Brickdoctor

It's actually not uncommon for there to be a small window of "Out of Stock" between two periods of "Sold Out" or "Retired," especially when it comes to larger, higher-profile sets. As I understand it, this is because the status is automatically set to "Sold Out" and no one can buy the set as soon as there are no more sets that can be shipped, and this includes the sets which people have added to their carts. If some of those people then decide not to buy the set, after a certain amount of time, the set is removed from their cart and the computer system will let someone else buy the set. The short window during which you can buy an about-to-be-retired set lasts only as long as it takes for those final sets that were in someone's cart to be bought.If you're still interested in buying the set, you could try calling a Brand Retail store to ask if they have one on the shelf or in the back.

I really like how the base of your vig even around the sides is overgrown with foliage, and I always like seeing MMV-style trees. The small ship you've built is sort of like a souped-up T-47, with the blunted nose and white color and centered enclosed cockpit, but sleeker and with that big engine at the back. I think it's the perfect look for a small cargo transport on a planet like Corellia.

It clearly shows that you've put a lot of thought into this. You've done a great job deciding which elements of the scene you needed to incorporate in order to make the setting clear in a limited amount of space, and you've wasted none of that space, filling it all with greebles and other details. At the same time, you haven't crammed too much into the MOC. This is how vignettes should be designed. Great work!

I don't have any socks to necessitate owning a sock drawer. No one sells socks with stat bonuses.

And I never said that the Wookiee Gunship wasn't a reality or wasn't just as much a gunship, either. I only said that I thought it didn't look Star Wars-esque.

Being much more curved and painted with feather-inspired designs versus being largely angular is not exactly a "relatively minor aesthetic design difference." But yes, I've acknowledged a couple times already that it shares the same major elements and functions with the LAAT/i. I still don't think that it fits in or looks good. Again, ugly cars share the same general structure and purpose as good-looking cars. They still don't fit in or look good.

Fair enough. Your post was right after mine and you didn't quote anybody, so I wanted to clarify my position.

I never said it should be changed now; I'm saying that the fact that zakura won is further reason that this shouldn't have been done in the first place and shouldn't be done in the future.I never complained that this particular game was too hard; I was complaining because a QM shouldn't tease players with valuable artifacts that are intended to be impossible to win. I didn't want anybody to win; I didn't think that the odds should be made changed to be more favorable — I didn't think the minigame should've been included in the first place.

It's not "just another LAAT/i." Although they share a lot of major elements, the LAAT/i and LAAT/c are actually pretty angular, with rounded off edges. They aren't attempting to look bulkily animalian or organic. As I alluded to above, ugly concept cars still share major elements with regular cars. That doesn't mean they look good and it doesn't mean that they fit in.

I hardly think it right for other artifacts to be nerfed in order to balance out the result of your dropping this artifact.

...and that's another excellent reason why you should never tease players with ridiculously good items at nigh-impossible chances, because it addition to being unsportsmanlike, it can backfire and now you've dropped an item that wasn't ever supposed to be dropped again.

Considering the amount of cutting and gluing and drilling now involved in this minifig, I'm going to move it to MCW...

"Doesn't look like anything else" might be realistic, but it doesn't equate "looks good to everybody." Zeppelins do look pretty unique, and they turned out pretty cool. This is what we want the Rebels designers and LEGO set designers to do. At the same time, it's easy to search for, 'ugly <vehicle>' (especially cars) and get some lists of designs that don't really look like anything else* and are fairly ugly because they don't fit in with what we expect and/or regard as attractive.Again, do not infer that I am suggesting that the designers stick purely to designs from the OT. I'm not criticizing the creative decision, just this one particular result it produced. *But don't ugly concept cars still look like cars? Well, even if they do, the Wookiee Gunship still looks a lot like a gunship. It shares a lot of major design elements with the LAAT/i, but I think most of us can agree that the latter, while looking nothing like anything else previously seen in Star Wars, looks a whole lot better than the former.

Firstly, while lots of the work McQuarrie did is excellent, being a McQuarrie design does not necessarily mean something automatically fits in — after all, there's a reason that the concept wasn't used in the movies, and it may or may not be that George didn't think it matched the aesthetic he was looking for. Not saying that that's the case here, but it's worth pointing out.Secondly, forgive me if I'm putting words into someone else's mouth here, but I don't think any of us are saying that the designers have to be constrained by previous work, nor are we saying that the vast Star Wars universe all has to look one certain way. We're merely saying that this design doesn't immediately scream "Star Wars!" to us when we look at it. We're not saying that the designers shouldn't be creative...we just don't really like where that creativity has ended up this time.

I agree that the world doesn't always follow the unwritten rules of sportsmanship, but this is a (fairly) casual RPG, and we don't need to recreate every aspect of the real world — I'm all for more realism, but only up to the point where it's still interesting and fun for the players to work with. I admit that I've done no research on the subject, but intentionally recreating something that leads to a frustrating and annoying gameplay experience for players seems like bad game design to me.I'm not saying that what Bricksandparts has incorporated should be changed or removed or deemed illegal, and if QMs want to do that in the future, I'm not saying that any rules should be put into place to limit them. But this just doesn't seem like a decent thing to do, to me. Yes, sometimes players of games break the unwritten rules of sportsmanship, but that doesn't make it the right thing to do.

I wouldn't call the game setup 'unfair' as much as I'd call it 'unsportsmanlike' or even 'trolling,' or say that it was breaking some unwritten rule. It just seems wrong to tease players with an extremely powerful item — one which I don't think Sandy wants dropped anymore — and then make it nigh-impossible to actually acquire.

OoC: Why can't you deal Damage, Bricksandparts? Can't you just switch weapons? (I'm assuming the elemental ineffectiveness was the reason last Round.)

Thanks for the link! I like it as a set design, but I don't like it as anything in the Star Wars universe. I think it's a cleanly designed, interestingly shaped vehicle; it just doesn't fit in with the SW aesthetic. Great job, LEGO; the guys working on Rebels are at fault here.

OoC: I'm not sure how much the correction benefits us considering the Counterstrike, but none of the enemies would've done any Damage to me with their Free Hits; they're all affected by my Dread Hat. (Wow, it's been a long time since I can remember that having an effect.) I use a Grand Potion on Namyrra, then I attack Aepyornis C from the Back Row with my Darksteel Crossbow. Order of Actions: Undead Bartholomew Docken Bartholomew Docken Johon Namyrra Uq Namyrra Uq

I wasn't actually trying to say that it would look better with SNOT better; I was trying to say that despite the fact that I usually like SNOT, I really like how you've done this studded, and I think it looks really good studded.

Well, considering that the minifigs used are Gungans, I'd say the dialogue style you chose to use is a definite improvement.

Also, I should mention that a lot of collectors and fans have taken to buying up the parts for a retired set individually and piecing it together, since most of them will display it built, and so that takes away a fair number of buyers who would've been interested in buying a big set after it's ben retired.