MAB

I imagine there will be more people becoming aware of it wanting to build them (a good indication the scheme is a success), and maybe even more investors thinking they doubled (and a bit over) in price last time, so it will happen again this time. Exclusivity always helps people to make the decision to buy it but it is starting to become a bit like the CUUSOO (IDEAS) sets in the early days. Some people used to collect those because of the theme rather than the actual set, but that seems to have died down now that they produce so many of them. The number of other large LEGO sets may also impact on BDP sales, that number has risen even in the past couple of years. Getting Black Falcons is easy now! And that may also play a part in making the decision to buy the sets or not. No exclusive minifigs, and if the minifig parts are easily and cheaply available, that can help sway people away from buying the set.

Yet there are probably other constraints that we do not know about. I don't think they have ever shown a video of the DOTS printed letter tiles being printed, but I assume the contents of the bag are all printed in one go then bagged rather than individual letters printed, stored, then bagged. That could mean that the pad prints the whole contents of the bag in one go across an array of the tiles then bags them - there are 36 tiles in those bags, so possibly a 6x6 array of 1x1 round tiles. If they print an array, that would also mean that they can only do the same colour across all parts and need the same tile shape for all parts being printed. It might even be that it only works for round tiles as they do not need any alignment whereas square tiles would need to be aligned before mass printing. They can align one in the normal jig for printing parts singly, but can they do it if mass printing? The DOTS letter tiles have only ever appeared bagged in the same way in a few sets, and never in some other distribution / frequency of letters, again suggesting that these are prepared together and individual prints cannot be used in other sets without the whole bag appearing. So yes, they might be able to give us loads of prints in one set if the parts are printed and bagged together, but that might mean that all printed parts in that set are the same shape (possibly even just 1x1 rounds tiles as that is all we have seen like that so far) and must have the same colour printing. Whereas most regular sets have multiple shaped parts that need decorating, often in different colours. So there could well be logistical issues here.

It could well be too many for some of the chosen sets. With MOC designers pushing right up to the number of parts limit, these are going to be expensive sets. This castle is likely to be at least twice the price of the previous Castle in the Forest. And with so many of them coming out now and larger allocations than before, I'm not even sure how good investments they will be (which is good, if they get into the hands of builders rather than investors). It wouldn't surprise me if some of the ones that get made don't hit 20,000 units sold. Last time, I think it was the Kakapo, Windmill, Safe, Aquarium and the History of Flight were funded but did not sell the maximum allocation of 10000 units.

Maybe go for 16x16 plates instead. Four of those are cheaper than a secondary market baseplate.

There are plenty of other people's MOCs that are similar in style. You could follow those but change colours if necessary to suit the faction you are building for.

I've not bought many DOTS sets but my impression is that there are not many printed parts in regular sets (as opposed to the random bags), so not too different to other themes. As for bagging them into one unit, that is already done for things like the DOTS letter tiles, and Friends cutlery and insects.

In both those themes, many of the large volume of printed parts are inserted into packets at random and so do not need to be stored individually.

Maybe it is better because it is more than stacks of cubes. For me, thinking about finding and using the right type of part in the right place is what makes lego better than simple stacking. You could of course limit yourself to 1x1 bricks in many colours to mimic Minecraft style building. Obviouslywith some 1x2 if you want free hanging parts.

Yes, this is the real problem with artificial generated LEGO designs (whether sets or figure designs). The loads of rubbish that AI comes up with needs to be sorted out and discarded, before it can also iteratively learn from what it has generated. Unless they can come up with some formula or scoring function to determine what makes a great minifigure design or what makes a great set design, then that sorting would have to be done by human. It will be interesting in 10 or 20 years time to see if AI can learn from brick placement (finding common patterns in combinations of two or three bricks or n bricks and the frequency those patterns occur) in official sets and design a set based on those patterns and a given volume / shape of an object, or description of an object.

18+ on LEGO means the set is aimed at adults in terms of skill, design, and possibly subject matter, etc. It doesn't mean it is adults-only restricted content such as violence, alcohol, drugs, pornography, etc. The 18+ on a LEGO box is not like an (18) certificate on a movie or video game.

This is fairly coomon thought, isn't it? Have it on display for a few months, then replace it with the next big thing. Big things are coming round so frequently now. I imagine anyone that is going to drop a huge amount of cash on a specific LEGO set would know about the set before entering the store. It can only be displayed for so long until that space is needed for the next set that needs advertising.

There is a huge amount of information generated over years in the index / guidelines thread. Dimensions of figures, templates, how to request help designing graphics that look lego-like, how to print them, etc.

I was just about to post the same thing after taking a look earlier today. This is the worst it has ever been. It was a bad selection in the past, but now it looks like they are trying to kill it off.

Although ironically being a queen, she is not one that you would arm-y build!

You can buy as many different sets as you like, within the purchase limits for each set. I reckon $450 for this one. They pushed it as close as they could to the 4000 piece limit.

Being based on something is not the same as officially being something. Being based on the French navy does not make the Imperials French.

Yes, some places have Hidden Side still available. I think that it is LEGO's fault for the way it was marketed rather than because people are stupid.

They are asking for someone to design decals for the 1999 season Manchester United football kit.

I think it is much better that the "basic and bland" figure as you call it is widely available and the pirate one is the Lego House exclusive than having it the other way around. The basic one with a normal face and regular arms and legs can be adapted into many other figures as required by the customer whereas the pirate one will always look like a pirate (especially the face). I don't really mind that the Lego House as a Lego owned attraction gets an exclusive (and more niche) set either. Rather than people being stupid, I'd say it was the marketing of it that was stupid. Every time I saw it advertised, it was with a phone/tablet and the app. The box art was not really very clear either, unlike other LEGO sets.

That works with HP because much of the action over all the movies occurs at Hogwarts, so multiple Hogwarts sets can be placed near or on top of each other to create one location. Whereas LOTR changes location so often.

It wouldn't surprise if they already have sets planned and designed, even if the decision to release is not made yet. In photos of design areas in the past, there have been many unreleased sets in the background.

Have you tried Bricklink's stud.io ? I find digital building boring (I use a computer all day, so like a break for hobby time) but I found stud.io quite easy to use when i needed to create a file to share. I never read any manuals. I did watch one youtube video for a couple of minutes, but I cannot remember what feature that was for. I have used BL for ages, so part names and colours are not an issue for me.

What's left? Given how whacky these designs are, I imagine plenty is left for the next wave. They seem to be being accepted quite well by AFOLs on various sites too, so let's see how well they sell. Hopefully well, if only to shut up the nay-sayers that insist that anything not aimed at them is a travesty and a guaranteed failure as they don't like LEGO doing anything new.

They are selling OK at the moment. I've sold two in the past month or so at £32 plus postage each. Asking much more than that will probably mean a very slow sale.

Any storyline works in just about any setting. Whether you believe there are stories all follow the same seven basic plot lines, or that there are 3, 6 or 20 of them, any basic story plot line could work in any theme. Whether a cartoon works is really down to do viewers buy in to the characters and the surroundings. They could have done Ninjago using the past plots as Classic Space or Pirates or Castle. The stories would have been the same. The clothes, locations and transport would have been different in each case. The great thing about Ninjago is that it is free from any external forces so that it could contain historical style Asian building, but modern and high tech vehicles. It has had steampunk style flying vehicles, but also classical ships. Ancient buildings but also modern ones. This diversity cannot really exist in the Classic LEGO themes. They tried putting high tech transportation devices and technology into Castle and we got Nexo Knights, hated by Classic Castle fans (and Space fans). There are such rigid constraints around the Classic Themes that even though they could tell the same stories with different characters, they cannot be used to explore a wide range of settings (locations, transportation) within a single theme. Sure they can do a one and done type theme, but LEGO seems to want to go towards continual themes rather than having to redevelop stories and characters and advertising every year.