Do people in general like or dislike, or hate overly specialized piece

[wolfwing]

I remember when I was young I grew up in the days of where pretty much every piece was universal, the only things that were not were wheels and minifigs wich at the time had no arms and solid legs. Then over time they added more stuff and got more specialized. Took a break for a while bought a castle set, only to find out I got 12-20 walls that are good for not too many things except for well walls...and generally castlish walls. Now looking through lego sets you have 4x8 solid walls, many various parts that help to make the products look stylized, but to me it seems you have to build around with these things in mind as opposed to just building.

Does anyone dislike or hate sets with too many non universal pieces, where it's all bulky staylized parts that before would have been 10 less stylized parts but you can stick them into anything else?

I mean it makes the products look good, and when used they look great, but it doesn't leave alot of room to add to a collection when some sets use alot of parts that are only good for a limited number of things.

[wolfwing]

No one have any thoughts? Trying to decide how much one should avoid when buying for parts, or just collecting in general the heavily or even somewhat specialized pieces.

And wether people think in general it was a bad move.

[Calabar]

I'm absolutely agree with you.

That's why I dislike series with too many "bigger" pieces and I love the creator series.

If you are looking for sets that uses not specialized pieces, then Creator Series is for you.

I'm not so "extremist", anyway.

There are specialized pieces I like, and I think they give a bit of variety to the lego world.

For example castle walls are pieces that already exists in my infantry, so I like that! (the only castle with few specialized pieces I remember is the yellow castle, but castle series from 1984 already has walls).

I like minifigures with different faces paint and decorations, I like some pieces that surely are not universal.

Edited September 5, 2010 by Calabar

[wolfwing]

I've been trying to figure out a system for in my mind for sorting how to work them out.

I've been thinking of something like this.

Universal, your good in anything as long as your not concerned about colours, or don't mind using them for those hidden jobs. Beams x by 1, planks, the thin X by 1, bricks, X by 2 and so on,the slopes, baseplates and so on.

Then you get int the expected specialized parts, plane wings, wheels, windows, doors, decorations and such, things that are hard to avoid. Then the semi specialized, like you see with alot of the space stuff the large canopies, then the specialized stuff, the drills for Power Miners, ship hauls, and other things.

I mean some arn't too bad and have their place, but some I just feel were more like they were lazy and you end up with too many pieces that arn't going to be good unless your planning on making something with that exact theme in mind.

And as for castle walls, I have a really really old idea book from 1980, http://www.peeron.com/inv/sets/6000-1

Missing the cover and last couple pages :> but if you to the very back of the book, there are castle set pieces, guys have lances, shields and weapons, but the castles built there are all yellow brick and such no walls. Though maybe they had them, but this is more like I remember castle sets from the time *I was 5 so my memories might be a bit shackey*

[Lego_Hero]

The cool thing about specialized pieces is the challenge of finding new uses for them. Those castle wall pieces make great basements and mad scientist laboratories. They're also great for vigs when you need an old brick wall for a back ground.

I do have pieces that I haven't found a great use for, but that's just because I haven't needed them yet. Necessity is the mother of invention. With my small collection, I have to be real creative with what I have.

[SpiderSpaceman]

here's one piece that truly has no alternate use:

oh that and:

there are different degrees of specialized. I like some for some applications but not others. some I like in nothing ^ see above

I think the best of them are the generally small simple ones. or even small ones with a lot of mechanical or organic detail. other than that, plainly geometric pieces are always fine by me - even if they're big chunkers.

Airplane parts irritate me. On the new airliners. no tolerance for that.

Edited September 6, 2010 by SpiderSpaceman

[Brickdoctor]

here's one piece that truly has no alternate use:

What set was that in?

[jonwil]

It came in a Harry Potter set.

[SpiderSpaceman]

What set was that in?

It came in a Harry Potter set.

Yes, The Shrieking Shack. it was a revolving wall kinda thing on the inside, so you could pretend the figures were "shape-shifting"

Edited September 6, 2010 by SpiderSpaceman

[Calabar]

Airplane parts irritate me. On the new airliners. no tolerance for that.

I agree!

No new planes in my collection... out of scale and with terrible monolithic pieces!

[Sirius Black]

there are different degrees of specialized. I like some for some applications but not others. some I like in nothing

I think the best of them are the generally small simple ones. or even small ones with a lot of mechanical or organic detail. other than that, plainly geometric pieces are always fine by me - even if they're big chunkers.

I agree wholeheartedly with this statement. The newer specialized bricks such as, say, the HP towers, or the large wedge bricks that are now available, or the quarter round dk green bricks on the new Slave I are all incredible bricks, and have many potential uses. Without specialized parts, we would have a lot fewer options, and mocs would have less detail.

Sirius

[SpiderSpaceman]

now as for a couple more parts that really can't be used:

Knights Kingdom torsos, and Dino Attack (Dino 2010) dinosaurs. Castle dragon's body, head, legs. these are the "big non-geometric" variety. have a bunch of inserts and irremovable moving parts and junk. No reason to not make those brickbuilt.

[wolfwing]

now as for a couple more parts that really can't be used:

Knights Kingdom torsos, and Dino Attack (Dino 2010) dinosaurs. Castle dragon's body, head, legs. these are the "big non-geometric" variety. have a bunch of inserts and irremovable moving parts and junk. No reason to not make those brickbuilt.

Well animals dragons and such I would possibly classify under the expected specialized parts, as long as not too much of the set, like I think most of the viking ones arn't too bad, except fo Fenris was it? Since it is 80% of the pieces and the rest is minifig.

[lisqr]

I hate pieces that aren't versatile, like all the airplane pieces.

I do like large but versatile pieces, such as this . It's large, but can be used in many different places to give a slick shape. It's not very specialized like airplane tail, so it doesn't look out of place in most mocs.

However I do like some specialized pieces like the rock monster king's head. To me that's more like a minifig than a special piece.

[David Thomsen]

I'd actually like an intermediate range between Creator and the Brick Buckets.

Brick Buckets have a lot of different colours in different shapes, but all of the shapes are a little too basic.

Creator sets have some more interesting shapes, but in their own way they are also limited... a Creator house might have lots of white bricks for the walls and a lot of red slopes and some doors, so all you can really make is a white house with a red roof.

A compromise would be sort of 'variety' packs. They'd focus on three or four colours (say white, dark reddish brown and blue), and each colour would have maybe 35% bricks, 25% slopes, 25% plates, and 15% miscellaneous pieces, like hinges, bars and even minifig accessories.

[Legoist]

Does anyone dislike or hate sets with too many non universal pieces, where it's all bulky staylized parts that before would have been 10 less stylized parts but you can stick them into anything else?

Yes, I dislike sets with huge specialized parts. Licensed themes sets typically have more of these compared to more traditional themes, perhaps because the age target is lower.

I'm fine with small specialized parts, which essentially work as decorations only, like minifig accessories, trees, flags. ladders (but not stairs)... But I don't like the bigger ones, such as train fronts (including the not-so-large ones used in the current PF trains).

I like pieces that fall in between the basic and single-use, and especially I've always loved pieces with a (simple) function, movable pieces like hinges and groups of pieces that put together let you slide or rotate them.

Basic bricks are essential, but generally I like to build trains most (and anything that goes in their scenery), so I can't go very far with basic bricks alone!