MaxHeadroom

The builds are nice. WWW is a decent conclusion to the set. The figures are really poor though. The only ones that are interesting/desirable are F&G, Lucious, and Gilderoy. I would guess Gilderoy is wearing lilac because he will be (at least partially) reused for a Chamber of Secrets set. They needed at least 2-3 more minifigures though to get this to an acceptable amount. The street looks very dead and that's just looking at it from the angled photo on the box. I imagine it will look even more empty when viewed from the front. Also I like having 3 owls but they are all pre-existing owls. We get the flying Hedwig, the brown owl, and the winking/damaged eye LEGO city owl. Someone mentioned seeing a pigmy puff in WWW but I can't seem to find that. It's also cool to see the chairs above FF although they don't look useable.

Weren't there 2? There was a 2 set wave that came out a bit later than the main wave last year. Plus this year there were fake rumors of more sets.

So how does their current strategy go against this? The general public wasn't hyped before the reveal of the 2018 D2C and they aren't hyped before this year's D2C.

I don't think this can be blamed on LEGO at all. Some people speculated we would be getting an early VIP release and the reveal would come 2 weeks before it was available. We then started getting hyped up about the DA reveal weeks before we should've. I think they had a decent strategy for hyping the DA set. 2 months after the main wave released LEGO opened a Q&A and revealed the AC, then 2 weeks of speculating about the CMF (LEGO didn't plan for the whole thing to leak early) then 2 weeks to speculate about the DA until it was released.

You said LEGO had never made multi story buildings without multiple floors so I gave an example. LEGO has done it before with buildings (and I'm sure there are buildings in other themes that are designed the same way) so I think we need to consider it as a possibility.

Just look at the original LEGO Diagon Alley. Gringotts has nothing and Ollivanders only has a small amount of space for some storage.

Are there even any buildings large enough to fit a decent size fluffy in? Now that I'm giving it some thought the only way we could get a forbidden corridor/PS challenges is in a Room of Requirement style interior set. I wouldn't mind a set with a staircase leading to a platform with Fluffy (no walls so it can't be seen from outside), a trapdoor into the devil's snare, and some small 8x8 representations of the other rooms (probably excluding the potions room like the film). This could either be one long wall or it could be the rooms from the original forbidden corridor and the other smaller rooms on the back of the set, so it could all share 1 wall. even then it would still probably be as expensive as all of the original sets since you would need to use a wall and the original sets just used pillars and arches. I don't think they could just make the rooms seen in the original forbidden corridor. It would be like making a girls bathroom and chamber of secrets slide set. The only room that could be standalone is the final one which we already got in the great hall (I'm not sure if two studs is enough to be considered a room but we already have the mirror at least). Why? If they weren't going to wait for the DA then why not just reveal it when it leaked? LEGO is just messing with us at this point.

Here it is in release order with the sections removed. It would be cool if they remade forbidden corridor but I'm not sure they could next year. Forbidden corridor would have to be quite large and they're already making Gringotts and probably a DH2 Hogwarts expansion. I don't think they could make any more large sets next year.

No, we got the other Malfoy gang member, Goyle (or Crabe I don't remember which was one still around for DH2)

Nah it's Dobby's sock next year.

Does anyone actually care about the inferi cave? I always thought the only reason we considered it was because we thought LEGO would make small and large sets from both OOTP and HBP this year. I doubt it's in anyone's top 10 unproduced sets or anything.

I'm sure next year we will get both a large Gringotts set and a large castle set (maybe not $100 USD but at least $70). Since the last two Hogwarts sets were aimed at girls and more party focused I think LEGO could do the opposite and fully embrace the battle scene. I'd especially love if they included lots of exploding features. I always found the lone exploding bridge on the 2011 set a bit lackluster. For minifigures I would want the trio, Neville, McGonagall, a suit of armor, Voldemort, a death eater, and Zabini (as a reference to the 2011 version). I understand why some people think we will get the wedding tent but I don't see it happening there's a much more important tent we need to get from DH and I can't see them doing 2 tents in one year. Then again maybe everything we've said is wrong and LEGO will pull an OOTP and give us a $20 Battle of Hogwarts and $30 Glen forest: Snatcher Encounter. Do you want all of the WW parts removed or just the short bits?

I'm not predicting anything before Friday. We've peen predicting it happening basically every day for the last few weeks. I'm not going to get my hopes up. Plus we've still got another 50 pages to fill before we hit 600.

Did anyone else preorder the burrow from target? I did and I haven't recieved the set or been contacted about it. I'm pretty sure they haven't even charged me for it. Wasn't it supposed to deliver today?

I really wish they would just reuse the original hairpiece.

UCS Dobby's sock is the best idea I've ever had. Truly my finest achievement. Maybe if we all harass LEGO about making it for a few years we will get it like we got the 501st battle pack. We would probably need a child army though like the 501st campaign had.

I spent a lot of spare time in middle school using inspect element on my schools website. Great way to kill time. It's a very obviously fake leak. It seems like they wrote down 14 names and then couldn't think of any more (they also couldn't think of Ollivander's first name). The 2020 DA will obviously have more than 14 figures. Very pointless fake list.

FF appeared briefly in the films and was named and heavily featured in the POA book. As far as I can remember some of the other shopkeepers weren't named in the books and didn't appear in the films. Then again I forgot about scribbulus entirely so maybe I forgot about a shopkeeper.

It's a joke about the classic "pins and play features" best to just ignore it if you don't remember. I wish I could forget those days. We didn't in the 2011 version and I'm pretty sure shopkeepers were never mentioned for some of these. Also I haven't seen this pointed out before here but the DA set description says "Behind the magnificent facades lie intriguing interiors". With the shops being considered facades I think it's safe to assume the DA will not feature a back wall.

I said nothing about play features. There will be no play features in the 2020 DA. You won't even be able to open the doors to the shops. On the topic of mini dolls which was brought up earlier I think it would be a bad idea for LEGO to make HP mini dolls as it would split the market. LEGO has already designed the HP line to appeal to both boys and girls. I don't think a line aimed primarily at girls would be very different from what we're currently getting. I was originally thinking we would get two sets of the trio or at least Harry from year 1 and the trio from year 6 but now that we have seen the CMF I'm not sure if LEGO will bother including year 6 variants in the DA. The casual CMF figures are already boring choices and I think they would be even more pointless if LEGO included year 6 figures with the DA. I'm not certain we won't get them but with the CMF it seems pretty likely they will be omitted. I would guess we will see year 1 Harry, year 2 Ron/Hermionie, and maybe a year 2 Harry (LEGO is either using the same dirty face for both Harry figures or they are only making one and including the dirty face there even if it's inaccurate). Other than the main trio I think we will get repeats of Hagrid and Ollivander (maybe Ollivander will be slightly updated). For mostly new figures we will probably get Rita for the DP, Gilderoy, Lucius, Draco, Arthur, and Molly for F&B, Florean for FF, Percy for scribbulus, mannequins for QQS, and the Weasley twins for WWW. Along with the shop specific minifigures I think we will get a selection of random characters to populate the street. Many of them only using one or two new prints. I have no specific ideas for this but I would guess LEGO will probably include a few characters that don't use light nougat to make things a bit more varied. The main thing I'm interested in seeing though is what variant of Ginny LEGO uses. They are very stingy with Ginny so I assume we will only get either a year 2 or 6 figure. Personally I'm hoping for a year 6 figure so we are more likely to get a pigmy puff.

Part 2780 will be included in the DA. Not sure if we can trust this leak. But if it's true then this confirms the set will be microscale.

If LEGO really cared about kids they would've released all of the DA as smaller, more affordable chunks like many have suggested. I think main reason some people are annoyed by Gringotts' exclusion is that Gringotts is (for many) an essential part of Diagon alley. Not only is it the first shop Harry goes to, but it is visually the end of the alley. When looking down the alley Gringotts is the conclusion. A single DA building works as a standalone set because the viewer's eye is drawn up the piece. A meter of DA buildings becomes too dense to observe vertically so the viewer will look at the set horizontally. Gringotts is a satisfying conclusion to viewing the DA because it is more unique and stands out among the other buildings (plus Gringotts being taller and having pillars leads the viewer's eye upwards, a feature Universal used well by including a dragon at the top of the building.) Ollivanders is not a very exciting or visually striking endpoint so the viewing experience of the set just ends (a real road to nowhere). I think LEGO is attempting to rectify this by including WWW which is unique and has a large face which typically draws the eye. WWW is a decent conclusion to the set but it isn't as satisfying as Gringotts because in universe WWW isn't the end of the alley. Excluding Gringotts may be a good business decision but it is not a good design decision.

Maybe we should actually try to hit 600 pages before the DA gets revealed. I would suggest we stop at 554 as a nod to the part count but at this rate I wouldn't be surprised if we pass that by the end of Friday. Last night I found all the sets except the burrow at my local target. I picked them all up except for PD (in case of GWP). They're pretty good but admittedly the excitement has worn off a bit after seeing them online for months. The burrow (which I preordered) should be arriving Saturday and I'm a bit worried about all of the clear backed stickers. Does anyone have any strategies for putting them on without using special tools?

Tbh I'd rather have pieces go towards a small street like the modular buildings than to a back wall on all the shops.

I really hope the set has open backs so we can display the interiors. I'm sure LEGO will put a lot of effort into them so i'd like to be able to see them walking by a shelf without having to remove floors. Also how do I become a LEGO vip member? I feel like I probably should be one so I can get the points from the DA. Do I need to buy something to start an account or can I start one ahead of time?