LBP: Downhill & no breaks!

Am I the only one who thinks the "party" is finishing?

-What happens with Cool pages?, does MM think suvivals and all the crap in there is what people wants to play?
WHY DOESN'T MM SOLVE THE "REPLAY" FEATURE? Those "replay" levels get 1st page in 1 day or hours!
Time goes by, and tons of good levels go unnoticed!.
-Water: Yeah, it looks cool, but not a great play feature. Too slow motion IMO.
-DLC: POTC was released before Christmas. Two months after what do we get? four costumes.
-Rate sistem: any crap of a level get 4 stars. It's an insult that uncountable great levels get the same rate as any 1-hour-made level.
-Haters: personally, I can't complain lately, but a creator can do nothing but delete coments! I've had several haters posting everyday in my levels. Why can't we lock a user just like in any other comunity software in the world??

There are many black points that could be posted, but the worse, is MM seems to be "too busy" doing other things (costumes?) instead of solving what really matters.

Maybe just me, but I'm feeling a bit dissapointed.

Well there are certainly a lot of thinks that need fixing.
From the top my head
- Incorporate MMpicks in the news section (or any other form of spotlighting good levels) (worked in the first two month and should work today. Don't tell me it's difficult. If it is why don't you make it easier?)
- Rating system. It's crap. (Though I don't care about it anymore since its so meaningless anyway)
- Make it possible that levels are copyable but not republishable (All my levels are copyable)
- Make a website ala Sackcast (Seriously, next time I expect there to be a official site from day one)
- Let us make categories in the pop-it sections
- Let us tweak the speed of the cursor (especially the corner edit tool)

There is certainly less and less going on, but that doesn't come to a surprise really. The game is over a year old after all. I don't think this can be changed really. It's destined to die sooner or later.

That said I don't really worry about the community disappearing. I always created for the sake of creating and never really played many community levels. As long as there are a few people to play the game with every now and then I don't care what happens.

They should really think about a "Community Features" update, where they actually bother to search through the endless list of suggestions from forumers, and try and incorperate them...

How hard can it be?

In these kind of threads that talk about failing ratings etc, everyone answers that it's meaningless so they don't care. Well I want it to fixed so it can be meaningful and I do care about it.

I totally agree but maybe you should contact Mm directly and tell them how we all feel because you're one of their favourites and they are more likely to listen to people like you than me.

Perhaps if you and jackofcourse went to them and said you didn't want to make levels any more until the system is changed they would do something about it. Until you do something drastic like that I'm afraid it will never change.

All of this, yes. But the sheer number of levels still being created and published, and the number of quality levels (whose quality continues to rise), as evident in this site's Spotlight, makes me feel that LBP is not dying. It's broken, for sure, but it seems to thrive despite all of this.

Still wishing each of the aforementioned points would be addressed and fixed though. :)

Oh all this sounds pretty pessimistic....

I agree that there's a lot of problems that need to be fixed and that this game is far for being perfect,
but I can't really see how those problems can avoid us of still having fun, playing and creating, and I think that this is the most important.

Sure everyone will react differently, depending on how much you're fed up with the game or not,
but as Vortex said, LPB is still going strong, and I'm sure we will see some new great stuff or improvements very soon!

:)

@Syroc: Good additions. Totally agree with your points.
Also agree that one day the community will dissapear, but a few updates could make it last a lot more!.

@BlahyourHamster: exactly! how hard could it be to add a simple feature like that?, and not only this... cool levels shouldn't be the preset page for online levels.

@killzonequinn07: Agree. Rate sistem doesn't not care cause it's broken. Why don't they fixe it and make it care?

@mistervista: If jackofcourse and me say to MM we're not making more levels, they'll probably laugh. I asked Spaff about my crown 3 weeks ago, and still waiting for a reply.

@v0rtex: I agree that quality of levels continues to rise, but they get less and less plays everytime. Ask jwwphotos with his Space Scape II or Jack with his new level. Or myself, I remember I used to get 1st page of cool pages in less that 24 hours with a new level. Last level took me 4 days.

I definately think there's something to this.... based on this site, there is definately not a shortage of quality content, however if you look at the cool pages and you're simply a player checking out new levels, it looks like a bunch of garbage. Based on this, I believe LBP is losing the teen and adult players, which leaves a lot more kids to control the popularity of levels.

I definately think this has affected my last few levels... after Roll Out the Barrel I simply got "tired" of watching the garbage on cool levels, so I started taking on projects that I knew would be much more niche - I simply didn't care whether too many people played them anymore based on all the junk.

Of course, I think this was a good direction for me personally, because it took all the pressure off worrying about how well levels did... and I didn't experience the tons of friend requests and people trying to post horrible pictures on my levels and leaving bad comments - so it turned out I enjoyed the releases a bit more....

The frustrating thing to us is that most of what is wrong has been wrong for quite some time and why LBPC is so horribly important.

The times in the past few months that I have actually paid attention to the cool levels, it was a pretty sad sight. Seems there is always a brand new creator marching his slightly altered levels, literally within hours of each other, to the top pages. While depressing to us that are more serious and developed in our creator skills, the fact remains is this basically tells us where the demographic of LBP players fall. Younger and younger players as well as creators are playing this game and the numbers are growing exponentially. Almost 2 million levels now?

I have always been a believer that genres and possibly skill level to be added as well as several of the suggestions that Poms and others have pointed out. I think Mm needs to realize there are different age groups as well as different tastes and playing all in the same sandbox. For example adding genre and with that allow users to set personal "default" search filters would help tailor the cool levels better to our personal preferences. It would also allow the current trended levels a place to play as well. Even though those levels might be ones we don't like or want to see, an eight year old may hate any of our levels regardless how much acclaim given here.

However to Pom's point, I agree there are quite a few issues, but I hope the wheels haven't completely fallen off yet. ;) I think it is sad that some really talented creators have left us for a time because of all the issues, but thankfully there are still quite a bunch in LBP as well as here at LBPC. ..and a few that have left have indeed returned!

I think part of the problem is Mm is quite a small team and OC and water were pretty huge undertakings. I think they started to recognize some of their issues and now going back and taking the time to get those resolved. There is a current Beta devoted to core elements (as revealed publicly by Mm) currently being tested. Hopefully that trend will continue and include some of the suggestions here as well.

Again.. to me this is why more than ever, LBPC, the Level Showcase and all it's features, Cool levels, and the Community Spotlights are so important.

There's definitely a lot of things that can be improved. But I LOVE that. Think of any other big game, any at all. I bet you'll struggle to think of 5 things that could be improved on it. Yet you could think of hundreds for LBP. It's not that this game you have picked is any better than LBP. It's that LBP has SO much potential!

It's not ideal, but the only reason we are able to pick up on these things that need changing are because of how awesome they've made the game in the first place! :)

(I do agree with everyone's points here, but I'm just more relaxed about it because I can appreciate what this game has done and what it has to offer)

10 stars instead of 5. Give me this and I will be quiet for all of eternity.

I'm sure there are a lot of four star levels being ignored because they only have four stars, but it could be 4.49. There's a huge difference between levels rated 4.49 and 3.51, but the game treats them the same.

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Originally Posted by poms

@v0rtex: I agree that quality of levels continues to rise, but they get less and less plays everytime. Ask jwwphotos with his Space Scape II or Jack with his new level. Or myself, I remember I used to get 1st page of cool pages in less that 24 hours with a new level. Last level took me 4 days.

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Oh, I totally agree. Try putting yourself in the shoes of someone like me or Morgana, who have created some pretty darned good levels (trying not to hurt my arm as I pat myself on the back here, lol), but have never seen Page 1. In fact, until my recent Survival Challenge (the 1st one, that is... the 2nd one, while probably better, didn't do as well) I had never seen plays over 10,000.

It is terribly frustrating (even if we claim to not care anymore) to watch as a level you've poured weeks of your time into, is competing with poorly made, cookie cutter levels... and losing!

LBP community levels is just going through a phase.

When the next 'easy-to-make-survival challenge' comes along, it won't be much different.

Would it be a bad technique to make a bomb survival, push it to page one, then publish a good level over it?

I've thought about doing this, but I'm unsure.

I think the community aspect of the game is in much need of a shake-up. When the game first launched the Cool Levels were crap, they changed the system in December of 08 which basically solidified many levels that can now be found on the Most Hearted page, then in February of 09 they changed the system once again to what it is now. I think that the current system is partially good, although I think it could be vastly improved. They can begin by not counting replays as progression up the Cool Pages, this is a very simple and effective thing to implement. There'll still be lots of survival levels and all that but they wouldn't be as noticeable and good levels wouldn't have as much competition going up the pages. :)

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Originally Posted by warlord_evil

Would it be a bad technique to make a bomb survival, push it to page one, then publish a good level over it?

I've thought about doing this, but I'm unsure.

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If you are ok with having a level with a bad heart-to-play ratio.

I agree with you that the cool pages are really annoying, but I don't think they should be fixed, they are fine how they are. Atleast anyone can get to the cool page if they want to, giving everyone an oppurtunity.

The cause for how the worst levels are always so popular is the majority players. Most players in LBP are cool pagers, or "noobs". They can't apprecciate, or create a good level. They enjoy the cool page levels because they think they are the most fun levels. Also, they don't know about hearted lists, and the cool pages is the only place where they can find levels.

There's no apparent concerns shown by Media Molecule and it's THAT is the most worrying of all things. 2010 is also very dry of DLC wich won't help the community to hold on. This game needs 2 things: Announcements and Media Molecule telling about issues that possibly are in fixing process.

The game is quite broken right now and there's less and less people playing. I would like this game to last longer and even if Sony and Media Molecule might not see it, there's ALOT of legs left for this game if they do the right things.

.

It always was quite broken. The little things just get more annoying overtime.

F§$%ing wobble bolts!

:)

Funny how each one sees the same thing differently :)

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Originally Posted by RangerZero

There's no apparent concerns shown by Media Molecule and it's THAT is the most worrying of all things. 2010 is also very dry of DLC wich won't help the community to hold on. This game needs 2 things: Announcements and Media Molecule telling about issues that possibly are in fixing process.

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Even if MM doesn't seem to show concerns, I think they do actually.
Did everybody forget about the last improvements and features,
in the Leerdammer/danish blue updates? (just 2 months ago) :

- Profile Backup
- Levels Backup
- Increased profile space
- disable the Thermometer in Create Mode (avoid screen burn)
- More Detailed level page
- Checkpoints activated using switches.
- Sticker switches made more noticeable
- Online Create
- Water
- Networking fixes & location-based matchmaking
- Save game rewrite
-'Auto-Reject' option for invitations from other players
......

Most of these were complaints of a lot of players, and MM do listened and they did a great job!

Concerning the DLCs, 2010 started just 2 months ago, and I'm sure they are preparing some nice stuff!

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Originally Posted by RangerZero

The game is quite broken right now and there's less and less people playing. I would like this game to last longer and even if Sony and Media Molecule might not see it, there's ALOT of legs left for this game if they do the right things. .

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As Syroc said, the game has always been broken, and it was even worse before the improvements.
People are less and less playing because the game is more than 1 year old, so it's normal that it's not as played as before...

I also would like to see that game last longer, but if people start leaving
just because of unfair ratings, stupid haters, or the cool pages system,
instead of focusing and enjoying the great and fun possibilities that this game offers,
well, sadly, the game will dissapear very quickly.... :)

That's just my opinion ;)

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Originally Posted by Endless_Echo

If you are ok with having a level with a bad heart-to-play ratio.

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Bah! Hearts are pointless.

MM should also remove star ratings and a heart count (people could still heart you but you wouldn't know it.)

I understand all you say.

To precise my point, my concerns are that in 2010 so far it's awfully quiet, more than last year. And the cool levels pages are back at their worse, just like when they actually change it. It's major like that and we have no news from MM. IT WILL affect to game leg's (the lack of DLC too). It's not rocket science and I am not asking much there really. At least they are working on some optimisation right now that will receive a beta.

As for improvements, I know they did improve the game before. It's not because it was broken before and that there have been improvements that it's an argument to not want MM to care about the community more and be more vocal. It's also not an argument against having less DLC.

If only a pseudo schedule of updates could be release to public, the new beta details, etc. You know, like they did before. They simply were more vocal and communicative before. They shouldn't stop that or else it will help the community to fade aways faster than it should.

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Originally Posted by Incinerator22

MM should also remove star ratings and a heart count (people could still heart you but you wouldn't know it.)

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That would be good for us, but can you imagine some H4Her or "Cool Page" publisher going online and looking at their profile to see no hearts? They would probably get really mad and quit the game...then we would probably lose about 3/4th of all people playing the game.

I agree!

Yea I think one of the biggest problems (which is the root of most problems) is the rating system. It makes it way to easy for kids and people with short attention spans to just form a wall of garbage 5 cool pages thick, since you have to dig so far to find the gems the majority don't know that they exist, they think colorful garbage is a gem. If the Rating system would serve its purpose then people would see "Wow! this is infinitely times better than that bomb survival! I have a lot of room to improve!" and the others who still like bomb survivals for odd reasons can find them at the bottom of the barrel, which would be awesome cause the great levels should have the first shot.

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Originally Posted by RangerZero

If only a pseudo schedule of updates could be release to public, the new beta details, etc. You know, like they did before. They simply were more vocal and communicative before.

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I agree with that, maybe more announcements, video trailers, teasers like the first year and so more releases...

But it's been just 2 little months since they slowed down things after the Leerdammer and Water updates,
which were quite big updates...so let's just wait and see before "judging"...

I quoted you in my last post RangerZero, but my anwser was more global :)
I just don't understand people saying that everything is going bad, and that they are disappointed by MM and the game now, especially after all the last great releases and improvements...


Anyway, that's just my point of view.... :p

;)

The only thing lbp needs is originality, not DLC based off already made things

What LBP needs is a campout outside MM everyone can be there, and XkappaX can be on a TV so she doesn't have to fly :)

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Originally Posted by RangerZero

... It's major like that and we have no news from MM. ...

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Turns out Mm HAS spoken on the manner in the early hours this morning on LBW. They recognize that the Cool Level pages are broken and are working on better ways to search for published content. They won't ever be getting getting rid of spammed bomb survival levels though. You can check out their message here.

Oh well, glad to hear that. Cool pages are a joke a this moment.
Even for kids.

Three Weeks+ = one unique level
One hour = bomb level

they just alot more of them and they can make them alot faster then we can

Let's hope the hard work they speak of pans out sooner rather than later..

Several times I've tried to comment in this thread, only to be stuck for words to describe my feelings. Poms, you are riding first class by literally all standards as far as creators go. Most of us should be so lucky to share in your success. That being said, I'm surprised to see you taking things so negatively.

Do I agree that Cool Pages is borked? Of course, it always has and probably always will.
Do I care? Haven't for a long time.

If you pressure yourself to achieve statistics, whether they be in the form of ratings or plays or time spent on cool pages, I think you're likely to make yourself miserable. Continue creating because you enjoy it, and continue promoting your work because you enjoy the positive impact your work has on the community.

I fear anyone that creates to achieve statistics is creating for the wrong reasons.

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Originally Posted by Thegide

Several times I've tried to comment in this thread, only to be stuck for words to describe my feelings. Poms, you are riding first class by literally all standards as far as creators go. Most of us should be so lucky to share in your success. That being said, I'm surprised to see you taking things so negatively.

Do I agree that Cool Pages is borked? Of course, it always has and probably always will.
Do I care? Haven't for a long time.

If you pressure yourself to achieve statistics, whether they be in the form of ratings or plays or time spent on cool pages, I think you're likely to make yourself miserable. Continue creating because you enjoy it, and continue promoting your work because you enjoy the positive impact your work has on the community.

I fear anyone that creates to achieve statistics is creating for the wrong reasons.

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Thanks Thegide, but some of you are redirecting the point of this thread (not here, but mainly in the "other" thread) to a personal direction. "You've got nothing to complain about", that seems to be the feeling of many posts, but I wasn't complaining about my situation, that would be pointless. My complain wasn't about "My last level is not a success Buaaaaa..." as someone posted in the "other" thread.
I was putting myself as an example of how things are becoming difficult to get a level noticed. If it's becoming hard for me, I can imagine how the situation is for thousands of other creators.
We all know cool pages are broken. But we all know how some creators get 7 levels on 1st page.
MM could solve the "replay" problem quite easy, that would change a lot the chances for many others who don't get the chance to exposure their levels.

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Originally Posted by poms

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What happens with Cool pages?, does MM think suvivals and all the crap in there is what people wants to play?
WHY DOESN'T MM SOLVE THE "REPLAY" FEATURE? Those "replay" levels get 1st page in 1 day or hours!
Time goes by, and tons of good levels go unnoticed!.
-Water: Yeah, it looks cool, but not a great play feature. Too slow motion IMO.
-DLC: POTC was released before Christmas. Two months after what do we get? four costumes.
-Rate sistem: any crap of a level get 4 stars. It's an insult that uncountable great levels get the same rate as any 1-hour-made level.
-Haters: personally, I can't complain lately, but a creator can do nothing but delete coments! I've had several haters posting everyday in my levels. Why can't we lock a user just like in any other comunity software in the world??

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This were my complains. I've quoted them just in case ;)
Thanks

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If you pressure yourself to achieve statistics, whether they be in the form of ratings or plays or time spent on cool pages, I think you're likely to make yourself miserable. Continue creating because you enjoy it, and continue promoting your work because you enjoy the positive impact your work has on the community.

I fear anyone that creates to achieve statistics is creating for the wrong reasons.

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I think of myself lucky to have found this out early. The first level I published didn't even get 150 plays, from then on I didn't really care about plays, hearts, or ratings. I decided just to have fun creating and exploring possibilities. I use to think it was cool to have lot's of plays but I can;t really care less, when I publish my next level I'll just post it here on LBPC and read what everyone here has to say. That's all I really have to say as everything else that I would like to say has already been said, no point in repeating.

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Originally Posted by poms

Thanks Thegide, but some of you are redirecting the point of this thread (not here, but mainly in the "other" thread) to a personal direction. "You've got nothing to complain about", that seems to be the feeling of many posts, but I wasn't complaining about my situation, that would be pointless. My complain wasn't about "My last level is not a success Buaaaaa..." as someone posted in the "other" thread.
I was putting myself as an example of how things are becoming difficult to get a level noticed. If it's becoming hard for me, I can imagine how the situation is for thousands of other creators.
We all know cool pages are broken. But we all know how some creators get 7 levels on 1st page.
MM could solve the "replay" problem quite easy, that would change a lot the chances for many others who don't get the chance to exposure their levels.

This were my complains. I've quoted them just in case ;)
Thanks

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Ok fair enough, maybe I misinterpreted the tone of your post then. Indeed, it is getting harder to get noticed... read below on my thoughts.

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Originally Posted by poms

does MM think suvivals and all the crap in there is what people wants to play?

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Unfortunately, this IS the case. These are the levels that are getting all the plays, so clearly the community gets what it wants. Problem? The community in this case is mostly young kids... they explode the playcounts which in turn motivates attention-seeking authors to create more garbage to satisfy them. Mm have said they are not going to do anything to rid the cool pages of 1001 copied survival challenges, because that impinges on the freedom for authors to create what they want.

The real problem here, as you and I and the rest of LBPC see it, is that adults don't get a say in things because we represent a small fraction of the overall community. We don't have any way to find the levels we want to play.

Would eliminating replays from counting towards bumping a level along cool pages help? Yes, because it no longer favors survival challenges and gives all levels of different types equal chance at being on cool pages.

But it doesn't fix the problem of having poor quality levels dominate page 1. As long as quality is judged by the community at large, this will not change, because the community has proven itself to be a bad judge in this regard. And clearly, we can't expect Mm to decide what goes on cool pages and what does not.

The best solution I see has been suggested repeatedly for over a year - and that is to give authors the ability to categorize their work and build a search tool out of those category tags. The tags could be suggested age, difficulty, thematic, etc. You get the idea - but the point is that authors choose, not the players. You could then even build separate cool pages out of each of these categories. I don't doubt that Mm have already thought about this, but it won't happen because it would significantly complicate the search engine to the point where kids become confused, and we would have a new major problem of miscategorized levels (accidentally so, or more likely - intentional).

Do I think that Mm are too busy making costumes to fix what is broken? No. I think that our expectations of the way things should be are wrong. Again, it's a kids game and we're adults that are frustrated that it's designed to cater primarily to its target audience and not to us.

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Originally Posted by Thegide

The best solution I see has been suggested repeatedly for over a year - and that is to give authors the ability to categorize their work and build a search tool out of those category tags. The tags could be suggested age, difficulty, thematic, etc. You get the idea - but the point is that authors choose, not the players. You could then even build separate cool pages out of each of these categories.

Will this likely happen? No. I think Mm want to keep the interface as simple and streamlined as possible, or they are going to confuse the hell out of kids trying to use search, and no doubt miscategorization will be the new frustration of players.

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I hope it will come.. I see you point as to Mm possibly wanting the interface simple, but I think they need to step back and realize that it is a mess now that the amount of levels has grown so large. It is horribly needed and it is really no different than the categorization at a library, bookstore or at a video rental store.. oh wait, maybe I should say Netflix instead? ;)

..anyway I think kids are much smarter than Mm thinks. At any rate, that's my argument to Mm to go ahead and start working on that horribly needed feature. ;) Miscategorization may be the new issue and frustration, but I would like to think that they will sort themselves out rather quickly from the lower plays and terrible ratings they would get.

I also think that the attitude that MM has taken as resulted in a self-proclaimed prophesy of sorts. One of the reasons less adults play is because it's difficult to find the type of level you want to play in the vast library of published levels. And if you're an adult (or teenager) spending many many hours devleoping a level that can't be targeted towards an audience, eventually you will lose interest... therefore, less adults playing and more kids playing.... thus, the issue we see.

I would personally enjoy LittleBigPlanet MUCH more if I could browse through organized lists and find what I'm looking for... just as I enjoy browsing the web. And if I'm a creator, I would enjoy creating and publishing a level much more if I knew I didn't have to use a republishing trick to get it noticed... but could simply count on the search engine to direct people to my level over time.

Right now I still enjoy LBP, but I ONLY use the showcase thread and the spotlight to find things to play. I would love the randomness of using an in-game search engine and would probably spend many hours just browsing and playing.

The biggest issue MM faces by not putting more work in this direction? The young kids who simply play survival challenges really don't have the money to purchase the DLC. I think what we're seeing in cool levels is going to result in less DLC purchases. If they keep the teenagers and adults happy, they will make more money than simply making kids happy. And they HAVE to know this - look at the Sackies! The vast majority of top-quality levels are being produced by adults, not by kids.

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Originally Posted by CCubbage

I would personally enjoy LittleBigPlanet MUCH more if I could browse through organized lists and find what I'm looking for... just as I enjoy browsing the web.

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Oh, that could work. Mm doesn't have time to do lists of quality levels, so let users do it. Allow them to write articles/blogs with links to levels or other articles, creating a sort of web inside LBP. Just don't give out a trophy for creating one, or the whole thing will be swamped with crap blogs in no time.

Has anyone considered that they're working on it (i.e. in the web portal)? If they've already got a long-term fix n the works, its probably counter productive to work on one now

Here again I need to agree with CCubbage it seems.

Also, while people are shouting around the "it doesn't bother me much so it means its ok" mentality, this is not the way to make this game last. You want this game to last? To improve? to remain interesting and enjoyable? You'd like to see more DLC and updates? gameplay refresh?
If you answer YES to any of those things, even just one of them, you SHOULD be concerned about the game's flaws and understand what their consequences could be. And then to voice those concerns and try to bring up solutions on the table. The louder it can be, the better it is because Media Molecule sort of sleeps on a bomb right now. Or maybe they sleep at the wheel but in my opinion, LBP community is slowing drowning, not going up.

If they want their DLC revenues, they need to take care of this game more or it will fade away sooner than its supposed to. Or maybe they will let it fade and produce LBP 2 instead who knows.

.