Nicky
09-08-2005, 07:13 PM
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Screenshot of the Alloy Lounge in the Habbo HotelHabbo Hotel is a virtual chat room and online game, created by Sulake Corporation. Habbo Hotel started as a project by two Finnish twenty-somethings, Sampo Karjalainen and Aapo Kyrölä. The first project was named Mobiles Disco and it was intended to promote a rock band called Mobiles. The site soon gained popularity and Karjalainen and Kyrölä started to think if it would be possible for it to have financial success as well. They sold the idea to the Finnish telecom giant Elisa through advertising agency Taivas. The first real hotel, Hotelli Kultakala (Hotel Goldfish) was launched in August, 2000 as a part of Elisa's portal.
The first step abroad was to build a Hotel in Finland. The team decided that Hotel Goldfish wasn't a suitable name, but a more neutral name is needed. Someone came up with the name Habbo which was then chosen.The first member of the Habbo brand, Habbo Hotel Finland, was launched in January of 2001. The third hotel was soon launched in Switzerland. Since then, the Hotel chain along with its user base has continued to grow, and right now Habbo Hotel is one of the biggest non-violent online game communities on the internet, operating in 16 countries.
Contents [hide]
1 Features
1.1 In the Hotel
1.2 Habbo Club
2 Moderation of the hotel
2.1 Moderating staff
2.1.1 Guide Hobbas
2.1.2 Habbo X
2.2 Language
3 Additional Information
3.1 Claims against Sulake
3.2 eBay
3.3 Organisations & 'Krews'
3.4 List of Hotels (External Links)
3.5 Habbo Shop
Features
Habbo Hotel features customizable avatars known as "Habbos". They operate in nearly the same manner as the avatars on Furcadia and other such online games. The customizable options are limited to skin color, hair style/color, shirt, pants, shoes and a "mission," more accurately, a descriptive line, that displays below the character's avatar when clicked on.
In the Hotel
The Habbo Hotel interface. Pictured is the Avalon Lounge.The chatrooms are large isometric structures that usually feature furniture, lighting and beverage dispensers. There are two main types of rooms: Public Rooms and Guest Rooms. Public Rooms are those that supposedly could be found in a normal hotel, including lobbies, a kitchen, pools, lounges and a theatre. The selection of public rooms will differ from hotel to hotel. Guest Rooms are fully customizable rooms made by Habbos and can be used for a wide variety of purposes. While many are just rooms to talk in, others create nightclubs, gaming rooms, trading rooms and even whole houses. There are templates for the size and shape of the room, which can be painted and filled with furniture (known as "furni"), all of which is purchasable from the catalogue (see below.) In either room type, the words of a Habbo will appear above their head in a long, one-line thought bubble that is colour-coordinated to match the colour of their shirt.
Habbos can keep track of their friends through the Console, which allows Habbos to send and receive messages to each other. It also allows them to keep track of who is online and which room they are in (though it will only say "in guest room" if they happen to be in one.) There is also a Navigator which allows Habbos to select a public or guest room to enter. The navigator holds a list for the Habbo's favourite rooms and also has a Search feature, enabling them to search for a particular guest room, either by room name or owner's name.
Catalogue items can either be purchased with credits or traded from Habbo to Habbo as long as they are in a guest room which allows trading. Credits are bought by paying actual money (usually by credit card or mail order) to Habbo Ltd. Habbos can purchase a wide selection of items for their guest rooms from the catalogue. They can also purchase cats and dogs to occupy their room(s). Every so often, rare items will be sold through the catalogue for a period of twenty-five days. There are also seasonal items released a month in advance of such days as Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween and Christmas. Furni, as well as credits, Habbos and guest rooms cannot be transferred from one hotel to another.
Habbo Club
There is an exclusive service within Habbo Hotel called Habbo Club, which is usually referred to as HC due to the badge that appears beside one's Habbo. A monthly payment of 25 credits enables a Habbo to access more choices and colours for clothing, hair and room layouts. Members are also able to jump the loading queue when logging into the Hotel; whether or not this actually works is highly questionable. Additionally, the Hotel provides the Habbo with a new rare item for each month of the service. The rares appear in a certain order until the 12th month, when the HC badge changes colours from bronze to a shiny gold. After the 12th month, the rares given each month restart from the 3rd month's gift. Since late 2004, no new Habbo Club gifts have surfaced. Each additional month requires an additional 25 credit payment
Moderation of the hotel
Moderating staff
Habbo is moderated by special Habbos called Hobbas, or guides. There are two types of Hobbas--moderators and guides. On every hotel except for Habbo Hotel US, the Hobbas are moderators. Due to certain US laws, volunteers cannot be moderators.
Guide Hobbas
On Habbo Hotel US alone, the Hobbas cannot be able to ban users from the site according to US law. Instead, the special guide system was created. In this system, a Habbo User who has been a Habbo for 90 days, has had no bans, has bought furniture from the catalogue, and owns three guest rooms may become a Hobba. These Hobbas receive the same silver badge as the moderating Hobbas of other hotels. The applications to become a Hobba on the US Hotel were closed only a few days after opening on December 17, 2004 due to a technical error allowing uneligible Habbos to receive a badge. They have not yet reopened. Hobbas, before May, were able to send text alerts to Habbos and mute them; however an error with the updating of a new Habbo version caused these powers to be lost. There are many Habbos who are upset with this system as the staff who run Habbo Hotel US do not seem to have advanced this system any further. Instead of having Hobbas to back them up, the 25 or so low paid "MODs" and staff of Habbo US must deal with all problems themselves.
[edit]
Habbo X
In early June 2005 a new type of moderator emerged, called Habbo X. It premiered on Habbo Hotel Sweden, and was a younger version of the well known Hobbas. This means that younger people could help with the moderation of habbo. They have very limited powers, only alerting and reporting direct to real hobbas. They have not came to any other hotels yet.
Language
There is a filter in place to block certain objectionable words and phrases. It has become to be known as the Bobba Filter, due to its replacement of all offensive text with the simple word "bobba". In recent times, Habbos have become increasingly irritated by the filter, which has been known to filter out normal portions of speech, such as "My thoughts exactly!" or "looking to trade a red rug" due to the words "***" and "drug" appearing in the respective phrases (see bolded portions.) This has led to various people avoiding the filter by adding periods between letters and resorting to more leet options, which has in turn caused more and more words to be filtered. Different hotels use different words for their Bobba Filter; the level of censorship varies from hotel to hotel as well, with the UK Habbo Hotel having, in many user's minds, the most ludicrous amount of censorship possible.
Additional Information
Claims against Sulake
Since Sulake is a fully profit-driven organisation, fingers have been continuously pointed at the 'exploitation' of young children throughout the hotel. It is commonplace for many children to have cyber-*** for "furni". This behavior is quite common, and has been undetected by Sulake. Another concern is that some children will spend hundreds of dollars on graphical 'furni' items which do not exist, and has lead to many parents complaining of the addiction their child suffers. A DJ Deck, one such item, is currently worth 7,500 virtual credits.(approximately $1,500 American Dollars). With the continuous risk of virtual furniture being lost to scammers and keyloggers (obtainable from 'fake' cheat sites) There have yet to be any inquiries into Sulake's operation.
eBay
Many Habbos have attempted to sell their accounts on eBay, sometimes making up to $400, though this is highly illegal. It seems Sulake Corporation has been unable to curb the current situation, no matter how many warnings they give out.
Organisations & 'Krews'
There are many organisations on Habbo Hotel. Most of these are just fun groups which use the names 'mafias' and 'armies'. These groups tend to be a collection of friends who invite others to join and include a ranking system. Others, however like the issue above, use scripting tools and other harmful devices in their acts. There is a big anti-sulake community on Habbo Hotel. The groups who used scripting tools were usually called krews. Many of which are still alive can be found from ******* (http://www.krews.net/). One krew which got very famous was called DDK (Dark Devilz Krew) and were notorious for ridiculing members of staff, with real footage of real moderators in real life acting drunk and disorderly. The website was forced down by sulake a few times, then came back under the domain **** Sulake which was promptly shut down. The owner Richard Sapien was forced not to revive the site or he could have faced a lawsuit. At the peak of DDK, many other krews existing, some memorable ones being
cDc - Corrupted Devilz Krew, YwN - Your Worst Nightmare Ta - Trojan Army
[edit]
List of Hotels (External Links)
Habbo Hotel Australia
Habbo Hotel Canada
Habbo Hotel Denmark
Habbo Hotel Finland
Habbo Hotel France
Habbo Hotel Germany
Habbo Hotel Italy
Habbo Hotel Japan
Habbo Hotel Netherlands
Habbo Hotel Norway
Habbo Hotel Singapore
Habbo Hotel Spain
Habbo Hotel Sweden
Habbo Hotel Switzerland
Habbo Hotel UK
Habbo Hotel USA
Possible Future Habbo Sites:
Habbo Hotel Austria
Habbo Hotel China
Habbo Hotel Mexico
Sulake Website:
Sulake Corporation home page
Habbo Shop
In early June 2005, Habbo Hotel released an online shop where you can buy mobile phone items associated with Habbo. Its flagship item is the Habbo Dreams mobile game. In the future there will probably be real life items.
The first shop to open was for Sweden and the second was UK. The sites are Habbo Shop UK and Habbo Shop Sweden
Fansites: www.habzo.com (http://www.habzo.com/)
Screenshot of the Alloy Lounge in the Habbo HotelHabbo Hotel is a virtual chat room and online game, created by Sulake Corporation. Habbo Hotel started as a project by two Finnish twenty-somethings, Sampo Karjalainen and Aapo Kyrölä. The first project was named Mobiles Disco and it was intended to promote a rock band called Mobiles. The site soon gained popularity and Karjalainen and Kyrölä started to think if it would be possible for it to have financial success as well. They sold the idea to the Finnish telecom giant Elisa through advertising agency Taivas. The first real hotel, Hotelli Kultakala (Hotel Goldfish) was launched in August, 2000 as a part of Elisa's portal.
The first step abroad was to build a Hotel in Finland. The team decided that Hotel Goldfish wasn't a suitable name, but a more neutral name is needed. Someone came up with the name Habbo which was then chosen.The first member of the Habbo brand, Habbo Hotel Finland, was launched in January of 2001. The third hotel was soon launched in Switzerland. Since then, the Hotel chain along with its user base has continued to grow, and right now Habbo Hotel is one of the biggest non-violent online game communities on the internet, operating in 16 countries.
Contents [hide]
1 Features
1.1 In the Hotel
1.2 Habbo Club
2 Moderation of the hotel
2.1 Moderating staff
2.1.1 Guide Hobbas
2.1.2 Habbo X
2.2 Language
3 Additional Information
3.1 Claims against Sulake
3.2 eBay
3.3 Organisations & 'Krews'
3.4 List of Hotels (External Links)
3.5 Habbo Shop
Features
Habbo Hotel features customizable avatars known as "Habbos". They operate in nearly the same manner as the avatars on Furcadia and other such online games. The customizable options are limited to skin color, hair style/color, shirt, pants, shoes and a "mission," more accurately, a descriptive line, that displays below the character's avatar when clicked on.
In the Hotel
The Habbo Hotel interface. Pictured is the Avalon Lounge.The chatrooms are large isometric structures that usually feature furniture, lighting and beverage dispensers. There are two main types of rooms: Public Rooms and Guest Rooms. Public Rooms are those that supposedly could be found in a normal hotel, including lobbies, a kitchen, pools, lounges and a theatre. The selection of public rooms will differ from hotel to hotel. Guest Rooms are fully customizable rooms made by Habbos and can be used for a wide variety of purposes. While many are just rooms to talk in, others create nightclubs, gaming rooms, trading rooms and even whole houses. There are templates for the size and shape of the room, which can be painted and filled with furniture (known as "furni"), all of which is purchasable from the catalogue (see below.) In either room type, the words of a Habbo will appear above their head in a long, one-line thought bubble that is colour-coordinated to match the colour of their shirt.
Habbos can keep track of their friends through the Console, which allows Habbos to send and receive messages to each other. It also allows them to keep track of who is online and which room they are in (though it will only say "in guest room" if they happen to be in one.) There is also a Navigator which allows Habbos to select a public or guest room to enter. The navigator holds a list for the Habbo's favourite rooms and also has a Search feature, enabling them to search for a particular guest room, either by room name or owner's name.
Catalogue items can either be purchased with credits or traded from Habbo to Habbo as long as they are in a guest room which allows trading. Credits are bought by paying actual money (usually by credit card or mail order) to Habbo Ltd. Habbos can purchase a wide selection of items for their guest rooms from the catalogue. They can also purchase cats and dogs to occupy their room(s). Every so often, rare items will be sold through the catalogue for a period of twenty-five days. There are also seasonal items released a month in advance of such days as Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween and Christmas. Furni, as well as credits, Habbos and guest rooms cannot be transferred from one hotel to another.
Habbo Club
There is an exclusive service within Habbo Hotel called Habbo Club, which is usually referred to as HC due to the badge that appears beside one's Habbo. A monthly payment of 25 credits enables a Habbo to access more choices and colours for clothing, hair and room layouts. Members are also able to jump the loading queue when logging into the Hotel; whether or not this actually works is highly questionable. Additionally, the Hotel provides the Habbo with a new rare item for each month of the service. The rares appear in a certain order until the 12th month, when the HC badge changes colours from bronze to a shiny gold. After the 12th month, the rares given each month restart from the 3rd month's gift. Since late 2004, no new Habbo Club gifts have surfaced. Each additional month requires an additional 25 credit payment
Moderation of the hotel
Moderating staff
Habbo is moderated by special Habbos called Hobbas, or guides. There are two types of Hobbas--moderators and guides. On every hotel except for Habbo Hotel US, the Hobbas are moderators. Due to certain US laws, volunteers cannot be moderators.
Guide Hobbas
On Habbo Hotel US alone, the Hobbas cannot be able to ban users from the site according to US law. Instead, the special guide system was created. In this system, a Habbo User who has been a Habbo for 90 days, has had no bans, has bought furniture from the catalogue, and owns three guest rooms may become a Hobba. These Hobbas receive the same silver badge as the moderating Hobbas of other hotels. The applications to become a Hobba on the US Hotel were closed only a few days after opening on December 17, 2004 due to a technical error allowing uneligible Habbos to receive a badge. They have not yet reopened. Hobbas, before May, were able to send text alerts to Habbos and mute them; however an error with the updating of a new Habbo version caused these powers to be lost. There are many Habbos who are upset with this system as the staff who run Habbo Hotel US do not seem to have advanced this system any further. Instead of having Hobbas to back them up, the 25 or so low paid "MODs" and staff of Habbo US must deal with all problems themselves.
[edit]
Habbo X
In early June 2005 a new type of moderator emerged, called Habbo X. It premiered on Habbo Hotel Sweden, and was a younger version of the well known Hobbas. This means that younger people could help with the moderation of habbo. They have very limited powers, only alerting and reporting direct to real hobbas. They have not came to any other hotels yet.
Language
There is a filter in place to block certain objectionable words and phrases. It has become to be known as the Bobba Filter, due to its replacement of all offensive text with the simple word "bobba". In recent times, Habbos have become increasingly irritated by the filter, which has been known to filter out normal portions of speech, such as "My thoughts exactly!" or "looking to trade a red rug" due to the words "***" and "drug" appearing in the respective phrases (see bolded portions.) This has led to various people avoiding the filter by adding periods between letters and resorting to more leet options, which has in turn caused more and more words to be filtered. Different hotels use different words for their Bobba Filter; the level of censorship varies from hotel to hotel as well, with the UK Habbo Hotel having, in many user's minds, the most ludicrous amount of censorship possible.
Additional Information
Claims against Sulake
Since Sulake is a fully profit-driven organisation, fingers have been continuously pointed at the 'exploitation' of young children throughout the hotel. It is commonplace for many children to have cyber-*** for "furni". This behavior is quite common, and has been undetected by Sulake. Another concern is that some children will spend hundreds of dollars on graphical 'furni' items which do not exist, and has lead to many parents complaining of the addiction their child suffers. A DJ Deck, one such item, is currently worth 7,500 virtual credits.(approximately $1,500 American Dollars). With the continuous risk of virtual furniture being lost to scammers and keyloggers (obtainable from 'fake' cheat sites) There have yet to be any inquiries into Sulake's operation.
eBay
Many Habbos have attempted to sell their accounts on eBay, sometimes making up to $400, though this is highly illegal. It seems Sulake Corporation has been unable to curb the current situation, no matter how many warnings they give out.
Organisations & 'Krews'
There are many organisations on Habbo Hotel. Most of these are just fun groups which use the names 'mafias' and 'armies'. These groups tend to be a collection of friends who invite others to join and include a ranking system. Others, however like the issue above, use scripting tools and other harmful devices in their acts. There is a big anti-sulake community on Habbo Hotel. The groups who used scripting tools were usually called krews. Many of which are still alive can be found from ******* (http://www.krews.net/). One krew which got very famous was called DDK (Dark Devilz Krew) and were notorious for ridiculing members of staff, with real footage of real moderators in real life acting drunk and disorderly. The website was forced down by sulake a few times, then came back under the domain **** Sulake which was promptly shut down. The owner Richard Sapien was forced not to revive the site or he could have faced a lawsuit. At the peak of DDK, many other krews existing, some memorable ones being
cDc - Corrupted Devilz Krew, YwN - Your Worst Nightmare Ta - Trojan Army
[edit]
List of Hotels (External Links)
Habbo Hotel Australia
Habbo Hotel Canada
Habbo Hotel Denmark
Habbo Hotel Finland
Habbo Hotel France
Habbo Hotel Germany
Habbo Hotel Italy
Habbo Hotel Japan
Habbo Hotel Netherlands
Habbo Hotel Norway
Habbo Hotel Singapore
Habbo Hotel Spain
Habbo Hotel Sweden
Habbo Hotel Switzerland
Habbo Hotel UK
Habbo Hotel USA
Possible Future Habbo Sites:
Habbo Hotel Austria
Habbo Hotel China
Habbo Hotel Mexico
Sulake Website:
Sulake Corporation home page
Habbo Shop
In early June 2005, Habbo Hotel released an online shop where you can buy mobile phone items associated with Habbo. Its flagship item is the Habbo Dreams mobile game. In the future there will probably be real life items.
The first shop to open was for Sweden and the second was UK. The sites are Habbo Shop UK and Habbo Shop Sweden
Fansites: www.habzo.com (http://www.habzo.com/)