MAB

No doubt there is also an issue over LEGO being seen to have made a mistake. If a BDP set sold 50k copies then what does that say about the accuracy of LEGO's predictions / business case during IDEAS reviews. They cannot have a rejected set selling in not just huge numbers, but in publicly known huge numbers. LEGO are typically very secretive about numbers of sets sold, so capping numbers quite low where they are known publicly makes sense.

The bricklink link took you to a lego.com page where the orders were placed. LEGO controlled the stock. There was a type of tracker on bricklink that monitored how many sets were left, presumably to panic users into going quick.

Bricklink. There are already loads on there, so a good way to buy missing ones instead of buying sets.

That is only for Kickstarter style crowdfunding. LEGO/BL used a different style of crowd funding with fixed numbers of sets but crowd funders choose what models will get made. This is what they did in the original program. The main difference is that they increased numbers by 2x (now 4x) and lego is doing the picking/packing rather than BL staff doing it manually.

Everything for ordering was done on lego.com not bricklink.

The cape is interesting, a throwback but massive improvement over the old plastic capes. A few custom companies do something similar. They should last longer than the fabric ones, especially for minifigs in kids' playsets.

What is the point of swapping over classic smiley heads? They all look the same. I would call them indistinguishable rather than interchangeable.

If they did that, I'd hope they'd broaden their horizons and do (worldwide) historical rather than just medieval. A Roman villa, a Viking homestead, a Tudor house, and so on.

Why do they need a new rail system when there is a perfectly good one in existence (trains). If anything, expanding what is available for trains would be preferable but presumably there is no business case to do a wider range of track or train parts, let alone introduce a new monorail system.

There still needs to be a business case of making a modular that looks like an older one, rather than producing something new and exciting.

It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of the new moulds for parts for minifigures are lower precision than for regular bricks, and maybe made to have a lower life span. Parts with single connections that do not butt up against other parts do not need to be as precise.

Tolerance and size are an issue. A lot of 3D printed parts made by fans are for minifigures or other pieces where they do not need clutch like regular bricks. Also if they are 0.1mm too big, it is not a big deal, since they do not need to fit in system in a reliable way.

Or you can substitute colours or parts and still end up with a decent modular.

And so for LEGO no advertising is necessary.

Same here. I'd much rather see them release a new modular cafe or hotel (whether it is on a corner or not) than re-release an old set that is of no interest to longer term collectors. It is not like all the modulars are necessary to enjoy new releases.

It can offer other people detailed minifigures of their favourite characters and building sets of a few scenes from the movie and it can offer LEGO a large number of buyers without the need for much advertising or tge production of tie in media.

There is a difference between printing a tee shirt and picking and packing boxes of a thousand or so lego parts.

Don't build your Enigma machine in reddish brown .... it would be too easy to crack!

It almost goes from torsoto legs, but not quite which is even worse. I agree that there are loads of printed legs that don't really match up properly unless you use the correct torso. But the gap is just as bad. Even bootlegger companies can print all the way to the edges.

Some I can think of that I have sold recently for decent money 73312, 73435, 2039, 6120.

Yeah, I don't think there are any logical rules. There have been other bagged parts in the past, and they have also given away for free parts listed at 0.00, a.though that was some time ago.

So does the reindeer, and that was available online.

I can only speak for myself, but when I want historical sets I don't really care about the building or design. I can do that myself using parts from other themes. It's the minifigures that I want, plus any new historic parts. So in that sense, a castle in a licensed set is no different to a spaceship or a vehicle if the colour and part types are similar.

I doubt LEGO would ever use recycled ABS to make toys. All it takes is a small piece of glass or metal contaminant and a child chewing on a brick and they have a huge legal bill and compensation to pay. And just imagine sorting it. To many people, LEGO means just the class of building brick, so they'll chuck in mega construx, cobi, lepin and so on. They will all have different compositions and dyes, and that's even for the ones made of ABS, so would degrade the recycled product. That's fine if you are making a bucket or cheap consumer item but not something that needs high quality. Even some BL sellers cannot sort out the crap from the LEGO.

How are you placing an order for parts that are not on bricks and pieces?