snefroe

that's very nice! 8-

so i've been playing around with the new software and here are some thoughts: 1) the system is highly unstable on my pc. every 10 minutes at least, my pc crashes. Yep, I upgraded my radeon graphics card. Even "heavier" drawing software and games don't crash that often. It's frustrating ! :-X :-X :-X 2) i understand it's cool for lego to have a 3D designer software package, but this is real crap! you can zoom in or out but you don't control the process very well. it's very difficult for instance to put 4 cilinders for instance horizontaly on a flatbed; On ldraw, even a blind man can do this, on LDD it's a nightmare; also you can't really work on objects that aren't positioned at the center of the grid. consequently, you can't zoom in or out very well to get a better view on that particular object. The 3D system also doesn't give you could over view of the model. Very i tried to put a specific part in a container i made, but instead of dropping the bar into container it turned out i'd put it behind the container or below ... , wherever... but not in the container. again, on Ldraw, this would have been a piece of cake... 3) the designing system works with the brick concept. you can easily put bricks on plates for instance, but it's not as flexible as Ldraw if you want to position parts in a different way... 4) the software says you can use a maximum of 525 parts for a model. That's a lot considering the limited range of parts. There's seems to be a limit of items per part as well, but I never crossed the line, or anyway , not that i know of. when you select a part, you automatically get a reference that starts with "Unlimited: " Maybe that indicates you can use as many items you like. That would also be the logical thing, really, because the inventory is mainly built around flatbeds for cargo trains and passenger trains, so you'd need lots of items of specific parts anyway... besides, for Lego it's probably just a way to allow train fans to build their own cars so they won't have to... they'll make money out train fans even without having to design the trains themselves. The community just doesn't have picked up on it yet, don't know why really, cos this list has more or less everything a train fan needs... 5) for me, the list has several very interesting parts: 1 printed tile 2 x 2 x 1 dome a steering wheel round plates 6) the grey colours are weird tho. dark stone grey looks like dark grey on my pc; No doubt, bluish grey will make the models look differently, from what i saw on pc... so i desinged a flatbed of my own, using quite a few items of these parts in different, rather unique, colours, making it worth my while. However, here's a typical Lego Group problem: they're using their identification numbers for their parts, so you don't know for instance, if the dome part is 553 or 553b, but what's even more mind puzzling is the terminology they're using for the grey colours. the entire community uses dark grey and bluish grey (bley) these days, but what does lego come up with? "Medium Stone Grey" and "Dark Stone Grey"! :-( :-X ! to find out how expensive it would be to build a model around the parts i wanted, i created 5 models. each time, i'd use the very simple flatbed that wouldn't take a huge cut in the budget, and i'd only change the cargo, which is built with the parts i want in large quantities. that way, lego could never claim i was just trying to get lots of parts without a model, in a parts pack... I uploaded all five models with the same flatbed but different cargo and checked the price. I guess it would be even easier to create 1 flatbed in 1 model, and different cargo in another, turning your second model in more or less a parts pack. lego could reject that model though, because they themselves tell you you can increase the number of parts for a model, past the 525 limited by importing a privious model to a new one, things like that... in reality, i think they just want to make as much money as they can with this, meaning, they want to sell as many parts as possible. They only need to make sure there's enough stock... and it would make my models a lot cheaper, which is good for my wallet, so everybody happy, i guess... I created: only a flatbed would be doable; about 11 euros for more or less two red 4 x 6 plates, 14 red and 7 blue 2 x 2 round plates (rounded bottom); 25 grid tiles 1 x 2, 6 printed tiles,... in all, 111 parts... a flatbed with about 36 domes and 18 steering wheels, in all 179 parts: 19.96 EUR. Price on bl: 20 dollars. Lego's price would be fair i guess. a flatbed with tanks that are supposed to be on the flatbed but lying on the ground: 285 parts: 27EUR. hm... not sure... a fourth model with lots of rather expensive ladders: 215 parts for 27 euro and finally: a flatbed with the r2d2 body in dark stone grey: 186 parts: 22 euro just checked these numbers with the batman sets: batboat: 188 parts: 23 euro dragster:92 parts: 13 euro v-wing: 118 parts: 13 euro jedi starfighter: 202 parts: 27 euro clone scout: 108 parts: 14 euro construction site: 298 parts: 40 euro if you consider those prices, then the flatbeds are in fact quite reasonable; there's one difference, however, you're not really producing lego sets, but your own sets with a logo on it. That's why we're also comparing LDD prices with BL instead of the actual lego sets i guess. I think the lego group can turn this into a success, but only if they marked this to the right public and if they keep on pushing down the price.

i've been there once. I always wondered why a lego shop would be located so far from the city of London, in a very nice shopping mall, no doubt, but honestly, no place for a lego shop.

ok..; just checked it out... no wonder people don't produce good mocs: there's hardly any range of parts to use. large plates in whatever colour are practically absent. hardly any minifig involved either. didn't see any canopy, almost no printed tiles,... I don't see this turning into a huge success unless they multiply the number of parts by a factor of 10 at least, very soon. they should have waited with the factory untill they had a decent range of parts... But this is really not good. I also don't like the software. as such, it's not bad, but Ldraw is so much better than this!

now you're exagerating a bit... Western theme may have great minifig potentiel, but surely "City" has a lot more "workable" torsos; Even the classic space torso showed up in city at one point...

i got the ad for the lego factory today in my mailbox and i see several options, even though I still have to see if it works in reality. 1) first i guess it would be possible to rebuild the old classic lego sets and to order all parts fresh from the lego factory instead taking a high price at BL. No more fishing for all the right parts in different shops, no more paying 4-8

i once painted bricks in black and that really didn't work out as i'd planned... you can't use gloss, because your brick will stand out too much, you can't use matt, cos that doesn't mix either... don't know what part you're talking about tho

i got my 6929 voyager today 8-

hm... sorry for the confusion phes, I should have explained this better... Prices for most sets or incomplete sets are quite good (because of good supply, low demand) compared to BL prices, but prices for parts are rather high. I guess it's because you're not offering 3 or 4 items of a 2x2 plate for instance on ebay for 0.04dollars (or in belgium 0.03

I always thought Bricklink was good for buying pieces but over priced when buying sets and mini-figures... I'd use eBay for mini-figures myself... That's no good, was it whilst engaging in piratical activities? This tip of the iceberg doesn't appear to be consistent all over the world unfortunately, it just seems to apply to central Europe, particularly Belgium, France and I've also seen some quite cheap auctions in Germany. If I was were living in those countries I'd buy up all the cheap LEGO and sell them to parts of the world that would pay good money for them. You're such a darling Count Sneffy! 1) i wouldn't buy parts on ebay. in my experience, they usually are more expensive 2) the reason why Belgium has low prices has to do with several things: A) belgium has always been a huge market for lego, so there's lots of 2nd hand lego, pushing down price B) Ebay Belgium is a very small market. you'd better keep your prices fairly low or nobody will buy your stuff, and it does seem that many sellers will only sell to belgians, making it even more difficult to get high results however, i it seems to me that several sellers try to push the price by adding extra shipping/posting costs

this was just the tip of the iceberg i'm afraid... if i were to buy every good deal i saw i'd still be broke... but i have to admit that all these offers are extremely tempting... another auction i saw was one with two smaller pirate ships, but not at all complete, basically just the hull , railings and mast, for 1.5 as well... i just can't buy everything... i know, it hurts... however, i'll keep a look out for Phes' 1729...

aha!! does this also indicate we'll have a review of both soon?

normally we post news in the lego theater or the news forum but posting it here is just fine. it's a batman set after all...

a while back i mentioned that prices on Ebay for pirates have decreased, remember? this offer illustrates my point: http://cgi.benl.ebay.be/LEGO-FIGUURTJES-SO...1QQcmdZViewItem it's a lot with several soldiers, a shark, cannons, a boat and a few other minifigs associated with pirates... right now, this lot costs

in a super market... up untill a few weeks back they even had sw sets from 1999... people just don't buy lego at a general store anymore, so they get stuck with older sets... Most of the sets are gone now, I think they only had the brown vulture droid left and that's rather expensive.

i got a small rockraiders set today: 4920 it was on sale, so I guess it's ok...

I've noticed a funny trend. Back in the good old times of classic Castle, Pirates etc. good sets were part of everyday's life, they were in the shops, they were nothing "special" in a sense of availability. Today a set better than average, like this one, is often an exclusive limited issue, sold only online, not everywhere (AFAIK there are a lot of countries to which S@H doesn't deliver stuff, mine included) and so on. you're right i see several possible reasons: 1) they want to boost the sales of their own SAH. get a higher profit there compared to the costs of the system. It's fairly new , as you said, a trend, I think it's part of the new strategy of the company. 2) larger, expensive sets don't sell as well as the smaller sets. many shops probably don't want high quantities of larger sets and if they do want lots of large sets they'll probably want them, not all at once, but in small batches in a 6-12 month period... so Lego would be better off by keeping these sets in large quantities for their own shops. distribution of these sets is just too expensive. 3) they'll probably also try to control all economics involved with these particular sets. that way they can be as flexible as possible...

this probably was an SAH deal... I remember that lego used to create special sets for the SAH catalogue with the insectoid line, sets you'd never see if you didn't have the SAH catalogue. Maybe that's case here as well. the second is pretty cool...

hm... i've broken several pieces when i was young... let me see... 1) the 6x10 plate of my galaxy exploerer 2) mast/flag of the yellow castle 3) classic sword 4) 2x8 old grey plate 5) white brick hinge of the Star Voyager 6) white base plate of a classic police car 7) broken off a section of a trans red 1x1 round brick 8) clips on sadles for the castle horses 9) grey hinge plate 10) red 4x12 plate think that's it...

i would be very cautious with rumours like this. there's been rumours about a rerelease almost from the last day of production of the originel AT-AT, so unless an official source confirms this i'd categorise this rumour as some one's wet dream...

at best this looks like a prototype of a castle that reminds of the classic castles even though it lacks the style, wrmth and grace of the older castles... still, some nice details inside, it seems... 10176 you say? doesn't that indicate it's an SAH exclusive? kinda weird for Castle, isn't it? I'm also missing the typical features of KK, like the coloured knights, weapons,... looks like a very good fake to me...

great review, yoda... it looks very good, but too expensive for me...

I'd wait a while before going to ebay, though... It seems pretty quiet there for the moment, at least for the Belgian section. We even get 2nd hand galaxy explorers being sold for not even 40

hm... i would have to agree with you, even though the banner and the heads are brilliant. I guess the black forum wasn't quite what some insiders expected... oh well... now we'll know what not to do in future...