MAB

Is that the Frozone one (4x4)? If so, that is understandable. Straight edged ones are much easier to align on a shelf!

I used to build MOCs. I still build MOCs. I also collect and display sets from some themes. It doesn't really bother me that LEGO now makes sets specifically targeted at adults. If people want to talk about those sets or watch videos about those sets, whether it is buying, building, or displaying them, then I don't really see the issue. There are many more adults building LEGO sets or MOCs these days and I think that is a good thing, both for them and longer term AFOLs. It is not seen as weird for playing with a kids' toy these days. I don't think there is any less creativity now compared to before, just that more people are into LEGO and many new people focus on sets. There might be people watching more youtube videos on sets than MOCs, but does it matter? The number of views of the MOC videos has probably also gone up. It is what happens when more people join a hobby and like one aspect of it, but it doesn't mean the original 'hardcore' has to change if they don't want to. No doubt some new fans will eventually come round to MOC building, just as some MOC builders will enjoy the new 18+ sets.

Custom chromed items have been banned for some time. It doesn't mean they don't exist, but they get removed if reported. Maybe LEGO doesn't want to advertise that employee(s) are making illegitimate parts in their factories and selling them for large sums, passing them off as genuine or test LEGO parts. It is relevant to sales on bricklink and so they make the statement there, where they can control it. If they advertise more widely that you can buy some cool parts but that they are illegitimate, they may well just end up driving more sales into the hands of the people producing them.

Yeah, I imagine "popular parts" means the basic parts - plain / undecorated bricks, plates, tiles, and so on, run of the mill type parts that appear in many sets, year after year, with a small number / restricted colour choice of other parts such as basic torsos, plain legs, fences, window frames, doors, ... just as PAB is now.

Sure some brands of building block might be lower quality. But many fakes / clones / bootlegs of LEGO (or whatever you want to call them) are just as good as LEGO in terms of clutch, colour consistency, and so on these days. I've handled Lepin bricks in the past and I couldn't really tell the difference between them and LEGO parts aside from the obvious lack of the LEGO logo. The build experience is identical to LEGO. Same with minifigures from Pogo, Koruit, Xinh, Kopf, Lele, ... the parts are pretty decent although they tend to be too light in colour when it comes to flesh skin tones, especially the equivalent of light nougat.

I don't think "popular" means that they will monitor to see what are the popular parts and have those in the PAB equivalent section. I imagine they will tell us what the "popular parts" are and have those parts as permanent in the PAB type section. Just like they do for PAB walls in stores, with items that rarely change. It wouldn't surprise me if the popular parts are pretty much what is found in the online PAB section now. Also 1600 parts is not a lot when you consider colour variations. Currently, online PAB has 1399 different parts, so there will not be much more selection in this "popular parts" section compared to PAB now.

The other company should invent a new mini figure display tile, one with just two studs in the middle instead of four. That would be different to LEGO's and actually look cleaner without the extra studs on the sides.

^ I think the idea is that the BAM parts cannot be bought individually, only as complete figures. So you have to have one head, one torso, one set of legs, etc per figure ordered. If so, that's not too bad, although the pricing does seem low compared to the current instore prices. Hopefully it also means only the BAM parts are treated this way and all other minifig parts stay as parts that can be ordered individually.

You are probably right to buy torsos now. If they become more common, they still cost 50c or so on BL, so you don't overpay much now. Whereas if they turn out to be rarer ones then chances are you'll end up having to pay significantly more. I can understand PAB ones being cheaper as they are fairly standard City ones, seemingly printed in their billions! By the looks of it, printed parts can still vary in price, even if the base part is the same.

In the UK, we already have a minimum of £12 for PAB. I believe they introduced that to stop people buying a single part, or a very small order, as these were shipped independently of the rest of the order and I imagine it cost them more to post then the order was worth. It was a good trick to get free shipping on a Bricks and Pieces order, if you were over the free shipping threshold. It does sound like it will be two services still, just integrated into one section of the website. I'm not too worried about the thresholds, as I typically order £50+ in Bricks and Pieces in one go anyway. I guess we will have to wait and see what parts go where. A bigger issue for me as I buy a lot of minifigure parts might be the Build a Mini section, as they say minifigure parts that are in that service won't be available in the Pick a Brick side. So we might have to buy complete minifigures rather than individual parts. That will bump up the costs if we have to add hair / heads and so on (or even accessories too like the instore BAM) to buy complete figures instead of just the interesting printed parts. They might even price match it to the instore BAM price, pushing the price up even more. As you say, we might not be happy with changes. So much of the usefulness is in the detail.

https://brickset.com/article/68955/pick-a-brick-merging-with-bricks-pieces There is this line in the announcement that is up on Brickset. This new experience means all parts orders, including those previously made in Bricks and Pieces can be applied to promotions (such as gifts with purchase) on LEGO.com. I assume this is just LEGO's awkward use of language. I guess they mean orders that would have previously been made using Bricks and Pieces rather than orders that have already been made using Bricks and Pieces. After all, all promos have the terms that they cannot be applied to previous orders, so I imagine past orders remain in the past.

Yes. Finally!

LEGO have announced the PAB and Bricks and Pieces are merging. Hopefully this will make orders easier to place / parts easier to search. And the good news is that orders will count towards promotional items.

If development times now are similar to those that designers have said are realistic in the past, then they would need to be designing those additional waves now (or already finished them). Look at the timescales for one off sets like IDEAS, even unlicensed ones, where there is no third party approval necessary.

I don't think they have them any more. Even the newer Woody minifigures didn't get old Woody's legs.

They don't know how well it sells until it is for sale. And from what I understand about development times, by that time it is too late to design sets for another wave - unless there is a longer gap. It is far easier to cancel waves based on poor sales than it is to slot new ones in based on good sales.

It might still only be a one year theme. LEGO can always delay release if they want to tie in with the movie, or split it. Remember what they did with Barrel Escape in the Hobbit. They badged that one as a special preview set when the scene got shifted to the second movie. They are delaying the release of multiple sets currently too for stability / design issues, the Overwatch 2 situation, etc. They have so much on the shelves these days, they seem to be able to shift dates around and still sell stuff no mater when it is released.

Back when those five gold parts were 2c/2p each, I had a few 2000+ parts orders.

Just before Christmas there were a couple of sellers that started listing lots of these parts (and not much else). I guess the scale of it made it obvious what was going on and they had to do something.

Yeah, for now, but things change when there is money to be made. That is why the 18+ label exists, there is now money to be made targeting adults. Who knows where they will go in 5/10 years. And despite being from a horror movie, would cartoonised versions of characters like Freddy and Jason when converted to minifigure form really be any scarier than a vampire or zombie? There is a lot of money in collectable characters, whether Funko-pops, minifigures or brickheadz. MF shows why they don't need a license to do horror/spooky - they can do many generic characters such as The Monster from both CMF and MF, vampires (again CMF and MF), zombies (CMF and MF), swamp monster (MF and TLM2), mummy, wolfman, ... without needing to go for licensed. Does anyone look at things like The Monster and think that is different to (Universal's version of) Frankenstein's monster, even if not named? Or a vampire and think it is not Dracula, who was popularised by Universal films. They are such strong popular culture icons now, that people often think of Universal version of them, even if Universal do not own the rights to those characters (and just their depictions of them).

LEGO has now stated these non-production parts are illegitimate and will be removing any that get listed on bricklink. https://www.bricklink.com/message.asp?ID=1322014 Over the past several months, we’ve seen a variety of Transparent and Glow-In-Dark minifigures flood the market. We have determined these to be illegitimate LEGO items, despite the fact that many of them are imprinted with the LEGO logo. Of particular note are the Darth Vader minifigures, Batman, and other superheroes. We will start removing these listings this week, both from the custom items section and from listings under catalog entries. This includes whole minifigures and minifigure parts. For those of you who regularly file Problem Item For Sale reports, please add these to the things you screen for. Thank you, The BrickLink Team

That is one of the most annoying things about the change, it doesn't really add much. It is a shame that they could not work with existing PF connectors, at least for motors. It does mean all the current motors, sensors, etc work with the the same plug so can be used in any hub port, but annoying there is no adapter to run old PF motors from the new hubs.

Now they are doing many 18+ sets, and people accept that some lego is aimed at adults, I hope it won't be too long before they do popular culture horror figures such as Jason, Freddy, Chucky, etc.

I frequently buy technic bricks as cheap replacements for standard bricks. Even if you are using them on an exterior facing wall, ones like this can be a very cheap replacement if you cannot see the other side. For internal structure (in any colour) they can also be connected with technic beams to span a structure to make it strong but light.

I find it easier to build from a paper copy or the online PDF rather than continually having to pause and restart, pause and restart, for every piece. I don't think I have ever not been able to follow LEGO's instructions and need to see a 3D model.