frebbyl

LEGO City Problems/Rant

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I agree and disagree with many of the things posted above. But I also find it hard to believe LEGO can't come up with something more interesting than cops and robbers for the city line. I just think it's a step in the wrong direction.

Agreed. There's all sorts of stuff the could be doing. I used to be a giant fan of Lego city but the problem is that I am bored of the line. Its turning into a cops and robbers theme instead of being a CITY theme and I'm pretty sure there's more then just police and bad guys in a city.

And I understand that moc'ing a building of my own is a plausible option but until I dig out my room(again), round up some parts online, and possibly secure a rolling drawer unit since my technic and minifigures have had a population explosion on me; I'm out of luck in the moc'ing depo.

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Funny that someone said 1930's theme......

3792134813_604a7df5af.jpg

Sorry, I've missed this, thanks for posting it LT! Amazing, I've never seen it before. Now this is very interesting, not only because of those stylish buildings but also because there obviously were plans for a new oldtimer car base, elegant fenders included.

The text on the Flickr page says that it was shown at Comic-Con 2009 - concerning the buildings we have something even better with the modulars nowadays, regarding the cars, well ...

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1. "Industrial". A factory / manufacturing plant / etc of some time. Good ole blue collar jobs for all our minifigs.

I actually submitted a project to IDEAs the other day with blue collar workers...

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I actually think OT has a point. by comparison, I just looked at the friends range, and it has quite a considerable amount of buildings, and with variety. Maybe city range some volume and diversity with buildings being released.

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I think the lack of normal buildings in LEGO CITY is a cunning marketing scheme. If you think about, LEGO want you to buy into other themes a well as just CITY, so just put them in the Creator theme and people will buy them. They will also think about buying other sets from that range too and this happens multiple times in a LEO fans shopping time.

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This is a really interesting thread!

I recall back in my childhood days the most fun thing was building town layouts. It was great, because one of my sisters was a Lego fan too and we often took turns to design buildings and vehicles using my 'classic' Town and her 'girly' Paradisa sets (you'll be as pleased to know as I was she has kept hers boxed up somewhere and has no intention of getting rid of it!). Even back then - in the late 80s and early 90s - I was frustrated at the lack of 'building materials' found in the Lego range overall. Mostly it was the shortage of windows and doors! I started with one of those Basic sets that came in a blue 'briefcase' with one minifig, car wheels, a few windows and a door as well as a few colourful bricks and plates. Between that and the 'Weetabix' house (two doors, four windows, two minifigs) that's more or less all I had to work with for years.

The problem is still the same now by the sounds of things. I'm not sure, statistics-wise, how many kids have this problem, but that Basic set hints at a potential solution: get back to the box/bucket of bricks. Specifically, a box/bucket full of roofing slopes, windows, doors, and the standard sized bricks that you can use to build walls, totalling enough to make a couple of separate houses or shops. The 'Creator' line does offer smaller-than-modular scale, but a 'box of building-specific' bricks that makes more than one building at a time might be a good middle ground.

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Not to criticize, but I severely doubt that the actual amount of sales is as low as 5%.

I have wondered about that myself. When the company wants to do something AFOLs don't like they spout this 5% figure. Yet they maintain a small section of employees to communicate with us and sets aimed at the AFOL market sometimes sell out in days (or even hours). I think they simply have no idea and would rather not spoil the mythology around the company.

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I can count...hmm...3 AFOLs that I've met personally in my whole life (30+ years). Of those one is a well-known hardcore builder in the UK. The other two buy something maybe once a month or so. Something moderately expensive, but not frequent.

I can count tens and tens of adults I know who buy Lego for their kids, their nieces, nephews, grandkids, cousins, and birthday presents for their kids' friends. But not for themselves.

If you live in the happy little closed AFOL world, full of obsessives pouring most of their disposable income into Lego, it's easy to perceive that as the main group of buyers. It's probably not though, is it, really? Go to ToysRUs / local high street toy shop / whatever and see who's actually buying and who for, or just think about you know...real people...maybe ones you know, beyond people you've met on the internet.

Thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of police cars and police bikes and helicopters. Where do they all go eh?

Edited by andythenorth

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Has anyone wondered why Friend's get shops and the new creator sub-theme shop have female minifigs in them ?

I feel Lego has tunnel vision......girls love shops and guys love trucks'n'cops.........narrow mindedness Lego, totally narrow mindedness.

Though personally I buy anything city and new creator shops.....then changed it if I want......I'm not as narrow minded as Lego.

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I agree and disagree with many of the things posted above. But I also find it hard to believe LEGO can't come up with something more interesting than cops and robbers for the city line. I just think it's a step in the wrong direction.

Well, sad as it is to admit, our toys are a direct reflection of our world. And if we wish to correct what disturbs us in our playthings, we should probably correct what is malignant about our society. I find it myself hard to believe that we cannot come up with something more interesting to our reality than cops and robbers - than heroes and villains. And as there is an economy attached to all things modern, when a person is insistent on some kind of infamy or grand validation, they do a subconscious math and find that villainy is both more immediate and less investing than is heroism. You place that equation into a world that wants nothing less than immediate gratification, has no interest in personal disciple, and that has been taught that to step upon others to get what they want is an acceptable thing, and viola - we wonder why tyranny has become such domestic commonplace.

Speaking to our own adult paradigm of this, try to find anything else on television but cops and killers. Perhaps, playtime is nothing more than the ways in which our children re-enact and attempt to find a resolution to this situation of ours. But inherently, by doing so, they must place themselves as actors upon that stage. And nobody wants to envision themselves as even second-tier characters. We all want to be the focus. And if it is made to be that difficult, for whatever reason, in the environment that they've been handed off on, to be a hero, villainy seems to suit many just fine - it requires almost no effort and can be manufactured overnight.

I think Jung would agree with this. And it is most definitely not some kind of morality lesson, but rather, a moral observation. As much as we'd like to believe that we endorse a world without conflict, one of bicycles and cars and kitchenettes and dolls still, our reality tells us very soberly, that we obviously do not. Conflict is not merely a shameful part of the historic human past, but rather, it is a very current thing...

Edited by notaromantic

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The first Friends set I saw was the Laboratory, full of details and I though Damn, Why LEGO didn't launch something like this in city?

This year TLG launched the jungle theme, and comes to my mind the Adventure and Faraon Quest sets.

I know that the market is more segmented due to the licensed themes and the addition of gender segregation. It's a pity but the golden years of LEGO Town are only a nostalgic part of our past.

But nowadays Toy offer goes in the same way that LEGO is following. I think that except few exceptions gender segregation is a fact, and aisles for boy are full of fire engines and police cars and aisles for girls are plenty of pink, purple and dolls.

Modulars are expensive, but for the number of pieces, the variety and the final result, worth it. Arctic sets liked me at first but when I saw them built they deceived me and plus taking the prices in count. Creator sets are a lottery some ones are wonderful like the last bike and coffee shop, but others deceive when you compare how much you paid and how much you get. The same with the piece buckets.

I know that for kids is hard to moc, and moc something that have similar level to original sets. And they see the "pink" and not the possibilities of a Friends set. But AFOLs are lucky, we have a lot of set with interesting pieces for made our mocs of cars and building in creator, super heroes,.... And we have no problem for going to a shop and buying a "girly" set if we see interesting pieces on it.

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I know that the market is more segmented due to the licensed themes and the addition of gender segregation. It's a pity but the golden years of LEGO Town are only a nostalgic part of our past.

What are these fricking golden years? Can you link the exact years to the 'sets by year' on Brickset? :wink:

How about 1978? 6 buildings, 22 vehicles (10 of them emergency services) http://brickset.com/sets/theme-Town/year-1978

How about 1992? 13 vehicles, (most of them racing cars), 6 buildings (5 of them pink Paradisa sets) http://brickset.com/sets/theme-Town/year-1992

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Nostalgia is a deceptive thing to many. I have no such attatchment to the Town of my youth, it was a bit silly and full of odd designs and my few town sets were a small boat and a Police car and Bike! I think the cycle exists as research suggests that the market refreshes every few years. Kids 'outgrow' the appeal of real-life City sets and they move on to the role-play toys as their core toy. If you watch a child play outside of LEGO toys, often they do go from "brumming" their toy cars to an age where they set up action figure roleplaying games.

I'm going to have to second a few suggestions of building your own structures, it isn't impossible. After all, a building is a box with bits on (The richer the owner/occupier the more fancy and twiddly the bits). A building MOC can be drawn from reality using photos and architectural plans or from observing the construction of modern buidings. If MOCs aren't for you then there have been enough buildings through the years that a quick search through peeron can pull up some instructions and a little shop in PaB or Bricklink can either outright supply the parts wholly or fill any collection gaps. A friend of mine has been quite successful in restoring his Technic collection to its former glory and fulfilling some old childhood wishes through this method.

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They should do a Lego City courthouse set. I've been wanting a set like that for years. They should also have more variety in the attire of the criminals in future sets. Have some in regular clothes or suits not prison uniforms.

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They should do a Lego City courthouse set. I've been wanting a set like that for years. They should also have more variety in the attire of the criminals in future sets. Have some in regular clothes or suits not prison uniforms.

Closest thing would be the Town Hall with a modified interior. I don't think kids would enjoy lawyers and court proceedings like we would :tongue::classic:

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Closest thing would be the Town Hall with a modified interior. I don't think kids would enjoy lawyers and court proceedings like we would :tongue::classic:

My nephew would. He wants to be a lawyer when he grows up, plus a courthouse set is long overdue. With all the criminals running around Lego City they'd need a courthouse for trials.

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Why not a town hall? Just have the council chamber double up as a courtroom, I'm sure such a building would be interesting to children, since the most important/powerful person in a children's cartoon/comic is usually the mayor, which could give a rescue the mayor scenario. I believe one of the 50th anniversary sets had a city hall (replacing the church from the original set).

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I think you have to think beyond collecting the narrow selection of One theme these days.

Asking One theme to give you everything you want in a city is a bit extreme.

Lego City is just the base around which you can buy Buildings in sets from Winter Village, Friends, Creator, Modular, even TMNT and Superheroes themes.

It is good for TLG and it is good for us AFOL's. Although it may not be good for our finances.... :)

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Why not a town hall? Just have the council chamber double up as a courtroom, I'm sure such a building would be interesting to children, since the most important/powerful person in a children's cartoon/comic is usually the mayor, which could give a rescue the mayor scenario. I believe one of the 50th anniversary sets had a city hall (replacing the church from the original set).

Good idea.

I think you have to think beyond collecting the narrow selection of One theme these days.

Asking One theme to give you everything you want in a city is a bit extreme.

Lego City is just the base around which you can buy Buildings in sets from Winter Village, Friends, Creator, Modular, even TMNT and Superheroes themes.

It is good for TLG and it is good for us AFOL's. Although it may not be good for our finances.... :)

Well if that can't be done they could have it that some criminals in the Lego City sets are in regular clothes like suits for example not prison uniforms all the time, Some people like variety.

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Lego I doubt will ever release a church, unless they release a temple or alike for every main faith in the world and Lego don't like upsetting people......note in question Jabba's Palace and non-renewal of the Shell deal.

It appears that Lego base most of their ideas on old school kid playing themes......such as cops & robbers......older than Lego itself.

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Good point, so many police stations and no court houses......mmm, screams police state. :wink:

With so much police watching the LEGO City, there is no crime as no one can get away. So no need for court houses. Or we can pretend it is the Judge Dredd police force. :laugh:

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I think it's amusing that there are two(?) toilets in the 2015 City line but neither of them is connected to a building. It does make you wonder though, if minifigs need toilets where have they been going before the advent of the Pet Shop? Was that the first LEGO toilet?

These are the questions that keep us up at night.

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