Habbo Hotel

Habbo Hotel is a virtual chat room and online game, created by Sulake Labs Oy and managed by Habbo Ltd Habbo Hotel started as a project by two twenty-somethings from Finland. The project was named Mobiles Disco, and was made for a rock band. The first real hotel, Hotelli Kultakala (Hotel Goldfish) was launched in August, 2000 before the "Habbo Hotel" brand even existed. Since the launch of Habbo Hotel UK, the first member of the Habbo brand, in January of 2001, the Hotel chain along with its user base has continued to grow, and is one of the biggest non-violent online game communities on the internet.

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 colour, hair style/colour, shirt, pants, shoes and a mission or descriptive line that displays below the character's avatar when clicked on.

In the Hotel

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, Hallowe'en 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. Additionaly, 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. Once membership runs out, Habbos are able to keep all gifts and rooms created by the service but will not be able to use the additional styles.

On the site

Habbo has its own newsletter, Newsie, which can be read from a direct link on the front page. The newsie will highlight any important events coming up, any changes to the site, the latest competition information and various poems and creative input from Habbos and Hobbas alike. The list of events in 2004 skyrocketed to the point that a seperate Events section was created to keep track of all that was going on. Events have include Meet And Greets with Hobbas and Staff, safety lectures and furni giveaways by Staff members.

There are various competitions held in the Hotel; the most notable being the Funky Friday competition. Open only to residents of the Hotel's country, Habbos can phone in and answer a question while providing the ordinal number (in a way, a serial number) of their Habbo. Each competition ends and begins on Fridays, hence the name. The winner usually receives large amounts of credits or rares.

In a recent swing to be more interactive, Habbo Hotel has started a weekly poll and several staff-run games within the hotel.

Moderation of the hotel

Moderating staff

Habbo is moderated by special Habbos called Habbo-Guides, or Hobbas. Any Habbo that is over eighteen years of age and has been on a hotel for a significant period of time with no large ban records is eligible to become a Hobba. There are four levels of Habbos: Silver, Gold, Super and Staff Member. The Silver Hobba stage lasts around two weeks while the Hobba is still monitored to make sure they are acting within their bounds before being promoted to a Gold Hobba. SuperHobbas look after several Hobbas at a time, much like a section manager in an office building. All of these positions are volunteer-only. A Staff Member is a Hobba who has been hired by Habbo Ltd. to moderate and promote good Habbo ideals as well as work on one of the various staff teams behind the Hotel. High-level Staff Members include the Hotel Manager and Head Hobba. Hobbas have a silver or gold (depending on the type of Hobba) badge reminiscent of a six-pointed sheriff's badge within a circle. A Staff badge is a goldenrod diamond containg the words "HABBO STAFF".

The Moderators are (of 2-28-05):

MOD-ACE

MOD-BabsAnne

MOD-DollEyes

MOD-Fiametta

MOD-Freya

MOD-GenK

MOD-Junny

MOD-Kitka

MOD-Lanneau

MOD-Lily

MOD-Mystie

MOD-Nova

MOD-Portia

MOD-Quacque

MOD-YaTwice

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 "sex" and "drug" appearing in the respective phrases (see capitalized 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.

Additional Information

Claims against Sulake Ltd.

Since Sulake Labs Oy 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 spend 100's of dollars on graphical 'furni' items which do not exist, and has lead to many parents complaining of the addiction their child suffers. 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.

E-bay

Many Habbo's have attempted to sell their accounts on ebay, sometimes making up to $400 though this is highly illegal. It seems Sulake Labs Oy and Habbo Ltd. have been unable to curb the current situation, no matter how many warnings they give out.

List of Hotels (External Links)

The current "hotels" are:

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