(Written by Sarah)
Today’s post will look at a recent change on the LEGO CUUSOO website as well as feature a few LEGO fantasy/historical projects that I really like and hope you will too. 🙂
I’m happy to announce that there is now an approval step before a project goes live. I’m happy because it’s a good change and one that will hopefully move the site towards higher quality LEGO projects. Below is a quick run-down of what this change means:
➡ APPROVAL PROCESS FOR NEW LEGO CUUSOO PROJECTS
CUUSOO staff will now actively approve or deny projects before they go live. They will review a LEGO project against the CUUSOO Guidelines & House Rules. If everything looks okay, they will approve it. If not, they will reject it and include comments as to why it can’t be approved in its current state. (Click image for larger view and better readability.)
A key thing to note here is that they are not endorsing the LEGO projects at this phase. They are only checking to make sure it doesn’t violate the rules. They will check for plagiarism, but they can’t guarantee they’ll catch everything so the community can still report projects.
They are also going to start going through existing LEGO projects and do the same review process. This will take time and, as above, they encourage people to flag anything suspicious. But be polite about it; don’t flame in the comment sections of projects.
One last thing; for LEGO projects that may have something just a little off, CUUSOO staff is providing guiding comments for changes rather than completely rejecting the project. One of the biggest issues is poor quality of photos or using copyright photos.
Here is CUUSOO’s blog entry on this topic. There are some interesting comments and responses below the post. You can read it here: Approval Process for New Projects on LEGO CUUSOO.
➡ FEATURED FANTASY/HISTORICAL CUUSOO PROJECTS
One of my biggest loves in LEGO is the fantasy and historical creations. I ran across a few cool projects the other day and wanted to share them with you. (You can click on any of the images to see details and vote for the project.)
💡LEGO SCORPION’S SOUL PIRATE SHIP:I know this would be freaking expensive, but if Star Wars can have their ultimate ships, why can’t pirates? I’ve always loved the LEGO Pirates series and their ships. I was so happy when my husband bought me the #10210 LEGO Imperial Flagship for my birthday last year. It’s such an amazing and detailed ship. This Scorpion’s Soul is even more amazing. I would love to see this produced. I’d be hard pressed to come up with the money for it, but I would find a way! 😀
💡 LEGO THEME – THE GLORY OF ROME: I’ve been trying to support as many of the historical LEGO projects as I can, but I must admit that many of them are not very good. This one, on the other hand, has real potential. The project creator mminnitt is putting a lot of effort into creating actual LEGO sets for this theme with some very cool minifigures. No full LEGO theme project proposal has reached 10,000 votes yet, so it’s unsure how this will go, but I’d be happy with even one set from this LEGO project, hopefully the one with Queen Boudicca.
💡 LEGO GAME – ENCHANTERS OF LEGAMORIA: As many of you probably know by now, I am a huge fan of Matthew Copel’s LEGO projects. He’s made quite a few high-quality LEGO projects and he’s done it again. Enchanters of Legamoria is a game quite like chess, but with a wide variety of playing-pieces that have different abilities. I love the different pieces he’s created – I’d love just to buy those as sets – but I really think this LEGO game has potential. It has a lot more strategy to it than any of the LEGO games released so far. I definitely recommend checking out legamoria.com for the full rules and printable versions so you can try it out.
LEGO Game – Enchanters of Legamoria by matthewcopel
➡ CONCLUSION
So what do you think of the new CUUSOO approval process? Do you like any of the LEGO projects I’ve featured here? Are there any that you want to share? Please post in the comment section below. I’d love to know what you think! Also, you may want to check out these other posts on LEGO CUUSOO:
I am very happy to hear that they will have to approve each project first. There were a lot of projects that were obviously made by someone under the designated age range.
Yes, I hope it cuts down on those too. I think they still need to do more, but this is a start. I just don’t think most people will take CUUSOO seriously until the project quality bar is raised higher all around.
I am curious about the approval process, because it would have saved everyone a lot of time if they just said from the onset that R movies or M games should be off the table, especially when the age to join Cuscoo was raised. I am more curious about how sets that are not really salvageable will be dealt with. Things that are centered around M games, R movies and Competitor’s products are not really something that can be changed to “fit” without defeating the entire purpose of having a set based on it.
On another note, I really hope Imperium makes it. Although I am not as into Greco/ Roman stuff as I once was, but I would still really like to pick it up. Historical themes have been heavily requested from LEGO, but LEGO does not seem to really go their on their own recently.
I also wonder if they’re going to have tighter restrictions when it comes to mature content. Honestly, it’d be a lot nicer to project creators if LEGO made a decision early in the process that they would never make the project than let someone go through all the hard work, get to 10,000 and then be disappointed when it’s not made – like the Winchester.
I know they want to allow new ideas, but really, if kids are their focus, then they need to shape CUUSOO accordingly and not allow adult-oriented projects from the beginning. But then that means the only allowable projects are those made by adults for kids. Some will do that, but I’m sure this will turn a lot of people off.
I really hope the Imperium makes it too because a lot of people want historical from LEGO and they really haven’t, at least not in a very long time.
Nice post! This is a big improvement and I agree completely on the imperium note. That project looks fantastic and hopefully this will help spread the news a bit.
Thanks Alec! Glad you agree. 🙂 Yes, I hope this spread the word a bit about Imperium.
Not a CUUSOO fan But Cool Sarah
Thanks. Though I would like to know why you aren’t a fan of CUUSOO. Is there something in particular you think they should change to make it so that you would participate?
I’d love to collect people’s suggestions for improvement and email them to the CUUSOO staff.
Sarah, I’m glad you’ve enjoyed the Enchanters of Legamoria concept and thanks for writing about it. In fact, I’m having friends over to play it today 🙂 The gamepiece library has grown to nearly 150 pieces. I’m a programmer by trade, so one day I may go as far as to post an online version of the game. Then maybe we could face off and I could test your skills! Were you ever a fan of magic the gathering, yugioh or chess?
Welcome, Matthew. Thank you again for making such a cool project!
That sounds like a lot of fun! I’d love to be able to play an online version of it. I’m sure you’d beat me considering you’re the creator of it, but I would still have a lot of fun playing. 🙂
Yes, I played Magic the Gathering in my teens and twenties. Fell out of it because it’s so expensive, but my husband bought the Xbox arcade games and he enjoys playing them. Not as much my thing anymore, but I still enjoy strategy games like it.
Good luck with your projects and please keep me informed of anything new or exciting. 😀
Hi, Sarah. My fiancé and I will be at Brickworld Chicago 2012 on June 16th and 17th. If you and your husband will be attending and want to meet us and chit chat, drop me a line at newcopeland@yahoo.com.
Matthew, I also emailed your comment to Sarah in case she doesn’t see it here. Hope you guys can get together! 😀
Aw, that’d be so cool to meet you, but we’re in California and wouldn’t be able to go. We did go to Bricks by the Bay this year and one of these days we want to go to Brick Con in Seattle, but I doubt we’d ever be able to afford to go to any across the country.
But I hope you have a great time!
Here’s something new and exciting: I have recently completed a set of Lego Ratchet and Clank models and posted them at http://www.moc-pages.com/errors/404.php?url=http://www.moc-pages.com/moc.php/326828 Enjoy!
Very cute characters! Thanks for sharing! 😀
Very cool! Thanks for posting it. 🙂
I wish I could vote for Imperium…