Unpopular Opinions about LEGO

[Murdoch17]

1 hour ago, jimmynick said:

I may have expressed this opinion before - but clicking on a MOC thread that just had a link to LEGO Ideas inside - not every MOC has to be an Idea! Build things because you find it fun, not because you want the prestige of TLG turning your MOC into a real set.

For crying out loud.

Exactly! Not to mention those types of threads are against the rules here on EB... so, every time I see one that's just begging for votes without any real content besides a link, I report the thread.

[jimmynick]

4 hours ago, Murdoch17 said:

Exactly! Not to mention those types of threads are against the rules here on EB... so, every time I see one that's just begging for votes without any real content besides a link, I report the thread.

Well, yes, there is this - but there also high-quality MOCs presented well here on EB, with excellent photos, etc. etc., and at the very end a link to Ideas. Again, my refrain: not everything needs to be an Idea. I can appreciate someone else's artwork on its own merits, and not just by how marketable it is.

[Toastie]

1 hour ago, jimmynick said:

but there also high-quality MOCs presented well here on EB, with excellent photos, etc. etc., and at the very end a link to Ideas

My trick is: Simply ignore the link and just enjoy the presentation. It always worked so far ...

Best
Thorsten 

[Lyichir]

3 hours ago, jimmynick said:

Well, yes, there is this - but there also high-quality MOCs presented well here on EB, with excellent photos, etc. etc., and at the very end a link to Ideas. Again, my refrain: not everything needs to be an Idea. I can appreciate someone else's artwork on its own merits, and not just by how marketable it is.

While I'd certainly agree that not every great MOC is suited to being a set, I don't see anything wrong with MOCists submitting their work and leaving it up to the community (and Lego) whether or not it would be something they'd as a product. I don't think it's always about "prestige" so much as it is about making something because you wanted it and letting other people decide if they'd like to have something like that too.

[MAB]

11 hours ago, jimmynick said:

Well, yes, there is this - but there also high-quality MOCs presented well here on EB, with excellent photos, etc. etc., and at the very end a link to Ideas. Again, my refrain: not everything needs to be an Idea. I can appreciate someone else's artwork on its own merits, and not just by how marketable it is.

I tend to read as far as the link or mention of 'vote for me' then stop. So if the link is at the bottom, I would have looked at the images and might be interested enough to vote. If the link is at the top,  I don't get any further.

And if there is just a link to IDEAS and the user couldn't even be bothered to learn how to link images, they have no chance of a vote from me. This is usually new users that have signed up only to post their IDEAS submission with no interest in the site or duscussion. Chances are that they have also recently joined other LEGO fan forums and will have posted the same on those too.

[smazmats]

On 9/1/2025 at 1:10 AM, MAB said:

And if there is just a link to IDEAS and the user couldn't even be bothered to learn how to link images, they have no chance of a vote from me. This is usually new users that have signed up only to post their IDEAS submission with no interest in the site or duscussion. Chances are that they have also recently joined other LEGO fan forums and will have posted the same on those too.

While we have gotten some fantastic sets from Ideas and I’ve seen some pretty cool MOCs on there as well, I honestly have really grown to dislike the lego ideas platform. This is mainly from the amount of spam and “negative noise” that it generates in online Lego community spaces. It’s a big problem on reddit and Facebook. People trying to get votes will post their project everywhere that it might be barely applicable (any subreddits with “lego” in the tile seems to be fairgame for some people) often repeatedly in a short time frame or with rather meaningless updates (like at every 1000/500 person milestone). Years ago, I remember someone getting so ticked off and hostile that their classic space IDEAS projects were getting removed because it was off topic for the lego NASA/ space themed FbGroup i was in. IMO,  there are diminishing returns with promotion and If I constantly see a project repeatedly, its only going to lower my chances of voting for it, not increase it.  I find this behavior so spammy and annoying and also kinda sad because there is no community in it and its just every AFOL for themselves.

Not all project creators are guilty of this thankfully, but it feels like there is a loud majority with no regard for etiquette when promoting thats just ruining it for the rest. 

[jimmynick]

2 hours ago, smazmats said:

This is mainly from the amount of spam and “negative noise” that it generates in online Lego community spaces. It’s a big problem on reddit and Facebook. People trying to get votes will post their project everywhere that it might be barely applicable (any subreddits with “lego” in the tile seems to be fairgame for some people) often repeatedly in a short time frame or with rather meaningless updates (like at every 1000/500 person milestone).

And even besides any 'negative noise' there are creators out there whose raison d'etre seems to be to get projects built as Ideas or Bricklink sets. Exhausting.

[Yperio_Bricks]

7 hours ago, jimmynick said:

And even besides any 'negative noise' there are creators out there whose raison d'etre seems to be to get projects built as Ideas or Bricklink sets. Exhausting.

Yes it is exhausting! It's like a whole new hobby. Feels like people are more interested to get recognition as a designer of a Ideas or Bricklink set than building with Lego. Lego bricks are just a necessity to get there.

Same goes for all the rebrickable ads. Its not a hobby but a business. So why they have to spam hobby forums?

[MAB]

22 hours ago, jimmynick said:

And even besides any 'negative noise' there are creators out there whose raison d'etre seems to be to get projects built as Ideas or Bricklink sets. Exhausting.

It is understandable when you look atbthe numbers. If they get a BDP set approved and sell a large number of sets, they can make huge sums of money. They get 5% after delivery and taxes are taken off. So a £300 set makes them in the order of £12 per set sold. If they sell 25000 sets, that is £300,000, about eight years average UK salary. 

[KotZ]

On 9/6/2025 at 4:21 PM, smazmats said:

While we have gotten some fantastic sets from Ideas and I’ve seen some pretty cool MOCs on there as well, I honestly have really grown to dislike the lego ideas platform. This is mainly from the amount of spam and “negative noise” that it generates in online Lego community spaces. It’s a big problem on reddit and Facebook. People trying to get votes will post their project everywhere that it might be barely applicable (any subreddits with “lego” in the tile seems to be fairgame for some people) often repeatedly in a short time frame or with rather meaningless updates (like at every 1000/500 person milestone). Years ago, I remember someone getting so ticked off and hostile that their classic space IDEAS projects were getting removed because it was off topic for the lego NASA/ space themed FbGroup i was in. IMO,  there are diminishing returns with promotion and If I constantly see a project repeatedly, its only going to lower my chances of voting for it, not increase it.  I find this behavior so spammy and annoying and also kinda sad because there is no community in it and its just every AFOL for themselves.

Not all project creators are guilty of this thankfully, but it feels like there is a loud majority with no regard for etiquette when promoting thats just ruining it for the rest. 

I'm of the same mind. Sure there is a non-zero chance I'll put something on the platform eventually, and I've met a few people who have had their sets picked and made and are very nice people. But oh man, there's just too much of it now. Etiquette like you said is lost for it, but I think that's just the loss of internet etiquette in general. Funny how when the internet was much more anonymous it seemed (maybe this isn't true and rose-tinted glasses and all) a bit more... polite? That's a discussion for a different board/topic though.

But I agree, there is so much of just spamming in other places just barely related to the MOC at hand or constant posting of the same thing. We see it here on EB as well sometimes when people just drop the link to Ideas and don't engage with the community.

On 9/6/2025 at 6:49 PM, jimmynick said:

And even besides any 'negative noise' there are creators out there whose raison d'etre seems to be to get projects built as Ideas or Bricklink sets. Exhausting.

On 9/7/2025 at 2:52 AM, Yperio_Bricks said:

Yes it is exhausting! It's like a whole new hobby. Feels like people are more interested to get recognition as a designer of a Ideas or Bricklink set than building with Lego. Lego bricks are just a necessity to get there.

Agree with you both here. It's like the fun aspect of building has been lost. Not every MOC needs to be submitted to Ideas or anything. Sometimes it's ok just to build something for the fun of it and share it with people.

[Calanon]

On 9/8/2025 at 5:05 PM, KotZ said:

Agree with you both here. It's like the fun aspect of building has been lost. Not every MOC needs to be submitted to Ideas or anything. Sometimes it's ok just to build something for the fun of it and share it with people.

That's crazy talk. Where would we be without everything being turned into a side hustle?

I completed several digital Star Wars MOCs in the last year which I shared in a group chat. Haven't posted any proper picturers anywhere because I want to make sure they work IRL and I had a few people suggest I put them on Rebrickable. I know it's a compliment but the idea everything has to be on there I just find a little exhausting. It also really frustrates me when some people churn out a lot of digital builds and put the instructions up for sale before checking it really works.

[LegendaryArticuno]

Took a fairly long hiatus from Lego, and honestly it was really healthy for my mental health.

Amazon Black Friday deals caused me to relapse, and now I'm buying sets that I want but don't have the room to display/store. Lego is an incurable addiction/disease, also doesn't help that prices are have skyrocketed and price per piece has doubled if not tripled in some cases .

[SpacePolice89]

I think that using focus groups with kids when making/designing sets and themes should be kept to a minimum. The designers should be allowed more saying in the process and results from focus groups are very misleading. It's like having the kids choosing what to eat every day and they'll choose ice cream, candy and pizza and that is not good for them in the long run. The kids are supposed to play with the toys and not to design them. Of course should the sets be tested with kids but not in the way it's currently done.

Edited December 28, 2025 by SpacePolice89

[Toastie]

14 minutes ago, SpacePolice89 said:

I think that using focus groups with kids when making/designing sets and themes should be kept to a minimum.

I am unsure about that - I don't like "focus groups" nowhere at all, but ...

Kids so vividly and swiftly "change".

Some of my colleagues refer to freshmen and freshwomen (and yes, they complain about that usage of "men" as well) as "kids"; I call them the younger people (or youngest, in LEGO world for the "kids").

As a university chemistry teacher, I am supposed to develop modern chemistry curricula. Not alone, there are the younger colleagues around(!) but still ... I turn 64 early next year, three more years to go. Every semester, I volunteer to teach the equivalent of Chem1A/1B/1C, intro to PChem, intro to Thermodynamics, just "keep in touch" with "change". Getting in touch is no problem, but getting the "change" is. I get older; each semester, the women and men coming in stay at the same age, 17 to 19 years old. However, at the entrance level, Chemistry has not changed for almost a century, but each year, the cohorts surely do. Significantly. So I am mostly looking at how to adjust the way of presenting and more importantly, the way of grading. With AI at your fingertips, classical grading does not make any sense anymore.

With regard to LEGO/TLG: The central idea of their product is almost as old as "modern" = 100 years old Chemistry. Sure there is PUp and what not; in Chemistry, we have orbitals and what not ... but essentially it all remains the same: Yes, SNOT is possible. Or: Don't mix Domestos with acidic detergents, or you'll be in serious trouble.

My conclusion: Don't let younger+20 to +40 years old people design sets (or approaches) for the 3 to 10+ years old people without asking the latter.

Should that be called a "focus group"? In my opinion, never. Just play with them. And they should not make such a fuzz about it. Get in touch, learn from the younger. Develop.

Just my 2 cents, I am enjoying the Christmas "break" (Germans ... I know) and in 2026 I'll just continue with sniffing the wind of change.

All the best
Thorsten  

       

[SpacePolice89]

9 hours ago, Toastie said:

Should that be called a "focus group"? In my opinion, never. Just play with them. And they should not make such a fuzz about it. Get in touch, learn from the younger. Develop.

I agree 100%

[Parrot]

I prefer stickers over printed pieces.

I like my bricks free of any imagery. With stickers, I can simply choose not to apply them.

[danth]

20 minutes ago, Parrot said:

I like my bricks free of any imagery. With stickers, I can simply choose not to apply them.

This always cracks me up, because you can simply choose not to use a printed part just as easily.

[Parrot]

15 minutes ago, danth said:

This always cracks me up, because you can simply choose not to use a printed part just as easily.

Well maybe if I will have thousands of pieces and more experience I will change my view.
For now it's just a wasted piece because it has some weird print that doesn't fit something I want to build.

[icm]

31 minutes ago, danth said:

This always cracks me up, because you can simply choose not to use a printed part just as easily.

Not really, only if you already have the unprinted part in the same color to swap in, which often isn't the case. Besides, stickers let me vary the level of decoration on a set. In my opinion, reducing the level of decoration often makes a set look much better.

[danth]

2 hours ago, Parrot said:

For now it's just a wasted piece because it has some weird print that doesn't fit something I want to build.

There are so few pieces that are printed that it's basically a made up problem. 

In a limited collection, chances are you will not have enough of the pieces you need, or none of them at all. Or have them in the wrong color. The odds of you having exactly what you want, but with an unwanted print, is so unlikely as to be contrived. 

And if you're buying sets to MOC with, why are you buying sets with prints that you don't want? When you can buy classic sets or bricklink what you need for MOCs? 

It's just silly to complain about I'll just never understand the issue of unwanted prints when they are rare and completely avoidable. 

However, this is an unpopular opinion thread, and yours is unpopular, so you automatically "win", IMO. Just wanted to add some perspective, since I hate stickers.

1 hour ago, icm said:

Not really, only if you already have the unprinted part in the same color to swap in, which often isn't the case. Besides, stickers let me vary the level of decoration on a set. In my opinion, reducing the level of decoration often makes a set look much better.

See above. It's a contrived problem. 

I do appreciate the fact that the only people arguing in favor of stickers also don't want to use them. 

Edited December 29, 2025 by danth

[icm]

2 minutes ago, danth said:

There are so few pieces that are printed that it's basically a made up problem. 

In a limited collection, chances are you will not have enough of the pieces you need, or none of them at all. Or have them in the wrong color. The odds of you having exactly what you want, but with an unwanted print, is so unlikely as to be contrived. 

And if you're buying sets to MOC with, why are you buying sets with prints that you don't want? When you can buy classic sets or bricklink what you need for MOCs? 

It's just silly to complain about unwanted prints when they are rare and completely avoidable. 

However, this is an unpopular opinion thread, and yours is unpopular, so you automatically "win", IMO. Just wanted to add some perspective, since I hate stickers.

See above. It's a contrived problem. 

Wow, way to dismiss lived experiences and practical difficulties based on pure ideology. But I wouldn't expect anything different from the self appointed president of the sticker haters club.

[danth]

4 minutes ago, icm said:

Wow, way to dismiss lived experiences and practical difficulties based on pure ideology. But I wouldn't expect anything different from the self appointed president of the sticker haters club.

You seem to always want to make things personal with me. 

I'm just giving my lived experience. I was a poor kid with a limited collection. I never had the parts I wanted. And it was never because they were printed, it was because I didn't have them at all, or enough of them, or in the right colors.

The few printed parts I had were treasured, and I'd use them whenever possible. 

I was just hoping that by pointing out how much more likely it is to have the wrong parts or the wrong colors than an unwanted print, @Parrot might be convinced that the benefits of printed parts outweigh the rare downside. 

[JesseNight]

Let's not forget that this is a thread with "unpopular opinions" rather than complaints, therefore disagreements are to be expected 

I understand both sides here, I've been in both camps. I generally prefer printed parts for sure, but it has happened to me as a kid that I was annoyed about having some silly print on a part that I really wished having bare to use in a completely different setting. And this was in the 80s, so not a time to just order a missing piece on BL yet. The point of stickers in this example is obviously about having a choice whether or not to use it.

[Parrot]

41 minutes ago, danth said:

It's just silly to complain about unwanted prints when they are rare and completely avoidable. 

However, this is an unpopular opinion thread, and yours is unpopular, so you automatically "win", IMO. Just wanted to add some perspective, since I hate stickers.

It wasn't meant to be a complaint, I only shared an unpopular opinion and explained why I prefer stickers. I think that I might start collecting LEGO stickers, because I have no other use for them :) And l don't think I "won" because I didn't start in any "competition". Thanks for your perspective :)

[danth]

18 minutes ago, JesseNight said:

Let's not forget that this is a thread with "unpopular opinions" rather than complaints, therefore disagreements are to be expected 

Agreed. 

18 minutes ago, Parrot said:

It wasn't meant to be a complaint, I only shared an unpopular opinion and explained why I prefer stickers.

You're right. I shouldn't have said it that way. I should have just said I don't understand it, or something. Your preference is valid.