73306
While I do wish LU could have been better, the experiences it provided... definitely ones I miss. Never really found another multiplayer community where I could find the will to talk to others. Or explore the out of bounds. There was a strangely large 'let's explore the OOB area' community in LU. Guess it was a 'grass is greener on the other side'. Or the feeling of wanting to be able to get a place you can see, or finding an unusually secluded place. Maybe. Wow, I'm talking about a game that shut down over three years ago. Was very... otherworldly(?) I guess to see a game's development coming along as you were 'in' it. Remember the showcases... the decoration models... the levels of the thinking hat... the trailer that was completely different from the game... the different property sizes. In retrospect, it was ridiculous just how much things weren't made of LEGO in 'LEGO' Universe. Feels like something that was going to be something different originally, but got turned into something else halfway through development. That sounds about right, given the huge differences between what was shown in 2007/8 (?) and what I saw in the game during Alpha and Beta. Originally a much bigger focus on building and creativity, instead it got turned into a thing with a LEGO flair. Game had squandered potential, that's for sure. Probably why it failed: not enough creativity, too much focus on the MMO part. Should have been more open and less linear in terms of... almost everything.
Still miss some of the people I knew once. Good times for a recluse like myself. Had I been older... maybe I could have helped it avoid crashing and burning. I was a Beta tester... an Alpha tester. The blame for its failure falls on me quite a bit because of that - I had a responsibility to make sure it avoided that. It failed... and if it failed, that meant I failed to test it right.
73307
I agree with everything you said except the last part. Plenty of us communicated to TLG that the builders would stay forever, but the gamers would leave for the next hot game. Sadly, they chose to listen to the gamers.
Beside all of the above, one of the things I loved about LU was that I could run and jump and almost fly again... even if it was just on the screen. The other was the fabulous properties that others thought of.. so amazing. And such a crying shame that TLG didn't find a way to save them to an interactive museum.
Thank you for the memories, Pulse. You did your job well.
