Faefrost

Note to self, reload Simcity on good gaming computer... Wonderful MOC. You really feel like you re looking down on a real city.

Heck one of those timed blocks that so many sites use these days would work. Show top 5, rotate to newest, rotate to editors/critics picks, repeat. We know TLG has the technology. They use it on virtually every page of Lego.com.

It's a mixed bag, but mostly positive. A lot of it does depend on he quality and longevity of the license. A good license is self marketing so it gives Lego a lot more freedom for experimenting with new molds, plus often it's subject matter encourages the new parts and techniques. Just think how much Star Wars has given us as AFOL's above and beyond he basic " it paid for the company for years". Many of the newer processes and techniques came about in support of the licenses. The gorgeous minifig printing. Thank the licenses. Not to mention the steady parade of parts. The only non licensed subjects to give as much were Bionacle and Ninjago ( well ok Technics, but hat's another whole subject.) The strongest licenses, that support many subjects over many years really are a boon to everything else. SW is the king of these although I think the Superheroes, especially the Marvel stuff will be similar. He downside to licenses is they often take up way more shelf space than they really deserve, pushing out our beloved unlicensed themes. ( Space Alien Conquest fans are still sobbing over this one). And they are not always a huge improvement over the unlicensed themes they at least temporarily displace. For example PoP just takes up shelf space that could have better gone to a new Agents or Action line. Sometimes it's a mixed bag. I don't think very many of us jump for joy when we see a new Spongebob set, and yeah it does eat up shelf space and designer time. PBut we have gotten a ton of new stuff from it, especially that globe, bowl helmet. Cars is sort of a love and loathing situation. It makes AFOL's skin crawl and takes up way too much shelf space. But just from new colors alone it does give back... Somewhat. (ok I still hate it, but I like the colors). So in short, a limited or less than seller license hurts us ( PoP, The Last Airbender, to a more limited degree PotC) the big successful ones drive us forward more so than an equivalent none licensed theme could, because they can reduce the risk of new stuff.

I don't think they could ever prevent or even want to prevent projects like this from reaching the end stage, and then being rejected. The site is a wish list. Let 'em dream. I think that the site does need to be tweaked to give better exposure to new and promising projects. Right now the initial page hits you with the top vote getters, which just feeds them as a self fulfilling prophesy. It needs to push newer stuff as well as a more random sampling in addition to the stuff getting close. Maybe an editors pick section? I think the newer pre approval process will also cut down on this sort of project. Something where those looking at the new stuff say at the beginning to the project owner, be aware this would not be possible under the licensing. Maybe also if hey put up another blog post, just talking about licensing and what the hurdles are regarding licensed products. A little info goes a long way. THere is nothing wrong with a project being rejected on review, so long as it doesn't feel completely arbitrary. So long. As they understand the decision process, even if hey disagree, you see few bruised feelings. Take the Winchester as the best example. We may not agree, but we understand the logic path they took there. When that same logic path regarding more adult oriented subject matter was applied to the Serenity set we then understould. The same sort of thing needs to be communicated regarding how licensing works. We got lucky with Minecraft as it was a small license thrilled to work with TLG. But the Back to the Future project may be the Winchester type disappointment that teaches us the licensing rules. The Dark Bucket will very clearly face its own licensing hurdles.

The timing of the attacks makes me wonder. They popped up soon after that techno wiz executive from SAP got busted for stealing thousands of Lego sets from Target. While probably not him, it is likely that Bricklink started taking a closer look at their sellers, and being more aggressive in working with the authorities. So someone may be going all Annonymous on them to "Fight the Man!" Today may also simply be that it became known as a vulnerable site in the process of patching, so a crude script kiddie is taking a run at it. But still it's a website for selling used Lego between crazy adult hobbiests. LEGO! And we end up with fencing stolen goods, drop ship scams, hacker assaults, all kinds of horrid behavior. It's a wonder the operators keep doing it. I mean who ever would expect this over children's toys?

I still maintain that the designers got good and drunk one night and decided to see who could come up with the ugliest combination of minifigs to sneak into a set with that one. Yeah the Jedi are really ugly, but the hideous green droid just pushes the whole thing over the top into surreal. The only thing that would make it worse would be to throw in a pair of battle droids, in lime green... or the Clone Wars version of Padme

The actual hall in the movie was a thatch roof, wasn't it? If so you could probably get away with using a mix of Tan plates for the roof with 1x2 2x2 and slotted tan tiles for the thatch texture. Something along the lines of the Mill Village Attack roof's but on a grander scale.

If it helps you form a mental picture of this one, the Sith Fury is NOT a Starfighter. It is a small formidable light duty starship, in about the same size range as Slave 1, Darth Maul's Sith Infiltrator, or Padme's ship. The in game model of the ship measures out at roughly 33 meters long, so about 2/3 the size of the Milenium Falcon. The Lego version seems a little small, but still really nice. It has both a cockpit and a rear crew cabin. The Old Republic is a series of Star Wars games by Bioware ( the same folks that made Mass Effect) set centuries before Star Wars. The Fury and the Striker are from the latest of those games. An online MMO called Star Wars the Old Republic.

I like the idea, but we would probably be more prone to see it as a city sub theme and not an action one. Because of Lego's strict prohibition to depicting violence against real world animals. City can do animal rescue and zoo themes, a vet service, anti poaching forest police etc. It just feels like a better fit.

The oils in some people's skin will cause some chrome to discolor. It's quite common. The typical place you see it is in eyeglass frames, but any skin contact and handling can cause it.

Just speculating, but the fig to part ratio seems to be a minimum of 10:1. Just based on the small sets / battle packs. And yeah there is no chance of this thing ever seeing production. The license won't allow it. Even if it would, it undercuts the business models of the existing licensed theme and hence profits. Plus they basically said that existing themes are planned and approved by third parties years in advance. I can understand some Stormtrooper obsessed AFOL proposing this thing. To live is to dream. But how the heck did they get 10k AFOL's to agree that this was a viable product? While other stuff like the Modular Movie Theaters sort of languish? I think part of it is CuuSoo needs to change how the site sort of default feeds you or displays projects. It seems if a project gets just enough to hit the upper 20 or so it just gets auto fed support, while new fantastic stuff will never be seen without an exhaustive search.

It's weird how different themes or sets start in different regions. US has Monster Fighters and LotR, but I think Europe has the Star Wars sets? I know North America uses slightly different packaging, but I can't see that being the major cause of the odd staggered releases? Woohoo! Poly bagged promotional Monster. I wonder if will be something interesting like the Bride of "the monster" or the Invisible man? Hopefully not just another Mummy variant.

I think that is just part of the newer printing mechanism they use. Essentially they print the face on the fig, not unlike it was coming from an inkjet printer. The lines at top and bottom indicate the boundaries of the printable area. The vertical lines are the rows or tracks of the printer head.

Maybe, but I think it might be a little disjointed for a standalone theme, unless they find some really compelling core elements and story to tie it together. We now can be fairly certain that at least one of the next action themes we hear about will be the Ninjago replacement, which means it probably needs to be able to support a strong multimedia push. So Lego sets with "gotta catch 'em all" collectibility, some sort of gaming or direct competition element ( think Ninjago spinners), recognize able and distinct characters that can support the TV show, etc. Monster Fighters would have been a good option for that sort of thing. Atlantis too maybe. I'm just not sure what other sort of theme would be able to hit those points in a manner that also leverages whatever the current 6-12 year gameplay fad is? We AFOL's would love a Steampunk theme ( dear TLG, just bite the bullet and please license Girl Genius. Kthnxbye!) but I am not sure it would hit anywhere near the points that Ninjago landed so well. As I said in the Ninjago thread, some sort of a medieval fantasy era quest setting would work. With named distinct knights and Wizards, and quests for armor and weapons to defeat the various escalating villains. Maybe even some sort of joust or direct combat element? It would be perfectly timely with he Hobbit movies coming out, leverage existing resources, their extensive Castle/Kingdoms lines, and probably do well. But they did in fact get the actual LotR / Hobbit license, so no chance of an unlicensed theme here. It's really an interesting mental excercise to guess where they will go next with his. I know! Jack Stone 2! ( you may beat me now)

Oh gods, I just remembered what is hands down the most egregious ffm's ever inflicted on the public. Just wrong. That horrible little Cars set 9484 Reds Water Rescue. They replaced poor Red's water nozzle with a bloody rocket launcher!

I like it. That's a really good little ship with lots of nice subtle detail.

I kind of like this years ( granted i am an ex Firefighter so this year has a lot for me). One thing I don't quite understand? Can anyone tell what the little catapult thingy is that looks like it launches white round bricks? What is that supposed to be?

II have to heartily agree. Let's be honest. The OT has been very heavily farmed out for subjects already. Plus, since it was made back in the 70's and 80's the shear number of possible subjects per movie was more limited. Each subsequent movie effectively doubled the ships or effects from the previous, so while the true classic, ep IV does offer a smaller list of ships to work from ( but still the list of the best overall ones, never been equalled). I've said it before, if we are fans of this hobby and these subjects, we will sort of have to learn to like the Clone Wars stuff, as that is the growth point in subject matter right now. That is where all of the new stuff is entering into the theme.

I never realized how close in size that set was to the Revell kit? Kind on neat.

Oh I know. But the scarier thing is a major toy maker actually has followed through and made it. I would have loved to have seen the marketing meeting that sold that idea. I can help but imagine the pitch started something like " well me and Bob got good and baked last night and we said Duuuude cyber dinosaur ninjas for preschoolers! That's where it's at!" But getting back to Ninjago. I really am fascinated by the thought that it's replacement will be something that we will be surprised they didn't do years ago? That leads to lots of speculation that they may be leveraging one of their evergreen themes into the kid/gotta catch me all market? I think something like the fantasy knights, dragons, quests and swords thing would work well in a similar space to Ninjago. I would even say it would perfectly synergize with the market given the two Hobbit movies releasing. But the problem there is the LotR license they already have. Monster Fighters seems like it would have been an obvious choice if they had fleshed it out a little more to include battle elements and collectibility? So what else would be something obvious and familiar that they haven't done this way before?

The truly scary thing is Playschool already beat them to it, and literally have a line of Ninja's and Cyborg Dynosaurs on store shelves now. Looking at it from Lego's point of view 3 years/cycles is probably perfect. They dragged Bionacle out too long and in the end it burned them. For the age groups these themes are targeting 3 years is a perfect fit. By the time the theme cycle ends your initial fans are aging out of it. It is better to catch the next group with something new than to pour more into the older theme. So 3 year bursts for the 6-12 crowd. And plan the end so you can build a story, merchandising and leave everyone satisfied. That right there corrects so many business mistakes they made with Bionacle. It made them so much money that they almost didn't notice when it wasn't until it was on the verge of being too late.

The movie was mostly a very well done blending of the standard Marvel lore and Universe and their Ultimate line. Hawkeye, Nick Fury and the Chitauri were pure Ultimates. Cap, Iron Man, Thor, and much of the rest of SHIELD are formed more from the traditional. ( to be fair Hawkeyes original backstory just would not work well today. See; Robin in the Shumacher Batman movies). Black Widow and Hulk sort of fall between the two. Keeping the more simplified back stories from the Ultimates but cutting out all of the horrific baggage that those versions had ( ie. Hulk eating people). As far as the Quinjet. It once again sort of splits the difference. In the comics the Quinjets were the Avengers unique planes built by Tony Stark. In Ultimates they used standard Shield military craft. In the movie the Quinjet became a special Shield military craft. It works. And the design while updated does have some nice call backs to the lines of he original.

The only comments I made regarding bringing this on ourselves was in regard to our preferences that Lego switch to a non destructive method of sealing the boxes so that they could be better preserved or folded flat. It was our requests that prompted the shifts from he old thumb tabs. Which did the core job of preserving the integrity of the merchandise. This is more of a " be careful of unintended consequences of the things you wish for" sort of thing, and less a " we asked for it".

Cafe Corner is not supposed to have trapdoors or pits of spikes? I must be reading the directions wrong?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not really grumbling so much. I'm just saying I finally worked out what bothers me so much with this set vs some others. ( heck I'm not a fan of the HHB set either, but this one just seems worse). You kind of nailed it for me. It's twice the price because it has a nicer carpet, more meeting space and a better view... Are we talking a Lego set here or an actual apartment or office space? Because those are big time value adds for one, but kind of strange selling points for the other. For another $20 can they add in some cubical farms? ( on a positive note they finally seem to have given us a desk without a coffee cup or coffee maker).