enjoy these new features. If you’ve got an idea for a new or improved feature, make sure to let us know!
Happy Holidays!
Important Facebook Integration Changes
After a 3 year experiment, we’ve decided not to continue offering support for our Facebook Application. Don’t worry, you can still use your Facebook login to access Habbo from our website (www.habbo.com). Habbo is still available via all major flash-enable web browsers. No information will be lost from your account as a result. We haven’t taken this decision lightly and apologize to any Habbos who enjoyed the convenience of playing Habbo within Facebook.
This decision comes in response to policy changes by Facebook that would break our application without development. When we reviewed the data on how many Habbos primarily use Facebook to visit the hotel, it did not justify continued support for the feature. We feel its more important to focus our effort on features that enhance our platform, particularly those being voted up on User Voice.
We are monitoring this change closely and if we’ve underestimated the demand for access from within Facebook, we will reconsider. Early feedback suggest that focusing on internal networking features rather than integration in other social networks is a welcome change for many Habbos.
For all of our fans who enjoy receiving updates from our Facebook Pages, there is no need to worry. We’re keeping our pages online and will continue to post and moderate. We’re also looking into more features within Habbo to keep you informed so that you won’t need to work so hard to find the latest information.
We hope that you support this change and encourage your feedback in the comments.
Some Perspective on API News from Paulwalla
I was reading some fansite forums and saw comments on recent blog posts talking about our announcement of the games API. The discussion was about how we are trying to change Habbo. First tip for Habbos, never believe what you read on a blog. Unless it is this blog of course! But even then read everything with a very careful eye.
The reason we built the API is that we hear very clearly how popular Snowstorm, Wobble Squabble & Battle Ball are in the Habbo lore and imagination. We all know that putting games into the Habbo universe is fun if they fit they play style that Habbos enjoy. Witness Fast Food. Very straightforward game, still gets a lot of play and it works well. Habbos enjoy it, the numbers show it.
We also know that it would be better to have 15 games as popular as Wobble Squabble in the Hotel. As not all games made are as good as a game like that we have to introduce 100 games to the site and Habbos pick the 15 great ones. Expecting anyone to build a perfect game every time is not how the world works.
So like any problem we asked ourselves how we could introduce 100 games to the service, and the only answer that made sense was to partner with 3rd parties to allow them to introduce games via an API. The major well known social networks do this and the app stores on your smart phones are built on this. This is how content is made in sufficient volume to allow users to pick and choose the winners. So we are doing that.
There are two points to consider, first about Habbo Hotel, and next about very creative Habbos who may want to program their own games. In Habbo Hotel the staff are going to focus on Community, Friending Tools and getting the spirit of Habbo back in “Old Habbo” top form. We’re not going to be building games. As for creative Habbos who aspire to be game designers, now the API is open to YOU. That means a few of you can get together, rebuild Wobble Squabble and put in on Habbo. And you can take advantage of our agreement with developers meaning you make the majority of the money that the game creates. Not a bad deal.
Which brings me to a final thing to consider. Habbo is about friendships. Playing games together is part of making friendships richer and more long lasting. So more games means more chance to share experiences. As we try more of the 100 games and you see one that is not to your taste, pass it by. Try the next one. In the meantime the Staff will be working with developers and more importantly spending the majority of their time in Hotel and with you to bring back Old Habbo.
UPDATED Testing a new feature in .COM – Messaging offline friends
This weekend we’re testing another feature which came highly requested on User Voice – offline messaging. This feature allows you to message offline friends, provided that they have a VIP membership. Just open your friend list, find an offline friend who displays the chat bubble icon next to their name and send them a message. They’ll receive a chat notification with the message once they login.
NOTE: The VIP requirement allows us to manage load and prevent lag. Once we understand the demand on this feature we can asses the possibility of expansion.
The pilot is starting in .COM hotel and if all goes well we’ll expand to other hotels soon. We hope you enjoy this new feature!
UPDATE: The pilot went well and we decided to add extra capacity to support this feature for all. No VIP required to send or receive offline messages. Enjoy!
Loads of Cool New Features!
If you’ve been following along in Habbo lately you’ll notice that we’ve recently rolled out a round of new features and changes with the latest update. Many of these features are directly requested and voted up by Habbos in our User Voice forum (www.habbo.com/feedback). We thought it would be helpful to list them all in one place so that you don’t need to go hunting all over the Habbo interface to find them.
Wired is Now Tradable
This one is by popular demand. Wired is now tradable so that you can get exactly the right pieces you need.
Purchasable Bots
Our new Bots come in two flavors. The Casual Bot is anything but standard. It can be programmed to walk, talk, dance and copy your looks. Bot names can be changed as many times as you like. The Waiter / Serving Bot is a step up from the casual bot. They can do everything the Casual Bot does and on top of that they’ll serve beverages that you ask for. Try it out. Ask a waiter bot for a coffee next time you see one.
Dance Tiles
These new furni items will make your Habbo dance when you step on them. We’ve launched the “Mars Walk” and “Habnam” tiles so far. So far the response is positive and we’re looking forward to more dance moves in the future.
Sound FX Furni
These furni make noise when activated and the sounds are specifically designed to be mixed and matched. You can create live music in your room alone or with friends. If you’re a fan of our Wired furni, you can also trigger the sounds periodically to make custom beats. Combine these items to make a virtual beat machine with made of furni. *Tip: Sounds will change pitch if they are stacked based on height. One single sound effect can yield a variety of sounds. As usual, if you have fun with it we’ll be happy to bring more sound FX.
Sound Settings
Its a shame that you might miss out on all the sounds of Habbo just because of a few that you prefer not to hear. For that reason we’ve developed separate volume settings so that you can adjust to exactly your liking. Make sure to turn on the Furni sounds if you’re planning to make music with our new Sound FX.
We hope you enjoy these updates. If you’d like to see more features come to life, make sure to visit our User Voice site at http://www.habbo.com/feedback (or just add /feedback to your local Habbo site if you’re not from COM)