From my friend Zipblock's blog..
http://luprechaun.wordpress.com/
Loss
Posted by zipblock on February 2, 2012
This is hard to measure and equate into familiar levels that other people might understand, I’m having a hard time figuring it out myself. If you tell someone that your favourite game was just cancelled it would probably rank in their mind between a reality show being dropped after the first season and losing a sock. Sort of a drag?
Though imagine if they lost their facebook. Their friends list, all their photos and videos, notes and comments, all wiped out. To some of us that’s getting near the territory. For me it’s on the same levels as losing a family pet ( not saying the game was a pet, it had lots of pets in it, that’s just weird )
Beyond losing your character with all it’s achievements and loot, you lost your friends list and properties as well. I would check in regularly with dozens of people from all over the globe, it became part of my day that I looked forward to. In fact I turned the game on and just perched somewhere just to stay online to get messages. I would be doing something else like drawing or cooking and every so often come back to the game to reply and then go back to whatever it was.
Properties… ok, sure we can take the files and rebuild them in LDD. I can also print out a webpage. When I made something on a prop it was designed to be appreciated by a minifig, for them to run around on. Models were split to take advantage of the camera, textures were added to take advantage of movement, bricks were arranged to take advantage of the shader. All of this and no behaviours, it’s all lost. Not to mention chilling with some friends on a prop, admiring what they made and jumping around on it.
The last week and especially the last day of the game I felt like I was constantly checking in on a terminal patient, except this one was going to go Super Nova. Almost immediately afterwards I had a strange sense of relief. The waiting was finally over, the fog had lifted. But then I felt like the Hulk hit me with a truck. Obviously I am not ready to move on or I wouldn’t have started this blog hours afterwards. Until I hear otherwise I’m not wholly convinced we’ve seen the last of LU or another Lego mmog. In the meantime I’m not even interested in another mmog. I was playing this one because it was Lego and was amazed at how much more it was than just a game. I don’t want to play MineCraft, I might as well be playing Megablocks. This does give me a great opportunity to catch up on my backlog of console games at least.
There is so much Lego needs to take away from this, the least of all is how many girls played this game. They have always strived to crack the girl market and unwittingly did with this game. In my lifelong career as an afol I have run into very few girl fans, most of them at conventions and the ratio there was just ridiculously low. In the game it was much more balanced and even more so in the building community.
So many people also discovered they were builders because of this game. They don’t necessarily have a Lego collection of their own and found they could build whatever they wanted to within the game. Bricks were not that easy to come across though, you still had to unlock the store areas and have the necessary cash to purchase, or in some cases harvest. You really worked for your collection and your creations had your effort infused into them. When TLC cancels a line you still have your bricks. What are we left with here?
I don’t want to rag on the company for their decisions here, let’s keep this one to living in a post apocalego Universe. How are you doing?
