It's slowly coming together -- brick by brick. The LEGO Universe MMO is still on track, and it's still under control of NetDevil. While the company has gone quite quiet on the production of Jumpgate Evolution, GamesIndustry.biz was able to catch up with the company at GamesCom in Cologne to ask them some questions about the LEGO Universe MMO.
This interview is with Ryan Seabury, the creative director on the project, and focuses in on the challenges behind making a directed gaming experience coupled with the creative power of a sandbox game, and then making it all accessible for kids and their families. It's really a great read if you're interested in how game design decisions are made, and how LEGO Universe will bridge the gap between an entirely open sandbox world and a more "theme park" experience.
Reader Comments (5)
Posted: Sep 23rd 2009 8:11PM Innocentte said
Yet another company that seems incapable of learning from past failures, or current success stories.
Divide your development efforts over two or more MMO projects == Failure.
Learn from Blizzard (regardless of what you think of WoW). Everything they had went into designing, developing, testing, polishing, and marketing ONE game.
And the result shattered the preconceptions of what a subscriber base for an MMO could be.
Divide your development efforts over two or more MMO projects == Failure.
Learn from Blizzard (regardless of what you think of WoW). Everything they had went into designing, developing, testing, polishing, and marketing ONE game.
And the result shattered the preconceptions of what a subscriber base for an MMO could be.
Posted: Sep 24th 2009 2:18AM (Unverified) said
You do realize Blizz has been working on about 4 games at a time right?
Diablo III, Starcraft II, WoW and their next unknown project all at the same time.... So yeah.... I think you need a different example
Diablo III, Starcraft II, WoW and their next unknown project all at the same time.... So yeah.... I think you need a different example
Posted: Sep 24th 2009 11:05AM Innocentte said
Uhh. No. WoW launched 4+ years ago; not yesterday. WoW development started 7 to 8+ years ago. No one at Bliz was doing 'Diablo III', 'Starcraft II', or the next MMORPG at that time. They were doing ONLY WoW.
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Posted: Sep 24th 2009 2:54PM Psychotic Storm said
they did develop other games if you can believe them, but comparing the 8 member team of SC2 with the massive team that was developing and then formed to support WOW (they say around 2k people including customer support), yes the team was insignificant.
If I remember correctly now that SC2 is pushed in final development the team is boosted to 40 people.
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If I remember correctly now that SC2 is pushed in final development the team is boosted to 40 people.
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