For those of you who haven't been keeping up with the news, this installment of ZAM's "What We Know So Far" fills you in with all the details about the upcoming Lego Universe MMO

Lego building blocks are one of the most popular and ubiquitous toys of the 20th Century. Since their invention by Danish carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen in the late 1940s, the Lego brand of toys have gone on to enjoy worldwide success at an astonishing pace; by the 1960s, the first Legoland park opened in Denmark. By the 1970s, the simple, interlocking plastic bricks were a staple of almost every child's toy chest. But kids weren't the only ones who enjoyed tinkering with Legos; many adults pursued the construction of giant and highly-complex Lego sculptures, earning recognition and respect as a form of art.

But it wasn't until the Lego minifigure (or "minifig") was introduced in 1978 that the Lego series achieved widespread success in popular culture. Minifigures opened up a completely new world of IP licensing for the Lego Group to explore; famous examples include the Star Wars, Indiana Jones and comic book franchises. Dozens of Lego-inspired video games have also been published since the late-90s, and later this year, the Lego Universe MMO will enter the fray. In this installment of "What We Know So Far," ZAM highlights the recent news and announcements surrounding the upcoming MMO.

In 2007, the Lego Group announced it had licensed the rights-to-develop a Lego-themed MMO to NetDevil (Jumpgate, Jumpgate Evolution). Naturally, the well-established Lego fan community was ecstatic—especially PC and platform gamers who were fans of successful video game titles like Lego Star Wars. In fact, the upcoming MMO was described in early 2008 as "LEGO Star Wars multiplied by a million," according to Lego Group's Mark Hansen, Group Director of Business Development.

In the interview with Wired we linked to, Hansen described the MMO as "'a virtual extension of the real-world Lego' gameplay, by allowing MMO fans a chance to virtually live among each of the thousands of Lego sets that have been created over the years." One of the early-touted features was the ability for players to create structures and vehicles using "virtual blocks," the schematics of which could be exported, to allow the creation of real-world counterparts of in-game objects.

Throughout 2008, NetDevil's art and development team kept the fan community in-the-loop via a series of behind-the-scenes features and artist commentaries, detailing the creation of the persistent, 3D world built with virtual plastic bricks. In an artist commentary written by Lego Universe art director, Phillip Atencio, we learned more about the MMO world's unique creation process; even though it was designed using traditional polygons, the artists always had to keep the individual "brick building" nature of Lego blocks in mind.

On the other hand, the MMO design process offered certain freedoms as well. "Digital creations can be much more flexible than physical ones," Atencio said in the aforementioned commentary. "For instance, we could design digital models that wouldn’t physically hold together. Building with physical LEGO bricks helps us keep that connectivity in LEGO Universe!" As we also reported in 2008, the developers occasionally turned to kids for inspiration when designing some of the spatially-themed puzzles that players will face in the MMO.

Originally planned for release in 2009, last February the Lego Group announced that the MMO would be delayed for launch until 2010; "The LEGO Universe team has decided to delay the game’s launch so that it gets the full attention of our company and fans when it makes its public debut," the company wrote in a press release. "The good news is that we now have more time to make LEGO Universe even better for you."

As Kotaku reported in an interview with Mark Hansen, the delay would also allow more time for the Lego Group to attempt to secure licensing rights from popular franchises for the MMO. "At least initially that won't include the LEGO bricks that use different IP like Batman, Star Wars and Indiana Jones," Hansen told Kotaku. "But that's not totally off the table. The hang-up would be getting the owners of those properties to sign off on the rights."

In mid-2009, the Lego Group finally began to release more concrete news and details about the upcoming Lego Universe to the MMO media and fan communities. Last July, we reported the announcement that players will create custom minifigures to represent their online avatars, or characters, in-game. We learned that players' minifigures will have the ability to build in-game structures and vehicles, along with some of the more-traditional MMO staples like questing, exploring and engaging in battles. A variety of fantasy and sci-fi genres will be represented, ranging from pirates, knights, ninjas to dragons, mechs and more.