Lyichir

Personally I think that would be a bad idea. The reasons the modulars can sell so well are plentiful. For one, they don't have to have the most cohesive look to them, since they're each independent buildings which can be arranged into a city block. That's important for lines that have just one set a year, since each one has to feel new. A castle series would have to keep a consistent look across years of releases if the parts were to look good together, but at the same time that would mean most sets couldn't innovate nearly as much as the modular buildings, and thus newer expansions wouldn't stand out compared to the previous releases. Also, the modular buildings function equally well on their own or put together. This means that people can buy just one and have an impressive looking model. With castle segments, each set would have to be judged against others. So an impressive keep or gate might sell well, but I doubt the "castle wall extension" set would, considering the only people who would buy it would be people who already had at least one of the other parts (since who would want a wall with no castle for it to be a part of?). Also, based on the rate of release of D2C sets, it could take years before you could build a full castle, by which point many people may lose interest. And new customers would be hard to come by in such a situation, since the older expansions would necessarily have to be circulated out of production at some point, meaning that a full castle would become unattainable without turning to the aftermarket. And towers taller than the modular buildings? Taller means bigger, and bigger means more expensive. The Town Hall is already pushing it as far as unlicensed set prices go; and Castle is a more niche theme than City, so it would have even less of an audience than the Town Hall. I think, in general, your idea is a recipe for a line of overly expensive sets which few people would ever buy.

It also means that the casing for the minifig doesn't have to be specially formed to fit them. This is especially important if the fig would be wearing something on their back, like the Lloyd fig in the Ninjago book or the speculated tin soldier in this book.

If there is another wave as has been speculated, it's not unlikely that we'd see more members of some of the other squads. They might not become equal, but there could definitely be some more representation.

The same thing happened this year in Ninjago with the Constrictai and Anacondrai tribes, and to a lesser extent the Venomari tribe (the Constrictai staff appeared in one of the early sets, but none of the actual characters did) Part of it is just that we hardly have any story information yet. The story information for this year's Ninjago told us there would be five tribes, but you wouldn't know it from the first wave. In fact, we wouldn't have even known there would be four tribes at this point last year if it hadn't been for the collectible staffs (which there are no analogue to in Chima, with clans represented only by their characters and the vehicles those characters drive). Lego probably doesn't intend to keep the gorilla clan much of a secret, but they also want to have something new and different for the summer sets.

Ninjago introduced only a few weapon molds: the dragon sword, the cobra-like snakes, next year's elemental blades, the sais, and many blades used more for vehicles and spinners than for handheld use. Most of the other weapons used standard parts, along with a few new parts which were not exclusively weapons but could be used to make them, like the short chain and "nunchuk handles". Chima is introducing three new weapons: a new glowy sci-fi axe head and two new glowy sci-fi swords, one good and one bad. The running theme of these parts is that they fill niches which can't be filled by other parts. As important as Aragorn's sword is, if I recall it's a fairly standard shape, like the sword currently used for him in sets. Sting, on the other hand, is a fairly unique shape, which would be ill-depicted by existing swords and knives, thus necessitating a new mold. It's less about how important they are and more about whether existing parts are sufficient. Consider that almost every Jedi and Sith in Star Wars have lightsabers with unique hilts, but most lightsabers in Lego Star Wars use the exact same hilt, except ones which clearly have a different overall shape like Count Dooku's.

To be fair, the CMF theme is Lego's best place to experiment with otherwise risky figs. That's the whole point of the blind packaging, after all: to allow for less popular figs to be produced without having them end up overstocked when the kiddies don't buy them. Personally, I don't know much about sub-Saharan African cultures. It would be neat, though, to get a fig like a Maori warrior, with all the intricate body paint.

I think they're more concerned about adding a Jacob's Bogie in place of the bogies at the "end" of the Horizon Express, for when they combine two sets together to make a full train. Thus, having the Engines still separate, but having all four coaches connected via Jacobs Bogies. But I don't think it should be too much of an issue. Even if the two standard bogies don't have all the requisite parts, I don't see any parts on the Jacobs Bogie that are super-rare or expensive. So you could easily build one either with parts already in your collection or with parts acquired through Bricklink or Pick-a-brick.

http://kotaku.com/5965813/watch-the-latest-nintendo-direct-here Oh. My. God. The latest Nintendo Direct (which will be released in English in 2-3 hours) opens in maybe the best way possible. I'm sure my fellow AFOLs will be just as excited as I was when I saw that. Anyway, it also goes over games other than Lego City: Undercover, which is why I'm posting it here instead of in the topic for that game. But now I want an Iwatafig...

The figs were revealed on that date, two days ago now. In America, we typically would write that as 12-3-12, with the month before the day, but that's not consistent worldwide.

I wasn't saying people can't use the Battle Mech with their Galaxy Squad sets. I was just expressing my opinion that it doesn't seem to be designed to fit into an existing theme (as opposed to figs like the Alien Queen, who seems specifically designed to be a member of the same alien faction as in Alien Conquest). People keep jumping to the conclusion that the Battle Mech is meant to be a Galaxy Squad character solely because it shares some parts with the robots of Galaxy Squad, and I was pointing out that that's not necessarily the case.

I don't think so. So many people seem to think that fig is meant to go with Galaxy Squad, but from its description on Lego.com and its appearance, I reckon it's meant to be more like a Gundam or other giant humanoid mech. Can't wait to pit him against my lizard suit guy above a microscale city.

Have we ever seen an example of a model from a Lego video game being released as a set that far in the future? Every time a Lego licensed game comes out many people expect models from it to be actual sets. But keeping in mind the development time that goes into the video games, and the many revisions sets go through before put into production, I think it's unlikely that any sets besides the waves released at or before the time the games come out will make their way, brick for brick, into said games.

There are actually a number of ways Lego could approach a Castle theme running alongside licensed themes with a similar medieval flavor. They could easily provide contrast with the content of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit by eliminating fantasy elements altogether, as has been rumored, and similar to their approach with the Kingdoms theme. But conversely, there's a fair amount of fantasy that could provide tonal contrast with Lord of the Rings. Wicked Witches, Fairies, Ghosts and Unicorns would all be examples of a more whimsical medieval fantasy which could contrast with the more serious medieval fantasy of Lord of the Rings. I think the former approach is more likely, but the latter should not be entirely discounted as a possibility.

Whoa, back off! I wasn't at all attacking your comment, or your argument. I was talking about that organization's complaints about the line. I agree that people should read the actual site instead of just basing their arguments on the description. I was just trying to point out the obvious ignorance of their assessment of the set. Attacking me for that is totally out of line. Yeah, I am a fanboy, as charged, as are the majority of members on this site. Is that any reason to start hurling insults at me? Maybe I could have used a different emoticon; but unfortunately Eurobricks doesn't have any sort of facepalm or headdesk or similar emoticon to express exhaustion at having to repeat the same argument all over again. I haven't done anything to you, so for god's sake, take a chill pill. I could agree that fashion and makeup and things, taken too far by kids, is a bad thing. But there are a lot of girls who have that interest nonetheless. And faced with the choice of reframing their view of those interests or sticking with them, they're going to stick with them, and if it means buying Bratz or Disney Princess toys instead of Lego, well, that's what they're going to do. I personally think, as a Lego fan, that giving those girls a creative outlet in the form of Lego is a small step in the right direction. Compared to the alternatives the girls who are drawn to makeup and fashion will have (Bratz, Barbie, Disney Princesses, etc.), the Friends beauty salon is liable to have the greatest positive effect on a young girl's mind. And it could easily serve as the "gateway drug" to less stereotypical sets like the robot lab or the karate dojo. This "award" ignores those positive attributes of the theme, and repeats the same slanders against it that originated at the beginning of next year. It doesn't involve building! Well, yes it does, especially compared to Belville, Clikits, and Scala before it. The minidolls are sexualized! No they're not, these people are seeing boobs and hips where the minidolls really just have more human proportions than the classic minifig. They may have a point about the issues with the Beauty Salon in particular presenting beauty as the feminine ideal. But that point is buried under so many misrepresentations and outright lies about the theme as a whole that it's hard to take anything they say seriously. P.S.: The chinese plastic is as overblown a manufactured scandal as the Friends theme. I have been hugely supportive of Lego's efforts to reach young girls, realizing that that's probably the best chance the AFOL community has of someday being less of a sausage-fest. I don't think Friends is perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a step in the right direction for Lego and, I believe, for society at large. Lego has already succeeded at teaching backwards-thinking retailers that girls can enjoy building toys too, which is a huge leap forward from the days of Belville and Scala, which could hardly be found anywhere besides Lego Shop at Home catalog.

I don't go so far as to align the Lego logo on the studs, but I do make sure my stickers are placed accurately, and I also try to make sure that Technic pins go on in the exact alignment shown in the instructions, even though that doesn't make much of a difference in the long run.

The new episode of MLP:FiM was indeed great. For the pony fans here, I was wondering, do you think My Little Pony could use its own Culture and Multimedia topic? After all, at this point there's a lot more to it than just the show (toys, books, comics, mobile games, etc.). Not to mention discussion of the fandom itself. Does anyone else think this would be a good idea?

That's still a ridiculous complaint. Surprisingly, there are girls who LIKE fashion and beauty. Should these girls get ignored by Lego simply because their interests are "stereotypical"? The characters of Friends seem to have well-rounded lifestyles, so what's wrong with them treating themselves to makeovers once in a while? Moreover, you can't just argue that they're only talking about the one set. Their complaints about the minidolls and the color scheme can apply to most Friends sets. Who cares if Lego found that those aspects were what the girls they were targeting wanted? It's obviously sexist to cater to the whims of young girls who can't think for themselves!

Great Chima header. Nice to see BrickFair Alabama on there, too.

The reason for the lack of the logo is that the Collectible Minifigures (and all minifigs produced in the Chinese plant) use slightly different molds than figs produced elsewhere. I've never seen reports of counterfeit Collectible Minifigures, though, so I wouldn't worry too much.

Don't swear off on the Wii U just yet; I've heard rumors that the 3DS version will be telling a separate story than the Wii U version. So unlike things like Lego Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, it seems there'll be more incentive to get the game on multiple systems.

Defining an ongoing "Golden Age" is almost always a matter of opinion, though, unless some consensus is arrived at by authorities in the field. For instance, while that one magazine alleged that the late '90s were a Golden Age of video games because of the number of videogames aimed at adults, I might argue that the past 5 or so years have been a Golden Age because, between the growth of casual games on systems like the Wii, Nintendo DS and Kinect, and social games on Facebook and smartphones, a wider variety of people are playing video games now than ever before. There's no consensus. A better example of an agreed-upon golden age would be the Golden Age of Comic Books, which is called such not because of the quality so much as because of the surge in popularity of the medium, and because of the many elements of comics of that time period which would become standard within the industry. For that reason, I would argue that it is hard to define a "Golden Age" except in retrospect.

I have to agree that this set looks pretty great. When the wings are folded down and the cockpit is detached, can the "turret" stand up on its own? In my mind that would make the difference between it functioning as a turret or simply being the "leftovers" from the cockpit detaching.

Could it potentially have to do with which region you have Lego.com set to?

If it's a REALLY seedy joint, you could use "The Illegal Connection".

The easter egg there is apparently that he's got lunch with him, which includes a glass of "burnt juice" like Sweetie Belle prepared for him in his debut episode. So it's clear he wasn't lying when he complimented Sweetie Belle on her cooking!