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if this is aimed at kids under 18...
jessian
Member Posts: 277
How can the devs, publishers actually enforce a paid subscription when legally kids can not be held binding by law?
I dont understand how a company can aim it for this age group and expect kids to use credit cards 
)
Yes i was looking at this for myself as well as the wee ones... :P
Comments
I pay for a sub for my son...Its not really that hard to go, "Hey Dad, will you buy me this game? I really like it!"
just as with kids that play any sub based MMO they have parents. Also there are generally time cards or other methods to pay instead of a credit card
Other "family oriented" MMO's offer subs, and they seem to be doing rather well. Just look at how well Wizard 101 is doing. Their pricing model is a bit different, but they do offer a sub service as well.
Yeah, it'll probably be a case of "Mom/Dad, can I please have this game?". However, I'll be interested to see how this survives as a "kids' MMO". The 1-month sub is $9.99, which is lower than most MMOs, but in a subscription market dominated by the likes of Runescape and Club Penguin, 9.99 has just smashed the upper barrier for a monthly sub. So, while by WoW-style MMO standards, the sub is very reasonable, it's an all-time high in the "kids' MMO" market.
To be honest, the game probably won't be able to sustain itself off kids alone. And if it does, I'll be sorely disappointed; you'll have massive problems with time spent in-game for kids, and the sheer number of kids that'll have to subscribe to float the game will increase obesity... not good. I get the feeling LEGO Universe'll have the humorous focus of the LEGO console games, but with a much deeper building system. So, it has to be accessible to children and avoid putting them at a disadvantage to older, possibly more hardcore players, while still being deep enough to allow the hardcore to build masses of awesome, interactive things. I'm thinking LittleBigPlanet (child-friendly, but with lots of potential to be complex), or Forza 3 (casual players can use driver assists and tune a little bit, hardcore players can turn all of them off and use 60-odd tuning sliders).
Basically, what I'm saying is that, if it wants to survive, LEGO Universe has to appeal to a variety of age groups, and thus the depth and difficulty has to scale accordingly.
"Smacking kids doesn't hurt them, kinetic energy does!"- Doctor Tobia
Runescape would be a prime example.
Time card is the best way to go for the kids in your house.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
Runescape seems to have done quite well for a paid subscription game, and majority of the population is under 18. They all do the "Dad I really like this game...etc." and the Dad goes " I don't want to see your grades drop but it's fine for now etc. etc. zzzz".
Not exactly true. Kings Isle charges 9.99 for the sub to their game, but again they have several different payment options. They also offer a family sub, I believe. Lego may want to look at how Kings Isle set up their payment options. It may help them get more subs. The lego name alone will draw in a fair amount of subs, kids and adults alike. Since I was a fan of legos, and think their recent games (Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and Batman) are great fun, I may look into the title.
9.99 for the kind and 1 more for the parent that probaly would like to control theeir kids so they may get a U$ 19,98 from credit card.
And lego is a old toy already, you may get a lot´s of adults having a lot of nostalgia, and since you can build your oun house LITERALY(brick by brick), you may get some "HC sandbox" gamers =p
.. and dont forget the pedobears... =x
now: GW2 (11 80s).
Dark Souls 2.
future: Mount&Blade 2 BannerLord.
"Bro, do your even fractal?"
Recommends: Guild Wars 2, Dark Souls, Mount&Blade: Warband, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.
Don't quite follow this - what's to enforce? Pay or you can't log in to the game. Stop the monthly payments, and your login stops working. I'm not sure how a binding contract is required in this instance.
Obviously a minor is probably going to need to arrange the use of an adult's credit card/similar, but there's nothing wrong with an adult being aware of what the kid is doing online.
"And lego is a old toy already, you may get a lot´s of adults having a lot of nostalgia, and since you can build your oun house LITERALY(brick by brick), you may get some "HC sandbox" gamers =p"
Yeah, big time. I definitely fell into that category. But having played the some, it just doesn't really appeal to me. The imagination component seems to be there, but not in a way that meaningfully changes gameplay.
A Modest Proposal for MMORPGs:
That the means of progression would not be mutually exclusive from the means of enjoyment.
Wait, WHAT? This game is designed for >18 year olds? But what about that combat video where things were dismembered and heads were ripped off of bodies? Sure, there was no blood, but come on. That's freakin' messed up. That'll give kids nightmares and make 'em wonder what'll happen in real life if someone's head/arms/legs come off. This should definitely be rated 18+. And with the creative potential of thousands of people, you know someone will create something dirty one way or another. See Spore. Definitely 18+.
Nah, just kidding (the creativity bit is true, though). Ask yourself: how does RuneScape get any subscribers? Eh? Eh?
P-A-R-E-N-T-S. Lego is relatively harmless, so I'd imagine plenty of parents would gladly pay for their kids. Especially with new Lego games coming out, like Hairy Pooter.
Since when is it strange to pay a subscription for your kid? Its the same for sports, magazines or whatever activity that requires a subscription.
http://pc-mmo.nowgamer.com/previews/pc-mmo/1085/lego-universe?o=1
...Incidentally, this brings us onto a small footnote. Anyone thinking they will play this with the express intention of constructing the virtual world’s largest male member can think again. We asked the development team about the propensity of young males to do this and they informed us of algorithms programmed into the game itself to alert moderators when anything penis-shaped is created. No, we’re not making this up. Said moderator can then either warn or ban the user in question...
Seriously, this made my day when I read it. What was the term used with Spore? TTC? Time-To-Cock?
A Modest Proposal for MMORPGs:
That the means of progression would not be mutually exclusive from the means of enjoyment.
Im going to sub just to build a big Sigmund Freud lovingly smoking and caressing a cigar.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
the game is clearly aimed at anyone who loves the lego blocks and creating things with them. theres lego conventions that people bring scale and life size lego models too, alot of us like legos but dont have the space for such endeavors, lego universe certainly fills that gap, you get a private area in which you can build with set parts or any blocks you found or bought, all of which can be custom colored down to the tiney details.
the game play is also arcade style fun with rpg elements of joinging a faction that has 2 class options both of which you can pursue, that play at least a bit differently from each other, samurai dps knight heavy tank, engineer heavy ranged dps armor healer summoner meelee/ranged pet dps armor healer, sorcerer and space marauder aoe dpsers that can turn health into imagination for team and the pirate and daredevil dps classes that are just kind of odd, im not sure how to describe them jsut yet. and you get 4 character slots so you can literally make one of every faction with 2 sets of gear each, classes based on gear worn to gain their special abilities and bonuses.