Unpopular Opinions about LEGO

[Toastie]

1 hour ago, YourLocalB2 said:

Thanks for making my day

Mine as well! I missed that one, 3 and some months ago!

Hmmm - why "e-penis" though? The Urban Dictionary says "https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=e-penis" - so that should be an L-penis, which is enlarged, isn't it? Bloody German here, I even never heard of the e-variety before

So @suffocation, thanks for making my day (three+ years after your post, I love vinatge stuff) AND enlarging my - uhm - vocabulary.

All the best
Thorsten

[LegendaryArticuno]

People conveniently ignore City as a theme with some of the most outrageous markups despite having no licensing fees attached. City used to be the value theme but that has not been the case for many years now.

[neithan]

With all the rumours and discussion about new Indiana Jones Sets I finally took the time to look at the old Sets - they are terrible!

No good play value, nothing I would like to put on a shelf.

 

I really hope the new line comes with good sets!

Edited January 4, 2023 by neithan

[The Brick Boss]

3 hours ago, LegendaryArticuno said:

People conveniently ignore City as a theme with some of the most outrageous markups despite having no licensing fees attached. City used to be the value theme but that has not been the case for many years now.

That's not true. You go across this forum and on various social media posts, people point out that City has some sets that are overpriced. 

[MAB]

13 minutes ago, neithan said:

With all the rumours and discussion about new Indiana Jones Sets I finally took the time to look at the old Sets - they are terrible!

No good play value, nothing I would like to put on a shelf.

 

I think I must be totally out of touch with what other LEGO fans want. To see Indy sets described as no play value and nothing to put on a shelf is unbelievable to me. I thought those sets were packed full of play value. To see sets like these described as "no good play value", I really cannot understand what good play value is.

8 of the sets had two or more vehicles, often done with no extra or minimal filler scenery to increase the costs, just the vehicles and minifigures necessary to recreate a scene. Other sets are location based packing in play while also having display value. The Temple Escape set is both action packed and a decent enough display piece of probably one of the most iconic scenes in the movies. To see it described as terrible is just unbelievable.

My unpopular opinion here is people need to be very careful what they wish for, unless they want only a single highly detailed but expensive $500 D2C set per franchise.

[neithan]

Looking for example at the two "temple" sets: there is no display value in my eyes and yeah, there are play functions. But you do it once or twice and that's it. There is no base where you can go to with your figs. There are only roads you once go with your minifig and that's it.

Why would Indy reenter the temple he just escaped from?

But that's just me (I mean, this is the UO-Thread).

To make things clearer: I just don't see that big of a play value in many licensed Sets beacuse there is a way the scenes already happened in the movies/games/etc.

Ofcourse you can play inbetween the shown scenes, but like my example from above: some Places will never be visited again, not even in another dimension.

But then again, I'm maybe too old.^^

Licensed Sets should always only be display Sets. There, I wrote it.

[Johnny1360]

On 1/4/2023 at 4:29 AM, neithan said:

 

Licensed Sets should always only be display Sets. There, I wrote it.

Man oh man, that is truly an unpopular opinion, lol.

Here's another one, LEGO was way better when it was a kids toy, now everything is art, static display or some kind of object, like a helmet or hammer and everything else is just thrown in as an afterthought to buff out overpriced Minifigure packs.

 

[Lyichir]

6 hours ago, Johnny1360 said:

Man oh man, that is truly an unpopular opinion, lol.

Here's another one, LEGO was way better when it was a kids toy, now everything is art, static display or some kind of object, like a helmet or hammer and everything else is just thrown in as an afterthought to buff out overpriced Minifigure packs.

 

I think you're just looking at the wrong sorts of themes then—themes like Ninjago, Monkie Kid, and Friends all have fantastic playsets. On the licensed side, Lego Super Mario isn't exactly cheap but prioritizes playsets over minifigures to perhaps the most extreme extent of any theme.

Speaking of unpopular opinions, one of mine would be that Lego Super Mario doesn't need traditional minifigures and in fact the majority of characters work better in blocky brick-built form than they ever would as minifigures or bespoke molded creatures.

[MAB]

14 hours ago, Johnny1360 said:

Man oh man, that is truly an unpopular opinion, lol.

Here's another one, LEGO was way better when it was a kids toy, now everything is art, static display or some kind of object, like a helmet or hammer and everything else is just thrown in as an afterthought to buff out overpriced Minifigure packs.

 

Most of LEGO 's output is still aimed at kids. Look at the colourful boxes instead of the black ones.

[Killian]

Lego Minecraft sucks.

It was like Lego were like "remember when all our sets were really blocky and looked bad because we hadn't branched out into capturing details and different shapes with our brick repertoire? Let's go back to that and release a load of stuff that looks like a 4 year old put it together from a Classic Brick Box, but we'll slap a licence on it so people will pay high prices for no design effort"

[Lyichir]

17 minutes ago, Killian said:

Lego Minecraft sucks.

It was like Lego were like "remember when all our sets were really blocky and looked bad because we hadn't branched out into capturing details and different shapes with our brick repertoire? Let's go back to that and release a load of stuff that looks like a 4 year old put it together from a Classic Brick Box, but we'll slap a licence on it so people will pay high prices for no design effort"

I feel like "no design effort" is a disservice to the designers who work on the theme. The aesthetic is supposed to be blocky, and I get the sense that a lot of thought goes into how the sets can be built easily as well as rearranged and reconfigured by young builders (moreso than in many other themes where modularity and the ability to combine/rearrange sets is a lower priority). Like with 4+ or even Duplo sets, I don't think that simplicity should be confused for a lack of consideration or work—there's just a different set of priorities being taken with that work, where complexity or strict accuracy to the source material are secondary to the play experience for a young target audience.

[MAB]

20 minutes ago, Killian said:

Lego Minecraft sucks.

It was like Lego were like "remember when all our sets were really blocky and looked bad because we hadn't branched out into capturing details and different shapes with our brick repertoire? Let's go back to that and release a load of stuff that looks like a 4 year old put it together from a Classic Brick Box, but we'll slap a licence on it so people will pay high prices for no design effort"

Presumably that is because you don't like Minecraft, with its blocky designs. The simple remedy is not to buy themes you don't like. Remember also the license for Minecraft came before the minifigure based sets. Many people (including me) couldn't see the point of the Minecraft theme when it fist appeared in Cuusoo and then got regular sets, but it has gone from strength to strength over a decade, so presumably fans of the theme do like it.

[Killian]

1 minute ago, MAB said:

Presumably that is because you don't like Minecraft, with its blocky designs. The simple remedy is not to buy themes you don't like. Remember also the license for Minecraft came before the minifigure based sets. Many people (including me) couldn't see the point of the Minecraft theme when it fist appeared in Cuusoo and then got regular sets, but it has gone from strength to strength over a decade, so presumably fans of the theme do like it.

I didn't say my opinion was a popular opinion lol, or I wouldn't have included it in this thread   But yeah, I never buy Lego Minecraft unless it's heavily discounted and there's a part I need for a not Minecraft MOC

[Johnny1360]

Yeah not a fan of Minecraft for sure but I will absolutely buy discounted sets, mostly to get actual bricks and beams, instead of a pile of tiny pieces I already have an overabundance of, like you get with almost every other theme. Hope Minecraft is around for a long time.

[MAB]

That is one of the good things about Minecraft if you are after traditional bricks. The blocky nature means they have plenty.

[TeriXeri]

Speaking of Minecraft , and Basic Bricks, it would be awesome to see a 11030: Lots of Bricks set with minecraft-y color scheme.

I know Minecraft had multiple free-build boxes before, but the Classic theme shows it can do basic brick boxes again , now I hope LEGO continues that with more colors, and a minecraft-ish color scheme would go well for generic builds as well (meaning like standard green, dark green, standard blue, 2 grey tones, tan, brown etc that's not in 11030.)

I don't have any minecraft sets, but this 11030 Castle example from this new Classic set reminded me a bit of 21161: The Crafting Box 3.0 or 21127: The Fortress.

This is mainly a "what if" , and of course normal minecraft sets still exist, I just think it could be a nice addition, not just to minecraft but other builds as well to have some more basic brick packs in certain color pallettes under the Classic theme.

 

Edited January 6, 2023 by TeriXeri

[Killian]

11 hours ago, MAB said:

one of the good things about Minecraft 

 

[Aanchir]

18 hours ago, TeriXeri said:

Speaking of Minecraft , and Basic Bricks, it would be awesome to see a 11030: Lots of Bricks set with minecraft-y color scheme.

I know Minecraft had multiple free-build boxes before, but the Classic theme shows it can do basic brick boxes again , now I hope LEGO continues that with more colors, and a minecraft-ish color scheme would go well for generic builds as well (meaning like standard green, dark green, standard blue, 2 grey tones, tan, brown etc that's not in 11030.)

I don't have any minecraft sets, but this 11030 Castle example from this new Classic set reminded me a bit of 21161: The Crafting Box 3.0 or 21127: The Fortress.

This is mainly a "what if" , and of course normal minecraft sets still exist, I just think it could be a nice addition, not just to minecraft but other builds as well to have some more basic brick packs in certain color pallettes under the Classic theme.

I dunno yet if we'll be seeing sets like "Lots of Bricks" in more specific color palettes (might depend how that set's sales turn out!), but I certainly believe there could be room for a set similar to "Creative Pastel Fun" or "Creative Neon Fun" with more of an emphasis on the sort of natural/earth tones used in themes like Castle and Minecraft (greys, browns, reds, greens, blues, etc). It could be called "Creative Nature Fun" or something like that, maybe.

Even if those colors in and of themselves aren't necessarily as thrilling or eye-catching as a more vivid rainbow of bricks, you could potentially make up for that with fun sample builds like animals, castles, tropical islands, volcanoes, planets, etc.

[Yperio_Bricks]

1 hour ago, Aanchir said:

I dunno yet if we'll be seeing sets like "Lots of Bricks" in more specific color palettes (might depend how that set's sales turn out!), but I certainly believe there could be room for a set similar to "Creative Pastel Fun" or "Creative Neon Fun" with more of an emphasis on the sort of natural/earth tones used in themes like Castle and Minecraft (greys, browns, reds, greens, blues, etc). It could be called "Creative Nature Fun" or something like that, maybe.

Even if those colors in and of themselves aren't necessarily as thrilling or eye-catching as a more vivid rainbow of bricks, you could potentially make up for that with fun sample builds like animals, castles, tropical islands, volcanoes, planets, etc.

I am pretty sure Lego would never give us a big box of basic bricks in desirable colors that everybody could use for landscaping, city, castle, planets, pirates, Star Wars and pretty much every other theme. They either have to mix it up with tiny parts, parts that you most probably would not need many of or "neon fun" colors and stuff like that.

Imagine a big box of 1xX and 2xX basic bricks in basic colors with a price per piece of 5 cent. People would buy these boxes in masses. But profit would be lower for Lego and so the most basic thing is impossible nowadays.

[MAB]

I guess it depends who the boxes are aimed at. I'd like greys, tans, B&W, greens, browns, etc but would kids? When I watch my daughter build she is like an anti-Batman. She'll build anything so long as it is a shade of pink or purple. Houses, cars, animals, boats, castles. Everything is pink.

[Yperio_Bricks]

8 minutes ago, MAB said:

I guess it depends who the boxes are aimed at. I'd like greys, tans, B&W, greens, browns, etc but would kids? When I watch my daughter build she is like an anti-Batman. She'll build anything so long as it is a shade of pink or purple. Houses, cars, animals, boats, castles. Everything is pink.

Sure! There could be different boxes. Like one with the basic colors like red, light and dark green, blue, yellow, orange, white...

One box for the "adult" colors like tan, dark tan, sand blue, sand green, dark red, lavender,...

One for the "fun" colors like light and shades of pink and violet, coral, turquoise, neon green/yellow, bright green and blue,...

There could even be a box with transparent bricks of all sorts of colors.

There are many possibilities. I'd imagine a box of 10 colors with 150 pieces for each color. Just basic 1x and 2x bricks. That's how i would do it In an ideal world you would be able to buy even boxes of just one color with 500 pieces each. Just go to a shop and buy a box of basic bricks for a reasonable price. Once can still dream

Classic box 11030 is a good start but the color selection could be better imo.

[Peppermint_M]

The generic brands can supply parts in bulk with lots of colours for a super reasonable price. LEGO needs to work on it. 

Those were retailing at £12.99. On sale they are less than £10, they can't be manufactured for much less than LEGO bricks as the quality of the parts is pretty good (A lot nicer than the generics when I was a kid, or even only ten years ago when I sat upon my Clone Brand throne). The main issue with this generic brand is the set designs are not good and the figures are just weird (as TLG have the full rights to Minifigure design and will sue you to the stone age if anything so much as resembles their figures). 

Really and truly, the cost of random bricks from TLG is inflated to make LEGO the "premium" brand. Nothing more.

 

 

[Yperio_Bricks]

3 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

The generic brands can supply parts in bulk with lots of colours for a super reasonable price. LEGO needs to work on it.

Those were retailing at £12.99. On sale they are less than £10, they can't be manufactured for much less than LEGO bricks as the quality of the parts is pretty good (A lot nicer than the generics when I was a kid, or even only ten years ago when I sat upon my Clone Brand throne). The main issue with this generic brand is the set designs are not good and the figures are just weird (as TLG have the full rights to Minifigure design and will sue you to the stone age if anything so much as resembles their figures). 

Really and truly, the cost of random bricks from TLG is inflated to make LEGO the "premium" brand. Nothing more.

 

Exactly!

[Alexandrina]

20 hours ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

I am pretty sure Lego would never give us a big box of basic bricks in desirable colors that everybody could use for landscaping, city, castle, planets, pirates, Star Wars and pretty much every other theme. They either have to mix it up with tiny parts, parts that you most probably would not need many of or "neon fun" colors and stuff like that.

Imagine a big box of 1xX and 2xX basic bricks in basic colors with a price per piece of 5 cent. People would buy these boxes in masses. But profit would be lower for Lego and so the most basic thing is impossible nowadays.

Lego have done exactly that in the past, though - sets like 3727 which just came with 100 1x2 bricks, or other similar sets. I'd love to see sets like that again, but we can only assume that Lego - knowing what the sales figures were for these sets when they were last on the market - is withholding them for a reason.

Of course, there's also the question of which bricks and colours do you make available? According to Bricklink, there are 43 colours in use in 2023 sets (excluding the transparent/pearl/metallic colours) and even if you limit yourself to the very barebones line of basic elements, there are thirty-one different standard plates and bricks in the 1x and 2x sizes alone (not counting any longer than twelve studs, as those are usually quite niche in my experience). Already that's 1333 different colour/brick combinations. Throw in a basic set of slopes, corner/macaroni bricks, jumper plates and tiles and you're in the region of 3000 combinations. So that's way too much to sell each brick/colour in individual sets - especially given how little some of them would sell (1x4 bricks in white? Gonna sell loads. 1x2 jumper plates in yellowish green? Probably going to be warehouse warmers.)

So they have to limit the combinations, and they probably have to make parts packs with more than one element in. But then it's a case of how do you pack these? Given the ubiquity of Pick a Brick and Bricklink now, there's an easily accessible threshold at which it's not necessarily cost-effective for someone to get a set for the basic bricks rather than just... buying the bricks. Let's imagine Lego came out with a line that included a pack of 2x plates in green (something they actually did before, with set 10059). If you just want a general assortment of green plates 2x then this is a fantastic pack for you but if you want a specific plate, I'm not sure it is.

Set 10059 retailed, according to Bricklink, for $5. I can't find a price in £ and I'm not even sure it was available in the UK, but at the current exchange rate $5 is £4.13. Let's imagine, then, that a re-release of this exact set would cost £4.50. I'm getting a good deal on the parts here if I want all of them, but let's imagine hypothetically I only want 2x3 and 2x4 plates. In this scenario 2x2 is too small for my use case and 2x6 is too long. Okay. I'm getting 12 2x3s and 16 2x4s for £4.13, plus some parts I don't want. Or instead I could go to Pick a Brick and get exactly the same parts for £3.68, without the ones I won't use. At least when you buy a regular set for the parts, you also get a model out of it and a variety of parts. If you buy a pure parts pack, the parts you don't want have literally no use. So while most people would still get this set, there'd be some who'd choose not to.

And that's a very common and useful set of parts in a useful colour. Less common colours are going to sell less, especially if they're packaged with parts you're unable to use because of their odd colour. Green plates are useful for grass - you can easily make a use for other colours there. What do you use your unwanted neon yellow macaroni bricks for? The NHS emergency rocket ambulance?

So the range has to be culled, and Lego have to decide where to do the culling - all to sell parts packs to a limited subset of the customer base (AFOLs who want to build their own stuff, rather than displaying the sets). Especially when if they don't put those parts in parts packs, the same customer base will use Pick a Brick instead.

Really, imo, the issue here isn't the death of bulk parts packs - but instead the gaps in the Pick a Brick range.

What I would like to see Lego do is expand Pick a Brick to include their entire currently-produced range (for standard bricks; their portfolio is broad enough to justify potentially omitting some more niche parts) but also dividing parts into three categories rather than the current Bestsellers and Standard. Keep those two, of course, but also add a third category, of parts that don't get regular production runs but are in production - and which upon ordering clearly state that they'll be picked and shipped once they've accumulated enough orders to justify a production run (and this is where you have to limit it to currently-in-production parts, where in the worst case scenario it's a wait of a few months until the next batch of a set the part appears in is made; if it was the case that every possible combination of part and colour could be ordered, it might be years before some parts are ordered in enough quantity to justify actually making them).

[Killian]

Unpopular Opinion. Some of the AFOLs in the Licensed Theme and Star Wars forums act like entitled, tantrumming/tantruming (why is that not in the dictionary?) children who get off on arguing and insulting each other. My ignore list keeps growing and it gets me like