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Oh hi, this topic is back from the dead, have some silly drawings. Players: Someswedish (A.k.A. Mr.TheSweDragon), Ben24x7. It's Been a while Not Qualified for the job Leg-O's The future of Virtual Reality Dance with me, in-animated object What should be in LEGO Dimensions Also, here is a bonus.

Terrev: lego island lego universe lego dimensions lego worlds we've started going backwards

"Are you a man, are you a dog, are you a man-dog. . . what are you?". Goofy simply replies "I'm just Goofy."

I remembered getting screenshots of these as a kid on an old laptop, but that laptop is long gone. So I tried getting new screenshots, and as you can see I did - but for quite a while, they didn't show up. I reloaded and rebooted the game several times, and one time, they suddenly started appearing very frequently. The rest of the time, nothing. So I'm not really sure what's up with that... Are they an easter egg that only has a chance of appearing? I also noticed that changing the resolution of the game messes up the size of the particles in the currently loaded area, making them too big or too small, depending on if you're increasing or deceasing the resolution. I doubt it's related to whether or not these show up but I thought I'd mention it just in case.

Welp, time for more footage of the Sonic stuff: Stuff of note: There's a custom intro a-la Sonic 1 (it's a bit cut off in that vid, here's the best vid we've got of it), and interestingly enough Sonic Team's credited in part for it. Maybe Sonic Team's been more involved in this level pack than we first thought? Sonic's HUD in the top left-hand corner of the screen literally has 1UP monitors representing the health hearts. Sonic also does his classic "oh I've been hit" pose when hit by a badnik in the stage. At 1:50 there's a hidden area in one of the loops with an animal capsule in it. Probably contains a minikit at a guess. 2:25: "You will go through all years of sonic" - Pretty sure they don't mean literally everything, but they namedrop Chaos, Mecha Sonic and Metal Sonic as being in the level. Also they mention that it's gonna be roughly 6 stages in total, which makes sense considering the length of other level packs. At 2:55 Sonic doesn't just break up into pieces like everyone else in the game when they die: he falls off the screen a-la the classics. At 3:19 when Sonic gets in the Tornado, he doesn't pilot it - he stands on the wing and Tails pilots it for you. Amazing. Neat lil' detail: When being sprung about on the springs, all the other characters flail about - except Sonic, who'll flail for a second and then move into his normal bouncing-off-spring pose from the classics. It's the little things that count. 3:36: They confirm that you collect the seven chaos emeralds through the level pack, and by the looks of it Super Sonic has a lot more sparkly effects around him than that last clip. 3:50: There's a giant special stage ring at the end of the act that they mention will take you to a special stage. Sadly they don't show the special stage, but it's neat to know that we're getting 'em. That's all the stuff I noticed, and oh boy November 18th can't come soon enough.

-- Spoiler-ed due to size of image --

Tried to figure out any patterns in when they show up - no luck. But I did notice that the pterodactyl can be seen flying around one of the volcanoes when you're not flying on it. (Used the debug mode objects list to verify there's only ever one pterodactyl in the level - when you're in a helicopter, it flies around on its own, and when you're flying on it, it's still the only one in the level.) It's hardly visible in this screenshot, but here:

I wonder if they're using smoked pepperoni?

I finally revised my recreation of the L.M.S. Explorer. Here is the picture and its description, that I uploaded yesterday: Finally I managed to fix the problems, that I have found in my older version of the ship. Due to having a faster computer it was way easier and much faster to work with LeoCAD (loading the file takes ~ 5 seconds), though I recommend saving all the time since the program can crash (I have two saves in case, that the program crashes during saving. That way I always have another save). I fixed quite a lot on that ship: -added teleporter/radar dishes at the bottom -added elevator shaft to the back of the bridge -changed the outside of the bridge a bit -modified the front to make it look more like in the videos and the magazine (thanks for uploading that picture, Ringtail ) (it means, that it is more narrow now and that I changed many elements on it) -changing the width of the whole ship a bit (reduced by 4 studs) due to the changed front -the upper layer is a bit wider due to the changed front -flat side walls (+adding black lines) -changed the antenna on top of the front -changed the dark grey structure next to the antenna on top of the front -changed the colours of the sidewall windows (although I probably have to change them again) -changed those dark grey openings/windows on top of the teal stripes etc. (they are one instead of two types now and they contain transparent elements now -changed the dark grey pit in front of the bridge -added Power Miners -changed the structure with the eleven domes, that you can see behind that top antenna -changed the area between the bridge and the dribes -changed many grey areas to dark grey ones after checking the sources again -removed useless bricks inside the ship -stuff, that I have forgotten to mention There is still room for improvements on that ship, but I like it more than the older version. The next thing will probably be a poster with pictures of the ship from different angles. I think, that I will also upload the ldr-file (can be used for LeoCAD and LDView. Mabye other programs, too). P.S.: The extended intro of Rock Raiders was also helpful for improving stuff like the front.

[12:07 AM] Bug Catcher: Today I was able to download the HP + adventure time content for dimensions [12:07 AM] Bug Catcher: Exploring the HP world [12:07 AM] Bug Catcher: It's nice [12:07 AM] mumboking: [12:07 AM] mumboking: Explore the HP world! [12:08 AM] mumboking: It's saucy.

[02:05:22] Will: So I finally pulled off the finale to the D&D campaign I've been DMing for a while [02:05:59] Will: Had my group exploring for like 2 months at this point [02:06:30] Will: finally they reach the last room in the dungeon [02:06:38] Will: they find the chest they've been after all this time [02:06:49] Will: after checking for traps, they open it [02:07:05] Will: as they do so, a figure emerges from the shadows [02:07:48] Will: it's the evil warlock, Sir Jonathan of Tron, and he has only this to say: [02:07:53] Will: "There's nothing in here. I've cheated you. I've cheated all of you and you didn't even notice." [02:08:34] Pereki: I can only imagine there was rioting [02:08:54] Will: You know how much of that story is true? [02:08:58] Will: None of it. [02:09:00] Will: I cheated you. [02:09:05] Will: and you didn't even notice. [02:09:08] Pereki: lfkajdsfl;kajflkasdf

I was strolling through a Eurobricks thread on unreleased sets and came to this curious post. So I thought to myself "yeah, okay, big talk. Did you read that on Brickipedia?" But then they went on to say this: Suddenly the post is sounding a lot more credible. So I look back up at the post and what really strikes me is that he says that wave 2 would have had "other underground creatures." And then I remembered this guy! It's a slimy slug that was on the cover of a catalog packaged with big box LEGO games in 1999. It's not a model from the Rock Raiders game, though - in fact, it looks like it's design to be produced as a buildable figure, with a single-piece rigid body that has some eyestalks and studs stuck on. Seems a little excessive to design all of that just for promotional renders, no? So yeah, I think this guy may have been designed for that 2nd wave. What else could have been in it? There are at least a couple models in the PC game that would have worked as sets if they had chosen to produce them...

I'm sure people understand that project managers aren't usually the best at PR, and that can be good, because their job isn't PR, but to get things done. This is why PR is usually handled by specific employees. As @Polaris said, ignoring comments in order to let things "cool off" won't necessarily make things "cool off". In this situation, a big reason why things are heated is from the lack of prior responses. So as you would understand, this is like keeping the coals hot. My suggestion is, is to simply acknowledge peoples concerns and complaints. They write because they want their feelings towards this heard, not because they want to argue; and I'm sure that's how you feel also, you want your feelings heard by the community. You would like to talk about positive, productive things... and thats good, but, you must first thoughtfully handle and acknowledge the negative. This may mean you have to take some steps back and go: "ok, maybe I didn't handle this the best, maybe I could have done xxxx and in the future I will try to xxxx" (This is an example, I'm not directing this at any particular raised issue). This acknowledgement is what will make things "cool off". This does not mean you are wrong and this does not mean that criticizers are always right, it just means you are willing to listen and not quick to deflect negative feedback. I say these things to assist you handling this situation from my perspective, not to be demeaning or to say you don't know your stuff or sound above you, but to genuinely help you mediate. As a side note, I am interested in which two people who worked on the original LRR were wanting to work on the second and if they were going to be involved with discussions for the new game (because we'd really like all parties involved with the project to actually be involved). In fact, it would be great to be kept up to date on the whole team and what their roles are for LRR2. As previously mentioned in emails to you, I am very happy to open up this forum (Sections etc..) to help get things done, to alleviate questions and more. I can setup topics, pages, private development forums for internal project organization... If you want your own forums for the project, fair enough, I have over 10 years experience working with forums and can help you get that set up. Whatever is needed to get the project on track. Have you begun putting together a Project (Management) Plan? If so, can we see it? (With confidential information removed).

After the 4th, could you please post a sort of state of the union, rundown of what's going on with the project? A lot of the recent criticism boils down to we have no idea what the current plan is, and stuff that we had pointed out might not be the best approach for various reasons seems to be in a confusing mix of in the plan, out of the plan, on neptune, and running rampant on the streets of Tokyo. As a side note, I disagree strongly with not making gameplay demos and prototypes, even if they only exist internally. My favourite games, and the most successful, out of the indie games I've done QA for, all shared a few things in common: Clear planning, testing early and often, and a willingness to change the plan if you find out that an idea that looks good on paper turns out to really suck when you're actually play it.

It's always hard to talk directly to people like Stewart, because I feel like he does deserve some measure of respect, but at the same time I find myself disagreeing with a lot of what he's said. These are my major complaints with your first big post. The "You Have No Experience" argument is probably one of the weakest you could possibly use. Aside from the fact that you're making assumptions that those who are on the outside of the fence aren't able to make reasonable conclusions about the way the industry works and how games are made, you're ignoring the fact that everybody is entitled to share their opinion on this free forum, and you are free to provide evidence to support your arguments, but it is highly unprofessional to call people out because they are "under you". I won't debate the Wii Market because it's a fight that's not worth it, but needless to say I'm disagreeing with you as far as selling a million units being a big deal that lets you call people out for inexperience. You might have had a point if you were talking about well reviewed games. Then why have you not posted any proof to this? This is my biggest source of irritation. All throughout your post, you call out people for not contributing... It is here that you are demonstrating a level of arrogance; you want us to contribute yet you've not committed anything yourself. A website or Facebook page is not enough, Stewart. If you really want to confirm that you are making this thing real, you need to start by making concept builds, vertical slices or test content. Show, don't tell. The problem here is that you're taking ideas from places like Minecraft without demonstrating that they work. Every good game designer knows that playtesting as often and early as possible is the KEY to success, yet it seems like you instead want to focus on building a pool of high concepts without finding any way to link them together. It's nice that you've got bits of music and models from people around the place, but how do they work? Where will they be used? How will they improve the experience? Have you asked yourself any of these questions? The most active members of this site are fairly old and have their own lives to deal with right now. If you want us to put aside our own time to be a part of this, you need to give us a more physical reason to get excited. This is one of the first things you learn at Game Design School when you start pitching and developing ideas; did you miss that class? Firstly, it's amazing how quickly you shut down an idea that you didn't generate, yet you go on about how happy you are to discuss ideas with the fans. Hypocrisy, much? Secondly, you're making assumptions that Ringtail wanted to produce a directly 2D clone of the game, whereas how I read his post was "bring the spirit and some of the functionality of Dwarf Fortress to the LEGO Rock Raiders mould while keeping the 3D world aspect". You need to consider the fact that when people say "It's like X game..." they're probably not being 100% literal. Thirdly, you talk earlier about your business-mind and how much experience you have, and yet you can't see the financial boom in the 2D market? Are you unaware of what types of games are making the biggest killing in the mobile/indie markets right now? Are you unaware of names like Binding of Issac, FEZ, Braid, LIMBO and so on? You would think that if you're so business-focused, you would keep your mind open to these potential profit margins. Then why haven't you demonstrated this to us by showing us deadlines, timelines or any other organisational tools? Nobody here knows when you plan on actually working on the game, which is a major contributor to the "he's not going to go through with it" mentality around here. If you want to prove you mean business and actually drum up some decent ideas/help, you damn well better prove that there's action behind the scenes and that you know how your future outlook is. This is the complete opposite advise that is commonly given at every other game's studio. Listen to any developer from one of the big publisher studios, or from the tiny indie studios. Their GDC talks constantly revolve around the idea of getting into producing content as early as possible, so that you, not your audience, can be sure of what you're doing and where you're going. It's lethal to assume you can just push away playtesting and demoing the game, because you won't get the necessary feedback on your execution of the ideas until it's too late to change them. --- I've finished 6 games as a student/indie dev (for clients, so no public releases). Nothing I've made looks great, but I'm trying to look for some real world work that will lead me into a golden opportunity with a AAA developer. I need something. I'm sceptical of this offer, however, because you haven't shown me that I'm going to get a return, not in money, but in quality experience. You talk about management and planning, you've failed to show it. I would love to say "I worked on a successful LEGO fan-game" or "I worked on a sequel to a classic LEGO game", but I have no guarantees that working with you would pay my rent, contribute to my resume or be a positive experience. If you can address my complaints without calling me a "whiner", then I may consider actually building potential prototypes, level designs, story stuff etc for you. But I need some kind of acknowledgement that you actually give a damn, rather than trying to cash in on a community and some current fads in gaming.

Looks like things went a little bit off the rails here. Throwing insults, regardless of direction is not going to accomplish anything here other than continuing to sour the waters. I will be direct on my feelings towards some of the mistakes that were made, they are not meant to offend. I will also state ways you could solve these issues in my opinion. - The association of Minecraft. People considered LRR unique, mentioning Minecraft threatens LRR’s uniqueness and the community did not want that. It was also spoken about in a time when many Minecraft clones were appearing. Yes, DDI changed directions on that, which was great, but some did not realise this had changed and the name “Block Raiders” still mentioned in areas didn’t help that. Solution: Remove any mentions of “Minecraft” or “Block Raiders”. Change promo resources to reflect this also. If LRR2 is inspired from anything, it should be inspired from the original game. - Big changes to mechanics. People loved the original LRR, the majority of people don’t want major changes to game mechanics, rather they want expansion, enhancements, refinements etc… The idea of vertical mining is an example of expansion that the community wants. And most of all, the modding. If someone wants to change certain mechanics that defined LRR, it would be on their own terms. Solution: Show the community the idea list and revise it if needed and put it somewhere where people can refer to it easily. - Lack of consistent, informative PR. Most people thought the project was dead, and again more people thought it was still going to be a Minecraft clone (as above). The lack of consistent regular communication, whether it’s just a drop in every fortnight or something to say “hi” and say what you’ve been up to, or weekly updates etc.. A lot of professional indie developers keep their communities in the loop, this is what this community wanted. Companies generally appoint someone to do this for them, so everyone else can focus on the game. Solution: This is pretty easy, keep everyone up to date. If there’s no updates, still engage the community to let them know the project didn’t die. - Visual Impressions. This is a HUGE factor as to whether people will suddenly have a good impression or bad impression. If you give them a bad impression, that impression has a greater chance of getting worse very rapidly. People’s impressions of the LRR2 website were very poor, it was half themed, it loaded slowly, there wasn’t barely any “new” content (other than the concept art)… just to mention a few of the many issues. (btw it’s also offline now). I offered my services to re-design it, but you weren’t interested at the time. Then there is the promotional content and the reusing of old resources mixed with minecraft stuff which didn’t help people’s opinions that a quality game was going to be made. Solution: Get all PR material re-designed professionally. - Facebook. I’m just adding this one here because well…. it’s a bit of a given. Facebook is a bad platform for proper discussions between fans and developers. If you want to do promotion, sure, Facebook might be perfect. If you want to talk about the game itself with fans, you need a platform for that, this is why most game developers employ Forums. Another thing about Facebook is that, a lot of the fans on RRU, do not use Facebook and won’t sign up to it. Solution: Keep your main communication platform where it’s already established, or find a proper platform designed for this style communication. --- And like Cirevam also mentioned above, this community likes specifications and other hard details.

I don't speak for everyone, but I think there would be more interest if there was a framework we could see. What formats, which language, which APIs, etc. I could make a few models, but would they even work for your game and your engine? Who knows? I'm not going to start working on something if there's no guarantee it will be usable even as concept art. If you just want concept art and the like, fine. Otherwise I have no idea where to begin.

I built it. Yep. I know, I have no life...but it's so beautiful... Okay, so maybe not from the outside...but you can't tell me that THIS isn't a sight. All credit goes to Arthuriel for his awesome LDD bridge model which I followed down to the brick. Until I realized how many things couldn't be done with real Lego that is. I had to make several modifications in order to allow the windows and the elevator section to connect to the main bridge. I also had to lower the floor by the elevator doors in order for them to fit correctly. All in all, I made at least 35 Bricklink orders over a span of the last five months, and it took at least 15 hours to build the sections and connect them in a way that would insure that they were all on the same level. I know that if Lair ever sees this post, he'll give me a bunch of crap about not having Chief's chair in the model, but in my own defense, I didn't feel like painting a chair in a color that wouldn't quite match Dark Turquoise. I'm also considering adding a Brickstuff lighting kit for added effects. Anyway, the gallery with more photos is here. Oh, and I apologize to anybody who wanted a decent quantity of Dark Turquoise 2x2 tiles off of Bricklink...because they're almost all gone.

I think that the Rock Raiders community as a whole is definitely behind the idea, Mr. Stewart. It's just that there are quite a few conflicting ideas about how the game should be. There are a lot of subjective attributes, but also a lot of objective ones. It does seem that the fan base is not able to "make the game themselves". As a general rule, the members who have time don't have the talent, and the members who have talent don't have the time. You could count the number of people who have both talent and time on one hand, I'd say. Because of this, it would seem to me that the only way to get this project off the ground is to have a dedicated studio/game developer (someone like you, Mr. Stewart) with drive, dedication, and talent, do it themselves. Frequent progress updates would galvanize the community to give ideas and concepts of their own accord - but only if they can count on the game getting done. I totally agree with Polaris' point: "...just narrow the focus a wee bit and take McJobless' suggestion of not making this game for popularity." Oh. I guess it's McJobless' point too. The game appeals to a very, very niche group who, if the game lives up to the original, will love it to death. It just may not make a lot of money. Which again brings it back to you, Mr. Stewart. We can't, in all fairness, ask you (for our own sakes) to take on a project that will: 1. Take a good deal of time and serious commitment. 2. In all likelihood have a small financial return. Game making is your job. Everyone has the right to take on jobs that provide them with financial security and reasonable chances of popular success. You can't exactly say that about a Rock Raiders 2. Nobody wants to see you ruin your job just to try and make us a game. It's all, totally and absolutely, up to you. Thanks for all you've done.