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LEGO Blocks Have Twice The Polygons Of WoW Avatars
No joke – you can almost get two Blood Elf paladins for the rendering price of one yellow 6x2 block in upcoming PC MMO LEGO Universe. There go our dreams of the best MMO crossover ever. We'll have to save it for our upcoming epic fanfic, tentatively titled "When Arthas Met Space Guy."
NetDevil's Ryan Seaberry dug deep beneath LEGO Universe's hood in an extensive interview with Gamasutra. In addition to finding out how much of a pain it is to model LEGO blocks in a video game targeted at a minimum PC spec so low that "We can't even find the parts we want anymore," Seaberry comments on the game's offerings toward hardcore MMO players, the possibility of a console port, and more.
You really should read the whole interview if you're interested in why MMO developers make the decisions they do – Seaberry is forthcoming about the challenges NetDevil has faced in working with a hands-on license holder in LEGO, the constant battles with technology, and the endless iteration and focus testing that go on before the game even has a release date.
Reading between the lines, it would seem that LEGO can be very...demanding when it comes to how its product is portrayed. "LEGO is uncompromising about how [the bricks] need to look," Seaberry says. Later, he notes that the difficulty in bringing LEGO to the MMO space extends to animations and UI. "Everything is under a microscope when we look at it. We have to ask, 'Does it meet the brand values with LEGO?'"
On coming to console, Seaberry says that it's purely a business thing with his game. "I would love for our game to be on consoles. The problem with MMOs on consoles is just a business thing with platform holders. They're still trying to figure out how to make third party work in an MMO context. There's no technical reason why we can't be on there. I would love to see it happen."
There's a lot more to get into in the four-page full text on Gamasutra: why there will be no PvP at launch, why LEGO Universe is subscription-based instead of free-to-play, and how NetDevil is straddling the line between making user-created content accessible and keeping their kid-friendly game wang-free.
For our part, we're glad to see a real investment be made in building a quality game for younger gamers. Anything that gets us farther away from the dark days of kids' games being nothing but crappy movie tie-in platformers is welcome.
LEGO Universe launches on October 26.
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