BrickG

Dude and Womand couple : Not mature content. Normal. Accepted. Two dudes: Mature content. Children must be protected. FEAR!!!

Bought my first few little blind boxes just because I passed a toy store. Got just 2. Reminded me why I hate blind stuff. It's just gambling. Loved the first one. Bloopers. Cool! Classic Mario enemy. Opened the second one... more Bloopers! DARN YOU BLIND STUFF!

I guess when talking about approachability, ease of use, etc, the big winner here is Minecraft. LEGO is, somewhat ironically, too complex for video games compared to the far more streamlined building options in games like Minecraft. It's a shame. LEGO building is... better... (ignoring the real crazy programming type stuff you can do in minecraft). But at the end of the day, video games and programs, LEGO can't compete with how easy some other stuff is. But I suppose they can't in the real world.

LEGO is great. But when it comes to digital building (via program or video game) it's pretty bad. Ever tried to use one of those LEGO building programs? Freakin' 10x more complex than mastering Photoshop. You need to take three classes to even know what the pieces are called. In real life you can use your eyes. In the programs I spend most of my time struggling with not knowing how to find the piece because I don't know it's name :). LEGO's strength is that it's physical. It will never be as good of a builder in a... video game or simplicity's sense as, say Minecraft. At least when it comes to the digital front. LEGO building apps and video games just aren't intuitive enough, and that's because they can't be. LEGO has like 100000 different pieces, doesn't conform to a grid necessarily, blablabla... It's kind of odd to me how some of the video games that were meant for small children had modes where you could build ridiculous stuff with a ridiculous amount of pieces in ridiculously complex ways. I think it's just been too much for the vast majority of people, let alone kids! LEGO is great. But in a similar sense the complexity and sheer amount of elements and colours... makes organisation a pain. That's why one of the biggest and most used forum threads here is about the organisation and storage of LEGO. Honestly, it's almost a full-time job to organise the stuff. I haven't had time in over a decade! Most of my collection is in piles that would take me a few weeks to properly organise!

That's a pretty narrow view of things.

I kind of wish it was even bigger. I haven't seen a picture of it besides the other big ones but I think it'll look a bit small besides the other bigs.

Some people are kind of professional "deal" finders. They go to the stores when they know a 50%+ off sale is going to happen for pretty much anything and anywhere, but I kind of knew a guy who did it with just LEGO. Theoretically they'd find the sales, buy lots, sell them when there's no sales happening. I bought some slightly older sets for like 50% off through facebook. At least that's what they said. Might have stolen them :P.

Hmmm I need that leaked Bracheosaurus...

Sounds like an improvement to me. But I don't actually agree that it's all or nothing. I don't doubt the designs would change (the lamer ones nobody wants besides hardcore collectors would have less of a chance to be made). I don't doubt many things would change that would basically make it a different product. I don't care. $5 non-blind "just choose what you want" minifigure. Seems like a net benefit.

Nothing wrong with what you just described. Kill blind bags. Just have them choosable. You can collect things without them being blind: See about 100000 other toys, the collecting aspect is absolutely not even touched, just the "random" part. They'd make more of the desirable ones, less of the ones people don't want. Still nothing wrong with that. You've mentioned nothing that is a negative in my mind. Do away with them completely. Make it more like buying an action figure but buildable, like some of LEGO's other products (but cheaper).

The fact that you or others can actively be disappointed by their blind bag of randomness purchase is dumb. I just think it's mildly unethical (key word: "mildly" and I won't compare selling blind bags to anything ridiculous and truly unethical). It's simply to sell more product. A bit of fun can be had (I've had a party or two where we got a pile of them and would have a contest to see who guesses the most right) buuuut I think it just crosses a mild line. Especially if you consider people without much money and for whatever reason an inability to feel which figure it is. I mean I won't die on this hill. There's 9,999,999,999 things that are more serious in this world. If lootboxes in Blizzard games were problematic (I don't actually agree with that when it comes to Blizzard games since they were FREE and you got them quick and it was only cosmetic) then I don't see how this stuff hasn't been attacked by the governments yet. It's the same kind of stuff but costs money. Random loot. Sometimes disappointment. $$$. I guess LEGO has no crazy "whales" buying $10,000 worth of stuff though.

"What makes sense" isn't cool builds that wouldn't sell. Sorry anime fans, Evangelion isn't mainstream enough in most areas to "make sense". Gundam? Same thing. Yeah, Gundam is pretty big but not nearly as big in many regions. These, in no way, "make sense" though they'd be fun builds. If there's going to be anime sets, it would be the ones that are a hit in places like the US too. I guess Dragon Ball is beyond it's prime but it could have had potential (might still... maaaybe). Same with random animes that have been hits outside of Asia like Naruto or whatever the heck is CURRENT (I'm massively outdated on anime). Anyways... BLIND BAGS ARE A FORM OF GAMBLING AND SHOULD NOT BE BLIND!

Kind of like art style, you can't really protect technique (or rules). I'm talking copyright and stuff. For example you can't copyright rules (and I'd argue techniques that aren't connected to some protectable technology) for a game. You can try, and some big companies do and bully smaller companies/people to give up on things they could actually win (given the resources). Like if someone has a distinct art style, and you made art in that art style, there's nothing that can be done. You can't protect the style. People can call you out on it but it doesn't matter, no legal recource can happen. It's a different thing if we talk like copying a SYMBOL or TRADEMARK like Supermans <S> symbol. But go to a Dollar Store and you'll find Zuper Man with a <Z> and it's fine. You can't copyright or protect or trademark rules to a game. That's why there's offbrand monopolies. D&D can't protect their rules which is why there's games that are almost clones to it. Again, any techniques would... probably, since they don't involve fans like 3d printing unique pieces and inventing new methods via some options not actually made with LEGO parts... I doubt there's any legal protection there... or even moral... If someone finds a new way to stack bricks using the same bricks... it's all free game. Again, it mainly gets complex when you talk big companies. I guess LEGO is that. But I haven't seen LEGO try to copyright or trademark curved corners on icons like Apple did... or "tapping" cards in Magic the Gathering which was a travesty and I have no idea how they got away with it (besides being a big company)... I'm no expert so take what I say very lightly. I've dealt with this stuff before in a limited extent. If LEGO did give any credit to someone, if anything it would probably be a liability to them. I don't know what kind of doors it would open... but that could go haywire probably. Anyways I'll shut up.

The Ideas drama is pointless and dumb. As a professional designer and artist I see crap I had thought I basically invented done by someone else. There's 7 billion people in the world.Most thoughts aren't original. Someone suggesting the Snow White set and LEGO doing something similar is IMO 100% coincidence. It's like when a vaguely similar Pokemon is revealed that looks similar to some fan art someone made, there's bound to be some overlap... doesn't mean GameFreak is trolling the internet stealing Pokemon designs (which some people have foolishly suggested). The original Ideas... ideas... are almost never original thoughts. LEGO could have easily had similar stuff going on before, or heck, even AFTER that wasn't influenced by the random Ideas submissions. Someone suggesting an incredibly unoriginal idea of a Snow White set (that anyone who has seen the movie can come up with) doesn't blanket mean that's THEIR idea. Heck, even if it came later from LEGO maybe the first time they chose not to do it, then later through some circumstance a similar thing was proposed and accepted... it's still not bad! So someone presented the idea of a Snow White set and now they blanket own that entire IDEA for all of time even though it's incredibly generic? And suggesting things like "maybe they should say this idea is already in development" or any suggestion that makes them market something before they want to, or before they're contractually allowed makes zero sense too. 100% of the complaints against LEGO on this issue are basically irrelevant. Coincidence happens all the time and I've seen them and experienced them constantly in my work and it can easily exist in anything creative because, humans just arne't THAT creative.

The Office set looks good. The minifigures are mixed in terms of quality IMO. I think it's just you have a group of generic office workers so it's hard to get the minifigures immediately identifiable. Just like with Friends and stuff. You could use most of the minifigures out of context and suddenly they're not "them". But what ya gunna do? I actually thought Ryan was Gabe. Toby's hair is too big, Stanly's too. Some of them look spot on but others are just getting as close as you can get with existing LEGO pieces. Is that Dwight hair unique for the set? The actual set looks pretty good. I'd buy it if I wasn't basically Lego-retired... It also just asks to be made bigger (the whole office) and improved. I'd have fun with that.

Bowser

LEGO has tried many times to "Minecraft" it's building onto the digital sphere via builders and video games. Minecraft works because it's almost entirely textured cubes or things that fit in cubes. You can never make LEGO work in the digital arena outside of the hardcore LEGO people who are willing to learn it. LEGO has too many pieces. LEGO has too many possibilities. You don't just stack LEGO. So it'll absolutely never be a digitial toy that can reach anywhere near the numbers of other "builder" games like Minecraft. It's just too complex. It's great for a physical product where you just get a pile of pieces and put stuff together, but usually people don't constantly build (like in Minecraft where you juste KEEP building) because the truth is LEGO is horribly inefficient when it comes to building. A lot of people could build all day every day for years and pretty much do in Minecraft because it's so simplified and efficient. I guess LEGO games don't ever focus on buidling these days, and any that do are destined to... maybe not fail, but never be that big. It's why LEGO games just don't have building most of the time! Which is odd since it's LEGO but it just doesn't work there. In fact it's so inefficient in LEGO games most stuff isn't even built with LEGO. I thiiiiink the LEGO Movie game had a LEGO built world (correct me if I'm wrong) but can you imagine having to build EVERYTHING out of LEGO when it's so inefficient? City game with LEGO skyscrapers of all different kinds? Sounds like it would take 10x the work to make those 3d models. Anyways, another opinion I have is that LEGO should focus on making LEGO more efficient. It's kind of connected. I'm not saying Minecraft levels of efficiency or anything but I do think that like 50% of LEGO parts shouldn't exist. I haven't bothered trying to organize my collection by piece/colour/etc in like 6 years because there's just too much and it's literally a multiple day task! Then if I build something I'm going to spend a lot more time reorganizing than the build actually takes.

These look pretty good. 4/5 stars (no figures can be 5/5 since the Batman Movie ones so 4/5 is good). 80% chance I get them all. They look a lot better than the Loony Tunes ones.

I think Bobba being older and having a different body type (the actor is huge even when he's in good shape) is fine. So he got dumped in a Sarlacc? Maybe he's scarred in a way that makes him look 20 years older and swolen in a way that makes him look 60 pounds heavier (or maybe he just really loved that fruit stuff the Sandpeople gave him). It doesn't matter. A good story could have made that really simple to overlook. Too bad the story isn't good. The last battle had a few moments (the Rancor) but those giant droids... at one point the Mandalorian and Boba were just talking like 10 feet away, no cover. Then once in a while they'd shift over a few feet as this big giant war droid with a clear shot would miss somehow. This is the WORSE I've seen it with Star Wars in a live action show. The amount of MISSING. It's like that but somehow WORSE. And not from a COMEDY MOVIE. Rancor was the only cool thing. Also why do all Star Wars fights for WHOLE PLANETS only have like a dozen or so people involved? WHy didn't Boba take Slave 1 and just shoot all these people dead? Why does nothing make sense? And once again Boba and the Mandalorian get shot about 20 times each, because no enemy can shoot them anywhere except exactly on thier limited armour. Beskar aka plot armour is the laziest, stupidest writing. I'd like it if it was more limited like maybe you get shot a few times and it starts to fail. But they're basically invulnerable. Mando got smashed into a freakin' buidling and seemed fine. The only time he got injured was with the darksaber on himself whoops! I don't know how it's so bad. I don't know why people are so accepting of stuff that doesn't make any sense in any universe. The characters are bland and poorly written. The action is usually pretty bad. The Vespas are the first time Star Wars has had bad art direciton (usually Star Wars even at it's worse had amazing art). My mind. It boggles.

Like the Mandalorian the characters in Boba are boring (not 100% of the time hopefully). -spoilers- Mandalorian has the main character who is as stoic as they come. Too much so. His character development is basically "I won't take off my mask" to "I will now take off my mask because I like you" could have been done in two episodes. He's a stale and slow moving character. He's outshined by other characters massively (the IG unit was the best character and DIED, Cara Dune was okay but she's gone forever due to Twitter stuff). But I still am okay with Mandalorian as an "average" show. But I have higher expectations of Star Wars I guess, despite the fact that most Star Wars TV is trash. I'd still rate this show okay. It's just REALLY slow and took some time to get anywhere. The first episodes with that old man were incredibly dull and that was the most boring character I've seen on TV lol. Now we have Boba. It feels very much the same as the early Mandalorian. Boba Fett is too stoic. He's got lofty goals that I don't understand how he plans to enact them (or at least it seems unrealistic). His whole "respect" thing is kind of dumb. But I think I'm most annoyed by the fact that they're trying to turn him into a bit of a hero. He's never been pure villain but I mean he's known for disintegration... I want to see that! But right now he's just dull. The sandpeople story is dull as heck (why do I want to watch a dumb sandpeople dance?). Everything is dull. I forget the woman's name who he's got as a partner but she's incredibly stoic too. WHY DOES STAR WARS KEEP GOING FULL STOIC!? The original Star Wars movies had great characters WITH great character. You could explain them in a word and know immidiatly who it is. They were easy to describe and just were oozing with character. Han being the dashing rogue with a heart. Leia being the rebelious and strong princess not afraid of a fight. Luke being the whiny kid (I wanted to go to Toshi station to pick up some power converters!) with a hidden potential and a lot to learn. Etc etc. Most of the Mandalorian and Boba characters are just... stoic. Also the Gamorrean Guard costumes look ridiculously bad. They look like painted fat dudes in rubber masks. But more to the point they look worse than the original somehow lol. While I appreciate Star Wars using phsyical stuff rather than CGI a lot of the time, the physical stuff doesn't ALWAYS work. The way the Gamorrean Guards have almost no articulation to the faces is bad. I mean, the old Ninja Turtle movies had 10000x the character on their masks. These dudes can like twitch slightly. And the bodies just look like some hobbiest body painter went to town on them... It's been a LONG time since the original Star Wars and I think we MUST have gotten better at these things since then, why does it look worse? On the COMPLETE opposite spectrum (I can't be pleased!) the Hutts were CGI and looked like the Special Edition Hutt. I would have loved to see why a physical puppet could have done for those two. Again, all they would need to do would be make it like the originals but... better! And some shows even use a mix of puppet and CGI to enhance them and it often looks good. We're only two episodes in though. Maybe it'll get "average" like Mandalorian.

The LEGO video games have basically not changed in any meaningful way since their conception and are therefore bad, and have been bad for a lot of years now. At least to people who have played more than a few of them.

I actually think LEGO is terrible to build with in software. It's too complicated. Few know the names of pieces or how to find the right ones. While LEGO is the staple of the building toys in the physical world (because it's different for various reasons) it's pretty bad to sift through digitally and build with LEGO. I know some people here would disagree but there's a reason digital LEGO creation software never exploded outside of hardcore fans. It's just too complicated! It's one thing to have your own physical pieces you're looking for. Another thing to comb through a massive library and get overwhelmed immediately. Minecraft is the ultimate digital builder because most pieces are just a different colored square :P. So easy, so approachable. But it works digitally. Nobody would like that in physical form. Stacking just cubes.

Hmmm if there's movie tie in stuff I'd at least hope for actual sets and not this game stuff. The gamey stuff is just not for me... give me my dream of real Mario minifigures...

Gave up years ago. It's a full time job to keep track of it all and I'd need to dedicate a whole room or two...