2014 City Sets - Rumours and Discussion

[The Jersey Brick Guy]

I think we need more buildings like shops.

I agree! Let's hope the Cuusso idea of mini shops gets approved! I think every town can use more shops!

Hit the nail on the head there. If there were sets with integrated road plates then they might actually create a market for road plate packs. My kids love just building roads and playing with cars and trucks joining the plates together temporarily and reconfiguring them over and over.

And not to hijack the thread but why do the road plates have to be so darned expensive? Is there something about the forming process? Packaging is minimal and they pack pretty tightly for shipping.

I am pretty sure they are done at an outside factory for lego.

[sneff]

I was looking at some old sets and remembering back to when I was a kid and thinking that Lego is really missing the boat on this. I strongly feel that having sets come with road baseplates like 6391 Cargo Center, 6393 Big Rig Truck Stop or 6381 Motor Speedway encourages kids to want to buy additional road plates to connect them up. Things like Fire, Police, and Gas stations that have no road plates with them suggest to kids they don't need road plates. The cost of road plates is pretty steep, so starting with a base of nothing coming in sets makes it seem more daunting to get enough together to create a good little city. If road plates aren't selling the way Lego wants them to, then I think the lack of them in City sets is a leading reason.

Then, you've got sets like 7642 Garage and 7208 Fire Station with irregular baseplate orientation making it hard for a kid to figure out how they would even fit that in a 32x32 baseplate/roadplate grid. I like these sets a lot, but Lego isn't helping kids see how these sets can be used together by making it harder for them to be compatible with other Lego sets.

That is one of my big pet peaves with city sets. The town sets That I started with back in the 80's worked as a system.

[Joebot]

That is one of my big pet peaves with city sets. The town sets That I started with back in the 80's worked as a system.

Not to pile on with a "Yeah, I agree!" post, but ... yeah, I agree.

I feel like the idea of Town as a "system" has been abandoned in the past 10 years or so. I'm not complaining about the designs of individual sets, which are generally good, and the vehicles are impressively detailed (although I do hate 6-wide vehicles). I just think that TLC has lost sight of what made Town so appealing to many of us back in ye olden days -- the idea that you could link all these different sets and buildings together with roads, and make your own town. Remember the old catalogs? They had big, sprawling scenes of all the available Town sets. It was addictive! Once you got a couple of sets, your brain started spinning. "Man, I could get two straight roads and extend this, and then with another T-intersection, I could hook on the gas station, and with two curves, I could put the Public Works over here ..."

Now, the preponderance of vehicle-only sets, and the overpriced baseplates have made town-building really hard to do. When you look at the marketing materials for City, you see pictures of the vehicles against these big Lego buildings THAT YOU CAN'T BUY. They're not sets. They're just elaborate backdrops. I find that frustrating.

Anyway, I hate to sound like a grumpy old man, lamenting about how it was better back when I was a kid, but ... GET OFF MY LAWN!

[antp]

I fully agree, I also liked these 80s towns with plates, and hence why I have many plates from that time... many of them bought recently secondhand just in case someday I have space to use all of them, as currently more or less the largest (temporary!) layout I can make in a cat-free room is that: http://www.eurobrick...showtopic=85228 (using just a small part of the plates I have). Edited August 20, 2013 by antp

[Dr Leg O Brick]

Not to pile on with a "Yeah, I agree!" post, but ... yeah, I agree.

I feel like the idea of Town as a "system" has been abandoned in the past 10 years or so. I'm not complaining about the designs of individual sets, which are generally good, and the vehicles are impressively detailed (although I do hate 6-wide vehicles). I just think that TLC has lost sight of what made Town so appealing to many of us back in ye olden days -- the idea that you could link all these different sets and buildings together with roads, and make your own town. Remember the old catalogs? They had big, sprawling scenes of all the available Town sets. It was addictive! Once you got a couple of sets, your brain started spinning. "Man, I could get two straight roads and extend this, and then with another T-intersection, I could hook on the gas station, and with two curves, I could put the Public Works over here ..."

Now, the preponderance of vehicle-only sets, and the overpriced baseplates have made town-building really hard to do. When you look at the marketing materials for City, you see pictures of the vehicles against these big Lego buildings THAT YOU CAN'T BUY. They're not sets. They're just elaborate backdrops. I find that frustrating.

Anyway, I hate to sound like a grumpy old man, lamenting about how it was better back when I was a kid, but ... GET OFF MY LAWN!

100% agree. As a young AFOL, I wholly agree with you, when I was younger I just resorted to buying 42X42 grey baseplates and adding White tiles for the roads in my city, and its almost like their teasing me with their huge skyscrapers or Factory’s and Skyscrapers on the instruction sheets. It just makes me sad. And the way that they had the Road signs, the plates, the trees to add more and more to your city during town, like the old Micromachines in some aspect. Nowadays, don't get me wrong, the sets are fantastic, but I'm not a millionaire and even I struggle buying plates, so I can only imagine a small kid's frustration when he can't even afford the road to connect his Fire Station and Police Station together. And that’s another thing that I hate about city, what happened to small, affordable shops or buildings at the £15-£20 price? Anyway, on Topic. On one hand, I am really looking forward to some of the sets, but half of the reason why I went into my dark age recently was because of the emphasis on Police. I'll save judgement till I see some half decent pictures.

[Cian]

that its a sad thinking but you are right . they should make things that get close to reality ! is there any " red " airport fire truck in the world or are they all yellow lime in europe too ???

Majority of them in Ireland are red - Dublin, Waterford and Inisheer as three different ends of the scale there - top 25 international airport, small regional/commuter and tiny tiny regional. I think only one airport in the entire country here has yellow ones even though I'd see it as traditional.

The last Lego one was yellow though

[Tom Jurassic]

Quite dissapointed to see yet more Police. I mean yes, a lot of Children are into Police and emergency services, but this marks the third Police Station in less then Ten Years. Wheres the Gas Station, or other Buildings which haven't been remade yet? I think Lego need to get their priorities right, because yes, the Police sets are always nice and the minifigs are nice, but it's going to get to the point where there will be three police stations on shelves in stores, and for parents buying for kids, that could get very confusing. Please TLG, if you want to remake all the police stuff, then wow us with a beautiful summer wave!

[lightningtiger]

While it's true that many of us are getting sick off all the police action in Lego City usually the second half sees different themes/sub-themes being released.

Though we'll have to wait until February next year to find those out.

[Tom Jurassic]

Yep. :( I don't know, I don't mind things like the Elite Police, which can be intergrated with current ones, but I hate the fact that if I want to keep up to date, I will now have to update all of the Police Sets which I recently purchased. :(

[lightningtiger]

But as of yet we do not know if we get any more elite police or it will the good old stand ones we have be getting for the past 6 or 7 years ?

[Tom Jurassic]

Yeah. I assume it will be a update of the good ol' police, since it would seem weird that the Elite Police would have their own station. That said, an elite police Mobile Command Vehicle with some Riot Shields and equipment would be nice! :)

[lightningtiger]

True, it might be a HQ for the elite forces....but Lego might not riot equipment in Lego City.....it's meant to be peaceful.....though highly unrealistic with that idea.

[Tom Jurassic]

Haha, yep. Oh well, if they don't, nothing Brickarms can't fix! ;) So what themes or structures do you really want to see made mate? :)

[Wodanis]

Here's the full list of City Vehicles:

City Vehicles:

60053 Race Car

60054 Light Repair Truck

60055 Monster Truck

60056 Tow Truck

60057 Camper Van

60058 SUV with Watercraft

60059 Logging Truck

60060 Auto Transporter

60061 Airport Fire Truck

60053 Race Car - meh

60054 Light Repair Truck - Interesting but want to see the result

60055 Monster Truck - Not into Monster trucks but will go with 60027

60056 Tow Truck - Hmm I'm wonder about this too

60057 Camper Van - Wonder what will be different?

60058 SUV with Watercraft - Interesting and a nice touch to City vehicles

60059 Logging Truck - Cool to go with Cargo plane 60021

60060 Auto Transporter - Will definitely want this

60061 Airport Fire Truck - Excited about this!

It would be nice if the price point for road base plates was reduced. For a pack of two its $19.99 CDN which is a lot. $12 is more appropriate. It would be nice as well if they developed a new line of city sets to incorporate the idea from the 80s. Homes for mini-figures similar to the creator line of homes we have seen that allow for builders to expand on their neighbourhoods. I do like the police sets but I'm thinking they must sell extremely well which is why we see so many of them. I think what most of us City fans would like to see is variety. Both in homes, roads, vehicles and whatnot.

[fhomess]

Now, the preponderance of vehicle-only sets

This isn't new. There were all sorts of vehicle only sets back in the 80's and I'm actually happy to see it continue. What I'd like is a more cohesive system to plug them into. As for road baseplate price, I'm reluctant to buy them at $15 a pair. At $10 a pair, I would probably buy them very regularly. There aren't enough cheaper sets, IMO. You can see this across the lines. The $20 great vehicles are cool, but I'd be happier buying more slighly smaller sets around $10.

I think Lego has done a good job with the non-emergency subthemes recently. While the miners didn't appeal to me, it was a nice new theme. The farm theme from a few years ago was just before I came out of my dark ages and I'm sad I missed it. I'm undecided on the cargo theme, but will probably pick up one or two of them. The recent plethora of police sets is unprecedented. Police sets are making up about 20% of City sets each of the past 4 years now. Prior to this run, they were over 20% of Town/City only a couple of times since the invention of the minifig. Fire sets have had a similar increase, although they've alwasy been a little behind police sets. It seems like there are more criminals in prison garb than regular citizens these days (almost!).

60053 Race Car - I always like race themes, but would really like another raceway set

60054 Light Repair Truck - Is this to repair streetlights or a repair truck that isn't heavy? The former was done recently in 3179.

60055 Monster Truck - Could be fun/

60056 Tow Truck - We just had the 60017 flat bed truck, so this is a nice complement. Hopefully, it'll be big enough to tow semi's.

60057 Camper Van - I like the trend towards more outdoorsy things like the forest police and logging. Maybe lego will create a forest scenery pack of some sort?

60058 SUV with Watercraft - I hope it's not another inflatable boat. Either jet skis or a motorboat would be great.

60059 Logging Truck - Awesome

60060 Auto Transporter - I'm a bit nervous about this due to the size, but I love the concept. I expect it'll only be able to carry 4-wide vehicles, which means it'd be nice to have some more of those.

60061 Airport Fire Truck - Not bad, but will it fit with the recent airport sets?

[antp]

60060 Auto Transporter - I'm a bit nervous about this due to the size, but I love the concept. I expect it'll only be able to carry 4-wide vehicles, which means it'd be nice to have some more of those.

It would be fine for me, as I still make 4-wide cars, like in the 80s, I use the big wheels and arches of current cars for buses and trucks only :D

[lightningtiger]

The auto transporter could actually be carrying two four/six wides....that's four wide body but six wide wheel/axle combos.

Let's hope the second half releases have a truck stop or new servo to go with all these great vehicles......designers at Lego must have thought about it by now.

[lostdriveway]

I'm waiting for a Modular Police Station or I'm going to look at building my own - I just don't like how the current City police stations look and can't see them fitting in with my future city layout.

[danimarroquin]

where are the pics of the new sets .................... still waiting for them ...................

[eurotrash]

I'm waiting for a Modular Police Station or I'm going to look at building my own - I just don't like how the current City police stations look and can't see them fitting in with my future city layout.

There's always plan c) Buy instructions online. Here's a set that might fit your needs or at least making a good kicking off point for your own Police Station.

http://www.brickcitydepot.com/city-building-instructions.html

I used their plans before and the instruction quality was excellent.

[The Jersey Brick Guy]

where are the pics of the new sets .................... still waiting for them ...................

They haven't been released yet.

[Bricknblue]

While it's true that many of us are getting sick off all the police action in Lego City usually the second half sees different themes/sub-themes being released.

Though we'll have to wait until February next year to find those out.

The second half will be Fire sets. ;)

[Galaxy Explorer]

I'm hoping the Car Transport is around the same size as the CITY Truck from 2010. I would die if it came with a little sales office to suggest a car lot, but I do not know the price point for this set. Forget it if it's a $20 vehicle.

[SalvoBrick]

I hope the car transporter will be 6-wide, otherwise I'll MOC my own version...

[lightningtiger]

The second half will be Fire sets. ;)

Oh, someone is being a comedian eh ?

Be funny if we end up with farm sets again or a revamp of the garage from 2009......since this year saw both cargo and coast guard sets appear again after 5 years.