LEGO Ninjago 2021

[lego_guyon02]

Just now, a guy from somewhere said:

On the quality side, I believe the Lego group  is going down in quality, but it’s not entirely their fault. They are having to keep up with the increased demand of hundreds of thousands of bored people, along with the pandemics supply issues. Cuts will have to be made to keep up with the demand, but I’m hopeful that once the pandemic is over, Lego will try and go back to its old ways. 

The decline in quality started well before the pandemic though.

[Merlo]

14 minutes ago, Guyon2002 said:

The decline in quality started well before the pandemic though. 

What are some of the examples of this alleged decline in quality?

[lego_guyon02]

Just now, Merlo said:

What are some of the examples of this alleged decline in quality?

Mercy's face, Hanzo's torso, other vague prints, stickers that aren't cut properly, more missing pieces in sets (at least in my experience), pieces break much easier and so on. 

[Robert8]

And dont forget about this crap

Edited January 13, 2021 by Robert8

[a guy from somewhere]

Just now, Guyon2002 said:

Mercy's face, Hanzo's torso, other vague prints, stickers that aren't cut properly, more missing pieces in sets (at least in my experience), pieces break much easier and so on. 

To be honest, the print on zane's torso in the titan mech, which is white painted on black, usually a recipe for disaster, is actually pretty good. Its clear, defined and actually white. Not as white as the arms or hood, but still pretty good. One decline in production though that I have seen are the heads like mercy's or the iron dragon lady head come to mind, but also Pixels head in the throne room showdown set wasn't to good. they just look like grey sludge printed on a black head. no defined or clear lines.

[Modal]

Was hoping we were going to get some reviews and in-person shots today, but oh well.

[Nearlyheadlessbrick]

10 minutes ago, Modal said:

Was hoping we were going to get some reviews and in-person shots today, but oh well.

Maybe tomorrow. There should be video-reviews by Friday.

[The Stud]

I’ve been collecting Lego for my entire life and I haven’t noticed any notable decreases in quality. Sure, sets are getting more expensive, but the builds are becoming more and more incredible by the year. And I will say that I don’t entirely agree with a lot of TLG’s recent decisions (less detailed figures, over-emphasis on gimmicks, “18+”) but at the end of the day, I still think Lego is a more ethical company and makes higher quality products that a lot of other companies of their size.

I am really disappointed by the lackluster manner Lego is revealing and releasing the Ninjago City Gardens though. I remember reading the press release for the original Ninjago City and being completely blown away. There weren’t any leaked images of the set beforehand and that made the reveal all the more triumphant. I’m glad that they’re at least doing stuff to celebrate the ten year anniversary of the theme (especially because I’m sure Cartoon Network will barely air the show at all, despite it being their longest running show currently), but I wish they’d do a better job at promoting it. I saw somebody on Instagram point out that their post about the new Hype/Ninjago clothing line is the first time they’ve posted about Ninjago since July of 2019...

Edited January 13, 2021 by The Stud

[Modal]

1 minute ago, The Stud said:

I’ve been collecting Lego for my entire life and I haven’t noticed any notable decreases in quality. Sure, sets are getting more expensive, but the builds are becoming more and more incredible by the year. And I will say that I don’t entirely agree with a lot of their recent decisions (less detailed figures, over-emphasis on gimmicks, “18+”) but at the end of the day, I still think Lego is a more ethical company and makes higher quality products that a lot of other companies of their size.

I am really disappointed by the lackluster manner Lego is revealing and releasing the Ninjago City Gardens though. I remember reading the press release for the original Ninjago City and being completely blown away. There weren’t any leaked images of the set beforehand and that made the reveal all the more triumphant. I’m glad that they’re at least doing stuff to celebrate the ten year anniversary of the theme (especially because I’m sure Cartoon Network will barely air the show at all, despite it being their longest running show currently), but I wish they’d do a better job at promoting it. I saw somebody on Instagram point out that their post about the new Hype/Ninjago clothing line is the first time they’ve posted about it since July of 2019...

It’s funny because the only two sets that I feel they botched the announcements were the two I was most excited for this past year - Ninjago City Gardens and Diagon Alley. I remember when the 2018 Hogwarts was announced, I wasn’t following Lego, but even that made it’s rounds in the mainstream on the reveal. These past two sets I swore they wanted to release them as quietly as possible. It’s so weird but hey I’m not a master or marketing so maybe they know something I don’t.

[Lyichir]

1 hour ago, Robert8 said:

And dont forget about this crap

I don't get why people continue to describe things like this, Mercy's face, or Hanzo's torso as a "decline" in quality since the same exact issue with printing colorful prints on black have existed for decades. On minifigure heads like this, this one is arguably BETTER than the first such minifigure face printed on black (Jango Fett back in 2002). There's definitely still a lot of room for improvement, but it's not a "decline" by any stretch of the imagination.

And so it goes for a lot of the complaints I see about declines in quality—so many of the issues are ones that have occurred for a long time, and in many cases gotten less severe/common than they once were.

[Robert8]

They printed white and yellow on a black head for the S14 Skeleton Guy and it looks way better than that

[CopperTablet]

The CMFs are made in their own factory, right?   The printing capabilities they have there may be better.

[a guy from somewhere]

2 hours ago, TimotheusFlavii said:

It's now past midnight on the 14th in New Zealand and parts of Australia, but the Ninjago City Gardens set does not seem to be able for purchase there yet on the Lego webstore. I'm interested to see whether the set will be available for purchase on midnight here in Europe.

Had it gone up yet for sale to VIPs? I’m wondering if it will go up at a later date or time.

[Merlo]

I've noticed with time, probably due to more complex builds, smaller pieces and new connections, Lego has more issues with grip on some pieces. In fact, appropriate for the topic, the green tower on my Ninjago City is pretty loose. The connection size and type is not enough for the weight of the whole thing.

[Lucarex]

2 hours ago, Robert8 said:

And dont forget about this crap

Beat me to it! And that was from the TLNM sets back in 2017.

I’ve also lost count of the number of bricks with clips that have broken on me recently. It’s almost as if the quality is not up to being built more than once, an accusation long since aimed at LEGO’s fellow Scandinavians (and more recent collaborators) IKEA.

[Exetrius]

The print quality of the avatar outfit torsos was bad too, imo. If you're printing a bare chest on a torso, better make it opaque! In general, I feel like the opacity of prints has lowered a bit. Now I always pay close attention to set reviews, to avoid ending up with unsightly prints that I won't use. And new trans clear is an eyesore. 

Quality complaints aside, NCG looks great. Love the control tower, and relieved there's no 18+ box art! I was kind of hoping for a temple instead of a shrine, but oh well. I wonder what it looks like placed directly next to NC, because I'm not a fan of the hight drop of the NCD. Anyway, exciting continuation!

[RichardGoring]

Have I missed anything in terms of events or offers for the Ninjago 10th anniversary? The store calendar said Jan 13 and 14, but I can't see anything. Or is it just that the gardens are releasing tomorrow and they needed space of two days on the calendar to show the Ninjago graphics?

[Maartenh]

Pretty much yeah...

[Gangikhan448]

Now we got the official box for the Catamarans, Dragon and Bike. We already got the village box in November. Now for them to be officially revealed in high definition!

[Ql97]

9 hours ago, Lucarex said:

Notice how they refer to Gardens being “the largest Ninjago set yet”.

TLG’s recent size and piece count obsession is getting a bit irritating tbh, beginning with the Falcon and most recently the Colosseum, and as now rumoured the 11,000 pc DS2.

Quality > quantity should always be the focus.

Yeah, might be an unpopular opinion, but I really don't get the point of the temple island included with the Gardens is. It's a pretty jarring break from the established structure of the Ninjago City modulars, and it leaves the Docks' sidewalk just hanging there. It feels like a completely unrelated build that was just tossed onto a Ninjago City-compatible base just for the sake of upping the piece count.

[Modal]

Yea I personally wished they took the back of Gardens and made that the temple. Then you could have all kinds of overgrowth intertwine between the buildings. Instead we have a Ninjago City with an added temple thing that’s completely separate and looks out of place

[a guy from somewhere]

5 minutes ago, Ql97 said:

Yeah, might be an unpopular opinion, but I really don't get the point of the temple island included with the Gardens is. It's a pretty jarring break from the established structure of the Ninjago City modulars, and it leaves the Docks' sidewalk just hanging there. It feels like a completely unrelated build that was just tossed onto a Ninjago City-compatible base just for the sake of upping the piece count.

I feel like people are forgetting that you can just take the pagoda island off and put it to the side, or on the other side of the gardens. The walkways line up then. I do agree on the upping the piece count part. I feel like they took something like ninjago city, took the parts used to build the main centre  buildings (crab kitchen and clothing store) and used the pieces to build a super tall tower. Then they just chucked whatever pieces they had left on to a base plate and put it to the side.

Edited January 13, 2021 by a guy from somewhere

[Ql97]

Just now, a guy from somewhere said:

I feel like people are forgetting that you can just take the pagoda island off and put it to the side, or on the other side of the gardens. The walkways line up then. I do agree on the upping the piece count part. I feel like they took something like ninjago city, took the parts used to build the main centre  buildings (crab kitchen and clothing store) and used the pieces to build a super tall tower. Then they just chucked whatever pieces they had left on to a base plate and put it to the side.

That's what I'm planning on doing, but I'll probably end up having to put the temple somewhere else, because I have very few shelves deep enough for one and a half baseplates. It's definitely something of a first-world-problem, but for me, the temple island is basically an unrelated side build. It's a neat little build, but doesn't contribute to the set as a whole, imo.

5 minutes ago, Modal said:

Yea I personally wished they took the back of Gardens and made that the temple. Then you could have all kinds of overgrowth intertwine between the buildings. Instead we have a Ninjago City with an added temple thing that’s completely separate and looks out of place

Something like an overgrown version of the Padoga Park MOC, essentially. That would have been fun to see.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/galaktek/albums/72157696244428330

 

[turk187]

Continuing my love/hate relationship with Ninjago City sets.

When the first NC set came out I was SUPER excited. I was working a job with a lot of free time and spent most of that watching youtube videos from people who were lucky enough to get early access, and playing with Stud.io (or whatever it was at the time) playing with building my own versions. The weeks we had to wait were excruciating. I even scraped together enough money to buy 2 of them on release day. I built one straight up and the other one I build mirrored with some different colors. I had planned on building my own Version, but when I designed the first level on Stud.io and priced it on Bricklink, the first level cost as much as buying the entire city. So, I went ahead and bought the second and made the changes I wanted. Its still one of my all-time favorite sets.

Then came NC docks. I was never very excited about this set. I eventually bought it just before it went out of print. I just don't care for it much. NC was meant to be viewed from the corner on. Adding the docks to it doesn't help. The docks are meant to be viewed from the back (The dock side, which is in all the pictures and the box). And, its too short overall. It just doesn't look good joined to NC. They also made the docks so they could be joined one either side so it doesn't really look good either way.

Now, we have NC Gardens. The first I heard about this was a few days ago when my Lego catalogue arrived. I had no clue this was coming out, and with the VIP release I only have to wait a few days. Very excited. I am buying one right away. I've considered buying 2, and I still might get a second later, but that would mean spending money I have set aside for something else.

The Gardens is way better than the docks, but still not as cool as NC itself. My problems with the Gardens are that the two balconies don't look removable to me, which means that you can really only connect it to the original NC on one side, unless you add the docks and/or the shrine between them. I've seen the picture with NC, the docks, the shrine, and the garden and it just doesn't look good to me.

Once I have the gardens I'm going to try out some different layouts and see what I can do. But, I'm thinking of repurposing the docks into another corner building and turning the shrine into a rooftop section.

 

[Ql97]

1 minute ago, turk187 said:

The Gardens is way better than the docks, but still not as cool as NC itself. My problems with the Gardens are that the two balconies don't look removable to me,

They can be removed. The "Expand your Ninjago City Gardens" inset in this picture shows them directly connecting two of the Gardens, meaning you must be able to remove the balconies to make them fit.