What should or should not be on Lego Ideas?

[anothergol]

An exemple is far better than a long speech, here is a list of current Lego Ideas project i'd like to buy and deserve more votes. Unfortunately they lack exposure for all reasons aforsaid.

Aside from the vespa which is a nice build (for which I wouldn't vote because I'm not interested in that in general), and the Howl's castle (which I find an ok attempt, but it looks too random for my taste, I don't recognize anything in there).. those 3 in the middle, I don't get it. I see so many sins in those..

Worse, you know yourself that Lego is never gonna put 3000 bricks in a silly random moon landing base(?)

Edited August 28, 2015 by anothergol

[fred67]

I agree with anothergol on a few points - The Vespa is cool, but I wouldn't buy it; it's the kind of thing I'd rather just see instructions for.

I disagree with the silliness of any of the projects. The flower is really cool, IMO, but after you build it, then what? Not everything needs to be playable, but it's less interesting than looking at, for example, the mech ideas set on display.

I also think Howl's Moving Castle is quite cool, but most people wouldn't recognize it (I've seen the movie, and if I just saw the MOC without a description, I wouldn't have put the two together).

I think the Castle is phenomenal, but I won't vote on 3k+ piece sets because even if they made it, you're talking around $300. That's why I think people should only support sets that they would actually buy. I can see TLG thinking they'll sell 10k, and then they only sell a couple thousand of them because when push comes to shove, even people that thought they might buy it will balk at the price.

Which brings us to the moon landing, which I don't think is silly, but again, if I'm going to spend a lot of money on something like that, a fictional scene (as opposed to the Discovery sets and some of the earlier ideas sets) is not something I'd pay that much for.

So - I've seen ALL of those on ideas, and while I think they all have some merit, and are cool MOCs, I didn't support any of them. They are only going to make so many sets, so I prefer voting on the things I REALLY want to see as sets and not just cool MOCs, something I'd buy, often things I'd buy to give as gifts to non-AFOL adult friends just because they like the subject matter (like Ecto-1).

[anothergol]

Why? Because of amount of bricks or because supposed "silliness"?

because it's all wasted on the base, which isn't very interesting. That's what the guy says, 3000 pieces for the base.

(plus I don't get it - the moon isn't filled with many pointy rocks like that)

I think the Castle is phenomenal

really? I've seen so many amazing castles, I don't see what's great in this one (& it's all bottom-up build - could be so much better IMHO)

Here's a castle that I've supported:

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/18935

I think the amount of bricks is better used here. Of course, Lego is never gonna do this, or castles in general, because they eat a massive lot of parts, without caring like Lego does, thus they will always look "too expensive for what they are".

I've also supported this nice scene from Monkey Island:

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/94072

or this nice ship (with a nice base):

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/50825

I like ships & mechs & I think they're ideal for this, you can get something great for <500 parts. But they don't seem to get much love.

Edited August 29, 2015 by anothergol

[fred67]

Yes, the Monkey Island one is great - vitreolum is amazing, everything he's ever posted on Eurobricks has just been an incredible display of artistry that I honestly have not seen anyone else do with such consistency. I'm floored and completely jealous of his LEGO building skills.

The ship is very cool, but you have to know it's of very limited audience.

And the castle you linked to? Absolutely wonderful.... but also seems like far too many pieces to be successful.

May I suggest, though, that we don't do this? We don't all post a handful of sets to demonstrate what we like? If anyone cares about ideas then they've seen pretty much every submitted project. I go once a week or so and browse until I see the ones I've seen before. I've seen all of these projects. Yes, there are good ones, ones that quite possibly deserve a chance more than the ones where the creator was merely good at drumming up social media support, but a lot of the really amazing ones are just not tenable as ideas sets.

[Phoxtane]

Firstly, I'm going to officially invoke Sturgeon's Law as applicable to Lego Ideas.

The real point is that Lego Ideas is just that, ideas, not a place to show off your MOCs. Given that the website explicitly states this:

LEGO Ideas is designed specifically for our older builders. This is both to promote a quality experience for our community of teen and adult members and to comply with our child safety policies.

Members must be 13 years old or older to interact on LEGO® Ideas. If you are between 13 and 18 years old you can create and submit ideas, however we will need consent from your parent or legal guardian if we decide to produce your idea.

Parents, please do not create accounts for, or submit projects on behalf of, children under 13 (we will remove these accounts or projects without notice). Instead, we suggest encouraging your child to share their LEGO creations on the LEGO.com Create & Share Galleries.

...I'm pretty sure that means "The barrier to entry is considered to be higher here" or "You must be *this tall* to ride on this attraction".

It definitely needs more well-defined restrictions to clean up the place, along with the clause that they reserve the right to remove any projects that don't follow these guidelines immediately, without letting them go to the one-year time limit. As an example of restrictions or modifications that could be adopted:

- The model must be presented as its own idea, not as part of a larger project. This would eliminate this project (an example), which, believe it or not, actually consists of just the buildings built on that multi-thousand piece mountainside, not the entire thing.

- A maximum upper price point for any set submitted to the Ideas site; given the limited production capacity of Lego's factories, this is a reasonable limit to add in, something around $75-$100 perhaps. The most expensive set produced so far in the Ideas line is the Big Bang Theory set at $65, which gives some wiggle room.

- A maximum upper piece count of 1,000 pieces - following the ten cents/piece rule, this gives an upper price of... $100, which ties into the previous guideline (they'd come as a pair, naturally).

- Absolutely no ideas that would fall under licensed themes/works that Lego is currently running. This means no Star Wars, no Marvel/DC sets, and now presumably with the WALL-E set, no Disney-Pixar stuff (which also means no more Frozen THANK GOD). This has precedent in that it appears to be the reason that we don't have Star Wars themed Ideas sets, and why we don't have Zelda sets (the license is owned by a competitor). Perhaps a list should be compiled of the more common themes that basically states "No, we won't do this, so stop trying". While this includes The Lego Movie, I bet it doesn't include stuff in the vein of Neo-Classic Space!

- "I agree to the Ideas Guidelines" checkbox that must be checked every time you submit an idea. This way nobody can claim that they didn't read them before submitting their idea. Bonus points for having a shortened, easy-to-read summary on the page along with this checkbox, with a link through to the full legalese version.

...

I'd also like to see more transparency in the rejection process as currently we have no official reasons as to why an idea was rejected, just some really good hypotheses (see the license conflicts guideline). That ought to help get some of the cloudiness surrounding the process somewhat.

As for LDD, well... I'm assuming, given the quote above, kids are NOT the target audience for the use case of this site. Billy's First Car does *not* have a place here, and your presentation had better be pretty damn good if you're showing off something that's not a physical model yet. I think the presence of a physical model is a perfectly acceptable requirement, given that Kickstarter has a ban against campaigns that don't have photos of a physical product/prototype. I'm perfectly okay with having the physical model and a LDD/digital model to showcase what it would look like in proper colors, but you need that physical model to show off that the play features you're proposing actually work, that it won't fall apart from gravity alone, and so on.

If you're that serious about your idea being turned into an official product, you'll find a way to make it fit into these requirements.

An important reminder though: Presentation is everything, as is getting your project out to the world - I barely even know what the Golden Girls is (let alone care), but I heard about the proposed Ideas set. Nobody's gonna vote if they don't even know about it in the first place.

...

An afterthought: Maybe, similar to Steam Greenlight, there should be a (small) deposit that should be paid for a project to be put onto the Ideas site. I'd be fine with ten or even five dollars, just to show that you're serious. The deposit would of course be refunded if your project is rejected/removed/approved. It'd also show that you have access to a bank account in some way, which could serve as an indicator of age in the majority of cases.

Edited August 29, 2015 by Phoxtane

[anothergol]

If anyone cares about ideas then they've seen pretty much every submitted project.

Actually, not really. I'm often surprised by the "staff pick", it's generally stuff that I have missed. Either because it was suggested before I started browsing (no way I'm gonna spend a day checking all the old crap), or simply because I didn't pay attention/because the smaller thumbnail didn't look attractive.

Also, a Lego Ideas entry has zero chance by its own, if it's only voted by the few who check the website frequently. Don't you think that the success of a project is held in the hands of a few bloggers?

Yes, really. The fact it's not a regular castle, it's something from a specific story (Howl's Moving Castle), something famous enough in Europe and Asia to be recognised by a lot of people.

It's the Osaka Castle I was talking of, and really, I don't have anything against the sources (the real castle does look great), only the execution.

If someone comes with a perfect rendition of Howl's moving castle (& it would be really hard), I vote for it. But I won't vote for it hoping that Lego will eventually improve it, or just because I liked the anime.

- The model must be presented as its own idea, not as part of a larger project. This would eliminate this project (an example), which, believe it or not, actually consists of just the buildings built on that multi-thousand piece mountainside, not the entire thing.

But why do you wanna filter these entries? There aren't that many on Lego Ideas, they're not polluting. Sure, it's not gonna be produced. But it brought attention to a nice MOC, what's wrong with that?

It's certainly not entries like this that waste my time when I'm browsing on Lego Ideas.

This means no Star Wars

But have Lego *really* said that the few SW entries were rejected for licensing reasons? I haven't seen anything official about it. Do you seriously think that Lego hasn't produced a 6000 pieces AT-AT for licensing reasons only?

Why does Lego even report, during any SW project, that they have made a pre-check and that there is no licensing conflict?

An important reminder though: Presentation is everything, as is getting your project out to the world - I barely even know what the Golden Girls is (let alone care), but I heard about the proposed Ideas set. Nobody's gonna vote if they don't even know about it in the first place.

It's not about presentation. BOTH Golden Girls projects, which let's face it, are the same thing, are presented the same way. The difference is in social media - one got promoted by big bloggers, the other didn't.

The success of the Golden Girls project didn't require you or anyone who was checking Lego Ideas regularly, the whole 10k are brand new registrants coming from a few massive blogs.

(I'm 40 so I do remember the Golden Girls - oh it was a big show. But even for me, and I'm not young, it's corny (it was well written, though) and I can't imagine buying a set of that).

An afterthought: Maybe, similar to Steam Greenlight, there should be a (small) deposit that should be paid for a project to be put onto the Ideas site. I'd be fine with ten or even five dollars, just to show that you're serious.

A (good) father isn't gonna refuse posting his son's masterpiece for just 10 bucks..

Btw, there's also good-enough tiny entries that, IMHO, aren't even worth bothering to vote. Maybe, for those, there should be a "vote as polybag" button - just as a polybag is an impulsive buy, this would be for impulsive votes. There are really nice tiny entries that I haven't voted for, that I would buy as a polybag if I happened to pass by one.

Like this tiny thing:

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/19515

or one of these cute animals, maybe the elephant (possibly already too big):

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/115018

or the beebot alone:

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/73177

Can't really imagine them in a box.

Edited August 29, 2015 by anothergol

[ootkaman]

For me personally, I try to not be too picky in what I support on there. I know there are a lot of AFOLs with high standards out there for what constitutes a worthy set, but I support pretty much anything that has a cool concept or intrigues me. That way I figure if by some miracle it reaches 10,000 supporters (going against many difficulties with how the site works, exposure, voters not liking it for whatever reason), Lego will only approve it if they see it as practical and marketable. They also will put their finishing touches on the project, which of course often fixes whatever issues people hadn't liked about the project in the first place. My stance is probably too lax though. I just enjoy the site, even with a lot of things I think they could improve with the process.

[anothergol]

They also will put their finishing touches on the project, which of course often fixes whatever issues people hadn't liked about the project in the first place.

That's something I don't like, btw. I think Lego shouldn't do that.

Well, there's already that DeLorean which they took from bad to worse. I may even have bought the original. I don't even understand why the roof was changed - it's not like that front piece was a retired one(?)

Then there's the exo-suit which was completely remade, although they can't be blamed for that if the original is full of retired pieces/illegal techniques or is fragile. Thankfully it ended up as good, but it makes you think, you voted for a model and Lego produced another one. But still justified in this case.

Thankfully they didn't alter the Ghostbusters car too much, and only improved it slightly.

Edited August 29, 2015 by anothergol

[ootkaman]

Well, there's already that DeLorean which they took from bad to worse. I may even have bought the original. I don't even understand why the roof was changed - it's not like that front piece was a retired one(?)

Good points. I actually originally supported the DeLorean and have never bought it since I think it looks ugly now. So I guess it can be a bad thing having Lego adapt it at the end. We don't have too many released Lego Ideas models to see what the general trend is, but it seems like it can be hit or miss

[dr_spock]

I think a lot of this stuff is already covered in their Project Guidelines: https://ideas.lego.com/guidelines

We welcome projects based on current licenses like Star Wars, Superheroes, Disney, etc., However, these active licenses are likely to have similar concepts already in the pipeline. Please keep in mind that a project based on an existing LEGO license has a smaller chance of passing the LEGO Review than other projects.

Once picked, a project enters the Production phase. LEGO set designers take the original submission and refine it into a LEGO product that’s ready for release. Our team designs the final LEGO model, the product materials (building instructions, set box, and marketing assets), and gets everything ready to be produced in our factory.

The LEGO Group makes all final decisions on how a project becomes a LEGO set, including the final model design, applicable licenses, production run size, sales channels, etc.

LEGO reserves the right to modify your Idea to fit its standards for builds, safety, etc. If you want to keep your MOC intact, you're probably better selling it yourself on BrickLink or something.

[anothergol]

I think a lot of this stuff is already covered in their Project Guidelines: https://ideas.lego.com/guidelines

well, that clears it up then, it's totally possible for a SW-based project to pass.

It's well understandable that, say a Millennium Falcon isn't gonna be produced when one is already planned for release.

LEGO reserves the right to modify your Idea to fit its standards for builds, safety, etc. If you want to keep your MOC intact, you're probably better selling it yourself on BrickLink or something.

It's still all eventually in Lego's hands - other ways of providing MOCs will never really work, or only for small builds that use very common parts.

When you see the amount of shops you have to buy from, when you're building a MOC.. it shows how pointless BL's MOC shop is.

But if, one day, Lego manages to bring back & improve the LDD's "buy it" feature, even if it's only for currently produced parts, that would be amazing.

[ootkaman]

I was running some numbers today for fun, and I thought some people might find them interesting. I am generally not a math person, so please step in if you notice something wrong with my calculations. Basically, I wanted to figure out how many projects weren't on track to reach the 1,000 after their first month. Here is what I did to figure it out (granted a harder way than just having the inside data):

Since 1,000 supporters are needed in the first year on Lego Ideas, I divided that by 30.42 (supposedly the average amount of days in a normal year) to get 83.34 supporters needed per month, which I rounded to 84. There are 1,616 projects on Lego Ideas with more than 84 supporters (21 projects per "page", and 77 "pages" minus 1 project), and currently 5,414 projects gathering support total, meaning 3,797 projects with less than 88 supporters. I counted the number of projects added in the last two weeks—124 last week and 123 the week before—and so basically you could say that there are approximately 124 times 4 weeks or 496 projects per month. If you take the 3,797 projects and minus off 496 projects that still have time to reach 84 supporters in a month, you get 3,301.

Assuming I did all of that reasoning and math correctly, that means in theory over half of the projects on Lego Ideas (61%) are not on track by the 1st month to make the 1,000 supporters in the first year (which includes 3 of my 5 projects on there). Of course projects can do better after the first month through things such as website or blog mentions, staff picks, etc. but I wouldn't think a lot of projects overcome that. I would be curious to hear other opinions. I don't know about you, but I would love to browse Lego Ideas with less than half of what is on there and only the best projects. This would also give submitters the chance to improve project concepts, advertising, etc. and resubmit them to improve their chances the next time.

Edited August 31, 2015 by ootkaman

[fred67]

Yes, there could be less than half as many and all you'd do is keep increasing the signal to noise ratio.

The other thing you missed (besides saying the average days in a month in a normal year), is that projects all somehow get a couple dozen or so votes... friends, mom and dad, who knows - the worst of the worst still manage to get a handful of votes. But that doesn't continue past the first few days.

[ootkaman]

Thanks for the comments. Just to make sure I understand, what are you referring to the "noise" and what as the "signal"? Because I was thinking the noise would be reduced by getting rid of projects that couldn't make 84 supporters in the 1st month, to leave more of the "signal" or projects with enough votes. Maybe I'm not wrapping my head around it right.

[fred67]

No, you're doing just fine, sorry for the (apparently) botched analogy. Noise is what you don't want - it just gets in the way and distracts from what you do want.

I was suggesting that 84 supporters number might be a little low, because every single project, no matter how terrible, gets a handful of votes from friends and family (i.e. mom and dad, obviously, from some of those ideas). It might work out on average, but the first month should have a higher standard.

Removing them wouldn't help my browsing anyway, I go at least once a week and browse all the recent submissions until I encounter the ones I'd already seen.

In fact, while I'd like it to better, I'd like a lot of things in life to better that are never going to get better because of the variety of human nature. People will always abuse sites like Ideas in the same way that people will always abuse Ebay, and abuse anything they can abuse. I'm getting all existential waxing philosophy and psychology here, so I'll stop.

Anyway, while I wish it was better, it's better to leave it as is and cast a bigger net than tighten the net and potentially let some good projects go away. Perhaps we should be able to ignore certain submitters (if we can already do that, somebody please tell me how).

[ootkaman]

I have heard that several are having issues. Luckily I was already logged in. I also just had a project approved yesterday, so I must be jinxed!

[ootkaman]

It looks like this thread is pretty much dead, but I just wanted to ask one more thing:

I was just curious if anyone had any opinions about why digital models generally do better than physical models on Lego Ideas. I am not referring to my projects, but just more curious and wanting to improve my own strategies. I notice that most staff picks and successful models are digital. I realize they often look better with rendering, but I would think the playing field would be more evened out given the advantages of physical models

[dr_spock]

It could be not everyone can take good pictures of their physical models to the standards in the Ideas guidelines. Presentation is important when you're trying to sell something.

[Blondie-Wan]

To be honest, assuming there is a difference in how digital models do vs physical ones, I think it must go the other way if at all, depending upon just what level of success you're talking about - after all, out of the thirteen CUUSOO / Ideas projects approved to date, I believe just two were represented primarily with digital renders rather than physical builds, and both of them were by the same submitter. Nearly everyone who's gotten a project all the way through (i.e., had one become a set) has used real, physical bricks rather than digital renderings (even though one of them works for a computer animation studio and had a project based on one of their CG productions, while another represented a videogame company and submitted a project based on their own digital entertainment). Looking not at what just gets lots of votes but rather at what actually gets approved, it's not at all clear there's some sort of digital advantage - quite the opposite, if anything.

That said, if digital renders do have an advantage, the image quality discussed above is surely a factor, but I think another consideration must be the build freedom. LDD offers the opportunity to present one's idea as purely as possible, free from constraints about what bricks one has, in what colors, with what decorations. Digital models let one use whatever brick in whatever color is most appropriate for a concept, not just whatever brick one happens to have that is "close enough" (if that), and that could make a difference in whether a concept model is appealing enough to garner votes.

Edited September 10, 2015 by Blondie-Wan

[Lego Dino 500]

Besides the image quality, some of us just don't have the pieces to build our submissions in real life. I mean, my collection is decent, but I don't have any (or enough) parts to build my projects on there, like this project I've made: https://ideas.lego.com/projects/83326

That's the reason Lego Ideas allows LDD models. But it really needs a category system and a way to remove dead and low effort projects like this: https://ideas.lego.com/projects/79722

Edited September 15, 2015 by Lego Dino 500

[Blondie-Wan]

But it really needs a category system and a way to remove dead and low effort projects like this: https://ideas.lego.com/projects/79722

There is a category system; it's called "tagging". And there is also a removal system; it's called "expiration."

[anothergol]

These are 2 recent good examples of what really shouldn't be on LA, IMHO:

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/116673

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/79181

(last one is hilarious, it has like 20 bricks and they're not even assembled properly)

At the same time, there are 2 happy kids somewhere because their crap appeared on a website & the whole family voted for it, so why not?

But it really needs a category system and a way to remove dead and low effort projects like this: https://ideas.lego.com/projects/79722

You have to admit, the very bad ones are also a good laugh.

And yet you never know.. The Little Prince project isn't far behind, as for not-even-looking-like-a-planet. It looks like it started as "just an idea", and added more serious builds as the project got interest. This is where I think that it's all about ideas & not builds.

Edited September 15, 2015 by anothergol

[Lego Dino 500]

These are 2 recent good examples of what really shouldn't be on LA, IMHO:

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/116673

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/79181

(last one is hilarious, it has like 20 bricks and they're not even assembled properly)

At the same time, there are 2 happy kids somewhere because their crap appeared on a website & the whole family voted for it, so why not?

You have to admit, the very bad ones are also a good laugh.

And yet you never know.. The Little Prince project isn't far behind, as for not-even-looking-like-a-planet. It looks like it started as "just an idea", and added more serious builds as the project got interest. This is where I think that it's all about ideas & not builds.

That is very true. But that was the most relevant example I could find. There are so many projects that you can obviously tell were made by someone under 13, with minimal effort, or are far too unwieldy and impractical to produce, like that Rivendell or X Men Manor model. I've seen some stunning projects on there that just get buried in all the spam posts, losing any chance of reaching 10,000. As for the Little Prince, it originally had effort put into it, and not just later on. I'm just tired of all the "proud father" posts and low effort spam posts that people keep submitting and leaving to rot in the vain hope it'll reach 10,000.

[ootkaman]

I agree that a category system would help a lot—even if it were limited to the common Lego themes, that would still make browsing certain types of builds easier.

Thank you for your comments about digital vs. physical. You have good points, and I hadn't thought about the fact that so many of the projects actually being approved were physical models. I guess for me it is just hard to see some great physical models that don't get a lot of attention because the photos are not as good or present such a vibrant look. This also affects what gets staff-picked, and people are less likely to share or promote your project if it does not have this clean look. I personally would probably just go the digital route for my projects, but I don't have time for advanced programs with many decals and bricks, and LDD does not have enough variety to really make certain things come alive (such as minifigure designs)

[Blondie-Wan]

While it's not exactly what this conversation is about, I will say there are a few more sorting options and such they could really use. For example, it seems like the Discovery page should have an option to not display any projects for which one has already voted. That just seems like it'd be really useful.