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!
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.
This Sack it to me feature is great and shows how committed you guys are for the LittleBigPlanet community.
I hope that I’m not too late and that you can still answer the questions Mark.
1. LBP is close (or is over) the 1 million sold copies, however: Have you noticed that the dev team was a little disappointed with that? Since a lot of people said it would sell over 3 million, Honestly I expected around 1.5 million, but I’m sure that you will reach the 3 million eventually.
2. How’s it going with MM other game: Rag doll ? anything you can share with us?
3. Can you maybe give a hint if ” ice ” is coming to LBP? it was shown on trailers so.. I guess it will come eventually right?
Thanks, Game on guys!
Thank you so much for answering my previous questions and going into detail regarding the online play of LBP. Knowing it is P2P helps a lot!
However it also brings up another issue.
When I play with my friend just 2 of us it works fine. When our significant others pick up the 2nd controller and join us it lags so bad it’s unplayable. I am hoping optimized netcode will fix this issue.
I still want to know more regarding the counting of Play, Create, Share.
Is it still counting Play even though it doesn’t display? Is counting done server side only?
I have not run into the full profile issue yet but the solution is to delete things?
Do we still have access to them another way or by deleting is it for good?
One last thing with the plush Sackboys, I am glad to see you take the quality seriously.
It would be great to see before Christmas but I understand the process. Keep up the high quality and forget those Sackboys on play-asia those are garbage!
Anyway thanks for these posts I hope our feedback is as helpful as your posts and answers to us.
@41
LOL
I have to admit I would totally pay those sums for LBP physical real world items.
I would buy a giant Sackboy for upwards of $200
I LOVE real world video game perephenalia!
For those of you trying to search within LBP community levels, it’s often easier to search by the author/creator instead of the level name.
Is there any chance that the search engine will expand to allow you to search by star rating?
@efong – if you seriously haven’t heard complaints regarding search then visit the LittleBigWorkshop forums. Sam Protagonist has even commented on it.
Regarding Sackbook: What privacy issues? Nothing is available that isn’t available in-game. And it seems that, based on the EULA, if Sony approves it then it should be fine.
And with lag, I only have a 1mb down, 128kb up connection, so I know it is slow. Still I can host four players in Warhawk without problem and GT5P is no worse for me than guys with 13mb connections. So, I know it can work and I am patiently waiting for that day.
Now, a good question. Are there plans for You Tube video recording? I am wanting to use You Tube to promote my level but making a video of my TV or connecting the PS3 to my TV tuner card on my Vaio is a hassle.
I’m still loving the game guys and look forward to what you have in the future.
Why is the bug that causes 3rd party controllers to stop working in LBP not fixed? And when are you finally going to fix it? :(
I have two suggestsion for LBP’s future.
One is the SEARCH feature. When I search for a PSN name, I wind up getting a bunch of names other than the one I was looking for. I finally find the one I am looking for on “planet” 3. I can understand not searching for exact matches with some searches, but if I am searching for “The Ruined City”, I don’t expect to find 12 levels that have the word “City” in it, 15 with Ruined in it, 7 with PSN names that have “city” or “ruined” in them, etc…
The other is something that would make creating objects in the level editor easier. Having a knife tool would be great. Imagine creating a “block” of stone, then using the knife, cutting the block into separate pieces so that when finished, you still have a block, but there are 15 pieces that fit together like a puzzle. The tutorial that shows how to change a material showed a block of stone with a sackboy inside. I can’t imagine creating that block with the existing tools. Having a knife tool would make cutting up those pieces really easy.
Thanks for listening. :)
i want to personally thanks you for answer some of us gamer question.. LBP has become a great and rememorable game… all my friends and family love it… think about it, i have 5 ps3 at home, and everyone in the family has a copy of the game…lol thanks for the hard work on the game, and keep LBP coming.. also i can’t wait for the capcom pack this week.. have a great weekend you guys/girls
I hardly have issues with lag…
MAKE A HOME SPACE!!!!
Hi! I don’t know if this has been addressed, but a number of people from PS3 forums have questions about the “cool levels” feature.
Personally, I would like to know the criteria for appearing in the “cool levels” section. I am not saying that my levels are great or anything, but I know that they are better than the “7 free trophies” and “U heart me, I heart u” levels that are CONSTANTLY on page 1.
Out of all of the thousands of user levels that have been made, it seems like the SAME ones are always on the “cool levels” tab. Perhaps it would be better to add new categories to the search option. It would be nice to see what was recently published as well as most popular this week and month, friends levels, and levels by location.
Mainly, I’d just like to NOT see the same old levels EVERY time I go into the game, and MAYBE even see one of mine at some point.
Hello, thanks for the post Mark. I was just wondering if there are any plans to creat a gamespace for Home at this time?
Disregard my last quetion #111 as I see the answer at Question #1 ;)
@ 100: i think it’s just some artowrk you know, i don’t think they are going to change something on the gameplay side..
Hi MM.
I’m very surprised that the following problem hasn’t been addressed yet as 2 people on my friend list have complained about it too.
Basically if your level gets too big (90% or something) things start breaking at random.
I spent ages on my Aztec Treasure level but I had to change the ending because what I originally had planned caused other parts in my level to break or unglue. Swings at the beginning would suddenly be falling to the ground because the string would detach itself or pieces would fall to the ground because the become unglued completely at random. Everything would be 100% everytime I tested it all the way through but when I got near the end and th level was over 90% of the thermometer the whole level would start failing.
Really annoying.
Hey hey just noticed it was opened anew sack it to me,so ill re-post here:
i have gotten alot of questions about why lbp lags from friends of mine, and i usually experience it the days before DLC lunch, is there any connection here, is there prepping of server for DLC, and is there any special router port that should be open, and what port is LBP running on?
also i want a rubber chicken in LBP like the wooden sword and the frying pan and the little sackboy, everybody would love to smack people around with a rubber chicken at-least i would hehe.
love the blog . keep up the good work
Cheers
FAILED TO LOAD!
WILL ALSO HAPPEN IF YOU TURN OFF THE GAME WHILE GAME FILE IS SAVING ON HDD!
SONY AND/OR MM: PLEASE RELEASE MORE DEVELOPMENT TOOLS IN THE FORM OF A PATCH!
I have a suggestion and a question.
Please don’t neglect the girl gamers when you put out merchandise. I would like a girls shirt. If you go into Wal-mart for example, you can get Guitar Hero shirts and PJ’s but only for men. What’s up with that. i can get a guys shirt that I can wear but it looks like a guys shirt. And if you do make womans shirts please don’t stop at Large. I have curves:)
My question is: Why put out a God of War bonus of stickers and stuff (GameStop reserve gift) if you are going to moderate levels based on other games? Wouldn’t that encourage people to make them? Or is it because it’s a first party game that it’s OK? I could’ve swore that the GOW level I played was moderated.
@103 – HAHA! I guess there’s a collector in us all.
I don’t know if you guys have quit reading these comments already, but are we going to see gameplay fixes for the core mechanics?
I know the Media Molecule head mentioned his own frustration with the z-axis maneuvering, but about the broken jump mechanics?
My own suggestion: rather than x for short jump and X for long jump, just have a double jump. Every modern platformer includes either double jumping (Jak, Okami, Psychonauts, etc.) or modified mid-movement jumping (like Ratchet’s helicopter pack, the water pump in Mario Sunshine, etc.) because it’s more intuitive to modify your movements as you’re doing them as opposed to committing to a motion before you completely pass an obstacle (in fact, the obstacle’s end may not even come into view until you’re halfway over it).
You know that second to last level in the game? The one with the big wheel? That one really highlights just how broken the jumping is.
Please answer this question…
Will we ever see IN-GAME XMB MUSIC ACCESS as an OPTION?? Please…
I love the current music but after my 25 time playing a level I want to be able to LISTEN to my OWN music as I play or create a level…
Sincerely,
LN_MEXWARRIOR and LN Clan
How are these levels being reviewed? I mean do you go into create or play mode to review them? I’m just curious because it seems to take forever to get a moderation cleared. I think that’s my primary issue right now with the system. How long it takes and that we get no information regarding how long a level will be down. I mean poor caliblue15 has been complaining about his level for ages. My husband’s come across him on other boards trying to get this fixed.
Level Name: Truck Mountain v0.7
PSN ID: caliblue15
Copyright Infringement?: No
Other IP’s used: No.
I know you guys are working on it but any estimated time for this to get resolved or information regarding the review process would be awesome.
Are there any plans for 1080i support?
I’m not sure how to contact you any other way, so, if it’s okay, I’ll reply to your question here.
Original post:
nosecoaster | December 7th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Speaking of the Day 1 shirt, I preordered my copy of LBP from gamestop and have yet to receive the code for the GoW costumes…the employees at my local Gamestop told me to call Sony, which was a spectacular failure. Are the codes for those costumes still being made?
efong replied on December 8, 2008 at 12:27 pm
I had heard there were issues with codes being redeemed before the content was available… have not heard of a problem with codes being issued (I thought the keys were on GameStop cards available when you picked up your copy of the game?)
I’ll check with our Marketing and PR.
Thanks,
-E
-> My good friend had preordered LBP for my birthday, and he picked it up the weekend after release for me; he was told that they didn’t have any codes at the time and to check in later for updates. This gamestop was at the local mall, which is far away from both of our houses, so neither of us were able to stop by and see if they had any codes available. I called in, and they said to contact Sony or Media Molecule to get one. I called Sony, and they told me that they weren’t handling it, so my last option is to bug you guys directly. Sorry for the bother, but, hey, the reason I had my friend preorder it at gamestop instead of somewhere more convenient was for the extra content, and being a huge GoW/ancient Greek mythology buff, it was one of the things about the game I was most looking forward to. I have the preorder and purchase receipts in case you need proof that I preordered it; can you help me?
~Nosecoaster (“TJ Bottlepockets” master account, which I’m usually logged into because that profile has all of my trophies)
P.S. I could go on for pages about LBP; I played it at a party and it had even non-gamers saying “I really want this game”. Regardless of whether or not you can help me score that GoW pack, I love LittleBigPlanet and thanks so much for making this game such a blast! :D
P.P.S. I’m really sorry for the triple post; I wanted to include as much information as possible in order to make things easier for you, but kept hitting the character limit. You might want to mention that said limit seems to include spaces as characters.
Mark, can you make LBP have the same Home texting feature? In Home when using the keypad, a text panel appears automatically. We need this in LBP too, pressing popit then square is an extra step that is not needed.
is there coming a Flash light for Sackboy??
it would be nice to have a flashlight on some community levels that are too dark, i wouldn’t think it will be to hard to make so ill keep my fingers crossed ;)
cheers again thanks for all the answers :D
It’s fascinating how many people ask the same question repeatedly after not reading what others have posted already…
Anyway, thanks for all the updates, MM! I hope all these issues get worked out, I’d love to see the game succeed even more!
I love all the costumes coming out but I’m a bit miffed at some of the regional specific ones. I’ve always been a fan of Toro and Piposaru…why can’t we get these included in the NA store. Costumes are optional so I don’t see why it would be a concern of sales at the end of the day. I think most people will recognize Piposaru from Ape Escape, and Toro is just cute…
…oh, and have the team get started on a Parappa and UmJammer Lammy costume pack P-R-O-N-T-O!! Heck, I’ll help if you need a shove in the right direction.
Oh…and a SweetTooth costume would be nifty too. Sorry for the DP!
is there coming a cupid costume for valentines?
cheers
I did use LBC1 – then the name of my lvl you can search it by LBC1. I also sent about 6 e-mails with name of lvl and psn ID . plus my lvl been played on the sever for about a month now.. it’s not that big of a deal i’m use to being left out.i’ll just try harder next time .
Will their soon be a patch to let you create levels with other players?
@Aezuriel | December 9th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
@Mark Valledor replied on December 10, 2008 at 2:14 am
Being unable to finish a level because placing an object in one part causes objects in another part to shift is NOT a minor bug.
That is a huge bug and has made it impossible for me to create levels without keeping the game in pause mode all the time (which makes it very hard to see how a lot of things will work, like the rotation bolts with angle settings that are -90 degrees off).
I played LBP for one week. I had TONS of faith in you guys. I’m tired of your PR rubbish. It’s not acceptable to release software with such severe issues just because you can now patch it later. Additionally, the lack of a bug reporting feature on MM’s website is discourteous to their customer.
Littlebigplanet in its current state is a fantastic beta and a shameful waste of my $65. It’s nice you wanted to create an ambitious game, but a lot of people are forgetting one important thing: you are responsible for providing a product that does what it claims.
I’m not too sure if this is normal, or if im just missing something, but i can’t seem to get the ‘Play Trophy’. I aced and completed all story mode levels, i also aced every mini game / challenge except for the ones where you have to die to complete it. I also have all the minigames/challenges unlocked so i don’t think im missing any. Answers please?
Tell sony to advertise this game!!!!
Thanks so much for answering all the questions. It’s great to see such good interaction with the fans! Any word yet on when the LBP will support 1080i? I’m one of the thousands of PS3 owners who has to play it downscaled to 480p because my tv only supports 1080i HD resolution. This is a HUGE issue, and I know I’m not the only one waiting for this update.
I dont really have much to say but WOW!! I pre-orderded this game and recieved the copy with the “explicit lyrics”. I have played the game online before and it worked great, but that was only for the first couple of days it was out. Since then i have NEVER been able to play online, and to be honest its driving me crazy. I have spoke with sony numerous times and they are no help whatsoever, so im hoping someone can give me an idea on what to do because im bout to loose it. I have deleted all data and reinstalled it twice, have tried it at two different locations with two different types of internet connections, and still i get FAILED TO CREATE GAME a million times, somebody, anybody please help!!
Hate to say it but, one of the main reasons that I got LBP on the first day was because of the promise of exclusive limited time SackSwag. (Week One Shirt) Then the week came and went and nothing. Following week still nothing. And so on and so forth. Now here we are weeks later and you guys mention that it’s still in the plans to release here in the States. How is that gonna be special to us that have been with LBP since day one? Not only that but you guys also wanna charge a SackBoy Arm and a SackBoy Leg?!? That’s not cool. At least give us LBP players that have been supporting the cause from day one the option to get it free. As for the rest, they can pay for it if they want it.
Would there ever become a possibilty to “ROTATE” objects? Perhaps only while in the Create Moon? Specifically in the application of stickers to Sackboys…
It bugs me to have my front-facing Sackboy’s costume so perfect and then as soon as I start running…
‘~’=
I have an issue with using the quick play (or whatever it’s called) option. A lot of times I want to join a game online and instead of finding players it places me, by myself, in a story mode mini game level. So I have to keep exiting to the pod and retrying until I get matched. If I wanted to play alone I wouldn’t be trying to get matched- what gives!
@135 I had this problem too. There is actually one mini-game level in the mechanics world where you don’t die at the end, and you have to ace it. I think it’s the elevator one.
Mark, What is Sony doing about advertising LBP more. Game sales have suffered due to lack of advertising on this game and many others. Is that a priority?
Are there any discussions on whether or not you guys will be circulating created levels so people’s levels can actually be played without someone having to wait to get to page 50. I mean i know your friends can go to them right away but what about everyone else? I think the levels should be circulated so everyones level has a chance to be on page one sooner or later… And kick ass game.
Another request for Piposaru and Taru.
Hey Fellow Sack persons.
is there any plans for making round 3d objects (Sphere) not just round 2D so we could make round pillars, and we would love painting options not just stickers, mouse and keyboard support for create mode would be nice, personally it would be nice to use my digitizer, since i have an Wacom intuos3. would be so much less time consuming, :D
cheers
:D
I have a question. This may be a silly question that has been answered , but i can’t find info. on it anywhere. I have also asked all my LBP friends. I’m hoping there is going to be a patch fixing the fact that I can’t go into an empty level and create with my friends. Can someone please tell me if this will be in the near future? I feel like it’s a big part of the game that’s missing. Thank you
@147
to LadyGamebreaker.
the only way to create together at the moment is to let the other person copy your level and build further on it and let you copy it back so you can build again,
they are working on fixing it so we can build together, so i guess we can expect it in the not so distant future. but i guess they have to fix the sever problems first since its going to be lot of people getting LBP and PS3 for x-mas and if they dont fix it by then it will be a real hassle to play online on x-mas day since the sever most likely will go down because of the increased traffic :)
i guess the saying goes:
Rome Was Not Built In One Day ( all great works take time to finish … )
so we just have to be patient or else we will just complain about why it doesn’t work as it should :) better to have a working product, then one that almost works.
Cheers
:D
“One of my favorite things about your game is the ability to log-in as two different users from the same console while playing local multiplayer. It’s absolutely fantastic for when I play with my girlfriend and I really wish more games did so. Please don’t change this.”
I completely agree with this statement made by Aeneman | December 9th, 2008 at 7:55 pm #32
I believe this should be a system wide feature!!!!! I think it is a must for any gaming household!!!!1 Pls Sony see this and grant me my wishes…..
I second the request for music during create mode.