LEGO Ideas Discussion

[Blondie-Wan]

Which 2 ideas sets do you guys think will get passed?

Of the next batch for which we're awaiting results (the Third 2015 Review), I think the Concorde, Apollo II Saturn V, and Beatles Yellow Submarine are probably the three strongest contenders; I'd have a hard time narrowing it to two.

Of the batch after that (the First 2016 Review), I think the Gingerbread House is likeliest, and I have a tough time choosing a second-most likely from the remaining eight.

That said, I think I voted for all eighteen projects from both review batches combined, so I'll probably be happy with whatever's chosen.

EDIT: I forgot to mention there's a whole thread devoted entirely to almost this very question (differing only in not specifying "2").

Edited May 18, 2016 by Blondie-Wan

[LucyCol]

Could they not a approve a contender for later release, it might counter things like the previous review where no ideas were selected.

Edited May 19, 2016 by LucyCol

[Blondie-Wan]

Could they not a approve a contender for later release, it might counter things like the previous review where no ideas were selected.

They could; in fact, they've done that before (not specifically for that purpose, but it did have that effect). The Female Minifigure Set that became the Research Institute was originally part of the Fall 2013 Review (the same batch that gave us two Ghostbusters projects, one of which was of course approved), but was held over for additional consideration, and wound up being approved in the Winter 2014 Review. Similarly, at different times they've held over projects of a Landrover Defender, the F7A Hornet from Star Citizen, and two different, competing TARDIS projects from Doctor Who (again, one of which was eventually approved).

The Female Minifigure Set / Research Institute is the one project that got held over to another review, and then approved when nothing else was; those other four held-over projects were all either approved or declined when other projects also got approved. But the Female Minifigure Set / Research Institute did prevent us from having a whole review with no approved projects back in 2014; it took more than another year for us to finally have one (ironically, in the largest review batch to date, with a whopping thirteen projects at once, all declined together).

[dulsi]

If you don't watch Lego Ideas every day, how can you learn about interesting projects? We have the new worst of ideas blog. Is there a blog to showcase cool project? So far I've looked occasionally and sometimes do searches. I've looked at those who follow me which does uncover interesting projects sometimes. Lego does have the staff picks which might be considered a blog showcasing cool projects.

[Robert8]

Randomly

The only way could be sorting the projects by "most comments", to see which ones are the most popular.

Right now the most commented project is "Roblox Crossroads"

[CM4Sci]

Is it now? If only those were votes.

[Artanis I]

It seems roblox crossroads has hit roadblocks

[Blondie-Wan]

Oh, I don't know about that. CM4Sci's Roblox project is still less than four months old, which makes it fairly new, and it already has over 5000 supports (including one from me, BTW), which is farther than lots of projects (most of them, actually, AFAICT) get in their entire existence. I'd say it's doing quite well, overall.

[dulsi]

The only way could be sorting the projects by "most comments", to see which ones are the most popular.

I'm looking to find hidden gems not necessarily popular ones. Granted most comments doesn't guarantee popularity. I found this police station with a large number of comments despite little support.

[Blondie-Wan]

If I may return to something brought up a while ago...

I decided a while back that,other than buying the end products, I was pretty much done with Ideas. I'd been with it since the early days of Cuusoo and watched the rules and expectations change, watched a lot of good projects get lost in the noise and clutter of "non-starters" and, in general, gotten very disillusioned with the whole thing. There have been a number of good kits to come out of the pipeline, but the cynical side of me thinks that Ideas has becomes more about guerilla marketing than about genuine crowd-sourcing. It wasn't so much about, "share your great idea" as much as it was about "go on social media and talk about Lego." Granted the nominal reason why you'd be burning social capital on Twitter, Facebook, Pintrest, etc. is to gain support for _your_ project, but at the end of the day its the Lego brand that gets the most exposure and free press.

Of course, no sooner had I decided to swear off Ideas, than people started nagging me about submitting stuff (and resubmitting projects that had expired). After a year of turing people down and seeing the Ideas people pushing for non-IP proposals, I've decided to try a little experiment. This evening, I submitted a little non-IP-related kit (that's of sufficient quality to have won an award already), has a comparable part count to existing/successful Ideas sets with crossover audience appeal ( in this case, model trains). I plan on advertising none of this personally. I won't be pandering for votes in any of my usual internet haunts, I won't be posting links to it all over the web and, to be honest, if the whole thing ends up stillborn, I'm okay with that. I'm just going to track its support (or lack thereof) and compare it to the data I have from the days when I _was_ actively pushing some IP-related, quasi-popular stuff. I wonder how the curves will compare.

Can a generic idea with no cult following and no active backing from its creator get noticed and sustain itself amid all the noise of weak projects and hub-bub of IP-related, 15,000 piece MOCs, or will it slip quietly off the end of "Most Recents" page 1, never to be seen or heard from again? I guess only time will tell.

I'm still not seeing this set of yours. I do see your other, previous submissions, but not this train you submitted back in January. Did you ever get any message from the LEGO Ideas team about it?

[Blondie-Wan]

There are a lot of modular buildings on Ideas. This one is one of the most beautiful ones I've seen (not just on Ideas, but at all), yet it looks as though it might expire before getting to 5,000. I hope not. I really thinks this one deserves a shot in review, even if modulars in general aren't likely to be approved just yet. It's too gorgeous to let languish in obscurity (and no, mods, it isn't my project :p ).

Somebody else just posted a Disney castle. If only they'd known what's around the corner...

[Blondie-Wan]

A FIRST STRONGHOLD project that got posted about a hundred days ago and has mostly languished since, with only a couple hundred votes in that time (a support rate too low to prevent it from expiring within a year, if it had stayed at that rate) has suddenly started trending in a big way, jumping onto the "Popular this week" bar on the front page, with over seven hundred votes added in that time; from a cursory look, most of them have come not just within the last week, but the last couple hours. On the Community page, which tracks site activity in general, there's been a steady stream of supports for this project, sometimes several in a row between votes for any / all other projects on Ideas. Picking out a random string of several of them and looking at their profiles, I found that almost all of them had just joined in the last few minutes.

It looks like the project creator, after struggling for months to garner attention, finally succeeded in getting the message out, presumably to the FIRST community. Good for him/her! The importance of campaigning to one's potential customer base really can't be overstressed.

[Faefrost]

Hi guys!

A "technical" question. How would you judge this rule:

against projects like:

Mini Wall-E

Wall-E

Imperial Shuttle

Taj Mahal

etc.

All these projects could be said being "modifications" on past LEGO sets?!

To dust off an older post that I just noticed. Since I have had some experience dealing with business side IP and licensing over the years.

While none of those will really fall under that clearly stated rule you ask about, all but one will run afoul of another, not publicly stated but clearly implied and even more damning rule. Here is a critical thing to keep in mind. For licensed IP, if they have produced the licensed subject as a Lego set in any form, but particularly in minifig form, there is virtually no chance it will or can be produced under the aegis of Ideas. It means they already have contracts in place governing the specific subject, so it is the domain of an internal development group in conjunction with the IP rights holder. There is an exceedingly remote chance that the IP owner might fall in love with your fan project, but a safe bet is it would need to have something else distinct besides a change of scale. If you need to, you can think of this as the "Tumbler Rule". And yes the "internet rules lawyers" will come out with "but they never say..." Etc. Trust me, if they have made an IP subject before, the chances of them making it through legal in an Ideas review are just this side of impossible. They are absolutely impossible if it is a current and active license such as Star Wars or Marvel or DC. Similarly Lego's internal IP will be strange. Stuff submitted under broad Lego IP, such as Classic Space or Pirates or Castle is by and large fine so long as it is unique. Stuff presented under narrower in house IP such as Ninjago, Nexo Knights, Chima etc will be rejected by the lawyers without batting an eye. Especially if it is from an current, recent or active theme.

Now in an abstract, the one that might be interesting is the Wall-E, simply because Lego's existing license goes through their Ideas group. I still don't think it will fly as it falls within that same area as the subsequent Minecraft sets. There is a rule that subsequent sets are exclusively between Lego and the IP Holder and not the Ideas winner. I think that would be the point there.

The Taj Mahal is (I believe) a public building and unlicensed subject. So long as it doesn't duplicate prior Lego work it should not trip any reviews.

Edited June 5, 2016 by Faefrost

[lightningtiger]

After over four years on both Cuusoo and Ideas my heart is sinking, I feel that only digitally created projects hit the mark and those who spend the time, effort, cold hard cash into creating real brick built projects get shafted. Being a Leo, I don't give that easy though it's becoming harder and harder to keep trying, keep resubmitting of which I'm giving up on as of now even though I have said I will resubmit I can't afford to waste my internet on something that has already died.

Has Ideas out lived it's purpose ?

Seriously how many new themes, minifigs, video game characters has it created.....perhaps we have all been fooled as they have been picking our brains because they have run out of ideas themselves.

[Blondie-Wan]

After over four years on both Cuusoo and Ideas my heart is sinking, I feel that only digitally created projects hit the mark and those who spend the time, effort, cold hard cash into creating real brick built projects get shafted.

I understand your frustration, but do note nearly all the projects that have actually been approved to become sets were submitted using builds of real bricks. I think the only digital projects to get approved were the two by Alatariel and the Adventure Time figures.

[Robert8]

The Addams Family Mansion, by afol777, achieved 10000 supporters today!

And it was built with real bricks!

Edited June 6, 2016 by Robert8

[Boromir]

Very nice. It's a shame it will be discarded within seconds of review.

7000 pieces

[Blondie-Wan]

I'm sure it will indeed be declined as part of this batch, but as we've seen, they're inching ever upwards in terms of the size and price point they're willing to hit with Ideas sets. While we may not get multi-hundred dollar sets through Ideas anytime soon, I could totally see it happening eventually.

Meanwhile, this accomplishment is still noteworthy on its own. Even if it doesn't result in a huge Ideas set of the mansion, at the very least it bolsters the odds of The Addams Family appearing in LEGO Dimensions.

[Brickthus]

After over four years on both Cuusoo and Ideas my heart is sinking, I feel that only digitally created projects hit the mark and those who spend the time, effort, cold hard cash into creating real brick built projects get shafted. Being a Leo, I don't give that easy though it's becoming harder and harder to keep trying, keep resubmitting of which I'm giving up on as of now even though I have said I will resubmit I can't afford to waste my internet on something that has already died.

Has Ideas out lived it's purpose ?

Seriously how many new themes, minifigs, video game characters has it created.....perhaps we have all been fooled as they have been picking our brains because they have run out of ideas themselves.

As I post updates (now 14 on BB-8) I get a lot of likes on social media, but turning them into supporters is a black art. This is contrary to most projects that are complete as a model (or a virtual design) before initial submission.

After 5 months I have over 800 supporters but I would not resubmit before reaching 1000. The snag is, I've done most of the outer shell where people can see a difference. The harder stuff is the head-holding function and the spinning function, both of which are inside and less photogenic, making it harder to gain more support. Even the melting of a piece or two didn't excite people!

The project has spawned a few ideas that extend beyond itself, which I'm pleased to offer the community:

- The magnet encasement in minifig dustbins as a means of preventing swallowing, potentially leading to a more versatile safe use of magnets for other themes.

- Technic models beyond the usual vehicles; BB-8 is based on a sphere but I would like to see moving animals too. The ideas book 8888 featured a motorized dog.

- Spinning counterweights. Spinning things fast is fun but I've found the limit of what the LEGO system will stand and it's another thing I have to make safe in order to suggest it in an Ideas project.

As links to the project on the LEGO Ideas site are discouraged, here's the MOC picture gallery.

Mark

[Robert8]

I'm sure it will indeed be declined as part of this batch, but as we've seen, they're inching ever upwards in terms of the size and price point they're willing to hit with Ideas sets. While we may not get multi-hundred dollar sets through Ideas anytime soon, I could totally see it happening eventually.

Meanwhile, this accomplishment is still noteworthy on its own. Even if it doesn't result in a huge Ideas set of the mansion, at the very least it bolsters the odds of The Addams Family appearing in LEGO Dimensions.

Agree

Familiy Adams would be a good replacement for Scooby Doo

But the mansion won't happen. As Boromir pointed out, 7000 pieces is quite unrealistic for a LEGO Ideas set

[AFOLguy1970]

I actually supported the Addams Family Mansion knowing full well what its ultimate fate will be. In an alternate universe where it gets approved and made, I will save up and buy it. Hopefully they would announce it ahead of time, because I would need to save up before it permanently disappears from the shelves. I honestly believe it would sell well to a particular market if it were made. Some people have that kind of money and some people are willing to sacrifice and save to get it. It was really a great design and caught my eye. I am also very fond of old houses.

[Faefrost]

Agree

Familiy Adams would be a good replacement for Scooby Doo

But the mansion won't happen. As Boromir pointed out, 7000 pieces is quite unrealistic for a LEGO Ideas set

I would not completely rule it out yet. Yeah 7000 piece count is never going to happen. But Just from looking at it, Lego should be able to halve that just as a starting point. The main build is not that far removed from the Haunted House. They could easily get that within the same ballpark as a Modular. Now whether they are willing to go that far is an unanswered question? But this is one design that clearly has plenty of room for parts reduction without compromising the core project itself.

[AyliffeMakit]

Results!

[thedudeabides]

Lego Ideas announced: Beatles Yelllow Submarine! Apollo rocket! Great choices.

[Blondie-Wan]

Excellent choices, both, and two of the three I always thought likeliest (along with the Concorde, which didn't pass). I'm very glad to see both of these make it through.