JesseNight

Definitely not personal circumstances, this is indeed a thing. And not just Lego, other toys and even gaming consoles too. Decades ago, we learned having to make choices and not own everything. That mentality definitely changed a lot. Agreed, I miss those beautiful pictures too. Also let's not forget the box art back in those days. Most boxes would show at least 2 or 3 alternative builds with the included pieces (without instructions). I think back then, designers were given a lot more time for such things instead of just having to design new official models to release. That mentality changed everywhere in work environments I guess, there's a lot more pressure on people nowadays. I had that problem as a 1980s kid too really. There were only 6 colors, but I never had enough in the same color to make a color consistent larger build of anything. True that this got a lot worse now.

It's funny you mention monetization, because that is another thing I see for a lot of people sneaking into their hobbies. Yes, hobbies are expensive and that seems to have been getting worse thanks to many limited edition products and people investing to resell. I've noticed that a lot of hobbyists do this reselling themselves, to fund their hobby without the need to pay up a lot themselves. I myself couldn't do any of all that, invest my hobby time into doing business. My hobby time is about relaxing and having fun, not about doing business or rushing. Sure, that means I can't have everything because my budget has limitations... but I can live with that. It keeps me having goals to look forward to.

I guess a lot of people stopped enjoying the building. Just look at all the speed build videos where people show off how fast they can rush a build. Look closely and notice mistakes being made even with modern instructions that are so much simpler than they once were. I guess people are all about destination now and forgot to enjoy the journey. Eventually they'll run out of destinations, and every enjoyment is short lived. I feel like a lot of people make rash and thoughtless purchases. Marketing departments know this and exploit this eagerly. Especially fomo is easily triggered in people nowadays, when we can see online what the whole world is doing. And yes, it's a business model that unfortunately works on the masses, therefore it keeps continuing. Not to offend anyone... but while people can be intelligent, the masses as a whole can be pretty dumb.

Absolutely. I think Barracuda Bay is a marvelous set, being able to be either the bay with shipwreck or a full ship that's winking back to the classic pirate ship from 1989. I don't like all the licenses either... It's the time we live in now. Licenses are guaranteed income. Even some movie studios only accept sequels and spinoffs on existing successful licenses rather than taking a risk on an original new idea.

Isn't that the case? I remember even builds based on past in-house themes weren't accepted. Then again I haven't been following the Ideas submissions closely.

I'm on the opposite end. I stopped with Lego around 1995-1996, I never knew there was new grey and brown until 2 years ago. First time I heard about it was... confusing. I'm okay with there being new colors, as well as light and dark shades. It just feels a bit too much at times, sometimes having trouble telling 2 shades apart that are really close. And I know I'm not the only one, having seen threads on this board about the exact same thing before.

I guess that's the exact problem I've been running up against. I need more figures for my 80s and early 90s space themes and I guess some are just too unique to their specific themes. And yes next to the cheap prices of common bricks, I consider a few Eur/Usd per minifig a lot when needing a good amount. The more rare colors of course get even crazier. I don't mind some minimal wear, to me that adds to realism of a scene. But of course icons on a torso do need to be recognizable as such.

I actually remember I had some small rowboats from the Pirate theme that were red, but the oars were definitely brown. Guess the rowboat must have existed in more colors. Really? Because flowers and trees were included with so many things in about every theme. Except Space, probably Here's another unpopular opinion following up the minifigs & minidolls discussion: I kinda hate minifigs, and I always have. As a kid, the bad proportions always annoyed the hell outta me. And nowadays I hate them for being way too expensive for what they really are (older figs from late 80s and early 90s themes).

People don't like change enforced upon them, especially if it's changing something that was good as it was. It takes getting used to, and many always seem to jump the gun when such things are announced. Fleshies had much more going on than being just a change. How long in human life have differences in skin color been at the base of conflict? Personally I never liked the old yellow heads, despite it being the norm at my peak of my active Lego years in the mid to late 1980s. I really like the fleshies, but with the different skintones I gotta pay attention to keeping heads and hands sorted per color, and pay attention to chest pieces with an open collar that show some skin. I do. Brown was barely even used in my prime days, it was just coming up with the first barrels, treasure chests, tree trunks, and pirate ship hulls. Same with green, just baseplates, flower stems, and trees. There were only 6 building colors in those days. And still I'd never have enough of any of them for bigger projects Friends focusses way more on the fun parts of life. Playgrounds, vacation homes, party settings, leisure activities. City/Town seems to focus more on daily life stuff like various work environments, various emergency services, some racing, and trains. I think Friends has a more laid back fun coverage for sure. I don't know how it is nowadays with kids, but in my time the Friends themes would probably have appealed mostly to girls (majority of Friends figures are girls too), where City/Town would attract more boys.

Correct, the GT-86 was the first generations here in EU. And the newer generation was dubbed the GR-86. This looks clearly more like a GT-86 to me. (and if we wanna go all the way on the model numbers, the FT-86 was the concept car)

Totally agree, however I settled for just the Galaxy Explorer in that lineup, found the other 2 rather expensive already. I won't deny that they offer a lot for the money, just wasn't a good time to be spending that much. Sadly they're only gonna get more expensive. Then again I need space for other things too at home. I like setting up something bigger than a single ship or building and since Space always was my favorite theme, I'm going for 80s Space all the way, maybe extending somewhat into the early 90s. Blacktron 1 (Galaxy) Explorer is getting close to realization, happy with most of the digital design and parts appear to be available and affordable. TBC! Dropped the plan for a mothership size Galaxy Explorer version for now (too expensive and too big for my current space). As for Star Wars... I like the franchise but in Lego it just doesn't appeal to me. I'd be more tempted to go for highly detailed models for something like that (if at all).

To people of our generations and older perhaps. Don't forget the development and marketing required on in-house themes costs effort and money too. And they take a risk. If people end up not liking it, the investment is lost. With licensed themes, they already know in advance whether it's liked or not. Maybe the money investment costs a bit more, but the income is pretty much guaranteed as long as the execution isn't messed up. As for recycled movies... yeah I hate that too. But again, it seems to work on the masses. Besides, hasn't that always been a thing? Didn't we watch "new movies" in the 90s that our parents told us were remakes already? Of course this knowledge about past movies was a lot less in our faces in the pre-internet days It's probably getting harder to keep fans. Old school fans may not have an interest in newer themes and licensed franchises, younger fans may lose interest fast in playing with actual physical bricks irl. (but props to parents who keep encouraging this instead of just putting a smartphone or tablet in the hands of their 3 years old)

Let's not forget that this is a thread with "unpopular opinions" rather than complaints, therefore disagreements are to be expected I understand both sides here, I've been in both camps. I generally prefer printed parts for sure, but it has happened to me as a kid that I was annoyed about having some silly print on a part that I really wished having bare to use in a completely different setting. And this was in the 80s, so not a time to just order a missing piece on BL yet. The point of stickers in this example is obviously about having a choice whether or not to use it.

It seems to be very different per country, how people experience CS (not just Lego but many large multinational businesses). So far I have very good experiences (in Belgium)

I am honestly flabbergasted... First that they didn't have or use the saved file of the last good design and just add the missing letter. Second that there is apparently no quality control at all anymore for this to happen twice in a row. QC is seriously an issue everywhere nowadays, not just Lego. I'm seriously starting to believe that the first wave of buyers is the quality control of new products nowadays. Not even talking about the amounts of errors in instruction manuals of expensive sets in some periods in the last years. At least they do still make an effort to give people a "fixed" one (after a few attempts lol).

For real? You'd think after 1 serious error they'd read it an extra time before printing... What are the errors on the new sheet?

Didn't know about the Interceptor either. Imagine if they'd release the same ship twice, with different box and minifigs If I think about ships I'd like to see... I would definitely love to see a Klingon Bird of Prey, or a Romulan Warbird (but that one might be a challenging design). Would honestly love to see the Voyager ship too. I really love the design of the Maquis Raider, but that one has so few appearances that I'm not counting on it.

Even within one ship, there's already noteworthy locations to create sets of various sizes. Who wouldn't want the bridge, for starters? Saw the transporter room mentioned more than once. How about Ten Forward? Med bay with crew? DS9 promenade perhaps? I wouldn't mind honestly. But I worry about the scale. It bothers me when the scale isn't accurate, therefore a classic Enterprise or a Voyager that's the same size in Lego as the Enterprise-D wouldn't make sense, considering how much bigger the Galaxy class really was. But sadly, keeping size accurate would seriously limit any future releases...

They seem to accept backorders here in EU, but delivery won't be before halfway February. Guess the GWP will be gone for good. Didn't take long for those to appear on third market sites for over $100, so many people bought the Enterprise just to see the GWP go up in price and resell (that's why I hate these limited things, but yeah it guarantees Lego to sell out real fast).

I doubt it's a matter of motivation, because they have no people investing time and effort in this. Registrations of forum accounts and free email accounts, and spreading spam are fully automated processes for them so once a site/forum is known to them, it will keep coming until security is changed. And if it's just a forum software security patch or a common used well known security mod, they patch their end to counter it in a matter of hours up to days max. It's an endless cat & mouse game that can only be won by either putting people on it or unique custom security that's unknown to them (they won't patch their end to counter security of 1 single forum). It's a sacrifice either way bc the first means extra work for moderators handling registrations or post approvals, and the second means extra work for the board admin and having to redo customization after forum software gets an update. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, been in the same position from 2003 til a few years ago and only 1 board remained 95% free of spam for over 15 years due to its customized generation of login tokens.

Perhaps have registration ask people to introduce themselves in this honeypot-forum. If people post a serious and plausible introduction, move it to the public forums and give them access. Otherwise leave them stuck there or ban them. Of course that does mean extra work for admins/moderators... but I fear there's no automated way to deal with it that they cannot counter. In the end, it remains smart to set up a custom method bc the general security updates and the most commonly used mods are well known by spammers too.

I think what we need is exactly the middle ground between Eggman and the piece with the side hair that Yperio posted before. Picard did have side hair, just cut very short.

Funny fact... Even in the old days (1980s) when visible studs were still the norm, there were never any bald men in a set. Someone at Lego at the time must have been feeling the same about this

I'm generally not against visible studs, but it always felt off to me on minifigs. I think the one Yperio posts might work. Or maybe time to see if I can make a better one with some 3D printing friend's help.

I'm surprised in these times of snot building and limiting visible studs, that there's still no head piece for bald men... That's 1 stud that does bother me a bit.