sporadic

More shopping would be good, and antiques would be a great choice, but I'd prefer something else, myself. My biggies would be an indoor eatery of some sort and some sort of concert venue. There was/is the Ideas set (https://ideas.lego.com/projects/4022bce6-4206-4d38-a743-375de8e9032a) but I think that's too much to hope for.

So, I disagree that it's infeasible. Lego could make CMFs to be more like sets and that would, at least while in current production, eliminate or at least greatly reduce, the aftermarket. There are certainly logistic challenges, but those challenges are taken on for every non 'collectible' set Lego makes. And it's possible for small sets as well as large ones. Polybags are, after all, a thing. They produce many small sets that, if they sell, they make more. Certainly they have whole teams working out how many they think they can sell, and predicting what the public will buy. They don't always get it right, but they do make educated guessed. That's just standard operating procedure for the bigger sets. And no one sells those above MSRP until there's an issue in distribution, or a production delay, or the set is retired. I have no doubt they could do it, if they wanted. I do agree that it's extremely unlikely though. It's not a lack of ability, it's a lack of desire. It is not a problem that needs solving as far as they are concerned. In fact, quite the opposite. It's an advantage to be exploited. They don't want the CMFs to be unlimited because having them limited allows them to sell more units and know they're not going to have overstocks, etc. Honestly, I wasn't trying to offer a way to solve the problem or suggesting something that I thought would happen or should happen. I was objecting to those who were saying that scalping should be combatted by adding more limits such as putting them behind the counter or eliminating the ability to figure out what's in the package completely. Such tactics just make the system more exploitable, not less. You can't stop people taking advantage of limited availability by adding more restrictions. That just feeds the beast. The fact that Lego has no interest in doing so is irrelevant. Blind buys in toys (all toys, not just Lego) are a thing because it works economically. And it's not going away. Which only means we're stuck with the scalpers.

Nope, the best way to defeat scalpers is no blindness or artificial limitations at all. The only thing scalpers trade on is rarity and difficulty of obtaining. It's only when something is 'hot' and limited that profiteering occurs. If the CMF collections weren't limited time and limited quantity and 'random', then scalpers would have nothing. For a commonly available commodity, there is no scalping. Only when there's a restriction, such as holidays (must have by Christmas!) or a set retires (there will be no more!) or there is a perceived scarcity (the run on toilet paper at the start of the pandemic) do the vultures swoop in to extract money from the situation. Unfortunately, artificial limitation is the name of the game when it comes to 'collectibles'. Collectors start because they love a thing, sure, but they keep collecting because having the thing that's rare and special makes them feel good. Remove the rare and special, make it possible for everyone to get a complete set, and somehow the sheen wears off for a lot of collectors. And the producer doesn't want that either. They want to encourage the thrill of the chase, the pleasure of opening that loot box and finding the special whatzitz that makes a person buy 3x what they need to get the 1 they want. They need that artificial limitation to make the product artificially more desirable than it would be if it was commonplace. It's really easy to get rid of scalpers. Just keep making the thing until supply equals demand. Problem with that is, the product has ceased to be a 'collectible' at that point. It's just another commodity.

Ah. I was not aware that they might be region locked. I wonder if that's a legal thing. I know some states have been cracking down on randomized products aimed at children as gambling. I wouldn't be surprised if some such offer an out by offering the product for mass purchase. But that's entirely speculative.

Whereas all (or almost all) I could find was space babies. It has been literally 2 to 1 for the baby vs *every other figure combined* I've managed to find. Thankfully, that's the one I wanted most, so I now have several. And they're playing in my micro-space 'playground' with the whites and the blues now (watched over by the nannies, of course). Not that I've found many figs at all. I have been amazed at this set of figs because different people have declared 'this is the best/only ones I want and why did LEGO even make that?' for totally different subgroups of figs. Some people really want the retro characters from old Space themes, where others want the fun, silly ones like UFO guy and the space tourist, and others want complete sets and so on. Opinion on what's important and what's fluff is so varied on this one. So, the whole Blind bag toys thing is really a marketing thing, like loot boxes and other 'kid friendly' gambling. LEGO didn't invent it, and it's not going away cause it sells more units. At least they do have the courtesy of putting a way to tell ahead of time if you care. Some people (the same people who love slot machines, I expect) really love (addictively so) the random draws. I personally hate it and would love not having to pull out my phone to make sure I get what I want. And LEGO does provide a way to buy a complete set, as long as you're willing to buy 3. They claim the 36 fig case does contain complete sets (how many seems to vary who's reporting it though).

I hear you. I don't have a large screen accessible where I build and building off a phone screen can be a little hard on my eyes, these days. Still being able to zoom in is nice, and you don't get that with printed instructions. Can really help when trying to distinguish between part colors, since sometimes the printed manuals have issues with blurry, muddy colors, in my experiece. What are the instructions for the set, anyway? I've never gotten a Bricklink set and have been wondering about that. Are they just pdfs or is it something cooler? I was thinking that since they tend to go for more advanced building in those sets, that a dedicated app that allows for 3D tumbling could be useful. Ideally, one that's split off directly from Bricklink Studio so you could also load your own .io files as well. That'd be almost worth getting a tablet for.

I'm just going to post in case anyone else has similar questions. Also, I don't know how to PM on Eurobricks. At 10+, D&D can work, with an adult DM. I actually started at 8, but that was back when Basic D&D was a thing, and even so, that's really pretty young. D&D can be a little rules heavy, for beginners, though. None of my kids particularly 'got' it until they were older. But if your kids are into the idea of it, I'd say go for it. Or, just to test the waters, the module that comes with the LEGO D&D set has a very basic storytelling ruleset you can play rather than the full D&D. If they like that, then dive into the 'real' stuff. As other alternatives, Amazing Tales is fantastic as a first game, but may be too simple for 10 year olds. I've played it with kids as young as 4. The rules can fit on a single page. Most of the book is advice for how to make good stories with children, which is actually pretty great in itself, though. You can play it in whatever time place or setting you want, too. We did a lot of My Little Pony adventures, for example, with my youngest. And Fairies. And alien crime fighters. and... you get the idea. No Thank you, Evil is another one we had good luck with. It's recommended for 5-14 (I think) and the rules scale with the age. The rules are built more around story than combat and are really fun. In both cases, the setting is much more up to your own imagination, rather than 50 years of lore. It has a setting (which you're not beholden to), which is kind of the land of Young Adult Fiction, so if your kids are avid readers, that might be a good choice.

How old are the kids? Depending on ages, D&D might not be the best first RPG. There are a lot of good ones out there.

If they'd released the video in November of last year, before all the other promotional "Year of Space" stuff they did in ~Jan, I'd have thought it was just part of that promotion. Coming out now, I have some hope that it means there's something fully Space in the pipe. Otherwise, that video just feels redundant and late to the party. Bring it back? We just did!

Yeah. I put illegal in quotes because it's one of those things that only a small segment of the community cares about. It's only illegal because of the logo raising the stud slightly. It is a red flag in some circles (LEGO IDEAS or the BDP, for example), but isn't generally a big deal. I only brought it up because as those tiles will be slightly stressed/out of alignment because of it. I think it's a good idea to use the studs for extra support of the tile-rails since trains will go over them. You could swap them out for hollow stud (Technic) pieces if it turns out to be an issue (which I doubt)

This is coming along really nicely. Looks great. I like it a lot. One minor quibble. The track tiles currently rest on studs, which is 'illegal'. Whether that matters or not is, of course, up to you.

So I'm not really a train guy, so this might be an impractical solution. I've experimented with using tiles on the side to replace straight track. The goal of mine was so I could have a working underground cable car, and needed track without spacers. It seemed to work, but I never did more than a short length and never had any idea how to do curves. But could you use something like that on one/both sides of the bridge for 7 studs to get it back on grid? I think this is really cool, btw.

Oh, I'm not claiming building physical versions of these is a good idea. My comment was just that there's plenty of space on a 1x1 round tile for two numbers. Looking at my dice collection, the only 10-, 12-, 20- dice (the dice that might potentially need 2 digits) I have where the numbers wouldn't fit are the 10's, and that's only because that facet is large enough to accommodate a larger font. But those only use 0, so it's still a single digit, so still not a problem. 10-siders with 00, 10, 20, etc, have fonts that would fit the 1x1. Now, there are many, many dice fonts, etc out there, so I'm not saying that's conclusive. But it does say that the numbers would not be unusually small on a 1x1 tile. No, I think the real problem with physical representations, as you say, is that they need to be scaled up so that they can fit those 1x1 tiles on every facet. This would make for some huge dice. And the rubber edges, which you need to keep the tiles from getting knocked off while rolling, just makes the problem that much worse. It would be a cool novelty item, but not really practical.

Have you seen the fonts used on most high side polyhedra dice? 1x1 round tile space is luxurious.

I also think that in the early days, partnering with petroleum producers was a no brainer for LEGO. They likely had deals to get their petrochemicals more cheaply from the providers if they included a side promotion. Don't quote me on that, because it's entirely speculation, but it seems very likely to me. The licensing back in the day always seemed to have a synergy component like that, not just a "This Cool Thing but in LEGO!" feel. Ie, when they made McDonald's sets, it was because of Happy Meals containing the toys, so there's benefit to both companies. The more "we pay you so we can make products with your IP" is, in my opinion, a very different beast.

Obviously the printed eyes and wings are exclusive to this set and might be tricky. I think there's a few parts of the new reddish orange which might not be common yet, and a few recolors of existing parts to dark red and orange. No new moulds according to New Elementary.

The dark wizard has two heads, one for each gender. The front is the 'normal' side and the back of each head has the 'evil' decorations. It does have the hood and cape, but no extra body parts.

That is sort of my point. Sorry if it wasn't clear. LEGO knew that trying to make mechs would result in inferior products. Such a set would never pass quality testing. So LEGO made things that worked for the parts they had at the time. Which were space ships and bases and so on. The sets they made were fantastic because the designers knew and stayed within the limitations of the System as it existed back then. So no, official sets were not fragile. But they weren't mecha. The interest was there, even then, though. Children (at least me and my friends) would make them anyway, having watched Voltron, Robotech, Battle of the Planets, etc. And we could, because, well, LEGO, but the few studs at the joints were never strong enough to make a playable robot. If you made them solidly, they were boring behemoths, too solid to be interesting, so you put up with reattaching arms and legs all the time. And such is true today. The BDP mentions that the models that they produce tend to be less sturdy than in-house sets, because MOC builders always push the bricks further than LEGO allows in official sets.

I think giant robots for minifigs has always been a desirable thing. LEGO tried at least since 6951 Robot Command Center in 1984*. It's just that in the 80's and 90's the parts were limited so fragility was a real issue which limited playability. That and the chunkiness of the parts catalog cause LEGO to mostly stay away from it in official sets. But building mechs has gotten much easier and more posable ever since things like Bionicle, etc. A lot of new build techniques also make them more sturdy so playability isn't as much of an issue. Which has also led to the various wildlife sets we've seen in recent years. * This is one of the first really large purchases I ever remember buying with my very own money. I agonized over it because it was so expensive to child me. But it was epic.

I think they should have given him a totally mundane name to go with his incredible disguise. "I am Bill Smith, totally normal earth being."

So mine hasn't been cancelled (yet, knock on (printed tile) wood). I don't think I was in the first 30min, though. Technically, I ordered on the 31st, but I'm on the west coast, so when I ordered (10:15ish), it was already the 1st for over an hour by EST. I am assuming they make it available at the same time for the whole continental US at the same time. So we can call that a lower bound (or if it gets cancelled, an upper bound) on sell out time.

True enough. I think it's unlikely. But maybe there's potential in other non-European Castle. Middle Eastern and its fantasy friend Arabian Nights would be amazing, for example.

Nah. It's a good idea and if I can come up with something really cool, I might give it a go. Otherwise, I can't see that I'd do much better than Farmfarm has in that Ideas entry, just different.

Drat. After I mentioned it and people jumped on it, I was starting to think about doing it as an Ideas set of my own. Might still, just not for Ideas.

If GWPs 'count', then we had a Classic Space set in the last two months. So with that, the Galaxy Explorer and the Blacktron GWP, we're getting an 'almost yearly' release of Space sets too. You seem to want to count everything as valid for other themes, but discount everything for Space because of tiny details that don't matter to almost anyone but you. It just doesn't add up. To be fair, I, too, would like some kind of Icons throwback for Classic Space of scale (IE, Lion Knight's Castle equivalent) given the "year of Space" extravaganza going on (and I still hold out hope that Lego has something that hasn't been spoiled yet given it's only March). But at the end of the day, it's not that Lego isn't making Space sets, it's that you have a very particular idea of what a Space set should be. That's not Lego's fault, though. But really, this is supposed to be about Castle in this thread. Can we move this discussion back to the Space thread where it's still ongoing as well? (Edited to correct dating of the Micro Rocket Launchpad. I didn't get mine until March due to backorders on other stuff, but it is still very recent)