Now this….this is how you implement crafting in your MMORPG.

Admittedly, the folks at NetDevil have a bit of an upper-hand in this department, since they’re working on the Lego Universe MMO (and let’s face it…a Lego MMORPG without crafting would be like eating a ham sandwich without the ham…or the bread, for that matter), but one twist on the in-game crafting system has to still garner an “Oh mannnnnn.” from most everyone, as laid out by Lego Universe development director Mark Hansen in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz:

As well as traditional online play, users will be able to design characters and other creations in-game, which Lego will then make into real products for the user at its manufacturing plant in Denmark

Go read that again…I’ll wait here.

(My first order: A fully-cloaked Romulan Warbird (artist’s rendering above))

Of course, this is nothing terribly new…you’ve been able to design and order your own custom Lego sets for quite some time, but this is something new in the world of MMOs. And how did this idea come about? Do tell, Mark…do tell.

“The community is really the strong voice here. We know we have a registered three million plus community, we know who they are. They build with Lego, they organise their own events and they are very integrated with us and they are very happy about the opportunities the game will offer,” said Hansen.

“They have a lot of voice and a lot of say in the development of the game. And we’re very lucky that NetDevil is open to accepting that way of working. A lot of developers out there understand what community is in respect to playing a game, but this is really about working with a community that is on 24/7.

“They are creating, building, testing and we have to react to that constantly. It’s democratising the development of the game,” he added.

A three-million plus community asked for something, and it’s being included in the game.

Is this for real? I mean, really?

Didn’t NetDevil get the memo that this way be dragons? If you start listening to the community, where does it stop? Before you know it, you’ve got people screaming for things you can’t (or don’t want to) code into your game, and eventually you end up trying to figure out how to do server merges.

I hereby plead with the folks at NetDevil…please stop listening to your community, and quit working closely with your community managers…before its too late.

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Tags: crafting, games, gaming, Lego, mmo, mmorpg