The_Cook

The pitches will be condensed down to merge duplicates and then there will be a round of voting to see which ideas are most popular. One or two of the ideas will progress through to the later stage where we'll elaborate on specific sets and eventually we'll get to design.

Simple is always better than complex. Go for three simple areas along the lines of: The Islands - places where Pirates hide, cannibals lurk, treasure is buried, etc... Home Port - somewhere vaguely European, eg. London, Amsterdam The High Seas - ships at sea, battles at sea, lost at sea and monsters from the deep

You don't have to assume anything about established factions, the only criteria that we're adhering to is that if fits within the Pirates time frame between the 16th and 18th centuries and that it is related to the maritime exploits of the people and countries exploring/exploiting the Caribbean and Americas at that time.

At the moment the project is trying to get all the ideas down on paper. Feel free to propose slight modifications. When the ideas generation time period has finished the project management will collate the ideas together (potentially merging any that are very similar) and present them back to the community who will vote to create a popularity ranking. The most popular idea(s) will be taken forward to the design stage. During the design stage those ideas will be elaborated, various options around the theme can be explored, which is where the modifications different people have propose can be considered. Full details of how each phase will be run, along with timelines and other detailed information will be presented in due course; whilst the management have a clear idea of the steps we want to take as seen in the Overview thread, we'll elaborate on the detail as needed and we need to keep the timelines flexible because we don't at this stage know how long some of the phases might take.

Terrors Of The Deep The pirates are being attacked by the mythical creatures of the deep. Mermaids lure them to their doom, The Kraken stirs from the deep, the Great White whale can break a ship in two, the Leviathan coils around unsuspecting ships and anyone that gazes upon the acursed Flying Dutchman will never make port again.

You're fine in terms of formatting. You've described the intent of the theme well without getting too specifics. Keeping things open in that way allows more design flexibility in the later stages.

Those roofs are becoming a trademark of yours! Good stuff

Whilst most of the Historic forums are focused on the highly detail style of moc's there has been something of a more TLG style orientated competition over on the Pirates forums whereby there was a challenge for two builders to co-operate to build moc's that could be considered as TLG sets. The majority of entries stretched the rules a little but by and large they did stick to the ruling that they were buildable sets rather than detailed moc's. Voting is closed now but the entries can be found in the voting topic. There is also an Ambassador project within the pirates forum to design a pirates sub-theme that might also be of interest given that any sets within will have to be in the TLG style. If any of the historic mod's see fit to organise a TLG style competition here, then I'd be first to sign up.

Yes, I think the Goldsmith never made across from MOCPages onto Eurobricks. Work or RealLifeTM must have got in the way and I've forgotten to move the post over. I also have a couple more little models based around the theme of a river running through the town that I've never photographed and there haven't had a write-up. I keep meaning to set the entire town/city up recreate some shots similar to the ones seen in the Ideas books or the catalogues. I've certainly got enough Minifiigs on each side to stage a fairly major siege.

Ooooh, white timbering! Where'd you get those? <repeat to self> thou shalt not covet another mans bricks!</end repeat> As the others have said recreating the TLG style is my thing. The farmers house is nice and simple, reminds me of one of the builds from the Lego ideas book, or maybe one of the protoype photo's. The protoype sets are here: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=52994&hl=%20europa%20%20theme&st=0

Very nice, definitely has that classic 80's feel to it.

Well done to everyone involved. Although I wasn't able to participate it was great to see the results of the collaborations.

Entry 3 - 3 points Entry 5 - 2 points Entry 4 - 1 point

There's nothing more to talk about. Unless something comes up later in the year for Classic Castle sets all we're getting is the battle packs and a set in the Juniors theme. Come September we can open the 2015 rumours thread and start the speculation all over again. With two "castle" orientated themes running at the moment; in terms of Classic Castle aimed at the younger market and LOTR/Hobbit aimed at the older market; the offerings were always going to be fairly light to ensure that they don't over-saturate the market.

It definitely has the classic look about it and both models look like "sets" that could be built. I thought that the use of 4x4 rounds with holes as the connection mechanic was particularly clever. The use of a septagon shape for the lighthouse tower is interesting but I wonder how rigid it remains and whether there is a tendency to deform if lateral forces are applied. My one criticism is that the two sets seem a little unbalanced to be matching sets; I feel like I'm getting a lot more for my money in the tavern than I am in the lighthouse.

Two great MOCs but I have to question whether they really fulfill the criteria of "sets". Innovative though the water technique may be it wouldn't pass technical review and it acting as a barrier limits the playability of the space below.

Okay, my confidence has been raised significantly. I real life I handle software development processes and know that the process and it's management have a significant bearing on the success of any project. The point that I was trying to state was that: People need to think like a product design team and aim for their target audience, age range and that audiences sensibilities and skills which is a different skill from creating the "most awesome moc ever". I'm sure that the member of the forum will rise to the challenge and embrace it with the correct ethos. Other drawing on a small sample from our own friends and relatives (who are potentially biased) I don't think we could undertake any form of proper market research or play test analysis. That's not to say that we can't think it through and present the best case possible. Finally you're right; do the best we can. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Was that not sufficiently stated in the first post of this thread? Enough to garner interest, but not sufficiently well defined to run a design project as the discussions have shown. That's not necessarily a problem, the detail around the process and the aims will need to be elaborated early on in the project before people start to jump into the design phase.

I'm very much interested in contributing, although I can see this degenerating into a mess if not properly managed. It would be nice to know a couple of things: The stated aims of the project? A rough timeline of the overall project? Governance model: who's in charge, who gets to make the final decisions, and how? At the moment it feels to me like a "lets design some sets" contest but it needs to attain a more professional aspect if you're actually trying to produce a viable theme that TLG would consider producing. I feel that Cara, MiloNelsanio and others are on the right track with their discussions about what are kids interested in these days. I just hope that the majority of posters are able to understand that building bricks is just a small part of a much, much larger product design process and that there are many less exciting steps to go through before and after the bricks are put together. In response to some of the Knights Kingdom, Ninjago and Chima comments. Over the past decade and a half TLG have learnt that some degree of storyline is important in the play, primarily this came out of the BIonicle range. Knights Kingdom might not have got the storyline or presentation quite right but what TLG learnt from that and other ranges will have been incorporated into the current themes. Sometimes they'll get it exactly right and have a massive hit on their hands such as Ninjago, sometimes they won't. A lot also depends upon how much marketing accompanies the release of the theme; getting a cartoon on TV is the pinnacle of marketing and will drive big sales although it won't come cheap. City on the other hand can always fall back on the premise that kids will act out what they see around them, they live in towns and cities, they see firemen and policemen and doctors and want to recreate those things. For castle and pirates it's harder, kids don't see Knights or Pirates around them, they have to be taught about them, hence the need for more of a storyline to give them ideas on what to do. I recommend that anyone partaking in this project reads: Brick by Brick, How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry by David C. Robertson. It's not going to teach you a lot about building lego sets but it will teach you a lot about the design and decisions process that TLG goes through. If you want to make a theme that TLG will produce you have to start thinking like the managers and executive in TLG in terms of viability of theme and it's likelihood of success.

I also doubt that we'll see a Roman theme. Whilst they may have provided many great advances to civilisation the Roman's were quite blood-thirsty and that degree of violence is something that TLG is keen to avoid. At least with the Medieval theme you have the notions of chivalry. There's also the slavery issue, again something that TLG wouldn't want to encourage. As for middle-eastern themes, they start to veer towards the crusades; territory of Christians vs Muslims, a topic which runs a little too close to some of the politics in the middle east today.

Very clever thinking. Each set works on it's own merits but stacked together they create something a bit more. All the connections look legal, so it could be a TLG set. Plenty of exciting play feature to. My one criticism is that I feel the second (lower) set lacks a boat in order to get pirates to the islands.

Both sets blend well with each other and they look like legitimate sets, no obvious illegal connections and they are sufficiently simple that instructions could be generated. I adore the concept, it's nice to see someone tackle the pirate side rather than just going for "modular waterfront". The ship and sharks head lend lots of character. My concerns lie with the weak connection between the sharks head rock and the rest of the build. TLG practice seems to be attach it securely or don't attach it at all. One stud does not a secure attachment make.

Very nice, richly detailed yet build-able at the same time. There don't look to be any obvious illegal connections so it looks like it could be a set. Obviously given Cara was able to duplicate both sets it reproducible. Interesting take on "must connect with technic pins" to give the boat some playability and internal access.

Two very nice builds and great consistency. From the perspective of the rules which state that you're designing sets that Lego might produce both builds look like they'd pass the technical review in as much as they look like instructions could be provided to actually build them and there are no obvious illegal connections. The second build would have looked much nicer if you had utilised a blue baseplate rather than plating over a green baseplate; I assume you didn't have access to the relevant part so it's an understandable compromise that we amateur builders all have to make. Some simple but well executed ideas for play features. Is there enough room to easily allow a minifig to slide beneath the tavern or into the goal and for little hands to easily be able to retrieve the minifig?

Two very nice MOC's and great consistency between them but from the perspective of the rules which state that you're designing sets that Lego might produce I would have to question whether the builds would pass the technical review that all actual Lego sets have to go through? The disjoint clear plates to represent water definitely wouldn't pass review. The rock design might just pass review but the instructions are going to be tricky!