MAB

Much of what bricklink counts as gear would probably be included, as some of it is a bit obscure. You could take a clock like that and add a Jack Stone figure to it...

I'm also limiting my purchases this year. Mainly as they are not being reduced anywhere near as much as in the past as other people keep buying them at full RRP. Although I tend to buy interesting new parts from bricks and pieces or bricklink and don't bother buying that many sets for myself anyway. Presumably if they were into classic themes then they were a customer lost to LEGO a long time ago.

Paper or thin card is a good place to start. Easy to cut without fraying and easy to draw on or decorate.

I'm not that big a fan of the Creator Castle, but I'm not sure the comparison here is fair. The Creator set is a completely different thing to an IDEAS submission. Creator 3in1s are mean to be designed from a fairly restricted pallet of parts and also designed to be (at least) 3 builds from the same parts. Whereas IDEAS are typically highly detailed single build MOCs so any good one will naturally look nicer than a 3in1.

They would if they built the LEGO set based on the IP they were initially interested in and realized that LEGO now makes loads of nostalgic IP based sets aimed at adults. How many fans of LEGO IPs give up buying LEGO because they are no longer making Pirates, Castle, Space or things like Adventurers, Space Police, Agents, etc. Most I know continue to buy and build, even if it is not based on their favourite theme.

^ 16x16 plate. These are the ones I find a bit weak when lifting. Whereas if you cover a 16x16 plate to make it 2 plates high and overlap a 4x4 plate with the neighbour then they are more stable when lifting.

I don't find this odd at all. Many of the 18+ nostalgia IPs have large followings and many of these people will not necessarily be into lego. Thus they are marketing to a large fan base and also able to bring in new customers. Whereas for their own nostalgic IPs, there is a much smaller fanbase and many of the fans will already be lego buyers. So they are marketing to a smaller fan base and would probably be shifting sales from one theme to another. If they think classic type themes would sell, I'd prefer them to do modern versions rather than nostalgic versions. Stick in some Easter eggs for nostalgia, but keep the designs modern. Not really. If someone watches Star Wars once a month and keeps up with all the Star Wars material, it is not necessarily nostalgic for them. The original production date doesn't matter, it is still current for them. The same with kids, they are not buying out of nostalgia, as they weren't born in the 1970s. They are buying for what they enjoy now. They have no feel for what it was like going to the cinema in the late 70s, they are not doing it out of nostalgia. Star Wars marketing and merchandising has been very clever in keeping 40 year old movies current rather than nostalgic.

4 16x16 tiles are pretty stable if joined by plates overlapping by at least 2x width plates on each side of a join. I find the current 1x overlap pieces a bit weak. But then, when lifting any heavy model on a 32x32 baseplate, I prefer to do it on a board rather than just by hand.

So what is your point? That LEGO should only make parts that fit your design ethic and not what others want? If you cannot use gothic arches in your designs, don't use them and just stick to rounded ones. Just because you cannot use them in your designs, it doesn't mean they are nasty. I cannot see how this is focusing on parts for sets and not a system. With arches they are covering rounded and pointed, they also do the sharp printed as well. They can be used as individual styles or combined as trefoil designs.

It's a pointed gothic arch so a beautiful piece if you want gothic arches. You cannot smooth it to horizontal just like you cannot make a rounded arch piece into a gothic arch.

^ I agree. If LEGO want to bring everything in house and retain baseplates, they could just start making baseplates themselves. They are rich enough to invest in the necessary machines and expertise. If they go, it wouldn't surprise me if they are replaced by the existing 16x16 plates that are 2 plates high with overlaps to neighbouring plates. They are simple to form 32x32 bases, or 48x32, or 16x32 so more flexible than baseplate when it comes to sizing and easier to package and will probably lay flatter too.

It isn't that unpopular as people have been putting modulars on plates instead of baseplates for years, where they wanted into integrate their own plate built roads. Both roads can coexist if you stick a ramp at the side of the built ones. Although aesthetically mixing them will look a bit weird.

This looks great. Although the post is slightly different to the original, the angle of those front legs / paws works incredibly well for the lionesses giving them an interlocked fighting pose.

I thought all those CADA posts were supported and permitted by the mod Jim. Even to the point that they are better than LEGO's powered up.

Molded for smaller, built (but with molded parts) for larger such as licensed Smaug, brick-built for non-licensed large animals. It would be nice if they did minifigure style animals, in the sense of a standard size across all animals with parts for back legs and torso, front legs and torso, head. You could mix and match dog parts, cat parts, lion parts, and so on. Probably scale doesn't work though.

The red one is a Castle one. It has been used as a prince / king during Kingdoms, as well as a snake charmer, an Aladdin type character and this guard back in 2016.

Presumably they did the events for both (1) awareness and maybe even taking back stereotypes and (2) to use their culture as a show to make money for themselves. It is a different issue if people from another culture put on an event to use the native culture of others to make money. They may think they are doing good by promoting native culture (or their view of native culture), but if they are also making profit from another people's culture then I can understand why some people find that offensive.

I think there is an issue that a lot of knock off companies obviously do clone what LEGO already produces and thus are "bad". Yet the same companies often go further and do have unique parts that LEGO didn't produce that enhance LEGO playability, and in that sense are partly "good".

The MF Mummy had glow in the dark print, rather than GITD parts.

1x5 plates are coming in the Vidiyo sets.

I'm not that impressed by the dragon, given the previous CMF we already have.

You know you still can do this, right? When I buy LEGO for my kids, I sometimes but them sets, and they tend to stay as sets. But I also buy them parts from BL, typically adding cheap bits whenever I am placing an order anyway. The sets remain and sets and they get played with as sets. The parts get chucked into a box and they get played with as building stock. There is way more creative building with the parts, but there is more role playing play with the sets.

I think that's partly due to the number of sets kids have these days. Most kids I know have loads and they tend to get kept together, and the MOCing is done if they have Classic sets or a bucket full. Whereas in the 70s we had a bucket full and that was it.

I don't think that is what most adults (especially new to the hobby adults) want from 18+ sets. Most seem to want to build a kit and display it. And any adults that are creative will be buying across all age ranges for parts and building their own MOCs. I doubt the size of the middle region, as in people that want to build without instructions but still need to be told what they can build, is very big.

Yes, it is just how long will the wait be before resellers give up buying them. The BL price for a single torso has dropped from about 8x the B+P price to about 3x it. Once it drops below 2x, I imagine people will stop buying 200 per order and so LEGO's stocks will remain more steady.