Holly

Just a minor clarification: Mark Hansen works for LEGO, not NetDevil. He was also part of the team that worked on the LEGO Factory thing that Leilock linked above, and is an expert at the coolest aspect of the MMO -- the fact that you can order anything you make.

The thing is, a custom set is going to be much more expensive than a pre-made one that you can buy at Toys R Us. There's no way around it, because they have to put together the sets from a bunch of smaller packs, depending on exactly which bricks you want. And last I heard, they don't have the technology to do this all with automation and robots yet, it's human beings picking out the packs. If your building has 18 bricks in it, but is unlucky enough to have pieces from 18 different packs, that's going to be an expensive set with a lot of extra bricks. If this kind of ordering gets insanely popular they might be able to drive the price down by having smaller packs (or even individual bricks) in the fulfillment system, or develop some kind of automated machine-picker, but first enough people will have to buy the expensive custom sets...

Wow it's like an old time management game (Diner Dash) crossed with some stuff taken from a new time management game -- Miss Management, which is set in an office and has colored tasks etc. And unless I'm mistaken, that game was from the same company that did Diner Dash.

I've seen several of those modified real-guitars-turned-guitar-hero-controllers up close, at a recent charity auction, and the way you hold them in your hands is identical to the smaller plastic ones -- the keys are the same distance apart, etc. It's just a lot heavier! Plus, the Detroit Free Press said that "Dombrowski said the Tigers' athletic training staff discovered that Zumaya's forearm pain was more consistent with the action of a guitar player than a baseball pitcher." Conclusion? Guitar Hero or real guitar, you can mess your arm up if you overdo it!