Mylenium

Presumably not directly, but the parts sure look like they were created using the LDraw versions as reference, considering how low-res they appear. In fact I tend to think that if one were truly keen on using Maya and producing detailed high-res renders, you'd model things like wedges or Technic panels as SubDs or based on NURBS curves, not polygonally. Mylenium

Good point. Would be nice if it were, but I wouldn't bet on it. Otherwise it seems my initial skepticism is only confirmed. The sets are better than I had feared, but still just the same old topics in a different interpretation. Mylenium

There are currently still five or six sets with dragon-esque creatures? I'd already consider that a zoo and then I don't even have many of the older actual dragon sets. It's of course subject to view, but in a way I feel it reinforces my point rather than weakening it: LEGO seem to have run out of ideas and just are trying to reuse their molds as long as they can. Doesn't really change much for me whether they all have different appendages and are called "Earth Fox" or whatever instead of "Dragon". Beyond that - and I don't mean to insult you - it seems to me you're too much locked into that gender thing. I know you probably don't understand it, but just last week this documentary really explained the issue: https://www.zdf.de/dokumentation/no-more-boys-and-girls It's a really an eye-opener and really explains how we all are victims of our own gender-based steroetypes and preconceptions from the earliest days of childhood, often totally subconsciously. I really recommend watching it to anyone. So for what it's worth, on an idealistic level there should really not even be a need to discuss whether LEGO needs girl stuff. The business side is of course a thing, but given how little luck LEGO seem to have lately with girly stuff, I'm not sure that not having any such series (beyond Friends) would really be that detrimental. Funny enough I already find the Systar stuff in The LEGO Movie 2 better than many a Friends sets and I think that is how LEGO should do it, overall - sets with a distinctly feminine touch, yes, but integrated into over-arching story worlds. I really don't think it needs to be more complicated than that. Mylenium

Once more I have to disagree with you. Four years isn't really that much, especially when you consider how few sets actually came out and how small a lot of them were. I'd also like to note that as an openly gay man and someone who regularly buys Friends sets and such I object to any statements about male predominance in the AFOL scene and possible sterotypes associated with that (as in "It's not a shirt if it isn't plaid"). Perhaps we should avoid making such observations, okay? As for the colors - I think it is quite an issue and in my view it doesn't even have much to do with whether your brain ticks like a child or not. To me it's more a case of having a certain artistic background and education. Unfortunately there is a lot of bad design out there and people are bombarded with it, so in the end it may never occur to them to explore other color combinations even in the LEGO world. If you get my drift - to me a disharmonious contrast might be ingenious because I've been doing painting, sculpting and computer graphics all my life and can appreciate the intention behind it, but to other minds it will be just whacky and appear off-putting. Hence I think it is a notable contributing factor not just for Elves. On that subject it also stands to note that LEGO tend to make this even worse by locking themselves into specific color palettes for some series or sets at least and by overusing those palettes they eventuall wear out the novelty and uniqueness. You know, I really like Dark Blue, but it having been used so excessively in Elves and Nexo Knights sets perhaps hasn't helped its popularity. I'm pretty sure similar conclusions can be drawn in many ways if one were to do a detailed analysis. That said, there are of course other, more prevalent factors. I for instance always thought that Elves could have served as a nice canvas/ umbrella for a generic fantasy theme, but LEGO kinda missed out on that by making it too specific for a certain (female-oriented) crowd and at some point it ended up just being a dragon zoo when they had navigated themselves into a corner and ran out of ideas. There was no need to make it about a specific story to begin with and then of course the old thing with named characters limiting your storytelling and how people relate to them plus a ton of other things. I don't know much about Nexo, but I'd assume it suffered similar problems. In the end, I tend to think that in particular Elves didn't even reach the target demographic you claim it was made for. At the risk of reopening old wounds - many times it seemed to me I was the only one buying those boxes, not little girls. So perhaps this is indeed a case of where LEGO need to learn this lesson the hard way and stay away from those specific series and instead integrate more female-oriented stuff in other, more generic product lines? Just a thought, of course, but it would render such discussions moot and perhaps be even better for business? I'm strongly leaning towards the latter here... Mylenium

In terms of color there was some interesting and unique stuff there, no doubt. On the other hand I'm pretty sure not many will miss it. It's always been more of an acquired taste than something people could instinctively relate to and funny enough the shrill colors are also part of the reasons for its demise... Mylenium

Best Theme: Harry Potter (though I'm personally not a Potter-Head) Best Minifigure/Figure: don't care for minifigs Best Set: Statue of Liberty (despite its flaws) Worst Theme: every theme has had its stinkers this year, but likely Technic takes the crown Worst Minifigure/Figure: see above Worst Set: Technic Forest Harvester Most Anticipated for 2019: The LEGO Movie 2 Pop-Up Party Van (so far) Mylenium

Well, you could start by getting rid of that cluster of group-affiliation icons? Some people like you have more of those than actual profile info and it simply makes the user info area look ugly. Outside of the groups, who actually cares, anyway? It's all about the little things... Mylenium

Then let me spell it out for you: This forum is ugly as hell and hugely disorganized. It doesn't adhere to any modern standards of UX design, the endless tapeworm threads are more confusing than helpful and the graphical design looks like an inexperienced intern slapped it together with PowerPoint. Random users just won't come here to look for info, hence it's probably not much of a surprise if user numbers are dwindling. In fairness, though, this forum is still huge and other LEGO-centric communities are just as deficient, so somehow it still kinda works. It just could be a lot better, probably. Mylenium

Unless there's some serious geometry beyond the rail, that's going to be nigh on impossible. Anything that I can think of would introduce offsets that require some extra surface area to actually plug on the bricks or insert them in a different way to begin with. Mylenium

Snarky comment: With this messy appearance and serious structural issues, to put it mildly, is it any wonder? My 2 Cents. Mylenium

You can put this however you want, but these aren't just my own observations. If you care to look up posts from other German members of this forum, you will find similar viewss pertaining to the mishandling and almost complete irrelevance of e.g. Super Heroes sets and so on. Similar observations can be made on many native German places, but apparently there would be no point in showing them to you if you can't follow what's being said there. Beyond that I never said that LEGO is breaking down or going broke right away, but the fact remains: They're in trouble around these parts and probably not doing as well as they could. Need I cite that Playmobil vs. LEGO thing again? Otherwise we can throw around arguments for hours and never arrive at anything we both agree on. Let's just leave it at that. All we're doing here is discuss individual views and opinions. No point in making it about anything else and kill the fun or get personal. Mylenium

Yupp, it just looks sexy! :-) And they found a way to re-use the custom molded canopy from the Star Wars Slave 1 set... *giggle* Mylenium

Nah, not really. I completely disagree. As far as LEGO goes, they are makers of their own misery because frankly I simply think they don't have much of a plan in some areas or are just acting stupid. In fact your point about staggered releases in particular doesn't make much sense, since currently there aren't even sets in many product series that would replace others immediately, hence the cannibalization effect is barely of any relevance. Just the opposite may be true - people are desperately craving sets and LEGO doesn't deliver (literally). Conversely, I don't think that there is actually an issue with too much choice in many lines or across different lines. At the end of the day it is often a "take it or leave it" kind of decision in the sense that people who have enough money don't care and people who are just barely scraping by and need to save up the money will have made a very educated decision long beforehand. One way or the other LEGO are either going to make a buck or they don't, but I don't see deferred/ postponed purchases as any problem for them for whatever reason. It's in the end irrelevant, as any cannibalization is on the retailers' heads, anyway and they need to get rid of overflow stockpiles, not LEGO themselves. They already made their cut. And that once again is kinda a point in itself, just in reverse: Currently you can't even buy some EOL sets anymore already despite dealers having lots of demand. You know, it's five weeks before Christmas and those people can't make business because LEGO already have phased out stuff. Therefore cannibalization isn't an issue at all. Just the same, stuff that doesn't sell simply won't sell even next year. You can be academic about it all you want, but at least in the LEGO world and speaking from my perspective as someone living in Germany the picture presents itself in a very straightforward, rather unambiguous way. So to sum it up: As far as I'm concerned, leaks very likely don't have much of an impact on the business side of things. LEGO's own bad practices towards retailers and the lack of adaptation to specific markets are in my view probably are hurting sales more than any leak ever could - strictly speaking from my own experiences in a regional context. It may be different elsewhere, but even that is doubtful to me. As someone in this thread already said, even many AFOLs are ignorant of specific leaks, so if there is any damage at all, it's tiny fractions of a much bigger whole and thus a moot point. Mylenium

Correct. Stickers are just plain evil. ;) Mylenium

Not to put too fine a point to it, but this year's Bugatti and DB5 reveals didn't go tits up due to leaks, they were simply poorly planned and executed and the fan backlash IMO was inevitable. The rest can be seen either way. Nobody is denying the need for secrecy/ confidentiality, but your anecdote on Star Wars for instance actually caused me an eveil grin - as if anyone actually would care and fans be unable to connect the dots. It goes to show how ridiculous this can become to the point of totally getting in the way of getting the work done. So for what it's worth, perhaps some people need to come to their senses one way or the other... Mylenium But the mechanics work both ways?! How many people complain about older sets going out of production? How many people have no interest in newer sets because they think they're rubbish? I'm afraid your argument isn't that conclusive. In the end, it will probably perfectly level out. But you can't exactly blame the customer for this, can you? That's the whole point: A company needs to plan for this scenario and adapt their production, logistics and distribution. And on some level it's not really the point. As far as LEGO is concerned, people don't buy stuff because the sets are simply bad. I have written about this in many other threads already how certain product lines are rotting on the shelves here in Germany. I personally know some stores where I can stop by month after month and see the same boxes with all the same damage marks. That's how bad it is at times and it completely has nothing to do with whether those sets are old or fresh. Mylenium

I don't think so. In fact any company playing the hush-hush game in the age of social media can probably be called out for not understanding that part and in my view LEGO certainly don't. It's like Facebook et al are okay for them when they spread their marketing, but god forbid someone posts some info there they don't like and they'll turn into an evil Kraken... That would have to stand up to genuine legal scrutiny and having a verifiable case at hand. It very much hinges on what you define as a leak, how the info was obtained, how it proliferated, in which country and court a case is filed and so on. In my view most of that wouldn't hold up so it would probably be okay to discuss alleged "leaks" on forums like this - strictly from a legal POV, not LEGO getting pissy about it. It's more a case of the operators of this site probably preempting any of that by not allowing anything at all. Mylenium

Considering how disappointing it turned out, probably not a big deal. And of course your statement makes a point in itself: Wouldn't "open communication" be better to begin with than an eternal cock tease? Had they done so, it would have left a much better impression and not disappointed people that much. A similar analogy could of course be made for many other LEGO releases just as well. Or in other words: If they are trying to hype up the tension in the way they do this currently, the can't well complain when it explodes into their face when it leaks. My 2 cents... Mylenium

I don't care much either way. If I stumble upon a leak I'll absorb the info and be glad about it, possibly even voicing my opinion on the items, but I'm not spending my time seeking them out proactively. The rest is beside the point. It's a game where nobody is on the right side. LEGO are just as much overstepping the bounds hunting people down way too many times as do the leakers by posting such info in the first place. Mylenium

Lovely model! :-) Mylenium

Nothing to do with governmental policies at all beyond possible punitive tariffs and regular cost for customs fees, taxes and whatnot. In some regions of the world LEGO is simply more expensive - there may be no suitable distribution network, the region may generally be difficult to reach, raising even the simplest international shipping cost to crazy heights, there may be steep sales taxes and so on. No offense, but you can't apply your typical simplistic US logic here. Combine that with lower average income or the fact that LEGO likes to translate prices 1:1 e.g. from USD to EUR without compensating for exchange rates or possibly reduced initial cost due to regional production and you can take a guess at how expensive a set can become. In fact it's even worse in that lately LEGO has started to price out sets that cost 30 or 70 USD at 40 and 80 EUR, respectively, so there's already a built-in surcharge despite Billund being closer to Germany than LEGOs Mexican factory to the US. If things can be that bad in Europe already I don't even want to dream about how costly LEGO can be in some remote parts of the worlds where the next factory or distribution center is thousands of miles away. So with all respect, perhaps you should consider those points before applying a redneck "blame your government for everything" stance. @Lego Mike sounds smart enough to me to already have considered all options and clearly judging from his words, waiting things out for some magical discount to happen may not be an option when you don't even have a choice between retailers in a market where copycats are more prominent than the original. Mylenium

Arguably that's no different here in Europe. In the end LEGO live by their mythical reputation here in Europe and having walled themselves in nicely by building a monopoly. If competing companies like Oxford, Mega, Cobi and so on actually weren't as complacent (or had the huge production and marketing capacities required for that matter) we'd sure be talking differently. I'd sure love to see someone give LEGO some heat, if only to knock them back into reality... Mylenium

That's the part LEGO can't seem to get in their heads to begin with. Instead they are trying to abuse IP legislation as a weapon to prevent any competition... Mylenium

As with all these cases: Mostly irrelevant. Those factories will reopen tomorrow under a different name and bypass the regulations of the ruling in some way or another. Mylenium

Most City and 3 in 1 sets will fit with the modular buildings, a few of them not so much. It all depends on the elements used in the actual build. E.g. several City and 3 in 1 buildings will often use large panels instead of rows of bricks to keep it simple for building, so they tend to end up being slightly taller because the individual storeys are taller. Similar for vehicles - a van's roof can be higher than an Expert building's ground floor and this could look fake when they stand next to each other. Still, you can always modify stuff to match a unified appearance. Minifigures are more or less a uniform size and fit both worlds just fine. In the end it's still down to your own experimentation and what variations and deviations you find acceptable. Mylenium

Because it uses an awful matrix decomposition code? Just guessing here of course, but most of the time unstable under-the-hood rotation code is to blame for such issues. Otherwise I'd simply observe the value the rotations in LPub produce and then kinda hack my way through the script code with values that appear to make the most sense. The "Regenerate Page" button is your friend... Mylenium