The Current State of the City

[The Brick Boss]

@MAB @Aanchir @TeriXeri I have taken some time out of my life to show you a video to explain why I say what I say. I think City Beautiful can better tell you. 

 

[MAB]

I don't think kids think or worry about how LEGO City would pay for all of the police services, or about things like property taxes and sales taxes, or local government spending.

Do kids of today really want 1000 similar LEGO houses for every police car they get just to keep it realistic? I doubt it.

 

Look at AFOL designed City style set-ups at LEGO conventions. Guess what, they don't have enough houses, they are unrealistic cities. Occasionally microscale builds include enough living space, but at minifigure scale I don't think I have ever seen anything like a realistic display with enough citizens to pay taxes to cover the costs of running the city services. Adults tend to focus on what they want - which is often depicting a few streets of shops and sometimes a smaller number of houses to give an impression of a city for display. And kids tend to focus on what they want - which is generally action. For boys, this tends to be focused around vehicles. For girls, this tends to be focused around homes / shops / tables, etc. Although, of course, both of these are generalisations and there are some more action type sets in Friends, not just houses and shops, and there are some more civilian type sets in City not just action vehicles.

If you want to play more like a town planner then why not go for something like the town plan sets of the 50s and 60s, although even then there are never enough houses to justify the civic buildings or petrol stations or shops, or go microscale.

[TeriXeri]

I think the video is pretty clear: Look past City for more civilian sets and houses.

While in the past many aspects were all under the big Town umbrella (including subthemes like Paradisa), City eventually split up in multiple civilian themes that include minifigs or minidolls.

The only House set ever under the City label was in 2010.

Creator 3-in-1 started adding minifigs to the house sets since 2011 and moved away from baseplates.

Friends launched 2012 , which added a lot of shops, houses, leisure places never before even seen in Town or City, but minidolls are indeed somewhat different.

Creator Expert modular buildings are around since 2007.

Town Plan was under the Creator Expert theme in 2008.

Winter village buildings was under Creator Expert theme since 2008.

City Advent Calendars seem to be moving more towards Civilian lately and no longer include 1 or more Criminal/Police/Firemen the last 2 versions (2018/2019)

 

Overall, the "Current" state of City isn't so current at all, and rather been like this for 7+ years after the introduction of Friends and shift of focus on 3-in-1 sets to minifigs.

Sets like the 2017 Pizza Van being sold longer then average (almost 2 years now), certainly shows there's interest in food/shops, & we got a Donut/Toy shop set this year.

The recent Xtra theme launch also helps with expanding City-like scenes, especially things like Trees, Food and the Stickers pack (stickers are available again after being sold out for a while)

 

 

Edited November 1, 2019 by TeriXeri

[koalayummies]

'I have taken time out of my life to link you to a video explaining why I say what I say. Here to explain why I say what I say is: someone else.'

This is never going to end is it? Thread merge with City 2020 complaint thread.

[The Brick Boss]

13 minutes ago, koalayummies said:

'I have taken time out of my life to link you to a video explaining why I say what I say. Here to explain why I say what I say is: someone else.'

This is never going to end is it? Thread merge with City 2020 complaint thread.

No. Don't merge my post. 

....and no it's not gonna end. Deal with it. 

Edited November 1, 2019 by pooda

[koalayummies]

3 hours ago, pooda said:

No. Don't merge my post. 

....and no it's not gonna end. Deal with it. 

I get where you're coming from. It must be frustrating to feel like you're being sidelined by a privately owned children's toy company in favor of the 90% of that company's customers that are their target demographic of children. Guess you'll just have to deal with it.

[The Brick Boss]

1 hour ago, koalayummies said:

I get where you're coming from. It must be frustrating to feel like you're being sidelined by a privately owned children's toy company in favor of the 90% of that company's customers that are their target demographic of children. Guess you'll just have to deal with it.

I speak for at least 40% of the fanbase. 

[koalayummies]

19 hours ago, pooda said:

I speak for at least 40% of the fanbase. 

"Anecdotal: based on or consisting of reports or observations of usually unscientific observers; (of an account) not necessarily true or reliable, because based on personal accounts rather than facts"

"Argument from authority in which a claimed authority's support is used as evidence for an argument's conclusion."

[KotZ]

On 11/1/2019 at 5:17 PM, pooda said:

I speak for at least 40% of the fanbase. 

And that 40% is definitely getting what they like if we follow what Mab and TeriXeri posted.

[The Brick Boss]

8 minutes ago, KotZ said:

And that 40% is definitely getting what they like if we follow what Mab and TeriXeri posted.

The truth is.....I don't know how to do MOCs. 

[KotZ]

2 minutes ago, pooda said:

The truth is.....I don't know how to do MOCs. 

MOCs are the easiest thing. Put two bricks together. There's a MOC. Put three together. There's another. Keep going, keep going. One suggestion when it comes to MOCs is to draw them out, either with LDD or pen and paper. Just draw, write, whatever you want that thing to be. Is it a castle? Draw your ideal castle. Is it a spaceship (obligatory SPACESHIP!!!)? Draw it out. Is it that house? Draw it out. Once that's done, identify the scale. Is it micro, minifig, or ginormous? That can help determine the parts you need.

My prefered way (especially when it comes to things like Heroica and BotBS) is to come up with a story or take a minifigure and build something around it. It takes practice and time, but it gets easier. But it's (in my opinion) the epitome of what LEGO building is. It's not specific sets (although let's be honest, we all love keeping some sets intact), it's the taking something and making it new and your own, even if that's taking an official set, keeping it together, and putting it in a larger piece, like how people do the modulars into displays.

Look through my brisckshelf account, you'll see how I've grown after howver many years of making my own MOCs (that I post online). I'm not even that good. There are so many people better than me that started where I am, where maybe you think you are. The great thing about LEGO is the parts are interchangeable, so you can fix things. It's not a real house where once it's built, renovating costs an arm and a leg.

I plan on building a town layout in the future (when I have enough space to dedicate to it). It's going to be a mix of official sets and MOCs. There's going to be giant mountains and a beach, and houses, and office buildings, and police, hospitals, bridges, maybe a train, restaurants, museums, stores, and who knows what else. Do I know what/how to build some of these? No way. Am I going to try? Absolutely. Start small, look at pictures of real world examples, and take what you think should be there and put them in your MOC. Who cares that this piece people might normally use for a mailbox is being used as the facade of a building? It's your MOC, it's your layout.

[The Brick Boss]

@KotZ Maybe I could learn how to build some MOCs instead of complaining about the buildings provided by City. 

[MAB]

There are loads of free instructions on lego.com. If you want some houses, then open up some Friends or Creator house instructions and copy them, changing colours as you see fit. That will give you a load of similar houses with some variations in colour. Now get another style house and build a few variations in that. After a while you might start to tweak a design to change it to what you want. You are now MODing. Now build a similar house without looking at the instructions. You are now MOCing.

Build 100 houses and you have a street. Build 1000 and you have a small district. You are still a long way off having enough of a population to pay for the City's services, but you will probably see why they focus on interesting action sets rather than on city planning.

[The Brick Boss]

@MAB Looks like I'm going to be doing some MOCing. If City won't do it for me, I'll do it myself.

But you've got to admit that there are lots of other pieces of action out there that just rescue. 

I mean...look at the construction (that includes demolition) and airport topics Lego has covered. 

Edited November 4, 2019 by pooda

[Bludchylde]

I think an urban planner should be giving his opinion on urban planning, not toy lines. He essentially nailed it on the head when he pointed out Lego gives kids what they want in action and playing the hero. The rest of the video was unnecessary, especially once he made that discovery. It is a toy line, aimed at kids. No matter how many people want to claim collectors make a significant percentage of their customer base. Expect the line to cater to kids and be happy we get more collector oriented things here and there. It could be worse.

And @pooda, check Rebrickable. There are plenty of free and paid instructions for those of us that are less talented.

[The Brick Boss]

2 hours ago, Bludchylde said:

It could be worse.

Yeah. Like that plane and tower they gave us for the base set. Sorry but I didn't care for that. I hated it actually. But it seems like its only on here that people seem to embrace whatever Lego does. 

Quote

And @pooda, check Rebrickable. There are plenty of free and paid instructions for those of us that are less talented.

...and thanx. 

Edited November 5, 2019 by pooda

[Vindicare]

On 11/4/2019 at 1:04 AM, pooda said:

@KotZ Maybe I could learn how to build some MOCs instead of complaining about the buildings provided by City. 

It can definitely be intimidating, but starting small & simple is a good course. I, slowly, started on my first a while back after seeing a window design I really liked years ago. I’ve built every Modular they’ve released, but a small one story store has been both tricky & satisfying, even though the building is about as simple as it can be.

[meliander]

Though I don't think that the current City state is too bad, it's certainly not the in the best shape like it was a decade ago (my personal opinion). But I'm ok with that, if they continue to release 1-2 good non-rescue sets a year AND creator 3-1 keeps doing what it's doing with the buildings. This way I can save some money for the incredible modulars. For me, City sets are not something that I will use in my own city as is (except for some vehicles). They are just means to get new accessories, minifigs and specialized parts. Almost every building in the City line is mainly just the front, lacking depth and the back side - it's not how I want the buildings to look in my City, so all of them basically need to use some work to make them look good with the modulars.

@poodaIt's a great idea to start mocking. Try to make a simple building, i.e. out of the parts that you have from other themes, if you don't have enough - order some parts from Bricklink. I would use LDD for the start to check if you like it. I must say, it's a much more satisfying experience than buying a regular lego set and building it from instructions. It is what Lego is all about, and if you want to make a city like I do (look at Jang's city for inspiration) - you have to start at some point. Lego will never supply us all the necessary stuff to make a good city - they can help, but their focus is to sell stuff that's selling, so the main work is on our own shoulders. If you haven't done MOCing before - you will open a whole new wonderful world.

[The Brick Boss]

3 hours ago, meliander said:

Though I don't think that the current City state is too bad, it's certainly not the in the best shape like it was a decade ago (my personal opinion).

I think we share that opinion. 2007 to 2009 were City's best years in my opinion. 

3 hours ago, meliander said:

Almost every building in the City line is mainly just the front, lacking depth and the back side - it's not how I want the buildings to look in my City, so all of them basically need to use some work to make them look good with the modulars.

That's kinda what I love about City buildings. I like simplicity. Build a nice and detailed town without going out of your budget. Unlimited fun for limited funds. 

 

3 hours ago, meliander said:

@poodaIt's a great idea to start mocking. Try to make a simple building, i.e. out of the parts that you have from other themes, if you don't have enough - order some parts from Bricklink. I would use LDD for the start to check if you like it. I must say, it's a much more satisfying experience than buying a regular lego set and building it from instructions. It is what Lego is all about, and if you want to make a city like I do (look at Jang's city for inspiration) - you have to start at some point. Lego will never supply us all the necessary stuff to make a good city - they can help, but their focus is to sell stuff that's selling, so the main work is on our own shoulders. If you haven't done MOCing before - you will open a whole new wonderful world

I actually have mocked before. But they aren't very good. That's why I'd rather have Lego fo certain things for me. Three of my MOCs were a post office, a bus stop, a private cell for the Brickster and a bad attempt at a pizzeria. 

Edited November 6, 2019 by pooda

[HereWeGoAgain]

@pooda bro, look at me. At 34 years old, I'm starting a Lego city after not playing with those bricks for 25 years and I barely have time to build (maybe an hour a day). MOCing is definitely not the easiest thing to do if you are aiming at realism and highly detailed builds. Also the amount of different pieces, colors and techniques can be intimidating to say the least. But like anything, it takes time and practice. LDD is a good friend to have, pinterest as well to look at what others do and get some inspiration.

I'm currently working on a 2-3 story building on a 16x32 baseplate. Ground floor has a backery/ice-cream shop and clothes shop named "SWAG", 1st floor has a nice condo, 2nd floor, I don't know yet. Been working on it for like 2 months now.

I'll be hones though, if you're just waiting for Lego to create the stuff that you want, that's just not going to happen. Lego is and will always remain a toy company with products that are aimed at kids, not adults (though we have been getting a ton of expert builds lately). And as a construction toy maker, Lego will always encourage childish creativity over adult realism.

The biggest issue of all here is that we as adults have lost that childish creativity, and I find it is very difficult to get it back. I encourage you to do MOCs again just for that reason.

Edited November 14, 2019 by HereWeGoAgain