[OFFICIAL] 10320 Eldorado Fortress - Available NOW

[dimc]

9 minutes ago, jodawill said:

Here's the link: https://brickcentral.net/review-lego-icons-10320-eldorado-fortress/

You weren't kidding! Those are beautiful photographs. I wish Lego still made posters like this. They really ought to bring back the comics, magazines, and posters, at least in the rewards center.

Wow, that's a wonderful review with some incredible photography. I'd read reviews of any set if it was done with that level of care, regardless of my interest. (I mean on other sites, I see that BC does it for every review.)

Edited June 22, 2023 by dimc

[Arjo]

Ah! Glad you like them! Never heard of this guy, one of the results I got looking for eldirado reviews. I will give this website another go because he takes great pictures😁

[Doddsino]

4 hours ago, lomis said:

I'm honestly surprised by a lot of the negativity I've read on this topic.

It probably wouldn't have received as much if one of the two were true;

1. It's an entirely original, yet flawed set.

2. It's a reimagining, but it's flawless.

Instead...we have a rather flawed reimagining. You know what that screams? LAZY.

And again, if this sells well, then expect more mediocre reimaginings.

I think we all want high quality sets, and I don't think Lego gets that message if we just settle for whatever. 

I mean...why do the hard work if it's easier to just slap together an old set with new pieces and sell it for a couple hundred bucks?

[Sir Dano]

I'll happily take more "flawed" reimaginings if they're on the same level as Eldorado Fortress.

[jodawill]

5 minutes ago, Sir Dano said:

I'll happily take more "flawed" reimaginings if they're on the same level as Eldorado Fortress.

Same here. I didn't see hate like this for Forest Hideout. This isn't much different - just a larger scale. I think we should be happy just to be able to buy soldiers again after 8 years of nothing.

[RichardGoring]

Those photos are terrific. Really help to bring it to life.

[dimc]

13 minutes ago, Sir Dano said:

I'll happily take more "flawed" reimaginings if they're on the same level as Eldorado Fortress.

I hope they don't bring back Ice Planet next...

/s

[jodawill]

3 minutes ago, dimc said:

I hope they don't bring back Ice Planet next...

/s

Someone on Reddit a while back was saying that the trans neon colors were permanently retired. Is that true? That would pretty much ruin any potential '90s space reboot if so.

[dimc]

6 minutes ago, jodawill said:

Someone on Reddit a while back was saying that the trans neon colors were permanently retired. Is that true? That would pretty much ruin any potential '90s space reboot if so.

The trans-neon green long antenna was made as of 2022, so if it's gone, it's very recent. Only in a Dacta set, but still.

[Alexandrina]

8 minutes ago, jodawill said:

Someone on Reddit a while back was saying that the trans neon colors were permanently retired. Is that true? That would pretty much ruin any potential '90s space reboot if so.

Trans-neon orange is currently retired and trans-neon green is supposedly due to retire imminently (like, end of this year) but that doesn't mean Lego couldn't bring them back if they wanted to. As far as I know all of the colours Lego have ever had could be produced (and trans-neon colours would be easier than most as they were made recently and thus the formula for them should still be known) - I doubt Lego would bring them back just for one set, but I could see them making a set using those colours if they'd brought the colours back already.

Sidebar: why has there never been a trans-neon blue or trans-neon yellow? I want a full trans-neon rainbow please Lego!

[Lion King]

10 minutes ago, jodawill said:

Someone on Reddit a while back was saying that the trans neon colors were permanently retired. Is that true? That would pretty much ruin any potential '90s space reboot if so.

It may be true but Lego is competely unpredictable.  

[dimc]

2 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

Sidebar: why has there never been a trans-neon blue or trans-neon yellow? I want a full trans-neon rainbow please Lego!

I'd hazard that it's too close to trans-light blue and trans-yellow, respectively?

[Alexandrina]

3 minutes ago, dimc said:

I'd hazard that it's too close to trans-light blue and trans-yellow, respectively?

But we've had trans-orange and trans-bright green for twenty years without issue. Actually, looking at it there was a trans-neon yellow but it was basically only ever used for Clikits.

[dimc]

5 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

But we've had trans-orange and trans-bright green for twenty years without issue. Actually, looking at it there was a trans-neon yellow but it was basically only ever used for Clikits.

Hell if I know then, Lego has some interesting decision-making processes. I bet it'd be neat to learn how they do it!

[Alexandrina]

Just now, dimc said:

Hell if I know then, Lego has some interesting decision-making processes. I bet it'd be neat to learn how they do it!

What gets me is all the 90s colours that basically never got into general use. Something like Fabuland Brown or Light Green would be really nice for MOCs, but barely any parts were ever made in these colours so your options for MOCing are limited. Light Green is particularly egregious - eleven different baseplates in the colour, but not even small plates and slopes to accent the baseplate.

[dimc]

Just now, Alexandrina said:

What gets me is all the 90s colours that basically never got into general use. Something like Fabuland Brown or Light Green would be really nice for MOCs, but barely any parts were ever made in these colours so your options for MOCing are limited. Light Green is particularly egregious - eleven different baseplates in the colour, but not even small plates and slopes to accent the baseplate.

Wait, really? I feel like I have some larger plates in light green. But maybe it's only the large plate? It does feel like a nice color to add new growth to scenes.

[Doddsino]

35 minutes ago, dimc said:

I hope they don't bring back Ice Planet next...

/s

While it's my favorite Space series, I'd probably prefer M-Tron. Actually, if they want to do good, they could redo the 1787 Unitron Crater Cruiser. They certainly couldn't make it any worse!

[Alexandrina]

4 minutes ago, dimc said:

But maybe it's only the large plate?

Excluding baseplates; Belville, Clikits and Scala parts; and a few smaller accessories, the only parts available in light green are the 8x8 plate with and without the grating.

[dimc]

2 minutes ago, Doddsino said:

While it's my favorite Space series, I'd probably prefer M-Tron. Actually, if they want to do good, they could redo the 1787 Unitron Crater Cruiser. They certainly couldn't make it any worse!

I'd enjoy M-Tron as well. I've built most of those sets, Mega Core is still in progress and needs additional parts, but they have a pleasing scheme and trans-neon yellow isn't far out of production. But Unitron...why? What a terrible theme. That reminds me, I need to finish my Star Hawk so I can sell it. I know I have directions to Crater Cruiser somewhere, which I also should complete and sell...

[Aanchir]

1 hour ago, Doddsino said:

It probably wouldn't have received as much if one of the two were true;

1. It's an entirely original, yet flawed set. 

2. It's a reimagining, but it's flawless. 

Instead...we have a rather flawed reimagining. You know what that screams? LAZY.

I think calling it "lazy" is extremely unfair to the designers. They clearly put a LOT of effort into the set's design, if not into the aspects of the design that you happen to care most about. And frankly, it would have been impossible for them to anticipate what every fan's biggest likes/dislikes about the set would be.

Take the crane, for example. The geometry of the boom is highly complex, particularly since it doesn't use Pythagorean triples, and it has a high level of detail. Clearly lots of effort went there! However, a lot of the complaints about the crane are that the designers should have made it smaller, even if it didn't allow for as much detail. There's no lack of effort or attention to detail in its design — it's just that the designers had different priorities than some of the model's critics.

The dock and palm trees are certainly simpler compared to the ones from Barracuda Bay, but rather than laziness, I feel like this is a sign that the designers genuinely expected fans to respond well to these particular callbacks (and/or to respond poorly to more extensive color and design changes — particularly since a lot of folks had criticized Barracuda Bay for being too brightly colored).

And as much as I wish the instruction manual included character names and insights into their identities like the manual for Barracuda Bay did, it's important to keep in mind that there are a lot of old-school LEGO fans who genuinely prefer for sets and themes to be as narratively open-ended as possible, and consider "official" character names and personality blurbs to be needlessly prescriptive limits on fans' imaginations.

Designer interviews about this year's Jazz Club set have touched on accounts of fans responding negatively even to the extremely thin character details in previous Modular Buildings (like individual character names being listed on business signs in sets like the Detective's Office, Downtown Diner, and Corner Garage). So figuring out when to include these sorts of narrative elements, and how much detail they should go into, is a tough balancing act — and one that LEGO might never be able to perfect to the fan community's overall satisfaction.

36 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

Sidebar: why has there never been a trans-neon blue or trans-neon yellow? I want a full trans-neon rainbow please Lego!

There WERE! Transparent Fluorescent Blue, Transparent Fluorescent Red, and Transparent Fluorescent Yellow were all used as Bionicle eye colors in the theme's early years. But only the first of those three saw a lot of use in other themes or remained in production for more than a few years. I figure the main reason they got retired was a sense of redundancy — there were already non-fluorescent colors that looked very similar to the latter two, to the point that many LEGO fans didn't even notice the difference.

And even in the case of the more common fluorescent colors, the difference between them and their nearest neighbors in hue might've felt more frustrating to many builders than creatively liberating. Picture buying a set that includes a mix of Tr. Fluorescent Blue and Tr. Light Blue parts, or a mix of Tr. Fluorescent Reddish Orange and Tr. Bright Orange parts, or a mix of Tr. Fluorescent Green and Tr. Bright Green parts. Regardless of which color in each pair you prefer, there's likely to be some frustration that the parts in these very similar colors don't quite match!

Edited June 22, 2023 by Aanchir

[dimc]

3 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

Excluding baseplates; Belville, Clikits and Scala parts; and a few smaller accessories, the only parts available in light green are the 8x8 plate with and without the grating.

Oh I'm thinking of bright green. Light green is what I associate a bit with Paradisa plate accents. It's more of a pale green.

[Doddsino]

Just now, dimc said:

 But Unitron...why? What a terrible theme. That reminds me, I need to finish my Star Hawk so I can sell it. I know I have directions to Crater Cruiser somewhere, which I also should complete and sell...

That's my point. They can't do any worse than the initial line. I don't hate it, but I never bothered to pick em up as a kid because the monorail was so expensive, Star Hawk II felt like a second rate Saucer Centurian, the Zenon base was super ugly...and the Crater Cruiser looks like it would break with any serious play (they should had added shock absorbers to the wheels or something).

So like I said, Lego couldn't fail any worse than the original line!

[dimc]

4 minutes ago, Doddsino said:

That's my point. They can't do any worse than the initial line. I don't hate it, but I never bothered to pick em up as a kid because the monorail was so expensive, Star Hawk II felt like a second rate Saucer Centurian, the Zenon base was super ugly...and the Crater Cruiser looks like it would break with any serious play (they should had added shock absorbers to the wheels or something).

So like I said, Lego couldn't fail any worse than the original line!

LOLOL I can imagine the demand for a Newnitron line...zilch. Oddly, Star Hawk has a high resale price on BL, no idea what that's about.

I haven't built the Saucer yet, but I have one or two in the bins so I'm going to give it a go in time. The Spyrius base was OK. Ice Planet was the last good space base in my opinion. Mine isn't quite complete but I have some extra trans-neon orange panels I've been using to modify it to have an extra lab.

[Doddsino]

17 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

I think calling it "lazy" is extremely unfair to the designers. They clearly put a LOT of effort into the set's design, if not into the aspects of the design that you happen to care most about. And frankly, it would have been impossible for them to anticipate what every fan's biggest likes/dislikes about the set would be.

Take the crane, for example. The geometry of the boom is highly complex, particularly since it doesn't use Pythagorean triples, and it has a high level of detail. Clearly lots of effort went there! However, a lot of the complaints about the crane are that the designers should have made it smaller, even if it didn't allow for as much detail. There's no lack of effort or attention to detail in its design — it's just that the designers had different priorities than some of the model's critics.

The dock and palm trees are certainly simpler compared to the ones from Barracuda Bay, but rather than laziness, I feel like this is a sign that the designers genuinely expected fans to respond well to these particular callbacks (and/or to respond poorly to more extensive color and design changes — particularly since a lot of folks had criticized Barracuda Bay for being too brightly colored).

And as much as I wish the instruction manual included character names and insights into their identities like the manual for Barracuda Bay did, it's important to keep in mind that there are a lot of old-school LEGO fans who genuinely prefer for sets and themes to be as narratively open-ended as possible, and consider "official" character names and personality blurbs to be needlessly prescriptive limits on fans' imaginations.

Designer interviews about this year's Jazz Club set have touched on accounts of fans responding negatively even to the extremely thin character details in previous Modular Buildings (like individual character names being listed on business signs in sets like the Detective's Office, Downtown Diner, and Corner Garage). So figuring out when to include these sorts of narrative elements, and how much detail they should go into, is a tough balancing act — and one that LEGO might never be able to perfect to the fan community's overall satisfaction.

Believe me, I understand that you'll never be able to please everyone. And I'm not looking for perfection,simply for them not to cut corners or do things that up the piece count, which in turn ups the price. 

Trust me, when I initially saw the set, I was ecstatic. But once I started looking over all the decisions that went into it, as well as what I consider flaws that weren't corrected, it quickly dawned on me that this set wasn't for me.

If others like it...great! That's awesome. But a lot of the initial feedback I saw was mixed, and most of the people who were disappointed were mentioning that they were going to pick it up any ways, which that's their prerogative...but to me, it is rewarding Lego for a mediocre product, at least with those customers.

And if there is one thing that any corporation should never take for granted is the loyalty of their customers. Am I saying that Lego is doing this? Probably not. But I don't want it to ever approach that level, because again if you settle for anything, you will get the minimum. Every time.

No set is perfect. But in my eyes, and in the eyes of many others, Lego could have done much much better.

[Sir Dano]

Wouldn't surprise me at all if we see some kind of M-Tron set with the recent introduction of these: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=3486

I don't expect it to have magnets though, and I'm sure that'll be a major point of contention.