Lyichir

I do think another Western theme in the future is possible, but I don't necessarily know how likely it is. Not only is the Western a less popular genre these days in general, but one of the most common sources of conflict in that sort of story (Cowboys vs. Indians) has problematic connotations in this day and age, as does the heavy emphasis on gunplay. Those issues also affect the Pirates theme, but to a lesser extent. We'll see. Unlike themes like Castle and Ninja, and Pirates, a Western theme would not really conflict with any current licensed or unlicensed themes, which is a point in its favor. And even with the decline of the Western in pop-culture, the imagery associated with that genre is still quite recognizable and distinctive among kids, unlike less well-known/popular cultural eras like ancient Asian or African history. If we do see another take on the theme I expect it to focus on conflict between cowboys and bandits rather than Indians.

I think the reason for it being rejected is more likely to be that Lego DID make a gingerbread house just last year as a seasonal set. Yes, it wasn't minifigure-scale, but to be honest any project (including UCS Star Wars models) that are essentially just "something Lego's already done, but BIGGER" are probably going to have a tough time passing review. Lego Ideas, after all, is meant for finding fresh new ideas that Lego might not have otherwise considered producing, so anything that Lego has already produced before is already at a disadvantage. Another factor that may have been involved is the fact that, unlike the fishing store, the gingerbread house didn't really have any interior to speak of. So apart from the building experience it'd function almost solely as a display piece. In any case, I'll be interested to see how the final product of the Fishing Shop shapes up!

Exciting! Though I do hope that they don't do anything like radically changing the animation style (say, switching everything over to CGI or something like that) or replacing the great voice cast.

That could be cool but firstly, I don't know if it would even work as a story pack (which sound episodic in nature rather than open world like LCU), and secondly, I don't know if it's feasible seeing as LCU was actually published by Nintendo. What I'm hoping for is something that follows up on LCU, possibly including City sets and subthemes that weren't around for the original game like Swamp Police, Arctic, Deep Sea Explorers, and so forth.

As an Elves fan I would love for mini-doll figures to get added but at this point, with them being absent for so long and LDD only getting small updates that are few and far between, I'm not exactly getting my hopes up.

Sigh... as much as I would like more constraction parts to be added to LDD, there is absolutely zero point to a petition like this. Bionicle parts are more niche than other parts (appealing to a smaller audience than general Lego), as well as generally more complex (with a lot more molded detail than your typical geometric Lego parts). And considering that LDD has no actual revenue stream anymore and is updated rather infrequently, I'm rather grateful that we're at least getting ANY parts. Also, in general, petitions are rarely effective at having any impact on Lego's business. Pretty much the only time they get so much as a response is when they revolve around an important social issue and get a huge amount of press—petitions that just say "I want this" just sound entitled and are unlikely to have any effect whatsoever.

I was talking about the same thing. Though I just remembered that there WAS in fact a Clay one, despite it not being on the original list we saw. My bad!

What a boring model... But in all seriousness, this is pretty neat.

There are definitely things I had wanted that still aren't here—in particular, there are pretty much no new constraction parts, and the Elves dragon heads are similarly absent—but there are definitely some great parts that did get added. And the fact that we got an update at all gives me hope that we might be back to a semiannual update schedule.

Maybe not ALL baddies' mechs—after all, Clay still has yet to get one, despite practically being the main character. Of course, I don't know which is more likely: another wave featuring Clay and several villainous characters, or Clay's mech being included in a larger set instead of being standalone (somewhat like how Airjitzu Nya and Lloyd are included in a larger Ninjago set this year instead of the smaller packs like the other ninja got last year).

I don't see why the out-of-date street line-up should be considered evidence of it being fake. After all, the more up-to-date version would be as easily accessible to the creator of a fake slide as it would be to TLG, and if they were willing to go through the effort of creating a custom logo for a fake then surely they'd be able to find and use a more up to date image. On the other hand, if it's real, the out-of-date image makes much more sense... because assuming that this is, as it appears to be, some sort of internal presentation, then it doesn't matter WHAT image was used since it was presumably not intended as advertising for the general public.

Almost certainly. Being able to hold a pose is a far greater consideration for adult fans than for kids, who often tend to prefer models that DO something (hence the inclusion of functions in the first place). Additionally, another advantage of the looseness in Skull Basher's build, at least, was to allow the pressure from the corrugated pipe to more reliably return his arms to their original position after engaging the function (something that friction pins would have hindered).

Wasn't the building portion of the Market Street meant to be a bakery? At the very least it seemed implied to be what with the croissant on the sign outside. I don't know if Lego would be interested in repeating that even if its predecessor is sort of the red-headed stepchild of modular buildings.

In that case, I wonder how he will be distributed in the U.S.? Personally I wasn't too broken up about the prospect of him being exclusive to Toys R Us, since thanks to the new policy of Lego Brand Retail stores not stocking Toys R Us exclusive sets, there are still several sets of that sort on my wish list. I much preferred that to the uncertainty of not knowing when and how the fig would be distributed.

Because retailers WANT a new police station on shelves every year. They don't want to have to devote shelf space to a set that's a whole year (or more) out of date when a new police station would sell much better.

A sequel to Lego City Undercover, with two-player co-op. Not only would it be able to add more recent City sub-themes (potentially including Arctic, Swamp, Volcano, and Underwater areas, among others), and not only would it rectify one of the major flaws of the first game (a lack of cooperative play unlike most other Lego games), but it'd also allow them to explore all sorts of classic "buddy cop" tropes. A Nexo Knights game that instead of featuring the mobile brawler gameplay of the app is styled after turn-based strategy games like Fire Emblem. Never gonna happen, but it'd be pretty cool. A Lego Elves adventure game. That's all I can come up with now.

I hope you're not implying that you'd pick up this Dimensions pack just to get this Robin. Because he's only included in a $50 story pack, so if the fig is all you're interested in you'd probably get much more bang for your buck from a different set.

I mean, I dunno... there are parts of Lego history that certainly do fade into obscurity. In this case the "losers" might be considered to be things like unreleased sets, rare promotional sets or combo packs, and wildly unpopular themes like Galidor or Znap. The fact that obscure Lego history is still being discovered is evidence that there's an awful lot that wasn't well-documented by the community around the time of its initial development or release.

I'd barely consider it "intrusive". In fact, the set would be much less appealing to me if it DIDN'T contain any sort of function, considering the lack of any sort of weaponry or other accessories. Instead, the set includes what seems to be an improvement upon Skull Basher's function, which I'd still consider one of the neatest functions in Bionicle G2. As for modding the set, I don't think it'd take many parts to lock the arms in place if you're truly determined to remove a huge part of what makes the set special.

I was actually mildly impressed with the book, considering it had neat details like the fact that Lance names all of his weapons after his nannies (or, for that matter, that his horse has a name). I mean, ideally, that kind of content would've been great for the website (like the old Ninjago and Chima sites that had galleries of all the weapons in the theme with names and descriptions), but it's not there, so I was happy to at least get that kind of info somewhere. The fig is definitely great, though. I like that Merlok is ALMOST a traditional-looking Castle wizard, but has one subtle difference—he's hiding a monogrammed flash drive under his beard! Far from a deal-breaker for anyone intending to use him as a traditional long-bearded wizard in Castle MOCs, but also a neat touch for Nexo Knights fans.

It's a possibility, but I think Lego might avoid doing a theme like that that way due to poaching being a fairly morbid subject (at least compared to the typical non-violent crime in most realistic Lego themes like City). The closest recent themes that come to mind are Lego Dino and the Lego Friends animal rescue subtheme, both of which emphasized animal welfare to a certain degree but lacked any criminal element.

Yes. Medium Stone Grey is called Light Bluish Gray on Bricklink. Dark Stone Grey is called Dark Bluish Gray on Bricklink. And the much rarer Light Stone Grey is called Very Light Bluish Gray on Bricklink.

I'm kind of happy to see that I'm not alone in preferring non-chromed pieces to chromed ones. Chromed pieces tend to show more damage than standard parts, and often don't look like they "fit in" with other parts. I much prefer solid colors, lacquered parts, or even metallic plastic to chromed parts. One factor that hasn't been mentioned about chromed parts is that chroming a part actually adds to that part's thickness slightly, which can affect their clutch power by making connections tighter than they should be. For that reason, Lego tends to avoid releasing chromed parts unless those parts' molds have been specifically designed with chrome parts in mind (with only a few exceptions).

The issue then is that you're removing the building aspects from the core elements of the theme. The focus of the Pokémon franchise is largely on the Pokémon themselves, and as such they should at least constitute some of the buildable content, lest the actual building content be limited to less interesting subjects like Gyms, Pokémon Centers, and other buildings and scenery. Mind you, if the theme were to be done in minifigure scale then at least the smaller Pokémon would likely need to be molded to maintain any semblance of accuracy. But larger evolved Pokémon and Legendary Pokémon (like Venusaur, Onix, Dialga, and so forth) could potentially be better suited to brick-built creatures like the larger Elves dragons (perhaps, like them, featuring one or two new molds for high-detail areas like faces), so that sets featuring them can revolve more around the Pokémon themselves rather than just an arena or background scenery. Even then, I would not be surprised if the need for so many new molds were enough to put Lego off from doing the theme. A lot of the Pokémon franchise's popularity comes from the wide variety of different species, and if even half of them require new molds to be depicted accurately that constitutes a heck of a lot of specialized parts, most of which would not even be usable in other themes.

No, the testing was much more involved with that. The idea that a new figure was needed in the first place came about after plenty of play testing and finding what kids liked and disliked about standard sets, and how their play patterns differed. One of the key takeaways from that was that girls generally were less able to identify with the blocky minifigure designs, and without that emotional connection they had less fondness for the iconic simplicity of the traditional minifigures. And the design of the mini-doll wasn't about what was perceived as "girly" but rather about what actual girls responded better to than traditional figs. Here's another decent article about the subject: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-12-14/lego-is-for-girls