[PS3] LittleBigPlanet Impressions

[pipo]

The independent camera per system would actually be easier than synchronized cameras for the devs to implement, but I guess that they want the experience to be the same for online and offline coop.

Maybe there are other (engine) constraints. I can imagine it's one hell of a job for the system to track a couple of players *and all the stuff they're triggering* on completely different parts of a huge map.

If it's not processing limits, it surely would eat a ton of RAM...

 

[pcchen]

I got Little Big Planet last week and played it on the weekend. I even bought an additional Dual Shock 3 controller for it (and it's expensive... almost as expensive as the game!).

Basically I'm satisfied, although in some places it can be a bit hard for a guy who doesn't play platform games for quite a while The first real frustration came only in the bomb level where you have to ferry the bombs inside a jagged tunnel, and that's surprisingly late in game for me.

I also played a little custom levels, which seems nice. I also played a few online games with a stranger, which is not bad. I didn't notice any lag, although that doesn't mean there's no lag. However, I find that using the messaging system is quite ... inefficient we resolved to use msn later.

I also played it offline with my five years old niece but it seems to be too hard for her.

 

[woundingchaney]

Seems there are more commercials for LBP than R2.

Will be interesting to see how they sell relative to each other.

Seems like the hype for LBP has pushed attention for KZ2 and Home to the background.

So will that LBP hype pay off?

Unfortunately no.

Japan around 50k sold. NA/US around 170k sold. -these are first week

Europe may be the base for this title although I havent seen any information from that area.


ot: motorstorm 2 around 31k sold NA first week

 

[djskribbles]

I think those numbers for LBP were from the recall week. I think it will actually sell better the second week. Also, I think this is a kind of game that will have legs.

 

[catisfit]

The controls are too darned dodgy to be enjoyable in too many cases, with momentum having too much impact. The jumping can also be quite buggy thanks to the auto-plane shift. Several times I've had my SB pulled a little further than I wanted as he's adjusted to a different plane. The end result is challenges that are frustrating, death is annoying as it's not my fault, and the prospect of having to restart a level and face the same awkward puzzles is discouraging.

I've just completed the game in co-op with my better half, she's by no means a gamer but she's absolutely addicted to this and now wants to go through all the levels again to collect what we missed :smile:

The jumping can be tricky at times (it's what makes a level like Fire Pits challenging) but in all honesty I found the auto-plane shifting to be predictable, only a couple of times did my sackboy land somewhere I wasn't expecting, and usually that was because he had latched onto a higher ledge that I hadn't been looking at. At the end of the day sackboy only has the momentum that you give him

I thought the retries were fine, definitely a better choice than unlimited attempts. The sound of the "no retries" siren actually became a bit of fun as we piled all the pressure on whoever was still alive to complete that section. In any case the levels aren't overly long and don't really consist of multiple hard sections to make replaying a chore.

 

[Silent]

So, How much has our dear LBP sold till now ?
Is the magic of the awesome fun working? (Fix the lag MM)

It’s the first time that I have seen so much advertisement on Belgian television for a PS3 game/pack. But even so I have the feeling that it doesn’t do very well.

When looking on some Belgian forums I have the feeling that games like GTA IV or MGS4 did introduced a lot of new PS3 owners. Don't think that the shops sold a lot of LBP packs.

Its not that the game is at fault but the PS3 is just to expensive for a lot of people. The people that are willing to pay 400 euro already bought one. And this is a playstation market that in the past bought more PS3’s then Wii’s and 360’s.

Microsoft also started advertising their 199 euro 360 on television and while I don’t think that they sell a lot of 360’s, they make the PS3 look very bad regarding price.

Before Christmas we have also “Sint Niklaas/Saint Nicolas” coming up on 6 December and that should also move some games like LBP and consoles in those countries that celebrate this occasion.

 

[pipo]

As expected: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/littlebigplanet-levels-removed-over-copyright-fears

...

While one of the biggest draws for the PlayStation 3 game is the ability for users to create their own content, such freedom is providing a headache for the developer faced with moderating submissions for download.

...

Levels featuring content from games and other media including Metal Gear Solid, The Legend of Zelda, Batman and Scrubs have all been removed from the servers – with users complaining that they have spent hours creating content and have no back-up of their work.

...

Ouch. They must be working crazy hours at MM right now.

 

[Silent]

What troubles me the most is that some levels has been removed only for having an item collected from a level that has been taken down by copyright concerns. It seems viral and you could notice that because the number of levels yesterday was greatly reduced.

Have you seen some of those “infringing” items ? Really call a block with 4 wheels a batmobile and you are getting flagged.

Their are even cases where having a Playstation 3 (!) item is enough to get your content moderated because of copyright concerns. I don’t know if I must find this sad or hilarious.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

However, I find that using the messaging system is quite ... inefficient we resolved to use msn later.

Voice-chat is essential to get the real fun element, mocking each other's faux pas

As for censorship, I think Sony are overreacting once again. There are plenty of tributes to copyright creations throughout the world. Comedy acts, parodies, YouTube creations, fan-art, etc. Until someone actually successfully sues Sony for something someone else created with their software, I don't see that they have much to fear. If I copy someone else's book, MS won't get sued for selling me the software on which I wrote it. Namo aren't getting sued for creating DVD burning software. YouTube haven't been closed down for all the copyright-infringing content they've got. Heck, there are audio tracks ripped wholeheartedly! A tribute to an idea, that doesn't impact sales in any way, shouldn't incur the wrath of any law courts. No-one's going to avoid buying Gradius because there's a rough mockup in LBP.

Anyone with half a brain would have known prior to release there'd be lots of tributes. If Sony weren't willing to accomodate them, they shouldn't have created the game.

Also how does publishing work? It sounds like when a creation is published, it's moved from your PS3. At least, people are complaining their work is getting wiped, which shouldn't be the case if the level is still on HDD.

 

[Arwin]

I'm taking the moderation part completely opposite. I think it is very prudent for Sony to test their maximum moderation capabilities as early as possible, in case they are really necessary later on. Once you've found that you've got moderation under control its much easier to let the reigns go.

I'm also interested in something else - we've seen some of the costumes, but also if I remember correctly, we know that several publishers of key titles want to do (and are going to do) themed levels and such. These will result in 'official' objects and such. I could imagine there being value in official objects with protected names. So if you search for octocam, that this will result in finding the official octocam suit clothing, or whatever. I'm not being precise enough here, but I think you understand what I mean.

Also, moderating on copyright protected material by name is rather simple. Conversely, building levels while not using the actual name of the product your emulating is rather simple as well. And, it's not like it wasn't announced that Mario levels named Mario would be gone pretty quickly.

Again I'm not saying it will play out like this, but at least for the moderation, like firewalls, best to start with testing how far you can close things up, and then open up again.

As for the difficulty in controlling the sackboy, I think some more detailed tutorial levels could really help out. There was one Ninja styled level, and I think that this could be a good basis for mastering your sackboy's controls. I think the controls are pretty good in the end, but combined with the physics, you have to be wary of certain things both while controlling your sackboy and while building levels.

EDIT: and as Eurogamer reports there is already a way to make things hard on the moderation team (although I reckon they'll ban you if you keep that up), by only publishing copies of your levels in your moon. So you create a level, copy that level to one of the other 99 locations on your moon, and publish the level from there. The copy will be moderated, but the original won't at this time. This way you can republish your level each time it has been moderated. Not that I would advise taking this route. There are clear hints that by far the first thing to do is rename your level.

Note that Nintendo is extremely aggressive when it comes to protecting their IP, so I'm expecting their lawyers to bang down on Sony's / MMs doors by far the hardest and if you want to replicate some of their stuff, you'll have to be the most creative I'm sure.

Again though, just not using the name Mario or Sonic in any of your level's text probably should really help.

 

[Fafalada]

NA/US around 170k sold. -these are first week
ot: motorstorm 2 around 31k sold NA first week

Are people parading VGChartz numbers Again or is this from an actual legitimate leak for a change?

 

[patsu]

As expected: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/littlebigplanet-levels-removed-over-copyright-fears



Ouch. They must be working crazy hours at MM right now.

Yeah. I am surprised they did not learn this from so many content management systems on the net. They should just lock the "publish" flag and optionally, enforce a publishing review workflow for flagged levels/users. Comments (to keep people informed of the source of complains, what to do next) are really important too.

It is not a good idea to delete user content. In many cases, the offending content only forms a small part of the level, or is unintentional. In some rare cases, it's not clear who really owns the IP despite the complain.

Basically, treat the users with respect even though they may behave like 3 year olds at times.

 

[Cornsnake]

Thanks Cornsnake. You should give Grinder!, Starstruck! or Invasion! a try. They are considerably better than Icebound! It was a level I made just before the beta ended and quite honestly it just doesn't work as well as I would have liked. I have played Uncharted River of Barrels a few times now but I can't seem to get past the the third platform. For some reason my jet ski kept disappearing when I tried to jump off it and I would die in the river. Looks cool though, can't wait to see it all come together. I'll keep trying it as you republish.

Thanks. The jetski disappearing is because it is created by an emitter. It is set to disappear after a certain time so it wont be blocking your way after you die. But I should make it end on the grass so you won't die if it disappears at end, and extent the grass to all 3 planes so you can't fall down. The 3rd part is the hardest, but once you know the order in with the hazards appear, it gets a lot easier. I already made some adjustments the make them easier to recognise. I also got some excellent feedback from Betan on this. I can't wait to put all those thing in my level.


I hope my Uncharted level doesn't get deleted. As far as I can see it doesn't break any copyright laws. But then again, in other levels that got deleted didn't have obvious copyright infringements. It is also ironic that the official LBP has videos promoting levels that have been made, all lot of with are based on other games, like the deleted God of War level. I'm disappointed in Media Molecule and Sony that they didn't see this coming. And if we apply the same moderating rules to the story levels of LBP, shouldn't they also delete the levels containing the supposedly controversial song, instead of giving it a chance to remove it. They should find a good solution to this fast. They made enough of a mess of this wonderful game already.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I'm taking the moderation part completely opposite. I think it is very prudent for Sony to test their maximum moderation capabilities as early as possible, in case they are really necessary later on. Once you've found that you've got moderation under control its much easier to let the reigns go.

I can appreciate that, but what I don't get is how they seem to be suddenly reacting, deleting content permitted in the Beta, not giving any feedback, and doing so in a destructive way that loses hours of people work (which I still don't understand). Sony and MM knew this was going to happen. Why don't they have in place a system of notifications that tell people why their content is removed, and give them the chance to make edits, and generally just be nicer about it? Why not inform people that their level is removed because they included something from someone else's level?! It's like they never thought any of this through, never established a clear policy up front and informed everyone, and now are playing catchup offending their users in the process.

Okay, this depends on what's actually being removed, I guess. I'm only going by 'rumour' at this point, and I really ought to make sure what's going first before jumping the gun. However past activities have made me pretty cynical. I think no-one matches Sony for potential, but it takes them years after launch to get anywhere near what they could be.

 

[betan]

After reading Cornshake's post last night, I searched and played Jaeyden's levels (Starstruck, Invasion and Grinder).

Man, it was really depressing. I haven't really played many user created levels but from what I have seen under cool levels, those three pretty much destroys everything else ( which are mostly easy trophy levels and some old ones from the beta). I'll go as far as to say his levels easily rival MM's, in terms of presentation, size and variety.

They weren't really challenging though, and the one puzzle (the gears) I saw was a bit on the frustrating side.
Still I fully heartedly recommend you people with LBP go ahead and "explore his creativity"(TM).

 

[obonicus]

I can appreciate that, but what I don't get is how they seem to be suddenly reacting, deleting content permitted in the Beta, not giving any feedback, and doing so in a destructive way that loses hours of people work (which I still don't understand). Sony and MM knew this was going to happen. Why don't they have in place a system of notifications that tell people why their content is removed, and give them the chance to make edits, and generally just be nicer about it? Why not inform people that their level is removed because they included something from someone else's level?! It's like they never thought any of this through, never established a clear policy up front and informed everyone, and now are playing catchup offending their users in the process.

Okay, this depends on what's actually being removed, I guess. I'm only going by 'rumour' at this point, and I really ought to make sure what's going first before jumping the gun. However past activities have made me pretty cynical. I think no-one matches Sony for potential, but it takes them years after launch to get anywhere near what they could be.

I've heard that they're going to be more cautious in the future.

 

[Cornsnake]

I just spend 3 hours making changes to my Uncharted River of Barrels level. It should be easier now that most problems it had are fixed. And it looks a bit better too. This still isn't the final version as I intend to make it longer and look better. Let me know what you think.

 

[Arwin]

I'll have a look at it later ... I just tried Jaeyden's Palace level though and wow I have to say I'm very impressed! Awesome job man, everyone should give it a shot. I actually made it to the finish and I think I played it the way it was meant to be played ... came in 16th too, beating Jaeyden's own score. Lovely job!

 

[patsu]

Late to the party. Am in the Meerkat's bouncing level, co-op'ing with strangers ^_^
What a change from Resistance's alien world

 

[Silent]

Funny thing here in Belgium and LBP

Last week there was some censorship commotion around a Belgian magazine HUMO because they published some satirical photoshoped pictures of a corrupt police chief in a “naughty” position with two of his secretary’s. A court ruling forbade the publication of that issue.

This week in the same magazine HUMO there is an advertisement for LBP with the description “on our planet there isn’t censorship”. Sony clearly wanted to anticipate on these events but with the all the news about deleted levels it backfired and they became a laughing stock instead.