Zeya

Looks like Lego Universe is cancelled. http://www.brickjournal.com/view/article/82/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Brickjournal+%28BrickJournal%29

Thank you for writing that up. I really enjoyed reading the Forestmen article in particular. It's making me nostalgic for the days of my youth (born in the early 80s so I grew up with these themes). I really like how you point out the unique features of the sets and all the minute trivia. And the instruction scans with the alternate builds are a treat too. Thanks!

They do: in Japan. They're in those little hard bubble things in a vending machine. I will say that identifying through the bag feels a little wrong. But it's kind of like driving a turbocharged sports car while your coworker had a hybrid electric. Kind of the same feel anyway. There are worse things in life. (Megabloks.)

After looking at photos and inventories for a while, I think I'm going to go with 2516 Ninja Training Outpost. I was also looking at 2258 Ninja Ambush, but I already have a polybag with a red ninja (fighting a giant turkey, lol), and I don't need to double up on red ninjas - rather have a black one. I'll also be getting a black scorpion, a bow, and a katana, which is all new to my collection. The rest is gravy. Thanks!

Nice!

fred67 : Interesting stuff. I look forward to a more promising web presence from TLG. I've been really enjoying Cuusoo already, although it does need some polishing and a better flow. (It's hard to simply browse existing projects on there!) And the official Lego forums were pretty bad, what with the censorship and all, so there's definitely improvement to be had there. But I think stuff like Cuusoo is the way to go. We don't need "a myspace for Lego", as I don't care so much about reading yet another wall of posts and rants. But something oriented around MOCs and sharing designs would be great. Has anyone ever posted saying they've won the prize? Lol, come on.

Black Friday. More like stay inside at home and don't you dare leave Friday. *sigh* I read up on that last year. I think there was a theoretical 50% off as the max, but I read a post by a Lego store employee who said nobody ever got that high among all the hundreds of customers that day. Like, it's possible, but basically it ain't gonna happen, lol. I'm not 100% sure on the numbers, as my memory is fuzzy. But the feeling I got back then was that nearly everyone got something like 10% off and then just a few lucky people got something at the next level, like 20 or 25% off, and essentially nobody got the highest discount possible. Again, don't /quote me on this, haha.

I agree. If LotR is coming next year, it will definitely be after the January-April timeframe, because we've already seen the catalog leaks of that stuff. Lego has a vested interest in keeping this quiet until after the holidays, so as not to hurt sales of Kingdoms sets or anything else in general. That's in addition to their usual (attempted) secrecy. My two cents: there's enough anecdotal evidence to lead me to believe this is probably happening. The ambiguous video game announcement aside other Lego branded games, what Mirandir said about Kingdoms not continuing, and what On Stranger Tides said (probably 3rd hand knowledge from a Lego store friend?). We'll probably see hard evidence pretty soon. (God help us all.) P.S. I've gotten this thread crossed with the "Kingdoms 2012" thread. Sorry for any confusion.

New thread idea: Share Your Bag Fondling Stories.

Is that speculation? Also, POBS = Pirates of the Burning Sea. I played that game for a little while when it launched. It was fun for about 3 weeks, lol.

I have a wide open "which set" question for you all. I have $5USD to spend at Toys R Us, in the form of a gift card, basically. (It's their cash back coupon that's just a flat $5 credit in the form of a barcode that they scan.) I would consider using this coupon toward some set that I really want, but I'm afraid I've essentially bought them all. Oh and I have to do this by Halloween before the coupon thing expires, or these $5 just go to waste. So my question is, what small impulse set can I buy for around $5? I won't use it for CMFs, since I have them all. I usually buy pirates and castle stuff, but I usually use these types of coupons on stuff like Atlantis impulses and City impulses. I usually go for the minifigure accessories or unique parts when doing this, for elements not found in pirate/castle sets or for citizens for my modular buildings display. Any good ideas? Maybe a polybag or something?

I support the idea of written guides to the different factions and "sub themes" (if I'm using that term correctly) throughout the years. There are a couple of threads like that over in the Pirates area. One is dedicated to sorting out the official published names of various characters (usually from old comic books). And there's another thread/series that went over each "wave" of Pirate sets with an overview of each one and some critiques from an eagle's view. I found these very interesting and that would be a good project for someone willing to do it. TalonCard's series of guides on Pirates theme factions: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=11276 http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=12294 http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=15273 http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=16092 SirSven7's guide to Pirate set waves: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=54845 Characters proper names thread: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=50788&st=0 Stuff like this for Castle would be great. I've never heard any proper names for Castle characters though, so that one may not be possible. That might be unique to Pirates, as far as classic themes go; I'm not sure. I've been in the hobby for a year now, and I'm not familiar with all the factions. I don't think I was as a kid either. I love reading articles like this; it really gives some perspective to the themes/subthemes. Of all these, I especially like the overview of the set waves, and what each wave brings to the table and what they did wrong or right. Another great idea that I agree with: a sub forum for MOCs. It's worked well over in the Pirates area too. You know just where to go to view some MOCs. The only argument against would be that probably the majority of posts are MOCs and the rest of the forum would look kind of bare, maybe? Also maybe that it hides away MOCs where people may not notice them. Pros and cons.

Response to spoiler:

That was interesting. Bricklink was on there twice. :) I stated that I would like to see more articles and Q&A sessions with Lego designers. That's in response to "what should Lego do for your community?"

Oh, that would be great. I'd buy like 3 of them just to "farm" some trees for my collection. And if they did that withthese snow-covered trees, that would be great. Those suckers go for like 3 or 4 bucks on BL. I'd like to see these show up in the winter sets in any case, even just one or two.

Nice. Those 23 bluecoats are going to sell for like a million dollars. *sigh* I need more money to blow on Lego auctions.

Some other people and I brought this up in the other thread: there's a new Spongebob set coming out for 2012 that's practically a Pirate set. There are some good accessories on the minifigs. The ghost guy has a different color & print of Blackbeard's hat and a green shoulder bag. Also I suppose his "legs" could become a grotesque mermaid tail. Spongebob's hat has a nice skull printing on it. And Patrick's torso could easily be a fleshie pirate's torso. And beyond minifigs, that set has some other parts of interest as well, but that's beyond the scope of this thread, I think.

Well let's see. They're all named like "Winter Village _____". Except for the precursor "Holiday Train", which may or may not be in the theme, strictly speaking. So I would expect the next set to be named with "Winter Village" in the title as well. So what else comes in a village? I wouldn't expect a house like some people say, I would expect more shops. I think a candy shop was a good guess. Maybe a old timey gas station, the kind where the pump has glass on the top? Maybe a sledding rental shack?

I saw that recently as well. Pretty intense. I've seen Colin Farrell in some bad/annoying roles, but he was good in this. Another good movie with him is In Bruges.

Like this guy from Battlefield Earth:

The guy living there is very fond of that painting of a schooner, because he has two of them. Also, he lives with an angry santa claus.

I chatted a little bit with the guy who does the PAB part ordering at my local store (Santa Clara, CA). He was a really pleasant person. I learned a couple of useful things. Apparently they don't put parts below a certain size on the wall, for fear of kids choking on them. He said he can't even order certain parts like that. I think he may have been talking about things even smaller than a 1x1 plate though, it wasn't clear. Also one of the more enticing parts (at least to him and maybe customers in general) was that they started carrying white horses. Oh, and he also said that new shipments come in twice a week or more. They're always refilling empty bins with new stuff. He asked me what parts I would want on the wall, which was nice. I was kind of caught off guard. I told him anything green or plant-like would be nice, 1x1 or 1x2 bricks and plates. (And that prompted the discussion of smaller sized parts.) Told him we could live without tires and stuff like little hollow containers, lol. But yeah, he sounded very open to suggestions and ideas of what to order. So you could probably ask to talk to the person who stocks the PAB wall at your local store and they might order what you want...

The ghost guy has a nice version of Blackbeard's hat from PotC, as well as a green scabbard! I can't make out what's in his hand. Spongebob's hat and Patrick's pants are also nice. You could use those legs with a fleshie pirate, I think. Actually, the same goes for the torso, too. Beyond minifigs, some of those pieces have never been in green before, like the inverted arch and the "life preserver" pieces. I double-checked BL to verify. That brown hull is new to me. Might be nice for making a smaller craft. Oh, and that sale is not a cloth material; it's ABS, like a curved wall piece. Interesting. Besides this Spongebob ship, there is also a Ninjago ship for next year that might have some interesting parts as well. I've only seen fuzzy photos of that though. It's sort of in the style of a Chinese junk, but you know... hyper-stylized.

No Kingdoms in 2012? There had better be something for a Pirates & Castle fan like me... I look forward to hearing more details from you, Mirandir. Hopefully I will like one of those two new second-half themes. Thanks for commenting.

I got my prepacks a day or two ago. They're tiny plastic baggies with one gold bar and a few gold coins, all chrome gold. Thanks for the help, everyone. (Wow this thread started on May 12. I procrastinated on this way too long!)