The_Cook

Lego most likely prices things according to manufacturing costs, so it will be a mix of the volume and type of plastic utilised, mould complexity, etc... Printing would be another cost on top. Assembly would add more, eg. assembling minifig torsos or legs. My suspicion would that both saddle and barding are complex moulds. This is in contrast to Bricklink which is uses a market pricing scheme where the prices are related to desirability which in turn often influenced by availability. Common pieces, 2x4's are likely to be very cheap, unique minifigure torso's with limited supply are likely to expensive.

You need to be careful with supply and demand. Demand from a small group of fans wishing to complete minifigure collections/build armies does not necessarily translate into the size of demand that would warrant a global production run of a new wave of sets. In business it's necessary to separate desire from logic in order to remain in business. Someone, somewhere, in the bowels of Lego will have done the math to determine the economics of the situation. Demand can sustain a large, limited production run, set targetted at adult collector who can afford it, but can't sustain a full wave of sets targetted at older-children who have other priorities. Consider also that Lego has a finite manufacturing capacity, it might be that other properties within their product portfolio are going to be move valuable than LOTR, therefore they will get manufactured and in preference to less valuable properties. It's also worth noting that value is very subjective, some of the recent oddities (as percieved by AFOLs) such as ART, Pianos, Flowers or Phone App Tie-Ins, are becuase there is value in exploring new markets and new sales opportunities to see if there is a new market to expand into. Sometimes the experiment fails, but through scientific method, a no answer tells you what not to do in the future!

Elegantly monumental. When looking at the dropped balls I don't see any gaps in the carriers so it must be something like two balls being delivered at once. Have you tried to slow down your video footage to see what's going on?

That's some good archaeology you've done there. Particularly apt for the historic forum ;-) The imagery could be more challenging, but I do have most of the lxf files archived. Were there any in particular that you were after? I can see that I've got files for: Maiden's Tower Market Wall Merchants House Defending The Breach Bakehouse Apiary Herbalists Hut

Let me see what I can do. It might take a few days to track down the old files and images and repost them somehow. Worst case I can always dig the model out; I think it's still assembled somewhere, just buried at the back of an attic ;-)

That's interesting... I can see a lot of something like Bodiam Castle and other late medieval castles before the arrival of gunpowder in 6080. 6074 and 6086 remind me of some of the German hilltop castles along the Rhine Valley. They're obviously not exactly replicas of actual castles, but there are definite influences in them.

What you are arguing for is not the volume of minifigs within the set; as they can be purchased separately just like bricks can. What you are arguing for is more variation in the prints on the minifigs. More armour, more factions, more civilians, more minifigs wearing "save the goat" T-shirts, etc...

Given that the video is undoubtedly CGI rather than ABS stop motion, then all they've done is reuse old buildings from the past. Hence the breakdown from eldiano spotting all the similarities. Once in the digital world change brick colour is fairly trivial, which might explain some of the recolours, although lighting may account for the rest. I remember all the commotion about the "rumoured new fantasy theme" that eventually turned out to be Elves. A good theme, but not for those that hate minidolls. Just remember this 10305 is clearly destined to be the centerpiece of Heartlake City!

To add a little more to this thread around element design; NewElementary have been given access to interview some of the element designers at TLG. https://www.newelementary.com/2021/10/ego-element-development-wheelbase-part-65094.html

Steps and ladders - usually in black or reddish-brown. Barrels, Chests, Crates - again reddish-brown. Flags and flagpoles - lots of colours are available. BURPs and LURPs - much maligned but for younger builders they're a quick way of building rocks For inspiration use Brickset or Bricklink to look at castle sets from the past and the sort of parts that they contained. Bricklink should have inventories so you can always see if some of the old-gray parts are now available in modern colours. Minifigs! The best part about castle was one army against another army; without the play aspect it's just an Architecture set.

Looking at the part again; yes it should be just two halves. To get the issues seen with that part then there must be damaged/incorrectly manufactured mold out there. The erroneous parts wouldn't show up on the weight checks that TLG perform because it's the correct amount of ABS. But that cross-hole is definitely out by a degree or two as my 42121 Heavy Duty Excavator with it's slightly wobbly righthand side atests.

Consider also that different molds have different costs due to the number of "inserts" required in order to create the shape. Things like Minifig utensils have typically very simplistic molds, basically two halves that the plastic is injected into. Something like the perpendicular lift-arms that have been introduced also require inserts to form the perpendicular holes and these inserts need to be removed before the halves can be separated and the piece ejected. Technic pieces are more likely to have molds requiring inserts in order to allow perpendicular connections. More complex molds, need more complex molding machines and there's more that can go wrong. The recent issues with misaligned quarter ellipses 71708 are due to a mold error; my guess would be that an insert has twisted by a degree or two rather than it being a manufacturing error in the mold but that is just a guess. There are also tolerances involved; I suspect that the tolerances on Bricks and Beams from hard plastics are more precise than the tolerances used on the more rubberised plastics used for minifig utensils. Higher tolerance, higher costs. Whilst Minifigs get a lot of variation, most variation is printing and changing the print setup is significantly less than commissioning a new mold. Keeping a larger parts inventory available requires more changeovers of the tooling, which is more downtime on the machines and therefore less pieces produced. As already mentioned, more inventory requires more space for storage, which requires additional land, buildings, HVAC, shelving, handling machinery, etc... When a designer makes a case to add a new part to the inventory they're making that case against a couple of million dollar expenditure. Whilst TLG are notoriously careful with their NDAs to ensure that future product releases don't get leaked, often through the designer interviews that accompany new releases, or interviews at Accredited Fan Media days, it is possible to gain insight into how their design processes work. I don't have links to hand but I recall Jamie talking about the design of the roller coaster tracks to either Brickset or NewElementary and there was another where one of the actual Element Design Engineers explained their work, possibly in relation to the release of a new spring shooter. Also read between the lines in some of the descriptions of the annual Lego Factory Tours and you can often gather information about production capacity, changeover times for tooling vs changeover times for new colour of ABS. I would also suggest reading "Brick by Brick" by Bill Breen and David Robertson, ISBN 978-1847941176 which talks about how in the 90's Lego almost went bankrupt because they did have too many brick variants and colours in production at once and it wasn't sustainable. Lego's current success at manufacturing and production is based upon a near death-experience.

Ah, you're new to the site. There are restrictions on what new sign-ups can do to prevent abuse. New sign-ups are not allowed to send PMs until they've made a certain number of posts. You are up 2 at the moment; make a few polite and useful comments on some of the other threads and after (I think) 10 posts you'll be able to send PMs. Oh, and welcome to the community ;-)

With MOCpages gone distributing the ldd files is a little more challenging ;-0 If you send me a PM I can probably find some form of file distribution site that I can post a zip of the LDDs to.

You get pink sandstones. The ruins of Exeter castle are the local pink sandstone. There is also Drumlanrig castle in scotland in a pink stone.

I'd go for accents rather than texture. The given examples of texture all work because the base colour is light and therefore the texture creates shadows on the light surface. Shadows on black are harder, with black texture you're typically looking for highlights from carefully placed light sources. The examples of "all black" models tend to be from the sculptural space, I don't have links but I seem to recall an all black recreation of The Alien from "Alien" and also an all black Haunted House. Others on the forum might remember where those images are. For examples of accents there is plenty of existing TLG reference material, 6085 with grey buttresses or 8877 with dark red lining around the base of the parapets.

I have a soft spot for the Guarded Inn, I've recreated it on a number of occasions in different guises; notably Trolls' Guarded Inn. For an ideas submission my personal opinion is that it's too fiddly; if it gets the support and passes then all that wall greebling in and on the stonework will have to be simplified in order to make the set buildable. Which is what happened to the recent Blacksmith ideas set; TLG simplified the original design to make it buildable and certain sections of the fanbase were quite vocal with their opinions (Eurobricks History forum was actually the most sensible corner of the internet for a few days; respect is due to the Eurobricks membership for behaving like grown-ups!). The challenge, the balancing act, is that it's the greebling that sells because the "following the instructions" group want something that looks like a detailed MOC but don't realise they can't have it because it's almost impossible to create build instrucions for. Reduce the number of bricks and it becomes more sellable because the price point will appeal to a greater section of the buying public. Try to limit yourself to legitimate build techniques; the plates on the door arches wouldn't pass TLG quality control. Could a 35789 or a 62361 provide the lip that you're looking for? Popularity at the expense of buildability, or buildability at the expense of popularity? Logic actually dictates go for popularity because to begin with this is a popularity contest; but be prepared for a backlash when the buildability has to be factored in at a later date. Despite my comments and criticisms I do think it's a good idea and I will be heading over to Ideas to register my support.

If you're building a MOC for your own personal enjoyment; use whatever you've got. If you're building something for Ideas; use parts that are in current production and legitimate build techniques. Less likely to see the design massively reworked if it wins (see Blacksmith arguments elsewhere on the net ;-) You can probably get away with rare colours because they can produce part in new colours whereas resurecting old moulds isn't likley to happen. If you're building a MOC to sell instructions use parts and colours that are in current production. Avoid rare parts and colours because that limits the number of people that can build you MOC and therefore buy your instructions.

I’ll see what I can do. Most of those images were taken on and old device and are now in deep storage (a backup DVD somewhere) rather than being instantly accessible. I’ll see what I can do; could take me a few days to arrange. Worst case scenario I dig the original Mocs out of storage (I know which box they’re in ;-) ) and photograph them again.

Ah, yes you need 10 posts or something before you can send PMs. I've PM'd you a link to a zip file containing the LDD's for most of my Retro MOC models.

Yes, MocPages appears to have gone. I’ve not had time to transfer the photos for my Classic Castle Mocs to an alternate image hosting platform and I haven’t found any alternate host for the non-image data such as the .lxf files. I still have the original sources; if you know which ones you want then drop me a PM and I can see if the Eurobricks attachment system will let me transfer them.

The Ninjago Troll Torso and Legs in definitely something I'll be obtaining. I'll probably swap the yellow eyed head for one of the Red Eyed variants. The coloured heads aren't of as much interest to me; my Troll aesthetic is very much Sand Green but others may have more mileage. The blue head in particular with it's mouth looks like it's drawing upon the Troll prints from 10 years ago.

The closer that a set is to TLG's standards then the less they will have to modify the Idea. The less an idea is modified the happier the purchasing public tend to be. Barracuda Bay is one of the exceptions where the changes have been regarded by most as an improvement on the original whereas with many earlier Ideas sets there have been complaints of "that's not what I supported." despite all the caveats from Lego that the Ideas are not the final product. I think the least changed of all has been Fishing Store which the designer deliberately tried to follow TLG building standards. Fixing some of issues now pre-empts potential release day comments of "where's my 14th minifigure?" if it went to production. Yes it does. That's the sort of photo needed in the orginal set to show how it can be played with.

6067 Guarded Inn is also one of my favourite sets but the balance has always been towards some form of conflict. Personally I'm not a great fan of "martial" conflict but it is conflict that drives stories. I don't remember where I read it (possibly an interview with Mark Stafford a few years back) but historically the target audience for Castle was 10 year old German boys. They want a bit of conflict. These days 10 year old German boys tend to want Superheroes; hence the recent lack of Castle or attempts to "modernise" it... There are always going to be exceptions. Could Castle AFOL be one of the exceptions? Maybe; but balance of probabilities is that it needs to be closer to the norm. Opposing factions is conflict that will drive stories. Ninjago City also benefits from having a hit television show to leverage as marketing; TLG weren't taking that much of a risk with such a large set given the success of the Ninjago lines over the last few years (almost a decade).

I'm about to be (possibly overly) critical. Please don't misinterpret this as me not wanting the design to succeed; instead treat it as trying to make the design better. A typical Lego set isn't just about the aesthetics it also needs to consider playability and manufacturability; the more that these are incorporated into the design, the greater the chance of passing the review phase. Incorporating playability and manufacturability is going to result in compromising the aesthetics; that's the trade-off that the designers at TLG have to make every working day. Manufacturing : MOC builders tend not to think about manufacturing; but there's a whole army of "nameless" people at TLG that take the models from the "named" designers and turn it into a manufacturable set. Brick count. 3000 is the limit imposed by the Ideas platform but that puts it into a price bracket which potentially rules out a lot of prospective purchasers. Could you find a way to remove 500 bricks and move into the same price bracket as the Creator Modulars (that average about 2500 pieces), could you find a way to remove 1000bricks and move into the same price bracket as the Flagship Sets (that average about 2000 pieces). Unique element count. Whilst TLG's manufacturing facilities are an absolute marvel; they're not infiinite. The more unique elements (different bricks, different colours) that are utilised the harder the set is to manufacture. Be careful of using the same brick type in multiple colours (I see 98283 masonry profile bricks in a least 5 colours); the packing machines work on weight and can't differentiate between different colours. Printed parts. Pretend that each part adds a dollar to the set (I don't know the exact costs but it's probably close enough) which means higher cost or utilising less bricks to hit a price point. Playability : Buildability - Can it be built? Are all of the connections legitimate? I think I see some studs pressed into technic bricks which is connection that is not typically found in official sets. How do you play with it? Can hands reach inside all parts of the castle? Does it open up to allow access inside? The rooms and central courtyard look hard to access without knocking over towers. The low walls and big courtyards of the early castles might not be historically accurate but it allows play. More modern sets tend to rely on a facade approach of a single wall rather than an enclosing structure. Minifigures. 14? The original line of Classic Castles had 12 at most and more recent castle sets (TLG though of them as castle even if the AFOL community didn't) such as Knighton Castle and Jestro's Lair have 10 or 11. Horses are expensive too. There's $60 of minifigures, horses, barding, swords and utensils before getting to a single brick of the castle. All of which push it out of the sweet spot of the Modular price bracket. What stories does it tell? All of the minifigures appear to be on the same side; which means that the stories that can be acted out with play are somewhat constrained to domestic stories. There needs to be an opposing faction to create conflict. This was implicitly present back in 6080 Lion Castle, 4 lions, 4 crusaders, the armoured knights have blue or black arms to differentiate them; more modern sets it's even more explicit you're told who is good and who is back. Even the domestic Castle sets had a conflict element to them; it was Blacksmith Attack and Mill Village Raid.