Lyichir
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Everything posted by Lyichir
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You seem to misunderstand what the comments you replied to were in turn replying to, which was criticizing NON-licensed parts from story themes like Ninjago and Nexo Knights as creatively limiting, not licensed ones. Licensed parts like Star Wars helmets are of course much more specific to those sorts of characters, since part and parcel of a licensed theme is to recreate props and costume design to a high level of accuracy (this has been the case since the Star Wars theme first started out, though it has become accentuated as more detailed printing and molds have been introduced). But most Ninjago masks are hardly any more specific to the characters they represent than the masks used by the generic ninja in the 90s Ninja theme—at the most, they might include a symbol signifying which Ninjago character wears them, but absent the context of the Ninjago theme that iconography is generic enough to mean whatever you want. The same applies to the helmets in Nexo Knights, which if anything are more versatile due to using separate visors—a Nexo Knights helmet can be paired with a traditional space visor to represent a spaceman, or the visors can be used with whichever helmet you want to represent different sorts of knights or sci-fi heroes.
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There are a few significant differences between Thomas toys and Lego trains. Firstly (and perhaps most importantly), Thomas the Tank Engine is a franchise aimed primarily at preschoolers, not at regular Lego's older audience. Preschool-age kids love trains, but that doesn't necessarily prove there's a market with older kids like the ones buying Lego. Secondly, most (not all, but most) Thomas toys are much smaller and a much lower price point than full-size, minifig-scale Lego trains. It's much easier to sell a tiny Thomas train at the price of, say, a Lego polybag, than it would be to sell an individual minifig-scale locomotive (let alone a large series of them), and even a larger track set for those small trains will get you more bang for your buck than a Lego train set due to only having to accommodate those sorts of tiny trains, allowing for more complex layouts with ramps, junctions, bridges, etc.
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Latest CMF series impact on Historic themes
Lyichir replied to SirBlake's topic in LEGO Historic Themes
The "horse costume" of the cowboy figure could also work just as well with knight parts for a comedic historic take (perhaps a knight who couldn't get a "real" horse). If only it could wear barding... I wonder what the dragon suit guy would look like with Orca's "open mouth" head... -
Considering not keeping good track of costs and budgets was one of the factors in Lego’s near-bankruptcy, I’m not sure what alternative you’re trying to suggest. Things like budgets have to be paramount if Lego is to remain a sustainable business. That doesn’t prevent the designers from being creative and innovative within those essential constraints.
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That’s really just further proof about why 10,000 votes is not the be-all and end-all of determining a set’s popularity or a project’s likelihood of success. A low-priced City-type vehicle probably wouldn’t get 10,000 votes on Ideas, but I can guarantee most such sets are selling in the hundreds of thousands (likely magnitudes more). Conversely, a giant, impressive project of a semi-obscure subject might get plenty of support but might not actually have a big enough market of people willing to put down the money on a set like that. Edit: missed the whole last page, sorry!
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A new game like Lego Racers would be awesome, but definitely also a challenge, at least if they wanted to include the functionality of building your own car. It'd be a significant programming and physics challenge to make that work smoothly and cleanly without resorting to classic sorts of pre-built chassis, since then issues like weight distribution become an issue. Still, it'd be great to get that sort of functionality at some point, if not in a dedicated racing game than as a mode in something more open-ended like Lego Worlds. That said, as you mention, we really don't know a single thing about what the movie could be about. It could be about an actual, single long-distance race (think Cannonball Run), but it could just as easily be something like Around the World in 80 Days (which focused more on the journey and adventure than on actual "racing"). If it were the latter I'd probably expect something more akin to the classic Lego Games formula, maybe with slightly more driving.
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It covers a small amount of the same ground (especially with the early "power armor" concepts for the knights from KK2). But the characters, world, and almost everything else is different. I wouldn't really consider it a reboot.
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While matching color schemes for similarly "themed" sets are pretty common to Lego sets (just look at the preponderance of bright red fire stations), that's not actually all that accurate to real life. A bright color like yellow generally makes more sense for a helicopter like that which will often be used for remote rescue operations, whereas it'd be fairly garish to have an entire hospital in that color.
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Pretty sure the fire window just has the arched window with grate that's been used in many another Castle or Elves set. Though interestingly, the limb that that part of the treehouse rests on seems to use the Volkswagen wheel arch piece. Speaking of that, I feel like it's a shame none of the "shadow world" dioramas use that in teal (as seen in the Downtown Diner) for larger mushroom details. I've tried to come up with something, but it's hard with both teal and Cool Yellow being somewhat rare colors!
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Or maybe it's something like Garmadon's "evil half"? We'd assumed the evil in him from the first two seasons was destroyed along with the Overlord, but considering the Overlord himself even managed to survive "the final battle", perhaps Garmadon's evil also wasn't destroyed, just banished from Garmadon himself. In fact, considering how much the teasers play up the mystery of, well, Mr. E (groan), I almost wonder if that character might be Garmadon's disembodied evil side, and the resurrection of Garmadon himself is more about creating a new, more powerful body for that evil to inhabit. Bringing it back around to the sets, that might explain Mr. E's inclusion in the Temple of Resurrection set (though that could just as easily be because he's seemingly the "leader" of the Sons of Garmadon).
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Twenty billion? You're off by about a factor of two billion, since there's usually only about two TT Games Lego titles per year (three at the absolute most)? Frankly, the Lego games generally continue to be successful, so there's not much impetus for them to change things up too much, That's not to say there aren't innovations (Lego Worlds, for instance, is a substantially different game than the typical licensed games thanks to its emphasis on building and environmental manipulation), but they aren't going to try to reinvent the wheel completely when they have so many fans enjoying their current output. And with so many popular franchises to cover (not just Star Wars but also both Super Heroes franchises and the occasional other licensed or even non-licensed game), there's only so many games that they can cut out of their release schedule without essentially leaving money on the table. If anything, the demand for Lego games might make for an argument that instead of relying quite as heavily on TT Games, Lego should branch out to other developers to give other types of gameplay a chance, while TT Games continues to put out games based on the successful formula they've established. They sort of do this already, with smaller mobile games developed by other developers (sometimes in partnership with TT Games/WB Games as well), but I can't say I wouldn't be interested in what sort of more prominent game a developer like Telltale Games or Platinum Games could come up with based on Lego's franchises.
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It makes plenty of sense. Lego's secrecy isn't just about preventing "spoilers" for high-profile licenses and such. It's also about preventing other competitors with a quicker production turnaround from getting the drop on Lego by releasing their own similar products alongside or even before Lego's upcoming releases. So, for instance, suppose the reveal of Lego's Jungle Exploration subtheme had come about a month earlier than the New York Toy Fair date—that's a whole other month for some competing brand to come up with their own "Jungle Hero" or "Wild City" sort of brand that, even if not identical to Lego's own, have the potential to siphon off sales of Lego's own product line. I use the Jungle Exploration subtheme as an example not just because it's recent but also because as the City theme branches out and becomes less predictable, the novelty of the new subthemes offers greater potential to competitors.
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I'm not necessarily talking about size, but more about the logistics of brick-built characters versus minifigures in blind bags. The classic Unikitty is 14 parts without accessories, more than double your typical CMF. Would a figure that complex (especially one that might also include additional accessories) be expected to include things like a part count on the package? And if so, how would that be achieved when dealing with multiple characters who may have different numbers of parts between them? I'll certainly be interested to see, but I wouldn't necessarily rule out individualized, non-blind-packaged sets like the Mixels until we have further information. Also, if this information is coming from something like a retailer catalog, would it be possible for it to list only a single product number for a "box" like the Mixels and CMFs come in, even if the sets might have individual numbers themselves? After all, both of those series would have been ordered by retailers by the box, even if customers would buy the "packets" individually.
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I don't think that's as big an issue as you make it out to be. I remember being a Bionicle fan back in the day, and oftentimes you got much more dramatically different (and often visually or even narratively inconsistent) stories between the comics, games, chapter books and movies. The Elves webisodes from last year (and presumably this year's webisodes as well) are a lot simpler, basically telling condensed versions of the story along with minor side-stories like the ones in the earlier webisodes. I think part of the choice to adopt a different style was less a lack of a "unified vision" so much as acknowledging that not all Elves fans would have Netflix, and that the webisodes would have to be on a different schedule and budget than the Netflix series. Those concerns may have also influenced the shift to a mini-doll based art style for the webisodes, since it'd help them to look more like their own thing compared to the earlier webisodes, which if they had continued in that more naturalistic style would have felt like a sub-par version of the more fluid, detailed animation in the Netflix series.
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Ninjago already has a fairly well-established backstory—retconning that to include a radically different theme wouldn't make a lot of sense narratively, and I doubt it'd have much of an impact on flagging sales. In that event Lego is probably more likely to devote resources to developing Nexo Knights' successor (be that a castle theme, a media-driven "big bang" theme, or both) than to try to revitalize a theme that is already slowing down. Personally I liked the blue Power Miners helmets. I felt like they helped contribute to the down-to-earth, blue collar charm of the theme's characters, moreso than a more uniform color-coordinated outfit would.
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The eight episodes on Netflix only really tell last year's story. For the rest, you'll have to watch the older mini-movies and webisodes, which are available to watch on Lego.com, sorted by year (click See All by where each year is listed to get to the full list of videos): https://www.lego.com/en-us/elves/videos The mini-movies tell most of the main story, so it's probably best to start there. The webisodes tend to be shorter character pieces that have a minimal impact on the overall plot but help to flesh out the world and characters (including some elements from the sets that may have gotten glossed over in the mini-movies).
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Latest impact of other themes on historic themes
Lyichir replied to Wardancer's topic in LEGO Historic Themes
A recent Elves promo video shared on YouTube shows some of the summer sets. In terms of new parts that fantasy/historic builders might like, the most obvious one is a recolor of the ornate, spiraling carriage wheel from the Elves and Disney Princess themes. Hard to tell exactly what color due to the moody lighting (it’s definitely not the Warm Gold the part already comes in), but my best guess is Titanium Metallic. -
I would actually buck the trend of choosing the Shadow Castle as best and instead opt for the Queen Dragon's Rescue. It features some similar architecture and great play features as well as an amazing, huge dragon—possibly one of the best ones Lego's ever made. As for worst? I disagree about School of Dragons (since even though I passed on it due to both of the characters being available elsewhere, it's still a perfectly decent set with some nice details and features). I'd sooner pick Aira's Workshop from 2015—it's small, doesn't really represent a full scene, and its most interesting feature is a somewhat cumbersome wing pack. It does feature a unique character (Pluma), but honestly I'd even consider Pluma to be one of the weaker animal designs in the theme.
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Is the CMF description really accurate? If so, it's a huge break from previous CMFs, which almost universally conform to the classic head, torso, legs formula—I can only imagine that a Unikitty series would require much more building, almost more like the non-blind-bagged Mixels. I've been a little ambivalent toward the Unikitty series up to now despite being a huge Unikitty aficionado, but now that it's getting sets maybe I ought to check it out.
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If it doesn't have a baseplate, I don't expect it to attach to Ninjago City at all. It's very rare for a Lego set to be designed in such a way that it doesn't sit flush on the ground. And while there'd certainly be ways to eliminate the half-plate offset the baseplate creates (such as using SNOT techniques), I don't know how effective the overall look would be if the water's surface just cut off abruptly at the edge of Ninjago City's base.
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To be honest I don't see much advantage of the base bricks over the large plates used for most modern sets. In either case, they are less likely to flex or fail than the older baseplates—and in both cases, structural failures (if they occur) are more likely to do so where the plates/bricks are joined than in the center of the parts.
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For people criticizing Mike Psiaki's direction for this new modular, it's important to keep in mind that the design was done with the guidance of the rest of the Lego Creator Expert design team—including but not limited to Jamie Berard. Mike did not singlehandedly make an executive decision to do away with the classic smileys, or to focus on a later architectural style—those sorts of decisions would be made with the input and approval of the team as a whole. In the presentation posted a few pages ago Mike made no effort to hide the fact that Jamie played a significant role critiquing each new iteration of the set design. I really don't want to end up seeing people blaming all the things they don't like about this modular on the mere fact that Jamie wasn't the lead designer this time around. I've already seen too much of that crap from people trying to delegitimize Astrid's models (Town Hall and Palace Cinema). While it's true that each designer will have their own sensibilties that will be reflected in their models, they aren't designing in a vacuum. P.S.: Regarding the bit where he describes vehicles in modulars as popular, I would not be entirely surprised if that is the case for the modulars' wider audience. Jamie himself has mentioned that despite the Fire Brigade being mercilessly criticized online for various aspects including the more American design, small fire engine, and two-floor construction, it sold better than any of the previous modulars. It's easy to forget that the online fan community often represents a small minority of even adult Lego buyers, many of whom may never engage with the wider community. And their opinions and preferences don't always align with the ones you see on sites like Eurobricks or Brickset.
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Neat build, but I feel like it loses something compared to the set. The color scheme feels weaker without the solid blue, and the lack of the bobbing skulls really nerfs its zaniness (which, for me at least, felt like a major part of Time Cruisers' appeal). The motorization looks great, though!
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I guess now might be a bad time to remind everyone that Ninjago also only got a single wave in its third year, only to come back with a vengeance in year four... Granted, the circumstances of Ninjago's un-cancellation were very particular and I doubt Nexo Knights is in the same boat. But still—maybe let's ease up on the doomsaying. It's not even 2018 yet around the globe and people are already rushing to speculate about what 2019 will bring.
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Was super-excited about the tire functionality when I saw it but trying it out for myself, that particular compatibility doesn't seem to be by design. The spinner rim is slightly wider than the type of wheel those tires are meant to fit, requiring you to stretch it a bit to fit into place.