alienwar9

Blast from the past, here I come! I signed, even if I've been out of the loop for a few years.

You might have made my day! If I can figure out how to easily use this, you will have saved me weeks of painful work. I am sort of coming back from the dead after a horrendous experience with bricklink. I had about 9,000 pieces to purchase, with more than 1,000 different types, and I was in a hurry to meet a deadline. It took me 4 days of 16-20 hrs straight with 3 monitors of multiple store pages trying to manually filter for the cheapest prices.... and you can guess how many mistakes that led to. (Granted, I also happened to pick the exact day where bricklink crashed to start all this, so that didn't help). Anyway, I ended up $2,000 over budget, and I had to go back a few months later to recoup and purchase about $300 worth of missing pieces (either from my mistakes, or stores that forgot pieces because I asked for rush service....when bricklink crashed). I'm betting I'm not the only one with horror stories that could have been prevented. That is why I think this is one of the greatest developments for some MOC builders, saving people a lot of time, mistakes, and money. I'd be more than happy to donate or help out in any way (though my coding/programming skills are pretty much non-existant). I still have 5 more stages of my project to get through, so I'm fully on board the idea of this program!

I wanted to do a quick update for everyone on where the project is at. I've just gotten through ordering 52,000 pieces on bricklink, going to multiple Lego stores and butchering the pick-a-brick, and even getting some full stock boxes for the pick-a-brick wall. And if you haven't heard bricklink went down for a day and got hacked. But, for me, it felt like a week, because my pieces were stuck in stasis in the Wanted-List, un-editable (Wanted-list is still not fixed). So I had to go down hard on bricklink manually, and with 3 computer screens, over 20 windows, and over 60 hours of purchasing (47 of those in 3 days), I managed to get roughly 45,000 pieces from over 50 stores. By the way, this was my first time using bricklink...and my first day was the day it got hacked. Just my luck huh? Some of the stuff has already arrived. Some stuff is coming, and some stuff hasn't even been paid for and might not make it in time. I'm hoping all the important pieces come in time, but I have to say, I wish I had another week. Preparation holds no grounds to bad luck. On the bright side, the sections are picked, color corrected, realistically rebuilt for real pieces, and modified for cheaper pieces. I've even built some support pillars and a wall. Anyone want to help build??? Hopefully you will all get to see the finished results at Brickworld, and for those not attending, pictures will be up afterward. Oh, and you'll get to see how I cheated

MANUALLY. That is the word to describe how I just purchased those pieces. Ouch. 47 hours of purchasing, and over 50 stores, but its done. hopefully everything arrives in time. Some stuff already coming. Wish me luck!

Hi all, Seems like recently things have been falling apart, and last minute purchasing has become danger zone timing. I have been trying to quickly finish up my MOC in LDD and start purchasing all the pieces, but with bricklink down and then many issues after that, I have only managed to put less than half the orders in (roughly 20,000 pieces). Until the Wanted-list features are back up, there is no reasonable way to purchase the other 32,000 pieces that I can think of. With a little more than a week left until Brickworld, and the Wanted-list supposedly not being fixed until at least late tomorrow, it seems as if this project might not get finished in time. Truly unfortunate, considering I have been working on this for over 2 and 1/2 years. Yes, many things were done too late. Though to be honest I tried my best to get things done as quick as possible while trying to keep good results, but with the obvious hurdles of creating large project MOCs and the many "things that can go wrong will go wrong", the pivotal purchase point came and went, most likely missed. So, with that, I just wanted to share where this project is, maybe hear some other horror stories of things that went wrong in either MOC building, or preparing/setting up for events, and possibly even ask if anyone has any good ideas, tips, helpful suggestions, etc. Not sure if this is the best or right topic location, but since this is for Brickworld, I thought it might be somewhat related. (btw, the display is/was supposed to be part of the city below in my sig).

Ooo, yay! I kind of felt bad for making the topic in the first place, because the first one was closed so quick after. But I just thought it might be an interesting thing to talk about each other's experiences and get a feeling for how this is affecting everyone. See if anyone had to do workarounds, maybe get tips on handling bricklink withdrawal I sincerely feel bad for Eric having to fix the problems by himself and fix all of bricklink. Has bricklink ever been down or attacked like this before? Or do I have the worst timing in the world, using bricklink for the first time? Oh, and I think I lost some hair. Only half my order has gone through. I'm stuck waiting for the Wanted-lists to be editable so I can remove what I have purchased so far and search for the stores with the most pieces that I have left. Looks like I'm going to spend a lot more on quick shipping By the way, does anyone know how to do a search for a large group of pieces in stores? The query stores check-mark in the wanted list does not hold through multiple pages.

Is it just me, or is bricklink down again? And yes, I know, the old thread was closed. And I'm sorry if this is a little cluttery, but seriously, I need to know what's up. I'm in the middle of finalizing a $2,500 order (half the total) and I've spent the last 9 hours straight with 3 computer screens and 8 windows comparing piece by piece prices. I'm super super scared The twitter feed says they have been attacked. I seriously want to grind whoever attacked the site in very sharp lego pieces. grrr Sorry. Anyway, anyone know what's up?

couldn't.be.worse.timing I'm late like a week for ordering in time for Brickworld, and today was supposed to be an all day sorting of 1,100 lots into their respective stores to purchase, and as soon as I get my 3 computer screens setup (yes, I'm doing row-by-row price checking on multiple stores at once) bricklink happens to be down! I suppose a week of things going wrong should be a sign, but I can't say I saw this one coming. Sorry all, my bad luck has entered the internet Now time to stare at the twitter feed.

I looked through the index, but none of the utilities have the feature that I need. Bricklink's list of wanted-list creator programs also don't have the feature. The only one I've found that comes close is brickstore, since it gathers price data from bricklink. But I'm not sure if the author of Brickstore will reply quickly enough (I think he is from Germany). (The site also hasn't been modified in 4 years ) I've gotten through 5 out of 23 pages of pieces so far though!

well, some good news. I converged the separate wanted lists into 1 and now there are only 1,119 lots! I saved many hours of work there

Hello everyone, I'm trying to get a huge order done (over 1,100 lots, over 50,000 pieces), and I'm wondering if there is any way to quickly setup a filter for prices. I have uploaded 4 separate wanted lists of the 4 sections of the MOC, and have gone to the "by shop" tab and sorted by lots (unique) to get the best match for stores, but once I start filling out the cart, I see that many pieces are just overpriced at the specific stores. I want to try and get an average price per piece at $0.12, and I used the program "brickstore" to calculate that reasonable average (at least I think it's reasonable). So I am trying to go for just under the average prices. I also noticed that you can setup a maximum price for the items in the wanted list, but as I have over 9,000 items, and having to click on each piece to check the average price and then set the maximum individually would be a pain, is there any way to quickly set maximum prices on a wanted list, say, to average prices? Or is there any program that will create a wanted-list that sets maximum prices automatically? Oh, and also, I noticed when you auto-fill cart minimum for a wanted list, it adds both new and used pieces, basically doubling the pieces you want. Is there any way to get it to fill up with used and then get the rest new, or do I have to go through every piece and subtract the number of used pieces from the purchase of new?

I have used the program "brickstore" to get an average price for entire mocs, and used it to get an estimate of $0.12 average per piece. But I am wondering if anyone familiar with it knows if you can set a price to every piece (like the average it allows you to set the pieces to) and then upload a wanted-list that INCLUDES those set prices as maximums. Does that make any sense? The reason being that I noticed that you can set price maximums that will constrict the search when looking at stores in the "by shop" view. But with 1,900 lots, searching for the average price and then setting individual price maximums for all of them is a mountainous task. So aka, is there any program that generates xml wanted-lists that can also auto-set price maximums?

Hi, Not sure if this is in the right forum, but I'm running a little low on time and I think it is at least a little bit related. I've finished color checking and gotten the sections of my city ready in LDD for BrickWorld, and used LDD Manager to get it done while also upload the parts to bricklink (thank you so very very much for the wonder that is LDD Manager! ). Unfortunately, it gets really messy once at bricklink. There are 1,965 items or lots in my wanted list, and over 50,000 pieces...and I can't seem to find an easier way to search for the best stores to purchase from (or even an easy way to organize the purchases). I've at least divided the wanted lists into 4 separate sections, based on the city sections, but they all have around 500 lots. Is there any program or option to sort/group items into "store based" wanted lists? Is there any way to check if stores have ALL or enough of the pieces in a lot that you need? (so say you need 300 1x1 black bricks, and the wanted list/by store tab shows stores that have 10 lots that you need, if one of those has the black bricks, can you know if they have ENOUGH?) Is there any way to sort stores by cheapest AND with enough pieces? ...what about also with the highest matching lot count? Is there any way to quickly find the items you need in a store, add them to your cart, and purchase? Is there any way to sort by nearest location? (aka less shipping costs, and shorter delivery times) OH, and is there anyone who would like to help? I am trying to get all this ordered at least in the next couple days, and I have all day long to work on ordering everything, but it needs to be soon so everything has enough time to ship. I've been super crammed with time, and so I'm getting a bit confused and making mistakes like asking this last minute 2 years of work and everything comes down to a few days. yikes Anyway, any help would be greatly, GREATLY appreciated. (I'll give you a part of the city! ...kidding. I'm just kidding.) Thank you!

@Andy D: This is going in my basement (only place with enough room). Funny thing, the tallest buildings will have to go in between the ceiling support beams . I am planning on finishing it this year and also auctioning it off for charity, so I don't think I have to worry too much about spousal objections . @Legocrazy81: I'm hoping they won't. That's why I plan to actually put LED lights in all the ...lights. Looks like 5 and 6b have been overtaken by 1 and 7. Note though, that unless I take out the subway in section 1 (which I might have to anyway), that would be the only section I could make since it is almost 50k pieces by itself. The only possibility would be section 1 and 2, and it looks like section 2 is not a favorite. I highly suggest taking a look at the original posts for each section to see more pictures (all links are above the section pictures), or just check out the brickshelf folder. I admit that 1 picture is not enough to get an idea of the section. Thank you again for all the kind words ! I have to finish the lower half of the city (what's left) in LDD before I can start ordering parts, but I will keep you updated until that point. P.S. Any good shops on bricklink for large quantities?

@ Ricecracker: thank you for setting up the poll!!! I had this imagined in my head as a poll and you have made my dreams come true @Legocrazy81: thanks for pointing that out! I cannot believe that I kept all those there . A leftover from a previous design I guess. @prateek: I'm actually praying that I can get some help from TLG or something. The whole project idea is to auction this off for charity in the end. I had a post long ago discussing how I could approach this, but back then I seemed more like a mad-man rambling on a crazy idea, and it was my first MOC so I really looked insane. The idea is to get at least a section done on my own and show it as proof-of-concept or something and see where it goes from there. But I am fully willing and ready to fund this entirely on my own (I just have to work harder this year ) Thanks for all the kind words! So far it looks like section 5 and 6b are the favorites. Any and all feedback are super duper welcome! (the highway is now comfortably lit)