Klaus-Dieter

2011 City sets

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Not really.

I was replying to someone who thought it was a new piece and meant to indicate that it's been around for quite some time, ... and still is.

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Really I have never seen it before but I guess you learn something new everyday :sweet:

Besides the Toy Story set, there hasn't been another set that had that piece in 15 years. It was a great classic Space piece, so it's good to see it's return.

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Saw it mentioned earlier in the thread & not mentioned since.

Toys-R-Us in the UK now have 2 new value packs on sale:

66305 is a 3 in 1 Police Value Pack which consists of 7743 Police Truck, 7235 Police Motorcycle & 7245 Prisoner Transport for £39.99

http://www.toysrus.co.uk/Toys-R-Us/Toys/Construction/Lego-City-Police-Value-Pack-66305(0078173)

66457 is a 4 in 1 Fire Super Pack which consists of 7208 Fire Station, 7942 Fire Pick up Truck & 2 others which I can't remember (One is one of the previously released jeeps) for £79.99.

Not online yet but is available in store

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Saw it mentioned earlier in the thread & not mentioned since.

Toys-R-Us in the UK now have 2 new value packs on sale:

66305 is a 3 in 1 Police Value Pack which consists of 7743 Police Truck, 7235 Police Motorcycle & 7245 Prisoner Transport for £39.99

http://www.toysrus.co.uk/Toys-R-Us/Toys/Construction/Lego-City-Police-Value-Pack-66305(0078173)

66457 is a 4 in 1 Fire Super Pack which consists of 7208 Fire Station, 7942 Fire Pick up Truck & 2 others which I can't remember (One is one of the previously released jeeps) for £79.99.

Not online yet but is available in store

I saw the 4 in 1 fire pack at local TRU recently, I seem to remember the other 2 sets were 7239 and 7241. With the 3 in 1 police pack, I purchased it 2 or 3 years ago at my local TRU and if I recall correctly, it cost me £30 or £35 back then.

~buddy~

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"Greedy" is a funny word choice. It's not as though LEGO has anything to gain by keeping the minifigures for themselves.

However, it should be recognized that minifigs can be one of the most expensive parts of a set, due to lots of printed pieces and pre-assembled sections. Naturally, there are lots of factors making the production for LEGO sets more expensive these days, so obviously the minifigs (not being a major part of the actual building experience most of the time) are some of the first things to go as LEGO tries to keep prices competitive.

In any case, I don't see what's wrong with this van's one minifigure. It's not a scene that needs more than one minifigure. Unlike a Police set, where it's nice to have both a cop and a criminal, this scene of a person launching a test rocket doesn't depend heavily on multi-figure interactions.

OK, I agree that this particular set might have 1 minifig, that may be enough. But still. I am well aware of the fatc minifigs are costly to make, but why wasn't it the case 10 years ago? What are the factors, like you said, that are making LEGO sets more expensive and as a result, putting less and less minifigs into sets?

You see, the example with trains is awesome. Why only 3 minifigs as transport suggests making scenes with way more "people"? And, a recent example - the new police station has 1 minifig less than the previous one, the Police truck has 1 minifig less than 7743. And it continues to happen. The prices by the way are not getting lower: either they put less minifigs into the replacing set or they just put the price higher (ex.: 7945 and 7208, Beach House and Apple tree house)...

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OK, I agree that this particular set might have 1 minifig, that may be enough. But still. I am well aware of the fatc minifigs are costly to make, but why wasn't it the case 10 years ago? What are the factors, like you said, that are making LEGO sets more expensive and as a result, putting less and less minifigs into sets?

You see, the example with trains is awesome. Why only 3 minifigs as transport suggests making scenes with way more "people"? And, a recent example - the new police station has 1 minifig less than the previous one, the Police truck has 1 minifig less than 7743. And it continues to happen. The prices by the way are not getting lower: either they put less minifigs into the replacing set or they just put the price higher (ex.: 7945 and 7208, Beach House and Apple tree house)...

Ten years ago, the prices of oil, steel, and other materials necessary for the production and distribution of LEGO sets were much lower. That's one factor that's made it much more difficult for LEGO to make a substantial profit in recent years. There are others that I can't remember-- back in my days on the BIONICLE forum BZPower, there was a big discussion about this sort of thing, and a representative of LEGO was able to point out several factors that have increased costs over the years. The BIONICLE community actually is a really good example of these sorts of changes in cost, considering that it's been around for almost exactly ten years.

Several aspects of LEGO sets besides the number of minifigures have changed visibly throughout my lifetime (and being 19 years old, my lifetime is considerably shorter than that of many AFOLs). For instance, large sets no longer have opening front-flaps with clear plastic cutaways inside to let you see the minifigs or other similarly appealing pieces. Baseplates are a lot rarer, printed baseplates and BURPs even more so. A lot of it comes down to cost-- when prices go up, LEGO has to reduce costs by eliminating whatever aspects of the sets weren't making much of a profit. This includes baseplates and, to an extent, minifigures.

It's hard to picture LEGO making enough sacrifices for prices to actually go down in these situations: there are just too many factors conspiring against it. Needless to say, the LEGO group is doing its best to make sure sets maintain the same level of appeal even as they work to make up for rising costs. But any cost-cutting measure is a risky one-- needless to say, the production facility in China has suffered a great deal of criticism, some of which was valid.

Overall, though, there are limits on how much LEGO can sacrifice for the sake of costs. I don't expect minifigures to disappear completely from LEGO sets at any point in the future, and chances are any set whose scenario involves character interactions is likely to have at least two. Likewise, I don't anticipate LEGO raising prices to an unreasonable extent unless global wealth shifts around dramatically-- while LEGO is even today perceived by some as a "luxury toy", a lot of its influence in today's society comes from the vast number of children who grew up with it and continue to grow up with it. LEGO certainly won't be raising prices to the point that its buyers occupy a small "niche market" of incredibly wealthy parents and children-- that would be just asking for alternative building toys like Mega Bloks and K'nex to take over its current position of fame and influence among lay consumers.

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If Minifigs are so expensive, why do we see sets like the Star Wars battle packs that have like 5 of them in a single small set and yet town sets get maybe two in sets that are much larger than the SW battle packs?

Is the dynamics of Star Wars such that they can produce smaller sets with more figs (and therefore a higher price point) and yet still make money?

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If Minifigs are so expensive, why do we see sets like the Star Wars battle packs that have like 5 of them in a single small set and yet town sets get maybe two in sets that are much larger than the SW battle packs?

Is the dynamics of Star Wars such that they can produce smaller sets with more figs (and therefore a higher price point) and yet still make money?

I would think it would take more to make Star Wars because it is licensed. :sceptic:

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If Minifigs are so expensive, why do we see sets like the Star Wars battle packs that have like 5 of them in a single small set and yet town sets get maybe two in sets that are much larger than the SW battle packs?

Is the dynamics of Star Wars such that they can produce smaller sets with more figs (and therefore a higher price point) and yet still make money?

Because the minifigs are one of the Star Wars theme's biggest selling points. There's a difference between the consumer demand for familiar characters and the consumer demand for nameless townsfolk.

Battle packs themselves are a special case. The fact that you've got "war" in the franchise name makes it pretty clear that the large-scale battles of Star Wars are one of its big selling points. They're just one example of a type of set where the minifigs are the primary selling point, perhaps even more so than the "buildable" part of the set. The City equivalent would be 2009's City Minifigure Collection. And I can't say for certain whether that set sold well, or whether we can expect any similar set anytime soon. It's always a matter of "how many minifigures does this set need for people to buy it and enjoy it?" And that's something that LEGO can't really control.

And yes, Star Wars is indeed one of LEGO's most popular themes (though I'm pretty sure City outranks it currently). Again, though, it's popular for different reasons than City, just as individual sets will be popular/successful for different reasons.

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We get "battle packs" because LEGO can't just sell one minifigure as a set. Star Wars sells well, but not only that, you are getting 4 of the same minifigures in a lot of the Star Wars battle packs, so that saves on money too being mass produced.

I do agree that there should be two minifigures in the set, one for the truck and one to test the rocket. More so because the set most likely only have 176 pieces and is $20.

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Minifigures:

I'm sure no-one cares about the number of minifigures in a plane or airport (at least when buying)

You can always get one (1) traveller to go with it.

I'm sure no-one cares about the number of cars to go with the garage or petrol station.

You can always get one red and one white to go with it.

However, the collectors sets shows that variety is not the problem as long as you produce long enough series.

Why not make more frequent changes to the smaller sets instead,

we need one tourist, one business man traveller, one mom with baby - just switch production a bit more often than the catalogue and then switch back with no initial cost.

The same car model can have different colors, roof instead of telephone booth - still being the small car set.

Sets:

Let's hope the girly theme has something to bring to city in 2012 such as a small flower stand/shop with arrangeable flower variations. But as above this basic set could aswell sell icecream, cakes, toys or being a beaty parlor with small changes.

The toy's r us truck or city corner are complete sets with transportation, shop/resturant, play figure and driver / shopkeeper. The problem seem to be how to make complete sets if you only buy one truck and didn't get the one with a store from the start.

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I wholeheartedly agree with the idea of running changes to some sets. cars and trucks with a colour swap re-release seems such a simple and logical step. The only problem is if the colour switch becomes a store exclusive or has a smaller production run. Anything with a vague sniff of limited edition seems to cause mass hysteria and overpricing.

considering how long Lego have had some sets in production like the police prisoner transport, police car and motorbike vehicles they're obviously not averse to long or large production runs. so on a long run simply changing the colour of parts shouldn't be a problem. what better way to keep kids buying the product than to tempt them with different colours. and there's only so many red or yellow cars anyone can have in a city. varying colours would just refresh the line up of products. make it more interesting.

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I wholeheartedly agree with the idea of running changes to some sets. cars and trucks with a colour swap re-release seems such a simple and logical step. The only problem is if the colour switch becomes a store exclusive or has a smaller production run. Anything with a vague sniff of limited edition seems to cause mass hysteria and overpricing.

considering how long Lego have had some sets in production like the police prisoner transport, police car and motorbike vehicles they're obviously not averse to long or large production runs. so on a long run simply changing the colour of parts shouldn't be a problem. what better way to keep kids buying the product than to tempt them with different colours. and there's only so many red or yellow cars anyone can have in a city. varying colours would just refresh the line up of products. make it more interesting.

Something else people rarely make note of is the fact that most cars in City sets are sports cars, and red and yellow are some of the most popular colors for sports cars in general. So perhaps people are complaining about the wrong thing-- instead of complaining about cars not appearing in enough colors, they should be complaining about cars not appearing in enough styles. With different styles might come different colors.

Looking at examples, the Small Car was white and the SUV that came with a horse trailer was black. If we want to see cars in other colors, we probably ought to be hoping for fewer generic sports cars and more minivans or sedans.

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@ Ferdik / freeedrik or anyone who has seen or gotten first hand intel on the 2011 sets:

Is the new minifig girls' theme more like Belville or Paradisa?

Thanks a lot in advance!

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@ Ferdik / freeedrik or anyone who has seen or gotten first hand intel on the 2011 sets:

Is the new minifig girls' theme more like Belville or Paradisa?

Thanks a lot in advance!

I have a feeling that it's going to be like Paradisa, Just because belville has just been discontinued default_sceptic.gif

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Great! Thanks for the pics... I'm really liking that Prisoner Transport, and I'll probably get the K-9 truck and the minifig set as well.

But, wait, wasn't there a Police Boat coming this year as well?

Edited by Mr. Elijah Timms

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That prison van is more like a cool multipurpose police vehicle.....oh, the MODing/MOCing potential ! :grin:

And yes where is the police boat ? :oh3:

Keep on waiting for 2011 ! :wink:

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Thanks for the pictures Darth Jar Jar! :thumbup: I think all of these sets are AWESOME exept the dog van.It looks kind of stupid :sceptic:

Agreed, looks like the dark days of System Jnr!! :sadnew:

May get the prisoner transport & will get the minifig one

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