MAB

It is interesting that they put the multipack cloth parts up at all, but especially as individual items rather than the box. I guess it is because their inventories have these as individual parts and not the element ID for the box.

Putting all three fabrics with different part numbers in one box means that technically you could order 600 of each in one order! I don't have the money to try it though ;-)

Right, but the question "would you pay for sets where the price has increased as they are now using all prints instead of stickers" is just as valid as "do you prefer prints or stickers". Yet the two might not lead to the same answer. I prefer prints. I might pay a little extra for all prints. But I wouldn't pay significantly more for all prints. I'd prefer they just did less decoration instead. If LEGO did a survey asking about prints vs stickers in 18+ sets, it might be seen as a good thing. Until they increase the prices further based on the survey results explaining it by saying AFOLs wanted all printed parts, so we did it.

Fortunately they know that adding stickers to 3d curved parts (the curve in two directions) is not acceptable so tend to print them. Unlike this windscreen, where aligning so many stickers onto planar surfaces caused lots of complaints.

And do you get exactly the same response rate when you ask them which did you buy? I prefer salmon to white fish. But I rend to buy white fish more than salmon. Not because I prefer it, but because of the cost.

Yes, but likely to yo-yo in and out of stock when they appear as people buy up 100s for both armies and resale. I would not pay current bricklink prices for a part like that.

Yes, some would be upset. Although Orthanc is not really very well done to scale, yet it didn't stop people buying it!

It is not just the cost of printing, there is the cost of having extra parts that need to be both catalogued and stored. But yes, we don't really know what the costs of printed vs stickered parts are. We can guess by looking at the price of printed parts on the online PAB, although the differences of prints compared to the plain parts vary quite a bit. That is really why we would need to know what the alternative would be when answering the question of "would you buy sets with prints rather than stickers", as the results are likely to be different to "do you prefer prints rather than stickers", even though the question appears similar.

I'm not sure I would have complained over a technic bush piece worth a penny but then I have plenty of spares. Was it actually cracked when you opened the set?

And .... it means the tower is not so important and it's the eye people recognize, so any old black pillar with an eye would do fine for people that recognize it based on the eye. More importantly, if it is the eye they want, then a larger eye and smaller tower could well suffice. And not give a large accurate tower.

Stick the eye on Orthanc and many people will think it is Barad-Dur (even if they don't know the name, but know of it as Sauron's tower that falls down when the ring is destroyed). In that sense, they are recognizing the eye and not the tower / location. They have recently done the rowing boat in white in the lighthouse set. If they did Galadriel's boat, I reckon it would be that along with a brick built head. The phial of light was already done perfectly well in the Shelob set.

I think the results of any survey will depend on what question is asked. If you ask AFOLs whether they prefer stickers to prints, I think most will come down on the side of prints. But what if you ask them would they prefer sets with less decorated parts with prints instead of more decorated parts with stickers (So for example a set can have 48 stickered parts or 12 printed parts). I imagine that will be less extreme than asking just stickers vs prints. And what if you can have the same amount of prints as stickers, but the cost is 10% (or whatever) higher. Again I think the vote will be less extreme than just stickers vs prints. There are reasons that LEGO does stickers and not prints. It is necessary to understand what the alternatives would be before asking questions if you want meaningful results in a survey. I recently rebuilt 76023 The Tumbler. That has a sticker sheet for 14 decorated parts, plus the plaque sticker. The majority of those stickers were inside so not seen on display. There were also a couple of common decorated printed parts. Would I have preferred prints instead of stickers? Yes. Would I have paid an extra $5 for the set if it had them printed instead of stickered? Probably. Would I have paid an extra $14 for the set if it had them printed instead of stickered? Maybe. Would I have paid an extra $25 for the set if it had them printed instead of stickered? No. Would I have bought the set at the same price if there were no stickered or printed parts? Yes. I think I would prefer to see far fewer decorated parts overall or none rather than increased prices for sets due to increased numbers of printed parts. But then for other sets, it might be a different scenario. My daughter was playing with her Heartlake Surf Shop 41315 a few days ago. That has quite a bit of decoration through stickers. If those stickered parts were plain instead, the set would lose a lot of its charm. If they were all printed it would no doubt cost more. They could produce a load of common printed parts that get reused in multiple sets, so the door could be printed with the word open on it, and then reuse that for every shop rather than have a specific decoration for this shop. They could also reduce the number of decorated parts, so maybe no decoration on the surf boards (so they wouldn't match the sign) and/or remove the sign, and remove the beach themed decorations. But again, it loses something special if they do that. I would have preferred prints to stickers. But if it cost more for printed parts, I doubt I would have bought it for her. If it cost the same but only a couple of printed parts, I might have still bought it but less likely. For me, it is important to know what the alternative is before saying I want only printed parts and no stickers. Some people can understand, without being gaslighters, contrarians or wanting to be special, that stickers and prints are not equivalent both in user experience and in cost, but that these two aspects go hand in hand. If asked would I prefer something to be higher quality or lower quality, I'd go for higher quality. Yet when actually spending money, I might go for the lower quality item based on the cost difference even though I said I prefer higher quality (when cost was not part of the discussion).

Whereas fans of LEGO Minecraft have enjoyed them so much that LEGO have made about 90 sets over 10 years.

So do I. It is a bit like Rings of Power, in that it is more important to please "the masses" than it is to please die hard fans. What they make needs to be instantly recognisable for casual buyers. Like Bag End and Orthanc.

- When it stresses a part beyond what it should be. LEGO have used illegal techniques occasionally. Personally I don't get too worked up about whether a technique is illegal or not, but am aware that in some cases it might lead to premature breakage. I typically follow what Ampersand already wrote. I wouldn't knowingly stress any expensive or rare part I cannot easily replace. But a common one, so what. If it cracks, it cracks. If the replacement cracks, I'll replace again and maybe think about changing my design. I think some people get too worked up about the word. Think of it less as you are doing something wrong (and deserve punishment) and more of a "not recommended" warning.

I imagine the Blacksmith will have a bigger jump at retirement than any modular, as it is a bit more unique. Plus AS has been around ages which can keep the initial jump lower than if ut disappeared quickly. How quick will you be able to save the money for the second purchase? If fairly quick, then it might be better to purchase before retirement when there is a decent GWP using a credit card, if you know you will be able to pay it off quickly. It is playing off interest rates vs price jumps.

There are quite a few orders I'd like to receive again. Ones containing Saruman's skirt piece, Palantirs (that cost about 25p each), complete Ghostbusters figures that were under £1 each, microfigures from the LOTR and Batman games (they were 35p each!), loads of licensed torsos and heads.

I would use multiple thin coats of a white acrylic primer. I use Vallejo paints on most plastic models I paint (not just LEGO), but for this I would stick with just the primer. It gives a flat, fairly matt finish and is quite hard-wearing.

I doubt the online BAM has turned out to be too popular. It was quite good at the start but they have not replenished it with any decent parts. I had a couple of orders where I added 40 BAM figs to hit GWP thresholds, and they had decent torsos, hair, dual molded legs and accessories like cats and dachshunds. I was adding them to hit a threshold so wanted to sell them on, and each £2 figure parted out for about £4. Whereas now, they don't even hit £2. The selection of parts is quite poor even if you wanted to keep them.

And for these new parts, stock will come in and sell out almost instantly. And it will happen again and again. People will miss out temporarily. But it will settle eventually. I waited about three months to be able to order the BF torsos after they were first available for sale. Eventually they stay in stock for long enough to order then, and with even more time they stay in stock for days at a time. I can see exactly the same thing happening for the lion knight body parts. But I'll get some eventually. Without paying the very high BL prices. I can understand paying a little extra on BL for a few torsos if you need them fast, but not 10x the PAB price for an army of them.

Yes, it could be something similar to that but 25% of the overall size.

I really like dual molded legs and arms. I think they look great to give a basic pattern without printing. Plus (especially on legs) the dual molding looks way better than printing. You can view the figure from behind and the 'boots' pattern goes all the way around unlike printed patterns. Aside from that, I tend to avoid heavily printed legs where I can, especially where the printing is meant to continue up the leg onto the torso. As soon as you pose them in anything but an upright position, that pattern is off.

If planners are basing decisions on lego sets, we are in trouble. Look at houses and buildings in City and Friends, no stairs, no walls on the backs of buildings, tiny shops that would run out of stock. The A-frame looks decent compared to those.

It could have lots of 1x1 parts for decorating roofs in a mosaic style pattern.