Old Features
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Habbo hasn't remained the same over the past 12 years obviously, with the biggest changes probably being the introduction of Habbo BETA (V34) and the removal of the original Habbo client. This page is dedicated to the oldest features of Habbo which have been removed/replaced/altered and a brief description of their role in the hotel. Here are the old features:
Community-Based Moderation
- Hobbas - To accompany Moderators (who were around before Hobbas, contrary to popular belief) a community moderation system called the "Hobba programme" was introduced. At first, anyone could sign up to be a Hobba, but this was quickly changed to a minimum age of 16 due to many children abusing powers and causing havoc in the hotel. Years later, the age limit was raised to 18 (not due to legal issues, due to the fact that Sulake were worried about the impression they would give if they couldn't complain that all their "employees" were adults).
Hobbas had many powers (not as many as Moderators) to help assist oteher members of the community - the amount of powers a Hobba had depended upon what level they were. These included the ability to edit room information, ban users and send room alerts. The powers they had were slowly reduced over the years due to security issues inside the growing community and the Hobba programme was finally abolished in December 2005 due to safety reasons.
- Habbo Xs / eXperts - These were introduced shortly after the Hobba programme was removed from the hotel. Anyone could apply to become a Habbo X when applications were first opened by the team manager. The only additional power that eXperts had was the ability to enter public rooms, even if they were full. Their main aim was to greet and assist new users if they had any queries. They were removed in late 2008 and replaced with the "Welcoming Party" programme.
- Habbo Guides - This feature was a development upon the Welcoming Party. They were given the task of welcoming new players to the Hotel. They were assisted with their role with a special guides console feature, which alerted them when new players entered the Hotel (it allowed them to stalk the new player and offer guidance). Guides were also issued achievement badges every time they helped a set number of new players and befriended them.
Unfortunately, the Guide system was removed when Habbo BETA was introduced.
- Scam Busters - This was an extremely old feature which was operated by a team of Habbos who investigated reports of scammings. This team would follow the Habbo Records to find exactly what had happened and if the case was found to be true, the furni would be returned and the offender would have been banned. The scheme was discontinued due to the amount of time required and due to security issues regarding giving other users access to Habbo records.
Trading & Furniture
- Stickie Notes - The Stickie Notes used to look slightly different before they were updated. Before the update, there was only 1 button that players had to click to change the colour, and it was also more time-consuming to delete a Stickie Note. There was also no "X" button for closing a Stickie Note.
- The Camera - This were a very old piece of Habbo furniture which survived for many years. They were available for 10 credits each, and 6 rolls of film costed an additional 5 credits. Once a player had taken their picture using the special popup screen (representing a camera with various zoom buttons), they could then enter a description and publish the photo. This meant that the picture would appear in the player's hand, which could then be placed on a Habbo wall. Unfortunately, the Camera feature was disabled due to security issues via scripting.
- Trax Machines - Before Habbo BETA, players could create songs via an item called the Trax Machine. Users can still play all the old tracks that they created/purchased but it is not possible to create new songs.
- The Catalogue - The very first style of the catalogue had a horizontal layout, as opposed to the vertical layout of the catalogue currently. The purse was also not originally a part of the catalogue to start with, it was merged into the catalogue a few years later.
- Trading - The trading box was incredibly different years ago. To start with, players had to drop items onto users in order to actually start the trade and multiple items of the same furniture did not go into the same box... thus making bulk trading incredibly time consuming. There never used to be 9 boxes to drag items into either, it was 6 boxes only for quite a few years.
- There was never a pop-up box warning players about the trade either.
- Super Saver Subscription was a monthly credit subscription which costs $4.99 per month, for this you get 35 credits and 1 gift point
Other
- Moderators - The "Mod-" prefix before Moderator account names hasn't always been there. In the early years of Habbo, Moderators would share the same account called "HobbaContact". When Habbo Club was introduced, confusion arose between both of these features due to them both being shortened to "HC". So, the HobbaContact account was changed to "Moderator". The account "Moderator-2" was created in 2004 due to the Moderation team expanding in size. Eventually, Sulake decided to label each Moderator's account name with the prefix "Mod-" due to far too much confusion arising if Moderator-3, Moderator-4 etc. were created.
- Bobba - Before the introduction of using asterisks to blank out rude words, a "Bobba filter" was used instead. If a user said an obscene word, then the word "Bobba" would appear instead (if a player had the Bobba filter on).
- Phone Polls - Sulake needed a lot of revenue to keep Habbo up and running. One way they did this was via phone polls. Users would ring up a number and answer a small survey regarding Habbo. Although they did not receive any reward for doing it, Sulake gained money from the phone call charges. This idea was scrapped due to people realising that they did not benefit directly from doing the poll.
- Games - In Habbo BETA; Battle Ball, Snowstorm, Lido Diving and Wobble Squabble were removed from the hotel. The only one of these which made a re-appearance was Snowstorm, yet Sulake promised at the beginning of BETA that they'd all return.
- Volter - In May 2011, Sulake removed the classic "Volter" font from the chat bars, so when a user talked in a room, the text was no longer Volter, but instead a more modern looking style.
- Habbo Cinema - Back in the early years of Habbo, Sulake were involved in a Campaign with the phone network "Orange" and this campaign was centred around The Cinema. The old design had a mountain background and players had the ability to change into a costume. Some of the costumes included: Elvis, Mr. Darcy, King, Queen, Female Indian, Angel, Clown, Boxer, Chef and a Viking. Unfortunately, this was all removed when the campaign ended.
- In Habbo's early days there was a weekly competition entitled 'Wacky Wednesday'. This competition was free to enter and there was a guaranteed prize of 100 credits to one lucky winner. After running this competition for a while, Sulake realised there was potential for money making. Wacky Wednesday was replace with 'Magic Monday' which maintained Wacky Wednesday's prizes and weekly occurrence, but players were charged 25p to enter via their phone.
This competition then underwent another change. It became 'Funky Friday', and whilst the way to enter stayed the same, the prize changed every week. After running this for a long time, Sulake decided it was time to change it, so they allowed Habbos to submit a Funky Friday containing an opening paragraph(s), the prize and the question. In this version of Funky Friday not only would the winner get the prize, but also the person who submitted it.
These weekly competitions were eventually axed (Funky Friday was the last of its kind) and so were other competitions (such as room building competitions) in early 2012.
- Newsletter - In the past, every week a new edition of a Habbo newsletter would be released, including articles written by the staff and by Habbo users. Those Habbos who got their articles published in the newsletter would get a free Typewriter on the hotel. The majority of the newsletter was written by the Hotel Manager, and included various articles on topics like new Official Fansite Competitions and Furniture Facts. Some of the pieces written by Habbos were poems and safety tips, and many tips from the Tech Team and Hobbas. There was also a Safety Newsletter released weekly, written by Wenders and even the odd competition.