jamesster

Oops, slight correction - the comic was rebooted/expanded in 1997, not 1996.

I'll just cut to the chase, and some pictures: Time Cruisers, everybody's favorite theme ( ), started when a LEGO fan built a model of a time-traveling car. People working on LEGO Magazines for Europe liked the concept, came up with some characters, and in 1994 (two years before the theme), launched a magazine comic starring Doctor Cyber and Max Time Cruiser/Timebuster: Meanwhile, other areas of LEGO's marketing must have had some other ideas, because another character named "Max Timebuster" was showing up in catalogs and TV commercials in 1993-94. Except this Max Timebuster was an adult criminal, often leading the police on chases - even chases into other themes/time periods (though I don't have images of those pages on hand)... http://i.imgur.com/ZCWnbPz.jpg http://i.imgur.com/dogiDVe.jpg (Linking to these images due to their size) Video description from the people that made it: By 1996, the comic had been successfully running for two years, and LEGO launched sets based on the concept. Max was renamed to Tim, and the character designs were tweaked a bit - though the physical minifigures still didn't completely resemble their depictions in the comics (perhaps the strange face on Tim's minifigure was an attempt to mimic the cartoony comic style?). The magazines were also expanded into new countries, so the story was rebooted too (though honestly, it wasn't much of a story). The time machines were now the large flagship Time Cruisers set and a small "micro-zapper", rather than the original car MOC that kicked everything off. (Click for full resolution) While we don't have the original run of the comics (beyond the first two images in this post), we do have the reboot onward, to the comic's end in 2000. Yep, the comic not only served as the basis for the theme, but outlasted it by years. You can read English translations here (though the album begins with an odd Prinzenrolle promotional comic, the proper magazine comics come after that). That's the short version. There's way more information here, in the discussion where a bunch of people dug all this up (I hesitate to say I helped, I mostly just watched and contributed trivia ): http://www.rockraide...ruisers-comics/ I'd attempt to credit exactly who dug up what, but... As you can see, it's a lot of people, and a lot of stuff. Off the top of my head, Sadie, Pereki/Tazakk, TalonCard, Fushigisaur, Hallfiry, Dark_Turtle, and probably others that are slipping my mind at the moment all contributed stuff of some sort. And of course, the people who originally made the comics - Kim Hagen, Annemette Allerup, again, others I don't remember. Here's some of the most interesting info - some excerpts from a conversation with people who worked on it: So here's what I'm wondering... How long were the actual sets in development for? It's not uncommon for a theme to be in development for years - but really now, do the Time Cruisers sets look like they had two years spent on designing them?

I haven't tried this tool myself, but it appears it should work for at least some of TT's models: http://www.rockraide...&comment=105894 (There's download links in later posts in the topic, scroll down a bit and check the rest of the pages)

Regarding the "Ultimate" characters - do you think they might be larger figures of the characters, like this or this? Also, those who are shocked this isn't sounding like a normal castle theme - this is a "big bang" theme, like Ninjago, Chima, etc. With that in mind... Really, what were you expecting?

There aren't any physical minifigures of them, but I ripped the textures from the game, which could be used to make custom decals: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=555262

I took a look at it in a hex editor... ... The entire file is like that, not a trace of actual useful data in it. It's 100% fluff. Sorry.

Well... This happened: http://hamigakimomo.tumblr.com/post/116431985944/here-it-is-the-ninjago-manga-in-the-coro-coro

Yeah, though there are also template files for characters, vehicles, etc that have standard values for stats and abilities and such. So most characters/vehicles/creatures (they all use the same system, hence why a lot of unused creatures like the alligator are loaded as playable characters; the game doesn't know they're not supposed to be playable) reference a standard configuration file, and then add their own unique properties to it. And yeah, "hacked" is kind of a strange word to use instead of modding, had me worried for a second too. BTW, TT Games is considering official modding support when they get the game a bit more polished. Until then they don't recommend it as they're still changing how the game works, and mods are likely to break: http://steamcommunit...85406675832629/ I really hope they do end up going for official modding support, mods have played a crucial role in the sustained popularity of games like Minecraft - LEGO Worlds' biggest and most obvious competitor.

A video tutorial could be useful for people new to modding TT's LEGO games though. Also, unused items: http://www.rockraide...6-unused-items/ Oh, as for the "Super Pony" - the "super" characters are generic character/creature models that can have textures swapped out and accessories equipped to make more specific characters. All the minifigures build on top of the "super minifigure", for example. The "super pony" is a generic pony that can be reskinned into more variations of pony models.

The game runs on a sort of voxel-y system, where the smallest unit is a 1x1 plate/tile. It works a lot like minecraft does, dividing things into a grid of chunks on the x and z axes (or x and y, if you prefer). It allows for huge landscapes of bricks, but doesn't support arbitrary positions/rotations. Each chunk is 32 x 32 LEGO modules, I don't remember the height offhand but it's pretty big. The "props" (fancier models) you see dotted around the landscape (like flowers, windmills, etc) are their own 3D models, separate from the voxel system that individual bricks use. While the game tries to avoid placing props inside of voxel system bricks (and tries to prevent you from doing so), there's nothing technically disallowing it; props can more or less be positioned anywhere in the chunk (rotation is still limited to 90 degree angles on the vertical axis like the bricks though). For example, a friend of mine edited a chunk file so it had 1024 trees in it: https://twitter.com/...870159052128256 (Check through the rest of Will's tweets - he's been doing a lot of crazy stuff with the chunk format, like making a google maps world viewer. He's got a bunch of the game's developers following him and commenting on his experiments. )

Sorry to beat you to the punch, but here's some videos I uploaded of various unused things: More stuff here: And how to do it (and a lot of other stuff) yourself: http://www.rockraide...um/371-modding/ Also, a friend of mine has been toying with the saved world files (the game developers are having fun watching him):

The latter. At least I assume so as the second version of the LU story still didn't fit in with the Ninjago storyline.

LU's Ninjago stuff is a weird mess. First, for people not familiar with LU - the story of the game involved a planet called Crux that got blown up into a lot of smaller worlds. The largest of these chunks was called Crux Prime. Ninjago was first included in LU as a small area (the Ninjago Monastery Ruins) in Crux Prime. The story was explained through a shrine players could interact with in the ruins: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 (Notice that Jay's element is referred to as Air instead of Lightning) Part 4 Part 5 (This is where things really diverge from the official Ninjago story) Part 6 Part 7 In short, when the Ninja recovered the golden weapons, they returned to the Monastery of Spinjitzu, but the skulkin attacked, and destroyed the monastery. The ninja escaped with the weapons, and Sensei Wu used his powers to steer the last remaining piece of the monastery towards Nexus Tower, crash landing it on Crux Prime... Don't ask me how that worked. But the skulkin were also on Crux Prime, mining Maelstrom ore and using it to make weapons. Sensei Wu hung out in the ruins and taught players how to use "Imagination Spinjitzu" to fight them off. And then all that got retconned. A huge new world was added to the game - the Ninjago Monastery. This is the Monastery of Spinjitzu (well technically, the Monastery of Spinjitzu was a location within the "Ninjago Monastery" world - the world also included a large battlefield and a lot of caves, surrounding the Monastery of Spinjitzu, none of which existed in the official theme's story as far as I know). The Ninjago Monastery Ruins on Crux Prime were kept in the game, but the story surrounding them was retconned/replaced, and Sensei Wu was replaced with a new character, Neido (Sensei Wu himself was now found in the Ninjago Monastery world). (skip to 1:15 on that video if it doesn't automatically) was that when Samukai was destroyed by the golden weapons, Lord Garmadon was, uh... "banished once more". The Darkitect (the big bad in LU) told Garmadon of the powers of the Maelstrom, and Garmadon sent Nuckal to Crux Prime to mine Maelstrom ore. Sensei Wu sent a ninja named Neido to follow Nuckal. Neido discovered their mining operation, and built a small monastery nearby, which was then attacked by the skulkin miners, becoming the Ninjago Monastery Ruins. Neido then discovered Imagination Spinjitzu.When the Ninjago Monastery world was launched, a lot of players got confused at how the world was supposedly the land/planet of Ninjago itself, but official artwork depicted it as a chunk of Crux. Unfortunately I don't have a source to back this up as most forums and websites for LU are long gone, but the official answer from the developers was that the depiction in the artwork was a mistake, and that the Ninjago Monastery world was part of Ninjago, not Crux. LU players might notice several other mistakes in that artwork, too. As for the story of the new Ninjago Monastery world... If I remember right, the skulkin started attacking the Monastery of Spinjitzu with their new Maelstrom weapons and armor (made with the Maelstrom ore from Crux Prime). The golden weapons had been hidden in the caves behind the Monastery of Spinjitzu, but the skulkin had broken in somehow. Players were trained in Spinjitzu by the ninja, and fought off skulkin to recover the golden weapons. There were plans for more - there were going to be four dungeons themed after the Ninjago elements, one of them (the Fire Temple) was mere days away from being finished and released by the developers when the game was canceled. Players would have fought against Garmadon, who used some sort of Maelstrom spinjitzu. Content themed around Serpentine was in early development, but of course the game was killed off before it could get very far.

There's no story, at the moment it's just a pure sandbox - but it has a lot of individual elements from various themes. If you count things that are in the game data but currently unused/disabled by default (as the game is still in development), there's bits and pieces plucked from City, Creator, Ninjago, Pharaoh's Quest, Monster Fighters, 2013 Castle, Friends, Elves, Minifigures, Knights' Kingdom 1... Possibly some other things I'm forgetting at the moment. Oh yeah, there's references to a "Brickbeard's Ship" vehicle, but it no longer exists in the game data. Given that caves are on the list of upcoming features, I'll bet we'll be seeing some Power Miners stuff eventually, maybe Rock Raiders if we're lucky (they've got this set in the game as an unused turret/"vehicle", so who knows what other old stuff might turn up). If you're curious, I've got a video showing all of the characters, creatures, and vehicles (focusing on unused ones): And another showing a bunch of props that are usually disabled for use by players:

There's a company called Lani Pixels that does 3D stuff for LEGO and TT Games, here's some 3D concepts they did for the LEGO Fusion games: https://lanipixels.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/or_tv1_060.jpg https://lanipixels.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/or5_620.jpg https://lanipixels.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/lfb2_310.jpg https://lanipixels.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/or7_670.jpg There's also these two images in their gallery... Possible 3D concepts for LEGO Worlds? They're listed as "Animation" though... https://lanipixels.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/sb_0510.jpg https://lanipixels.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/sb_0610.jpg

Another comment on Hoth Bricks run through Google Translate:

Somebody who commented on the Hoth Bricks article says the following (http://www.hothbricks.com/2015/05/lego-worlds-le-prochain-jeu-video-lego/): Run through Google Translate: (I assume they're talking about the LEGO Inside Tour or something similar)

That's correct.

This one? http://brickset.com/sets/6776-1/Ogel-Control-Center

Cross posting from here:

Brickset user L-DI-EGO posted these links in a comment there: http://assets.lego.c...ons/6129874.pdf http://assets.lego.c...ons/6129875.pdf

(I'm not sure which forum this would belong in, please move if needed. I also thought I remembered some sort of ongoing topic on Brickshelf's status, but I couldn't find it, even with the search... Maybe I missed it, or am just misremembering?) Sometime today, Brickshelf went mostly offline, with only a simple "down for maintenance" message on the homepage. Everything else 404s. http://www.brickshelf.com/ Brickshelf going offline is of course nothing new - what's got me worried this time is that its sister site, Majhost, has been "down for maintenance" for at least six months now: http://www.majhost.com/ A friend of mine tried contacting the owner of the sites about the status of Majhost a while back, and never got a reply. Brickshelf and Majhost are quite antiquated by now, and there's definitely better image hosts available these days. But Brickshelf was the go-to site for LEGO image hosting for quite a while; they host tons of content going back... What, 15 years or so?... And losing all that would be quite a blow. I'm hoping that Brickshelf going "down for maintenance" means that whoever owns the sites is back to working on them, and that hopefully he'll finish whatever "maintenance" has kept Majhost offline for about half a year, and get both sites up and running again. But as far as I know it's been total silence. Does anybody here have more info, or know whoever runs these sites? Edit: Ooh, it changed! Galleries and files are now loading instead of giving 404 errors, though the homepage is still the same message. Majhost is still totally down though. I'm a bit relieved that it appears actual maintenance is being done, unlike on Majhost.

Haha, oh boy here we go. I don't have much to add or comment on - only this bit so far: Given that Standing Small is chock full of errors of all shapes and sizes (incorrect dates/names/other information, typos, and general silliness such as specifically stating that "the average pirate minifigure, without hair, a sword, or a tri-cornered hat, weighs just a tenth of an ounce!" ), I'm personally not inclined to take it very seriously - especially as that's the only place it's ever mentioned; in all Rock Raiders media Planet U is just located in some other galaxy, without any mention of alternate universe stuff. If Planet U were in some other universe, it'd go against the whole story of the theme (collecting crystals to power their spaceship's engines to fly home - you can't exactly just fly back if you've been warped into another universe... ) Still, even if it's of questionable reliability, Standing Small is an official product, so if you still want to include it I can see why.

Would anybody here happen to know what this is about? http://www.classic-castle.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4543 Apparently there's a "game" that also involves Tarenta, and there was an eBay listing for it about ten years ago, which is of course long gone. Is there more LEGO media that uses this lore, or did the people in that topic mistake one of these audio dramas for something else?

I dunno where exactly to put this, but I'm curious to see Eurobricks's collective reaction, so please move if needed. http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-02/19/sick-bricks http://www.forbes.com/sites/andyrobertson/2015/02/15/sick-bricks-lets-play/ http://sickbricks.com/ First gut reaction... Boy am I glad LEGO minifigures don't look like that.