The LittleBigPlanet pre-release Saga

[Cheezdoodles]

Nobody is expecting it to be the equivalent of GoW

WHAT?!?!?!?



This game sucks then.

 

[Nesh]

WHAT?!?!?!?



This game sucks then.

 

[Titanio]

Interview

I don't think it's been posted here, but there's a good interview with Leo Cubbin of SCE on LittleBigPlanet here:

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2007/05/22/interview_little_big_planet.html

Discusses moderation, encouraging contribution, economy, potential uses for promotion etc. It's a good read. A couple of highlights:

In the UK, we'll probably adopt a system similar to YouTube and Flickr where we post-moderate. Children won't be able to see sites that haven't been moderated. Once it's been moderated they'll be bale to see. For adults, un-moderated sites might have filters which warn people that there may be content that's offensive to some people. But Media Molecule have thought long and hard about this and there are tools which allow moderation very quickly, allowing Sony to scan a level for images and other content that's appropriate or inappropriate. You don't wan to nip someone's creativity, but by the same token when you're involved in publisher of any sort, you've got to be conscious of all the users. Sony will obviously do everything they can to protect the users.

We've had an approach from a developer in the US who wanted to know if they'll be able to design a level for the game. Of course they can! Once the game's released anyone can design. We've also had a couple of bands who are interested in designing their own levels. They want to have a presence in an online community where they can give away stickers, unique images, music that can be downloaded. A reward at the end of a level. Some of the legalities about downloads are a little bit sticky at the moment, but if an unknown band or artist wants to make its products known, they can do it through us.

The idea of creativity can be quite daunting to a lot of people. You give a blank piece of paper and a pen and say, "Be creative!" What do I do? People are looking for inspiration. With LBP we want to create a fuzzy felt experience, where we give the component parts to trigger the creativity. I don't think any of us as kids had a problem with cracking on and creating something when we were given a Lego set; it didn't really matter how it ended up. We're trying to give people the bare bones, and then we'll let them go. Obviously there are going to be sophisticated users who will make incredible things because they'll know how to create textures and images, import photos, videos, audio files. They'll know the things to do to make their contributions incredible, but at the same time incredible things can come from simplicity.

 

[patsu]

Nice ! Seriously dlm, don't feel bad if you don't like the make-your-own-level concept

For people who prefer not to play god, they can try out the Blu-ray version (with the best levels from the user community [and the developers ?])

 

[inefficient]

I have an idea that could be cool.

Since players get to add their own textures audio files etc, there will be an issue of how big you want this content to be. So there should be some kind of per player ranking system for those who create content, and their maximum upload size would be dependent on their ranking/rating.

I don't mind downloading and trying content from total newbies if the DL sizes are a smallish 1-10mb. But I would not want to download and store hundreds of megs of fart noises on my PS3. And I'm sure Sony/MM does not want to waste their storage/bandwidth hosting that kind of crap either.

If you turned it into a leveling game, I think you could get your user base to start working harder toward making quality stuff. Give us a rewards system MM!

 

[archangelmorph]

I have an idea that could be cool.

Since players get to add their own textures audio files etc, there will be an issue of how big you want this content to be. So there should be some kind of per player ranking system for those who create content, and their maximum upload size would be dependent on their ranking/rating.

I don't mind downloading and trying content from total newbies if the DL sizes are a smallish 1-10mb. But I would not want to download and store hundreds of megs of fart noises on my PS3. And I'm sure Sony/MM does not want to waste their storage/bandwidth hosting that kind of crap either.

If you turned it into a leveling game, I think you could get your user base to start working harder toward making quality stuff. Give us a rewards system MM!

I like!!

One thing that struck me about the game however was a worry about the feel of play..

There's always a danger that once you've played so many levels then there's little to keep you interested IFF the gameplay variation alternates between only running and jumping and solving structurally-limited physics-based puzzles..

I wonder if MM are planning on incorperating any more gameplay-influencing modifiers which level-creators could use to mix things up..?

Maybe stuff like wind-up enemies that can be placed by the creators and require somekind of strategy to defeat (by the players)..? (the bot blocks the entry path and the players must use some prepared make-shift catapult to fling a rock at it for example..)

I think there's alot of scope for how MM could add elements which could really help flesh out the game so that once people get bored of making/playing levels they can always jump in and play other people's content with enough variety (over assault-courses with differing asthetic themes, music and objects) to keep the experience as fresh and as novel as possible..

 

[Gradthrawn]

I have an idea that could be cool.

Since players get to add their own textures audio files etc, there will be an issue of how big you want this content to be. So there should be some kind of per player ranking system for those who create content, and their maximum upload size would be dependent on their ranking/rating.

I don't mind downloading and trying content from total newbies if the DL sizes are a smallish 1-10mb. But I would not want to download and store hundreds of megs of fart noises on my PS3. And I'm sure Sony/MM does not want to waste their storage/bandwidth hosting that kind of crap either.

If you turned it into a leveling game, I think you could get your user base to start working harder toward making quality stuff. Give us a rewards system MM!

That's an excellent idea, and brings up another potential micro-transaction opportunity for MM and SCE. Users buying more server space. That could help defray the cost of an expanding community, and your reward based system could still appease many users and encourage quality work. I do wonder what the business model is for this, though. How do they plan to make money? I wonder if its meant as a direct revenue generator, or something to attract interest, and help generate revenue elsewhere. Given the context of the game, ads (one of the biggest potential revenue generators) would seem to be difficult to implement (tastefully, w/o alienating users).

 

[Titanio]

I wonder if user-created assets will be streamed peer-to-peer rather than use a central hosting system. That might be more economical. No doubt, though, there will have to be some reasonable limit on the total size of those assets in a level..you could not have some making a level using gigabytes of data from their HDD..

 

[Gradthrawn]

I wonder if user-created assets will be streamed peer-to-peer rather than use a central hosting system. That might be more economical. No doubt, though, there will have to be some reasonable limit on the total size of those assets in a level..you could not have some making a level using gigabytes of data from their HDD..

That would severely limit the community aspect of it though, wouldn't it? Not being able to play a level unless a user is online seems really restrictive in a game where that is part of its focus.

 

[Titanio]

That would severely limit the community aspect of it though, wouldn't it? Not being able to play a level unless a user is online seems really restrictive in a game where that is part of its focus.

True, I hadn't thought of that. I don't think anyone has asked about persistence yet, someone should. The two approaches aren't at odds with one another, though..they could probably use servers if no one online has the assets you need, and supplement that with peer-to-peer streaming if there are others online with those assets on their HDD to ease the burden on the servers.

 

[Gradthrawn]

True, I hadn't thought of that. I don't think anyone has asked about persistence yet, someone should. The two approaches aren't at odds with one another, though..they could probably use servers if no one online has the assets you need, and supplement that with peer-to-peer streaming if there are others online with those assets on their HDD to ease the burden on the servers.

That's an interesting approach. A hybrid P2P/server system. I could see a problem with assets from levels that can be modified by the player. Unless the modifications one makes are not persistent (or if the original, and current, state of an asset are also stored).

EDIT

On second thought, by assets, are we talking about entire levels, or pieces of levels?

 

[Silent]

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/21598.html?type=flv

Everytime I see a new movie i'm becomming more excited !

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Best use of a console ever! The tech here's awesome too. I'll enquire in the tech forum.

 

[tha_con]

The editing tools are simple, and extremely varied in depth, I love it.

The possibilites seem awesome, and the fact that you can scale everything is amazing. I simply cannot wait to get to work creating things. And since you can import photo's to use as textures to paste on places, that means I can go simply ballistic in photoshop and create some amazing things.

While the casual may get a kick out of it and drop it, the hardcore people (like the folks who do amazing Forza 2 cars) are going to make this game SHINE.

 

[pipo]

Awesome.

 

[Terarrim]

As a composer/songwriter, I have been wondering about using this game as a vehicle to put some of my music into the game. Maybe use existing instramental stuff (a fair amount of my music is instramental), or even create a new song to fit in to the game. I'm not sure how well I could design a level but I would releash putting some music to this game. Could even put a self advertisment in there somwhere (bottom right hand corner) or something.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Ages ago I wanted to do computer choreography, but the tools just weren't there to do so easily. Creating 'movies' to soundtracks is something I want to try. I even contacted Media Molecule requesting the inclusion of a cameraman mode, enabling someone to handle a camera to film things rather than using a camera that forces everyone to be in view.

 

[Terarrim]

Sounds cool shifty something like Sims 2 has so you can do a LBP film?

 

[betan]

Ages ago I wanted to do computer choreography, but the tools just weren't there to do so easily. Creating 'movies' to soundtracks is something I want to try. I even contacted Media Molecule requesting the inclusion of a cameraman mode, enabling someone to handle a camera to film things rather than using a camera that forces everyone to be in view.

I can see how music beats can sync with player actions (i.e. jumps) withing current model. Would even work better with timers.

I don't know how they can address the piracy issues with user created music though.

And your cameraman remark raises an interesting question.
What will camera do if player instantiates a chain of events -say domino falls- that spans very long area on the map. Would it stick to the player, or would it somehow show the interacting objects as well?
If it tries to follow the events, the level designer can introduce more interesting gameplay elements, possible making timers unnecessary.

Anyway, I am now convinced if the content creation is easy as it seems, it will be a system seller.

 

[Terarrim]

I can see how music beats can sync with player actions (i.e. jumps) withing current model. Would even work better with timers.

I don't know how they can address the piracy issues with user created music though.

And your cameraman remark raises an interesting question.
What will camera do if player instantiates a chain of events -say domino falls- that spans very long area on the map. Would it stick to the player, or would it somehow show the interacting objects as well?
If it tries to follow the events, the level designer can introduce more interesting gameplay elements, possible making timers unnecessary.

Anyway, I am now convinced if the content creation is easy as it seems, it will be a system seller.

In regards to your piracy issue question.

I am sure I read in an interview that your music is "locked" so there is no way to download the music. However you can if you want make the music an object so you can give the player a reward if you wanted.

Appart from my new stuff all my music is copyright so I would imagine Putting in the corner of screen "music copyright to bla music for game only all rights reserved" should cover you from a legal stand point (if somone steals it and trys to go commercial for example. In other words wound't normal copyright law apply (same with photos etc used to?).