LEGO Universe Forums: LEGO Universe

Here are some neat screenshots of the Maelstrom and Forbidden Valley that were shown at PAX 2010! Also, a couple pictures I took from the convention of the booth along with the awesome shirt that I happened to snag! Best piece of swag yet!













There were also two videos that were shown! A customizing demo showing how many ways you can make your minifig look with the different faction specialty kits! There was also a demo of the different mini-games you can play and compete with your friends in while you play LU.

At PAX 2010, I was able to interview Chris Sherland, a producer at NetDevil for LEGO Universe. Even though LU is already in the polishing stages, there are still a lot of questions that people have about the game and what it will be like. I took questions from my awesome members here on LegoUni.com to ask him about some of the final details we're all wondering about the game for its release. Here's what he had to say:


Q: Do you plan on opening any new worlds other than the current beta worlds after the release of the game?

A: Definitely. I can't say much about that but some will be themed to the LEGO Universe lore and some may be themed to LEGO playsets. It's definitely a possibility.

Q: A lot of players are curious about a banking system. Do you plan on opening a banking system in the game after the official release? Will it be in a main world or in the players' property?

A: Sort of like the mail system that's already in the game, we'll probably do something like an ATM metaphor but there will be a main bank in the Nexus Tower which is another content set that will be introduced in early 2011.


Q: Do you have any ideas or plans for factions other than the ones that are already released?

A: I think the factions will remain stable but underneath those factions there will be more specialty kits. Right now, each faction has two speciality kits and in the future there will be many many more of those.

The problem we're running into right now is that the character can only join one faction and the goal will be for the player to work for all of the kits. We don't want there to be more factions than there are character slots.

Q: Will there be any changes to the chat in the future?

A: It's going to stay the same for now. Initially, safety for us (LEGO) is pretty huge. There's not a lot of wiggle room on that because the stakes on that are really high. If we add more, once there's a predatory event, that's a bad deal. The risk and reward is not very good on that. We'll always air on the side of safety.

We will however enhance the White List and the Black List and make it easier as time goes by, but we still probably won't let people write numbers.

Q: What are your feelings toward direct player to player PvP? Will you be adding it into the game?

A: I love it. Definitely. Probably sometime during 2011 we'll be adding PvP into the game. It will be tied in a certain theme, but I can't really give you any more details on that right now.

Q: Will you be adding the bricks in LEGO Universe to the LDD?

A: Yes, they are synced at the moment and they will remain synced. The only difference will be that the LEGO Universe pallete will have more evergreen bricks and more bricks that are not available in the real world. Other than that, the idea is for total allignment.


Q: Do you plan on letting players use controllers to play LEGO Universe?

A: Yes, we have already tested hooking up the controllers up to the computer during testing. We have a basic control set for play in LEGO Universe and we also use it for development to control the camera, so it's possible. The only issue is having the keyset of the keyboard and mapping it to the controller. There are so many controls you wouldn't be able to map to the controller.

Q: Do you plan on releasing LEGO Universe on anything other than PC and Mac?

A: There are no specific plans for that right now.

Q: Some parents are still concerned about the safety risks with the game right now. Is there anything you'd like to say to give them reassurance that this is a safe environment to let their kids play in as opposed to normal MMOs?

A: Well as we mentioned with the chat, it's pretty locked down. Everything in the game is pre-modeled content, everything is moderated by hand, there are a certain amount of automated processes involved in the process but in the end, every single model is looked at by a human being to make sure it's safe.

Chat is probably a little too safe right now. The only thing that people need to know about the social layer is that we have three layers of chat. The normal level, where we use the black and the white list, friends, and best friends.

Hello everyone! Here at PAX West 2010 I got to talk to Chris Sutherland, one of the lead developers of LEGO Universe. I got a few of your questions that were posted here answered and I feel that everyone will love the answers! The goal is to have them posted tonight with some of the special media from our press kit!

Saturday, the Curse team might get a chance to catch Scott Brown and Ryan Seabury for another chat about the game and hopefully get some good updates and sneak peaks of what's to come in LEGO Universe's future!

PAX is right around the corner and we've got another shot at sitting down with Ryan Seabury and the crew for an interview! This time, I hope to find out more detailed information about LEGO Universe and hopefully get some good sneak peaks and videos for everyone!

Just like with other conventions I've gone to, I'll be asking for interview questions from everyone to ask the devs! Feel free to post them here in this thread over the next couple weeks. Let's hope for a good turn out this time and some fantastic questions for the development team!



I've been seeing several threads on the forums about in-game character names and factions and have also gotten a few requests to add fields to add this information to peoples' profiles. Well, now you can!

All you have to do is go to your profile and click edit at the top right of the profile area. There are two new fields at the bottom for your character name and faction that will show up on your profile as well as under your avatar and post count information on the forums!