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Mylenium

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  1. Mylenium
    To use a quote from one of my favorite TV series, Deep Space Nine: "The repetitive epic is the most elegant form of Cardassian literature,..." and apparently this on some level applies and goes back to Homer's analysis of the hero's cycle in human literature, too - despite best intentions, history is always repeating. Point in case: Everything has been done in some way at some point in time somehow already, so it's inevitable the pattern will repeat. Specifically to LEGO what could you even come up with that wouldn't feel like it is a rehash of something else? I just don't see it. The constraints of a commercial product alone are limiting factors as is the technical system it is based on. So "truly unique" is an unobtainable goal by that measure. At best we can hope for something "genuinely fresh" in that the tropes may not be too obviously recognizable, at first at least, but I don't see anything epic happening on the horizon. Ninjago was LEGO's one golden luck punch and it's simply infinitely difficult to replicate this as much as they may want to. Mylenium
  2. Mylenium
    From the business side, all that matters are the revenue and grosses. I don't know any company that gets too wound up over past products and their popularity. It's simple metrics - people caring and being fans of legacy products may make for good PR, but factually it's a tiny, tiny percentage of your whole customer base. Even all LEGO-related communities combined are just a fraction of all people that actually buy the products. That's one thing you have to keep in mind. We still live inside a specific bubble no matter how open-minded and broadly thinking we try to be. That's why I don't think popularity of specific themes is a good measure. Sure, LEGO are undoubtedly watching us, but even if we all petitioned to bring back Bionicle the chances that it would actually happen were slim. There are other considerations they would have take into account long before that... Mylenium
  3. Mylenium
    Not necessarily an issue of one "Big Bang Theme" taking the cake. Sometimes you simply have to try twenty times before a new product takes. That's just the reality of any product development. I've seen companies in the machine building industry sink billions of Euro in projects that they misjudged. Similarly, I can barely keep count of the software projects I've seen come and go over the years and that never made it out of Beta. Happens to the best of them. That being said, it's only natural that LEGO are trying to emulate Ninjago's success and are looking for the next big thing. Of course there's that part where they simply stumble upon their own feet with dumb decisions and lazy execution, but sometimes the market simply isn't ready. I also think mutual cannibalization is overrated. Some people just don't care for Ninjago at all, excellent as some sets may be. The same could be said about other series. If there's any concern at all with regards to people's ability to afford stuff, it's simply that LEGO are pushing out too much and the prices have become kind of crazy, but that's a different discussion... Mylenium It wasn't. There have long been rumors that the series was planned at least three years in advance before even being announced and that the content created for it could last at least five years. Apparently LEGO were hoping for a lot more, but totally underestimated how much people were teed off by that AR nonsense and the lack of genuine world building. Mylenium
  4. Mylenium
    The best way to construct anything with arbitrary angles is to use clips and small ball joints. It still takes time to figure out where those things need to be placed, but it's perfectly possible to create almost watertight models this way. That all being the case, simply buy a bunch of these items for prototyping. This mucking around in the digital world usually is not productive unless you really, really know your LEGO-math in your sleep, meaning use your sample lot of parts to build rough approximations of your final armor plates, then figure out where those clips and joints need to go both on the base structure and the shields themselves. Mylenium
  5. Mylenium
    Not sure whether I would want Vincent to stare at me. He was a troubled soul. It could be quite unnerving... Mylenium
  6. Mylenium
    Not really. His paint style is much more complex than people give it credit for, an issue you'd face with many contemporary artists that literally plastered on entire tubes of paint and mixed and structured them on the canvas. The many subtleties would poorly translate to such a simple, flat medium as LEGO plates, even more so as the direction of the strokes also matters a lot. Take e.g. van Gogh's moon light night. Very few colors, but the paint being caterpillared across the canvas to form specific ridges and radial patterns... Mylenium
  7. Mylenium
    Don't get this the wrong way and I don't mean to be a party pooper, but it's that old "Everybody and their mom." thing. There's simply too many Modular Building style proposals even if they aren't called that technically. LEGO are clearly conscious of this issue and are simply trying to not get locked too much into it. Add on top of that their own plans for the actual MB series plus the fact that right now you can already buy tons of custom instructions and you quickly realize that anyone can already fill the rest of their lives just building those houses. Again something LEGO have to be and clearly are aware of, meaning that even if there were more actual modular buildings being produced, the market potential is still limited. There's just too many factors speaking against it and if at all, they will only pick models that truly stand out or have merits beyond just being a building like e.g. representing an opportunity for franchise licensing (TV series, movies etc.). Mylenium
  8. Mylenium
    I hope so. The 85 Euro purchase limit is way too high. Mylenium ...but very few offer that kind of versatility. I guess that's the point. I had the same feeling with the Building Bigger Thinking sets, hoping that LEGO finally were seeing the light, in a manner of speaking, but nada. It was just a one-off for the 60th anniversary and the Classic brick boxes remain half useless as they always have been for quite a while now.... Mylenium
  9. Mylenium
    The Duke's Arboretum
  10. Mylenium
    This is my contribution to the Eurobricks Flower Show contest and I call it "The Duke's Arboretum". The model is based around the idea that in the past centuries upper class people in their castles and villas would pride themselves in obtaining as many rare plants from around the world as they could in a competition to outdo one another about who has the most valuable collection. Of course those had to be kept in specialized green houses/ arboretums to meet their conditions. I tried to capture this feeling of the old with a tall gothic arch window and red velvet curtains while the walls are more contemporary and simple with an oil paint green socket and only some decorative trim. Likewise, the floor would be just plain tiles to be waterproof and allow easy cleaning. I guess it's this kind of weird mixture of styles that you would have found in the mid 19th century to the early 20th century, transitioning from old aristocratic interiors to a more modern, industrial and ultimately more practical approach.
  11. Mylenium
    At best it would be a matter of formal politeness, but otherwise I don't see how you can have any claims in this, let alone legally enforce it. UK copyright law is way too broad and unspecific and the burden of proof is on you, after all. And if it's a non-UK person it would be even more pointless, considering the differences in legislation in different countries. That's also why a complaint with Bricklink is probably all kinds of trouble and not worth it... Mylenium
  12. Mylenium
    Lovely model! :-) Mylenium
  13. Mylenium
    It would have to go much deeper than that, with the actual point being that the LDraw file format specs are very 1990s and could need some major enhancements or more specifically need to be re-invented from the ground up IMO. Mylenium
  14. Mylenium
    Yeah, sure. Couldn't agree more. But there's the rub: In order to even make it worthwile, you'd have to come up with a better file format in the first place. So for all intents and purposes, this is merely an academic discussion. Mylenium
  15. Mylenium
    Could definitely be. The crash in the mono.dll might also indicate a network issue. Perhaps it's trying to connect to Bricklink at random times and crashes when it gets blackholed. Mylenium It's probably just a means of keeping the operating systems from peeking into the ZIP files. Also password-protecting files creates an extra hash value, which may help with integrity checks. Mylenium
  16. Mylenium
    Okay, that could be a different story. My models so far never exceeded 800 pieces. On a hunch I'd say the issue is likely your Windows 8.1 and a potentially outdated graphics/ video driver because it's no longer supported. I think Unity stopped supporting it with one of their 3.x versions quite a while ago. Does the event viewer offer any insights into the cause of the crashes? Mylenium
  17. Mylenium
    Yeah, Stud.io isn't great, but perhaps you might care to provide some system info and details about your project for some context? Funny enough for me it doesn't even crash while working, it just occasionally refuses to launch because the Unity stuff bombs out quietly behind the scenes. Mylenium
  18. Mylenium
    Not really the point, to be honest. It's more like that in many sets you can just feel how management decisions about price point resulted in sets feeling incomplete. At least in my case it's often that I get this nagging suspicion and often tend to think "If only this set had those 5 extra pieces it would be so much better." Or to put it another way: It feels like a forced, artificial cut-off and LEGO are being miserly for no real reason other than pushing things into a specific price/ gross ratio and region. Mylenium
  19. Mylenium
    The usual evil combination of inflation and corporate greed, I suppose... Mylenium Polybags are a pain in the posterior parts here in Germany. It's impossible to get some at all or for that matter at any point get all polybags of the season. And to make matters worse it appears that many outlets would love to have them, but LEGO themselves cannot supply enough stock and/ or are holding back stuff for their own promotions. Mylenium Yes/ No/ Perhaps/ Maybe/ Likely not. Point in case: A lot of these sets don't trigger any impulse in me because they are way, way to obviously trimmed down versions. I guess that's what's @Lego David is trying to say. A lot of these sets feel like they don't belong/ fit into the series whose branding they carry and are simply not a good way of getting your taste buds tingled. Arguably LEGO are doing themselves even a disservice with these lackluster products and putting off a lot of people rather than reeling them in... Mylenium
  20. Mylenium
    I don't because a) I have no use for nostalgia and b) I find the whole notion of collecting plastic toys just weird. You know, it simply degrades and all that. As always: Ask a hundred people, get a hundred different answers. In my case it's simply a different outlet for my artistic and technical inclinations. No more, no less. Mylenium
  21. Mylenium
    I could well imagine that LEGO could achieve a better representation of e.g. the African American communities in sets by better reflecting their overall life situation or including more figures in their clothing and hair styles, clichéed as that itself maybe. Changing skin tones on the other hand seems a bit futile and even pointless. It might only lead to more debates because then people will start counting which color was used how often in which sets and eventually everyone will complain about being misrepresented... Mylenium
  22. Mylenium
    I never liked Bionicle/ Hero Factory, but I have to admit that if the models had looked this good way back when I might have got hooked... Mylenium
  23. Mylenium
    Maybe. But to be honest it hearkens back to that old thing that a lot of people tend to underestimate how well kids can handle some things. They are more psychologically robust and aware of their circumstances and environment than even many scientists and medical doctors give them credit for. It may not be the best comparison, but due to my own chronic illness I'm occasionally in groups with parents or children suffering similar life and death situations. The kids can cope with that just fine in many cases and differentiate what's real and what's not. No denying that they still need help and support, but it's not that they don't have their own way of dealing with it. So I would think that while some kids may be traumatized and respond negatively, most of them could separate real life goings-on from their fictional play world and not suffer any damage. And of course, taking a page from psychiatry books, confrontation is better than evading a problem. So perhaps the issue is not LEGO's minifigures depicting certain scenarios, but rather how the kids and their parents may need to talk about these things... Mylenium
  24. Mylenium
    It's not just that. The automated part buying function on RB says something like 130 Euros for the whole model, and that's the cheapest price it suggests for me as a German citizen. I'm sure it could be brought down with manually selecting better shops, but even then you probably arrive at 60 Euros, which seems insane for such a small model - to me, anyway. Mylenium
  25. Mylenium
    Nice model, but I knew right away that it would cost a lot when I saw those golden Batman pieces. Too bad it's so unattainable without some hefty changes... Mylenium
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