MAB

No, there isn't. Sometimes designers will sell instructions if they have built it digitally. But otherwise, take inspiration from it and build something similar.

I'll switch the arms out for lime and then use flesh (or others can use yellow) hands. Then it looks like part of the dress design or a sleeveless dress over an undershirt. Whereas others will love it if it gives variation to existing armies / factions.

When it comes to MOCs, I've changed my mind to "do whatever you want, and see if it works for you". This is for a number of reasons: - I can't remember the last time I commented on a MOC. - I also cannot remember the last time I really looked that deeply at a MOC, like I used to. - The MOCs that really interest me, chances are I've already seen them on whatever site the images are hosted on as I already follow the designers I like (including many that have stopped posting here too). And if I am really honest here, there are better sites for seeing and scrolling through many MOCs rather than needing to click into each thread - again this is an issue with traditional forums vs more modern* social media type sites. [Although not really that modern, just not ancient]. - It seems like half of the MOCs here are just posted as the poster is after IDEAS votes, so they should be 100% LEGO anyway. And the posters never come back to respond to comments. At least until their next IDEAS submission. The problem I see is how you decide to handle the LEGO licensed IPs and their sets and MOCs. If MOCs are mixed across brands but there are discussion areas for LEGO sets only by themes/sub-forums as now, then where do the associated MOCs go? So if someone makes a LEGO Star Wars MOC or a LEGO LOTR MOC, will it go into the LEGO Star Wars sub-forum or the LEGO Historic sub-forum like it would now. Or will there be a LEGO Star Wars *sets* sub-forum for discussing only LEGO Star Wars sets (and no MOC discussion), and a Star Wars MOCs sub-forum where MOCs using both LEGO and non-LEGO parts can be posted. Or would it remain a single Star Wars sub-forum where official LEGO sets can be discussed and MOCs using any brands can be discussed? Then there are licenses like Marvel, Doctor Who, POTC, etc where another brick company has had the license, as presumably both LEGO sets and other brand sets could then be discussed but would they be in the same sub-forum? And presumably you will also allow non-compatible bricks such as nanoblocks?

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The "have to buy" was in the context of if the solution to a building problem is only possible by buying another company's product then I'd prefer not to see that solution as it is not a solution that I would use. Hence keeping some way of only seeing purist LEGO builds.

I don't think Eurobricks is the world. When Eurobricks becomes a brick-fan site instead of a LEGO-fan site then I imagine the number of LEGO purists here will drop and the number of LEGO MOCs will drop as they will tend to hang out in other LEGO-fan sites instead. And when some switch, the problem gets slightly worse (or better if you have the opposite viewpoint) and that leads more LEGO-fans to come here less often and so on. Even if no LEGO-only MOCs were posted here then I don't really expect it to be a big deal, as LEGO-fans will be posting and viewing LEGO MOCs elsewhere. I don't know what user numbers are like these days, but I know of quite a few MOC builders that used to post here that don't now but remain active on other sites. I think traditional forum style sites have been slowly dying for years and that is probably why they no longer post. The site I post MOCs on gets way more interest than here. Whereas here gets more deep discussion about general and vintage LEGO, and other sites still get better discussion of modern sets.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mean if LEGO is outnumbered 10:1 but if a large number of MOCs each used a few non-LEGO parts to solve a problem that exists because LEGO doesn't have that part. The entire MOC doesn't have to be another brand to make it less interesting for a LEGO fan, just the important parts. I wouldn't care if a MOC used 1x4 bricks from another brand as that part exists in LEGO.

The world has definitely changed. LEGO has changed massively over the past 10 years or so. By diversifying the range of products, it has opened up to many more people and in doing so those that feel that they are the "true fans" seem to feel left behind or forgotten, probably partly because LEGO are making products for other people and LEGO is now mainstream and not a niche hobby, partly because piece counts have increased to make some sets display pieces instead of only toys like in the past, partly because LEGO is not making the same themes they did a few decades before when they were young, partly because LEGO has increased in cost and other people are willing to pay those prices, partly because LEGO quality has been hit presumably because of the increased output, partly because other brands are cheaper, and many other reasons.

No it is not. I use a single building system in a build. It is not that I don't value different companies bricks, I just choose not to mix them together. We were asked to vote and give an explanation. I have done that. Whereas you are just name calling.

If 1 in 10 MOCs where not interesting to me because they used non-LEGO parts, and it was obvious to me via a tag before spending time looking, then it is not a big deal. But if only 1 in 10 was interesting to me, then I probably wouldn't look very often. And if I had to spend time to find out that 9 out of 10 used non-LEGO parts then I wouldn't bother looking at all. But that is because I joined a LEGO fan site.

No I don't value a brick by the company that produced it. I buy and use LEGO as I already have LEGO, and I do not like to mix up brands for building parts. I don't like the look when colours are different or the feel of a part is different or there are different names on studs in different parts of a build. I have a few sets that are not LEGO and the bricks in them are just as valuable to that system as LEGO bricks are to LEGO's system. I wouldn't use a LEGO exclusive part if I had mainly cobi bricks and was designing a build with those bricks. Right, but if I see a solution to a problem and to solve that problem you need to use another company's brick then I am wasting my time looking at that solution. So I either want to filter out all the MOCs that only use LEGO, or I just visit LEGO only forums. If I cannot do the first then I will probably do the second.

It is not xenophobic. It is because they use one system and stick to it. I don't hate other brands, but I don't mix them up as I prefer to use a single system. I buy LEGO sets for parts. I don't want to have to buy another brand's sets to get a few specific parts that LEGO do not make.

Yes, LEGO has competition and they are priced higher than other companies. But the site is not a LEGO owned site. It is not a LEGO corporation fan site but a LEGO (brick) fan site. And there still are many fans of LEGO (bricks). It is still possible to like the product and not the company. It is fine if the site wants to become any and all bricks mixed up, but that might mean the loss of LEGO fans.

No, probably not if it is large. But rebuilding it is not really why I look at a MOC. I often look at a MOC to learn how that designer got a specific effect or did some detail. If they did it by using a part that LEGO does not make or where you have to modify a part or 3D print your own part, then I am not going to be able to learn from it for a LEGO MOC. And so I'd like to know if a MOC is LEGO or not before spending time on trying to work out how something was done. But as mentioned earlier, if it becomes a bricks site then that is fine but I don't think that there should be any complaints if it drives away LEGO fans.

For me they are different, as Eurobricks was built to "unite LEGO fans around the world" and so it was built on LEGO. There is still a legacy of LEGO (the product, not the company). If it suddenly becomes any bricks across the whole site rather than LEGO, and there is no LEGO-only place where LEGO fans can look at and discuss LEGO creations, then I imagine LEGO fans will be less likely to come here. I guess you will have to decide whether you expect enough increased traffic from brick fans to offset the loss of LEGO fans. Alternatively, if you don't want to promote LEGO as highly then you could see option (2) not as a LEGO-only section with a section for mixed brands, but as a section for mixed brands with a section for LEGO-only. Put it second.

For me, the question is can I look at a MOC and build it using LEGO? Eurobricks has been a LEGO fansite and has been built using LEGO's name. I would prefer to be told if a design is LEGO or this is not LEGO, and segregation is the easiest way to do this. It is not that I don't like other brands. I have some sets that are other brands. But I don't mix up brands when building.

So what would the threshold be? Is 10% non-LEGO parts in a LEGO MOC acceptable? 25%? Is it when it hits 50%? If none of them can be built as pictured with only LEGO, then are they a LEGO MOC? After all, competitions for LEGO MOCs often insist that all parts used are genuine LEGO. If the MOC needs non-LEGO parts, then the MOC is not LEGO, but instead made from a mixture of bricks from different manufacturers.

Out of interest, what do you think TLG pretends to be? They have definitely moved away from what it was. Up to 15 years ago I would have said they were a toy company, producing toys for mainly boys up to about 12. Of course, some girls liked their products, as did some adults or older teens but LEGO was often given up as a hobby by the early teen years but some adults would get interested again when they had kids, and this was mainly men as they had nostalgia for the (boys') toys of their youth. But since then I think they have seen that (i) there is a market for toys aimed at girls too and later still (ii) construction sets aimed at older teens and adults. Not toys, but construction sets for adults. They don't have to have lots of play features to appeal to adults. Displayability is often more important than playability. And for the adults that liked LEGO when it was just toys with play features, well there are still many toys with play features. I don't think LEGO is trying to hide that at all or pretend to be something different. I also don't think they are entering the uncharted backwaters of an unfashionable region. I think they are doing exactly the opposite. They have carefully grown the adult market over a number of years starting off slowly through the Modulars and UCS type sets, through Cuusoo and then IDEAS, slowly introducing more varied and larger sets to appeal to more and more people and increase their revenue by doing so. They have slowly and carefully charted the path as they take it and, if anything, have looked into what is fashionable, which is the reason that there are so many one-off sets or small themes for different IPs as those sets are easy to market because they are fashionable, and just as easy to drop once those customers are satisfied and then move on to the next fashion. Releasing 43 that are £149.99 or higher would have been a dangerous move into unchartered waters in 2016 when the adult market wasn't there. But in 2026, it doesn't seem unusual at all.

I'm not really at all surprised LEGO chose not to continue with Eurobricks. I think Eurobricks and LEGO have diverged away from each other and what each other wants. LEGO uses Fan Media / Creator Content as advertising for their new sets and as strange as it feels to say this, I don't think that many people on Eurobricks are the core audience for new LEGO sets. There is some discussion of new sets within the individual sub-forums but to me it feels far less than it used to be. There are also great MOCs here, but they don't sell new sets. I find the first forum / general LEGO section is rather anti LEGO Corp and anti modern LEGO. I imagine to an outsider that starts to look at the forum, they see Eurobricks as a group of older LEGO fans that liked what LEGO did in the 1980s and 1990s but have not really moved on since then. When one of the most busy topics frequently returns to criticism of how many licensed themes there are and why do they not only make sets like they used to multiple decades ago, it highlights that the forum is not really accepting of modern LEGO and so why would LEGO want anything to do with the forum when the people here are unlikely to buy new LEGO? I don't think there is anything wrong with long term collectors or liking themes from the past (I do both myself), but LEGO has chosen to move forwards by selling to more than just their old fans and having about 50% of their output as licensed sets, and at the same time they have also increased the amount of sets available within unlicensed themes and aimed those sets at modern kids. They have also decided to make significant numbers of sets that were unimaginable years ago such as the Botanical and Art ranges and in doing so have increased the number of people buying LEGO by making what they are interested in, even if those items are not of interest to people that consider themselves long term fans. They are also targetting more adults than ever before and making adult-priced sets for display rather than play. Whereas in the past AFOLs buying LEGO was always a bit of a dirty secret and LEGO was not a topic for mainstream discussion outside of fan groups, it has become much more acceptable for adults to buy and build LEGO themselves and so part of LEGO's portfolio has changed to accommodate new adults to the hobby although they still make plenty of toys for children. Yet sometimes it seems the view here is that those new people are blamed for LEGO not doing what it used to do, and those new people are just consumers buying something due to the license and not because they are a "real" fan of LEGO. But they are the ones actually buying modern LEGO sets, and are exactly the type of person LEGO wants to advertise to, and they don't need to advertise new sets to longer term fans that only want to talk about themes and sets from decades ago and are not interested in the new sets that LEGO produces, unless LEGO makes what they want instead of what kids of today want. I also think Eurobricks can be quite unwelcoming to new people to the hobby or fans of new themes, in part due to views like those above but also due to the format of the forum. When you look at the subforum descriptions, it is full of old and often long gone themes in the taglines and doesn't do a very good job of directing people interested in current themes. The offering at first glance really does not seem to match what LEGO currently offers and so a new user wanting to discuss Botanicals, or Art, or Dreamzzz or Super Mario will probably just go elsewhere that is more welcoming to them. Look at the tagline for "Action and Adventure", the themes are Adventurers, Agents, Alpha Team, Aquazone, Atlantis, Chima, Dino, Elves, Monster Fighters, Nexo Knights, Ninjago, Pharaoh's Quest, Power Miners, Rock Raiders, Time Cruisers, World Racers.All long gone themes. Dreamzzz has been around for over 3 years now, but it appears that EB is not welcoming to people if they like that new theme as the tagline has not been updated in line with new LEGO products. Not updated in 3 years! EB appears to be for fans of the retired in-house adventure themes, not new in-house LEGO themes that are currently being sold. Yet it mentions Nexo-Knights and Chima now they are retired, even though they were the hated themes at the time they were new and deviated too much from the classic themes. Eurobricks is ten steps behind LEGO's current portfolio. Again, not that this is a bad thing, just different to the audience that LEGO is aiming for. That said, I don't think it really matters that LEGO won't be supporting Eurobricks. I cannot remember the last time I read a review of a new set here before I had seen a review of that set elsewhere. I've never really considered Eurobricks as a source for up-to-date reviews of sets. I think the only place the LEGO links ever really affected me directly was through the Christmas raffles with prizes donated by LEGO which used to be fun, but they went away years ago and so I have not really noticed any LEGO support for the site via free product for many years. So in that sense, it will make absolutely no difference to me.

I'm torn between (1) and (2). I'm almost purist LEGO but use 3rd party minifigure parts from brickwarriors and brickforge, and occasionally from knock-off brands where LEGO does not make the parts (like Gondorian soldiers for LOTR years ago). I don't buy Mega, Cobi or Bluebrixx or similar brands, bt appreciate that some people do. So (2) is fine so long as all non-LEGO talk, sets and parts stay out of the LEGO forum. However, I think it might get messy where IPs overlap, for example if Mega Pirates of the Caribbean starts to get discussed in the LEGO Pirates section, Or Doctor Who miniature figures from Character Building start appearing in Doctor Who MOCs in the LEGO Licensed section. Or if someone makes a LOTR MOC that is 99% LEGO but relies on other brand parts, then it should not be in the LEGO Licensed section but in a Non-LEGO Licensed section. So would the whole forum be duplicated so that there is purist LEGO only in the LEGO topics, but then copies of all the subforums so people can show and tell where they have non-LEGO sets or used some or all non-LEGO parts in their MOCs.

I doubt it will do anything. White marks can be calcium or magnesium carbonates that were dissolved in the water, but they can also be soap scum. Whatever they are, think about the particle size. They are tiny, probably no bigger than the minute plastic particles that are caused when you rub one plastic surface against another when posing the arms and legs. Now if you were getting large grains of hard material the size of sand between the pieces then rubbing them, I'd be concerned. But for soft and very fine materials such as chalk dust it won't scratch and wear the parts.

Yes, although I think "then" it was marketed at kids although the market was mainly adults but at a time when AFOLs where still an uncommon thing, whereas "now" it is marketed at adults and adults are used to buying LEGO for themselves. Yes, although this is why I think they could work if done as LEGO exclusives. That way, they are not taking up other retailer shelf space when there are no other LOTR products available. I don't think the product slot is really an issue as they have huge numbers of products anyway, but the issue would be shelf space and sell through rate especially for other retailers. LEGO can afford to have LOTR small tie-in sets on shelves as they would sell to AFOLs wanting them to go with the current big set but they would be an awful product for a supermarket if they didn't have any other LOTR product and wanted a quick turnaround. Whereas supermarkets can take even a single small Batman, Star Wars or Harry Potter set and it will sell as it is aimed at kids and parents pick it up while grocery shopping. I'm happy with my Koruit Gondor Army - althoguh strictly it is the LEGO torsos, legs and heads wearing the Koruit helmets and armour that I'm happy with. I didn't buy them because I'm cheap or happy enough with army building clone brands but because LEGO didn't make them at the time I bought them. It is the same with my Witch King minifigure. I'm happy enough with the LEGO torso, legs and head under the clone helmet and armour because LEGO still hasn't made the helmet. I collect LEGO but refuse to be stuck with only what they give us. If they are parting out the sets and selling the other minifigures and the set parts, they are probably not spending too much on the soldiers although of course it is hard work selling especially the parts. Here, just the Aragorn figure is selling for 10% of the set value, with Pippin, Denethor, Gandalf and Faramir another 20% between them. I have seen some people selling the build itself without minfiigures for about 60%-70% of the set price.

Harry Potter is still a very popular franchise for adults and just as importantly, for new kids despite the lack of new content. I imagine that is why we keep getting both large and small HP sets, there is a strong market for both. Whereas LOTR might struggle if there were multiple small sets and not a large enough audience for the smaller sets. Although it seems like there are many characters, they are soon done and so minifigure repetition in small sets will be frequent. That works fine for HP where new kids get into it every year as those Harry, Ron and Hermione sets have a new audience to buy them. I think the only way that LEGO would successfully market smaller LOTR sets is as battle packs tied to the large sets, and make them LEGO exclusives. So a Gondor vs Orcs battle pack for the current Minas Tirith, which would not sell well on supermarket or toy sore shelves but would sell to the niche of people that have bought the large set. First time around, there was the feeling of how many Frodos and Gandalfs do we really need and that is the problem if the audience is relatively small and doesn't really get replenished every year like it does for sets containing Harry Potter or Batman.

I know it goes back a long time, but they tried that with the Uruk-Hai Army set. There was quite a bit of negativity towards that set along the lines of "It is just a bit of wall". Luckily poor sales meant it was quite heavily discounted. I bought quite a few of them at £12 a set, and someone I knew wanted the bricks for Castle builds and sold of the figures and horses for £1 piece for the cheap bricks. Those were great days! Maybe now there is more interest in LOTR LEGO, battle packs would sell better. But they'd probably need to be LEGO exclusives (and not sold in supermarkets, etc like the original theme was) as they'd probably only relly be of interest to AFOLs unless there are other smaller sets with the main characters in as well.