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Lego Creating Multiplayer Online Game
An anonymous reader writes "Players of Lego's new MMOG (massively multiplayer online game) are tasked with a mission: help save imagination from the dark forces of evil. The bad force can be kept at bay only by users' 'imagination and creativity,' said Ryan Seabury, the creative director for the game and founder of Louisville, Colorado-based NetDevil, which is developing the game for Lego. Players cannot be killed, but they can be reduced to a pile of unassembled bricks. The idea is to play the game and collect bricks, which will allow users to build more interesting models. Lego Universe, will launch in the second half of this year and will be a subscription-based service (price not disclosed)."
In recent months I've been playing Blockland. It has the similar lego/blocks aspect in it, but frankly it's a lot more interesting than what Lego MMOG sounds like.
Basic gameplay idea is that you're a small "lego" guy. You don't need to collect the blocks, you can just select them from menu and build whatever you want. You can do this with friends in multiplayer too.
But what's more fun is that the game has great support for scripting, macros, minigames, weapons and vehicles. There's tons of mods and user-created content. Different servers also all have different kind of gamemodes as they're all build by the players. There's the normal deatchmatch, tdm, ctf, zombie survival, portal games, racing and jail and city building RPG's. Some server owners concentrate on making a beautiful place (it's quite amazing what some have done) and some fun mess-around places.
Because of Blockland, I feel like Lego is seriously missing something here. It's not really that fun for long to just collect bricks and then build with them (actually the collecting part sounds awful already). In Blockland most of the gamemodes are accompanied with the building part. Some of the dig digging ctf/tdm servers are truly great, as it allows you to dig tunnels under everyone even as far as to the enemies base, or you can build better defences to your base or even surround the capture-the-flag point with a bunker.
Lego was earlier in talks with Blockland authors to make it a Lego MMO, but looks like they went the more boring route :(
Its going to be called LEMMO?
Lego was earlier in talks with Blockland authors to make it a Lego MMO, but looks like they went the more boring route :(
How can you say this with the Lego MMO not even being released?!
Where's the competition between players in Blockland?
...the same as in our Universe:
Entropy!
Yam, yam, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade
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but too bad, the intended audience can't read the article.
LEGMMO?
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PETITION TO REMOVE RED BRICK NERF
These changes are unnecessary, aggressive, CRIMINAL ACTS against the VERY BUILDERS WHO constitute the FOUNDATION OF LEGOLAND!.
Red bricks ALREADY have a 10 second cooldown, why would you reduce our DPS! WE already suck next to blue bricks.
Reply #1: /signed
Reply #2:
Learn to build noob
Reply #3:
can i has ur bricks?
Lego sets of the past decade or so have been mostly build-it-once kits, and then you have a toy that the kid either plays with or leaves on the shelf. There's no imagination required, you just follow the directions. The parts are so specialized now that you can't take it all apart and come up with your own design, because they can only fit in one spot and have only one possible function. When I was a kid, I used to build super cool cars and spaceships and houses using these buckets of random Lego we had. There were some specialized parts, like laser thingies and stuff, but you could add that to your ship to make it super awesome and imagine how the guns would work. I used to also add bomb-droppers. Later in my Lego-career, me and a friend used to build little cannon stations and then targets out of Lego, and shoot blocks at the targets using rubber bands. That was fun.
Do they even sell bulk kits anymore? How can you get plain old blocks without going on ebay and buying someone's old, used random lots of Lego?
My point is that Lego itself is the enemy of imagination. By selling kits that you can't do anything else with besides build their prescribed design, they are stifling the imaginations of kids. It's really disappointing, actually. Like what's the point in building the set from Star Wars? What creativity is there in that?
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
BLOCKHEAD
Personally I always played out fights with legos. Like some guys invading a fortress or pirates attacking a city I built. But since it's a MMORPG there will probably also be non-fighting stuff to do.
FTFA:
Will the pirate world be built with Mega Bloks?
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
Yes.
to start grinding up to the point of raiding for sweet, sweet epic purple bricks.
Public chat will be full of "L2PYM" (Learn to play your model) taunts and Chuck Norris Lego facts.
Lego gold-colored plastic coin sellers will start spamming.
Griefers will player-kill you and reassemble your bits into something rude and embarrassing. And permanent, since they'll OMGH@x0r the system to glue the parts together that way.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
You're kidding right? I used to build giant, rec-room-carpet-covering moon bases with all sorts of spaceships (fighters, carriers, etc.), AA laser turrets, ground assault vehicles, etc. etc. to wage my pseudo-Star Wars battles: all completely from-scratch (I would build the plan on the box once and then come up with my own creations). Of course I had a "bad guy" -- they had no compelling background story, obviously, but I needed something to blow up...
body massage!
LEGO Digital Designer and it's free. You can build at least (with the option to order the pieces needed to build a real version)
Can someone please tag this manbearpig or something relating to the imaginationland episode of south park? :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginationland
With users assembling their own models, it wont be too long until the entire world is filled with walking lego penis griefers.
"His name was James Damore."
Ok i'd buy the game... but not if a subscription fee is required.
one of the many reasons i got a PS3.
Imagination? Will Kyle suck Cartman's balls?
Red Blocks are OP.
I will bend like a reed in the wind.
Parents are gonna LOVE that! LEGO is now consorting with Satan?
If your only tool is a hammer, every problem becomes a nail.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Ars Technica did a story about a month ago, have a link to a decent video on it.
?
So you want Lego Sims
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
Indeed - Lego should have taken their cue from The Sims Online, There, and Second Life rather than cookie cutter MMORPG's. The evidence is abundant that people want a virtual world to hang out, create, and socialize in. (Reaching as far back as MUD's. Back in the day, when UO ruled the roost, it was occasionally called the 'worlds bloodiest chatroom'.)
... one of the hazards in this online world will be Lego pieces hidden in the shag carpeting. Players will have to accumulate enough points to acquire shoes.
Have gnu, will travel.
"Life, which you so nobly serve, comes from destruction, disorder and chaos. Now take this empty glass. Here it is: peaceful, serene, boring. But if it is destroyed...
...Look at all these little things! So busy now! Notice how each one is useful. A lovely ballet ensues, so full of form and color. Now, think about all those people that created them. Technicians, engineers, hundreds of people, who will be able to feed their children tonight, so those children can grow up big and strong and have little teeny children of their own, and so on and so forth. Thus, adding to the great chain of life."
[Pushes the glass off the table. It shatter on the floor, and several small machines come out to clean it up]
I built a game once.
Built a cup with a motor on the bottom. Made the sides of the cup fences. It was 8x8 square about 15 high with a number of fence windows. Each player got an equal number of 'easy', 'medium', and 'hard' pieces. The motor would spin the cup at a fairly fast rate. You would then drop your pieces into the cup. Each player taking a turn. Eventually the pieces would no longer fit and start flying out. The person with the most pieces at the end of the game lost. Each person only got 1 chance to drop each turn. If your piece flew out too bad.
MOST fun. Legos flying across the room. Bits sticking out of the window (dont get too close it stings).
I often would build vehicles just for the sake of it. No 'bad guy' to fight. Just to build something cool.
Players cannot be killed, but they can be reduced to a pile of unassembled bricks. The idea is to play the game and collect bricks, which will allow users to build more interesting models.
Well, until Maj. Carter develops a weapon which disrupts the communications between the individual bricks, rendering them inert and harmless.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I just want a mechanism for building spaceships which I can then fly to blow up other people's spaceships, pirate ships, castles, or whatever else people build. Then if someone happens to blow up my spaceship I'd get to design a brand new one.
I for one welcome our new Lego World of Warcraft overlords and look forward to bashing in the lego skull of an Orc with my two-handed Lego Battleaxe.
I'm hoping for a purple drop.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
no linux version, and when i last tried it, did not work in wine (launched, but was pretty much unusable).
a shame, really. would be cute if their software was like their bricks - not bricked, but open for tinkering :)
Rich
And I just looked at Blockland - boy it looks crap.
Lego Universe looks great.
(Check out the trailers
http://www.gametrailers.com/game/lego-universe/4954
)
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Oh come on. Ever since the early days of Lego Castle (early 1980s) there have been factions for kids to enact battles between. It's not exactly a new phenomenon for kid's play either. Certainly it was one of the main play themes for my siblings and I (usually Space constructions). Even in boring old Lego City, for kids it is always about stuff going wrong so you actually have something for all those police/firefighters/medics/builders to do!
Besides, this game includes a lot more than just battling bad guys. Building stuff is everywhere!
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
My kids are looking forward to this. However, they have been happily playing Roblox (http://www.roblox.com/) for years now. Lots of kids + pure imagination.
Think you may have missed this one by some margin.
I signed up to the newsletter when this was first announced, thinking the thing would be out in about a month. The earliest email I received (entitled "It's the first ever LEGO Universe Newsletter!", fyi) dates from 6 September 2007.
Still, only out by 900 days. Better luck next time, ./.
Sorry I don't mean to be a dick, mod me down if you absolutely must but.. the Lego MMORPG was announced a while back, complete with a very awesome trailer for it. I love /. but in some cases the news on some things trickles in so slow other sites have reported it long before there is an article here.
Aw Frell this
Just so long as the current free one stays the same.
Sounds a lot like "the Nothing" from The Neverending Story. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088323/ [imdb.com]
Right, like when the USA decided to fly to the moon. They didn't want to defeat "the bad guys" (TM) or anything because that wouldn't have been interesting.
There is no evidence for this. In particular, Second Life is a ghost town compared to other MMOs and most of the people there either want to sell you oversized pixel genitals or use their oversized pixel genitals on you.
I don't see this game being meh. This is either going to kick immense amounts of ass, or be completely terrible. I just can't see lego making a game that's just okay.
I, don't know why people feel the need to put a comma after the subject in a sentence. It, is stupid.
At the bottom of the