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Lego MMOG Announced
Gamespot is reporting that a Lego Massively Multiplayer Game aimed at kids is in the works. Developer NetDevil, makers of Auto Assault, will be working on the project. No firm details beyond the project's announcement at this point, but the site slates the game for a 2008 launch.
Nice one :) another reason not to do any work
It gets taken over by NXT robots who igrore all the humans.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
As a kid who grew up on legos, does a computer game destroy the point of legos?
I mean, you're supposed to BUILD with them!
That would be a better idea ! Toys versus toys. Choose your team, fight the others. Big battles like QuakeWars or BattleField2042. A good idea.
-- Rastignac was here.
So let me get this straight! Instead of my son knocking down my daughter's masterpiece Lego tower, some anonymous greifer will do it?
Oh yeah, I just soooooooooo have to subscribe.
Start them on this and move them up to WoW, it's a perfect scheme to get more people addicted, don't you think?
If we can hit that bull's-eye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards... Checkmate.
and the inner child in me is now very dead.
he demonstrated by A plus B minus C divided by Z that the sheep must be red, and die of the rot
There would be some awsome opportunities in this game to be able to build your own houses, cars, super-weapons or whatever by finding/obtaining the raw Lego building blocks needed and then assembling them in any manner you choose. It would allow user-created content a-la Spore with such massive potential. Furthermore, quests could be used to make obtaining certain Lego parts challenging. But yeah, in the end it just seems like if the game designers really put some thought into this then they might have a great game on their hands that would allow today's children to build with Lego virtually, preparing them for future high-tech computer jobs while still having fun.
Hey, guys. Big gulps, huh? Cool. All right! Well, see ya later.
Does anyone else think this is a Bad Idea? If there's one thing we've learned from Second Life, it's that left to build their own world from scratch, adults on the internet will make a lot of sex shops. Now, even if the Lego MMO is targeted for kids, it's also going to be pretty popular with people who played with LEGOs as kids, which means it's inevitable that the entire world is filled with nothing but boobs and wieners made out of CGI little plastic blocks.
It's like, "think of the children," only for real this time, because seriously adults are going to fill Legoland with crap.
"makers of Auto Assault, will be working on the project." I wonder how that decision process went down at Lego HQ? ;)
Though I have to admit, as a Lego addict when I was a child (ok, still am) I would love to make fantastic lego vehicles and smash them together! So I guess it makes sense, heh.
There's a good reason why the book had a Lego man on the cover!
Microserfs by Douglas Coupland"
Everyone is so opposed to getting kids hooked on cocaine, and then they put out an MMORPG for kids! Why don't they sprinkle some heroin around the schoolyard while they're at it?
There is already a game where you build with lego-like-but-not-lego blocks. It's called Blockland and it's cool. Although it isn't massive, it is multiplayer...
Given the abysmal sales and retention rates of Auto Assault, and the server consolidations that have resulted from both, I'm really surprised that anyone was crazy enough to finance their pursuit of such a lucrative license.
On one hand, I'm excited! The previous LEGO Star Wars titles have been a blast even though they are obviously geared towards kids. I'd certainly jump at the chance to take a look at this game.
However, this worries me. I know I'm not the only one that fondly remembers LEGOS. Sure the game is geared towards kids but unless they put an age cap on the game (not that anyone wouldn't lie about thier age, I mean c'mon, who does THAT?) I can only see the LEGO virtual world being innundated by not only those pervs that another poster already mentioned but also by those lovely online gamers. Not just any online gamers though. We have all seen the guy who camps at a spawn site just to blast the next poor schmuck who spawns into a game so he can boost his body count. Thier is also the guy who plays CONSTANTLY and has the most under-handed tactics that it can be very difficult for others to advance in a game. Then there are the people who aspire to be like these guys and can't. This leaves a place like the LEGO virtual world rife for thier abuse of the system. Most adults can't handle these people well, how are kids going to deal with it?
This is also going to end up being another babysitter so mom can go spend time with her "little helper". If the kid is crying because he/she can't play the game that mommy and daddy paid for because some n00b is jerking around on the virtual world, there will be hell to pay from mommy.
Yeah, I'm excited and I'm not. I see this wonderful pie-in-the-sky idea being quickly corrupted and destroyed without some serious controls that work being placed on game play. Either that or make it so immature (Dora the Explorer or Barney and Friends immature) that no adult would want to go anywhere near that annoying piece of tripe. However, LEGOS are fundamentally un-boring, at least to the extent of your imagination, so I don't see it coming out as immature, pseudo-educational tripe.
No word on classes? combat system? instanced Lego dungeons? races? I bet crafting is going to be awesome.
The perfect sig is a lot like silence, only louder
... when I used this program (yes, I know the base is LDraw)
I'm also curious to know which of the lego systems they will be using. Given the popularity of Bionicle among many kids I wouldn't be suprised if someone was looking to base a MMO around that. Although, I don't much like Bionicle myself. Bit it would certainly be conducive to kind of gameplay present in most MMOs. I suppose the Puzzle Pirates approach requires much less of a commitment than a standard MMO would, but the Lego site, in some ways, isn't too far from offering that kind of experience right now. Unfortunately, I can't say I find Puzzle Pirates type games particularly compelling, but that's just me.
Given that it's the developer of the failed Auto Assault working on this I don't have particularly high hopes. It originally sounded like a neat idea but the end result was a bit half-hearted and a big disappointment. I suppose a game consistent of a collection of mini-games is a far cry from a full-fledged MMO.
GreatGameSexperiment?! Sign me up!
Saying that you're making a Lego MMO is like saying you're making a wood MMO, or a stone MMO. Lego are just building blocks. OK, I can have some idea what the things will look like when they exist, but I don't know what the things ARE. Spaceships? Medieval knights? Dinosaurs? BIONICLE?!
Most people won't be able to figure out how to make anything but blocks and walls...
Will allow players to participate in the ongoing war between the Bionicle and Duplo factions vying for supremacy of the Lego universe.
[insert boast on how author will be the first to create a phallus-themed skyscraper built out of lego joke here]
I really hope they just make this open ended with some optional physics properties you can attach to parts. That's the magic of Lego...the fact that a piece can be used as part of a gun on one project and then suddenly its an engine in another, etc. Its not just what you build, its how what you build works.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
It works well. You can design a model, get the parts in a box shipped to your door, and if you want to, publish it online. Instructions are only available online, but you get a picture for the box front.
You can buy others' creations as well:
http://factory.lego.com/gallery/ (sorry about the flash)
I hope not, it's still under development! http://whitehexagon.com/