As you may have noticed, we have now got a video channel on Blip.tv and an official Mm youtube page. These are the two locations we will be adding videos to, Blip for embedding on this site, and YouTube for those who prefer it, whenever possible - uploading all these videos kills our internet connection, so Blip.tv will be taking priority.

One of the most useful things is that you can now subscribe to our videos as a podcast via blip, with the videos now happily compatible with iPhones / iPods too. This means whenever we update a tips video, or some Mm picks, you’ll get the videos pushed to your iPod, woo. Videos will be also available in HD whenever possible.

Mm on Blip.tv
Mm on YouTube
Subscribe to the video feed via RSS or via iTunes.

You can also subscribe to our audio podcast via RSS or iTunes, there should be a new episode of that soon!

So head on over there and check out all the videos you may have missed.

Siobhan has posted details on Media Molecule’s blog regarding tonight’s launch of the Edam patch

Without further ado, Edam goes live tonight (9pm UK time). This is a little earlier than expected thanks to the Molecules & the testing team who gave it their extra special attention. It contains the following bug fixes:

• Failed to save profile’ message not being displayed when a users profile is full.
• Object Capture Bug: switch connectors being deleted when an object is captured.
• Failed to load profile issue :where the user is thrown out to the XMB due to a texture that is not registered in their profile being present in their pod.
• Text not displaying in the text chat window.
• Slow rewind due to moderation check.
• Save file corruption which caused the game to crash when placing any object in an emitter in any level.

Hurrah!! I will post with a full cheese board update at the end of this week. Until then enjoy a nice bite of Edam on us!!

As usual, if you have any issues then please read the FAQ, send us a mail or leave a message in the comments section.

xx

Fingers crossed all goes swimmingly and the recent bugs experienced by many since 1.08 arrived.

To further get you in the mood for love Mm`s flickr feed contains four extra cute desktop wallpapers each available in various sizes to download. Click on the pictures below to be taken to the download page

UPDATE: proving that even love has a price here in the EU the Valentine’s Day Pack is now available for £2.39 – as opposed to the general assumption that it was to be free, going by THIS post made on the official US PlayStation Blog where Mark Valledor says:

Our solution, celebrate your holiday this year with the FREE LittleBigPlanet Valentines Day Theme pack! In addition to our McLovin SackBoy costume, the theme pack comes equipped with a full array of stickers and decorations that will surely inspire some wild and crazy creations.

UPDATE 2: Mark Valledor – SCEA Marketing Manager – has admitted there was a bit of miscommunication and that the Valentine’s Pack was never intended to be free

Two openings are being advertised on Media Molecule’s blog. The first is for a Gameplay Programmer who “must be passionate about games as they will have responsibility for driving the game features for the designers”.

The second position is for a Senior QA Technician who’s role “will require the candidate to have the skills of a hands-on tester & a the experience of putting test plans together for a console game (preferably PlayStation 3)”

Both job opportunities offer a great package including a competitive salary, pension scheme, bonus scheme, ownership as part of a small, integrated team, being a name and not a number, organic fruit and the odd glass of champagne!

Do you think you have the necessary skills and experience? Check out the requirements first then send off your CV with any relevant work examples to jobs@mediamolecule.com

Top of the list is what looks like 1.08 slightly chopped off. Next comes another cheese – Mm’s bizarre naming convention for their patches – this time it’s Jarlsberg. In addition, Jarlsberg seems to consist primarily of data for the game - or content - and is currently held up in “legal” - could this be a feature that was cut out due to legal concerns (e.g., photo importing)? A rather interesting 2000 AD is written underneath it. Does this refer to some DLC costumes from the 2000 AD Comic universe? Judge Dredd maybe or RogueTrooper?

Next is 1.09 which as we know already is the Edam patch, due to hit mid February – consisting of “Priority Bug Fixes”.

Cornish Yarg – which we have been teased will contain “new creative capabilities” – is next on the list. If you look closely you can read “Tutorials” followed by “ONLINE CREATE”!!!

Leerdammer follows next which is said to be concentrating on TCP/IP issues/network fixes.

Finally another cheese is incoming, this time in the guise of Stinking Bishop. Nothing else is known except that this brings an Arcade Pack – so maybe this is another game-changing pack in much the same vein as the MGS pack?

Many thanks to StalkingSilence from PlayStation LifeStyle for the tip!

UPDATE: the picture in question has now been taken from the feed

Click HERE to read the full interview

A new update for LittleBigPlanet is available to download and install. It weighs in at 13mb and, so far, there is only speculation as to what it contains – it’s certainly too early to be the Edam update which Media Molecule said was to appear mid February.

From my own perspective it has cured the failed to load player profile bug I have recently experienced on my system, however other planeteers report no such change.

The only cosmetic difference I could find was when you rate player levels: as you scroll up and down through 1 to 5 stars there is now a `tinkle` sound effect, rising in pitch with more stars and lower with less stars. Other players have reported that the Kratos costume is now listed in their LittleBigStore when it wasn’t previously – I can’t confirm this as it has always appeared in my own LittleBigStore. In addition the rewind function in create mode appears to work a lot smoother for me where as previously I experienced long pauses.

It would be a fairly safe bet to expect that 1.08 also installed forthcoming DLC content prior to it’s release – the Chinese New Year costumes are scheduled for release today Jan 26th

If you notice any changes in your Little Big Planet do let us know at LittleBigLand

UPDATE: the free Chinese New Year costumes - celebrating the Year of the OX - are now available to download

UPDATE 2: Sam_Protagonist (SCE dev) has stated that the 1.08 update contains content only and is not the Edam update which is still going through the testing process

Said by many to be the game industries version of Hollywood's Academy Awards, The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) has revealed its nominees for 2008, and LittleBigPlanet has managed to run away with ten category nominations, the most of any game this year.

The category nominations are as follows:

Family Game of the Year

Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction

Outstanding Achievement in Visual Engineering

Outstanding Character Performance

Outstanding Innovation in Gaming

Outstanding Achievement in Soundtrack

Outstanding Achievement in Sound Design

Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction

Console Game of the Year

Overall Game of the Year

Danny, Victor and Mark S from the design team at Media Molecule give some top tips on how to make a Survival Challenge level.

Edam contains a set of bug fixes which they are hoping to be released by mid February. Specifically the fixes are:

• Failed to save profile’ message not being displayed when a users profile is full.
• Object Capture Bug: switch connectors being deleted when an object is captured.
• Failed to load profile issue :where the user is thrown out to the XMB due to a texture that is not   registered in their profile being present in their pod.
• Text not displaying in the text chat window.
• Slow rewind due to moderation check.
• Save file corruption which caused the game to crash when placing any object in an emitter in any level.

Siobhan goes on to explain that a new section will be live on the Media Molecule blog very soon called The Cheeseboard which will detail upcoming patches (all named after cheeses funnily enough) and detailed information on all the various LBP cheeses, as they mature will be made available so we’ll have a good idea of what’s coming up.

Two further patches are mentioned, Cornish Yarg and Leerdammer.

Cornish Yarg is said to:

contain many fabulous things, most excitingly new creative abilities – woo!! This will be a big delivery and so we want to make sure that it gets to you without any bugs and so we are planning very extensive testing which may involve some of you guys (more details out soon). This has only just started the testing process which usually takes 6-8 weeks minimum. Further announcements will be made in February.

Eek! Exciting!

Meanwhile Leerdammer...

will really help people who are experiencing issues with lagging/packet loss. This improvement is still in development, which means it will be out after Cornish Yarg but we aren’t sure when, rest assure Amy is hard at work. Announcements will be made throughout feb.

Great news! Further updates on these patches will be made in the coming weeks.

Also a very big thank you to MarkS from Mm for the shout out

As you may be aware many LittleBigPlanet players have experienced game save problems since the latest update (1.07). Here’s your chance to help out the Media Molecule team.

Sam Protagonist (SCE Dev) has posted on the EU Little Big Planet community forum asking for your assistance. If you have a problem with your saved games he is asking that you send your game save data directly to Media Molecule at savegames@mediamolecule.com (please do not use this address for anything other than sending saved games).

The specific problems they are looking for are:

1. Profile won't load and the game quits to XMB with no message. Other profiles load and the affected profile can be loaded as another player, just not the main player.
2. You get a "Failed to load level" message on a level on your moon, even if you're offline.

Read the rest of Sam’s post HERE where he also explains how to send the required files to Media Molecule.

News of when these fixes will be released will be announced very soon!

Top of the list is Tender Buttes  By TangoCharlieESQ, described by MarkS as a…

wonderfully cute level set in Bandit Town settings. Absolutely tonnes of gameplay and there's even replayability

Also featured is the unique looking Anti-Color (and also ‘Re-Color’)  By ZX497, who has found an exploit in the renderer that lets him make everything look like line drawings

MarkS also explains that if you’re finding the levels hard to find, search for ‘LittleXim’ and look at their Hearted Levels. In there you’ll find all Mm picks and more, maybe even a little preview of next weeks selection.

Visit Media Molecule`s blog HERE for the complete list.

He briefly goes over the Metal Gear Solid packs which were released at Christmas and the Streetfighter costumes which arrived a few weeks earlier, pointing out high resolution renders of both sets of costumes available to download from the Media Molecule Flickr page.

Mark - Marketing Manager, SCEA - then goes on to explain that the Media Molecule team are hard at work on a patch for the 1.07 update that should resolve many of the recent problems with LBP. For those people experiencing the “Full Profile” message, since the issue revolves around the amount / complexity of the community objects in your Popit tool, Mark suggests that for now your best bet is to delete a chunk of unwanted objects from your inventory.

Lots more downloadable goodies are promised for 2009, although no details are given. Mark does say we have to wait until Jan 22nd for the first instalment of the new year’s DLC.

The article ends with an announcement that the next LittleBigChallenge is to be broadened and made as global as possible – the previous competition was only open to US residents.

Here’s hoping we all get the chance to enter.

Top of list list is Mobile Suit Armorboy Part 1 - This is Training? - a new level by the renowned author of Azure Palace, gevurah22

Also featured is Little Big Home by X-NOBODY-X which  scored an impressive 8.33 out of 10 in our December chart.

Head on over to Media Molecule’s blog HERE for their complete list of recommendations

I lost EVERYTHING!! My custom levels, my custom created objects, the clothes on my sackperson everything.
All my custom levels wont load, story levels wont load and I cant play any online levels.
I don’t have even 1 community sticker or object, no photo's and my pod is 100% empty.

Luos then goes on to explain that he booted up his PlayStation 3, started LittleBigPlanet – which took a long while to load up -  and that once loaded his now unclothed Sackboy appeared to be stuttering until he hit the floor of his pod. His creation moon was empty but thankfully he managed to retrieve his previously published levels. Unfortunately several levels under construction were lost. He stresses that he had previously deleted all community items and photos from his Popit.

Luos then rebooted his PS3 to be greeted with the following message:

There was a problem loading data. This may be fixed by cleaning your Pod. Press OK to clean your Pod. If you would prefer not to clean your Pod, please quit the game now.

When he pressed X to clean his Pod, Luos reports that his PlayStation3 crashed forcing him to switch the console off at the back. A report of his problems has been submitted to Media Molecule.

Other users both in our forum and elsewhere in other LBP communities are reporting similar problems and at this time we can only stress the importance of backing up all of your game save data in case the same should happen to you.

Scary times, let’s hope Media Molecule nail this destructive bug quickly

With the flurry of moderations resulting in levels with copyright infringement being snatched from Little Big Planet it's refreshing to see that some company's are cool with creators using their stuff in their Sackboy sandpits.

According to Media Molecule there are many companies that are cool with it. Speaking with IGN, MM's Alex Evans said:

The other point is the number of IP owners who came up to us and said please whitelist us – we'll never ever ask you to pull infringing stuff. I can't say who that is, but those two things really shocked me, I think it shocked [the IP holders], who were like, hang on, my IP's being represented and it's being represented really well.

This news has been really refreshing and it's great to see that there are some smart companies out there who are happy with their IP's being well represented in the fun, fluffy world of Little Big Planet.

Source

We would like to extend fluffy Christmas wishes to everybody who visits Little Big Land, our fellow Little Big Planet fansites and everybody in the global PlayStation community. Huge festive cheer we send to the fantastical Media Molecule who created this wondrous place we love to visit.

Just to remind us of the true meaning of Christmas, PlayStationLifeStyle.net are running a story about Sergio Lenza, a Little Big Planet creator/designer who will give a gift to his friend’s family that they will never forget:  people always say the best gifts are those that come from the heart and Sergio has created a level in memory of his good friend, Bobby Kilner Jr. who passed away July 24th, 2006. The level itself is a Christmas gift for Bobby’s sister. Sergio will be unveiling the level to Bobby’s family on December 27th.  This gift was created so that “Bobby’s spirit could live on in any means that are made possible.”

Check out the level in LittleBigPlanet once it’s published on December 27th and feel free to heart both the author and the level.

Level name: Bobby’s World - Take Nothing For Granted

Level author/PSN ID:  VinnyCafoneJr.

Merry Christmas everybody!

Alex over at Media Molecule’s blog has posted about a bug which was accidentally introduced with Little Big Planet’s last patch 1.07. Some of the more advanced level creators have noticed  some issues when capturing complex objects into their popit. We are assured it won’t affect everyone and for those who do come across it a detailed workaround has made and uploaded onto YouTube by rz22g/Kratos 4 here.

An emergency fix has been submitted to the PlayStation 3 Quality Assurance system but with it being so close to Christmas this with undoubtedly take a while to be fully tested. Other LBP problems such as text chat disappearing issues are also being looked into.

Alex then goes on to say that the bug with the LittleBigPlanet popit capture system was caused by…

…a suite of changes we’re making under the hood, that will let us & you the community track not just levels, but individual creations and how they are used and distributed in levels, amongst the community. I can’t give any more details yet, but I promise it will be worth it, especially for budding creators and object sharers!

Very interesting…

Together with this week`s DLC update there is a rather hefty 25Mb update available for LittleBigPlanet. Apart from supplying the data for the new costumes and Festive Pack, Media Molecule have brought in some changes to the moderation system. The release notes are as follows:

The latest update (1.06) brings in some much requested changes to LBP’s moderation system. While the rules of what is and is not acceptable content for people to share have not changed, we have listened to your feedback and have made the following changes :

Moderated levels will now receive more detailed information once action has been taken

The notification message will remain in place on screen, removing the chance that affected users miss the message

Any moderated level can now be accessed for editing by the creator, whether online or offline

Additional information is now displayed on the “Good Grief” screen advising users on how the grief reporting functions, and warns against making spurious reports

Some very welcome changes there, I`m sure you`ll agree. The moderating issue has been one of the major bugbears with the otherwise excellent LBP and we here at LittleBigLand hope that this now goes a long way to alleviating the problem. Nice one Media Molecule

UPDATE: Sam Protagonist over at the LittleBigWorkshop added this following statement

These changes, coupled with additional work behind the scenes should alleviate most of the issues that creators have experienced with the moderation system, and there is more to come in the new year. Whilst the number of levels that have been moderated is fewer than 0.1% of the number that have been created and shared overall, we recognise that better communication is essential and we'll continue to improve the system in response to your feedback.

An explanation of what constitutes unacceptable content to be shared can be found in the game's End User License Agreement (EULA) which may be read at any time via the Settings menu in the game, however we recommend you follow these general guidelines :

- Ensure that the content you share with other users is suitable for all ages - everybody has access to your level if you publish it.

- Please respect other people's intellectual property rights. For example, don't use images, brands or logos that you're not entitled to use.

- If you come across any content that you feel the need to report, then please do it responsibly. Hoax reports will be considered inappropriate behaviour.

This update also includes some more server-side changes to the game however these are minor. There are more game updates due in the near future.