RichardGoring

Honestly, not fussed about the orca, but seals would be awesome. I'd love a more modern crab too, and a set with the hermit crab in.

My March 21 order shipped April 24. Now the postage wait...

Sigh. The Hogwarts Express and Hogsmeade look good, despite not really wanting to get yet another HE train! Might have to get that one, and possibly blend the last one with the new one for a longer train. The Hogwarts build looks really enticing, although up close the new style has never really done it for me, so I hope that continues and I'm not tempted to buy any more. Patiently (and eagerly) waiting for Gringotts. The rest appear to be great and I look forward to seeing them in more detail soon. I don't think I'll get any of them though.

I rarely buy sets on release. Partly because there is to much of a rush, things often sell out, and I don't want to deprive someone who really want them first. Partly because I prefer to wait for a good GWP or discount. But also because I like to see how I view the sets after the hype has died down. And I have to say that yesterday I removed all except 76958 Dilophosaurus Ambush from my wish list. That feels good for $20, and the Jeep is new. But none of the others feel that good, or worth the money, or both. Kind of sad to admit it, as I've really liked the previous JP sets. Brachiosaurus and triceratops sets are good, but not with the money to me (the tree doesn't add much value in my mind). The 4+ set and the visitor center aren't too my tastes and are a bit disappointing. I may be swayed back with reviews, but I suspect not. Hope everyone who does get them has fun though.

An excellent idea. Just been into a LEGO store and got five of the dual molded white legs with black boots. If nothing else, they go to the crew of my Caribbean Clipper, who will look mighty fine with them.

I think the survey leak showed only potential sets for the future. By the time it happened, the 2023 sets were locked in. Some speculated that we might see some of the survey sets at the end of 2023, but not sooner.

I'm loving how people are updating their sets. This is another excellent MOC/expansion, this time of the Well of Souls:

Sort of, but also sort of not. The perception of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull being really bad probably makes merchandise partners a bit nervous in investing in the new movie. But the original 3 will always sell. So support the new movie with the things people know and love already. It successfully gets people to spend their money. Cynical, but there you are. In other news, did anyone see the wonderful expansion someone did on Reddit? Modified 77015 Golden Idol Temple : lego (reddit.com) Nice video showing an additional section with blades coming out of the wall. Very elegantly done. I look forward to seeing more and more mods/expansions of this set.

Interesting. I'd always assumed it was to space out the figures in the build to add variety, but that's a good point.

I may have to try and get a copy of that, sounds like an interesting read. I'm not a huge fan of licensed sets, and they make up a small proportion of my collection. I only own two Star Wars sets. But they are the Milennium Falcon and Star Destroyer, because of the presence they have and the impact something like that makes on you when you see it. So I can totally appreciate that insight - I'm part of it! But my favourites are still pirates and forestmen. Not only from my childhood, but also because when I got them out for my then three year old, a few years ago, it was an instant hit. 6270 Forbidden Island, 6274 Caribbean Clipper, and 6066 Camouflaged Outpost are just so well done, in so many ways. And still stand up today, I think. As does a small child. Perfect!

All very interesting, but on this part specifically, Jamie mentions that people's memories of old sets are that they are smaller and less detailed than remembered, which is something they also brought up on the release of the Lion Knights castle and 10497 Galaxy Explorer - hence being twice as big as the originals. Pirates of Barracuda Bay was similar. And of course, doing that you multiple the number of parts significantly, increasing the cost, which reduces the market potential, which impacts whether people want them even more, and... well, vicious cycle.

I think I'm going to sell my copy of the modular LEGO store for this reason, and that it's actually quite bland. I knew both of those things when buying it, but hoped that more pictures and reviews would reveal something better. They didn't, and it's going for $400+ which is far better spent on something else. I do wish the train station was smaller. I would love them to have picked The Meeting Point, but sadly not. And they've changed the program now, so we're unlikely to see it. What a shame. https://ideas.lego.com/projects/d877ae63-11e8-4e20-ac19-97c72ebe25c6

It's a shame that you had such a negative experience. I've not built it yet, but look forward to doing so one day. I think it's worth noting a few things, for no other reason that to hopefully help you feel better in some ways and/or direct your displeasure in the right way. Do you mean this Botanical Gardens? LEGO MOC Botanical Garden by Berthil | Rebrickable - Build with LEGO. If so, it's designed by Berthil, whereas Studgate was by BrickyBricks82. I parted out the Botanical Gardens and agree with some of your comments about fiddlyness, but overall I loved it, and assume that MOCs make these kinds of compromises in most cases. It always highlights to me the strength of fan designers, but also just how good the LEGO design process is to make things work so elegantly. On that, it's worth noting that the Bricklink Designer Program sets are not LEGO sets. They are designed by the fan designers, and don't go through the same LEGO quality control, which is why you get reports such as yours - the fishing boat in particular is known for being very unstable mid-build. the packing is also done by Bricklink, not LEGO, so again, not the same processes, and much more manual than a standard LEGO set. FWIW, if there are missing elements, LEGO will replace them in the same was as a regular set. Ultimately, it's a shame that LEGO themselves have not produced a highly detailed station, so we are left with MOCs, but I still appreciate the BDP and the fan designers for bringing these sets to market at a relatively affordable (!!) price! I hope the next set is much more to your satisfaction.

They have, although I suspect that they thought it didn't fit well will Minifigures, the solution is not to use something else that also doesn't fit well though!

It's such a missed opportunity to use the old crab mould and not update it. What a shame. Missed opportunity to update the fish mould too, for that matter!

OMG! That's such a big miss. That crab mould could have been updated to something more modern, and more in-keeping with the rest of the set, but no. What a shame.

It will be a shame if it's so large and bulky and not have any play features. Hope to get decent images soon.

You're quite right, but the question here is whether the people at Bricklink who are selecting the final five projects will take into account upcoming LEGO sets and whether that influences their decision to include or exclude pirate sets. That part of the process isn't really influenced by the majority who don't know the program exists.

I could see it either way. On the one hand, potentially more competition, so they feel like offering a pirate set would be at odds with their own Imperials set. On the other hand, BDP sets don't get new prints, and there are relatively few pirate torsos in production, but they can include new torsos, and possibly other prints, from the Imperials set into a BDP set. Although with either argument, the limit of 20,000 units of the BDP sets means that it likely won't be compared in any way to general LEGO set releases.

Some of those competition builds are mind-blowing. Amazing work. I hope they make use of them all and promote a bunch of them in some form. They deserve to be seen widely.

I think you could get away with the latest City monkey to be honest. New eye printing, and ideally a waistcoat print too? But the problem with all of them is the hat. Could you get away with trying to create Abu without the hat? Disney might not even allow it. So you'd need to create some kind of new mould regardless.

Agreed, that seems really harsh. Especially for a brick-built submission. Photos look good enough to me, and not as bad as many digital submissions with all sorts of crazy effects applied to them.

THEY ARE NOT! HOW DARE YOU!!

Really enjoyed the trailer. Certainly looks like there could have been some decent LEGO sets built from this, so a shame we may not get them.

Another one for the ice castle train here. From the front it looks great, and if you can get it on sale, it's definitely good value. My children love it as a playset too. The interior is excellent for a playset, but not to the level of a modular. There are some details that are excellent, but it can feel a bit sparse at times and the proportions if the different levels feel a bit off, again all due to the playability of it. Nevertheless, I think it's excellent value. The minidolls are also good!