LEGO® CUUSOO 空想 - Turn your model wishes into reality

[Haltiamieli]

Very interesting and reassuring message, and it's great they took the time to answer to our concerns. It doesn't exactly change my opinion of the feasibility of a Minecraft set or the probability of them actually releasing one, but that's beside the point.

[Hinckley]

For some reason, the Minecraft news motivated me to get my stuff up there. I just posted 8 projects. Great opportunity for shameless self promotion, right?

[Miss Kyle]

Great news! I can't wait to see what will happen next. Very, very interesting stuff! :)

[Jaymercury]

Weirdly i'm not so much against the sets but simply minecraft itself. It's really frustrating that a game which, let's just say divides the gaming community strongly, can make it's way in to official lego sets by popularity alone. It doesn't deserve it. I don't truely believe that but I can't describe it any better.

Take this for the ignorant biased opinion that it is.

[Hinckley]

Am I correct in understand that it achieved 10,000 supporters in just one week? That could definitely be skewed if it's just people supporting it because it's Minecraft and not because they would actually purchase it. I wonder if the CUUSOO beta version has a way to ensure that all supporters are coming from different IP addresses or if it's not being generated by a program or web-bot.

[Hollander]

I dont' see what's the point of lego minecraft; it would take loads of bricks while the playability is even less compared to the game - one can't dig tunnels for example.

[Yatkuu]

Future will tell us where this is going but it's great that Lego took the opportunity to speak up and set things right (in particular their concerns regarding plagiarism).

IMO CUUSOO is a huge opportunitiy for all Lego fans so I'm supporting the concept and I'm also forgiving any mistakes they may make as I can appreciate it's a learning process for everyone.

Edited December 15, 2011 by Yatkuu

[Delta 38]

But how would Minecraft be a good LEGO product? Isn’t it redundant, and aren’t the blocky play set images out there just low-fi Basic sets, and wouldn’t using cubes be really unstable?

I've been wondering this myself.

I wouldn't exactly say it's redundant, because there's potential for some nice things (e.g. figures), but I don't see it doing great as sets considering the way blocks connect in the game (they don't overlap, they go on top of each other).

I looked through some nice stuff the other day, and the 10000 supporter target seems a little extreme when most good models are only in the thousands.

Yes, I like Minecraft and sets would be great, but I can't help but think what better things could have taken its place. The way I'm seeing things now, people voted for Minecraft because they're supporters of the game itself, and custom creations don't have that kind of support.

[Flipz]

Am I correct in understand that it achieved 10,000 supporters in just one week? That could definitely be skewed if it's just people supporting it because it's Minecraft and not because they would actually purchase it. I wonder if the CUUSOO beta version has a way to ensure that all supporters are coming from different IP addresses or if it's not being generated by a program or web-bot.

That's a very good point, although the requirement of signing up to vote probably would defeat a fair number of the most basic bots. (I do think they need a reCaptcha or something similar as part of sign-up, tho.)

I doubt the Minecraft project got to 10,000 based on bots, tho, and even if there were a few they were likely drowned out by the horde of legitimate votes. Minecraft is inherently viral, and anything Notch says is considered by many fans as the word of god, even when it comes to stuff outside of the game itself. (Oh how I would hate to play Mafia as scum against Notch...can all the sheep please say 'baaaaa'?)

[Lord Admiral]

Yeah, there's really not that much cross-compatibility between the two if you look at it superficially. Lego is a building block toy, Minecraft is a (virtual) building block toy... They run in parallel if anything. Minecraft's advantage is that since it's virtual, resources are nearly unlimited. As well, one resource can be transformed into another in the Minecraft world. Lego's advantage is the sheer diversity of the building blocks (bricks, tiles, etc.), both in shape, size, and color. There is or has been a Lego brick for almost every Minecraft item.

A collaboration would appear, at first blush, difficult, if not impossible. But that's only looking at it from a narrow point of view. It's looking at the Minecraft CUUSOO project as a single set. A Minecraft and Lego joint wouldn't, and couldn't comprise of just a one-off or even a few play sets. It would be a theme unto itself, that would feature both normal bricks (2x2) and plates, as well as special Minecraft colors and paints. And any set would need to have special Minecraft minifigs.

Heck, just having a creeper minifig in a polybag would sell tons by itself, so maybe it could be a one-off if it was a creeper minifig. There'd be a lot of disappointed fans all around if one creeper polybag was all the CUUSOO project resulted in though. But, along the same lines, the mobs are a great place to start. While the cow and pig would be nothing special, as would be the (cave) spider, skeleton, and even zombie, there's room for sheep that can be sheered for wool blocks, endermen, zombie pigmen, jockey (which is just a skeleton sitting on a large spider), and the enderdragon. And these are things not the creeper.

Then, there are the special blocks that can be produced for the Minecraft theme. They may not be completely new bricks, but they'd be distinct colors or have distinct painted patterns from the normal sets. The furnace, dispenser, wooden planks, chest, wooden fences all come to mind immediately. And there'd be new items, and moreso existing items in new colors and plastic.

Granted, set ideas are a little harder. There are a limited number of things that can be done for a Minecraft set that couldn't be done already. But that's where the naturally-generated features would work. A set could be comprised of a dungeon and a monster spawner with two or three mobs. Or it could be a Nether castle. Or a piece of The End. Or a stronghold.

Then again, it wouldn't be inconceivable to just have a Minecraft-themed bucket of bricks, or Minecraft-themed brick packs. The packs could even translate the Minecraft-value to real value. So a pack of iron brick would be chrome, featuring a bunch of iron blocks and a set of iron tools. Gold bricks would be a (fake) gilded version and more expensive. A pack of diamond bricks would use transparent blue plastic and maybe have some special crystalline features in the plastic that differenciate it from the plain transparent light blue. They'd get progressively more expensive (or there'd be fewer bricks in each pack). Brick pack composition could include multi-colored wool bricks made of the softer plastic; dirt, sand, stone, wood, clay, cobblestone, wood planks, etc.; brick, stone brick, and nether brick; mossy cobblestone; water, ice, and lava (all transparent); etc. Packs could also be biome-themed, with a Nether pack, The End pack, Desert pack (with cacti), etc.

Because the two products exist in parallel, the crossover ideas are actually only limited by the limits of the two products. In effect, the toy (from a brand and a play perspective) is already sold. The real considerations are on the business end. The success and extent of the theme is more tied to of how far TLG wants to take the idea (how much they want to invest in new molds, paints, and plastics), and how much the market will bear. Obviously, there are a lot of Minecraft fans (enough for the project to reach 10k votes in 48 hours). It'd be interesting to see how many of these fans would put real money down for real bricks, and how much they'd be willing to spend for it.

[Yatkuu]

My own 2 cents regarding this minecraft thing (nothing to do with the concept of CUUSOO in general)...

I just don't get it.

I have never played the game but it looks like a pretty basic blocky building game to me (I'm sure there's more to it but as far as the building part goes I assume it's a fair description given what I have seen online)... IMO, applying this recipe to LEGO is basically like downgrading the creative potential of LEGO to a bunch of wooden cubes.

I think that the huge majority of supporters of this project have no clue of what you can actually do with LEGO. For all I know it could very well have happened with @ngry birds if the guys behind the game had chosen to go for it... It would only take them a tweet to reach 10000 supporters considering they have a fan base that is counted by the millions!

It's just another internet bubble thing and somehow LEGO got involved and now they are trying to make the best of it.

Edited December 15, 2011 by Yatkuu

[Lyichir]

Yeah, there's really not that much cross-compatibility between the two if you look at it superficially. Lego is a building block toy, Minecraft is a (virtual) building block toy... They run in parallel if anything. Minecraft's advantage is that since it's virtual, resources are nearly unlimited. As well, one resource can be transformed into another in the Minecraft world. Lego's advantage is the sheer diversity of the building blocks (bricks, tiles, etc.), both in shape, size, and color. There is or has been a Lego brick for almost every Minecraft item.

A collaboration would appear, at first blush, difficult, if not impossible. But that's only looking at it from a narrow point of view. It's looking at the Minecraft CUUSOO project as a single set. A Minecraft and Lego joint wouldn't, and couldn't comprise of just a one-off or even a few play sets. It would be a theme unto itself, that would feature both normal bricks (2x2) and plates, as well as special Minecraft colors and paints. And any set would need to have special Minecraft minifigs.

Heck, just having a creeper minifig in a polybag would sell tons by itself, so maybe it could be a one-off if it was a creeper minifig. There'd be a lot of disappointed fans all around if one creeper polybag was all the CUUSOO project resulted in though. But, along the same lines, the mobs are a great place to start. While the cow and pig would be nothing special, as would be the (cave) spider, skeleton, and even zombie, there's room for sheep that can be sheered for wool blocks, endermen, zombie pigmen, jockey (which is just a skeleton sitting on a large spider), and the enderdragon. And these are things not the creeper.

Then, there are the special blocks that can be produced for the Minecraft theme. They may not be completely new bricks, but they'd be distinct colors or have distinct painted patterns from the normal sets. The furnace, dispenser, wooden planks, chest, wooden fences all come to mind immediately. And there'd be new items, and moreso existing items in new colors and plastic.

Granted, set ideas are a little harder. There are a limited number of things that can be done for a Minecraft set that couldn't be done already. But that's where the naturally-generated features would work. A set could be comprised of a dungeon and a monster spawner with two or three mobs. Or it could be a Nether castle. Or a piece of The End. Or a stronghold.

Then again, it wouldn't be inconceivable to just have a Minecraft-themed bucket of bricks, or Minecraft-themed brick packs. The packs could even translate the Minecraft-value to real value. So a pack of iron brick would be chrome, featuring a bunch of iron blocks and a set of iron tools. Gold bricks would be a (fake) gilded version and more expensive. A pack of diamond bricks would use transparent blue plastic and maybe have some special crystalline features in the plastic that differenciate it from the plain transparent light blue. They'd get progressively more expensive (or there'd be fewer bricks in each pack). Brick pack composition could include multi-colored wool bricks made of the softer plastic; dirt, sand, stone, wood, clay, cobblestone, wood planks, etc.; brick, stone brick, and nether brick; mossy cobblestone; water, ice, and lava (all transparent); etc. Packs could also be biome-themed, with a Nether pack, The End pack, Desert pack (with cacti), etc.

Because the two products exist in parallel, the crossover ideas are actually only limited by the limits of the two products. In effect, the toy (from a brand and a play perspective) is already sold. The real considerations are on the business end. The success and extent of the theme is more tied to of how far TLG wants to take the idea (how much they want to invest in new molds, paints, and plastics), and how much the market will bear. Obviously, there are a lot of Minecraft fans (enough for the project to reach 10k votes in 48 hours). It'd be interesting to see how many of these fans would put real money down for real bricks, and how much they'd be willing to spend for it.

See, I see it the opposite way. I don't see a large theme as being very successful. What I do see as able to happen is a few sets depicting large-scale replicas of Minecraft blocks and figures. Some of the MOCs I've seen to this effect have been amazing. But a full theme? While there's a lot of latent interest in Minecraft, I don't think there's enough that many users will want to "collect them all". I think LEGO would do better to garner sales from them by releasing one or two display-quality sets in the $50 range.

[Holodoc]

Forget about Minecraft, head over and vote for the idea below:

[Piranha]

thanks for that great clairfaticon from TLG, before it was very murky and I thought it was going to end up as a site no one really paid attention to.

[marrie11]

Ideas that are supported by 10,000 votes have a chance of being selected to become part of the LEGO Group’s product portfolio and sold in LEGO Brand retail stores and the LEGO online shop. Consumers who have their ideas chosen will earn 1% of the total net sales of the product

CUUSOO, which means 'imagination' or sometimes ‘wish’ in Japanese, has been developed with CUUSOO SYSTEM, a subsidiary of Japan-based Elephant Design that has worked with open innovation and crowd sourcing for more than 10 years.

The LEGO Group has worked with CUUSOO since 2008 on a Japanese site that has attracted hundreds of ideas and seen thousands of votes cast by a 20,000-strong community. Now the time has come to test the concept internationally.

[L@go]

Ideas that are supported by 10,000 votes have a chance of being selected to become part of the LEGO Group’s product portfolio and sold in LEGO Brand retail stores and the LEGO online shop. Consumers who have their ideas chosen will earn 1% of the total net sales of the product

CUUSOO, which means 'imagination' or sometimes ‘wish’ in Japanese, has been developed with CUUSOO SYSTEM, a subsidiary of Japan-based Elephant Design that has worked with open innovation and crowd sourcing for more than 10 years.

The LEGO Group has worked with CUUSOO since 2008 on a Japanese site that has attracted hundreds of ideas and seen thousands of votes cast by a 20,000-strong community. Now the time has come to test the concept internationally.

Any particular reason for simply repeating something that's stated in the first post? Or are you just trying to bump your post count?

Strange behaviour.

[pjschard]

This is a very cool idea! I hope it catches on with other companies too!

[Mencot]

Yes it`s a good idea, I have to register there

[soccerkid6]

I joined several weeks ago, but haven't had time to do a model till just recently. I made a classic castle style outpost, will soon be adding another watchtower.

My link

[Taaron]

Hi guys!

I was wondering, did anyone else receive an e-mail from Lego, titled "About Your LEGO CUUSOO Account"?

Here's a copy&paste of the email if you're wondering what it's about:

"Hi taaron,

Thank you for signing up for an account on LEGO CUUSOO (http://LEGO.cuusoo.com

).

We recently discovered a technical glitch on our sign-up forms that allowed users under 13 to sign up for accounts on LEGO CUUSOO.

This should not have happened.

The LEGO Group complies with the Child Online Privacy and Protection Act (COPPA), and as a result, children under 13 are not allowed to have an account here.

Our forms unintentionally allowed you to sign up and tell us your age without

restricting your access and explaining the situation, and we're sorry.

We allow kids 13 and over to have an account, vote, and comment on projects.

When you turn 13, you are welcome back to vote and comment.

To comply with COPPA, we are deleting your LEGO CUUSOO account and all of your personal information contained here.

If you're looking for fun LEGO activities on the Internet, LEGO.com is specifically designed as a fun environment for kids of all ages.

Please ask your parents to help you create an account there, and have fun!

The LEGO CUUSOO Team"

Thing is, I'm 29. Went over to Lego Cuusoo and sure enough, I can't log in. Anyone else 13 and older have this issue? (I sent them a tweet about it, waiting for a message back.)

Edit: Cleaned up the formatting on the email. For some reason Gmail scrunched it up and broke up lines.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Taaron

[SilvaShado]

That sucks that you got locked out when you're not under 13. I know they were going to make that change, guess they went too far the other way.

But I'm able to log in just fine. So hopefully they'll get back to you soon.

As for the projects, I wasn't sure where to post to share projects that I like so I figure I'll post them here until someone tells me otherwise.

Haunted Mansion: http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/7776

Back to the Future: http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/96

Modular Western Town: http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/1787

Rise to the Wicked: http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/2685

The Winchester: http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/7451

Flooded Temple Ruins: http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/6616

There are others that I supported, but it's sometimes hard to navigate the site, especially when the links to view more won't open.

[Reagen]

Maybe you made a mistake on the dates when you signed up? Because I didn't get that e-mail from LEGO...

And, I LOVE the Western Town, SilvaShado...

Great work!

[Perry the Platypus]

There is a Phineas and Ferb one I like on there that is in need of supporting. 130 people have come and done it, so far. I think it is on he front page.

[SilvaShado]

And, I LOVE the Western Town, SilvaShado...

Great work!

Oh, it's not my project, just one that I am supporting. But I do agree, it is one of the best models on CUUSOO!

There is a Phineas and Ferb one I like on there that is in need of supporting. 130 people have come and done it, so far. I think it is on he front page.

I was going to support it, but someone said that it would be taken down soon since it's made by someone under 18... I guess I can still support it anyway. If gets taken down, at least it will have my vote for the future.

[CopMike]

Thing is, I'm 29. Went over to Lego Cuusoo and sure enough, I can't log in. Anyone else 13 and older have this issue? (I sent them a tweet about it, waiting for a message back.)

Hi Taaron!

I think you´ve entered your age incorrectly. That issue is adressed by TLG so read the below information and contact them!

Just to let you know that today some changes have been made to LEGO CUUSOO to correct a glitch that allowed under 13 users to register on the site. We have removed the accounts where users told us they were under 13.

If you receive emails from AFOLs (ie over 13s) who have had their accounts removed it is likely they entered their age incorrectly. Please forward these to lego-support@cuusoo.com and we will work on restoring their accounts. Have them send us their real date of birth.

If they are known AFOLs in the community and we can vouch for them, we will go ahead and restore. If not, we will have them verify their age and the CUUSOO team will get back on how to do that.

We've taken this step to make sure we comply with US legislation on child protection (COPPA), but today's changes and ones happening next week are our response to tidying up some of the abuse that has taken place on the site since its launch in October. We hope that it will drastically cut the number of MOCs being plagiarized on the site.

The full details are below (taken from the LEGO CUUSOO blog)

LEGO CUUSOO has seen quite a bit of early success since opening up to a public beta just three short months ago. Hundreds of new projects have been started, with many of them being very high quality, creative, and intriguing. Witnessing the enthusiasm for the Minecraft project from Mojang and the Minecraft community, we've learned what can happen when you throw the gates open wide and encourage people to freely post whatever they like on a site that's still very decidedly has "beta" level features.

We really appreciate all of the enthusiasm you have put into projects and comments. However, with the fun projects, comments, and collaborative efforts but we've also seen some undesirable behaviour. We believe very little of the undesirable behaviour came with truly malicious intent. To encourage the behaviour we want, we have to be sharper at setting standards, setting examples, and shaping the constraints of the site.

We are now rolling out a series of changes to LEGO CUUSOO, the Terms of Service, and the Guidelines as the first step of a longer-term effort to foster the vibrant and creative community we are looking to build here. The changes you will see are a part of a short-term effort to fill in some of the gaps we've uncovered on the site since it opened. The gaps have allowed for frequent plagiarism, negative comments and comment spam. We are also actively working on improvements to the website, design, user experience, and crowdsourcing model that will benefit you in the future, though these major changes will take a bit longer before they are ready.

Today: Removing Users Under 13 Years Old

Though the site rules and Terms of Service clearly state all users must be 13 and older, we discovered a technical glitch on the sign-up forms that did not prevent children under 13 from signing up. The form has been fixed and we are removing these users' accounts and deleting their personal data to comply with the US Child Online Privacy and Protection Act (COPPA).

We apologize for the error that allowed for this in the first place and the resulting disappointment that this will cause to the users affected. LEGO.com and the LEGO ID system has complied with COPPA for years, however LEGO CUUSOO is a site designed for adults and purposefully developed outside of the LEGO ID system.

If you are under 13, you are welcome to browse the LEGO CUUSOO site, but cannot create a personal account to vote, comment, or create projects. If you are looking for fun LEGO activities on the Internet, LEGO.com is specifically designed as a fun environment for kids of all ages. Please ask your parents to help you create an account there.

Next Week:

Raising the Project age to 18

From next week Thursday (January 12), you will need to be at least 18 years old to create a Project on LEGO CUUSOO. As we considered the various changes needed to the Terms of Service (TOS), we have determined that users must be at least 18 to enter into a legal agreement with the LEGO Group that allows us to produce their idea as a LEGO product should it reach the 10,000 supporter threshold.

If you are under 18, your projects will remain online and visible until Midnight, January 12 GMT. You have between now and then to save any images and text you’ve uploaded to LEGO CUUSOO. After that date, your projects will be unpublished, and you will not be able to re-publish them until you are 18 (according to the birthdate you have provided us). Once you turn 18, you’ll be able to re-publish your projects—and we hope you choose to do so!

If you are under 18, you're still welcome to have an account on LEGO CUUSOO and you may keep supporting others' projects and are welcome to comment on them.

Updating Guidelines and Adding House Rules

We will release the new Guidelines that provide clearer guidance for creating your Projects. Also, we’ll add the new House Rules that were originally posted to the CUUSOO blog to the website, so we can continue to encourage positive behavior on LEGO CUUSOO.

Improving Project Publishing and Reporting

When users publish new projects, they will be asked to check a series of boxes that confirm they have read and agree to certain provisions within the Guidelines. It is our hope that this quick additional step will cut down on the number of projects that violate the guidelines going forward. We're also improving the reporting mechanisms for projects; You will now be able to specify the type of inappropriate content when reporting Projects, so we can better handle issues as they arise.

Updating the TOS

We are improving the Terms of Service and basing them on an updated LEGO template. In conjunction with the new TOS, we have collaborated with the ReBrick team and are implementing their provisions and web form for submitting a formal take-down request, similar to what YouTube does for copyrighted videos.

Improving Moderation Capabilities

We have discovered opportunities to improve how we moderate on LEGO CUUSOO, to help our users receive a better experience, and improve our moderation response times. Most of these positive changes should be transparent to you, and you will start to see more consistent and timely moderation on LEGO CUUSOO as we add to our capacity.

In the Weeks and Months to Come

In the medium and long term, we are looking for ways we can encourage users' wishes for various LEGO ideas they see posted online to be made into LEGO products. We're also looking into better ways to facilitate collaboration between users so that good builders can team up with good promoters to shape and grow the fan base of individual ideas.

We're also actively working on a redesign of the LEGO CUUSOO site, based on what we have learned from the current user interface and the way people use the site. While we wish that we could take what we know now and implement it overnight for all of you, design and development takes time, so we're thankful for your patience.

Finally, we understand that some of these changes will make certain people happy and other people upset. It's our goal to learn, continuously improve, and make the decisions we believe are right to build a vibrant, creative community that yields many excellent user-created LEGO product ideas. Thank you for your continued interest in participating with us in this great experiment for product co-creation, and we're looking forward to your input and your ideas!