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Child safety is an important concern to LEGO, NetDevil, and our own readers with children. When asked about the keeping children protected from virtual miscreants, Seabury quickly alleviated any concerns the group had. “LEGO is built upon 75 years of safety and creativity.” Although Seabury noted that they hadn’t “nailed anything down” as far as safety checks and balances, he did say that there were “some great ideas and partnerships forming to help take care of those concerns.” Overall, Seabury felt very confident that children would be protected within the confines of LEGO Universe.

Seabury showing off the LEGO Universe to the gathered crowd.

However, the NetDevil team is also aware that children often have different developmental levels as they age; a teenager is going to have entirely different expectations from an eight-year-old. In fact, NetDevil is expanding this idea farther and asking what the aged gamer might want as well, since they’re just as likely to play the game as a young child. NetDevil is providing various outlets for adults and kids alike, from putting competitive areas far from the new player experiences to just simple child safety measure. To help alleviate this separation in maturity, NetDevil and LEGO have been constantly play-testing their product with “kids of all ages” – old and young gamers alike.

When asked about their play-testing experience, Seabury said that many of the kids often have the brutally honest responses the developers want. “This sucks” is a decent response to a developer who doesn’t want their test subjects sugar-coating their answers. “Kids are very sophisticated gamers, these days,” Seabury added. “They can really cut through a game and get to the essence of the software very quickly.”

Building using LEGO bricks is obviously a very important portion of the gameplay that NetDevil is trying to put together in LEGO Universe, and I asked that question directly of Seabury during his talk. Despite his assurance that there were “a lot of good stories to tell about that”, Seabury was tight-lipped about the details of building. “There are a lot of different ways to build,” Seabury said. “You can abstract it or be very literal and we’re looking at it from many different ways. A LEGO game will always have building at its core, that’s the LEGO value, so there will be a lot of ways to build in LEGO Universe.”  

Although Seabury was asked whether LEGO Universe would cover the entire spectrum of LEGO sets, which ranges from Castle and City to Star Wars and Batman, he was obviously restricted on how he could answer that particular question. He did, however, hint that the Universe in the title suggested that they’re going to encompass most of the sets. “That’s what makes LEGO so cool,” Seabury said. “If you look back at their classic retail lines – and although there are some specialty pieces here and there – the bricks are the same. The same bricks that are building the castles are also building the spaceships and the pirate ships. It’s ‘universal’.”

There are thousands of LEGOs in those bins!

Since Auto Assault, one of NetDevil’s major initiatives has been to produce an early playable build of any game that they’re currently working on. The question was posed to Seabury, who considered the question for a moment before he came up with an answer. “Yes,” he stated with a smug expression. “Hermann and Scott have taken the lesson we learned – very thoroughly – of the value of iterations and play-testing very early in the game. Our development strategy now starts at the user’s first interaction with the product. Once a user discovers your game and buys it or downloads the product, we want their time in the game to be as smooth and seamless as possible.”

On top of this, LEGO has an extremely firm grasp on their market and what they need to do to help this game succeed. All of the playtesters are being brought in via LEGO, and the Danish-based company is working side-by-side with the folks at NetDevil to help LEGO Universe succeed. “They have a whole infrastructure within their company to take care of that,” Seabury said. “We don’t worry about that aspect at all aside from the things we do on site.”

All in all, the entire LEGO Universe experience seems to be coming together as tightly as one of the LEGO constructs, each piece being put in its place to make a cohesive whole. While we cannot yet guess all the details behind the various experiences a player may have in LEGO Universe, rest assured that NetDevil has the experience and expertise to put together a positive gaming experience for all ages.

Ten Ton Hammer is your unofficial source for LEGO Universe news and features!

Make sure you check out the rest of the articles from NetDevil’s 10th Anniversary / Open House event!

Click here to view the LEGO Universe teaser video!