Hi everyone, Steve Webkinz here. I’m thrilled that after so many years of trying to get the project off the ground, we’ve finally taken the first step in allowing players to edit their House Map by adding the Move Room feature. So in today’s special report, I’m going to take this opportunity to take a closer look at the Webkinz House Map!
As many of you already know, when you adopt your first 10 Webkinz pets, you also get a room which is automatically added somewhere on your House Map. Unfortunately, this placement isn’t usually ideal for each player’s personal preferences. Now with the Move Room feature, this layout problem can be easily fixed. You can read more about the newly-released Move Room feature here.
Part of what made adding an editing feature to the House Map layout so complicated is that it uses a mathematical algorithm to determine where rooms can be placed, rather than a simple coordinate system. That meant that if a room became separated from the rest of the map, it could break the whole house. So instead of re-writing the entire House Map logic, our developers updated the complex algorithm to prevent accidentally creating “islands” by separating rooms from the rest of the map.
When adding additional rooms on your own, all players can buy 1 of 4 types of rooms:
- Large outdoor room (10×10 tiles)
- Large indoor room (10×10 tiles)
- Medium indoor room (7×7 tiles)
- Small indoor room (5×5 tiles)
Full and Deluxe Members also have the option to buy 2 other types of rooms:
- Large underwater room (10×10 tiles)
- Large treetop room (10×10 tiles)
If a player adopts a flying pet as one of their first ten pets, it automatically comes with a treetop room. If a player adopts an underwater pet as one of their first ten pets, it automatically comes with an underwater room.
When you’re a Free Player, you can only buy two additional rooms from the one given to you at the start. If you were previously a member and then became a free player, you can’t add any more rooms, but you’ll still have access to all of the rooms you created while you were a Full or Deluxe Member. Remember, just like when we launched in 2005, all you have to do to remain a Full Member is to adopt a pet at least once every 12 months.
Moving Rooms is just the first step in allowing players to edit their House Map. We still plan on adding a deleting rooms feature at some point in the near future. But for now, if you don’t want a room, you can at least move it away to some forgotten wing in your house.
Want to know anything else about your Webkinz House Map? And what would you like me to report on next? Let me know in the comments below!
I have a big house so a search button would be nice.
As often as you can make a REAL MAP for your wall. Start slow we all have big worlds. As you add rooms take a photo of at least a few close by. Print these and start a REAL MAP for your wall. Crazy but if this all ends you’ll be lucky enough to have photos of your rooms ! ;) You will really see that you dont have a house you have a WORLD a WEBKINZ WORLD :)
Love this..but a zoom out to see full map would be nice
i agree it would make moving the rooms easier
While the moving rooms is wonderful, I still wish we could move/delete doors. If rooms are deleted will the stuff in them go back into our docks, or would that all be deleted too?
I would assume so. It would work similarly to the items returned to dock when a door now exists where a hanging item used to be.
will we be able to delete doors completely some time?
Yes, doors often get in the way of room designs. Maybe we could at least have a “Hide Doors” option for each room. So, that we could turn off doors completely for rooms that we need those two back walls.
That’s a great idea. I never thought of “hiding” the doors! I would think that would be easier to program!
I find it very interesting that if you were previously a member and then became a free player, you’ll still have access to all of the rooms you created before. I’m hoping that some family members could give me their old accounts, and I’ve always wondered if all their rooms would still be there.
Yes – all the rooms will still be there. A couple of months ago my now adult daughter and I found the password to her old account that had been dormant for 8 years. It took 24 hours for Ganz to bring the account out of the archives but all the rooms and items were still there! Even though it came back as only a free account we adopted another pet on it to bring it to full status. Good Luck – it would be nice if you could get the old accounts from your family if they don’t want them anymore.
I did that with both my kids’ accounts. Neither wanted them after they spent 15 mins laughing over what is in their rooms and what they named their pets and rooms. I left the more elaborate rooms untouched and stripped the rest. I’ve never seen more exclusive items than when I took them off their accounts. (Anyone need 5 Haunted Paintings?) I gave a lot of them way in trading to help others finish off their collections.
I don’t really mind where rooms are located in my Webkinz houses, but the doors can be very annoying. By moving a room to a different location I can try to get the two walls without a door. I really hope someday we can move doors around, since they do get in the way of some room designs.
Nice work Steve…Thanks So Much!
I hope if they have a delete feature in the future it will not be too easy to delete a room by accident. At least a confirm button might help that. Thanks
“We still plan on adding a deleting rooms feature at some point in the near future.” Yassssss our prayers will finally be answered!!! :D
So grateful for this update! But, now I have to figure out how I’m going to group my rooms. :) Planning my new map…..by holiday, by theme, by exclusive collection such as vehicles… I have so many rooms and pets, it’s going to take a minute.
or you could arrange them alphabetically, i’m tempted but i have over 300 webkinz each in their own rooms and it seems like a lot of work when you have to move them to the outside every time in order to move them