Flak Maniak

That's a fair point, but we do see recolors in Modular-style sets, like the unprinted wolf heads in the police station. I can't speak to the goat specifically, but for example Barracuda Bay brought back sails in a big way, and the boat hull parts hadn't been in reddish brown in about five years. (Sure, the front-bottom part had been in 2017's Destiny's Bounty, but the other two hadn't been in that color since The Brick Bounty in 2015.) It's true that the children's play themes give us lots of good minifig accessory molds, and yes, a castle or pirates theme would give more historically-grounded, less sci fi/fantasy-ish ones. But still, D2Cs do give us existing parts in new colors, and can have new minifigure prints. I do hope that, next time Lego does an original castle theme, we see strong brick-built dragons, that have a little stylistic contrast from the Ninjago dragons and the Creator dragons. (And I imagine you'll say you want new specialized molded dragons, which is also fair.) Lastly, usually the big D2Cs are an enormous plastic quantity for the price; if you made a large grey D2C castle, I could easily see myself buying it just as a parts pack. As long as the colors are homogeneous enough and the part quantities ludicrous enough, you could probably sell that to me.

Modular-quality castle/pirate sets I'd surely buy most of as they came out; that's an easy sell. I don't even like displaying stock sets, but man I'd be a sucker for those. (Or maybe I'd just order a lot of their distinctive parts off B&P; whatever gets me good historical/fantasy minifig parts and abundant good castle pieces.) Hopefully there can be other 1/year event sets, more than the modulars and winter village sets; I think most castle or pirates fans would be fine with "one big set per year". If it's high-quality and adult-oriented and a consistent pace of releases, it doesn't have to be abundant to have a devoted fanbase. Man though, how WOULD Lego do a Bionicle product, without making a million new molds? Just using system parts for it feels wrong. And yeah there are various currently-produced parts that use the big ball joints, but... I dunno, man, it seems rough. Hopefully they have enough of the old big-ball-joint molds still lying around, be it Bionicle ones or CCBS. It's just hard to adapt a theme that's so reliant on so many unique parts; not like castle where you do a few new minifigure prints and otherwise can just use abundant and standard bricks. (I guess you'd say pirates requires sails and hulls, and that's fair, but that's fewer unique parts than a large-ball-joint-based theme, innit?) Surely though, for the sake of peace, we should all hope that Lego, in their grace and wisdom, decides after all to do two 90th sets, one Bionicle and one system. Obviously the Bionicle faction can't be satisfied by any of the system themes, nor the Big Three classic-theme voters by a Bionicle set, but I for example could be alright with any of castle, space, pirates (well if it's the right space color scheme), and I imagine many castle/space/pirates voters would be fine with another of the three. Or, really, what I should say is that Lego... Should do Bionicle and Aquazone! Bring back the octagonal bricks!

Very good; hopefully Ronin's parts will be available soon too! Oh also, unrelated, but I did mention the other day that I successfully ordered the Barracuda Bay sail set on the phone, right? It comes as one prepacked bag, and it cost 17 USD. I ordered two, but given how many ship hulls I have lying around, perhaps I should have ordered ten! (Yes yes, probably subject to CS representative RNG.)

Bionicle sets feel like they (should) come in sixes! But, well, maybe Lego thinks they can sell a six-pack of Toa as an anniversary set...

I voted pirates in the first round, so you could say I had a change of heart, or just that I'd have voted for a unified castle in the first round if that were presented. Either way it just seemed somehow right to vote castle in the second round. (Maybe you'd say it was strategic voting too, and I was treating the first round as a primary. I don't think pirates will get first place in the second round, though if they do I'll certainly not be sad.) I'm sure that Lego can do something that captures aspects of various early castle sets, both from the '80s and '90s, something that feels nostalgic in its overall design idiom and presentation, but modern in its level of detail and parts usage. When I see Benny's spaceship, well, I just know that Lego CAN pander properly to us nostalgic grown-ups... If pirates won I'm not sure it'd be a ship. We did just get Barracuda Bay. But if it were another ship, I imagine they'd find a way to contrast it, be it making an imperial ship, or a different pirate faction, or something. Either way, surely they'd find some way to impress us. I think that Lego's designers have a keen sense for how to evoke the look and feel of something old, while making it new.

If the last round had Blacktron II, or M-Tron, or Ice Planet 2002, or Unitron, something of that nature, I'd fairly likely vote for it. (I did vote M-Tron in round 1, as I like its color scheme a lot. My first-round votes were Aquazone, pirates, M-Tron.) But in round 2 I voted for castle. Yeah I'm nostalgic for old-timey space as in "older space themes as a whole", but the grey, blue and trans-yellow doesn't do it for me. Call me a heretic, but many of the later color schemes were much better. (Even before getting into properly-heretical subthemes like UFO and Insectoids.)

I wouldn't be TOO surprised if they say "Fine, we're doing two, one Bionicle and one System", but... Well, we'll see. Who knows what their plans are. As I said upthread I voted castle, and I don't regret that. If I were being solely selfish I might have voted pirates in the final round, but somehow... Castle just felt more right. Whatever theme wins, I'm sure we'll get a very good representation of it; as they showed with Benny's spaceship and Barracuda Bay, they can do modern, high-quality builds that capture the essence of old build styles and old design idioms. Well, may the best theme win. (Okay that's not possible anymore, as Aquazone was eliminated in the first round, but may the second-best theme win.)

But more importantly, when will they tell us the results?

Right; we as fans have to make it clear that slow shipping/delayed shipping for backorders are totally fine, so long as we can get our parts eventually. That we prefer waiting a long time to being unable to order that part at all.

Do we know when we'll be told which theme was chosen? (And as for the set itself, surely we'll have to wait months, if not most of a year, to see any preview of that, so hopefully it isn't some hype/disappointment cycle.)

Man it'd suck to have to make some kind of anti-scalper 200-ordering coalition... To be reduced to that... Just, everyone in this thread should email Lego telling them to do various anti-scalper stuff (including very specifically making more of these high-demand parts), and mention it when on the phone. If enough of us say things, they might change policies a little. Back to the topic of interesting/cool upcoming parts... Looks like we're gonna get 21849, that one windscreen/canopy piece, in trans-bright green, in that one Monkey Kid set. Pretty good stuff. I'm torn on cool trans-bright green stuff because in general I'd prefer stuff in trans-neon green and they don't go together, but they're both legit good colors; I just have more of/more nostalgia for trans-neon green. Probably I should find a color scheme that uses trans-bright green prominently, to make space-style vehicles in. Black + dark bluish grey would sort of be it (like those Nexo Knights bad guys), but it seems too similar to Blacktron II.

You don't see the people whose first constraction theme was G2 because they're 10-15 years old now; check back in another 15 years. They might be a nostalgic AFOL demographic then. (AFOB? Adult Fan of Bionicle?)

Yeah they should let us backorder (and they did let me backorder the Black Falcon pieces four days ago), and just... Tell us it might take a really long time. Which I'm fine with. If I'm told that something will take ages to reach me, then I'll be patient for it. Or even if it's an unknown time; as long as I'm confident it'll get here eventually, that's fine. The way to beat scalpers is to manufacture more (which may be very difficult), to set low limits per order on desirable pieces (for example, no more than twenty of a given minifig part per order), to raise B&P prices on these desirable parts, and maybe as a last resort, to police BrickLink a little. "Manufacture more" should be seen as the first and best option, given it literally means more sales for Lego. Raising prices is also an appropriate response to very high demand. I wouldn't fault Lego for pricing molded animals/high-demand minifigure parts higher than they do. And yes, placing limits per-order will help, so long as shipping per-order isn't ludicrously low. (Which it is in the States; I don't understand how it can be as low as $3 in the first place; B&P isn't a charity operation!) I suppose you could limit per-customer if you really wanted, but per-order seems like it'd be enough of a nominal hurdle to significantly deter scalpers. Maybe I'm wrong and it has to be per-customer. I did email Lego telling them "please institute lower per-order limits on high-demand parts"; probably if enough of us do that they'll take notice. (And I suppose, mention it on the phone whenever you call in, just as a last thing, "Oh and please stop the scalpers by manufacturing more/setting limits per-order".)

Anyone stoked for 20 years from now when nostalgic Ninjago fans will be the big demographic? "Bring back classic Ninjago!", they'll say, and they'll deluge every fan poll, and people will say "enough with the classic Ninjago requests", and a huge subforum on here will be JUST for Ninjago... Well, I don't look forward to that time, because Ninjago minifigs on Bricklink will be extremely expensive! What a double bind, eh? My precious Aquazone has cheap parts on BL, but only because it never achieved the power and status of old-timey space or castle or what have you. Well, it had a good run. I suppose for my purposes, the ideal theme is one that is strong enough at the time to last a while, has enough demand for several waves, but is a cult anti-classic so the prices of its parts stay low for decades. (So I suppose, something that is popular with children at the time, but doesn't evoke their nostalgia very much later?) Or, am I just an early part of an Aquazone generation, and most people who grew up with it are still in their dark ages? Yes, I'm rambling. But, may the best theme win. I almost wish I'd voted pirates in the final round, out of greed... I want more pirates! I'd buy a lot of pirates! It's a travesty that excellent ship didn't pass ideas review! But, I still think I was right to vote castle, that in some sense, castle deserved it the most. I can't really articulate why. But it just seemed right. Castle is just such an... Obvious thing for Lego to produce, such a clearly right evergreen theme, much less specific than "neon-canopied spacecraft with a contrasting and a neutral body color". Surely knights and dragons are still a hit with children...

R-really?! The same day I called in?! So, I shouldn't have called in at all!

Except to remove parts, apparently!

Ok so, when I woke up and came down to my computer... A SECOND order (one made on Jan 12!) then said "Please contact customer service". So I called. The Jan 12 order was the thing you said, PayPal didn't work correctly since the wait was too long for backordered parts. That was resolved as you said, by just giving credit card info. The original "Please contact customer service" order (Feb 2) was something different: It seems like the head from the Cyber-Drone is not allowed to be sold (yet, if at all), and so that one had to be removed. Also apparently despite being in this nothing-yet-done state, that Feb 2 order couldn't be added to? Very strange.

Unless castle gets a clear mandate (which I'm hoping for), then... Man having four themes in the final makes Bionicle more likely to win in the end. (Well, to the degree the round 2 poll controls what we get, anyway.) I mean, pitting the big three classic Lego originals against each other... Surely we can imagine the vote being fairly evenly split between them. But, maybe it won't be, or Bionicle voters will be less than 25% overall? I just don't know. Hopefully they tell us soon what they're doing, so that we can all be elated or enraged, as appropriate. Now, if only Aquazone had done well enough that Lego took notice! But, I'll bide my time, and be back for the next big old-themes poll!

Now ideally you could just backorder parts on the website! Is there a way to resolve it on the website? Or do they really expect me to call and wait for an age? (And further, shouldn't they tell me on the website what the issue is?) I mean, yeah, I'll call them tomorrow, but man if it's just confirming payment info... They really should be able to just ask for that on the site. You know, as they do when one places an order on the site!

The order I placed over the phone a couple days back now says "Please contact customer service"... Ominous! Also, sad that Ronin's parts from City Gardens don't seem to be up there.

As others do, I wish that it were "space themes in general" in the final round. If it were guaranteed to be a neon early '90s space thing I might well have voted for that over castle. But... I dunno, castle just seems the most deserving.

Sort of for this topic, sort of for that other "will they ever do another space theme?" topic... Here's what I think should count as reasonable maintenance of old-timey Lego space, in the absence of a proper return: -Reasonably often, new good sci-fi minifigure parts. Stuff like the newish classic space-logo torso prints. -Cool-looking canopies in relevant/important transparent colors. That's it. That's the wishlist. For example, I think the Batman sets from a few years back, with a million trans-yellow canopies and windscreens and such, count as a relevant boon to both classic space and Blacktron I. Some of the trans-neon orange parts from Nexo Knights are, in the same way, relevant pandering to space fans. Yes, obviously, one can wish for things like "winning the 90th anniversary poll" or "a new and proper line that somehow captures the magic of being a child again", but, as long as Lego keeps making good and relevant spaceship parts, including canopies in the most prominent transparent colors, I think they've done good. New parts like the Cyber-Drone head are very useful; it's clearly in the lineage of the robot heads from Spyrius and Exploriens.

I am very glad that Lego was fair to castle. I will be voting castle in the final round. Any of castle, space, pirates would be fine with me. But it feels like castle is... I don't know, the missing thing. Like it somehow deserves it the most. (Also, "classic space" as in light bluish grey/blue/trans-yellow is not my kind of color scheme; that's just personal preference.) I'd say something about "we just got lots of pirates love", but, I'm a greedy bastard; if I truly were a pirate partisan that wouldn't stop me voting pirates. (And indeed if castle didn't make the final round I'd have voted pirates.) Hopefully, in general in the future we can have more historical/fantasy themes from Lego. I'd like to think that knights and dragons have that timeless appeal to children, as well as of course to us grown-ups! P.S. I'm totally at peace with Aquazone never having stood a chance; I got more Aquazone parts on BrickLink recently and, well, I just have to make my own destiny, don't I?

Oh, I should have ordered Black Falcon shields too, while I was at it... Well, next time I have reason to call I'll ask about them. And I should have asked about 6266977 as well, that multi-pack accessory thingy with some useful functional parts, though that one may count as licensed...

Well, you guys were totally right a bunch of pages ago that the legs for the Hidden Side goons were gone forever; damn, what a short production run, from <whatever lead time before the summer 2020 wave> to December 2020! Should have ordered significantly more of them months ago. Just got off the phone; was able to backorder a dozen Black Falcon torsos and legs, a pair of Barracuda Bay sail sets(!), and twenty Cyber-Drone heads. I was told, as I said, that the Hidden Side goons' legs were gone forever (off to BrickLink I guess), that the capes I asked about were licensed (and apparently the policy is that if those capes have EVER appeared in a licensed set, they have the Taint of License upon them, even if they've appeared in Lego-original sets elsewhere), and once again that the Ninjago orcs are unavailable. So, mixed success, and not really surprising results, other than the Barracuda Bay sails, which were a huge coup.