User:OttselSpy25/LEGO Dimensions OP

Hello! If you're reading this, you just stumbled upon this OP. I would first of all like you to know that this is not immediate. It's my personal opinion that we should save LEGO Dimensions until 2024, as we've simply got too much going on this year. Also, someone else is also drafting a LEGO Dimensions OP, and there's no certainty that mine will be used over theirs. But I know how I want to structure a LD OP, so I want to start writing down notes.

Part 1: The Basics
LEGO Dimensions released on September the 27th, 2015 in North America and the 29th of September 2015 in Europe. The game was the latest iteration of the "toys-to-life" video game genre, started primarily by Skylanders. There's a great Scott the Woz video about this if you want more information.

Anyways, so LEGO Dimensions basically operated off this idea that if LEGO took some of the most beloved franchises in the world and created a game about a group of inter-dimensional travelers falling into these franchises, they could then sell even more game content by releasing individual level packs for said franchises. Each purchase would come with a set of LEGO mini-figures, alongside identifying plates. The user could then place any combination of figures on the toy pad. This would make it seem that these different characters had been "summoned" to assist in the game play, but this would be disregarded by the greater story and cutscenes.

The main bulk of the game features Wyldstyle, Batman and Gandalf. Wyldstyle was from 2014's. Meanwhile, the incarnation of Batman featured in the game actually debuted in 2008's. These two sources had entirely different lore about how the LEGO elements of their respective worlds operated, and arguably the game illustrated a multiverse of stories with their own separate multiverses.

Wyldstyle, Batman and Gandalf fall through the many universes set out before them, eventually ending up in the Doctor Who universe. There, the Doctor saves them from a group of Daleks and sets them on their way. At the end of the game, the group recruit several characters they met across their adventures to help them defeat the final boss. The Twelfth Doctor is crucial to their plan.

That is the full plot of the main game as it pertains to the Doctor Who content.

After this we have the Doctor Who DLC pack. Here, crucially, you play as the Doctor. The main hub-world of the game features many mini-levels you can complete featuring characters like Jack Harkness and River Song.

But the main level in this section is The Dalek Extermination of Earth. Here, the Doctor discovers that Davros has taken over the Earth and has converted all of its people into Imperial Daleks. The Doctor has to go back in time and save humanity, then defeat Davros

In theory, that's the basics of the game's story. However, there is the complexity next of the game play mechanics.

Because of the play feature of the LEGO toy pad, it was actually possible to play all of the game with DWU characters through character packs. The total packs released included the TARDIS, the Twelfth Doctor, K9, a Cyberman, and a Dalek. Again, this would not effect the plot or in-game narrative. However, it would allow players to (controversially?) discover easter egg moments which had their own mini-narratives.

Hopefully this clears things up, as I've seen a lot of confusion, as I've seen a lot of people on here just not understanding how the game works.

Next, let's move on to trying to find some policy here.

Part 2: Coverage
So the first thing I'm hoping we can all agree on about LEGO Dimensions is that, when it comes to Tardis:Valid sources, the game easily passes out first three rules. It is a work of fiction, the Doctor Who elements are commercially licensed, and it has been officially released.

Now, whether this makes everyone happy or not, passing these three part of T:VS means that LEGO Dimensions is automatically viable for coverage on Tardis wiki.

Now, please take note that coverage and validity are not the same thing. To run through some examples: The Stranger by BBV has no site coverage, Blue Peter special 2005 has coverage but isn't valid, TV: Twice Upon a Time has coverage and is valid.

My general point here is that you've come to this post to say "LEGO Dimensions is/isn't valid", I'm afraid it's not that simple. Even if we decide this game isn't valid... We still have to cover it. Which means, no matter the consensus, no matter if the info ends up on Twelfth Doctor or Twelfth Doctor/Non-valid sources, we have to sort through the weeds and figure out how to cover LEGO Dimensions and more specifically how much of the title to cover.

So I'm going move any debates about rule 4 or validity to much further down in the post. I'm also going to be splitting the discussions into two parts to make things easier for everyone.

In this specific part I am instead going to be discussing what I call the phases of coverage, starting with no coverage and ending with all coverage. The understanding is that both ends are extreme to a point of caution, so somewhere in the middle must be the correct answer.

Phase 0
Phase 0 represents... Absolutely nothing. We don't allow in-universe pages to be written about the LEGO spin-offs, we treat the game like a charity novel and authoritatively ask that no one ever mention it again.

Phase 1
So Phase 1 is, very simply, the version of the policy which I pitched back in the old thread (which I think was active between 2015 and 2016).

So the idea of this is that split the main non-DLC campaign of LEGO Dimensions into the core levels. Then we specifically only allow for coverage of the levels which feature the Twelfth Doctor in the plot - the cutscenes - on top of the entire Doctor Who DLC.

To help clear things up, I'm here's links on the LEGO Dimensions wiki to all the level content this would entail:


 * 1) A Dalektable Adventure
 * 2) The Final Dimension
 * 3) The Dalek Extermination of Earth

So the basic gist here is that the story of these three levels, and nothing else, would be valid sources. However, the actual ruling of the 2016 thread was that we can't go with just Phase 1. This is what caused the game to be declared non-valid. So... What was the controversial phase 2?

Phase 2
So the basics of Phase 2 is this: we cover these three levels but don't stop at just the cutscenes. We also cover and in-game easter eggs in these sections, no matter how they might have been achieved. The reason this is controversial is that it involves us actually confronting the part of the game which originally resulted in it being non-valid: the ability to customize game play by summoning other playable characters from other franchises.

For instance, in the main Doctor Who expansion world, summoning a character like Gandalf allows the player to discover a hidden portal. Going through this reveals the Black Archive, where Kate Stewart and Osgood are mulling around. Inside this room are A LOT of easter eggs. Omega's mask is in a box if you manage to put it back together, Missy is hidden if you can find her, the Genesis Ark is tucked away in a corner, and you can also find Bessie taken apart in various pieces. If you put Bessie back together, the Third Doctor appears through a portal and is chased away by the Time Scoop.

But the most famous easter egg is that if you do a series of very specific things involving summoning characters like Batman, the infamous Cyberbrig will come out of a panel in the wall and salute you.

So this was the specific reason this game was declared invalid ages ago. No one quite knew how we were supposed to cover something like this. And to be honest, I'm still not 100% sure myself.

The basic theory is we would cover these side-steps as potential things experienced by whatever main character was supposed to be experiencing that part of the story (the Twelfth Doctor for the expansion pack, Wyldstyle, Batman and Gandalf for the main game). Then, in a case by case basis, we would decide if the characters needed to summon said easter egg require their own pages. For instance, if you can summon any wizard/witch to do a task, we shouldn't go through the complexity of who was summoned. But if you need to summon specifically Batman to do something, yeah we'd cover that as him being a part of that easter egg's story.

I was also told by someone that there is some kind of in-game purchase you can now have a hologram access that in-game content without physically having the required LEGO. This either makes things more complex or less depending on the view point. We can either say that we've decided only the "hologram" version is valid for pages, or we can say that the hologram is just another possible path.

Phase 3
So here's where things get tedious. There are two levels that I know of outside of those listed in Phase 1 which feature mini-levels which feature some Doctor Who concept in them.

The main pitch of phase 3 is that we would allow coverage but only of the specific mini-levels and their set-up.

These are the LEGO Dimensions levels included in phase 3 (stories marked with * were not there before):


 * 1) A Dalektable Adventure
 * 2) The Final Dimension
 * 3) The Dalek Extermination of Earth
 * 4) The Mysterious Voyage of Homer*
 * 5) The Goonies*

In The Mysterious Voyage of Homer you can find the 200 from TV: Planet of the Dead. When broken, this reveals a TARDIS travel point. If the TARDIS is then used, the player can transport themselves to a small mini-level based on The Jetsons.

In The Goonies, if the player repairs another TARDIS travel point, they can find an entire hidden area based on The Power of the Daleks. When you arrive, the Twelfth Doctor is already there and yells at you. You can then repair and break a few things, eventually leading to you summoning the Dalek Emperor (but this time, the 1960s one!)

This is the coolest easter egg in the game and it is, without question, a Doctor Who level. So the theory is, at this point, we'd just cover the mini-levels and the direct set-up for them.

Phase 4
Okay, so Phase 4 is worse than phase 3.

On top of the mini levels listed above, several levels in the game also features cameos and easter eggs by Doctor Who universe characters and concepts. These are significant enough that if they happened in, say, a Marvel comic, they'd be covered without question. These are:


 * 1) A Dalektable Adventure
 * 2) Painting the Town Black*
 * 3) Once Upon A Time Machine in the West*
 * 4) GLaD to See You*
 * 5) Prime Time*
 * 6) The Final Dimension
 * 7) The Dalek Extermination of Earth
 * 8) The Mysterious Voyage of Homer
 * 9) The Goonies
 * 10) 71264 Story Pack*

Let's start off in the non-expansion levels.

Firstly, in Once Upon A Time Machine in the West (the Back to the Future level) the villainous Lord Vortech summons various random things from across the multiverse to hinder Wyldstyle, Batman and Gandalf. One of these is the Valiant, the aircraft carrier used by in series 3.

(It's my theory that the creators of this game really wanted to go ham with crossing over Back to the Future and Doctor Who but were only able to do it a few times in more implicit ways. The promotional trailers really play up the ability to have both on-screen at the same time.)

Daleks then cameo in: Painting the Town Black (the DC level), GLaD to See You (Portal level), and Prime Time. Specifically, in the last level, a Special Weapons Dalek is pulled out to attack Lord Vortech.

Finally, the last thing we have to discuss is the 71264 Story Pack. This one doesn't have the official name on the wiki and I kept it there as a bit of a surprise... But yes, this is the LEDO Dimensions level pack based on the LEGO Batman movie.

Obviously this was created at a completely different time than the rest of the packs, but it's hard to think of a metric of separating this level from the rest. And indeed this has very dire implications to those of you who might want this game validated.

Phase 4.5
Phase 4.5 is basically that we would also cover the "mini-level" content of Phase 3 in their entirety, because why not?

Phase 5
Phase 5 is including all potential character interactions as valid. This is already a presumed part of coverage, as you'll discover at the page Batmobile.

You see, if you place the Twelfth Doctor on the game pad alongside the Batmobile lego piece, you can have the Twelfth Doctor drive it. As he does, he'll comment that he prefers Bessie. Placing the Cyberman figure will result in a similar comment.

This also means that we logically have to cover any character interaction which has any relevant to our pages. For instance, placing Wonder Woman near the TARDIS results in her saying that it looks like we something Superman would change clothes in. So based on the logic of Phase 5, we would say on Wonder Woman's page:


 * According to one possible telling of a source, a version of Wonder Woman who was a real superhero was pulled from her dimension into a dimension also occupied by the TARDIS. The superhero commented that it reminded her of something Superman would change clothes in. (GAME: LEGO Dimensions)

Going as far as this means that we'd have to reconcile that we're fully covering not only the narrative of the title and the narrative of the easter eggs... But also the entire gameplay itself. Once we do this, we have to include details like... the Doctor regenerating when he's killed, historically details we've let slide with topics like GAME: The Mazes of Time and PROSE: Doctor Who and the Rebel's Gamble. Which is a very messy messy thing to get into, as we literally would have to say that the Twelfth Doctor might have regenerated into the First Doctor... When that's only a part of the gameplay.

Phase 6
Okay, so remember those TARDIS travel points? The kind of landing pads you can build to summon the TARDIS? Phase 6 is including in our coverage every single level where one of these exists. The logic being that as this is a physical point where the TARDIS is designed to travel to in-game, we should cover the entire level, or at the very least whatever easter egg level the TARDIS is used to access. (Presuming we're not including 4.5 earlier)

For instance, in the Harry Potter level, a TARDIS Travel point can be used to summon the TARDIS and take it to... Red Dwarf. Yes, the Red Dwarf ship from Red Dwarf.

Yes, it is awesome. No, I don't know why it's in the Harry Potter level.

I personally think this one's a little hard to get behind, mainly because... well, I don't consider the TARDIS travel points to be a licensed DWU element! I think if LEGO wanted to release a set using one tomorrow they wouldn't have to pay the BBC. And I don't think the potential of summoning a DW element for gameplay justifies us insisting on coverage.

But it's easier to get behind if we're only talking about the mini-levels, like Red Dwarf, considering that you have to use the TARDIS to get to those.

Phase 7: The Final Phase
Phase 7 is the natural extension of phases 5 and 6, and the most extreme point. The basic logic is that once we allow ourselves to cover minor elements exclusive to the game play, like random dialogue that happens when you put certain toys together, then we no longer have just six levels to cover. We now have to cover any level where the Twelfth Doctor, K9, the Dalek, or the Cyberman make any unique comment of any kind.

Which would essentially meant that we would have to cover the entire main game, most of the DLC packs, and probably even more than that.

Conclusions
So, personally, I think my natural instinct is for us to go with Phase 4... with an instinctual level of Phase 5 until it gets ridiculous.

Basically, my gut instinct is that we should cover the entirety of Once Upon A Time Machine in the West, just the mini-levels in the Simpsons and Goonies with the very basic context of how to get there... And then we'd probably allow people to cover basic interaction in the levels we do cover, with some acceptance of doing stuff like the blurbs on Batmobile and Wonder Woman.

But it's a very very difficult topic. Again, this debate really has nothing to do with validity, as this content will be on the wiki even if it's non-valid and we really never gave this game an actual proper debating with the full scope in front of us. And if you're ready to start debating this topic, you'll find a section for community discussion on phases of coverage below.

Part 3: Validity
to be added

Steven Moffat quote
Okay, so this is the infamous smoking gun.

At the San Diego Comic Con 2015, Steven Moffat, Michelle Gomez, Jenna Coleman and Peter Capaldi were on a panel about the game. There, the (mildly annoying at best) host asked Steven Moffat, directly: "Is LEGO Dimensions canon?"

Moffat's response? "Everything is canon."

Now, there's two big points of view about this. Some people argue that because this is a direct quote from Moffat saying "this game is a part of the Doctor Who canon, as it everything else", we have to cover it. Others think Moffat was joking, and was in fact saying the opposite. "RIIIIGHT, THIS is canon. (laugh track)"

I have mixed views. Firstly, I believe in a third option. I think he said this because he thought it was a stupid question. So not "YES THIS IS CANON" or "NO THIS ISN'T CANON I AM BEING SARCASTIC." It was his way of saying "Why should I be expected to answer this question? Why did I come to this panel in the first place?"

But yes indeed, it does represent the general show runner mindset of "If you want this to be canon, it is." Which I also think he was being very earnest about and does accurately represent how the Doctor Who portions of this game were branded. It's another story in the Doctor Who expanded universe which existed in the Capaldi era, and no distinction was made in discussing its contributions.

LEGO Batman movie
So the hardest part of the discussion of validity is that there is a clear argument to be made that if we validate all of the Doctor Who content in LEGO Dimensions... We'd also validate the video game adaptation of the LEGO Batman movie.

Now, technically speaking here, LEGO Batman did not officially fail Rule 4. It was declared unlicensed by one of our admins... Which was a lie. We just made up a lie basically.

BUT as the person who started that debate, I think the feeling was very much that we needed to talk about this... But very few people were excited for the LEGO Batman film to be a valid source on the website. And I think that's a weight that's going to bear down on this discussion. Basically, if we validate LEGO Dimensions, LEGO Batman would have a valid claim to Rule 4 by proxy, as it's depicted in this game as an alternate dimension... although one featuring a completely different Batman than the one in this game.

I just feel it's important to get this talking point out there, because obviously it's difficult.

The obvious counter to this point, in my eyes, is that... We make our own rules.

But more importantly, it should be explained that the LEGO films post-LM1 explicitly do not consider the events of LEGO Dimensions canon. So LEGO Dimensions actually isn't part of the canon of the LEGO Batman movie. So if we really wanted to call this game valid without calling the movie the same I think that we could justify it.

Validity thoughts
So I'm going to ramble about my personal opinions here and my big take on if this should be a valid source or not.

So LEGO Dimensions, when it comes to those original three levels we talked about in Phase 1, is probably my favorite Doctor Who video game ever. It just has so much charm to it and in such a way that no one else has been able to captivate. My honest feeling is that the BBC constantly proves they don't understand the show or its fanbase, and I think that's why the best Doctor Who game was made by an outside publisher and probably without interference. I mean, having a team who not only carefully recreated each Doctor's TARDIS interior within the game, but hid an entire sub-level that is exclusively an extended homage to The Power of the Daleks? We'll be lucky if we ever get something that cool again.

And I'll state my ongoing hot take. When it comes to the depiction of the Doctor Who universe in these three levels, I think there was a consistent effort to make them indistinguishable from the real deal. When the Twelfth Doctor lands on the aborted-timeline Trenzalore and comments that this paradox shouldn't be possible... That doesn't feel like "OH this is a sequel to LEGO The Time of the Doctor." It feels like a very, VERY earnest exploration of the Doctor Who universe.

And indeed, it is not easy for us as a community to look past an official quote from Moffat. "Everything is canon," everything specifically including this game.

However, I think things get more dicey when we start to realistically explore how we intend to cover this title. Once you get into the logic of "Oh, every Dalek cameo has to be covered like it's a Doctor Who level" you start to feel the slope get very slippery. And the end of that slope is, as we know, LEGO Batman being valid as a parallel universe to the DWU.

At the end of the day, I think validating all of this stuff is a lot less harmful than we would otherwise admit. As I've said in other debate, only the content from the main Doctor's universe would actually be relevant to T:NPOV. So actually covering this game would improve our coverage of stuff like Batman. Instead of the wiki blindly saying "some sources say Batman was fictional while other sources say he's a real guy," the article would say "Batman was a fictional character in the Doctor's universe" and then waaaaaaay down the article we'd link to Batman (LEGO Dimensions) and we'd say in one universe Batman was real.

Really, I think content covered as alternate universes like this tend to basically stay in their own corner of the site. But at the end of the day, it would be a lot of work to do it even remotely correctly.

So basically I think it's a little more complex than either side would admit. It's not 100% accurate to say "The entire Doctor Who level pack was exclusively meant to be a gag LEGO version of the character who had no connection to the established universe," but it's also not right to say "Covering the DW content of this game would be easy and without consequence."

LEGO Dimensions coverage discussion

 * Note: This section is exclusively for discussing how to go about covering LEGO Dimensions, regardless of if it is valid or non-valid. Please do not discuss if the title passes rule 4 in this section.

to be added

LEGO Dimensions validity discussion

 * Note: This section is exclusively for discussing the validity of LEGO Dimensions, specifically if it passes Rule 4.

to be added