The Real Indiana Jones

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I just saw that the project reached 10k in September 2014, was announced as a set in May 2015, and is going to be released just about a year later. Why does this process take so long? Seriously. It shouldn't. It really shouldn't.

Wasn't Ghostbusters announced and then revealed super quick? Why can't it be like that?

Agree agree agree

Even more considering Tragic Banjo said that it is pretty much the same set submitted

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I just saw that the project reached 10k in September 2014, was announced as a set in May 2015, and is going to be released just about a year later. Why does this process take so long? Seriously. It shouldn't. It really shouldn't.

Wasn't Ghostbusters announced and then revealed super quick? Why can't it be like that?

Paperwork.

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I just saw that the project reached 10k in September 2014, was announced as a set in May 2015, and is going to be released just about a year later. Why does this process take so long? Seriously. It shouldn't. It really shouldn't.

A reasonable question. It's possible the size of this set is part of the reason why.

Wasn't Ghostbusters announced and then revealed super quick? Why can't it be like that?

With that set, they had a specific reason to get it out quickly, in time for the movie's 30th anniversary. Note that it leapfrogged another project in the queue (the Exo Suit, which was approved earlier but released later). There's no particular reason to release the maze at one time rather than another, as far as I can tell, so perhaps they've been a bit leisurely with it to more easily accommodate it with their regular production schedule.

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One possible reason for the production time (which is actually shorter than most standard sets but seems longer since we're aware of it from the very beginning) is that this is easily the most functional Ideas set yet. There would have to be a lot of testing and refining to ensure the mechanisms work smoothly and that the maze itself proved challenging but not impossible.

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The Maze set is getting a bit too much grief back on Brickset. For shame, I don't think they actually see past the piece count and price.

Ha! :laugh: I think I was one of those on Brickset giving grief! I just worry the set--no matter how spectacular--will have a hard time proving its value.

Separate question, do we have any hard numbers on how big of a production run Ideas sets get? 1 million, 100k? I realize it probably varies from set to set but I'm curious if anyone knows.

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Ha! :laugh: I think I was one of those on Brickset giving grief! I just worry the set--no matter how spectacular--will have a hard time proving its value.

Separate question, do we have any hard numbers on how big of a production run Ideas sets get? 1 million, 100k? I realize it probably varies from set to set but I'm curious if anyone knows.

I think we can be quite sure it does vary. Note how there have been sets that sell out in days, while others are available continuously for over a year. The creators of the approved projects should know how many copies are made of their own sets, but their contracts with TLG undoubtedly call for confidentiality so they can't publicly disclose those figures, and since different sets undoubtedly have differently-sized runs (and/or different numbers of runs) even they surely don't know how many copies are made of all Ideas sets, only of their own.

That said, between this thread and the original CUUSOO thread I've seen a lot of guesses and estimates, based on things like what is known about production numbers of "regular" (non-Ideas) sets, minimum numbers required to make sense, etc., and from these I've gotten the (possibly mistaken) impression that the minimum number for an Ideas set is perhaps around 10,000 copies, possibly topping out at a few thousand more to twice that many for a non-licensed set, but typically getting more and/or larger runs for pop-culture licenses. This might be way off, but I think we can at least safely assume typical Ideas sets get smaller numbers produced than typical non-Ideas, mass-market retail sets, so it seems like it might be at least in the general area.

I would imagine that Alatariel, as the only person with more than one Ideas set produced so far (and whose sets include both one non-licensed one and one licensed one), probably has a much better idea than anyone else outside TLG of the range of possible numbers... but of course she can't share that information. I think if we want to know, we'll all just have to get sets approved of our own. :tongue:

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There's a new blog post up on Ideas - it's just a brief one welcoming new Community Specialist Hasan Jensen to the team, but this bit is potentially noteworthy:

Hasan and I will visit AFOLs this Friday at the Byggepladen display in LEGOWORLD Copenhagen. If you’re there, please say hello!

Seems possible there could be a reveal or announcement there.

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They hired a specialist to announce there won't approved sets in this review again :laugh:

N-- I was so scared when I read this, I thought they announced it. Whew. :angry:

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There's a new blog post up on Ideas - it's just a brief one welcoming new Community Specialist Hasan Jensen to the team, but this bit is potentially noteworthy:

Seems possible there could be a reveal or announcement there.

Im going to LEGOWorld Copenhagen tomorrow as well. I will surely bring my camera and sneak peak pictures if none is allowed. :grin:

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If there having a specialist announce something to do with the Ideas review, I'm guessing one of the licensed sets must have been approved (it would surely have to be something big to have an announcement like that).

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Looks just like the original IDEAS submission - and seems were are getting 3 or 4 orange balls. No clues if the top has extra parts to change the theme, though.

Edited by JGW3000

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I'm betting a set like this takes awhile to go into production because Lego watches the general interest and maybe preorders to gauge how much to produce. Ghostbusters was a slam dunk easy, so it took less time from approval to hitting stores. This one, like the birds set seems very chancey and I would bet a low-ish production run.

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In the DC forum an image of the April LEGO Store Calender popped up.

It has a nice picture of the Labyrinth Marble Maze.

http://imgur.com/a/0wwvN

Here's the link.

Not just the picture - the calendar also indicates there'll be store competitions with it! Presumably, people who can get balls through the maze in the shortest time will win something. Exciting!

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So do they have like 10 copies of the set built for all the kids? I want a free copy of the set if I win. I won a Speedorz challenge contest in a store once, got a free Speedorz set! :tongue:

As for the set itself, it looks pretty cool. I probably won't get it, but I dunno.

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Doesn't do it for me. Would probably play it for 5 minutes but isn't really much of a display piece so what to do with it then?

Rearrange the maze and play it again!

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Particle Accelerator is about to reach 10K. What do you guys think?

1677332-o_1970rm4mkkr7lrdskd1ohd15atc-full.JPG

Personally, I'm tired of seeing these boring scientific projects that. They're not that exciting to me. But that's just me! :sweet:

Edited by CM4Sci

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Particle Accelerator is about to reach 10K. What do you guys think?

Personally, I'm tired of seeing these boring scientific projects that.. that literally do nothing. They're not that exciting.

Funny you would say that, because it literally does something. It uses spinning wheels to move a ball around the track, simulating a particle accelerator.

That said, I'm not into it.

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I think it has chances to get approved....

And the results from the september review? It's almost March already.... Is this a record?

Edited by Robert8

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I think it has chances to get approved....

And the results from the september review? It's almost March already.... Is this a record?

I dunno, maybe they're feeling yellow about the results. I do hope they share them soon.

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Well, I wouldn't say it does nothing... it actually does accelerate a particle. :grin: But the Maze, which is by the same creator and actually passed review, does a better job executing the general concept of Doing a Thing With a Ball.

That came out wrong. (Or did it?)

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