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LEGO City 2020 - Rumors, Speculation, and Discussion

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At this point, any criticism of Lego police sets is just screaming into the void. All criticisms of Lego here on Eurobricks will be met by the armies of the Lego Apologist Corp, who will swiftly swoop in to bravely defend the company from all attacks. Lego themselves are going to keep pumping the police sets out because presumably they sell well. Nothing ever changes. 

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10 minutes ago, Joebot said:

At this point, any criticism of Lego police sets is just screaming into the void. All criticisms of Lego here on Eurobricks will be met by the armies of the Lego Apologist Corp, who will swiftly swoop in to bravely defend the company from all attacks.

That doesn't mean people don't have a right to express their opinions. People take our opinions as personal insults. Its not. We have nothing against police sets. Its the way TLG does it. Fire sets sell too. But the way TLG pumps those out is just perfect. We're getting two more in 2020 btw. 

Btw, what's the Lego Apologist Corp???

Edited by pooda

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51 minutes ago, Joebot said:

At this point, any criticism of Lego police sets is just screaming into the void. All criticisms of Lego here on Eurobricks will be met by the armies of the Lego Apologist Corp, who will swiftly swoop in to bravely defend the company from all attacks. Lego themselves are going to keep pumping the police sets out because presumably they sell well. Nothing ever changes. 

At this point any rational hypothesis about why TLG makes the marking and business decisions it makes regarding its product is screaming into the void. All acknowledgement of TLG being a privately owned children's toy manufacturer will be met by the glorious angels of the Adults Who Play With Children's Toys Grievance LLC, who will swiftly swoop in to valiantly and heroically issue contemptuous ridicule and mockery. These vocal adults are going to continue to be displeased with everything TLG does because presumably they're all CEOs of their own children's toy companies. Nothing ever changes.

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On 10/16/2019 at 9:28 PM, pooda said:

Too true ol chap! But arguments against the unusual police themes are most likely to receive the most opposition on Eurobricks. 

Well, I guess you were right about that...

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1 hour ago, AnyColourYouLike said:

Well, I guess you were right about that...

Badmouth other City subthemes (including classic police) and you won't get hate though. 

Edited by pooda

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Each single year has good and bad City sets(opinion unique to each person), if I don't like something I don't buy it.

Right now I am looking forward for a 2020 police station (if it's similar to the 2019 fire station), but don't need another police helicopter for example.

Other then that, I'm pretty much done on fire and hospital sets in my collection for now.

But that doesn't mean there'll be people who want such (police/fire/medical) vehicles, especially kids seem to like the theme for toys as it's been seen for decades.

Once I organize my collection in the near future, I'll start modifying my sets anyway to make them more personal, which to me, is the core point of LEGO.

Does that mean I'll hate any future police/fire/medical sets made ? No, but I don't need 100 police minifigs or vehicles, I'll just buy more selectively, or make new models out of parts.

Edited by TeriXeri

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2 hours ago, pooda said:

That doesn't mean people don't have a right to express their opinions. People take our opinions as personal insults. Its not. We have nothing against police sets. Its the way TLG does it. Fire sets sell too. But the way TLG pumps those out is just perfect. We're getting two more in 2020 btw. 

Btw, what's the Lego Apologist Corp???

Best I can tell, it's a trashy insult Joebot made up for users like me, e.g, anyone who bothers to recognize that sometimes stuff LEGO does that we or other AFOLs are frustrated about is justified. Sort of like how people in the replies to controversial new set reveals often like to accuse anybody expressing a positive opinion of the set of being a shill, or a cult member, or an autocrat trying to silence any opposition, or (hilariously) an undercover LEGO employee. If I could've been getting a paycheck for all these posts over the years, I'd feel pretty cheated at this point!

I definitely recognize that everybody has a right to complain or share negative opinions! But that doesn't mean that either negative OR positive opinions should be immune to debate or skepticism. It gets tedious to hear comments insinuating that any opinion which isn't negative, even a neutral/indifferent one, equates to mindlessly submitting to some kind of LEGO hivemind, rather than genuinely liking some of the stuff they do.

It doesn't help that when I do talk about stuff I'd like to see LEGO improve on in the future, like increased LGBTQ+ representation, more balanced gender ratios, a better system of road pieces, a wider range of afro-textured hair pieces, Castle/Space/Pirates with more livable interiors, etc, people often tend to respond as if I'm the one ranting irrationally or making preposterous demands.

It often feels like the only types of criticism that don't count as "apologist" are ones that insist LEGO is doing everything wrong, that everything was clearly better in the old days, that all their stated reasons for how they do things are nonsense/lies, and that they have no excuse besides greed for not making all the changes AFOLs want to see immediately.

59 minutes ago, pooda said:

Badmouth other City subthemes and you won't get hate though. 

Nobody's hating on you. Nobody wants you banned. And honestly, I'm bewildered if you somehow feel outnumbered or persecuted simply because the Eurobricks userbase isn't as universally dissatisfied with the current state of LEGO City in particular or LEGO in general as you've come to expect from LEGO fans on other sites. Browse through previous pages of this topic, or for that matter any previous year's main topic about City sets, and you'll see that you're nowhere close to the only person here who thinks there are too many Police sets or Fire sets or exploration/science based sets, and that other categories like Farm or Auto Repair/Auto Service or Medical aren't getting adequate attention.

In fact, as long as I've been on this site, the idea that LEGO City and LEGO in general have both lost track of their roots has been fairly mainstream. Frankly, as a 90s kid myself, it's been relieving (if a bit disorienting) to finally get to discuss stuff like this with people like you who likewise grew up in the 90s, since when I finally ascended to AFOL-dom (in other words, turned 18), there was still a relatively widespread consensus that LEGO's golden years ended in the mid-90s if not earlier, and that nothing LEGO had made since ever truly measured up to the glory of the 1980s.

I don't really care a whole lot whether LEGO continues to make police sets every year, but I get why they do. And one way or another I would hate for all sets that don't fit into a "city center" setting to go away entirely. If LEGO had released the "Forest Police" and "Mountain Police" sets in different color schemes and called them "Park Rangers" I'd have been perfectly OK with that. People don't have to be big fans of police sets (or even like them at all!) to think that limiting the City theme as a whole to mainstream urban environments is a bad way of actually reducing repetition.

To put it another way, if swamp/forest/desert/mountain/island settings are made off limits, that doesn't just mean less variety among police sets — it also means missing out on more of the kind of cool and unique sets I know I would have loved to see as a kid like 60202, 60208, 60221, 60222, 60203, 60092, 60027, and so on. And that would be a LOT more disappointing to me than them having a bunch of police sets as well that are usually not too hard to ignore.

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10 hours ago, Aanchir said:

Nobody's hating on you. Nobody wants you banned. And honestly, I'm bewildered if you somehow feel outnumbered or persecuted simply because the Eurobricks userbase isn't as universally dissatisfied with the current state of LEGO City in particular or LEGO in general as you've come to expect from LEGO fans on other sites. Browse through previous pages of this topic, or for that matter any previous year's main topic about City sets, and you'll see that you're nowhere close to the only person here who thinks there are too many Police sets or Fire sets or exploration/science based sets, and that other categories like Farm or Auto Repair/Auto Service or Medical aren't getting adequate attention.

I'm not a whiner. But I do sometimes feel that I am almost alone in my opinions here. I have only met two people so far who agree. But everyone else here pretty much makes me feel like a criminal for expressing my views. The reason I don't like it when you write long statements is because I don't know how to back up my claims against yours. I also don't like being seen as annoying. I've been called annoying on here because of my views. 

Quote

In fact, as long as I've been on this site, the idea that LEGO City and LEGO in general have both lost track of their roots has been fairly mainstream. Frankly, as a 90s kid myself, it's been relieving (if a bit disorienting) to finally get to discuss stuff like this with people like you who likewise grew up in the 90s, since when I finally ascended to AFOL-dom (in other words, turned 18), there was still a relatively widespread consensus that LEGO's golden years ended in the mid-90s if not earlier, and that nothing LEGO had made since ever truly measured up to the glory of the 1980s.

I'm also a 90s kid. According to your page, you're actually only older than me by a year.

I believe in a way, they have lost their roots. I do remember telling you and your brother here that Kjeld Kristiansen wouldn't be too happy that his prize Lego theme has been reduced to a police state. I can't really say it was better in the 90s or 80s as things weren't very organized. But there were certainly more jobs showcased though. Today, things a little more organized with City - with there being subthemes that is. I'm going to go as far as to say this. 

And get ready because I'm going to go through a lot of toil and despair after saying this.

I don't really know how to say this without singling a certain TLG division out. But City is pretty much the ONLY Lego theme that doesn't follow its name very much. It not only have brought out of the city situations into City but those subjects have dominated the City theme which have pretty much defeated the purpose, which is to educate children about jobs that are in the City. Jobs like life guards and sailors, urban area cops, urban area firefighters, doctors, chefs, train drivers, postal workers, etc. The former has gotten so out of hand that the majority of jobs that actually take place in the city have been cast aside in favor of jobs involved out of the city. That doesn't disappoint me! That angers me! City only has a few jobs that take place in the city nowadays. If I'm to believe any other jobs other than a rescuer or science that exists in LEGO City today, I'm gonna need to see either buildings or subthemes dedicated to those jobs. 

 

Quote

To put it another way, if swamp/forest/desert/mountain/island settings are made off limits, that doesn't just mean less variety among police sets — it also means missing out on more of the kind of cool and unique sets I know I would have loved to see as a kid like 60202, 60208, 60221, 60222, 60203, 60092, 60027, and so on. And that would be a LOT more disappointing to me than them having a bunch of police sets as well that are usually not too hard to ignore.

The police sets are really hard to ignore. Truthfully speaking, if they wanted things centered around swamps, forests, deserts, mountains and islands - my solution would've been to make explorers themes (which sell much better than police) based off of those. They've done it before and its worked like a charm. I personally have nothing against the out of the city subthemes. Come to think of it, I think that's what the In/Out themes are. Though people argue (to which I somewhat agree) that explorers as a whole should break away from City and be its own theme. Which would of course means that arctic, deep sea divers, jungle and volcano would be under explorers. I wonder how that would work out though and they were originally part of the Town theme so it wouldn't make sense. But I do see the big picture of what those people are saying. So I both agree and disagree at the same time. 

10 hours ago, Aanchir said:

I don't really care a whole lot whether LEGO continues to make police sets every year, but I get why they do. And one way or another I would hate for all sets that don't fit into a "city center" setting to go away entirely. If LEGO had released the "Forest Police" and "Mountain Police" sets in different color schemes and called them "Park Rangers" I'd have been perfectly OK with that. People don't have to be big fans of police sets (or even like them at all!) to think that limiting the City theme as a whole to mainstream urban environments is a bad way of actually reducing repetition.

I wouldn't have had an issue with it if it were marketed as Park Rangers or Park Police since cities have parks. Just look at New York City. Central Park is one of the biggest parks out there. Its nice too! Prison Island is probably the only special police theme that I never had an issue with as it wasn't really a police theme. More like a theme based on the prison system. 

Edited by pooda

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20 hours ago, Joebot said:

 All criticisms of Lego here on Eurobricks will be met by the armies of the Lego Apologist Corp, who will swiftly swoop in to bravely defend the company from all attacks. 

:laugh:

You better love all LEGO or the forces here will ban you from all the internets!!!!!

Anyways, I'm not going through 8 pages of crazy, what is 2020's police theme? 

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4 minutes ago, Maple said:

:laugh:

You better love all LEGO or the forces here will ban you from all the internets!!!!!

Anyways, I'm not going through 8 pages of crazy, what is 2020's police theme? 

That's funny! Though I am shocked that I haven't been banned yet despite being less than tactful when expressing my opinions on City, which in one of LEGO Life's little ironies is my favorite theme. 

And to answer your question...The regular police sets that come out every three years are being released in 2020. 

Edited by pooda

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15 hours ago, Aanchir said:

Best I can tell, it's a trashy insult Joebot made up for users like me, e.g, anyone who bothers to recognize that sometimes stuff LEGO does that we or other AFOLs are frustrated about is justified. Sort of like how people in the replies to controversial new set reveals often like to accuse anybody expressing a positive opinion of the set of being a shill, or a cult member, or an autocrat trying to silence any opposition, or (hilariously) an undercover LEGO employee. If I could've been getting a paycheck for all these posts over the years, I'd feel pretty cheated at this point!

I don't know about "trashy." I think "snarky" would be more accurate.  

My enduring frustration with Eurobricks, and the reason that I almost never post here anymore, is that most criticisms of the Lego product line are met with one of the following:

1) Legos are for kids!

2) If you don't like it, don't buy it!

3) If you don't like it, change it! That's what Lego is all about!

We know. Everybody knows. We got it. Rehashing these same three rebuttals over and over again is reductive and insultingly obvious ... but even worse, it's BORING. It makes for boring discussion because there's no way to refute any of those items. They're right. Of course they're right. But those rebuttals are designed to shut down the conversation, which seems a strange thing to do on a message board that lives and dies by the level of its conversation.

Would EB be better served if every discussion in every theme went like this;

EB Member A: I really like all the new Lego sets!

EB Member B: Me too! I think they're awesome.

EB Member A: Yep, so awesome.

EB Member: Yep!

....

Is that really what you want? Criticism of Lego's product line is not a criticism of the people who like it. That's the key point that so often seems missed. 

 

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11 minutes ago, Joebot said:

I don't know about "trashy." I think "snarky" would be more accurate.  

My enduring frustration with Eurobricks, and the reason that I almost never post here anymore, is that most criticisms of the Lego product line are met with one of the following:

1) Legos are for kids!

2) If you don't like it, don't buy it!

3) If you don't like it, change it! That's what Lego is all about!

This would usually be MY response.

1) No it isn't. Its for anyone who wants to play with them. 

2) No! If the sensible side of your consumers don't like it, don't sell it! That's how you run a company properly.

3) No! I'll give you a better idea. If WE don't like it YOU change it! 

Quote

We know. Everybody knows. We got it. Rehashing these same three rebuttals over and over again is reductive and insultingly obvious ... but even worse, it's BORING. It makes for boring discussion because there's no way to refute any of those items. They're right. Of course they're right. But those rebuttals are designed to shut down the conversation, which seems a strange thing to do on a message board that lives and dies by the level of its conversation.

Would EB be better served if every discussion in every theme went like this;

EB Member A: I really like all the new Lego sets!

EB Member B: Me too! I think they're awesome.

EB Member A: Yep, so awesome.

EB Member: Yep!

....

Is that really what you want? Criticism of Lego's product line is not a criticism of the people who like it. That's the key point that so often seems missed. 

 

Ikr! Like I said, people take it as a personal insult. Its nothing towards them. I guess they're just afraid because they know its a possibility that Lego reads this stuff. Man screw it! I'm gonna do some criticisms. If Lego is seeing this than this would be the GREATEST opportunity to let Lego know how you roll. 

I mean if you dislike it when people criticize, then you probably shouldn't be on a forum. No attacks intended, moderators! I'm just giving advice. 

Edited by pooda

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50 minutes ago, pooda said:

That's funny! Though I am shocked that I haven't been banned yet despite being less than tactful when expressing my opinions on City, which in one of LEGO Life's little ironies is my favorite theme. 

And to answer your question...The regular police sets that come out every three years are being released in 2020. 

I haven't been banned from Brickiest, but they just delete all my comments now for pointing out their hypocrisy. haha Then yesterday they delete ALL the negative comments over the double points. 

So it's City City Police. Bleh. I was hoping for dessert police with tan outfits and some new animals.

I'm amazed I have 169 posts here because most of the time I leave for 6-8 hours to go to work and when I come back there are 5 messages attacking my point of view and 35 more pages of comments that never say anything new. 

If you want City sets you need to buy Friends sets, but even those have been weird since the reboot.

Edited by Maple

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1 minute ago, Maple said:

I haven't been banned from Brickiest, but they just delete all my comments now for pointing out their hypocrisy. haha Then yesterday they delete ALL the negative comments over the double points. 

So it's City City Police. Bleh. I was hoping for dessert police with tan outfits and some new animals.

WOW!!!!! If they delete your comments, that means you've won the argument. That was a strategy that was started on Google Plus, which unfortunately has been shut down. 

City Police in my opinion, should be the only police theme; coming out every three years just like every other theme does. As for dessert police.....eh......I think I'd rather see them revive the Outback theme from 1997. I wouldn't mind if they were to release a police set under that theme though. A small Outback Sheriff's Dept would be good, but most of that theme would be focused on Outback culture in general. 

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4 minutes ago, pooda said:

WOW!!!!! If they delete your comments, that means you've won the argument. That was a strategy that was started on Google Plus, which unfortunately has been shut down. 

City Police in my opinion, should be the only police theme; coming out every three years just like every other theme does. As for dessert police.....eh......I think I'd rather see them revive the Outback theme from 1997. I wouldn't mind if they were to release a police set under that theme though. A small Outback Sheriff's Dept would be good, but most of that theme would be focused on Outback culture in general. 

Right now there are a few of us on Brickset pointing out that Huw was wrong and that there have been special minifigure pieces in the build a minifigure in LEGO Stores since at least last fall. Huw then fights back more and more and in nasty way. But that's LEGO people for you, mental illness is high and even higher in the LEGO community.|

However I don't agree with you. LEGO Police makes money, I'm fine with it to a point because it sells and we don't take into account there are more City sets in a single year than we had LEGO sets in a single year 20-30 years ago. But they need to be different. The Prison one was different, I like the first forest police, they have cool torsos. I have medium hope for 2020, they have to be better than the sky cops. Also the City City Police normally have fun HQs.

 

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27 minutes ago, Maple said:

However I don't agree with you. LEGO Police makes money, I'm fine with it to a point because it sells and we don't take into account there are more City sets in a single year than we had LEGO sets in a single year 20-30 years ago. But they need to be different. The Prison one was different, I like the first forest police, they have cool torsos. I have medium hope for 2020, they have to be better than the sky cops. Also the City City Police normally have fun HQs.

 

Police does make money. The same amount of money as FireTrainsCoast GuardArcticSpace and any other permanent City subtheme - which is a pretty substantial bundle. I mean....do we really need an entire police theme every single year? Why not just make two or three during non-police theme years? Considering what I just said...I can only come up with two reasonable conclusions. City has a sworn contract with the police force in Denmark - which is pretty huge. Or......its just easier to make and advertise. 

But I do agree with you on Prison Island as it was mainly focused on the prison system and bringing the caught crooks there. No catching them after escaping. From my POV, Prison Island in opinion was more of a spin-off theme to Police. It was basically on the same level as Demolition Experts and Mining Experts, which were Construction spin-offs and Cargo, which was a spin-off of the Airport theme. I've been begging for a Buses or a Truck Drivers subtheme which in a way would be Trains spin-offs.  

Yeah.... there are more City sets in a single year than we had LEGO sets in a single year 20-30 years ago. I can give people that one! But how many out of those actually surprise. Very few. I mean most of those happen to be subjects we've seen before; catching crooks, rescuing civilians, vehicle shows or making great discoveries. I wanna see a subtheme that would surprise me. I want to see them to a subtheme that I never expected Lego to do before with City. One that does NOT involve violence or danger.  

Edited by pooda

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27 minutes ago, pooda said:

Police does make money. The same amount of money as FireTrainsCoast GuardArcticSpace and any other permanent City subtheme - which is a pretty substantial bundle.

Is this statement based on fact?

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7 minutes ago, CDM said:

Is this statement based on fact?

Why else would they continue to update them every three years? If they didn't sell as much as police, they'd all be axed and it would be renamed to Lego Police! 

Edited by pooda

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Obviously they make money. I'm asking if your original comment, that police makes as much as those other subthemes combined, is based on fact. Am I understanding what you're saying?

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Just now, CDM said:

Obviously they make money. I'm asking if your original comment, that police makes as much as those other subthemes combined, is based on fact. Am I understanding what you're saying?

Well.....is other people's argument that police is the ONLY thing that brings in money to the City theme based on fact? 

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1 minute ago, pooda said:

Well.....is other people's argument that police is the ONLY thing that brings in money to the City theme based on fact? 

I don't know. That's not my argument and not what I'm asking about.

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Just now, CDM said:

I don't know. That's not my argument and not what I'm asking about.

Well what do you think? Is what I said based on fact or isn't it? 

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