The Evolution of the Plaza

Hello, Peoples! Since LEGO Universe has closed, I think it's time to say some things. No, not bad things, but things about the Development stages of the game. You may already know this, but LEGO Universe was going to be a flat-plane, easy goings type game.

A main world in the original game was called "YouReeka". It was a skunk-themed plaza world. It was all dirty, and brown.

The Original YouReeka

But, as development continued, the focus groups just did not like it. So, the developers remodeled it into a bright and cheery Zorillo Plaza.

Zorillo Plaza was a very complete world, but when they took it to a German focus group, they said they didn't like it. So, the developers were stuck. I guess that they really liked the concept of a Plaza themed world, because right before Alpha came out, a world named Zorillo Station was under development. Zorillo Station soon dropped the Zorillo part and it became Nimbus Station. Once released to the Apha testers, Nimbus Station was nearly the same as Zorillo Plaza. They both had skunks, buildings, and a plaza. So that's how the world Nimbus Station was formed.

-rioforce

Interview with Figmentia!

Hey, All! A while back (just after the closure of LU was told), I PM'd Figmentia on Lunibook with some questions about future content in LEGO Universe. So here's the interview:

RIOFORCE: Was there going to be a future technology to pull .lxf models from LU to LDD?

FIGGY: Yup, that was in the works.

RIOFORCE: Was there going to be a way to build in LDD and import into LU? (That would have been super cool!)

FIGGY: I'm not sure. What we were hoping for was to make building experience in LU better than LDD. We had a lot of great ideas. Making bricks items that you unlock by finding or buying them, then unlimited access to them on Properties by automatically buying. Being able to stretch and build walls easily. A lot more that I can't remember them all anymore sadly.

RIOFORCE: About the Castle World, do you know any of the NPC's names in that world?

FIGGY: Gosh...I can't remember them, but it was Inventrius that came up with them so they were hilarious of course.

RIOFORCE: Can you tell us anything about the structure of the Castle World? (i.e. Were there going to be more than one castle or just one big one?)

FIGGY: To sound like a broken record, I can't remember all the details. We had a giant brainstorm session where all sorts of ideas were being thrown around. The castle area was going to be the Sentinel home world, eventually we wanted a black knights castle, monster invasions, guilds, things like having community effort affect the actual environment, crafting, etc. I requested having an ability to shear sheep. Mounts were also on the way.

RIOFORCE: What happened to the "Update Testers"? Were there such a thing? Or was it just wishful thinking?

FIGGY: I did want this, and it was something that I originally got the "probably will do" okay from, but it ended up not being something feasible. We were working at max capacity to keep churning out new info and not enough time or resources to making this happen.