Posted by Key Lime on Feb 28th, 2008
Announced last summer, we got some more details about the upcoming massively multiplayer game by NetDevil, LEGO Universe. Details such as the fact that the game will be “LEGO Star Wars multiplied by a million”, according to LEGO Group’s Mark Hansen, as reported by Wired.
First, I recommend taking a look the artwork that’s presented on the official website and Wired to get an idea of how things might look.
Of course, how could I talk about this without bringing in the YouTube trailer.
The best part though?
Most impressive in this quest is LEGO’s plan to integrate fabrication of objects directly into the title.
Any structure or vehicle you may construct out of the MMOs virtual blocks, you can also export to LEGO who will allow you to purchase traditional LEGO sets that are exact replicas of what you’ve created in-game.
Now that’s cool.
I’m perhaps a bit tentative about how the game might be, however. Not because of the gameplay, as I’m really excited to see how the different genres of LEGO may come together here — Space, Town, Pirates… to say nothing of Star Wars and Indiana Jones!
Like the offline games, LEGO Universe is targeted at the “8-12″ bracket. That is, people less than half my age.
The game will be mainly aimed at the 8-12 set, but much like the Star Wars games, Hanson expects that quite a few adults will be interested as well. But the main goal is to create a safe space MMO where kids can go to play comfortably without all the nonsense that many adult MMOs bring to the table. Regular chat will be a moderated system with canned questions and responses, but there will also be a free “friend list” chat that will be available to players with parental approved friend’s lists.
While it’s great that they’re working to protect children, I suppose I wonder how easy this system could be used. That is, if it’s not easy enough to use, grouping with random individuals could prove to be rather difficult, and it might lead to people being accepted as “friends” far too quickly, or, in the most extreme case, not interacting with anyone.
Still, I’m looking forward to see how the game progresses toward launch in either 2008 or 2009, depending on the source.
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