Metanoios

I will change the head of the photographer for the Jurassic World Hoskins' head (it has a dark grey beard) and use the one we get in this set for my custom Karkaroff (till we get the real one next year with the ship propably) Hey now, don`t you dare give them any ideas. You are free to tip the Lego shop employee those 150 $ but I will gladly only pay 400 I am glad the windows are prints and we do get quite a lot of wand boxes (sadly only in dark brown)

On the top shelf on the left above Marcos in the designer video with the Phelps brothers there is prototype version of WWW with a third floor and windows (in white because it`s a prototype). Also there is this photo of other prototypes:

Well would you look at that. Seems like Friscorays and I were right You won the bet

Thx for the tip

If you ever try to build your own Lego city layout or train diorama, tell me how you fared without ever cutting a baseplate. Jangbricks or Bob Brickman have done it as well, so I will gladly share a cell with them

Maybe the new ones (32x16) from the DA set will be added to bricks and pieces for a reasonable price. Then you could saw cut them into quarters which could propably be cheaper than buying 4 of the 8x16

Oh you`re right I must have skipped that while reading

Since most of it will be covered by cobblestone like bricks I think the old grey could work

There are smaller base-plates than the 16x32 for example the 8x16 but they only come in the old dark grey not dbg: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=3865#T=S&C=10&O={"color":"10","iconly":0}

I said it began with Diagon Alley (so this means excluding the summer wave). Mainly what I meant with cutting corners was in reference to the lack of prints - minifigs but also the record number of stickers and the only printed parts we get are reuses. I hope to the high heavens that the windows are prints but they could also be on a clear-backed sticker sheet that we haven`t seen yet (the other 4 sheets were on white paper). That`s what I am most interested to see in tomorrows reveal - whether those are prints or stickers. The price of 400 $/€ is a bit steep for a set that has the same amount of new prints as the Astronomy tower or the Burrow. The rest is just normal bricks which they produce at a cost of less than 1 cent (averaged) per piece. Naturally they have to add overhead expenses to that (like marketing and licensing) but they would still turn a profit if they sold this set for 350 $ Although, since you are specifically mentioning the AT interior: the white frames are definitely cutting corners, because the two tan 1x4x6 frames that are used in the greenhouse could have been used for 4 of the 7 ugly frames, but the designer decided to go all out on white. This should be concerning if the price is an all-encompassing topic in a thread about new products. And you can`t deny that at least some of the pricing is ridiculous (Grievous starfighter, Knight`s of Ren transport shuttle just to name a few). Children should be able to purchase the sets with their pocket money without having to start a new credit account (at a Swiss bank ) Also most rumours and news about sets of upcoming waves start out with price lists. That`s why MandR, Just2Good and others are already talking about the "rumour" that there won`t be any more battle packs in the next wave because the price list doesn`t show any sets with that price point.

Funny part is my job is managing product development projects with suppliers from the plastics industry. Mostly medical products though, not toys. A small part of my salary goes into this hobby and I get actually paid for knowing stuff about analyzing market research and international market approval and distribution systems. TLG are one of the biggest toy companies but are still running their internal processes as if they were a small town Danish toy producer. So I think I am allowed to share my opinion. They faced bankruptcy just 15 years ago and they found there way out of that hole. The (cheaper) Lego Star Wars sets and Bionicle saved them back then. Now they are on the edge of loosing the cow they milked for too long. Star Wars toy sales have been declining and Disney itself is facing massive financial trouble due to Covid-19 and the mismanagement of the Star Wars sequels. The Lego Star Wars prices have become ridiculous for the amount of stuff you get and the brand itself isn`t what it used to be. With all the paused entertainment productions (also concerning Marvel) and only a handful of new stuff scheduled for release the Star Wars brand and therefore Disney is loosing value fast. Lego Harry Potter has been a ray of hope among the other licensed themes, because so far it had been spared by the high prices or lackluster design like Star Wars or Marvel/DC. But with Diagon Alley I feel like they began to cut a lot of corners and are slowly increasing the prices of Harry Potter as well. Monkie Kid and the increase in China focused sets shows how scared TLG is to loose the Chinese market permanently to Chinese competitors.

I was talking about retailers selling the product a few days early, not leaks about an upcoming product a few months before release. We have video proof of this happening in Target (and other retailers outside of the US) for years and they are still a valued distributor of the Lego company. Clearly they aren`t punished or the punishment is so low that it doesn`t disincentivize them to behave like this in the future (which in theory is the whole point of the "criminal" justice system and penalties in court). Another point is Lego as a company isn`t actually losing money when a retailer (even their own store) sells a product a few days early - they get the money either way. One could argue that they are even making more money because the customer with the big pockets that visits the store this weekend is in most cases not coming back two days later again. Furthermore the customer experience this person will experience once he tries to order online on release day (when S@H might crash as usual or run out of stock within less than 48 hours) is not going to reflect a positive image on the company... But buying a set relaxed on a weekend, knowing I am one of the first to own it, would leave many customers satisfied. In most countries Lego stores are quite rare and dispersed. So a normal customer visits a Lego Brand store only a few times a year and has a certain budget to spend. As I said the point of a shop is selling as much product as possible. Not hiding it away in the cellar. Lego should invest their resources into improving production capacity, quality management and product development, not lawyers and stupid marketing gags. The former make them money while the later cost them a lot for only a small/no benefit. One last point: lowering prices while keeping the same quality (by cutting back on costs like lawyers and marketing) would be the best strategy against Chinese copycats. Because the person buying Chinese knockoffs is not buying them because he/she didn`t like Lego`s elaborate product reveal a day before. They just can`t afford a 400$ set. The Chinese will sell the exact same set (even if Lego keeps it totally under wraps till release) within a month of the reveal for less than 200$ anyway. And these customers will buy it. Lego could have Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson presenting the set and these customers would still not buy it for 400 $... And a lawyer on retainer here in Europe or the US will help you jacksh** in China. You could use a garden plant with the same result. They closed the Lepin factories and by a "miracle" suddenly the company King is selling the same product Lepin did. Well colour me suprised. It`s like fighting a hydra with a golden toothpick (=lawyer).

The box of the new City main square is next to it. Brickset doesn`t list the box size for that yet but assuming it is the same size as the year before that. The DA box is roughly 25% larger in width and height than that box and 2 times deeper. So you can calculate 1.25 * 18.7 inch width ; 1.25 * 14.7 in height and 2 * 2.6 in depth Although the 2019 city flagship set is quite a lot smaller than the new one, so the 2018 set 60200 might be a better reference (1.25 * 22.8 x 1.25 * 14.8 x 2* 3.9 in)

We are talking about paper size in France which uses a different nomenclature for the formats than the freedom units you americans use.

You do realise that the distance to the camera (and the distance from the shelf to the pick a brick wall) matters drastically when you try to gather information about the scale of objects from a photograph. You can make the box look as big as the wall if you just move the camera a little bit closer to the box. The same way you can make a person the same size as the leaning tower of Pisa. The only way you can really tell how big something is on a photograph is when you have a reference object right next to the object in question. The promotional poster could be DIN A3 or A4. There is no way to tell for sure how large that poster is

Checked the video again, there was no not-for-sale sticker and he shows all sides of the box in the beginning. He might have removed it before filming but he also doesn't mention it. You guys should let go off the belief that everyone on the earth is following instructions by some distant supervisor to the letter. This is a children`s toy. They don`t pull you in front of the International Court of Justice in the Hague, just because you interpreted an alotted time frame like September 1st a little bit differently The job of a shop and its employees is to sell the product - not hide it from the customer. Although maybe this is some super effective and new way of selling your product - by not selling it. Theoretically you would never run out off stock and no customer would complain about the product that he doesn`t know exists

What is your frame of reference for the box size? There is no banana or tiny human for scale purposes on the pic

MandR got the Apocalypseburg set a few weeks early (which was also only distributed by Lego stores at first). He bought it from ebay if I remember correctly. That set had to have come from a store or store employee somewhere on the world (or it actually fell off a truck)

Well if that persons wants to collect a lot of views on their Youtube channel, the countdown is ticking

Ok, but then someone must have messaged you that they bought the set. Did they show actual pics?

They do not have a secret police (... or at least I hope) and can`t control or sanction every retailer or Lego store. I bought the CMF today which wasn`t suppposed to be released before September 1st. Target and other American retailers are famous for breaking street dates (by a few weeks even) every time and Lego is still selling them the sets.

I hope you bought one and will share a review? Just a few pics would be enough

Borgin and Burkes is likely as a seperate set as well because the location features in two movies and it has been made two times already (albeit both not really screen-accurate)

The pin connection on the side of the buildings is more than 5 studs inwards from the baseplate. If you connect them as you suggest, a solid 4 stud long wall would block of a quarter of the interior (in the case of Scribbulus and Fortescue half of the interior space). If the designers wanted them to connect over the corner the pin on the side would have a different position

Wait till monday before you dismiss the purpose of the shape and pin connectors on the back. Once the designer video releases we will know exactly what the designers had in mind. Regarding your first paragraph please consider looking at the arch above the Daily Prophet entrance (the height), the spider web and the attic above QQS. Now look at the Knockturn Alley entrance and imagine it back to back with QQS. They lowered the lbg arch of the Daily Prophet (and eliminated a possible first floor) just so that it would fit with Knockturn Alley. The non-canon and unneccesary attic of QQS seems also to be introduced to make it the same height as WWW. As I said your interpretation and mine are both valid guesses till the designer video is released. But consider why the buildings align the way they do...