jonwil

If this was available to me I would probably go for it (I want that police station) but its not :(

I want a Marvel D2C that's a building rather than a vehicle. DC got the retro Batcave, several Arkham sets plus that Joker Mansion from TLBM. Marvel has nothing. Even for vehicles DC has more than Marvel with DC having several Batmobile sets plus the new Batwing and Marvel getting the Helicarrier and the Hulkbuster and that's it. Although Marvel did get the Iron Man bust and the Iron Man mosaic so there's that...

Something to remember is that LEGO has a stated goal of only using "green" materials in their packaging (hence the plans to do away with the polybags in the sets in favor of paper bags) so they will be looking for a way to package the CMFs that is also "green" and environmentally friendly.

I have put over a hundred hours of playtime into the Fallout universe games and I can tell you there is no way in hell its remotely suitable for a LEGO product. Way too violent (its got a shoulder mounted catapult that launches miniature nuclear bombs, that alone makes it way out of scope for what LEGO would consider appropriate) not to mention all the blood, guts and gore that fill the game. The ESRB gives Fallout 4 an M rating for "blood and gore, intense violence, strong language, use of drugs" (none of which sound appropriate for LEGO)

I am loving it and at the $200 price tag here in Australia, I will be buying this on day one no question. And of course I will applying all the stickers :) Having watched a LOT of Sesame Street in my time I love the various references to characters and moments from the show. Slimey the worm. Rubber Duckie. Dorothy the goldfish. The pinball numbers clip. What looks like a UFO in the corner (presumably belonging to those aliens), Bert's bottle cap collection. Abby's face on the side of the building. The white birds as pigeons. The count picture and Guy Smiley on the TV. The references to both Super Grover and Baby Bear in the newspaper prints. The oatmeal cookbook. The pigeons on the roof. And probably more I can't see or don't recognize. If they had done something closer to the original submission it would have cost a lot more and we wouldn't be getting Hoopers.

Info now up at Brickset and elsewhere.

Do we actually have 100% confirmation about the change in packaging or is it still just rumors and speculation? (and some things based on older images and prototypes)

Big Bang had stickers only on parts that LEGO wasn't set up to print on IIRC (1 x 1 x 5 brick and 1 x 4 x 6 door). Voltron had stickers because they wanted to give builders the option to build with the numbers or without the numbers (some versions of the robot have the numbers, others don't) The Fishing Store had prints for the most important parts (specifically the 2x4 "bait shop" logo tile and the figs) as did Central Perk (the coffee menu, the "service" sign and the window logo as well as the figs) Unless they are so tight on budget that they can't include any new prints at all, I suspect the Sesame Street sign will get a print if nothing else. Also I don't have an issue with stickers, better to get stickers than to get nothing at all (which would be the alternative)

Ideas has used stickers in quite a few sets for various reasons. Central Perk had stickers. Voltron had stickers. Fishing Store had stickers. And Big Bang Theory had stickers.

My next B&P order is on hold pending the (hopeful) availability of more of the parts from the Main Square set (such as the yellow front from the tram, the police torso with short sleeves, the 1 x 1 round vita rush brick and the helicopter control panel slope) as well as non-licensed/non-specific parts from the Diagon Alley set such as the doors in dark red, dark green and cool yellow, the 2 x 2 corner brick in dark tan and the medium lavender legs. Oh and that neat "ugly sweater" police torso from the City Advent Calendar would be nice to snag as well. None of those are available yet but for those Technic builders out there, I did notice that the Land Rover wheel arch in white from the new Mindstorms set IS available for sale if that's something people are interested in. Some of the other new parts are also available (but not all of them and as expected none of the electronic bits are available)

The police station from The Simpsons is exactly the style of police station that would look good as a modular IMO.

No matter what has happened in the past LEGO can (and does) change their plans all time. Even if LEGO did in fact label Coast Guard a "guaranteed sub-theme" in the past that doesn't mean they won't choose to change their plans and release something else (which may be some other rescue related sub-theme such as Mountain Rescue or may be something totally different) Now its entirely possible LEGO will release new Coast Guard sets at some point depending on how well the last lot sold (and how well any new products go when testing with the appropriate focus groups etc) but short of inside information/leaks or some official statement/reveal by LEGO themselves, I don't think anyone in this forum can 100% gaurantee what sets are or are not comming out in the future. Past releases (or even past statements about what themes and product lines are "guaranteed" or "evergreen") can't be relied upon as any kind of indication about future products (I can't find a cite for it right now but I believe at one point LEGO labeled themes like Castle, Space and Pirates as "evergreen themes" and look at where we are now with those themes (Excluding Ideas sets and LEGO Movie stuff, the last proper Castle sets we got were in 2013, the last proper Space sets we got came from Galaxy Squad in 2013 and the last proper Pirates sets we got were in 2015)

Unless we actually see proof (or possibly really credible leaks), I don't think we can assume that Coast Guard (or any other theme) is comming back in 2h2021. Just because LEGO has previously released Coast Guard on a particular time-frame doesn't mean they will do it again.

I think in the instance of the Vegas set they aren't showing anything gambling or talking about it, rather they talk about the architecture. (and gambling is only a part of the total floor space of those buildings with most of it being the hotels and other stuff)

No way LEGO would do anything even remotely connected to gambling.