LEGO Ideas Discussion

[jonwil]

If they are basing it on the typewriter used by Ole Kirk Christensen, I wonder if that means it would have the Danish keyboard layout (did Danish typewriters have a different layout?)

Although if they have all the letters then you could always arrange it in whatever layout you want. (including niche stuff like Dvorak :)

I wonder if they will do prints or stickers for the typewriter keys...

 

Edited May 5, 2021 by jonwil

[Toastie]

33 minutes ago, jonwil said:

will do prints or stickers for the typewriter keys

To please all: As many stickers as possible. From Danish to Mandalorian.

However, that would not be along the philosophical line of building the typewriter of ... HIM.

No way, I'd say: Boldly printed Danish type layout. Anything else would be close to blasphemy

Best
Thorsten

 

[Modal]

Thank god the BrickLink Designer Program exists. I swear I want to buy like 5 of those sets.

I would gladly buy the jazz ensemble set if it got approved as well.

[Lego David]

8 hours ago, Blondie-Wan said:

Why? What if the circumstances that prevented something from being approved three years ago are no longer in effect now?

I agree with this, but there should be at least a rule stating that you can only re-submit an idea after a certain amount of time has passed (let's say, one year). Because a lot of creators straight up re-submitted their project as soon as it got declined, and I don't think LEGO's interest in that idea is going to change that fast. 

8 hours ago, Blondie-Wan said:

It’s true they can’t make everything, but I think virtually everything declined was declined for some reason other than “we were just considering too gosh darn many other projects at the same time”. There have been any number of obstacles that have almost certainly included licensing issues, conflicts with TLG’s preexisting plans, feasibility issues, safety concerns, and just plain limited business cases.

This may have been true back when we had like 10 projects in each review stage, but with so many now reaching 10k, I wouldn't be surprised if their method has changed. If just looking through all the projects alone can be quite tedious, I'd imagine it would be even harder for TLG to individually review every single project. (And by review, I don't mean just determining if certain IPs are viable, but also building prototype models and testing if the build would work as a set). 

Add to that how they have to pay people to review all those projects, and you end up spending more money and time reviewing all of those projects than you would do actually producing them. I personally don't think TLG is really going to review each project individually, but more like just quickly browse through the submissions and just pick out what draws their attention, and just sweep under the rug everything else.

Edited May 6, 2021 by Lego David

[Blondie-Wan]

12 minutes ago, Lego David said:

I agree with this, but there should be at least a rule stating that you can only re-submit an idea after a certain amount of time has passed (let's say, one year). Because a lot of creators straight up re-submitted their project as soon as it got declined, and I don't think LEGO's interest in that idea is going to change that fast. 

This may have been true back when we had like 10 projects in each review stage, but with so many now reaching 10k, I wouldn't be surprised if their method has changed. If just looking through all the projects alone can be quite tedious, I'd imagine it would be even harder for TLG to individually review every single project. (And by review, I don't mean just determining if certain IPs are viable, but also building prototype models and testing if the build would work as a set). 

Add to that how they have to pay people to review all those projects, and you end up spending more money and time reviewing all of those projects than you would do actually producing them. I personally don't think TLG is really going to review each project individually, but more like just quickly browse through the submissions and just pick out what draws their attention, and just sweep under the rug everything else.

But not all parts of the review have to be done for each project. If they determine right off the bat that something isn’t a brand fit or that the licensing just can’t be worked out, they don’t need to waste resources exploring possible builds.

And even granting that the wealth of projects reaching review does still demand more of the Ideas team (perhaps enough to warrant expanding the team?), I’m still hard-pressed to see a huge pool of set candidates as undesirable - likely not for TLG, and not for us, either. Unless one is placing bets in Vegas on a review batch winding up with a small number of product ideas, I really don’t see why we should want smaller batches.

[MAB]

2 hours ago, Blondie-Wan said:

But not all parts of the review have to be done for each project. If they determine right off the bat that something isn’t a brand fit or that the licensing just can’t be worked out, they don’t need to waste resources exploring possible builds.

And even granting that the wealth of projects reaching review does still demand more of the Ideas team (perhaps enough to warrant expanding the team?), I’m still hard-pressed to see a huge pool of set candidates as undesirable - likely not for TLG, and not for us, either. Unless one is placing bets in Vegas on a review batch winding up with a small number of product ideas, I really don’t see why we should want smaller batches.

Same here. At least half the current round could be crossed off without any serious thought because of being too similar to other sets or a bad fit or just not looking like a good set.

[Merlo]

16 minutes ago, MAB said:

or just not looking like a good set.

The thing is Lego is in no way obliged to make the final product be similar to the submission. And a recurring theme is probably a good indication of customer interest.

[MAB]

14 minutes ago, Merlo said:

The thing is Lego is in no way obliged to make the final product be similar to the submission. And a recurring theme is probably a good indication of customer interest.

If something is coming up multiple times, I'd hope they would go further in review with one submission from the multiple ideas on that theme that looks like a set. Not just a collection of figures with a basic build and not a massively over engineered and huge part count submission, but something where the designer has considered what it is meant to be - a retail set.

[Blondie-Wan]

5 hours ago, Merlo said:

The thing is Lego is in no way obliged to make the final product be similar to the submission.

Indeed, the actual construction details of the builds are nearly always wildly different (with a handful of rare exceptions, like the Curiosity rover). It’s the ideas in Ideas that are important, and they do work to preserve the core concepts. They might completely redesign a set from the way the fan creator built it, but they’re not going to turn an airplane into a dinosaur.

5 hours ago, Merlo said:

And a recurring theme is probably a good indication of customer interest.

Indeed. Remember back in the day, when there were two Ghostbusters Ectomobile projects in the same review batch, and they said “message received!”? I think they do try to balance out their approvals to reflect what’s popular on the platform, and perhaps even let it guide some of what they do outside Ideas.

I think that’s why we get so many sets based on real-life space exploration, for example. They can’t just approve every space exploration idea, but they can and do approve a healthy percentage of them, because Ideas users have repeatedly told them over and over in unmistakably clear terms they really like real-life space exploration sets, and I think it may even play a role in their decisions to do such sets outside Ideas, like the recent Apollo 11 Lunar Landing and the new Shuttle Discovery.

[TeriXeri]

27 minutes ago, Blondie-Wan said:

I think that’s why we get so many sets based on real-life space exploration, for example. They can’t just approve every space exploration idea, but they can and do approve a healthy percentage of them, because Ideas users have repeatedly told them over and over in unmistakably clear terms they really like real-life space exploration sets, and I think it may even play a role in their decisions to do such sets outside Ideas, like the recent Apollo 11 Lunar Landing and the new Shuttle Discovery.

Also the alternate builds on the 3-in-1 shuttle are undeniably on purpose based on the Apollo Lander and Saturn V rockets, just at a smaller scale, even to the point of the color scheme using yellow pieces for the lander, instead of being a leftover build.

Edited May 6, 2021 by TeriXeri

[Exetrius]

Just did a quick search-by-word sampling in the comment section of the announcement. I did not look at all comments, but a fair number. "Castle" was mentioned ~70 times, The Office and Chitty ~30 times, Metroid ~25 times, and everything else was below 20. Even with the 3-in-1 Creator castle, I still think there are still loads of AFOLs out there willing to spend big money on an even larger and (much) more detailed castle set, but the big question is if LEGO will see it that way too. I really don't know about those other empirically popular projects. I personally see Tutankhamen as very appealing project, clearly it's own unique thing, yet in line with trends such as growing quantities of 'premium' parts per set, and the bustes collection. However, very few are talking about that one, so again we'll have to see.

Just some random observations: the new smaller road plate appears in azure in the City wildlife sets, so the Bike Lanes project could soon be built in real life. Also, remember the Aquarium project from a while back, which many people here saw as a likely candidate to become a set? The Creator 3-in-1 aquarium must have prevented that one, or partly. 

Edited May 6, 2021 by Exetrius

[TeriXeri]

5 minutes ago, Exetrius said:

Even with the 3-in-1 Creator castle, I still think there are still loads of AFOLs out there willing to spend big money on an even larger and (much) more detailed castle set, but the big question is if LEGO will see it that way too.

I think it also highly depends how big the Crowdfunding will be for the Castle in the Forest AFOL designer project. (which would be the second castle after Lowenstein).

I could see more Castles still have a chance there.

 

Edited May 6, 2021 by TeriXeri

[MAB]

39 minutes ago, Exetrius said:

Just did a quick search-by-word sampling in the comment section of the announcement. I did not look at all comments, but a fair number. "Castle" was mentioned ~70 times, The Office and Chitty ~30 times, Metroid ~25 times, and everything else was below 20. Even with the 3-in-1 Creator castle, I still think there are still loads of AFOLs out there willing to spend big money on an even larger and (much) more detailed castle set, but the big question is if LEGO will see it that way too.

The other big question is would they just do it themselves then and forget any IDEAS submissions. It would seem silly to approve an IDEAS castle if they then redesign it into another castle. They have the feedback from past themes for the anniversary set, they have the sales data for The Blacksmith and (soon will have) data for the Creator Castle. It is not like "do a castle" is an original idea.

[tomorrowboy]

On 5/5/2021 at 2:07 AM, Lego David said:

- Limit the amount of support votes a site visitor can give to only one per day (as it stands right now, people just go to the site and support everything they like, even if they wouldn't actually buy it). That would give more value to the votes, and would encourage voters to choose more wisely. 



Except that Lego often redesigns the sets so much that what you voted for "to buy" might not end up being what's released, so why not just vote for everything you like in the hopes the final design will be one you want to buy

[Merlo]

Would they make a castle at all?

Next to all the IP's, what if an old school castle wouldn't attract a wide enough demographic?

Lego is known for making more serious submission kid-friendly, so the Creator castle might be a way to put an end to it all with their usual sloppy attempt to satisfy both groups: it's a castle, it's relatively big, yet it's insanely colorful and not too expensive.

The Blacksmith was a huge and very detailed set, especially compared to what it represents, so it easily had the quality needed to match its price.

Can you imagine a castle at that scale, though? Even at a similar scale? You'd need 4x the size/parts/price to make but a small fortification and nobody would buy it at such price.

I'm not sure what the alternative is? Both Blacksmith and Creator castle being so popular that a third, in-between solution, enters the picture, more akin to AFOL tastes than the Creator castle, yet less detailed and luxurious than the Blacksmith.

[NickLafreniere]

My take on the Castles is pretty much the same as any other 3000 piece submission:

-Is this really going to sell, especially next to other $300+ giant LEGO sets? Think about how big of a box it will be, how much shelf space it takes, how much it costs for retailers to ship...

-Is this set competing against other LEGO products? For example, any 3000 piece LEGO Ideas castle would be competing against the Disney Castle and Harry Potter Castle. LEGO already has 2 $300+ castles.

-Will a non-LEGO fan buy it? LEGO Ideas likes to targets adult, non-LEGO fans to buy a LEGO set of an IP (or object like Grand Piano) of something they love.

 

 

Classic Castle mainly appeals to older, hardcore fans of LEGO. They know that if these castles make it to Bricklink, some people are going to pay $600+ for the big ones.

[TeriXeri]

2 hours ago, NickLafreniere said:

-Is this set competing against other LEGO products? For example, any 3000 piece LEGO Ideas castle would be competing against the Disney Castle and Harry Potter Castle. LEGO already has 2 $300+ castles.

I don't think a comparison of a traditional LEGO Castle to a set like Disney Castle or Harry Potter is accurate , they look like Castles but that's about it.

If you meant multiple Harry Potter minifig sets as a $300 castle, then sure, I can understand it (if you add your own figures etc) , but the microscale hogwarts isn't even remotely close to a Classic Castle set.

Harry Potter does have Dragons, but still isn't really about knights.

Many people here don't even consider the 2 big Nexo Knight Castle sets as Castles (Jestro's / Knighton) , and to me they come a lot closer to a Classic Castle playset compared to Harry Potter, even while the colors might not be very historic, but especially the Jestro's Lava Lair works very well in a Fantasy setting.

That said, IDEAS got Lowenstein , and potentially will get Castle in the Forest via Crowdfunding starting next month , so if LEGO decides not to make their own designs, I can see more IDEAS Castles end up there.

Edited May 7, 2021 by TeriXeri

[Merlo]

1 hour ago, NickLafreniere said:

-Will a non-LEGO fan buy it? LEGO Ideas likes to targets adult, non-LEGO fans to buy a LEGO set of an IP (or object like Grand Piano) of something they love.

Don't have any research on this, but I'd be baffled if non-Lego fans happen to see an object they like made out of Lego and decide to buy it in large numbers.

[Roebuck]

I do not think any castles will make it, why would Lego limit themself to an ideas submission when they can make one on their own Lets just hope they make one proper one soon 

[Lyichir]

37 minutes ago, Merlo said:

Don't have any research on this, but I'd be baffled if non-Lego fans happen to see an object they like made out of Lego and decide to buy it in large numbers.

How do you think a lot of people become AFOLs? Lapsed Lego fans or even people who never got to enjoy Lego as a child can and do get drawn in by subject matter that greatly appeals to them.

It's one of the reasons that, despite largely being a fan of "original" Lego themes, I really see the value of the licensed stuff—somebody with no real emotional connection to Lego can still become a fan through an overlapping interest like classic movies, TV series, or video games, making those kinds of sets a better "gateway" to the hobby than themes with original stories in a lot of cases.

[Merlo]

37 minutes ago, Lyichir said:

How do you think a lot of people become AFOLs? Lapsed Lego fans or even people who never got to enjoy Lego as a child can and do get drawn in by subject matter that greatly appeals to them.

If I had to guess, by seeing a modern take on a theme they loved as a child? The rest of the AFOL sets probably appeal most to those who both loved Lego in the past and the set has something to do with what they love now, e.g. me liking music, and thus it being much more likely for me to buy a jazz quartet idea than it would have been otherwise.

Edited May 7, 2021 by Merlo

[MAB]

4 hours ago, NickLafreniere said:

-Is this set competing against other LEGO products? For example, any 3000 piece LEGO Ideas castle would be competing against the Disney Castle and Harry Potter Castle. LEGO already has 2 $300+ castles.

-Will a non-LEGO fan buy it? LEGO Ideas likes to targets adult, non-LEGO fans to buy a LEGO set of an IP (or object like Grand Piano) of something they love.

I look at the Disney Castle, and I see Disney rather than a castle. It is partly the same with HP, I see bricks for making old buildings with minifigures I'd need to sell off, but not a castle. For me, there is more of an overlap between Star Wars and castles, simply because I tend to build in greys when I build castles.

1 hour ago, Roebuck said:

I do not think any castles will make it, why would Lego limit themself to an ideas submission when they can make one on their own Lets just hope they make one proper one soon 

Same here. In fact, I hope no castles make it through IDEAS. I'd prefer LEGO to just do their own if they are going to do one, rather than accept one of many through IDEAS.

 

 

[TeriXeri]

14 minutes ago, MAB said:

I look at the Disney Castle, and I see Disney rather than a castle. It is partly the same with HP, I see bricks for making old buildings with minifigures I'd need to sell off, but not a castle. For me, there is more of an overlap between Star Wars and castles, simply because I tend to build in greys when I build castles.

 Couldn't have said it better here about Disney and HP , I see it the same way.

 

Edited May 7, 2021 by TeriXeri

[Sogenius106]

NEW PROJECT...

Hey guys, I have a new project on Lego ideas called "A Taste of Lego" If you like my project please help and support it. Also, if you don't mind, comment on my project and tell me what you like or don't like or how I could improve it. 

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/178bc739-cd14-4aa3-ad85-c920436a25e3

Edited May 7, 2021 by Sogenius106
adding photo

[Lego David]

4 hours ago, Lyichir said:

How do you think a lot of people become AFOLs? Lapsed Lego fans or even people who never got to enjoy Lego as a child can and do get drawn in by subject matter that greatly appeals to them.

I am not so sure about this. I guess it depends a lot on the set in question. I can see some adults who have no previous connection to LEGO get interested in buying something like the Sitcom sets, but I'd be very surprised if anyone with no previous experience with LEGO would want to sink in 300$+ on a set replicating an real-world object they like. I don't know, if I were a newcomer to LEGO and saw how expensive those big sets are, I'd be pretty shocked... especially because as a newcomer, I probably wouldn't know anything about the value of LEGO. 

 

7 hours ago, NickLafreniere said:

Is this set competing against other LEGO products? For example, any 3000 piece LEGO Ideas castle would be competing against the Disney Castle and Harry Potter Castle. LEGO already has 2 $300+ castles.

You do realize both the Disney Castle and the Harry Potter Microscale Hogwards are both retired, right? A hypothetical new Castle set wouldn't be competing with either of those. 

7 hours ago, NickLafreniere said:

Is this really going to sell, especially next to other $300+ giant LEGO sets? Think about how big of a box it will be, how much shelf space it takes, how much it costs for retailers to ship...

This is a D2C set, it would only appear in LEGO Brand stores, where there is plenty of shelf space. Not to mention the unusually high amount of large D2C sets LEGO has been pumping up recently. 

7 hours ago, NickLafreniere said:

Will a non-LEGO fan buy it?

If LEGO makes a Castle the successfully recreates the Medieval architecture style, I wouldn't be surprised if some non-LEGO fans who are interested in Medieval History might buy it.