Building the LEGO Universe MMO
by Seraphina Brennan 
Sep 23rd 2009 at 7:00PM
Filed under: Business models, Game mechanics, Interviews, MMO industry, News items, LEGO Universe, Kids
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 (Page 1 of 1)
Innocente said on 8:11PM 9-23-2009
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.
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Graill said on 5:20AM 9-24-2009
Easy control, No brain macroing, and pretty colors equals mass subs, AOL pioneered it, blizzard followed the example (those amazing french!!). Whomever plays with legos i hope you have adjustable expectations.
Jes said on 2:18AM 9-24-2009
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
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Innocente said on 11:05AM 9-24-2009
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.
Psychotic Storm said on 2:54PM 9-24-2009
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.