Lyichir

Ah, shoot, my bad. I did a google search and it gave me the dates for LAST YEAR'S event... I didn't notice that the year wasn't right. Starting on a Wednesday should've tipped me off... Oh well, it's still not too long to wait!

Having gotten the new Kopaka, I agree that the new torso isn't totally terrible, and the added space between the shell and torso beam helps to justify its existence as a single piece rather than the shell and chestpiece of last year's torso... but I still wish it had fewer pistons and/or more connection points. Imagine if it had had 3.2 mm bar connections akin to those on the Brain Attack torso shell instead of some of those side pistons! That'd make the part that much more useful, since people who DID want more detail on the sides could then add their own, and people who didn't could enjoy a slightly less busy torso design. In other words, I don't mind the fact that they introduced a new torso, and I don't quite hate what they came up with... but I wish that they could have come up with something better and more versatile. As it is I don't see this new torso shell getting nearly as much use as the 2.0 or Brain Attack torso shells, either in sets or in MOCs.

I wonder whether it would be better to create a game featuring 1–7, or whether creating a new game based on 1–6 (or even each trilogy individually) would suffice as a stopgap until they have a full new trilogy to work with. 1–7 gives them some highly desirable and obviously new content to sell the game based on, but then what would they do come 8? Rerelease the same game again, plus an additional episode's worth of levels? Combine 8 with some of the anthology movies that will be made in the interim, but which might not fit together with the new movie thematically or in terms of characters? It's a conundrum to be sure. I almost wonder if perhaps they ought to follow a similar strategy to what they've done with the mobile version of The Complete Saga—selling episodes individually through microtransactions. With the huge number of new movies coming out in the near future, it might make more sense to sell new content as expansions to a larger game, instead of having to group them into some semblance of order. Perhaps they could create a new game based on 1–7 and sell that as the "core" game, and design it with the intention of expanding it with new content based on further episodes as the years go on.

It wouldn't be the same conflict, necessarily. Skyra was a recluse—she only took an antagonistic role because it was actually her job to protect the portal from evildoers, and in her grief she interpreted that in the strictest way possible by keeping anyone and everyone away from her castle. Regana seems to be a much more twisted character, who seems to be actively putting all of Elvendale in danger by imprisoning the Dragon Queen and creating a rift between the dragons and elves. Even if she is redeemed at the end of the year, it'll probably be a much greater challenge than it was for Skyra, for whom Emily really just needed to prove her worth.

End of this month? Try two days from now. We probably won't get comprehensive information about the full theme, considering the lack of photography, but we'll probably get plenty of anecdotes and maybe even a full set reveal, if one of the sets is lucky enough to win an award at the show.

I don't see that being the case at all. Between Ninjago, Friends, Bionicle and Elves, Lego seems to have tons of ongoing original themes (even more if you count Legends of Chima, which ended last year, or Nexo Knights, which replaced it and will likely continue for several years itself). And considering two of the themes I just mentioned (Ninjago and Friends) are among Lego's most successful themes, enough to be considered "evergreen" themes along the likes of City, Space, and Castle, I'd say Lego's original themes are more successful than ever. Also, keep in mind that while Ultra Agents did end, it did so after three waves' worth of sets. That's respectable—it's on par with Atlantis and Power Miners (though the final wave of each of those themes was split into two in America), and even the original Agents theme. Even discounting the last wave, which wasn't released outside North America, two waves of sets is equivalent to outlasting a lot of "one and done" themes like Pharaoh's Quest, Dino, or Monster Fighters. Perspective is everything—Ultra Agents may have suffered from uneven success around the globe, but it had a good run either way.

In case any of you were looking at the Elves sets as a potential source for medieval/fantasy parts, Kmart has pictures and descriptions for all six of the sets due out this March: 41171 Emily Jones and the Baby Wind Dragon 41172 The Water Dragon Adventure 41173 Elvendale School of Dragons 41174 The Starlight Inn 41175 Fire Dragon's Lava Cave 41176 The Secret Market Place

I'm curious what the 19 parts are... do the "cards" it seems to include count? Or is there more brick content than is evident from the picture?

Would that really break all the models, though? I know I've made models where the connection points are slightly misaligned (usually to compensate for boundary errors by hinging a part slightly before attaching it) and it didn't cause any problems. I had assumed that LDD allowed at least a little bit of give between connection points before removing the parts outright.

It's probably unlikely, but if they ever did Lego Elves packs, Naida would be a shoe-in for the Atlantis ability... she's demonstrated the ability to communicate with sea creatures before.

The fact that we've only seen a few monster varieties so far doesn't seem to be an accident—it seems like Jestro and the Book of Monsters gain the ability to summon new monster varieties with each evil book the Book of Monsters eats. So with that in mind, it's not unlikely that the variety of monsters Jestro summons will continue to increase as the series progresses.

Assuming they ever actually INTENDED to explore them all... I'm fairly sure part of the reason why they introduced as many realms as they did was to give them more than they'd end up needing (some of which could indeed be used for funny cameos). That said, I'm already sick of the "Such-and-such theme is a realm in Ninjago!" theories, so I wouldn't mind if they went ahead and revealed all the other realms so that we didn't have to deal with those anymore...

You're spot-on. Transparent Lego parts (as well as most Technic parts) are made of Polycarbonate instead of ABS. Polycarbonate binds to itself readily, so inserting polycarbonate parts into other polycarbonate parts can create a very tight fit. It's not generally recommended by Lego (and is in fact considered an illegal connection, though there are cases where it's been done anyway), but in the case of new parts where it's expected (like that part), you would think they'd try to make the parts looser to compensate... then again, maybe they did, and CM4S just got a bad one.

Yeah. Trying to exclude Bionicle figures from the constraction genre based on a perceived lack of posability is a slippery slope. If you exclude the Lord of Skull Spiders, you might as well exclude the original 2001 Gali and Onua (who had the exact same number of points of articulation), as well as all five original 2001 Rahi sets (which all had even fewer points of articulation).

Hm, potentially... though I was kind of hoping for a bigger flying crossbow vehicle, and it could only get but so big and still fit on the Fortrex. Do we know the price of those two sets?

I don't think that's necessarily the case when it comes to the other modular buildings... the Town Hall could just as easily be a library or even a bank itself. It's just a consequence of stately buildings like banks and government offices not always advertising their purpose in giant letters the way other businesses tend to. The laundromat section is far more obviously labeled.

In the case of polybags like that, it's sometimes just a case of the promotion not happening at the same time worldwide. There have been a lot of instances in recent years where a polybag has been given away by the Lego Shop in one country several months before it is given away in another. It's just a consequence of Lego shop promotions being done on a regional basis, rather than being coordinated globally. In some other instances, polybags given away in one way in America end up distributed differently in the UK. For instance, it seems to be a fairly regular occurrence for Lego polybags to be given away with copies of certain newspapers in the UK, which is something that never happens in the U.S.—in those cases, the polybags usually instead find their way to checkout counters at supermarkets or are given away at toy stores or the Lego Shop. Of course, there are exceptions—I recently ordered a Bionicle polybag with an exclusive mask that seems to have been released only in Russia (and possibly other parts of Eastern Europe). But chances are in this case that it's only a matter of time before that polybag surfaces on your side of the Atlantic.

There are probably two main reasons for that: action and escapism. Police work and firefighting are two action-packed professions, and action play is much more appealing to kids (especially young boys) than simple role play. Additionally, school isn't a fantasy for kids like police work or firefighting—it's a core part of their real-life existence. Themes like Police and Fire (or even Construction and other City subthemes) allow kids to fantasize about what they might do when they grow up, rather than just recreating what they do every day. In any case, it's not like Lego never releases new themes in City. If you had told me five years ago that Lego City would include subthemes like Arctic or volcano research, I might've called you crazy. Lego certainly finds opportunities to branch out even with new Fire and Police sets every single year.

Most likely just poor color correction. Notice that the lamppost and some of the parts around the laundromat sign also look slightly beige. It's also just that one picture that looks like that.

Nope, impossible. The range of price points for a given wave comes before any sort of finalized design work is done, so Lego most likely wanted to pair one of the Toa with their creature in a $25 set from the get-go. Kopaka was designed for this price point, as a Toa who was slightly larger than a $15 Toa and slightly smaller than a $20 Toa, and as such Melum had to be smaller and use fewer pieces than the other $10 Creatures. In other words, Melum's size and similarity to the other Creatures is most likely a result of being paired, and definitely isn't the cause.

Personally, I'm happy that there are at least a few female characters other than Flama... and I'm more than happy to headcanon Flama as genderfluid, particularly since the fig design itself seems somewhat "fluid" as well. Toth, if you're still watching this thread, could you share which of the other figures/sets you had a hand in designing as well (at least, of the ones that are currently available)? I'd be curious to know.

He was, and he appeared with the same face but normal police gear in one of the City sets that year as well. The reason I want Lego City content isn't because I need a Chase McCain figure (though other characters like Rex Fury would be nice), but because Lego City Undercover was, in my opinion, the single greatest Lego game I've ever played, and I'd love for them to bring some of those ideas and characters into Lego Dimensions in the absence of a true sequel.

Couldn't they just, y'know, pause it?

My thought with Bionicle is that they could use minifigures like those from 2014's Hero Factory sets (even to the point of using the same sorts of arms and legs, the former of which are still in use even in the Lego Dimensions Starter Pack itself). 2014's Hero Factory minifigures were fantastic and I'd love to see Bionicle get the same treatment, especially since the main 6 Toa were never represented as minifigures in the original theme. The biggest challenge with Dimensions would be the overall lack of vehicles to scale down for mini-models (plus Bionicle's more niche status compared to other themes). But hey, a guy can dream. Friends would present a challenge, but considering it's one of Lego's biggest themes I would think it might be possible. And with a little creativity the characters could be made to work with the game's puzzle-solving mechanics—Andrea, for instance, could use a microphone to use the same sonar attack as Marty McFly uses with his guitar. Elves would be even easier to incorporate due to the elemental powers all the characters have. Demographics could be an issue, it's true, but I'd like to hope that if anything the inclusion of mini-doll themes would help broaden the appeal of Lego Dimensions to other demographics. And it'd certainly add some interesting variety to the game itself! As for City, it's pretty much Lego's single most successful theme, and I'm sure TT Games would love to follow up LCU with a standalone adventure in Lego Dimensions. The Wii U exclusivity of the original game probably wouldn't be a problem, because it wouldn't need to be directly linked to the original game or anything–it could just share some of the same characters, who are pretty typical cop show archetypes for the most part. And they might as well use Chase McCain if they were to include Lego City, since it's not like the theme has a huge stable of other characters to choose from. Ideally, if they were to include it, we might also get something like a Rex Fury fun pack so we could finally get him as a physical figure.

As far as I'm concerned, Alice is a much better and more likable character than Daniella Capricorn, who was a much more generic sort of newscaster with an unpleasant attitude. Alice, on the other hand, is bubbly, manic, and ridiculously corny—like a morning show or celebrity news reporter, but taken up to eleven. I guess it partly boils down to if you like silly characters in Lego shows, but personally if I wanted to watch a cartoon without that sort of humor then there are a lot of better shows I could be watching than the generally mediocre Hero Factory specials.