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Merlo

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Everything posted by Merlo

  1. Merlo
    I'm not sure about that myself. Can they "run out" of elements they make? :)
  2. Merlo
    I love how our imagination lets us completely move away from the harsh realities of medieval life, with oppressors and the oppressed, yet you are already in your mind roleplaying scenes such as "Toil for me, peasant! And maybe later you can sleep in the barn next to the animals!" I kid, I kid... :) I'd imagine a lot of effort goes into making even smaller Lego sets. And the designers are probably very skilled. However, it would be odd to think they put in a lot of thought into design when the castle is basically a bigger, grayer version of 31120. Even my favorite thing about it (the irregular shape) was an option with 31120. Personally, 31120 was way too colorful for me. I'm fine with castles having some texture or some imaginative builds to compensate for the flash the color would bring, assuming they have at least that. I 100% half-agree with this :) MOC level details would raise the price significantly and would be too big of a shock compared to what we expect to see. But there are lego-lore-friendly non-piece-count-obstructive ways to add some detail, both whether you're going for something colorful or something more serious and gray. Furthermore, the blocky-samey nature of this makes this look cute, and perfect for quick rebuilding as the pieces are big enough and everything fits with everything. The smoother and rounder elements on 10305 make it feel like it's supposed to be a MOC level detail Castle but stops halfway where it's not a great playset and not a great display item, but something only half satisfying. You can add interest without tiny pieces as well. And 10305 is indeed a massive build. The imagination element has probably left the station when they decided to inflate and gray-en 31120. I agree. Even Lego's own more detailed sets tend to lose parts if you gently touch them in a wrong way. I'd say my reality is: I'm an older fan, I want to feel what I felt for Castle sets 30 years ago. So small sets are fine, but more expensive and more interesting/sophisticated, something that would really make me reflect on the great imagination and skill of the creators. Lego's reality, however is: what is the least risky strategy? Play on nostalgia, just dress it up to modern standards but don't upgrade many of the things that are now just too basic. Make it huge/pricey. Cash in. I remember that I complained about Barracuda Bay at the time. I'd like to apologize to everyone for that. BB is much more a set of the kind that had what made Lego great once. Even though the idea wasn't theirs, they did choose to make it and the ship conversion was something that pleased both Lego and the buyers. It's only compared to 10305 that I now realize the true value of BB.
  3. Merlo
    Those are all great points you made. However, I do in fact prefer the 10305 style of castle over the more ornate styles. The style of 10305 is easily more appealing to me than the style of Madewithbrix castle, I just find the latter better executed. Lego has a lot of sets that I feel are "really great, but not my thing". Lego doesn't really have a lot of "my thing" (Castle/Pirates/Space) so when the little that shows up goes into mediocre efforts I cannot help and feel disappointed. I feel historical accuracy is a value onto itself. If Lego made a historically accurate castle, or say replicas of actual existing castles... I think that would be amazing. I'd buy that any day of the week, no matter how gray or boring. Like Architecture, small format, but with real castles. Where do I sign up for that? But I don't feel historical accuracy is at the forefront of their minds when designing sets. In fact, it's possible to take anything at all and do "that, but fun". It doesn't have to be crazy, ornate, fantasy or over the top to just be a fun take on something. It does, however, require a little bit of imagination and adherence to some proven design principles. Right now it feels a little bit like "oh, it's crazy and colorful and full of minifigures and features and action and it's like a big dollhouse and we have female knights and all sort of wacky things, but it's also grey and boring because it's historically accurate".
  4. Merlo
    That comment wasn't aimed at you personally, it's just my general experience that holds the same across all the Lego forums I'm a member of. Lego is that first, iconic thing, and therefore just by being Lego it has unsurpassed additional value. That phenomenon is really universal and not tied to Lego specifically. Say... like Fender with guitars. If you have a vintage Fender and I have an equally good guitar of lesser known manufacturer, then yours is automatically much better. And if my guitar is much better, then they're in fact both good. It's that kind of attitude. I'm not sure what you mean by the last sentence. 10305 from memory reminds me most of 1984's 6080. 6080 didn't have much of a design by itself but it was superb in contrast with the colors of the flags and minifigures, where each colorful element was roughly of the same size and had a really playful thing going with different color combos on knights and horses, etc. So great color composition, very plain design. But what 6080 did have is that it was really adorable with it's blocky style and was wonderful for letting your imagination go wild by rebuilding what you wanted with those big elements. Now look at 10305 with its huge flags and smooth surfaces. It's certainly something (as a castle of that size), but it's not cute and blocky and neither is it something you could even remotely easily rebuild and play with regularly. So I have to think of it as a display model. And as a display model it's just ok. The ugly grey rocks that are not even BURP's so there's no excuse, the huge green circular elements... Like I said before, none of it is *bad* or anything. It's just "this is fine". If I did it, I'd be shoving it down everyone's throat. But from Lego I expect more. And for something costing 400 euros I also expect more. You have only so many bricks at your disposal? That's more than enough to wow me several times over if you really put in the effort.
  5. Merlo
    Relatively, not absolutely. That is to say 1992 Lego wouldn't be all that great in 2022. But 1992 Lego was much better in 1992 than 2022 Lego is in 2022. Back then Lego was pretty close to checking all the boxes on what you can do with Lego given the limitations. Nowadays they're nowhere near. Not only are they not pushing the envelope, they're kinda sitting on their laurels and going with "this is fine" approach.
  6. Merlo
    It "should have" looked much more irregular. I say "should have" because it's possible that would've been a worse decision. Yes, it would appeal more to AFOL's with more sophisticated taste, but I imagine most people buy Lego because the Lego brand is strong and their nostalgia is tied to the brand, not because of the designs, that have reached a relative peak cca 1992. The problem with having sets like 10305 as display items (as opposed to playing with them) is that you need visual detail in order for the eye and the brain not to store every surface and then treat it like wallpaper. This is not that difficult to do with some irregularity and contrast, e.g. like on this image. The style and the colors and everything else is not important. These are some basic principles that can be applied to anything, and usually are in good designs, unless we're going for historical accuracy. This is also what makes all the Ninjago City sets work. You never get bored of them, and when you do - you can just flip them into some crazy new combination, and there are a lot of combinations that work, more than I would've thought. As for the shape, I love that the castle is not a square and nothing can take that away. But it also speaks of the lack of ideas they had. Not only is it just a bigger, blander version of 31120 when it comes to the general look and even placement of different elements, it also took the idea of the irregular shape that you can get by putting different builds of 31120 together. It basically feels like it was very skillfully done, as usual, but someone had to do it on an extremely tight schedule and just didn't waste a lot of time developing the design or the color scheme, but just realized the basic idea of "31120 but more grown up + anything else that is in there is extra" I don't have any gripes about the actual interior, the more there is - the bigger the play value. It's true there would've been a lot of parts that were just passages or such IRL. Actually, the only thing I can think of is there doesn't seem to be a throne room, and that's always a cool play element imho.
  7. Merlo
    I don't mind minifigs at all, and 31120 was indeed scarce on them. All I said was that it doesn't bring extra points for me. I kinda expect some minifigs at the end of the day. As for the interior, the point wasn't that it detracts. Obviously it's better to have an interior than not. The point was that because the interior space had to be usable, the outside of the castle couldn't be in some crazy interesting shape, simple because you couldn't have similarly sized and similarly useful rooms to decorate, but would end up with spaces of different sizes, some too small to create a real room, thus diminishing the play value. Ninjago City is a wonderful example of what I'm talking about. They took something I couldn't care less for and depicted it so vividly and with so much flair it became alive for me and I had to get all three sets. With 10305, on the other hand, they took something I care most about and gave it the "I don't really like my job" treatment. The castle screams: "Wait, I'm coming, I just have to finish designing this Castle for Lego. I don't have many ideas or love for this theme, but I have the skill to make it work anyway" lol
  8. Merlo
    That's fine, you can come to my place and pose my minifigures as well. It just feels like too much work and I can't dust them all to save my life :)
  9. Merlo
    I can't see what they could have done not to be perfect, then :)
  10. Merlo
    3x31120 has roughly 3300 parts. I'm not sure how much used parts would cost for that set or why you left the price comparison out. In any case it's been some time since 31120 came out and I was able to get them for 80 euros a pop, which came down to 7 cents per piece VS the new castle's 9 cents per piece. (not counting a bunch of leftover pieces even) 10305 indeed has a more diverse minifig collection, which is a double negative for me. As an AFOL I don't play with minifigures and since interior had to have a lot of usable room and play features for said minifigures, that limited the castle design options and undoubtedly influenced the previously mentioned dollhouse effect. All Lego is too expensive :) But Castle is not a licensed line and if I recall Ninjago City had roughly 4900 pieces and I got it at the first small discount I've found for 270 euros. In a way it's also too expensive for the way it looks, as it is somewhat plain. Again, because Lego wants expensive sets to look more grown up and more like playsets all at once, and this is both very difficult to start with and they're not doing the best job of it, we end up with half-solutions. I believe the style of the castle is a question of taste, and indeed I like the general style of 10305 more than that of 3x31120. But the execution less so. I can imagine a better executed castle in 10305 style, but 10305 isn't it. 3x31120 has that imaginative fantasy flair Lego used to have, while 10305 just comes across as inoffensive. So paying 400 euros for something you love, even though others might hate it, is understandable. That's why we have different options, and everyone can find something for themselves. Paying 400 euros for something that's just fine, and will probably be just fine to everyone else is only an option if you really have entirely too much money so why not :) The most impressive part of it is that Madewithbrix had to pick from three lots of identical bricks and that's it, while Lego designers could pick whatever bricks they wanted and despite that, all I can think of is when that promo video came out and folks were suggesting we got a glimpse of the new castle, which seemed silly to me as the castle in the video was just a more boring, upscaled 31120 and felt like something they made on the fly just for that video :( Only if your idea of castles is ties only to Lego castles, not real castles. I mean, Lego started with simple blocky castles because they could hardly make something complex back in the day. But the fact they never steered far from that just shows they're not really trying that hard anymore. Here's a house I wouldn't mind living in:
  11. Merlo
    While watching a review I had a feeling that a finished castle is only the first half of the castle. I'd expect it to be twice the size for that price tag. Upon further inspection it does seem I exaggerated a bit, but still, in my mind the castle was huge, in order to compensate the lack of exterior detail, when in reality it's not so much. I kept glancing at my 3x31120 MOC by Madewithbrix and I had a sad feeling the new Lego castle wouldn't quite compare in neither presence, design nor price point.
  12. Merlo
    How would I do what Lego designers couldn't? And what part of my take is puzzling? It seems like you think I have a specific image of a GE remake in my mind that I wanted to have realized and I really don't. I'd be perfectly fine with whatever GE Lego put out as long as it had that "weird but wonderful" vibe the original CS had. Instead this has the new Lego vibe of "pretty but boring". This is why I'm fine with most of the GE remake MOC's out there. I don't have super high criteria. Just make it somewhat interesting and not completely plain. Same deal with the new castle. Looks great, very little imagination. This is where the car comparison fails. If you had a resto-mod '59 Coupe DeVille, heck if you just had the original, you'd have a car that's easily more weird and interesting than the majority of the vehicles on the road today. If you have the new GE, you're in the opposite situation. The majority of SW ships, the Monkie Kid ship, etc. all look more interesting to start with. Lego used to be in a situation where they had to fight for our attention. Luckily for them, they're now in a situation that might best be described with "whatever, they'll all buy it". And they're right, of course, but the "whatever" part really shows.
  13. Merlo
    I'm not sure how it could be the other way around since the original had the double deck and the new one has... I don't know... a simple design for young Lego fans and added details for AFOLs. I mean, after all, the old GE was simplified into the new. Can you really take the new GE and simplify it much further, looking at the overall design, not the details? It seems like the only thing left would be to eliminate the outer slopes of the blue part, so it remains like a big triangular prism. As for the other moc, I don't think in hangs on any one part. You could probably make many models with those qualities, and then some, using all kinds of parts. It probably looks fightery because you can clearly see all the figures. So you've got: wings, comfortable space for figures, some bulk for cargo or something else in the rear. And the interior space doesn't look like it's made to be walked about and interacted in flight, it looks like the figures would strap in or at least take a seat and remain in that position for the duration of the flight. Is there even a passage from the front canopy to the back? So because of that strap in nature, I get a feeling you wouldn't strap in to go exploring the galaxy, but rather go on a shorter mission of some kind. And, as I mentioned, "lack of interior space" was never really an issue. I know Lego is just pretend so I can pretend it has a huge interior if I don't see all of it. I only can't pretend that if I do see all of it. I'm looking forward to see some variations on this.
  14. Merlo
    Understandable, but since I don't moc I'm really out on the limb here... because... someone might make an awesome moc out of those so maybe buy a few? Or nobody will, so maybe don't buy at all? :)
  15. Merlo
    I feel the greatest strength of classic space and CS-adjacent sets is how truly weird and imaginative they were. I don't feel like I need to post any examples and you'll already know at least a few sets by heart that can only be described as "what even is this?" Of course the old sets have aged poorly, they were just ideas that were realized with much greater limitations than Lego designers have today. I certainly don't think the OG Galaxy Explorer looks better than the new one. But even though it ranks quite low on the "what even is this?" spectrum, it was obviously made with a certain idea in mind. There's very little of that idea in the new ship. It basically went from this To this The new ship looks just like the new castle - plain. That means that whoever made it does not even realize that classic space had ideas but instead thinks of it as ugly old sets that would be very easy to beautify. The most striking thing about the design of the new ship is how flat the sides are. And that likely wasn't even a part of the idea of old ship, but just something that happened due to limitations and could have been improved upon. If the new ship wasn't in classic space colors, I probably wouldn't even connect it to the old Galaxy Explorer. It's pretty, but not even remotely weird. I believe Lego has become such a stranger to imagination and not just reproduction that anything that is not immediately obvious might as well not exist, because to them it does not. Given that, they probably would've had more luck making a recreation of something where you really can't miss some of the features, like the Galaxy Commander. For example, look at this random idea that popped out while I was looking for Galaxy Explorer images. Some obvious Galaxy Explorer inspiration, has a double canopy, does not look plain. Regardless of the execution, it has some personality. And that's what it's really about. Give me something to inspire my imagination. It does not have to be 1970-s level ugly, but a little weirdness would go a long way. P.S. The bulkiness also makes it look more ship-y and less fighter-y.
  16. Merlo
    I mean, sure, but the argument was never "Lego is not realistic" (like I would know what's realistic in space? :)), just that old sets left a lot of stuff to your imagination, while that is becoming increasingly more difficult with the newer sets.
  17. Merlo
    Agreed. It should probably easily top the MOC with overall volume I imagine. P.S. That MOC is amazing. I can't believe the author made it with a preset collection of bricks instead of choosing bricks from scratch. There was a total of 1 brick missing and I had some very minor complaints with the instructions and some trickier builds, but the shape is very interesting and it's not too colorful like the Creator castle, yet not too bland either, just right. Not to mention 31120 dropped in price since coming out so I built the entire thing for less than €250. I must say though, both that MOC and the new castle are too big for me. I'd enjoy a series of smaller but distinctive sets in at most half that size, but preferably even smaller. Well Gardens of Ninjago City is like... 67 bricks high with that antenna or smth, definitely crazy :)
  18. Merlo
    Yeah, there's definitely something to this. Although I'm not sure if a see-through roof panel would be beneficial for the back crew of a spaceship or just introduce a structural vulnerability. Yeah, I'm not too fond of that. Makes it look less like bricks and more like models.
  19. Merlo
    Sure, if you imagine the combined canopy of a spaceship is 50% of its length and it opens like that. I haven't seen that in scifi on big ships, or else I would've believed it too.
  20. Merlo
    I was just looking how the new castle would size up with the 3x31120 MOC I've built. The walls on the Lego set are what? 14-20 bricks tall? The tallest part seems to be 31-32 bricks tall. The lower walls on this set are 15-17 bricks tall, but the roof ends 45 bricks tall.
  21. Merlo
    What? :) The original ship made it seem like it's a big vessel made for galaxy exploring, but in a more modest scale then the name would imply. Even though it wasn't that big, the design was believable enough that you could have bought it being a bigger vessel. The new ship is the complete opposite - the design suggests it's a much smaller vehicle, like a fighter jet or something, but the scale has actual room for it to be a big ship. But instead of making it seem like it's much bigger than it is (like Lego designers often used to in my youth), they left flat sides and big see through spaces, so you can't even imagine it's bigger. There was always something off with this. I think back then Lego had big megablocks chunky parts, and now they have a lot of tiny parts.
  22. Merlo
    The original ship had a big, tall, bulky, covered and semi-covered, "2 story" fuselage that went well with the name "Galaxy Explorer". This is what made the illusion of the ship. The new one just threw that out and put in a luxurious open space for the figures. That ship doesn't look like it's going to explore anything other than in how many pieces your ship will be after a dogfight :) The huge engines on the old ship also were selling the illusion of "this is a big ship, it needs powerful engines to carry all the stuff that we're play-imagining is in the interior". The huge engines of the new ship give it a dragster look, like a small fighter ship, but super-sized for greater detail, without much of the said detail present (wings are cool tho).
  23. Merlo
    BS was pretty cool for what it was, just a little bit too flashy for my taste. I don't have that "issue" with the new GE. Honestly, I'd been happy if the set just matched what the original GE had and didn't contribute anything. And that would be: -that it looks spaceship-y -that it looks weird in a good way (both of these are mostly courtesy of that bulky and weird looking blue "fuselage" part) -that it looks a bit retro (completely optional, just for extra points) Instead we got some sort of fighter plane in CS colors that wouldn't be out of place fighting an X-wing. I mean, it's a cool one at that, it's just not something that interests me that much
  24. Merlo
    I'm not really sure what you're trying to say?
  25. Merlo
    That's true, but I'd rather go back to "this is very cool, too bad it doesn't have new interesting features" than "this is basic and blocky, but the features are great".
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