CES 2010: Building the LEGO Universe

by Levi Buchanan - IGN.com | 09 January 2010 12:00
 
If this MMO was made for kids, why are so many adults lining up to check it out?
 
LEGO Universe, the upcoming massively multiplayer online game, is making a big push at CES here in Las Vegas. The MMO is essentially the keys to the kingdom. You have the freedom to explore dozens of themed neighborhoods, take on missions with other players to unlock treasures, and build pretty much anything you can imagine out of over 80,000 bricks.
 
LEGO Universe opens with a bang. The literal LEGO Universe has been pulled apart by the Maelstrom, a black hole-like event. You and every other player work through missions large and small within the world to recreate damaged buildings and objects as well as fashion new devices and structures. After all, what fun is LEGO without putting your own personal stamp on it?
 
Surprisingly, LEGO Universe is built very much like a traditional videogame. Your missions consist of everything from fetch quests to puzzle-solving, with a healthy amount of minigames available in every corner of the world. For example, to get off of the space platform where you appear in the beginning of your adventure, you must accept a mission to collect six rocket ship parts. After questing for the parts around the station, you enter a slick blueprint mode to assemble the ship and then blast off.
 
We trekked to Avant Gardens first, a lush paradise, where we met a group of players and took on a collect mission. Within this world, though, are many sub-areas like Gnarled Forest, which been taken over by pirates. At the pirate's Brig Rock, you encounter all sorts of colorful characters, each with missions and requests. There was a racing minigame available if you have the bricks to make a vehicle. But as you explore, you find lots of creative opportunities to test your puzzle-solving skills outside of missions. A monkey dangles from a tree, wildly swinging a pistol. Uh, that monkey needs to drop that thing before somebody gets two in the bricks. So, look around for a banana and then give it to the monkey so he drops the pistol. You just solved two problems with one action. You have a pistol and you can safely look around the area. Another instance of non-mission puzzle-solving: there is a treasure chest in a jungle clearing, but when you approach, a phalanx of parrots rushes from the trees and push you back. You must find a way to sneak into the area to snag the treasure. The solution? Don the ninja outfit so the parrots will not hear your footfalls.
 

Knight gears turns your hero into a warrior.

This is one place LEGO Universe differs from many other MMOs. Instead of choosing a character class at the beginning of your adventure and then playing according to that selection, you essentially have a blank slate hero that is defined by current equipment. This is great for players that fear being locked into an archetype they may discover doesn't suit them twenty hours into the game. So, to get new skills in LEGO Universe, just locate outfits and equipment like a wizard's hat or a plumber's wrench. Now, you can experience many different "classes" instead of being pigeonholed. LEGO thinks kids will like that. Trust me, there was one "grown-up" gamer in the room that agonized for hours over character choices before leaving the Vault in Fallout 3 who liked it, too.
 
Many design elements for LEGO Universe appear borrowed from the popular existing line of LEGO games, such as LEGO Batman and LEGO Star Wars, such as the assembly of bricks and pieces in worlds to create usable devices, like springboards and ladders. Opening chests and boxes releases new bricks into your personal inventory so you may use them later for building. There are many co-op features within missions, too, and this is where the multiplayer part of the MMO starts to kick in. There are missions that require multiple players for solving puzzles, like standing on multiple switches at the same time to open new areas. Though many missions in LEGO Universe have set parameters and requirements, there is still a strong emphasis on exploration and directing your own adventure instead of just following a set script. This is largely accomplished through building. With such a wide variety of pieces and the ability to color them as you see fit, your only limit in creating objects and buildings is your imagination. (Well, that and hopefully good taste.) Showing off your creations to other players when they visit your properties is another important element to building community within the MMO.
 
The object builder seems very easy to use. Dragging bricks into 3D grids, rotating and twisting them, is simple. It helps that the bricks click together in accordance to how real-world LEGO pieces work; construction is dictated by snapping bricks into place with their connectors. After piecing together an object and coloring it, you upload it to a service that polishes it up and then drops it right back into your inventory. Let's say you make a plant out of bricks and cylinders. After the plant goes through the polish, it comes back looking very much like a LEGO creation, but with a pleasing buffed surface and no garish lines.
 

Build a rocket ship to make you hip.

Once you have assembled an object, you can then assign behaviors to it. This is how your static creations really come to life. For instance, let's say you erected a giant palm tree on one of your properties. You can link together a series of actions so that when you approach it, it starts to rotate and wobble. Friendly, right? If you have a pet, such as a crab, baby elephant, or lion (the pets are sure to be mega-hits with kids), you can dictate its behavior by assigning movement patterns and other features. This gives your creations real personality. And players willing to invest the time can use behaviors to create not just playful objects, but also minigames, traps, and puzzles for other players visiting their properties.
 
To help develop this building program and make sure it felt just right, LEGO asked 60 of the world's best LEGO enthusiasts to join the LEGO Universe Partner program and help design elements and structures that are being incorporated into LEGO Universe. Two of the 60 designers are at the CES booth, showing off the LEGO Digital Designer toolkit which is available now, but is also being pulled into the MMO for easy yet detailed creation of LEGO figures, buildings, and more. I took a few moments of Universe Partner Steve Barker's time to ask how he got involved.
 
Apparently, when LEGO decided to pursue this MMO, it knew it wanted to pull talent from the burgeoning enthusiast community, so LEGO ambassadors went out to groups like Barker's Victoria BC club to gauge interest. Barker says his hand shot up before the presentation was even finished. His specialty in the enthusiast community is building realistic scale models (not relative to the little LEGO dudes, though). His biggest fan success was a sculpture of the sentry gun from Team Fortress 2. The involvement of adult LEGO users will go a long way to making sure that this MMO, which LEGO admits skews to younger players, will have plenty of engaging content for older players that just enjoy working with the ultra-popular toy.
 
Judging by how many grown-ups not only at CES, but around the world, apparently still love getting their hands on a pile of LEGO bricks and just creating, LEGO Universe could score major success across all ages. Look for more information on LEGO Universe, including the opening of the beta, in the near future on IGN.
 
Supplied by IGN.com