“SACK IT TO ME”…Weekly Answers to the LBP Community’s Questions (12/9)

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Another crazy week in the world of LBP filled with tons of new questions for us to answer. But before we get to the questions, we wanted to introduce “efong”, one of our US producers for LittleBigPlanet. You may have noticed him jumping in to answer a few of your questions in the comments section last week, and we’re glad he’s able to help you guys out. Now, onto the latest!

LBP-croc

Moderation
We haven’t forgotten about those of you who have been affected by level moderation either. Changes are coming very soon, and we believe the way we check levels for inappropriate content will soon start to be received more favorably. We know it’s a big deal, and we’re very much working on it.

Rankings
We hope you noticed but within the data for each user created level, there appears the “Star rankings” associated with fellow players ranking levels.

Failed to load level
Several of you have gotten this message when playing online. This is one of the things on our list, wanted to provide some insight on the message.

The “Failed to Load Level” message happens in two basic situations – firstly, if latency or server conditions result in a time out before the level completes loading, and secondly, if you’re trying to access a level that has been moderated. Assuming that you haven’t received a moderation notice, it might well be worth trying again as it could have been a temporary issue causing the inability to load.

Lag
Wanted to explain a bit about our servers to address the issue of Lag. Online multiplayer gameplay on LBP works on a P2P principle, so the connection is as stable as the weakest link in your party. And if someone is trying to play through WLAN or has a lower connection, lag occurs. This is not to be confused with lag you may experience when accessing the servers. The servers for LittleBigPlanet act only as a gateway or matchmaking service for multiplayer games; once you’re in a level, the server is no longer part of it — it’s purely down to your connection speed and that of the people you’re playing with. We’re aware that quite a few players experience excessive amounts of laggy play and Media Molecule is working on optimizing the multiplayer netcode further in order to minimize this, however when talking about the servers, they are now for the most part stable, which should considerably reduce those occasions where the online side of the game is not available at all. We’re still working to improve things further, but we’ve already come a long way since the game launched.

Full Profiles
Some have started seeing a Full Profiles message. Essentially, there are too many items stored in your Popit menu — especially in “Community Objects” category. To make your profile “less full”, go into your Popit and delete some of the unwanted objects (pictures, objects, etc). On our end, we’re aware that there is interest in seeing profile space increasing and we’re looking into it further.

Sackbook.com
An impressive community fansite popped up last week and we were all impressed, but we’ve been in discussions with the site owner and requested the site be suspended. Chris, the site owner, was happy to work with us on this. Our intent is to be able to offer everyone the choice of whether their shared data is visible or not in order to protect everyone’s privacy, and while Sackbook was doing nothing wrong in the way it presented information and had no access to any personal data, we believe this additional option is important.

Merchandise
Lots of inquiries on this one. And yes, there are major plans for Sackboy merchandise. Expect to see a handful of announcements in the New Year. Why is it taking so long you ask? Few reasons. It’s a new IP (intellectual property) and many companies are unwilling to take a risk manufacturing a whole new line on something new and untested, which is why you always see tons of merchandise around major ‘sequel’ releases. Also, once we get companies on board, the production lead times are insanely long. Another reason is quality — we absolutely love Sackboy and want to make sure that our merchandise is the highest quality. You should see some of the samples we’ve received (not so good). Don’t worry, you’ll start seeing things soon enough.

…That’s it for this week. Don’t forget to jump in the comments below and ask some more questions. We’ll try to get to all of them, and if we don’t , no need to get frustrated. We need questions to answer for next week’s installment.

Comments are closed.

147 Comments

19 Author Replies

  • will we ever see liquids as an update to LBP? it would be so cool to use liquids when creating levels in the physics playground that is LBP. Think of the possibilities!!!

  • where is the 1080i support??? I’m not going to pay $60 for a game that scales down to dirtvision (480p)

    and I’m not going to buy a new tv that support 720p when my tv is only 2 years old!

  • Have not been able to play my lvl for about a week now. I get the same msg over and over again Failed to Load which is really getting annoying. I never got a message saying my lvl was moderated. There should be no reason for someone to good grief it since there was nothing wrong with my lvl. The lvl is Sackland which was just a place to run, jump, swing, slide and collect bubbles. Just a place to have a little fun.

    Instead of just a message saying failed to Load is there a way to put a message saying this lvl is under review or some thing. I’m not sure if there is just some thing wrong with the servers just not picking up my lvl to play which I try over and over again to play it and I get the same msg or if someone griefed my lvl for no good reason.

  • @148
    thank you very much for the polite info. no complaints here, i was just wondering. i didn’t always have a ps3. so, i know how it feels to have games and such that only half work. i love this game. i start to wonder though, how long will i have all of LBP’s music stuck in my head? :0)

  • I’m gonna ask this again Mark or MM employ!
    THIS IS GREAT AND ALL BUT, right now the main reason on why the LBP community is dropping fast is not because of some of these prolems that you are doing a great job on fixing it’s because of a game breaking glitch! Most know of it as the wheel of death! Even though most of us just stay away from a wheel spining at max recently at the LBP Workshop two weeks ago this glitch happened to someone just because thier car spun in a circle reallly fast using a rocket and now we are all scared to have this happen to us!
    So two things we the LBP community want to know is that
    1. Is MM releasing a patch for this?!
    2. The only way to fix it right now is by deleteing our saved data if we do this will our DLC get deleted with our saved data as well?

    And if you don’t know what I’m talking about look here!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGBjUCMRArE
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7iV9ZQYRl0
    PLZ do something!

  • MM is there any way you can make a psn ID so we can friend send message instead of e-mail because i can’t tell if you received my e-mails for the LBC1challenge . I did it right but didn’t know if I got submitted. didn’t show on your list. if i send a friends message i know you got it next time.

  • that’s a bad problem but if you merged psn ID with playstation.com even starting over should only mean that you go too playstation store and download your stuff again it should be in your past downloads or download history. hope it’s not that bad too fix.

  • How about a confirmation box on the locking and unlocking of published levels? When you go down to play on my own and then press right on the d-pad twice to go and check the other menus, you will pass over the lock, unlock option of the level publishing and switch the status and it will republish your level without confirmation. I’ve done this countless times. Maybe I’m just a muppet.

    I’d really like to be able to start on a random page number of cool levels too. I’m sick to death of seeing page 1 and the levels there are mostly garbage but are kept on the front page because they are on the front page. Maybe you should just sell those guaranteed play spots to advertisers and be done with it.

  • Considering LBP has one of the most anticipated soundtracks in the history of gaming, nothing’s been mentioned about an OST release.
    Is this ever going to actually happen?
    Realistically MM/Sony has already missed the boat & the hype surrounding the music is fading.
    The OST should have been on the PS Store/iTunes release week.

  • When is the Killzone 2 Helghast Sackboy coming out. The one that was in the pre-release trailers.

  • @160

    to Helghastpwnage

    probably with the launch of killzone 2 game, like the chimera costume came with the resistance 2 launch.
    i think old snake will come with the relaunch of MGS4
    and sephiroth will probably come with the launch of the new final fantasy games.
    i might be wrong, but in any case they wont tell you when they will be coming.

    cheers.
    :)

  • i think we need a (do not disturb) function since i keep getting killed every time someone is inviting me and im trying to ace a level. i aced all now so its not so much a problem anymore, but there where countless time i wanted to destroy my controller because i died when nearly aceing because of invite,
    hehe :P

    well just an idea,
    cheers

  • A few questions about moderation issues (I hope you reply)

    1. Firstly what is the estimated time frame of moderating a level? (Its been coming upto a month since my level was moderated)

    2. I know there are some people who are intentionally reporting levels for fun, or to eliminate rivals in competitions. What, if anything will be done about these people?

    3. In the new moderation process, rather than the level being deleted, will Sony/MM allow the offending content to be removed by the user, so as not to lose all their hard work and then republish it?

    4. Wouldn’t the creation of content by users be covered by the ‘fair use’ law (not sure if law is the right word) Quickest source of this I could find is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

    5. Will we ever get a blog in the UK :-) Because SCEE really are a bunch of ******* who need some user FB to get them in gear

  • p2p crap make dedicated servers so ppl around the world can play with out connection limitations. cod4 lags when playing overseas cause of the stupid p2p matchmaking system. didnt sony learn anything from RFOM,R2, or warhawk dedicated servers equals no LAG. i really thought this game would use that system but i guess playing with my friend in germany will not happen unless i go on with the almost unbearable lag that doesnt allow u to jump across a hole with gas cause it lags/freezes. and every game i play online with random ppl there always europeans and i lag. fix this sony/mm i have faith in u all keep up the good work and get us some more costumes :D

  • @163

    To Dark_overlord
    i totally agree with the copy right laws, i think it will be covered under parody:
    Copyright issues

    Although a parody can be considered a derivative work under United States Copyright Law, it can be protected from claims by the copyright owner of the original work under the fair use doctrine, which is codified in 17 USC § 107. The Supreme Court of the United States stated that parody “is the use of some elements of a prior author’s composition to create a new one that, at least in part, comments on that author’s works.

    but since they have to work with a world server i dont know if US law will cover the whole world, so it needs a little more looking in to. but still a good point :)

    Cheers :D

  • And what about Sackbook? C’mon, it’s not this hard to verify how it access data on servers, just ask the author and let the site see the daylight again…

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