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LEGO Launches a Minecraft Competitor On Steam

Posted by samzenpus on from the original-builders dept.

An anonymous reader writes: There's been plenty of rumors that LEGO was developing a competitor to Minecraft, and today they released it on Steam. "Lego Worlds enables you to populate your worlds with many weird and wonderful characters, creatures, models, and driveable vehicles, and then play out your own unique adventures," the game's Steam page explains. Unlike "Minecraft," LEGO's new game won't have multiplayer gameplay yet.

108 comments

  1. It's a lot less painful by cyberchondriac · · Score: 5, Funny

    to step on a virtual lego.

    --

    Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
    1. Re:It's a lot less painful by kimvette · · Score: 3, Funny

      Not to worry - they're working on VR shoes so you can get the full LEGO experience ;)

      --
      The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
    2. Re:It's a lot less painful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://www.its-not-its.info/

      Troll fail.

  2. Blockland! by wikthemighty · · Score: 5, Informative

    Surprised it took them this long - Blockland was effectively this some time ago...

    --
    "There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer
    1. Re:Blockland! by wardrich86 · · Score: 2

      Just came here to mention this. It's like we've gone full circle. Return to Return to Blockland?

    2. Re:Blockland! by michaelmalak · · Score: 1, Interesting

      And I'm surprised the Minecraft company didn't prohibit this with a non-compete as part of licensing the Lego Minecraft sets.

    3. Re:Blockland! by Sarten-X · · Score: 4, Informative

      As was Lego Creator before that.

      This is not Lego's first round in the "creative game" genre.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    4. Re:Blockland! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For what? Not to say that this would be the first game to come along and gut a really profitable franchise (WoW vs EQ, anyone?) but Minecraft has pretty much played itself out. Any loss they take in this genre will be a loss they would have likely sustained by people moving on to other games in the first place, Lego's game or not.
       
      Lego is late to the party and Minecraft is long in the tooth. Pretty much nothing is going to stop whatever market trend is going to happen from happening.

    5. Re:Blockland! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For which one is it easier to make a ginormous, virtual electronic replica of the male reproductive organ?

    6. Re:Blockland! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Atari, Inc. v. North American Philips Consumer Electronics Corp., 672 F.2d 607 (7th Cir. 1982)
      http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/672/607/331150/
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zachary_Barth#Infiniminer

      tl;dr - You can't copyright genres. Even if you could, Minecraft had Infiniminer code for a long time.

    7. Re:Blockland! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not to mention that Minecraft and its predecessors are all rip-offs of Lego.

    8. Re:Blockland! by michaelmalak · · Score: 1

      Non-competes are not copyrights

    9. Re:Blockland! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, but on what grounds could you force a non-compete clause legally? The company doesn't offer anything particularly unique to which competition could be shown to depress profits.

    10. Re: Blockland! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or Planet Cube (aka planet3) if you want to gamble on a kick starter.

        And terraria, if you want a 2D side scroller version, with zombies and Cthulhu monsters.

      Or starbound, if you want a 2D side scroller version with space ships and lazers.

    11. Re:Blockland! by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

      I don't recall the details, but there's a company out there -- somewhere -- that offers, or offered at one time, to take your minecraft "thing" and give you a 3D print of it. Make it real, sort of.

      It's be interesting to see the same thing with the lego software. An opportunity, perhaps.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    12. Re:Blockland! by Dog-Cow · · Score: 1

      EQ was dead long before WoW came on the scene. EQII went live after WoW.

    13. Re:Blockland! by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      Since Blockland came out years before Minecraft (2004/2007 vs 2009/2011), why did Minecraft take off whilst Blockland did not?

      It doesn't look like there are any textures in Blockland?

      * http://store.steampowered.com/...
      * https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

      Does Blockland support custom texture packs? Mods?

  3. Minetest user here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Pretty happy with minetest, a FOSS minecraft clone. Its default setup perhaps has less features than minecraft, but it can be modded much better than minecraft.

    1. Re:Minetest user here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thank you! I've been wanting to play Minecraft for so long, but it's never been available without activation. This is wonderful.

      I'm posting annon, just so I can mod you up.

    2. Re:Minetest user here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Another FOSS "innovation"!

    3. Re:Minetest user here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      OMG, you are so right! For years I've wanted to play Minecraft but that pesky $5 has held me back. Thanks FOSS community!

    4. Re:Minetest user here by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 2

      I tried mintest awhile ago, but couldn't get it to spawn any mobs at all. Of any kind. Probably I should try it again, and spend more time learning the interface to configure, etc.

    5. Re:Minetest user here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, I'm just trying it now and I'm not seeing anything. Isn't the objective in Minecraft to build things to protect you from creeps? I'd assume it would be the same for Minetest. There seem to be more a few bugs though, so maybe that's one of them.

    6. Re:Minetest user here by jones_supa · · Score: 2

      Thank you! I've been wanting to play Minecraft for so long, but it's never been available without activation.

      That sums up the freeloader community pretty nicely. Facepalm.

    7. Re:Minetest user here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You've lost me. A freeloader who wanted to play Minecraft would just pirate Minecraft, wouldn't they? If this were about money then there wouldn't be any problems here.

    8. Re:Minetest user here by hughbar · · Score: 1

      I just discovered Minetest, I wanted a completely open stack so that I could modify deeply, if necessary. I do voluntary work with Raspberry Pi and the Minecraft Python API [very good!] in the UK. There's a place for all of us, people who want just to play, people who want to add/modify 'a bit' and people [me] who may want to modify deeply. It's a spectrum of uses and users, not a war amongst them.

      --
      On y va, qui mal y pense!
    9. Re:Minetest user here by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      I meant that if he has "been wanting to play Minecraft so long" then why was he such a cheapskate to rigorously avoid the activation price. I'm all for saving money, but it seems to me that the product would actually have brought him good value.

    10. Re:Minetest user here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right. And what I'm saying is that it isn't about the activation price, it's about the activation.

    11. Re:Minetest user here by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      Okay, if that is really the case, I somewhat understand the problem, although I still don't think it's a big problem.

    12. Re:Minetest user here by jawtheshark · · Score: 3, Informative

      I don't know where you got your Minecraft, but my copy cost 19.95€.

      --
      Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
    13. Re:Minetest user here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's because you are a tool.

    14. Re:Minetest user here by RavenLrD20k · · Score: 1

      "And then they came for..." oh forget it.

      Ok, what I've played of Minecraft on my roommate's X-Box 360, it's a decent concept but it is in no way worth the $20 that Microsoft wants for it. Looking at the site now, it's not even close to being worth the $27 that they want for the windows version. I swear I think they jacked the price up since the last time I looked (it was $21 or $22 then, if I remember correctly). Doesn't software depreciate in value? What the hell? At least with minetest I can get the minecraft experience and just periodically donate to celeron55 if I notice some innovative updates that have been made since last donation.

    15. Re:Minetest user here by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      You are probably quite stupid as well.

    16. Re:Minetest user here by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      I understand. What would be a good Minecraft price for you?

    17. Re:Minetest user here by RavenLrD20k · · Score: 2

      At this point, I'd say $10 is on the high end of acceptable that I'd pay. For comparison, that's what I paid for each Guild Wars 2 license I bought for my wife and I to play when they had a sale a couple months ago. I've given celeron55 $15 so far to assist with operating costs for maintaining his site. Why is minetest worth more to me? Because modding is so much easier on it than it's ever been for Minecraft.

      Some other comparisons on price disparity of what I'd pay for some more well known titles. I won't pay more than $20 for any of the Arkham games (and haven't). Elite: Dangerous can kiss off with their $60 entrance fee...plus whatever they charge for their paint packs if I wanted a "custom" ship coloring(that everyone else has the ability to get as well). Then they have the bloody merchandizing racket on top of that which apparently doesn't subsidize the price any. For what I've seen of E:D on youtube vids, I'd consider it for $25. ES:O can also kiss off with their $60 entry fee per license(aka $120 for both me and my wife to play at the same time). Guild Wars 2 cost half as much at its full price and that was still too much for me to take interest. At least ES:O dropped the subscription model, but it's still not enough. From my experience in the beta there's nothing that really differentiates ES:O from any other Fantasy MMO, and I've heard that they haven't really added much since.

    18. Re:Minetest user here by rochrist · · Score: 1

      I got the impression that was sarcasm. Could be wrong though!

    19. Re:Minetest user here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not stupid enough to acquiesce and install DRM phone-home spyware on my systems, as you are. I'd hate to see just how infected your systems are.

    20. Re:Minetest user here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was able to pick up Arkham City and Metal Gear Solid: Reveangence on Amazon for like $10 each, so I agree. As it is, I can buy many professionally made AAA games for less than $20. Minecraft is such a pathetic excuse for a "game" that it's not even worth $5 to me. If it were $0.99, then maybe.

      If you want to build something, the free and open source Cube 2 can do that much better than Minecraft.

    21. Re:Minetest user here by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      And I have better things to think about than being overly worried about DRM. Even I prefer GOG over Steam always when possible, but it's quite a jump to call a system with DRM software to be "infected".

  4. No multiplayer? No competition by BenJeremy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    My son still jumps into Minecraft, but always when he's hanging with his friends online.

    Multiplayer is what made Minecraft a phenomena, because players share in the creation.

    1. Re:No multiplayer? No competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Too many dongs

    2. Re:No multiplayer? No competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Multiplayer is also what ruins minecraft.

      Because so many people are assholes.

    3. Re:No multiplayer? No competition by CastrTroy · · Score: 3, Informative

      I don't know about that. My kids love Minecraft, and they've never played it online. They sometimes play pocket Minecraft on their iPods against/with each other locally, but that's only a small part of their total playing time. I agree that multiplayer has been a huge part of what made it popular, but I don't think it was necessary to the success of the game.

      What I think would really kill Minecraft would be to have a game that doesn't suck resources and require a super compute to run. It's kind of sad that Minecraft Pocket runs fine on my 4 year old Android 2.3 phone, but that the full version requires a beefy desktop to run well. Especially now that the pocket version has infinite worlds, and almost all the other features of the desktop version. Also, if they could get an actual supported method for writing mods so that things wouldn't have to be fixed every time they released a new version. Those two changes would make a huge difference and make the game a lot more enjoyable for everyone.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    4. Re:No multiplayer? No competition by tnk1 · · Score: 1

      Granted, I run Minecraft with a ginormous amount of mods, but is there any reason I have to give 5GB to a game that should have ridiculously low resource requirements based on what it is actually doing?

    5. Re:No multiplayer? No competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Granted, I run Minecraft with a ginormous amount of mods, but is there any reason I have to give 5GB to a game that should have ridiculously low resource requirements based on what it is actually doing?

      It was written in java.

    6. Re:No multiplayer? No competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If it were written in C/C++, it could run well on a Pentium with 64MB RAM and a Voodoo 2.

    7. Re:No multiplayer? No competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Especially now that the pocket version has infinite worlds, and almost all the other features of the desktop version."

      Don't know what you are smoking but please share.

      Pocket edition is buggy as hell, completely different from PC or even console version and among other things lacks redstone circuits which is a major drawback.

    8. Re:No multiplayer? No competition by DocHoncho · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It was poorly written in java.

      FTFY.

      --
      Celebrity worship is a poor substitute for Deity worship and costs more to boot.
    9. Re: No multiplayer? No competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Which means it's actually above average for a java program. Ka-zing!

    10. Re:No multiplayer? No competition by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      Significant optimizations are possible, but would I raise the minimum to a Pentium 3 and a slightly beefier GPU.

    11. Re:No multiplayer? No competition by Bathroom+Humor · · Score: 1

      I was laughing once I got to "penis sweeps".

    12. Re:No multiplayer? No competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      > Granted, I run Minecraft with a ginormous amount of mods, but is there any reason I have to give 5GB to a game that should have ridiculously low resource requirements based on what it is actually doing?

      What it's actually doing is handling a couple orders of magnitude more polygons than most games. Also, because the game is fully dynamic it doesn't get the same shortcuts that other games do. Don't get confused by the simplistic graphic style, Minecraft is a beast for a reason.

    13. Re:No multiplayer? No competition by Brulath · · Score: 2

      Presumably adding a standard way for mods to integrate with Minecraft at this stage would result in significant problems–enough to make the prospect unappealing. My understanding is that Mojang doesn't provide the source for Minecraft officially–it must be decompiled, which presumably results in uncommented code–so all mods are written to override various methods (which aren't stable, hence why each version breaks heaps of them). A bunch of mods are written to run via another mod, such as Forge, which makes them easier to write, but many are not.

      Introducing a standard API for accessing Minecraft would probably require some extensive refactoring, which would break most mods. That happens all the time, so they'll deal with it. Rewriting mods to take advantage of the API would be a lot more time consuming however, and depending on how extensive/performant it is the API might not be sufficient to replicate all existing mods (i.e. they might not use said API). Long-term it'd be a win to develop most mods against a stable API, but getting there would be an interesting task.

      They'll probably just delay all that stuff until they create a Minecraft 2, which I'd guess is inevitable now that they have a parent company with shareholders.

    14. Re:No multiplayer? No competition by Keybounce · · Score: 1

      Granted, I run Minecraft with a ginormous amount of mods, but is there any reason I have to give 5GB to a game that should have ridiculously low resource requirements based on what it is actually doing?

      Because you use "a ginormous amount of mods".

      Any one of which could be programmed poorly.

      The base game can run in less than 1 GB -- no joke, 1 GB is huge for vanilla.

    15. Re:No multiplayer? No competition by rochrist · · Score: 1

      You know you don't /have/ to play on public servers. I play minecraft a lot, have for years, usually multiplayer and never with someone I didn't already know.

    16. Re:No multiplayer? No competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I might bump the specs up to include a second Voodoo 2, but that would be all. I could flawlessly run Unreal and the Unreal editor on a Pentium MMX 200MHz with 64MB RAM and dual Voodoo 2 cards so there is no reason something like Minecraft, which has an inferior engine to even Unreal Engine 1, could not work.

  5. Trying 2 Hard by NotDrWho · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    You just don't get it, Lego.

    --
    SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
    1. Re: Trying 2 Hard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... my Eggo.

    2. Re:Trying 2 Hard by Xest · · Score: 2

      Given that they're the biggest/2nd biggest toy company in the world and have one of the longest running most persistently successful video game franchises going I think they most definitely do get it.

      They seem to be doing better than most companies in growing their product, and maintaining high levels of user satisfaction of their video games.

  6. and we own the rights to anything you make by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and we own the rights to anything you make

  7. Eh... by EmeraldBot · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If this doesn't have Minecraft's extensive modding community, it's dead in the water. Nobody plays Minecraft longer than a week or so because of the gameplay: it's the social aspect of the servers and the (actually quite amazing) quality of the modifications and plugins available fro the game. The fact it runs on pretty much any computer really helped its popularity too, as did the fact that the company (used to be) fairly responsive to its user community.

    A new game with no multiplayer, pretty much non-existent modding, launched on a restrictive platform (compared to Minecraft of course) for only one OS, and with fairly high system requirements to top it all off. I'm pretty skeptical.

    --
    "Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
    1. Re:Eh... by Whorhay · · Score: 1

      I see posts about the necessity of mods for minecraft all the time, but I don't see that as being the case among most of the people I know that play.

      I've only ever installed mods to allow better textures, and that hasn't been needed for years now. So the most I ever play with is non-default texture packs. And I've been playing since around the time of the Penny Arcade strip. I don't play it a lot anymore but I'll go back to it for a few weeks here and there, I've probably got around 2K hours in. And I've played almost no multiplayer, I think I might have done a couple hours hosting a server for a few friends.

    2. Re:Eh... by CastrTroy · · Score: 2

      The fact it runs on pretty much any computer really helped its popularity too

      I don't know where you get this from. I have seen many computers where it doesn't run, or it fails to run well. For a game with quite simplistic graphics, it sure does take a powerful machine to run it. Sure it runs on Linux, OSX, and Windows, but it requires quite a lot of resources on any of those machines. I've seen Minecraft clones that run much faster than the official Minecraft, despite the fact that the game creator obviously put very little effort into the game. Which means that it's not as fun to play, but ultimately on some of my computers its the only choice I have, as the official Minecraft is extremely slow and unplayable.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    3. Re:Eh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not a single person I personally know playing minecraft knew about mods until I told them. Of that group only one person bothered to check them out once they knew. They all play vanilla.

      It is the curse of the technically capable to assume everyone else is too. They aren't.

    4. Re:Eh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If this doesn't have Minecraft's extensive modding community, it's dead in the water. Nobody plays Minecraft longer than a week or so because of the gameplay: it's the social aspect of the servers and the (actually quite amazing) quality of the modifications and plugins available fro the game. The fact it runs on pretty much any computer really helped its popularity too, as did the fact that the company (used to be) fairly responsive to its user community.

      A new game with no multiplayer, pretty much non-existent modding, launched on a restrictive platform (compared to Minecraft of course) for only one OS, and with fairly high system requirements to top it all off. I'm pretty skeptical.

      Most people don't mod anything. Period.

    5. Re:Eh... by JanneM · · Score: 1

      Many people don't use mods and never play on servers. Of course, you don't meet them online, so it's not strange you'd get the impression they aren't out there.

      To me the fun is designing and building stuff. Having other people around is mostly a distraction. If there's anything I'd like it's a more consistent challenge; better zombie and villager AI, for instance, to make larger structures meaningful.

      --
      Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
    6. Re:Eh... by used2win32 · · Score: 1

      Um, a little negative aren't we?

      I know people who play vanilla Minecraft and love it. No games have the "social aspect of the servers", modifications or plugins you mention at launch. Give them time. Maybe it will be better, maybe not, but let them try first...

      When the full version launches next year (in the article) we can talk about requirements and OS support then.

      --
      Procrastination; I'll think of a sig tomorrow.
    7. Re:Eh... by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      Now the servers are very advanced. Kids can go on and play contests with no mods at all.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    8. Re:Eh... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      I don't know where you get this from. I have seen many computers where it doesn't run, or it fails to run well. For a game with quite simplistic graphics, it sure does take a powerful machine to run it. Sure it runs on Linux, OSX, and Windows, but it requires quite a lot of resources on any of those machines.

      Minecraft does not demand a whole lot of CPU without complex mods, but it wants a whole lot of GPU and a whole lot of RAM. Only full-on gaming PCs (in households, anyway) tend to have both.

      Minetest takes a lot less GPU and RAM, but takes a lot more CPU. You can run it on crappy intel integrated graphics that come with an Atom, but it will crater the Atom.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    9. Re:Eh... by Lehk228 · · Score: 1

      try out the terrafirmacraft mod. it makes certain aspects much more challenging, starting you off in a stoneage

      --
      Snowden and Manning are heroes.
    10. Re:Eh... by l810c · · Score: 1

      LEGO has done pretty well with it's movies and games in recent years.

      http://www.guinnessworldrecord...
      http://www.hollywoodreporter.c...

      They must have put a lot of thought and effort into this. I'm betting that they are working on all of those things.

      It's also L E G O. They have a H U G E built in fan base.

      I am not sure that this will win, but I am far from skeptical.

    11. Re:Eh... by jawtheshark · · Score: 2

      I have Minecraft Vanilla running on a Celeron 887 with the stock Intel graphics on Ubuntu Linux, no less. Sure, it's got a 8GB RAM, but that was because RAM was very cheap when I bought that Celeron. Works just fine...

      --
      Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
    12. Re:Eh... by spacepimp · · Score: 1

      I played plenty of solo Minecraft. Theres a relaxing build element that consumes many hours.

    13. Re:Eh... by Whorhay · · Score: 1

      That's certainly true now, but originally Minecraft didn't make use of GPUs and relied almost entirely on CPU. That said When it first came out I was playing it just fine on an older computer that had a four year old CPU. I guess it has always been more resource hungry than some people might expect but how many people had any experience with voxel games where the world wasn't just a static environment.

    14. Re:Eh... by Whorhay · · Score: 2

      I've looked at the mod a bit but haven't tried it yet.

      I've been stuck on 7 Days to Die instead. It gives a lot of the minecraft feel, being able to build and explore a voxel type world. But is much more of a survival FPS type game. It lacks a lot of the beauty of Minecrafts world generation though, and doesn't have anything like redstone yet.

    15. Re:Eh... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Most people who have any experience with voxels have seen them used for terrain on incredibly primitive computers producing insanely good results, i.e. with very little resources. For example, the Comanche series of games used voxel-based terrain, and that was smooth on a 486. We should have a different name for polygonal voxels.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    16. Re:Eh... by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      > If this doesn't have Minecraft's extensive modding community, it's dead in the water.

      That's not true. There are tons of people who play vanilla.

      > Nobody plays Minecraft longer than a week or so because of the gameplay: it's the social aspect of the servers ...

      Probably

      > .. and the (actually quite amazing) quality of the modifications and plugins available fro the game.

      Nope. Go read Reddit's /r/minecraft if you want a sense of how many people play with mods. It is far lower then what you think it is.

    17. Re:Eh... by EmeraldBot · · Score: 1

      > If this doesn't have Minecraft's extensive modding community, it's dead in the water.

      That's not true. There are tons of people who play vanilla.

      > Nobody plays Minecraft longer than a week or so because of the gameplay: it's the social aspect of the servers ...

      Probably

      > .. and the (actually quite amazing) quality of the modifications and plugins available fro the game.

      Nope. Go read Reddit's /r/minecraft if you want a sense of how many people play with mods. It is far lower then what you think it is.

      From what I know, the people who write these modifications tend to keep to their specific communities on Github or on their self hosted sites. You don't seem them in a place as public as Reddit, not with how crowded it is. In addition, since so many modifications are server side nowadays instead of client side, many of the newer players have no idea that they're not playing purely stock Minecraft.

      I'll concede that I may have been wrong on how many players use the modifications. I don't know for sure - Reddit's not really a very objective sample of the community. But still, I don't think it has a chance of seriously challenging Minecraft, not without some kind of miracle. The biggest hurdle is that it doesn't have multiplayer, Minecraft's biggest allure, and I can see it failing compared to Minecraft for that reason and that one alone.

      --
      "Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
    18. Re:Eh... by Eloking · · Score: 1

      If this doesn't have Minecraft's extensive popularity, it's dead in the water.

      FTFY

      It's the growing popularity that made the modding community, not the inverse. As long as you got your fanbase and your game is mod-friendly it should work out. And AFAIK, LEGO have a freaking huge fanbase (and most of them are playing minecraft right now).

      --
      Elok
    19. Re:Eh... by Whorhay · · Score: 1

      I never played Comanche but reading on wikipedia seems to indicate that there were a few things that made it possible.

      1. The engine was coded in assembly, which means it could run much more efficiently than any higher level language, especially Java like Minecraft.

      2. The terrain appears to be completely static so the game would only need to keep track of exposed voxels that would be potentially visible.

      3. A review from the time of Comanches release seems to note that the controls are sluggish. I would wager that the controls were limited in their speed so that you wouldn't pan the camera too quickly and expose terrain that wasn't ready to be rendered. Most games today will just show you the partially rendered scene and update it as the engine plays catchup.

      I'm also curious about the dimensions of the maps being used in games like Comanche. Minecraft started out at a height of 128 blocks, and a width and depth around the players camera determined by player settings but frequently hundreds of blocks. Now the map goes up to 256 blocks I believe. That works out to an obscene number of voxels to keep track of.

  8. Physics Engine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If this had a realistic physics engine and added support for MP, then this might be interesting. It is one thing to build a building or town, it is another to watch it crumble when Lego Godzilla comes! Plus I could see building Lego Star Wars ships and flying them :)

  9. Links please? by saberworks · · Score: 4, Informative

    Neither story nor the original article text include a link to the game on Steam. http://store.steampowered.com/...

    (if you scroll past a bunch of ad blocks you can find it next to "source" on the original article)

  10. Good GUI mods? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    The one place minecraft is notably better than minetest is in the interface. Are there any mods for minetest that really help that?

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    1. Re:Good GUI mods? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd appreciate a recommendation for a starter set of mods - not just UI, but anything which improves the game without changing it too radically.

    2. Re:Good GUI mods? by VanessaE · · Score: 4, Informative

      Since you asked, here are some mods/modpacks for you to try out:

      More Blocks
      Homedecor
      Pipeworks
      Gloopblocks
      Streets
      Infrastructure (cheapie's version)
      Carbone MOBs (separated out from the Carbone subgame)

      A few that do change the gameplay somewhat radically:

      Plantlife modpack
      More Trees
      Technic modpack

      There are a ton more on the forums. All of the above can be used together (as is usually the case with this engine).

      Disclaimer: I maintain and or contribute to several of these.

    3. Re:Good GUI mods? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have some sincere thanks. I've wasted many happy hours in minetest and the mods really improve the game.

  11. seems legit. by chris200x9 · · Score: 1

    A minecraft competitor available for one platform? Seems legit.

  12. The big question by rubycodez · · Score: 2

    Will it have round objects, or is everything blocky?

    1. Re:The big question by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      I'm hoping for all triangles.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    2. Re:The big question by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      that's how I like my porn actresses; well mohawks are good too

    3. Re:The big question by jones_supa · · Score: 2

      It can have round objects, but the solid world is constructed from blocks. The interesting thing is that the blocks can be of varying size. Check out the screenshots in the product page.

    4. Re:The big question by rochrist · · Score: 1

      It's freaking Lego. It has Lego blocks. Have you seriously never encountered Lego?

  13. So if Minecraft is Lego for grown-ups by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Does that make this Minecraft for children?

  14. Note Quite DOA by SmaryJerry · · Score: 1

    but without multiplayer, I don't see it competing with Minecraft meaningfully

    1. Re:Note Quite DOA by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      Some of us don't need multiplayer to have fun.

      Heck, I play WoW (WOTLK rocks! It sucks SOO much what has happened to Azeroth) on my own private server, without any other players, and manage to have fun.

      I'm probably weird that way.

  15. Just checked out the steam page and hold on by Diac · · Score: 1

    Its in early access? It's lego there a large company and very profitable with there merchandising and by that I mean the star wars, harry potter and other franchises they made lego out of, you really telling me there so hard up for cash that they are releasing an early access game? Or is that the new excuse companies use for releasing buggy/unfinished software now, its in early access.

    1. Re: Just checked out the steam page and hold on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My suspicion is that they are overbudget.

    2. Re: Just checked out the steam page and hold on by rochrist · · Score: 1

      Based on that hair you pulled out of your ass?

  16. Meh -- Summary of pros/cons by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 4, Informative

    Pros:
    + Players and creatures (such as horses) don't look like blocky
    + Have sloped roofs -- 45 degree #3039, 25 degree #3298 and 73 degree #98560
    + Have "smooth" flat tiles #3068
    + Initial support for airplanes, and mining vehicles
    * Misc. decorations

    Cons:
    - Single player only
    - Windows only (MineCraft runs on OSX, Linux, Android, consoles)
    - Cost $15 while MineTest, Terasology, etc. are free.

    Anyone have an idea of what the world height and size is limited to?

    1. Re:Meh -- Summary of pros/cons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is not informative.. you're a whiny twat. It's not free is a con? Really?

      Fuck off.

    2. Re:Meh -- Summary of pros/cons by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      Unknowns:

      * Electricity / Circuits ala Redstone in Minecraft?
      * Enchanting?
      * Crafting?
      * Mods?
      * PVP?

  17. Amazing that they can pull off the complete 180... by Desirsar · · Score: 1

    LEGO Universe died because it was everything about LEGO except building.

    Here it's going to be about building, but no one to play with. Genius.

    Hopefully they're serious about that "yet", and multiplayer will be added sooner rather than later. Then it's just a matter of getting the building part right. Interacting with other people will just happen on its own. Of course, I don't see this making the smart move of full open world MMO with no instancing. Without that, it can capture a decent audience for a long time, but it won't have quite the same broad appeal.

  18. Lemme guess, paid DLC? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How long until my son has to pay for the Batman, Iron Man and whatever else DLC in order to have fun in that game?

    We'll stick to Minecraft, thanks.

  19. Re:Amazing that they can pull off the complete 180 by muon1183 · · Score: 2

    Apparently, LEGO Universe actually died because the cost of keeping the game G-rated was too high. http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2015/0...

    --

    There's no sig like SIGSEG
  20. Sloped Roofs Also in BAW(Build A World) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sloped Roofs are also in another Minecraft inspired game.

    Build A World, it's like Minecraft with fancy graphics and present/future technology.

    From BAW's facebook page:

    Sloped roof:
    https://www.facebook.com/BuildAWorld.net/photos/ms.c.eJw9yskNACAMA8GOkDFJnPTfGIjrtyNtigDFIDwVLbejjutanSvc7Fnlo4jvPD8mgZwQCA~-~-.bps.a.872002682872547.1073741882.284152794990875/872002726205876/?type=1

    A much better and advanced modern electricity aspect.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xjGDNRq5DI
    Build A World - Electricity distribution and usage
    Official Build A World Channel

    And fancy trains:
    https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.664763586929792.1073741867.284152794990875&type=1

    https://www.facebook.com/BuildAWorld.net

    1. Re:Sloped Roofs Also in BAW(Build A World) by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the info. & references!

      Here's the homepage in case anyone is also interested:

      * https://www.buildaworld.net/

  21. Customer/free beta tester feedback by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It might have more to do with using early adopters as semi creative directors and beta testers.
    The company wants to test what works, what attracts people. Thus releases an early access to get feedback.