Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Lego Creating Multiplayer Online Game

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the you'll-never-find-the-block-you-want dept.

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)."

4 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  2. Imagination? Please. by FrigBot · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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?

    1. Re:Imagination? Please. by Rogue974 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I saw an article from a local news person about a year ago that said this exact same thing. I wanted to write to the guy and tell him that no, LEGO didn't remove the imagination, his age removed the imagination. The guy was a late 20's early thirtys single guy who has never watched kids play with the current legos. I have 4 kids and they play with Legos all the time. This is what always happens, they get their set that has the fighter, troll battle wagon, etc and build it per the directions. They then play with these as they are after they have built them. They set them up in various battles/scense, etc. Tons of imagination setting that up and carrying out battles, etc. Then, inevitably, the legos fall apart because of being thrown/steped on, etc. They then either rebuild it (that only happens a couple of times with the exception of a few things they think are really cool) or the pieces get dumped into the big bins of Legos and they toally forget that they can rebuild a Star Wars fight, Harry Potter castle and the Legos become part of the general pool to be used for whatever. Yes, they have sets that are built as something specific and some of those sets never get broken (touch my 6 year old's Darth Vader Tie Fighter at your own peril) but most of them get broken down as they play and then you have the jumble of Legos. And those specalized parts, they get re-tooled into anything other then what they were origionally used for and stuck all over the place on other things. An adult mind gets trapped into the convention of this big long piece is the blaster from Anakin's fighter, but once it lands in the kids bin with everything else, it no longer is that and it ends up being anything but a blaster. In the past 3 years, my kids have had Harry Potter sets, Knights sets and Star Wars sets. This Christmas, they got the Lego Space police sets and a couple of Knights sets. The Space police ones are still intact per the instructions. My son's Darth Vader tie fighter is still intact because of the fact he leaves it on my desk and no one is allowed to play with it. 100% of the remaining Star Wars sets, Harry Potter sets and all but the new Kinghts sets are totally broken down. Last night, they built a house and got all excited when they built in a big screen tv and movie theatre. A few weeks ago, they had a gladiator arena with Star Wars people, Knights, and other random figures. Before that, they had a rock monster pit for the Power Miners sets to work with. Legos have not changed, the people who grew up playing with them have changed and can't see LEgos the same way and say that the sets they put out are ruining the Lego play. For a constrained adult mind, it has. For a kid, it has not. If you doubt that, subscribe to Lego magazone or go online and look at the pictures that are submitted by the Lego kids club members. They are anything but following directions.

  3. Re:Great news... by lorenlal · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What article?

    - /. Readers