Bricklink Designer Program 2021 Discussion Thread

[woodford86]

On 3/8/2023 at 4:46 PM, Dhivael said:

^this, especially when the voting process is a total pain. They need a more user friendly way to do the voting if this continues. 

This is what I don't understand. The first time I loaded the page on mobile, each submission had the icons right there on the gallery page. But I wanted bigger pictures before making my call so I went to desktop and suddenly I had to navigate to the build page to see the icons. And I'd do that, vote, then hit back and the page would be filled with entirely different builds.

Should at least have a next/previous button on each build page.

Edit: And of course the moment I say that, I check the BDP page and they have the icons on the gallery page now

Edited March 12, 2023 by woodford86

[Dhivael]

16 hours ago, woodford86 said:

 

Edit: And of course the moment I say that, I check the BDP page and they have the icons on the gallery page now

At least they finally added that at least! Still agree that it's hard to navigate and see additional images, but this is at least a little easier. 

[Follows Closely]

My Winter Chalet (910004) and Modular Construction Site (910008) shipped!

[Jdrewg]

My Construction Site shipped!   Instructions are up on the Builder app. The theme is under retired themes. 

[RichardGoring]

I got my observatory delivered yesterday. The others are still in the warehouse.

[Dafonz187]

Construction Site set for delivery tomorrow. Nice little surprise. The Lego Store would give me back order update emails all the time and never got any for the CS. So much for yard work this weekend!

[Wimmer]

Winter Chalet arriving Monday, and Studgate arriving Tuesday. 
I carefully notified the wife that two sets would be arriving over two days… 😉 

[mark1991t]

Quote

Aspiring designers, mark your calendars!

Accepting Series 2 submissions starting May 15th, and Series 3 submissions in September.

Series 2 BDP palette is now live in Studio.

Source 

[RichardGoring]

The finalists for the next Bricklink Designer Program have been announced.

Designer Program [BrickLink]

Mountain Fortress

Parisian Street

The Old Train Engine Shed

The Snack Shack

General Store - Wild West

They are all very good, but I think I'm only tempted by the castle and snack shack. The others don't draw me in quite as much. Whether that's the subject matter or the execution, or the build style of throwing lots of parts at it (which is something that many of the Bricklink sets have suffered from).

They will likely be revised a little though, so let's see where they end up. Crowdfunding in Feb 2024.

Also looks like they're doing a fourth round starting Jan 2024 too. So up to 20 possible sets from this series now.

[mark1991t]

Finalist for round 2:

[JohnTPT17]

Happy the mushroom house made it! I'll have to sure to get one of those. The other ones don't appeal to me, though.

[RichardGoring]

Might have to try and get all five of those. They look great to me.

[JohnTPT17]

Wave 3 Finalist have been announced: Harbormaster's Office, The Art of Chocolate, Forest Stronghold, Camping Adventure, and Lost City. The Art of Chocolate is my favorite of the bunch (hopefully I can save up enough for it), and I like the Forest Stronghold and Lost City. Harbormaster's Office isn't really for me, and Camping Adventure is probably my least favorite (though I still think it's okay). Shame the Woodland Playhouse didn't make it, that one would have looked great next to the mushroom house from last wave...

 

[RichardGoring]

Series 3 may be my favorite of the lot. Series 1 didn't seem that great, with only one or two I liked. Series 2 was much stronger. Series 3 feels like it's a buy all scenario.

Of course, the average price per set across the series is probably going to be $300. Sigh.

Actually, upon reflection of the detail, the forestmen castle feels like it may be the weakest of them. It feels like it lacks the detail and elegance of the others, and of sets like the Castle in the Forest from the BDP 2021. It has scale, but not a huge amount of variation in the build. But heck, if it tells LEGO to do more official forestmen sets, then I'm up for that too!

[JintaiZ]

Lost City is probably my favorite of all of them, I just really like the design. Have to say all of them look great though.

[RichardGoring]

Agreed. I almost wish that the announcement was last week, as I've just placed PAB orders for all the parts needed to build this one from Series 1 (and the MOC Pop-Up Store). They will go very nicely together though, so I don't feel too bad.

[neithan]

I`m really digging the Art of Chocolate.

Normally, I`m not a big fan of seasonal Sets, but this one is just so cute, this could easily wander in my home.

Then again, all the sets (except Camping Adventure, we have gotten many Camping Vans in the past) look very good and interest me.

[MAB]

The little camping set is quite cute and nice to see that they will allow one that is not in the expensive 2000-4000 pieces bracket.

 

[JohnTPT17]

Sorry to revive this thread again, but the prices for Wave 1 are now up. Pre-orders start on February 7th at 8 AM Pacific Time. Reminder that a household can order up to 2 of each set, with 3,000 being the minimum required to have the set be created, with a total cap at 30,000 copies made, with the sets shipping in July.

• Old Train Engine Shed - $229.99/EUR 219.99 (2298 parts)
• Mountain Fortress - $369.99/EUR 339.99 (3986 parts)
• Parisian Street - $329.99/EUR 289.99 (3465 parts)
• General Store - $159.99/EUR 139.99 (1848 parts)
• Snack Shack - $49.99/EUR 44.99 (548 parts)

I'm tempted by the General Store, but I'm still trying to keep some money for Medieval Town Square (and possibly the Chocolate Factory come October)... I'll have to stew over it for the next month to see how I want to do it. Maybe I try to get two and resell one when they arrive to help recoup the cost? Dunno, maybe that's bad of me...

[RichardGoring]

Solid Brix Studio has a review video up of the LEGO Mountain Fortress. It looks great on a video. I appreciate the content he does, but the start of the video winds me up so much with essentially hype that you can't justify and trying to hype things even more. Trying to establish that LEGO = Bricklink. No, LEGO owns Bricklink, but it's a marketplace, so don't try to confuse people that it's all direct from LEGO. And the BDP program sets are from LEGO and considered LEGO sets, which I take issue with, as yes, they have the LEGO logo on, but they're fan designers. Very good fan designers, but don't go through the same QC as a full LEGO set, so stop trying to make out that they do. And then he says that the building instructions are a pre-production version and were full of mistakes, but that they will improve as LEGO makes great building instructions, but again, it's not going through the LEGO instructions team, is it? Not to say they won't make improvements, but the confidence he said it with doesn't strike me as right. And then perhaps worst of all, was bringing in a sealed copy of the LEGO Modular Store and hyping up the value of it and how it sold out in minutes and how he thinks the same will happen here. Nonsense. I really dislike people trying to hype up a LEGO set for the sake of 'investment value'.

The first five minutes really felt like made-up marketing for LEGO and really left a sour taste. I've heard comments about him being too nice to LEGO before, and I can see that point of view from other videos I've watched, but I've always thought of him as a LEGO Star Wars fan first, and then YouTuber second, but this video crosses the line for me. What a shame.

However, end of rant, if you start the video at 5:11, it gets onto the actual set, and normal service is resumed. The set looks great. It's nice to see a lot of the detail in the video and also a comparison with LKC, which it compares very favourably with on the outside. I agree with David that the interior is sparse, and that you could see that as being a cold and barren castle, but I suspect in real life it would be full of stuff to keep you warm, so I'd definitely want to add a load of detail in there to bring it to life more.

Despite being annoyed by the first five minutes of nonsense, and a bit more 'investor hype' at the end, it's a good video, and helped me to decide that I will be buying one. It looks so good on the outside.

 

 

Edited February 2 by RichardGoring

[RichardGoring]

Meanwhile Tiago Catarino has, what I think is, a much better video review of the Parisian Street set. It looks great, but it didn't really tempt me beforehand, and the video confirms that, which is nice!

 

[JohnTPT17]

There's also a few other previews out for some of the other sets. - just photos, though:

• Jay's Brick Blog has one for the Old Train Engine Shed: https://jaysbrickblog.com/reviews/hands-on-with-the-lego-bricklink-designer-old-train-engine-shed/
• The Brother's Brick has this one for the Snack Shack: https://www.brothers-brick.com/2024/02/02/bricklink-designer-program-series-1-snack-shack-divey-delicious-or-both-review/#more-382624

TBB might have convinced me to get the Snack Shack... The footprint looks much larger than I initially thought, and it even has a few new things not in the other photos, like a second minifig.

Are there any previews out there for the General Store? I tried looking, but didn't notice any yet.

[mark1991t]

42 minutes ago, JohnTPT17 said:

Are there any previews out there for the General Store? I tried looking, but didn't notice any yet.

Yeah, but it is in Hungarian, I believe:

 

 

[JohnTPT17]

48 minutes ago, mark1991t said:

Yeah, but it is in Hungarian, I believe:

Thanks! I'll have to watch it when I get home. This is one of the other ones I've been thinking about getting, and hopefully a hands-on will help me know which way to go.

4 hours ago, RichardGoring said:

I really dislike people trying to hype up a LEGO set for the sake of 'investment value'.

Interestingly, this was also addressed by The Brother's Brick, though I think they had a better outlook about it:

Quote

"I know the temptation for many will be to take advantage of the limited nature of this Bricklink offer and go for the larger Mountain Fortress or Parisian Street, as getting a hold of any of these limited edition sets will likely be a challenge. And the pay-off on resale will be greater for those models as a result of their maximized initial value. But I implore you to please avoid treating the Bricklink Designer Program exclusively as an opportunity to invest in the future sale of an unopened set, and instead enjoy the love letter to the hobby that these designers (including Stefan) wrote for you all. Snack Shack is a brilliant creation, worthy of inclusion in anyone’s basement city layout, and I hope it makes the cut if you have the opportunity to acquire one of the sets in this series."

I wonder if this is all just a natural, independent reaction from the AFOL community to the resale market of the first waves of the Bricklink Designer Program, or if this is even something Lego themselves is trying to address indirectly via these reviews. For better or for worse, these sets are a big magnet for "Lego investors," and I'm sure Lego has noticed this by now. There's definitely people who have, and will, use these sets as some kind of investment - whether that be a quick flip as soon as these arrive, or sitting on the sets for a few years. Heck, I would be lying if I said this wasn't something that has crossed my mind with these waves, to at least bring down "my cost" for these sets if I were to get two and resell the second one. Maybe that's me being smart and economical - or, maybe that makes me a bit of a scumbag; I really don't know. All I know if that I'm excited for the 7th (both for these, and for Medieval Town Square to hopefully be revealed), and hopefully I can get some of these ordered without too many issues.

[JohnTPT17]

Okay, now that I've had some time to sit with the reviews, here are my updated thoughts and list of possible buys:

1. Surprisingly, the Snack Shack went up a lot for me with the reviews. The overall footprint is much larger than I thought, and I can now "see" where the pieces are - even though I think it's still a little overpriced (I think $40 would be a little closer to it's "value" for me). Still, it might be worth a slight premium for this set, and I think that it's budget-conscious enough that I will try to get one of these!
2. Mountain Fortress is a beast of a set - the side-by-side with the Lion Knight castle really helps to show that. While the interior is lackluster, and the minifig count feels low in comparison to Lion Knight's Castle, it looks great on the outside and has a lot of great building techniques and details (like the jailed lion knight and mini Lion Knight's Castle). At the end of the day, though, it's still the most expensive set of the wave, and it might be hard to convince people to buy this one over the more richly detailed and more minifig-dense Lion Knight's Castle. I can see the appeal, but it just slides out of buyability for me... Unless I get a bad case of FOMO on Wednesday.
3. My opinions on Parisian Street have changed the least: I still think it's a solid, charming set. The reviewer in the video was pretty critical of the set, but I think a lot of his points were either a bit overblown, or were out of a lack of awareness of the source material. I think that this set would look good on many an AFOL's shelf (especially a narrow one, since it's not as deep as the standard modular), but it's just not for me.
4. It saddens me how much General Store went down for me with the firsthand look. I'm not a huge fan of the color on the outside (it's a little brighter than I thought they would be), and the interior walls with the backsides or the bricks visible just look ugly to me. I also think it suffers a bit from the Medieval Blacksmith syndrome: A good set, but not necessarily something that scales well with other builds. I do like the wagon, though - I might need those instructions at some point.  
5.  The Old Train Engine Shed is a weirdly niche set - it's basically just a big, empty building to hide a train in. I could see it being popular with train enthusiasts, but it doesn't work great as a stand-alone set: you would basically already need to have other trains/tracks in order to make this work. If any of these five struggle to get to 3k buyers, I think it will be this one - though I think they should all reach that threshold without any major issues.

Anyways, I'm excited to see what will come on Wednesday! Hopefully there won't be any major bugs and people can get the sets they want from this. My favorite ones are still yet to come, but I think this wave should, overall, give a fair number of people something good to look forward to.