Lego David

Should LEGO Bring Back Raised Base Plates

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A lot of the charm of the old Castle, Pirates and Space sets came from the raised base plates they were built on. They helped increase the size of the set, while at the same time keeping the part count down. But the last time they were used in a set was in 2011, with the Scorpion Pyramid set. 

In your opinion, should LEGO bring back the raised base plates? Why or why not?

 

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No.  Raised baseplates are expensive, fragile, and difficult to store, and they severely constrain the structures built on top.  I wouldn't say no to the return of crater plates, though: those aren't much harder to store than regular flat baseplates, nor much more restrictive in building, and the sense of place they give for a lunar surface is much stronger than the sense of place given by brick built rocks and craters like those in the 2019 lunar lander set.  In general, I prefer buildings to use regular 8x16 and 16x16 plates as bases instead of baseplates, because those are easier to store and easier to use for other purposes. It is also easier to locate where to place parts on them when building, and the completed building is more rigid.

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Just now, icm said:

No.  Raised baseplates are expensive, fragile, and difficult to store, and they severely constrain the structures built on top.  I wouldn't say no to the return of crater plates, though: those aren't much harder to store than regular flat baseplates, nor much more restrictive in building, and the sense of place they give for a lunar surface is much stronger than the sense of place given by brick built rocks and craters like those in the 2019 lunar lander set.  In general, I prefer buildings to use regular 8x16 and 16x16 plates as bases instead of baseplates, because those are easier to store and easier to use for other purposes. It is also easier to locate where to place parts on them when building, and the completed building is more rigid.

I agree with everything you just said. Most of the time they just sit in storage gathering dust. You can only build on top. They are limited.

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There's a reason they're called CRAPP. :laugh:

They're cool for nostalgia, but implementing them nowadays probably wouldn't happen.

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The old cratered baseplates were nice, I wouldn't mind seeing those produced again, perhaps with relatively shallow profile to make storage easier and with on-grid studs in crater bottoms.

As for the other kinds, @icm said everything that needs to be said about them. I have never really liked even the flat baseplates because they have different height than normal plates and can't be attached from the bottom. I realize they are meant as the very bottom of a build and are cheaper to produce than normal plates (relative to size) but I wouldn't mind getting a normal plates in 32x32 or similar size.

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Must be in the minority, but I liked the raised plates. I thought they were cool. As stated before they helped give the sets some volume. 

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Agree with @icm and @howitzer, I've been replacing baseplates for modulars with four 16x16 regular plates for a while; need to go back and redo some of the older ones.  I just wish things would match, so getting rid of baseplates entirely - and making larger regular plates - would be great.  Even if 32x32 is too big, maybe 16x32 would work.

I understand the appeal (I actually have a number of Pharaoh/Egyptian ones in light tan that I actually went out of my way to buy), but would rather see something like burps take up where raised baseplates were used.

As far as the moon ones go - I do not have one; they look really cool, but again, I have a bunch of gray 48x48 baseplates and would prefer a crater rock piece that could be placed anywhere.

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On 1/24/2020 at 5:15 AM, fred67 said:

<snip>

As far as the moon ones go - I do not have one; they look really cool, but again, I have a bunch of gray 48x48 baseplates and would prefer a crater rock piece that could be placed anywhere.

A few different crater rock pieces would indeed be an awesome alternative to a raised baseplate.

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On 1/23/2020 at 6:16 PM, Lego David said:

In your opinion, should LEGO bring back the raised base plates?

I don't think so. Most of what those plates did could be achieved with building, though I'd rather say "should be achievable", which of course it isn't, but ranting about LEGO's lack of a consistent plant and landscaping toolset is a topic for another time. Other than that it simply becomes a matter of efficiency. A new plate for every potential scenario clearly can't be desirable, either.

Mylenium

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I think it's easy to view them with the rose tinted glasses we normally wear when remembering old Lego, but most of them where pretty situational. I do think that some sets would definitely benefit from the inclusion of raised base plates, but from the point of view of someone who wants to be able to build mocs, owning raised base plates might not be super practical. 

I'll give you this example: https://brickset.com/sets/6195-1 

Without the raised base plate, the set might have either been too expensive or just not as fun to play with. But take a look at that base plate on its own and try to think of how often you would want to use it instead of just using a normal base plate and building the elements yourself. 

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They should bring back baseplates period.

I'm fed up with pretty much everything other than modulars coming on regular plates. It just stinks. Just one of the many areas where Lego thought they had to stray from a perfectly right path. :sceptic:

 

As for raised baseplates: I never had them as a kid, but ogled them longingly in the catalogues. But nowadays, I propably wouldn't have much use for them, in fact I sold the only one that so far strayed into my collection as an adult soon afterwards. Edit: Scratch that, I actually have two ever since I fulfilled one of those childhood dreams and got the Neptune Discovery Lab.

And anyway, I'd see them bringing back Castle & Pirates sets (withouth IP-tie-in) as a higher priority than the return of the raised baseplates associated with those sets :classic:

Edited by RogerSmith

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I liked them. I miss them too. I totally agree with all of the negatives being said about them. NONE of mine from childhood survived... but whatevs. I wish they'd be in a few sets anyways!

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I had a few as a kid and other than the original build, they were kind of limiting.  I realize that you can build a lot of things if you're creative, but the definitely weren't as flexible.  They did make some really cool castle sets and other fun things, like that underwater neptune set possible.  So I miss them in a nostalgic way but have never used them in any MOCs that I have built since I came out of my dark ages.

On the other hand, I really do miss the baseplates on the regular larger sets, particularly in some of the city sets (like the gas stations), where I thought they lent a lot of feel to the set and were still quite flexible.  I tend to buy a lot of the generic baseplates at the Lego stores just to build on.

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I had several as a kid and have more now. I'd like to see them come back. But I'd love it more if they came out with new styles that are complementary to the original raised baseplates and the original river and crater plates.

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Ironically I never found them fragile. They seem to be my only base plates that managed to not bend or have the coners chip or even discolour. I think unless they bring back pirates or castle I wouldn't think they would suit any other themes. Shame really because I loved them too.

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My only experiences were 1 crater plate and 1 river/mountain plate from Enchanted Island (1994)

I loved the Enchanted Island baseplates for sure, with the included rope bridge, and animals like crocs and sharks below.

6024px2.jpg2359px3.jpg

Also surely increased the overall size of the set as it only had ~ 440 pieces.

Crater plate, while nice looking, felt a bit limited in actual use for building.

Edited by TeriXeri

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6 hours ago, TeriXeri said:

My only experiences were 1 crater plate and 1 river/mountain plate from Enchanted Island (1994)

I loved the Enchanted Island baseplates for sure, with the included rope bridge, and animals like crocs and sharks below.

6024px2.jpg2359px3.jpg

Also surely increased the overall size of the set as it only had ~ 440 pieces.

Crater plate, while nice looking, felt a bit limited in actual use for building.

So true, as a kid I've always thought the big islander lagoon to be B.I.G. when I was looking at the catalog.

6278-1.png

Funny to realise it is actually just 393 pieces. For a 'Lego poor' kid baseplates were a great tool to create higher battle scenes without using all the bricks.

For nostalgic reason I completely adore old 3D baseplates. I was always checking out the different forts and castles and comparing the color combinations of the bases. I love how the 90s was so diverse yet so uniform with them.

Edited by Medzomorak

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Huge nostalgia factor for me.  I'd luv to see them again.  However, I don't see them returning to production anytime soon.  I hit up eBay or Bricklink to increase my inventory of the classic ones. 

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To be honest there are enough varieties of large BURP pieces that can be used to build up a landscape nowadays that raised baseplates would feel superfluous and limited in use.

It's true that I have fond memories of some older sets with raised baseplates. But for every set that made good use of a raised baseplate, it usually felt like there were two or three that had to awkwardly repurpose one that had clearly been designed for a very different sort of application. Ultimately I view the overall shift away from large baseplates and toward more varied brick-built bases to be a positive one.

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Seeing modern sets like Chima Lion Chi Temple, , Ninjago The Lighthouse Siege, Nexo Knights Jestro's Volcano Lair, sets like that still did really well with brick-built design upwards without baseplates.

All those sets are fairly open on the backside but for a playset I don't think that's bad, they still have good looking sides and won't cost €200 by going fully enclosed.

So using BURPS where needed is fine, that started in 1992 with Wolfpack Tower but now more different shapes and sizes and colors are available.

They also provide hollow space for some features.

 

 

 

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