39 replies to this topic

[Hinckley]

tedbeard, on Jan 4 2008, 12:22 PM, said:

And next time you propose to critique a critique perhaps you should actually read what I wrote. I said she wrote a good review for a specific audience. I did NOT say it was awful or whatever you seem to have assumed I meant. Saying something is good but could be improved can hardly be characterized as "bitching".  :-|

As gently as I can, let me point out where I thought your critque of her was harsh. I believe reviewers should be given the benefit of the doubt in any situation. They take time to write the review and shouldn't be too harshly critiqued by anyone, especially those who don't contribute reviews themselves. Granted, you did thank her and gave her some positive comments. But when you got to a constructive critique it went on a little long. You had, IMO, too many points to fix. They came at a bullet pace and that made it seem pretty harsh. Seriously, price per piece analysis? We're AFOLs, not accountants. Do you really want to see a pie chart? :-/

My advice for those of us who don't enjoy a review would be to ask for more details politely. We don't need to send the reviewer to reviewer school or reviewer therapy. We can just ask graciously if there are printed pieces or stickers. Or ask them what questions people had been speculating about in news threads they can answer. If the reviewer feels they can provide information then great! If not, get out a calculator, open a LEGO catalog and make your own pie chart.

[Aredhel]

Hinckley, on Jan 5 2008, 11:17 AM, said:

As gently as I can, let me point out where I thought your critque of her was harsh. I believe reviewers should be given the benefit of the doubt in any situation. They take time to write the review and shouldn't be too harshly critiqued by anyone, especially those who don't contribute reviews themselves. Granted, you did thank her and gave her some positive comments. But when you got to a constructive critique it went on a little long. You had, IMO, too many points to fix. They came at a bullet pace and that made it seem pretty harsh. Seriously, price per piece analysis? We're AFOLs, not accountants. Do you really want to see a pie chart? :-/

My advice for those of us who don't enjoy a review would be to ask for more details politely. We don't need to send the reviewer to reviewer school or reviewer therapy. We can just ask graciously if there are printed pieces or stickers. Or ask them what questions people had been speculating about in news threads they can answer. If the reviewer feels they can provide information then great! If not, get out a calculator, open a LEGO catalog and make your own pie chart.

I am exactly at the same opinion. I think when one does a review it is nothing bad to get critics, but only when they are said in a polite and normal way. When I do reviews of MOCs e.g. I would like the people to tell me what I did good and what I could have done better.
And like Sandra said, we are here to have fun and enjoy our hobby with building Lego!

-Aredhel

[Cyclone Titan]

Now I want this set even more!!! :-P You, know, your kinda right, this does look like it could be used for a LEGO Back To The future scene. Now for a LEGO Delorean... :-P

[Dr. Brick]

Great review legocastlegirl! Thanks!
My 10184 is on its way (I hope :-| ), and thanks to you I can't wait for it. Oh well, just makes the set better when it finally arrives! >:-)
Dr. Brick

[Klaus-Dieter]

Thank you for the nice review, Legocastlegirl!

I can't tell you how glad I am - I received Town Plan even now! :-)

[Athos]

I must say that I'm horribly disappointed with the stickers.  :-(

I'm not surprised that everything is stickered, but I'm still most horribly disappointed.  :'-(

A great set brought down by stickers.  *n*

Steve

[zero1312]

A great review Legocastlegirl. *y*
Thanks!! *sweet*

[brickzone]

Good to have another review, and I liked the interior photo of the garage in particular.

My own Town Plan set has been on its way to me this week, I had hoped for it to arrive Friday, now I am hoping for Monday (we have no weekend post here in Ireland). I'm really looking forward to it!

It is only €129.99 for Ireland on S@H which is nice.

[Iced]

I really like this set :-P  but a little to $$  :-$

[brickzone]

I finally received my post-Christmas Lego order today, including Town Plan. I was very impressed, it is even better than I could have imagined.

Some little details:

It includes a train base! (Used for cinema roof) This is really useful to have, so much more valuable than two smaller flat plates.

The part count of 2000 is not only made up of small pieces; there are so many flat plates, some quite large, and pillars and so on as well as ample quantities of medium bricks.

The fountain has a trans-blue 8x8 plate - how cool is that?

The town hall uses the new house window frames; they have no shutter holders, but unlike the train windows that Market Street etc. used; they have a raised line to stop window panes pushing inwards (although unfortunately tolerance is not quite perfect, so they don't stop quite level). This is something I'm glad to see and to have; the train windows were wholly unsuitable for houses/window panes IMO.

The little car and the petrol tanker were a joy to build. For the former, it is impressive the detail they fit into a car model that is the scale of the old 4-wide standard.

I loved some of the little touches like the popcorn for sale in the foyer of the cinema. The cinema was a reasonably elaborate build.

Finally I have an admission; I really enjoy the challenge of lining up the stickers :) The one place I didn't like having stickers were the round tiles at the petrol pumps with "Octan" stickers; these should have been printed (I consider the other custom bits perfectly reasonable not to have printing).

Just a note; the car wash doesn't work if you point the taps (holding the elastic band) in the wrong direction. I was puzzled for a while as to why the mechanism kept exploding when I would push a car through.

The build took most of the afternoon and evening; though I am suffering from a cold so I wasn't entirely concentrating fully at times.

[Brickmaster]

Gosh this sounds like such a great lovely set, I utterly want it  *wub*

That is, once I can get some money. It looks so great - And I especially enjoyed reading this and brickzone's mini-review.

Thank you both.  ;-)

[WhiteFang]

Nice Review! This set is a must to get >.< i intend to get 2 sets but i don't think it will ever come
to my country, Singapore  :'-(
Nevertheless, this set do reminds me of Back to the Future! It looks wonderful with the church and the cinema, a wonderful classic in the making!  *sweet*

[Dr. Brick]

Today my town plan still didn't arrive, so I gave LEGO a ring.
'your parcel has arrived  in the Netherlands!'
(I live in Belgium)
  >:-(  :-X  >:-(
Now they need to send me a new one I'll have to wait until Friday, maybe even monday.
Patience is killing me.
Dr. Brick

[Sinner]

This is such a nice set.  *wub*  Thanks for the review...

julencin2000, on Dec 30 2007, 07:07 AM, said:

sticker sheet pic with 1 megapixel film posters

....and thanks for the photo. I love the subtle ad for the new creator spider.  :-P

[Svelte]

Sinner, on Jan 24 2008, 09:57 PM, said:

....and thanks for the photo. I love the subtle ad for the new creator spider.  :-P

I love that too! It makes me want to get a creator spider just so I can re-enact the movie! It's a really nice touch.

I've built the garage and the vehicles/ fountain/ petrol pumps now but I've debagged everything - just my thoughts so far:

- part selection isn't bad, but it's definitely a different experience to the glory that is Cafe Corner - as noted above there are less very small pieces overall (1x1 tiles, 1x1 plates etc) but the colour selection is kind of lacking in comparison - lots of basic white, red, green, blue rather than their darker (and rarer cousins). OK, there is a lot of dark red, medium blue, and way more dark green than I've ever seen in one place but generally it's a lot more classic than CC. This does reflect the more classic design of the set though.
- And yes, there some nice parts in colours we don't see often (I love all the trans-clear garage links and big curved panel as they are usually in trans-blue, which I find a bit garish for city MOCs). 8x8 trans-blue plate and gold bricks are the obvious ones but there's a lot of nice stuff sprinkled throughout and in decent quantities as well
- in the garage, one of the octan sticker signs goes over a 1x2 white brick modified with the groove that allows the garage pieces to move up and down - this is a bit dodgy as it means a sticker is going over a large groove - this doesn't help its long term prospects for survival. I know this is to save sorting costs as all the other 1x2 bricks in the garage section are these modified bricks but it does seem a bit of a cheat
- the little tree outside the garage looks a lot less strange in person than it does the way it's photographed on the box art! it's actually kind of tropical looking, like a flame tree.
- the car wash apparatus is very cool - you can't really see it from external pics but the mechanism contains 2 vertical sets of brushes and one horizontal - very thorough and better than the smaller City service station set sold last year

I think this set does lack the instant appeal of the Cafe Corner but together with that (and Market Street and the 2 last very nice Creator houses) Lego has basically given us a massively detailed and beautiful town/ city in one 12 month period! That is truly astonishing considering the lack of decent non fire or police themed buildings we've had over the last few years. 4886 was hailed as revolutionary in 2004 for providing the first building with a back in decades, and already that looks clunky and old-fashioned now. I'm looking forward to finishing off Town Plan and then to the rest of 08!

Edited by svelte_corps, 25 January 2008 - 05:11 AM.