anothergol

well the community has fixed that now. Good old LDD resurrected. wut? It's intuitive, but (still too) buggy & unpolished. It's visually polished & looks better than the LDD that's for sure, but things like moving around, centering camera, and most importantly part snapping, those are better & faster in the LDD. I know that the thing I do the most (by far!) in the LDD is rotating/moving around, and this requires centering the camera. In the LDD it's just right-click, in Studio it's through a menu, it's annoying, and it has been buggy for years (many bugs if you use groups/subassemblies, including centering the camera). I wish the LDD had a way to switch collision off & move parts around freely, though.

Yeah Studio is still far from replacing the good old LDD. I wouldn't blame Studio's sorting of parts because it does make sense & fits Bricklink - it's just guilty of being different from the one in the LDD but that's all. But from plenty of other angles Studio lacks, is less polished & more buggy. ..but it's still the #1 tool for easy renders & manuals. It's a great companion to the LDD for that reason.

New year, new version: (a bit enhanced by not-so-LEGO tiles)

Falcon shield back in stock. Even though some of the parts I was planning to buy are now already gone, I've placed an order for the shields because those are too gone in 30min I assume.

All the new sets added, parts listed but nothing available. Funny to see this part resurected, but in DBG

These are obviously chinese clones, especially when it's as basic as a Vader minifig. There's no SW minifig that you can't find on Ali, they even expand on it, you'll find tons of baby yoda's in different forms. If a legit one exists (& it's often in red color), and you'll find it with the "HTF" tag on Bricklink, for big bucks.

I think it's not "still nothing" but "already gone". Even 30min after someone reports them, these things are already gone..

Interesting. Talking about that part, I recently got it in LBG as a chinese clone. I don't even like those old elephants, but they were only a fraction of the price of the old grey elephant trunk & ears on BL, and here they're LBG instead - pretty useful! at the same time, the new clear material scratches even more easily - they kinda have to

Mmmh when I first saw the pictures I thought we got a new little connector that was connected to a 11090. Then I thought that it got to be ratchetted because Lego doesn't like Legs that are too fragile. But now looking at the zoom, yeah I see it's worse, it's a L-shaped clip-to-bar hole connector, with a fixed 90deg joint, more or less another new "robot leg". Well it's still good to take, but.. not amazing.

The reason I think it's ratchetted (we -already- have a compact ratchetted clip system) is that even though normal clips have enough friction for legs on small or mid-size builds like in these sets, Lego generally avoids those, probably because they lose friction in the long term. When Lego uses normal clips for legs, they generally put a clear brick under the build as the "real" stand.

The ones on the spider legs among other places. I believe they're either a new 2-parts ratchetted hinge, or one new part.

Btw for those who were looking for 69066 & 68504, they're available now. Way too expensive for tiny massable parts. Trunc is pretty useful for texturing, but you'd need quite a lot. Yeah, but sadly for decoration purposes, the clip part won't have friction

I don't know exactly what those new small clip parts are, but they're gonna be a game changer. Only hoping they're not ratchetted, but it looks like they might be. And since they're used for legs, they probably are :( (of course small ratchetted clips are compatible with normal ones but the connection is very weak)

I can only speak for europe, but no. They can place an order for you, but you'll still have to phone in order to pay. It doesn't seem to have changed since Paypal, but perhaps now it has.

Yep, and frankly I'm fine with that, it's better than not getting the part. Only that's (most likely) why they're told not to accept adding zero-price parts to carts, because it's probably illegal. It's more of a problem when the price is listed and you end up paying much more, which is a thing that was happening in the past (those 5 cents parts), and what I was expecting to happen with the 2 cents gold parts (but it didn't).

Let me guess, the operator was new and didn't know what was going on with the system giving him errors, later realizing that it was because some parts didn't have a price yet. I've been on hold for up to 1h15 like that (to be told that the no-price parts would be free, but of course they never are) It was worse, back then parts would only randomly appear 6 months later, and some would simply never be in stock. I believe it started in 2020 (or 2019?) that parts started to get listed & generally in stock the day the sets were launched. But it didn't last and now they get listed on launch but rarely in stock once again.

Second "anniversary" vote has started on Ideas. Castle was kinda at the top (but also kinda not), so it's votable again. I voted classic space for this one, though (at the same time it asks you to vote for one, but allows selecting multiple) Oh and falcon legs are gone too now.

Aaaaaand the falcon torso is gone already. So is the orange space helmet. And the horse.

They have numbers here: https://www.lego.com/en-gb/aboutus/lego-group/contact/locations/ Normally when you call the 00800 (from any european country) you end up in the UK anyway. I used to have so much troubles with that 800 that my cellphone wouldn't allow, back then I had to call a belgian number that was redirecting to the UK one. Lego can prepare an order for you by email btw.. only you'll still have to call in order to pay.. which is weird but.. Lego. Ideally they would just let you do that through Paypal.

Tan got back in stock a few days ago but LBG still isn't here. Frustrating when you wait for several items to be in stock at the same time, and one disappears when another appears. (it's also not listed in black yet, while it's used in the forge) Grey now back in stock & black one listed (but not available)

Not gonna happen (sadly "for the environment"), they like to send letters with just 2 parts inside. They will only add (over phone) to an order that has just been placed, and I think you only have a few minutes, hours at best.

for everyone, not just LUGs? Great

By now Lego certainly well knows the demand for animals. And yes they totally shouldn't focus on that, B&P is most likely only responsible for an insignificant fraction of their income. But that was my point, it's Lego who's to blame here, they're responsible for shortages of parts & it's fully understandable why. I happen to still have mine from the 80's - they're still "usable" but so beat up that none of them should ever end up on BL. Perhaps today's parts will survive 50 years because kids don't unassemble stuff anymore, but I see at least 4 reasons for used parts to be bought with care (color incompatibility, yellowing, scratches/defects, and salmonella :) )

Yeah I know, but I wonder if they ditched BrickArms because they weren't Lego, or because they were about modern weapons. BL was already anti clone brands. In parallel Lego has that program (what's the name again?) to work with other businesses, and they don't seem to have a problem working with other people for compatible stuff (like those controversial lighting kit clones). But perhaps Brickarms were too directly competing.

True, and I realized it recently when I wanted to buy bulks of parts that are unique to clone brands, mainly wedge tiles. I asked around & couldn't find anyone who could get them for me, I had to buy a few sets to get a couple of them. That's also why I suspect that Lego has bought BL in order to stop both BL & the Studio app to be used for clones. BL's system is perfectly suitable for any kind of part, & thus other brands. Studio has a part designer (which hasn't evolved/been fixed since Lego bought it, I wonder why), which isn't really useful (except for prints) to anyone but clone brands, I can imagine Lego willing to stop that.