Lyichir

As an old-time Lego Star Wars fan the stud-shooters don't really bother me—truth be told, I was actually a little more put-out when they STARTED using the more realistic blaster molds instead of the (admittedly rather poor in hindsight) megaphone+cone blasters. Stud shooters are an easy and cheap way to add playability to a set, especially a small one like a battle pack that doesn't have as much room for more complex play features. I doubt a petition would have any effect, since even if the response were great it'd most likely only capture the opinion of older Lego fans—not the much larger demographic of child fans, who are likely the main reason stud shooters are included in the first place.

"Oh no, color, now my highly engineered building toy is a baby toy for babies." I mean, I get that "color vomit" can be an issue for some people, but if a few differently colored gears are all that separate Technic and Duplo to you then maybe Lego isn't the problem.

Sort of like a more serious take on Time Cruisers? That could be pretty cool.

A shame. I did appreciate that the Pick-A-Model made useful functional elements like Mixel eyes and joints more readily available for a decent price. Hopefully if this is ending, it won't mean the end of those sorts of parts showing up.

Nindroid! Besides, even if he WERE completely robotic, training could still serve an important function for calibration purposes. Software might include how to punch but without calibrating it specifically to his body, he might punch too hard or not hard enough. On a more serious note, have any sites done a review of the Batman one? I don't generally make Brickfilms, but something like this could still be useful for photos depending on how steady it holds the camera.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't mean that as an attack! It's easy to fall into the trap of confirmation bias. Even I took Brickset's listing of a fourth summer Elves set for this year for granted for several months until it became increasingly apparent that no reliable sources backed it up, just because I wanted to believe that a store exclusive set or even a D2C set was on its way. As it is it's hard to tell whether Nexo Knights will continue into next year, since Mark Stafford's comment debunking the Blocks magazine rumors could conceivably just apply to the claim that the summer sets would not be released. But I've seen very little evidence that Nexo Knights has been a "failure" or that its ending, whenever it comes, would necessarily be premature.

They don't actually seem to swivel (unless you mean by rotating the "head")—they seem to be fixed in place with Technic beams that extend to form the upper legs. But for a water strider, I think that's okay—realistically the legs wouldn't need to leave the surface of the water to convey motion, unlike a "walking" mech.

Not really? As far as I remember, it was just printed on a rumors page in Blocks magazine without any sources or anything else to back it up, and spread like wildfire (thanks in no small part to disgruntled Castle fans took it at face value because they wanted it to be true). It's certainly not ending before the end of this year, at least, which is what the Blocks magazine article alleged.

Because the Firehouse wasn't part of the Ideas theme or based on an Ideas proposal. That's part of the reason why this new rule was implemented—when Lego is in the process of weighing licenses during the Lego Ideas review, other potential products that could be produced under that license are part of the discussion. So it doesn't make sense to let other people try to jump onto the same bandwagon with ideas Lego is in all likelihood already considering, especially since (like in the case of the Firehouse) it invites accusations of impropriety when somebody proposes an extension of that license that is already in the works.

All I've been using are the pictures on Brickset from the press release. I THINK I might have seen someone else share some other pictures that weren't there (including the interior of Lloyd's apartment), but I don't remember who shared them and haven't had time to try and track them down again.

I don't have it anywhere for download and don't really want to upload the LXF until it's done. Sorry! If the base is all you need it should be much simpler than trying to build the whole thing, since all it will take is figuring out where each level needs to meet.

You've still got a ways to go... And no, LDD doesn't have a mirror tool (it'd be a hard thing to implement since there are certain parts that aren't symmetrical and don't have a mirrored version.

I'm sure they would sooner test/release a train using the existing track system than a monorail requiring a new one. It would not be any more of a challenge to create a Friends train that was still as colorful, bubbly, and sleek as the other models in the Friends theme than it would be to create a monorail that had those same qualities. And I don't really see why the appeal of a monorail in terms of structure would vary that much between boys and girls.

Good eye! I could definitely see that used on a pirate!

Those Nexo Power cards remind me of the old Knights' Kingdom II shield cards...

Lego Designer Mark Stafford has weighed in on this HERE. The long and short of it is that monorails were never successful for Lego, test poorly with kids, and no longer represent a popular vision of the future the way they once did. The original molds also no longer exist, as xboxtravis7992 pointed out.

Looks to me like it's just the bigger fang piece at an unusual angle. Note the sort of diamond-shaped base.

I thought General Magmar's weapons were both supposed to be Trans. Red? If it is Trans. Orange, though, it wouldn't necessarily be a new phenomenon—I've seen that sort of variability in older Trans. Orange parts, and it extends not just to whether they're lighter or darker but also whether or not they fluoresce (much more faintly than Trans. Fluor. Reddish Orange) under a blacklight. EDIT: Thought you were talking about his bladed sword-like weapon. The buzzsaw pieces are indeed supposed to both be Trans. Orange.

With a subjective factor like surface finish, it's hard to necessarily assume that it's a defect. Parts change all the time and it's sometimes hard to tell whether or not a change is deliberate or what non-obvious advantages or disadvantages it might offer. Anecdotally I remember a few years back when there was a brief run of slope bricks that had smooth surfaces instead of the classic textured ones. While this made those surfaces more akin to the other surfaces of ordinary bricks (and made them at least seem better for applying stickers to in theory), it also made molding marks more apparent, and eventually the change was revealed to be an error and corrected. I bring this up because this surface finish issue could be similar in one way or another—perhaps the matte finish is a new feature meant to hide molding marks or perform some other function, or conversely, perhaps it's a temporary error that will be corrected in the future.

It's not technically Lego stores, plural—it's the store at Legoland Billund, which like the other Legoland stores is not part of Lego Brand Retail (for instance, they don't take VIP points). Legoland Billund is no stranger to these sorts of early launches. When I was there in 2015 for the inside tour they had the Airjitzu sets as well as the summer Friends sets prior to their regular launch (even before the employee store had them available).

It's a new piece. It's also in the Juniors set. It looks to be the same size as the classic fence piece.

Would that be a problem? I don't really see why having those two next to each other would pose any issues—the walkway should still be continuous either way. I suppose if you really want symmetry you could try mirroring one, but given the overall lack of symmetry in the set's overall design I don't see why that'd really be necessary.

Don't think you'd need to mirror them—it has pin holes on two sides, like most modular corner buildings, so mirroring shouldn't be necessary unless you wanted to make them symmetrical for some reason.

I think these pins are less to connect with future sets and more to connect with ITSELF. Like the Café Corner before the release of subsequent modulars, you could pair four of these to form a complete "block" (also explaining the pin holes on the second level, probably to provide a bit more stability for a model this size). Of course, I doubt many people will have the kind of disposable income necessary to get four of a set this size...

Yeah, I'd been hoping for AtLA and tLoK to be included, but unfortunately, no Nickelodeon properties made it. It might be partially due to Lego's other licenses with Nickelodeon ending (TMNT was the last one), or due to the rumors that Nickelodeon was looking at its own toys to life game (which, after the decline of Disney Infinity and Lego Dimensions, probably won't ever come to fruition). A shame. One of the nice things about Lego Dimensions is that, compared to your standard licensed themes, there were far more licenses based on properties that were classic rather than current. Now Lego Ideas is back to being pretty much the only remaining avenue for sets based on dormant or mostly dormant IPs.