New Bricks and Pieces site

[Pinnacle]

You take the words right out of my mouth.

I’m also a builder and need a lot of bricks and parts to make my MOCs. Therefore, I barely visit a LEGO store and is BrickLink my primary source for parts.

 I wonder why TLG don’t want to sell parts in bulk. Afraid they will sell less sets? I have no idea.

 

[CP5670]

15 hours ago, Tube Map Central said:

Agree, today TLG seems to be a design company that just so happens to make the raw materials needed for constructing its designs. It therefore has to price its sets accordingly to pay for its design. MOCers mess up its business model in all sorts of ways — I'm not very interested in sets, I just want bricks — and therefore there will never be an easy relationship with them.  

 

Good point. I have tons of sets from over the years but only rarely buy new sets today, and mostly buy from Bricklink and PAB in stores. On the other hand, the sets got me into building mocs to begin with, and I suspect there are far more people who buy sets and keep them built than moc builders, especially with all the AFOL-focused/licensed sets they are releasing these days.

[Vindicare]

On 3/24/2022 at 6:35 AM, Maple said:

It's March 24th and I don't remember seeing any kittens, squirrels or any other 2022 pieces from January when I looked the other day. So this rumour is shot done.

I was finally able to order all the kittens in one go in mid Feb. Before that, only one was stock. And I checked a few times after getting the picnic set...no grey squirrels(and completely forgot to check when ordering kittens). 

 

This double service fee pushed me into getting the parts to make a fourth train car for the Hogwarts Express(newest) though. Had three & felt that was the ‘right’ amount but then I figured since there’s 4 houses, may as well have 4 cars. 

Edited March 28, 2022 by Vindicare

[Tube Map Central]

11 hours ago, CP5670 said:

Good point. I have tons of sets from over the years but only rarely buy new sets today, and mostly buy from Bricklink and PAB in stores. On the other hand, the sets got me into building mocs to begin with, and I suspect there are far more people who buy sets and keep them built than moc builders, especially with all the AFOL-focused/licensed sets they are releasing these days.

Yes indeed, it was the architecture range that brought me back into Lego, but when the emphasis of the range switched from innovative buildings that redefined the world, to tourist souvenirs, I lost interest. Now that TLG has moved away, I do my own architecture. In recent years, TLG has been really developing its range of curved bricks, slopes, tiles and plates, but getting hold of them is another thing.

Who knows, if the architecture range had not faded away, I might still be buying sets ...

Edited March 28, 2022 by Tube Map Central

[Tube Map Central]

Some new parts are in sets that have been available for more than three months now, still not available on the new site (but were on the old B&P one).

How hard is it for TLG to make a decision and communicate it?

Seriously, I want to know whether I should crate up my unfinished MoC and wait for six months? Nine months? before I can get back to work on it again.

The only people benefitting from this crazy indecision/secrecy are Bricklink resellers.

[Maple]

35 minutes ago, Tube Map Central said:

How hard is it for TLG to make a decision and communicate it?

LEGO only made 2 billion dollars last year. If you want communication and decisions you need to give LEGO 5 billion dollars this year.

[MAB]

1 hour ago, Tube Map Central said:

Some new parts are in sets that have been available for more than three months now, still not available on the new site (but were on the old B&P one).

How hard is it for TLG to make a decision and communicate it?

Seriously, I want to know whether I should crate up my unfinished MoC and wait for six months? Nine months? before I can get back to work on it again.

The only people benefitting from this crazy indecision/secrecy are Bricklink resellers.

It is probably very difficult for them to communicate when every part they produce will be available for sale as a separate part via this service.

The other people that benefit from the not knowing are lego and the stores where  resellers buy the sets to part out.

[Tube Map Central]

No one mentioned a part by part report, so I am not sure where that came from. 

Just a simple statement: "expect to wait three to four months from initial set release" or "expect to wait from nine months to one year from initial set release" would be sufficient. At least I would then know whether to stop checking the new website weekly and pack all my half finished MoCs away until next winter.

I know from reading New Elementary that connected people are trying to get an answer from TLG about this.

Edited April 11, 2022 by Tube Map Central
Typo

[Alexandrina]

7 minutes ago, Tube Map Central said:

No one mentioned a part by part report, so I am not sure where that came from. 

Just a simple statement: "expect to wait three to four months from initial set release" or "expect to wait from nine months to one year from initial set release" would be sufficient

The trouble with that is that not all parts are going to be available at the same time, or for the same time. Imagine the uproar if Lego said "parts from X set will be available three months after release" and some parts were scheduled for months later.

[Tube Map Central]

That's why I suggested a range of dates in my O/P, or couldn't you be bothered to read that? I do get sick of straw-man logical fallacy assertions from the Lego fan-boys and fan-girls on this web site,

A common courtesy to long-standing customers shouldn't be that hard for what is probably one of the most sophisticated logistics companies in the world, and if it is then they won't be one of the most sophisticated logistics companies in the world for much longer.

Edited April 12, 2022 by Tube Map Central

[Maple]

15 hours ago, Alexandrina said:

The trouble with that is that not all parts are going to be available at the same time, or for the same time. Imagine the uproar if Lego said "parts from X set will be available three months after release" and some parts were scheduled for months later.

I don't understand what the problem is.

In January 2022 we got new parts when the sets were released. Then we got new system and those parts were taken away FOR NO REASON. All people want to know is when, if ever, those parts might come back.

[Alexandrina]

3 hours ago, Tube Map Central said:

That's why I suggested a range of dates in my O/P, or couldn't you be bothered to read that? I do get sick of straw-man logical fallacy assertions from the Lego fan-boys and fan-girls on this web site,

If you meant that as a range of dates specifically rather than just conversational examples (which was my interpretation) then apologies as I did indeed misread your original comment.

However the point does stand: Lego don't necessarily release all the parts from a set at the same time. Maybe that's a bad decision on their part, I don't know, but it's the way they work. I was merely saying that giving estimated release dates in this scenario is just going to lead to complaints anyway when some parts in a set are released much later than the rest of the set. There's really no need to start accusing people of logical fallacies because they engaged with your comments and had different views.

46 minutes ago, Maple said:

I don't understand what the problem is.

In January 2022 we got new parts when the sets were released. Then we got new system and those parts were taken away FOR NO REASON. All people want to know is when, if ever, those parts might come back.

Is there a problem? Lego presumably have reasons internally for working the way they do, which none of us here know. I'm personally not sure giving estimated release periods (beyond the general 'three months' thrown around) and posted a comment to say as much. Where is the problem there?

[MAB]

On 4/12/2022 at 2:07 AM, Tube Map Central said:

That's why I suggested a range of dates in my O/P, or couldn't you be bothered to read that? I do get sick of straw-man logical fallacy assertions from the Lego fan-boys and fan-girls on this web site,

A common courtesy to long-standing customers shouldn't be that hard for what is probably one of the most sophisticated logistics companies in the world, and if it is then they won't be one of the most sophisticated logistics companies in the world for much longer.

Why would they only announce this to long-standing customers? Any announcement to a secret society would soon be leaked anyway so if they were going to make an announcement then they might as well just make it available to all and anyone interested. New customers are just as important, if not more so.

Not that it is likely to help, since it would be so generic as to be useless. They could say, for example, no newly released parts will be available for sale until at least three months after they appear in sets. That does not guarantee a date in even that they will appear. They might still appear before that date, but that could be explained as an error. CS reps by phone could allow sales beforehand too, depending on who you get. People will brag they got orders in before the three months meaning others will then want to check before the official availability date. Also the delay times for different types of parts are likely to be different. If there is a key generic part only available in one set, it makes sense to withhold that for some time. Whereas a new colour of an otherwise common part that is available in 10 cheap sets is less likely to be in high demand. Same with one off minifig prints vs common City prints.