Death of a Game: Lego Universe
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 มิ.ย. 2022
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#DOAG . Death of a Game is a series dedicated to uncovering the mysteries surrounding the death of a game or company. nerdSlayer defines the term "death" in the context of the show as either... 1. Literally dead. 2. Had a mass exodus of players and never recovered (expectations etc). 3. The company ceased to exist. We follow a timeline of events, to uncover clues concerning why a game or company doesn't do well, and attempt to put it all together at the end for a deduction explaining how or why the game failed based on the evidence gathered.
Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Un...
www.wired.com/2007/06/lego-un...
www.lego.com/cdn/cs/set/asset...
• Lego Universe E3 Trailer
legouniverse.fandom.com/wiki/...
• LEGO Universe Behind t...
www.metacritic.com/game/pc/le...
www.tentonhammer.com/articles...
www.eurogamer.net/lego-univer...
www.engadget.com/2011-02-24-g...
www.engadget.com/2011-02-24-n...
www.engadget.com/2009-03-18-n....
www.pcgamer.com/why-lego-univ...
www.mobygames.com/company/pla...
www.mobygames.com/game/lego-u...
www.engadget.com/2011-11-04-l...
www.gamedeveloper.com/busines...
www.amazon.com/Brick-Rewrote-...
gamasutra.com/view/news/35368...
gamasutra.com/view/news/36443...
www.gamasutra.com/view/news/3...
www.gamasutra.com/view/news/3...
www.lego.com/cdn/cs/set/asset...
www.mobygames.com/developer/s...
padandpixel.com/lego-universe...
legouniverse.fandom.com/wiki/...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Leg...
www.engadget.com/2009-03-18-n...
legouniverse.fandom.com/wiki/...
massivelyop.com/2021/03/05/le...
mobile. darkflameu...
massivelyop.com/2021/12/07/le...
www.ign.com/articles/2010/06/... - เกม
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I really miss this game. I was still a stupid kid and I finished the free trial area and didn't understand why I couldn't play the rest of the game, so I sent a support ticket saying the game was broken. The absolute legend of a support assistant gave me like 6 months of free membership for god knows why, but I still remember him to this day
Dude the same thing happened the me! They sent my 8 year old self 3 months for no good reason 😂
Yooo POG representative
legend
holy shit that's amazing !!!
Could've been a developer lol that's cool dude
I have a very distinct memory of crying my eyes out at my dads computer desk when I read the post saying they were shutting down. This was the first MMO I ever truly sunk myself into and still holds a lot of significance in my heart. I've waited a long time for this video
My late grandma bought me my first subscription even though she didn’t have much money and then they shut it down with no way to get a refund… will never support these companies due to the emotional pain they inflicted on me
I had this EXACT experience too- I cried the whole day the day when I learned it had shut down. Sadly for me I could only play during the summer when I was 8-9 during the game's lifetime, so I learned later that year that the game was long dead, and I had missed out on at least saying goodbye. That game was what I was looking forward to having fun playing that summer, so I was devastated to hear of its closure.
It's sad the game can't hold servers because of legal issues with LEGO, I've been following the Darkflame project for the past few years, and its really rough to install/make a private server on Windows from last I checked- I'll do it eventually for sure, but it'll prob be painful to execute, as well as having my friend who loved the game have to go through a similar painful process.
@@pete5516 while I feel for you and your grandmother, there's always a price for these kind of games. I've been there for several f2p games that I've spent money on only for them to shut down but I also accept they did that.
@@TH-camCommentor1 it shut down the day after, they obviously could’ve pulled any ability to pay for things when they knew it would happen and didn’t. That’s scummy hands down, I don’t know if other games do the same tho
Same dude. It still hurts.
I wish they would tackle the concept of a LEGO mmo again. I believe there is still potential in the idea, it just needed the right crew.
Exactly! I'm surprised they haven't tried again.
roblox already has this market cornered sadly
Didn't they also do lego minifigures online though?
Because roblox has conquered the market entirely.
they did, it was called lego minifigures online and was VERY similar to lego universe, only it was a top-down style MMO and from what I remember of it the theme of the game was a lot more generic than lego universe, which tried to have an overarching story. I believe it also had a similar life span to lego universe.
I remember me and my sister were too young to understand the concept of an MMO shutting down, so I remember telling my dad to just give them the 10 dollar subscription fee over and over again and telling him to send it to the game studio as if that would bring the game back, once it clicked I would never be able to play again I started crying.
lol my sister and i wanted my dad to "donate" $50 to keep the game afloat
@@donovanschlekat2221 that would buy them about 0.00025 seconds of server time. MMOs are e x p e n s i v e
If anyone is interested, you can play on a online server named Lego Universe Reborn. it gets updated regularly and its easy to enter.
@@neidhart2637 how do you get in?
As a parent, I actually had a really positive initial reaction when i heard the amount spent on child safety features. Knowing something like that about a game would make me much more inclined to let my younger kids play.
Oh yeah, this one. I really got into this one back in the day. I remember playing on the last day before it shut down. Some people (maybe devs?) came on and used special tools to give everyone these OP jetpacks that you could use to fly all around the maps, and get to places you normally couldn’t. That was a cool little thing to do for the closure.
You can see the aforementioned jetpacks in some of the clips around 20 minutes into the video.
Yeah, all the devs started mailing people random OP shit, and at the final day, they all gathered in the main hub and just spawned in a ton of cool unreleased/cut models/weapons/enemies for everyone to see. It was really sweet of them honestly.
I remember that so vividly, I was only six when I was playing this game and I remember using the jetpack to fly out of bounds, along with a horse and some other things.
That was a crazy time. I think they were mods called mythrals or something like that. You'd get a message in your inbox and it would be free op loot and jetpacks
@@YTRingoster This is a good sign of the game being destroyed by the head of the dev team, middle managers, and/or executives.
It sounds like the dev team truly loved their community and jobs.
Lego universe was *easily* the best family friendly mmo.
There was a little of everything, all of it extremely accessible for kids and enough "high technical skill" content for adults to play casually.
11/10 it was too good for us.
To be honest, I think the sub fee and lack of content were the biggest reasons for the game failing, rather than games like Minecraft coming out. Growing up I remember trying to convince some friends to get this game but their parents didn't want to pay the sub fee for them.
I was on the other side of that, my parents didn't allow me to buy the game because of the sub
WoW also had a subscription model. And it was more expensive back then. There was so much to do btw, like hundreds of missions, faction gears and faction weapons. Achievements and overall leveling and exploring. Then the part that you could make your own base.
@@thyscott6603 Yes but WOW was targeted at an older audience that could buy the game for themselves and didn't have to ask their parents for it.
@@thyscott6603 This game has nothing to do in it. You can hit max level in
Yeah the sub fee kept me out of the game too, I remember really liking the free trial part but 12 year old me didnt exactly have a stable income and my parents werent rly into the idea of paying for a subscription either...
Seems like a weird call to put a subscription model on a game aimed at kids in the first place, tbh, cuz I'm willing to bet my story with the game wasnt a unique one.
The thing that sucks the most is that a lego themed rpg could totally work today.
A majority of computers today could be able to handle it, rpgs are still prevolent today as they were back then, and lego is still to this day a major toy company.
Outside of the expensive costs and terrible relationship with their producing company, it’s main flaw was just that it came out too early.
It was a game that was ahead of it’s time.
And i actually wish that lego could do a soft reboot to the game, it’s definitely something that i’d enjoy, and i’m sure other’ll think the same as well.
And the Lego team wouldn't necessarily have to start from scratch this time if they still have the full rights and assets for Lego Universe. They could salvage a lot from Lego Universe and use it as the foundation to build something bigger and better. I'm sure it could be done, and they already have hindsight in regards to what not to do this time around.
online games don't work as well now
it didn't shut down because of a lack of players
@@jonarbuckle778 Hell, they could reach out to the devs of Darkflame Universe for their code if they needed to. They enabled fans to create their own private servers.
*reach out again since they did that once already
it hurts to think about what the game could be today if they kept updating it a modern leggo mmo rpg would be so cool
This was a weird era for Lego, while some of the way old Lego games like Lego Island or Lego Racers are looked on with nostalgia, ever since TT Games took over it really just hasn't been needed for anyone else to try making Lego games, and it seemed like Lego knew that as well. That just makes it weirder that three Lego MMOs were released without any involvement from TT games and all of them were vastly different from each other. You have Lego Universe, then Lego Legends of Chima Online, a free-to-play top-down MMO based on the somewhat short-lived Chima IP with base-building and light dungeon crawling, and Lego Minifigures Online, a pay-to-play top down MMO based on the Minifigure blind bags that had pre-made unlockable characters instead of a character creator, no base-building, and barely any consistent theme other than Minifigures. I only played Chima Online, but I just think this era of Lego games was fascinating because TT Lego games were starting the transition to open-world hubs and voice acting, whereas Lego was just letting TT games go their own route while they were trying to make an actually successful MMO, which really could work well and be popular considering the size of the Lego brand and the possibilities for an MMO based on the toys. It just stinks that none of them worked well at all really.
i remember playing lego racers oml the memories
Lego was very experimental back in the 2010s. Unfortunately, their most creative and consistent franchise yet (Chima) backfired because of a writer that doesn't know how to write an ambitious story and because of ungrateful neckbeards, making LEGO scared of doing anything new. RIP Chima, it had a decent but short life-span for such an ambitious theme and I'm glad people remember it in a good light.
@@cooljim1376 A lot of MMOs have problem with artificial scarcity and trading. I literally cannot find an animal-based mmo rpg without the devs trying to leech off their players.
For some reason, to this day I still have random dreams/yearnings for Lego Universe. I'm almost 21 now, and I don't even like MMOs in general, but LU is the exception. Lots of fond memories and one of the few online games where I made legit internet friends (I remember "hanging out" with people in their lots or grinding together in one of those end-game islands).
I played it last night, frankly, it sucks as a game. But god damn I had a big dumb grin the entire time while playing. Worth going through the rigamaroll of getting it working again imo.
Wish I could do the same with skysaga 😔
The problem I ran into with this game not even a week into launch was that there was so little content that an 11 or 12 year old me ran out of new things to do and see almost immediately. It was a shockingly small world with very little to do and see and the coolest armor was all behind a massive grind through content that I’d already explored to its fullest extent.
So it’s weird that I’m a bit nostalgic for a game I disliked and was disappointed in as a child.
no matter how badly the game fail, when you get to have all those lego parts you played with as a child exactly replicated in a game everything is excusable!
What do you mean? There was so much content. I played every day for a few months and I still hadn't done everything. There were the faction gears you could get. The quests to finish. The achievements tl be completed. The different bosses and their special drops, and then the corrupted bosses. Then overall exploring, it was so much fun trying to get out of the map when they added the gate to the nexus tower.
@@thyscott6603 Yeah, this dude is nuts. It had a lot of content especially for a 11 or 12 year old. I think he is just parroting what nerdslayer said about lack of content. They are both crazy or never played the game if that's what they think.
Idl what you’re talking about. I played the hell out of this game and still had content
Wtf are you talking about? It had a lot of content ESPECIALLY for a kid.
Ohh man, reading that the game was shutting down HURT. I'm glad that Darkflame gave us the chance to replay this game again though, shoutouts to those legends
What?!?!?! Is this still a thing I can do?
Unless you understand some code and program command stuff, just don’t Bother. You can look it up if you want the headache
@@micahfisher6125 there’s a TH-cam guide for it, it’s still rough but if you really wanna play it again you do have the option.
@@jackwinter1507 yeah but you can't play it with other people
why would you do that? why would you play an mmo without other people? an mmo needs other people, it's in the name
@@jackwinter1507 darkflame universe had potential that was all wasted
weird name, complicated, not online
It always was odd to me that an MMO aimed at kids had a subscription fee. If they started as F2P or maybe (better option imo) B2P they would have better chance. Subscription fee in MMOs is to this day a barrier for many people.
It was much more normal back then. Free to play is pretty new
Should have been a console game
@@liammeech3702 mmo on console? No
@@Anon.G it was a kids game; Lego battles was an rts, but came out on DS.
Phantasy Star: Online was/is a cult console MMO.
@@liammeech3702 it's a kids game, and teenagers/adults are the ones who afford consoles. Any game can go on a DS.
The most incomprehensible mistake Lego Universe made was that it launched entirely without product support.
For a toy company to launch a digital product without backing it via toys on shelves, without offering some physical product to assist in marketing, is baffling.
I can only imagine that there was some reticence to invest heavily in a multimedia project after the disastrous failure of Galidor prior.
Had they sold physical sets on shelves with codes for in game items or monthly subscriptions, the game likely could have offset its costs much more easily.
There where sets with codes for in game items. They might have been Lego store exclusive but I got rocket that had a code for an in-game mount I think. Never used that code since the subscription kept me from even trying as a kid.
@@luigipinguin5828 The rocket was the only set unfortunately and even then it was a Lego Store exclusive. Apparently they were going to do a collectable mini figure series but it was scrapped due to the game's closure. Such a shame, sets for Lego Universe would've been epic!
I know right!? The most products we got in stores was eventually they put the pre-order minifigures in the build a minifigure section. As a kid I kept getting exciting thinking eventually they’re gonna make lego sets at some point
My childhood, I still have my boxed copy of the game hanging on my wall. This game meant a ton to me and I miss it all the time. Even made TH-cam videos of it on my first channel and everything, this game is just incredibly special. It sucks that LEGO seemed to pick the worse company of the two to make the game, but I can't imagine a world where my memories of LU are anything but the ones I have, so I guess I'm glad they went with NetDevil in the end. I'll never forget 11 year old me crying at the news of the game shutting down and all the friends I made on there.
Did you ever visit any of my properties during the games run? I ended up having about 12 of them built as actual sets that are are still being released to this day. Ninewells of both servers.
@@farrahheidelberg272 unfortunately I probably didn’t. I was never too into the properties stuff or mini games as a whole from what I remember, more into whatever I could do in the overworlds.
Lego Universe could have a had a DLC content model very different from other Multiplayer Online Games, in that it could have sold sets of Lego Worlds to add onto the hub(s) - a Star Wars Coruscant, or maybe you can go into Metropolis to duke it out with Lego Luther and other foes of the Man of Plastic. The executives were really short-sighted.
The theme playing in the intro gave me goosebumps. Huge part of my childhood, I literally drew comics in my notebooks with my avatar and the main heroes. Long gone but not forgotten.
I got to beta test this game, it was pretty fun. Had a neat class system, factions, character creator. World design was all kinds of fun, they did a really good job with it. It had some issues that I remember, with some spawn times being ridiculously fast for some mobs and the ground didn't always work. I wouldn't mind playing it again if it was still around, just to see a fully assembled and fleshed out game instead of the beta I had the chance to try.
you can play it on private servers but they're often pretty empty
A bit of stuff has been discussed (I believe in the Bits 'n' Bricks series by LEGO, although I may be remembering this from elsewhere), which describe NetDevil's pitch to TLG. Whilst much more detail is discussed, the long and short of it was that, yeah, NetDevil (and, again, iirc, Ryan in particular) were just incredibly enthusiastic, and TLG decided they wanted to value that over experience. In part, it seems like it was being a smaller group which allowed for this to happen, because it meant that not only were the people giving the pitch excited at the prospect of working with TLG, they were also excited to be _working on the game_ (something which I suspect is far less often the case with the heads of larger game development studios).
Honestly, it's also kind of funny to see LU compared to other MMOs, as it remains to this day basically the only MMO I've ever spent any time on, and so I've never really had anything to compare it to. I think often the comments about it not having enough content are _slightly_ overblown (whilst it's possible to get to every world within a few hours for the average modern player and probably reviewer at the time), I don't think that was as much the case by the standards of children at the time (I certainly never found that to be the case). _However_, even I ran up against the grind (albeit before being aware of the concept), and the one thing which has become _painfully_ obvious in the past few years of playing is the limited content for people who are now far more used to gaming than I think most of us kids were as of it's launch.
I will always hate lego a fraction for this
not only is your comment nonsensical but someone needs to take your parenthesis keys away
God I must have spent so many hours in the little building Islands where you could built stuff and invite others to show it off to. There was some seriously impressive stuff on there.
Oh boy, those Lego title card animations were excellent and a lovely touch. Whoever put all that work in for a couple of seconds, it is noticed and appreciated
The expectation for this game to be huge on launch and not giving time for a long term investment is something that I feel is a common problem with Lego as a company. Any fan of Lego can tell you about their favorite super cool series that was discontinued after 2 generations and 12 sets. Lego in general seems to have a philosophy that if something isn't huge initially they will not support it, themes in Lego that have had staying power are the ones that were instant and constant successes, like Ninjago.
If you ask me as well I feel this mindset might also be a symptom of the fact that Lego doesn't really have any big rivals as a company. Sure stuff like megablocks exist but have you ever seen a Megablocks store, or seen the Megablocks movie, or been to MegablocksLand? Even beyond this niche of building block toys Lego and a more general market of children's toys Lego is still unrivaled. This lack of competition means that Lego as a company are far more focused on short term profits and immediate response, as they don't really need to make long term investments. Something doesn't need to get popular, it should be popular from the get go as it has the Lego name on it, the question is whether it will be as popular as their other products. That's my theory anyway, I don't have any kind of degree in business so this may all be malarkey its just my thoughts on the matter.
Yeah. Ths mentality makes them miss on interesting themes (like Chima), because they invest on the big profit that is NINJAGO (which has no right at *all* to be this famous). This is what happens when you're a company...
i was so bummed when i was a kid learning i missed lego exo force by just a few years and i could no longer buy them.
@@WillBilly. I loved Exo force! I also recently discovered the wonders of BrickLink, you can buy used sets, sometimes for fairly cheap. exo force is a bit expensive for 100% completes, but they can be aquired! I've been obsessing over bionicles that were discontinued by the time I realized I wanted them
@@WillBilly. same here, i think exo force was just about to retire when i was a kid but back then the whole mech thing was a bizarre concept to me, still is to be fair but at the very least i tolerate the ineffectiveness of them for the cool factor, if i went back in time id probably ask my mom for a few of those sets
the real bummer for me in terms of themes would be mars mission, played the hell out of the game they had on the website and had the VAST majority of the first gen sets with the exception of i believe 2 of the alien specific sets
@@darkdruidsvale holy shit i forgot about mars mission, i was able to get one of the mini sets and read the shit out of the comics in the lego magazine. Always wanted the tracked mining mech thing, Good times.
I remember being so devastated when they announced the servers were shutting down, truly a missed opportunity for the game to become something more
God i miss this game. My first (and currently only) MMO experience. And that music... got damn that MUSIC!
The funny thing about their whole aggressive push for child safety is that, while they did succeed in creating a very safe environment, it was a little TOO safe in many regards. I and any other former players can attest to how ludicrously slow and strict the chat filtering was; the most glaring issue with it was that numbers (1,2,3...) *AND* their written forms (one, two, three...) were blocked, which meant we had to write numbers in a funny sort of code (won, too, tree, fore, i've, sicks, even, ate, fine)
Even crazier was that EVERY player-made property had to pass moderation before being publicly viewable, which i'm sure took an army of moderators and was probably where most of that money went to.
Seems like LU came juuuust before the current era of parents being more permissive with what their children say and hear online. If it had come a few years later, maybe LEGO wouldn't have burdened them with such heavy safety requirements.
Ahh i remember back then being invited to test the game, they set up PC's with Lego Universe in a library and invited a bunch of kids with their parents that was fun sadly I couldn't play the game after it released due to the cost but I have very fond memorys of that moment back then
I remember being a kid and getting this game at a Lego Store in a mall, I was so in love with the idea of Lego games especially from the Lego Star Wars games. I was genuinely in love with this game (though that might just be my kid Lego loving brain) and was heartbroken when the servers were shut down. My mom was mad that she spent money on a now useless disc.
I remember being really excited about this as a kid...until I realized it had a sub, and so I just went back to playing F2P games that wouldn't lock me out of progression. My parents only usually ever bought me a single video game for Christmas and not much else, so there was no way I would have ever convinced them to pay a monthly fee when they could just point at the computer and tell me to just play Maplestory and Roblox for free instead
Thankfull, fans were able to bring it back, and now everything in the game is (hopefully) free.😊
This was one of the first major games I got into and the first MMO; without it, I probably wouldn't be playing half the things I am today. It really hurt to see this shut down at the time, as I played it almost daily, but I'm happy for the memories I did get from it. For a huge lego fan, it felt almost like losing a pet. Thanks for covering this.
I always get a twinge of nostalgia each time I see EverQuest gameplay footage.
Grinding for xp, gold, gear, crafting, pvp...hours of sunk time for that perfect hour where everything came together.
i have such fond and strong memory's of this game. I also remember crying the night it was deleted.
My dad is a huge MMO guy, he made us (my sister and I) play ever quest when we were way to young to even read, and after going to a Lego convention and playing this I asked my dad if it was something we could play and he said that he would pay the subscription but he would stop for EverQuest and at that point we'd put enough time into EQ to know that meant no
Ah! Every time you play the theme music I get a a shot of bittersweet nostalgia. The music of LU is one of the few things that has really stuck with me over the years. It's crazy that it only lasted for a year. It felt like longer. That game was my first experience of mmos as a kid, and one of my first video games period.
Always sad hearing about this. Never played it though, mostly due to that sub fee - much harder to sell to my parents (or even me - can't remember a single thing I've subbed to). I did have the physical rocket ship set they made though, and that was very cool.
I’ve been waiting for you to do this. Man I loved this game as a kid. I was 10
Man this game… I paid for my first 6 months of subscription the day before the game was announced to be closing down… never saw my money back from that. So fuck Lego honestly
Other than Club Penguin this game was my first MMO. I've been playing it since the alpha build and had so many fond memories and was blown away by the in-game creations. Lego Universe had so much influence on me as a kid, and my lego world in Forbidden Valley was even the number 1 spot for about a week at one point. I think I can safely say it pushed me into digital content creation. I remember I had a secret hatred for minecraft because I figured thats was what lead to LU's downfall.
I really miss that game tbh.
Man this takes me back. I remember there used to be a world/map/island that I think was like for getting new pets or something? Anyway there was a mountain area that had a nest with a giant lego eagle in it. The map wasn’t designed for you to be able to reach the nest, but I figured out a way to double jump the hell out of the rock face and reach it. It was cool being able see all the players passing by try to reach me while chilling in the nest. Good times...
You mean Pet Cove? It had a big bird nesting on the top of a lighthouse.
... And if so, I'm sorry to tell you this, but it did in fact have a way to get up there. Sent ya right to the top.
@@ShatteredGlassUnicron huh that’s weird, I looked up pet cove and that’s not the eagle I’m talking about. It might not have been pet cove? The nest wasn’t on top of a lighthouse, rather on top of a small rock formation. Unless petcove got updated at some point.
@@abrahamcastaneda9520 As someone who played the beta, no it didn't.
Best guesses I got are either Gnarled Forest or Avant Gardens since they do have rock faces that could fit the bill, and an environment you'd expect to see an eagle in.
Everyone goes "oh, sad to see this lego theme/game die!!" but no one goes "sad to see chima be forgotten!".
This game was a blast when I was a kid. Surprisingly enough, even as a elementary schooler I understood the MMO format and was doing pretty good for myself. One distinct memory was with an online friend and I grinding on the Ninjago’s world boss and getting loot/money. He begged me to help him and promised me that if he obtained the golden ninjago mask, he will give it to me (the drop rate for it was pretty rare and hard). Well he did and didn’t want to give it up without me spending an absurd high number. I’ll never forgive him for that as it’s basically a core memory now.
Next time, on Death of a Game! Babylon's Fall!
OMG of all the games to cover! I remember getting into the game 3 months before it was shut down, kicking myself for not having tried it sooner!
Loving the growth of the channel and the series. Well done!
The music invokes a core memory for me. I was only 6 when I played but I have vivid memories of specific areas in the game, especially the lego ninjago and jungle area. I also have very distinct memories of getting stuck and not being sure what to do because I couldn't figure out how to find out what quests I had and I couldn't read well either.
I was a programmer on Lego Universe, we had tripled the pace of content creation in the last 6 months of project, but it just wasn't good enough I guess. We had an entire new content patch (more Ninjago content) that was 2 weeks away from completion, but they cancelled it when they announced that they were shutting down the project. I think the game could've been run at much lower cost, and with much more content, but they never truly gave us that mandate.
Also very frustrating was that several people were talking about how our property building experience could be vastly improved, and we were pointing to Minecraft as an example, but the execs just couldn't understand how building in Minecraft was better, they wanted all building on properties to by like it would be with bricks in real life, so players couldn't just place things in the air, they had to build scaffolds to build large things, because everything had to be connected like real bricks would be.
This is why I hate corporations
What I wanted when I was a kid was something of a city builder and Lego relesed Lego Creator. Maybe they should focus on revisiting Creator since the lego creator had the ability to place down roads with npc driving around, not very smart AI but still
Been watching this series for months and for the first time it finally hits me with a game I completely forgot about.
I was that demographic of lego loving kid that couldn't convince his parents to buy him the premium subscription but I was still enamored with this game, constantly everyday replaying that first tutorial area trying out every starter class and constantly replaying the one horde mode the map had. Then i caved in and watched someone play the rest of the game on youtube leaving me saddened at how much I missed.
I don't exactly remember if I was there when the game was shut off or I already lost interest and moved to play some other lego flash games they've been hosting back then on their lego website.
The irony that Lego would go on to make official Minecraft sets is not lost on me.
Holy shit, I wish you could understand the amount of nostalgia and surprise I just had when I saw this video in my feed. I never got to play this game for very long at all, maybe not even a month. But for what I could play? I loved every single ounce of it. I still wish to this day that it never died the way it did. Something about it I just fell in love with.
I loved this, it was silly crazy yet really good all at once and then it just dove down a rabbit hole.
I have so many great memories with the game. Like glitching myself out of the map because the people i met there showed me how. Beeing super hyped when they announced crux prime and the ninjago world or nexus tower. I also vividly remember trying to find every pet. I actualyl searched em all. Because I wasnt on the internet much so i didnt know people made guides. I know people say that there wasnt much content. But 11 year old me had a blast playing it daily every time I got back from school.
For anyone wanting to relive their childhood, there's been a project I've been following for years now, Darkflame Universe, they have released open source code and you can set up your own server and play Lego universe with your own friends. I'm actually surprised this many people have such a fond memory of this game as me, legit my favorite mmo of all time probably one of my favorite games, even my dad played it with me and was sad when it shut down.
I miss the noir elements your videos had. Don't know what you got rid of them.
I hope they get added back, they made these videos an even more unique experience
THANK YOU
This was a nostalgic video for me…
I remember playing this game for a few weeks before it became Free to try and I was stuck in my world because I did not know how to travel between worlds at the time…
It was an experience for me until we could not pay for the subscription anymore and had to move over to the Free version but the game would not allow you past the first area on this version as the jump pad leading to the next area would not be activated on this version…
I definitely did not play as much as some friendos did in this game but I still remember it very well!
I even remember the Rainbow gear you could acquire!💛
Oh man, this one definitely hit in the nostalgia feels. I was one of those kids that only played the game for the free month trial and on a machine that definitely could not handle the game. But I still very vividly remember that one month. It's crazy to think about what this game could have been. If it was only given the time and resources to become such a game.
God, I still remember my 8-year-old heart sinking when they announced the shutdown occurring after just a few days from my birthday. I too wanted to be part of the Tinkers faction because having multiple mechanical arms just excites me but alas, when I was trying to get a membership, I couldn't even receive the email verification even with the help of my dad.
Always wondered what happened to this, I watched so much on this game when I was like 7
I remember this being one of the very first games i have ever played on my pc back in 2010 ish, with Minecraft being downloaded as well while I was enjoying some lego universe. back then i had to go to my grandma's house almost daily so i rarely had time to play but when i did get to play, hoo boy i enjoyed every moment. fast forward half a year later i saw a message saying that the game is getting shutdown and i was so confused... this kind of closes a circle in a way. my grandma passed away yesterday and watching this video helps me connect with the older times when my only worries were a game shutting down heh...
I'm so happy you made this video man
Thank you for acknowledging that Anarchy Online is probably the greatest Sci-fi MMO of it's generation. I played 4 years of that game and it was such a wonderful ride...I pray that Funcom gives the world AO2.
That was definitely Babylon's Fall for the next one. Here's your comment and like for the algorithm gods NS.
nice catch :)
Awesome video man! I really look forward to these.
FINALLY! Someone other than me remembers this game! I've had very fond memories of playing it as a kid and grinding to level up to go through Crux Prime like a breeze. The music and base creator especially got me hooked, plus the extra modes like the Spiderling Boss. So when I heard it was shutting down, I made sure to be there for the finale.
It was a sad moment but at the same time I understood why. The game was veeeeeery expensive to manage and I knew Lego was still trying to find its footing in some areas before we eventually got the Lego Movie.
Also, at the start of the game's run, there wasn't quite as much to do as there would be later on. This was partly due to the membership option. Runescape does this too, but it's surprisingly got more quests that don't require a membership than Lego Universe. Since LU just launched at the time, I didn't mind and since I was so young, it probably slipped my thoughts.
What didn't slip my mind though was the few hilarious articles saying the game needed to be shut down due to expenses concerning the Lego creator. AKA Dong Protection. To this day, that alleviates my sadness that it went away but I'm glad it happened just for that hilarious thing alone. I hear that there's a Darkflame project trying to make the game accessible again by having an open source server, and it sounds promising, though I'm still unsure since a lot of server promises tend to be shady somehow. Maybe I'll see if I can replay it with a private server someday but for now, Lego Universe was a favorite as a kid and I'm happy to know I'm not the only one who remembers it.
Fun Fact: I got into storytelling mostly thanks to this game. Two of my characters are based on some from LU too, but they have yet to be seen since I'm still practicing
This one hit me hard... I remember that day I started playing, exploring the Ninjago World, fascinated by just how expansive this game was. I didn't care that I was getting like, 15 FPS on that super old PC, in an apartment study infested with silverfish, because I was just so captivated by a game that could capture what I loved about Legos so much.
I had totally forgotten that this game existed.
Do Marvel Super Hero Squad Online MMO next
Oh yeah that one would be a good video as my brother played that game up until it shuttered.
@@Ziko577 actually, fans have brought the game back from what I understand
unbelievable with what speed and size these videos get made and uploaded. thank you for many hours of unparalleled content!
This was literally my favorite game, thank you so much for solidifying it in this video
I wonder if Monster Hunter Frontier could be a point of discussion for this series. I wonder why Capcom opted to shut its servers downs despite its apparent popularity.
Id be curious about that as well
Yo I'm actually really interested in this one
I love his videos!
I still can't get over how nice and detailed the new custom intros are. I've been watching this channel for a few years, and I like to watch a lot of varied "game documentary" channels. These intros are hands down the BEST across the board.
Personally I miss the old private investigator intro and following the string board.
@@alexanderforrest1983 I can see that. The old noire asthetic was very unique. It certainly gave the over all channel a certain feel and distinct personality. But the new animations also display a lot of care and love that I like.
just found this video as a now 21 year old. I was playing this game religiously with my friend on my dad's laptop when I was 7-8. I was a huge ninjago fan back then and so were a lot of my friends at the time. we all would pretend to be ninjas on the playground doing "spinjutsu" which just meant spinning in circles. being able to use the golden weapons in the game was the coolest thing to me back then and I still have fond memories of getting kai's. (my favorite of the ninja's) I remember being so sad to hear that the game was shutting down and I hope they revisit the idea one day.
Opera GX: When you prefer your user data goes to China instead of the US. 😅
Death of a game : Dynasty Warriors Online or monster hunter online or Eden eternal next?
I remember when I was younger I would watch videos about this game and even tried the trial of the game and really wanted to play it. I eventually purchased a physical copy of the game later down the road and turns out the servers were shut down. I was super upset because I really wanted to play the game, all I had was a game disk that was useless. I was very upset so my dad told me to come up with ideas of what a second game would like so as a kid I brainstormed concepts for a second game.
man, you are killing it with these openings! i liked the classic one but these "custom" openings are just awesome
Man you and Anthony Fantano dropped a vid at the same time! I know I’m a nerd, easy choice to make
much respect
I love that intro tune... I repeatedly replay that part till I remind myself I'm there for the video
The new graphics and layouts are getting better every episode. Congrats!
The moment I heard Gazillion was involved I had Vietnam flashbacks from how badly Marvel Heroes crashed and burned, as someone who loved that game I can empathize for Lego Universe fans who must've been heartbroken when this game was announced to be shutting down
This was my first major online game experience and was sad to see it cancelled especially when I saw it plastered on the LEGO store when I went to one
Love your videos! I know the best things take time but I'm so anxious for the next video
YOOO I was waiting for this one
I played this game when it first came out; my family had THE WORST internet ever. It took forever to connect to the game or travel from place to place but I enjoyed every bit of it I could 😭 I remember being so sad once it closed, and I still miss it to this day. I would so just love to try it again for nostalgia’s sake!
I remember seeing so many ads for this in Lego Club magazine and Brickmaster. I always wanted to play but Mom was terrified about basically every aspect of Massively, Multiplayer, Online, and Game. I had such vivid imaginings about what it would be like to play, so I look forward to seeing reality. I’ve been hoping this would get a DoaG for a while!
This is the one I’ve been waiting for
I have so many fond memories of this game. Thank you for covering it. :)
I still hold this game in a special place in my heart and have followed efforts to revive it, but, watching through this now it reminds me how little focus this game had even after a few content updates. All of the Lego building took place in a strange separate personal world while a lot of the 'main game' was just a tedious grind for special class coins needed for gear.
I loved Lego Universe so much. I remember asking my mom for the subscription back when I was in elementary school but she said I could work to pay for it once I was in high school. Then the shut-down was announced and she gave let me get a 1 month subscription. It was such a quick yet wonderful month. Every day was a joy coming back from school to play this game. I think I beat most of the content the game had to offer and spent time base building as well. I'll fondly miss it.
I love the high-end production value of your videos, fan.
I recall being absolutely furious they shut this game down when I was a teenager. I miss running Brotherhood of Steel on there. It was fun. All our little properties where we built massive cathedrals, training grounds and even had uniforms put together with items from across the multiple areas. I still remember the Avant Gardens theme and it'll randomly pop into my head. Man... simpler times. Happier times...
I miss " Theronguard " being synonymous with " Oh, that's the guy who's good at racing, is buddies with a mythran that sometimes teleports him around and to out of bounds places, is provided gear for the Brotherhood of Steel by said mythran and was a good racer. " Towards the end I had almost every single achievement.
I have fond memories of Lego Universe as a kid. I used to play it a ton back then. I still fondly remembered when they made a crossover with early Ninjago and I felt so devestated when Lego Universe shut down.
I remember buying the game enjoying playing it until one day I couldn't. I didn't know that it also required a subscription and once I found out that it did I thought it was dumb and just stopped playing. Everything in this video resonated with my experience, it didn't have enough content at launch, the grind was purposeless, it didn't run well on my cheap laptop, as a kid I didn't understand subscriptions, and once I stopped playing LU I started playing Minecraft Beta. What a strange game that could've been so much more
Was waiting for this one
I miss this game so much man.. it just hit different. Something about it was so fun and just imagining it gives me so much happiness, (especially after draining my dopamine receptors from drug abuse… even after getting clean I don’t feel like that usually
I remember replaying the first area over and over again back in the day, mainly due to me not wanting to bother my parents to buy that subscription for me, only to find out the game had shut down after playing it almost daily.
Always made my Character a Harry Potter look-alike. Good memories c:
I remember sinking many post-school afternoons into LU. Had a lot of fun with just the core gameplay loops, and while simple, it was enjoyable to be running around places like Crux Prime, churning through the minions of the Mealstrom.
I was even a Beta Tester, and actually had the 3-piece rocket w/ the Orange LU Astronaut set.
Paradox forever :3
So this was a super interesting one because I LIVED this development process. My dad was on the development team, and as part of the target audience (I was 7 at the time of the alpha), I was playing this game through Alpha and Beta. But I didn't play it much during Alpha, because within three days I had gone through all of the content in the game. And by the end of the beta there was only one extra world.
You failed to capture LEGO Universe's problems post-expansion. Most of the endgame content was people sitting in groups of four or five, trying to get the first hit on a dragon spawn every five minutes. There were no "raids" or "dungeons". It was entirely open world. The only instances were player housing- which was absolutely BY FAR the best part of the game. It cost multiple hours of grinding toxens to get a single gear upgrade. The journey was fantastic, but extremely linear and short, and there wasn't enough of an endgame. When my dad told me that the game was going to be shutting down, I thought about it and said "Well that's ok. Just cancel my subscription." and stopped playing because the endgame gameplay loop just wasn't worth playing by itself.
Lego Universe's main competitor at launch was ROBLOX rather than minecraft, which had a significantly closer feel. Instead of only five worlds on launch, ROBLOX has infinite which were being created and expanded on as players wanted. It was much more adjacent to the LU experience, and it's exactly where I went once it shut down.
I actually snuck into the Alpha (and the Beta by extension). Remember the Kid's Inner Circle website? If someone gave you a direct link to the LEGO Universe account creation post, you'd bypass the membership checks on your LEGO account (for some reason) and be able to post a comment asking for access. I did, my access was granted, and I ended up being a "tester" for the entire development process. (Do not hire young me as a tester. I reported maybe 2 bugs over 2 years).
The game after the Nexus Tower and Crux Prime expansions was in its absolute golden era. I am convinced that LEGO would've had a real long-term product on their hands if they'd given the development team more time to work out the membership business model. Part of the issue is that digital commerce wasn't as normalized as it is today, and parents had to be coaxed into realizing they weren't being scammed somehow. Still, they were getting very close to where they needed to be with the "F2P" model. If LEGO had just given them another year or so, I think they would have had it. But nope.
Glad DLU exists, is all I'll say. Playing the game again definitely reveals some of the shortcomings I overlooked as a kid, but you can still feel the love and care that went into it all these years later.
Also, they did eventually instance some off the boss fights to avoid the issues you mention, specifically the Forbidden Valley dragons. They also overhauled the loot system, because it used to be possible to "steal" items from party members (in fact, I think parties themselves were a later addition). So there were sort of raids. Kinda.
I remember being 10 years old and memorising the launch time for this game, which I had downloaded on my mom's old white macbook. I think I still have the pre-order minifigure somewhere in my old lego collection... can't believe it's been 12 years.
I loved LEGO Universe as a kid. I played the hell out of it for many months all the way until the end. I started when the entry fee was free with $10 a month. I had so much fun with it, even going all the way to Level 43. After it ended, it didn't take long before I started playing Minecraft, which kept my attention for much much longer.