Lockt

Thanks for posting some examples of this problem. I have read about it, checked my minifigs and almost visited a doctor to check my eyes. On the pictures the difference is clear, but I couldn't find it in my figs. Somehow I own the entire collection (including battlepacks) without this pink knights... ...of course it is very realistic if they washed the clothes by machine to hot :P

Funny to see that also a lot of Eurobrickers fell in the trap a lot of Media walked in with open eyes. Even not being a lawyer the ruling of the European court is quite clear. It is just about the trademark, not about the brick itself. Competition is already sold in Europe (however is fairly weak). Please read also TLGs official response to the ruling (maybe add a link in the OP?): LINK This ruling will not affect prices or the market function. Also keep in mind Lego is not (only) competing with "clone-brands", but most importantly with other toys. Price/quality ratio is critical. This is one of the reasons why Lego made such a comeback in the economical downfall of last years: parents remember Lego as a durable product and switched back to it. This all under the motto: If you spend less, spend it on something that last longer...

Building a tunnel is often quite a huge brick-eater. I always wanted to built a tunnel for a layout, and when I finally tried it, I was shocked how fast it ate my bricks away. For the full core I used a lot of the brightly coloured bricks, and still I used all my grey from my castle collection. Of course it all depends on what you want. http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=3891418

For me this set was quite a nice addition. First of all, I really like the green colourscheme of the dragon knights, second I like the colours of choice for this set a lot. For me it is more a gate house as a tower and I can imagine it will be usable as such in future sets or in MOCs. Downside is the number of dragon knights, but I will correct that with some battle packs. Finally on the whole colour thing: I checked and double checked, but unless I am starting to get colour-blind, I don't see any problems with Pink, fading colours or less then bright red figures? So lets hope it is just a "wrong" batch, although its a pity it was made...

The battlepacks are very nice: - The dragons one seems to be helmet heaven - The Lions one seem to be shield heaven Two minor downsides: - Whats with the flags? - The dragons have a lance-carrying knight in it... so that will cost me a horse again :P

I agree with the statement this exclusive will be around for at least 2nd half of 2011. The ship is immensely popular given the fact that it is on backorder now for the 3rd time since release (at least in Holland). I think every production run of Lego was sold out within 2 weeks. Of course the decision to stop Pirates while the selling rates weren't that bad (I think TLC even claimed it was better as expected) baffled me, but I still find it "convenient" that the cancellation of the theme was close to the announcement of the Disney Licencing. Given the fact that Disney is planning for a Pirates of the Carribean 4 movie in 2011... 1+1 is still 2 for me (at least I hope so :P) From a Marketing point of view it makes sence to "bridge" the gap with an exclusive like the IFS... All arguments for quite some run time of this set...

Difficult question asked here, and to my suprise I alsmost had a tie in chosing between these. Built Lego Track vs Prefab Lego Track Round 1: Storage A clear winner for the built Lego Track. It requires less space for bigger tracks. A major advantage when it comes to storing or transporting your track. However, only a small victory here, since it doesn't happen much you don't have enough space... Round 2: Flexibility Again a win for the Built Lego Track. It is far nicer to built a MOC truck, where the individual iron beams are transported, since it is more realistic. Also you can play with narrower tracks (like Lego did e.g. in Dwarves Mine) etc. A clear advantage here for the MOCers! Round 3: Convenience Here finally Prefab Track starts to gain. Of course large lay-outs save considerable amount of time by using this system. Putting done the rough layout of your train lay-out is very easy and if you miscalculated something in size of number of pieces, it is easily modified. Round 4: Endurance And here the Prefab Track makes a pure knock-out round versus Built Lego Tracks. Although I am very cautious with my Lego collection, there are only one type of pieces broken and that are the these prefab Tracks. They are very solid connected but when disconnecting you have to put quite some force on them... *Crack*... not terribly damaged, but those tiny connection points are the first to go. The track can still be built, but is not very solid locked anymore. Only because I hate broken parts Prefab Track wins this fight...

I am really excited about these first pics. I really loved the fantasy line coming out of my Dark Ages, but this new line reminds me more of the "old days". From what I can see I really like the colour scheme used and that tower looks like a power pack in useful MOC components.

During the first wave of Pirates, also a comic book was published (in 1989), and I happen to have it. It is clear that already back then Lego put the Pirates as very sympatathic and funny, while the Soldiers where grumpy old, brainless grunts that only wanted to hang Will (a young Pirate) because he fell in love with the Govenors daughter. http://www.peeron.com/inv/sets/6255-1

English originates from an EU country, namely England (sorry had to say it) On the OP question: how long will it take to build CC? I can remember it was the first set in years I didn't finish in one evening. I remember start me building at approx. 7 pm till 11 pm and it wasn't finished. I think in total it took something like 7 or 8 hours to build. I would advice you to take your time, since it is an extreme enjoyable build :)

I am a big fan of the Creator Houses in general, but this one of the best they have made as of yet :) Thnx for the pics!

I am shocked to read that all these sets are from 2010. I have been on a city "buying-spree" last year... Eniwee, my favorite must be the farm, closely followed by City Corner

First of all: Petition Signed! A bit of my thoughts: I really hope that this abrupt end of the line was indeed planned for long and that all becaus PoTC licence was coming TLGs way. But maybe that is wishfull thinking, at least I will speed to the store to pick up some of the Pirates sets, just to add a little turnover boost to TLG.

This is one of the two forestmen sets I own and I love every part of it, except one tiny little detail that always annoyed me: its name. There are so many minifigs involved with coloured plumes that it is not very much camouflaged if you want to put them all on the set :P No, this set is absolutely briliant and I am glad somebody bought this for me a long, long time ago :)

Again a beautiful masterpiece Alien! Although there are many things to praise on this I want to emphasize two items I really like about this MOC: - Like before, you often build structures from the late medieval period, so when gunpowder is introduced in the form of bombards but still the "knighthood" is applicable. I like that period and it produced most mature medieval castles. You picture that very well in this (and many of your) MOCs - The use of light green to make the walls more realistic. This colour I haven't seen before (at least didn't notice it), but it is a very nice idea and very fitting to make your walls more detailed. Thank you again for a nice MOCs for us to drewl on ;-)

First of all, my compliments on the artcile. It is a nice read and very informative. Just to give a small comment on the last replies: if you feel there is an error (or new information) that when corrected/added to the article increases its value, you should add it. In printed magazines an error is discovered after printing, but before distribution an "eratum" (I believe is the term?) is added. Mark it at the place as "Edit *date* + reason for edit* and you maintain your official status. Again, very nice article and thank you for writing!

Indeed I can remember the main reason for discontinueing 9V was the track production. It is fairly simple to make the plastic rails like they have now, but you require a second step in applying the metal conduit on it. This connection is quite something to work on, since it needs to be reliable and strong. When the metal prices went steeply up, this way of working must have eroded the margins on the tracks and train sets. For Lego it will not be very sensible to run 2 systems parallel, because probably the 9V demand will not be high enough to sustain this and the PF will compete with it directly. Especially for the little public price is a major issue when buying a train. I think Lego will rather work on miniturizing and optimizing the PF system then going back to the 9V age.

Nice review on this car. I picked one up yesterday for 2 reasons: 1- just to have another car that is not emergency or race in my city 2- the tree. So although its priced to high for the car alone, for me the decision to put in a tree like this basically made me buy this set. Maybe off-topic, but I am glad you did. I was wondering what the light was for. In the Netherlands we don't have a light on these and they are disappearing gradually from the highways. Thank you for the information!

I am not a big fan of the design of the chariot. Like said before it is to big compared to the single horse BUT... ... I can remember a lego designer explaining why the skeleton horses cannot move their heads, like the horses can. A single horse with moving head is as costly as three skeleton horses (hence the three horses in the skeleton prison set). From a price point of view, this set is amazingly cheap. 4 minifigs for this price is making this set worth its price. So I am still a bit mixed up if I want this set or not, but I just believe the price argument mentioned several times is valid. Minifigs and horses are the most expensive parts and we got 5 of those in this set

You aren't :P I like the way you handled the problem with the poles. Basically you built some sort of winches ("lier" in dutch), a very nice idea! The amount of cables is astonishing. Are they all for show or do they serve a purpose (or will they)?

Creating the mountain around Rocky River Retreat was something I wanted to do from the first moment I thought about this project. I love this set very much and it is now the first part of the path up my mountain. Actually my 9V loop is not much bigger then yours (image in your signature). The slope I used is already quite steep but in the end I didnt reach the floor anymore. So now the entire loop is now elevated, but only on the other side its I think only 2 bricks from the ground; low enough to let the ramp incluided in 4561 to be easily adapted and usable. I have seen your layouts, very inspirational to be honest. Didn't see your Pirates though, are they on brickshelf? I was a big fan of the Pirates when they arrived. My second love as a kid was trains, but getting this train at the age of 4 (!) made my cash position not so adequate to buy more in the marvelous 12V system. I had motorized 7715 with a battery set, but the motor is broken, so here you see the unchanged push along version. When guests stay to sleep I will have to break some parts down; a good excuse to modify parts. It is the first time I have created a layout so I cannot answer your question yet, but I think I will break it and change it (hence the "1" in the title) Sorry for the trouble, will take care of that next time myself. Thank you for your comments!

Edit by Hinckley: Lockt, please check out this tutorial and resize these pictures before adding them back in. They are way too large and members with slower connections will have trouble viewing the topic. Thanks. I would like to present you my first layout. It is constructed mostly from original lego sets, which I had since I was a kid plus the new generation city lego picked up in the last 2 years. Since quite some time I fell in love with large event built layouts with elaborate landscape. As a kid I never built a single MOC, but I wanted to try it; so I demolished my castle and pirate sets and I did my first attempt on a MOC ever. It is the central piece of my layout and I call it: Brick Rapids Mountain: After a lot of positive reviews from members of EB, I bought last month Cafe Corner and Green Grocery. I believe these sets are awesome! Every positive word spoken about them is 100% true and more. I created a mainstreet with them, combining them with Town Plan buildings and Creator Houses: http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/Lockt/la.../downtown-1.jpg The entire Layout consist of a central cargo train loop and train track that connects the 2 stations I have: one Down town near the main street and one near the International Airport: http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/Lockt/layout1/airport.jpg After the enjoyment of building the Brick Rapids Mountain I started with a second MOC. Although many houses have garbage cans and 2 garbage trucks come to collect them, there is nowhere to bring the garbage to. This MOC is a combination of a combustion chamber and a landfill. I am not very happy with my choose of the colour black and I believe I should have added some grey in it. What do you think? http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/Lockt/layout1/garbage.jpg My little town is still to be expanded. This year some awesome buildings are planned and I have still space for the Blue Market. But my builders will make sure a lot more is built in my city: http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/Lockt/la...opment_area.jpg More pictures in my Brickshelf folder: link (when moderated) Hope you enjoyed. Comments are more then welcome! Please don't hesitate to comment my MOCs, since it is my first attempt to built something that is not original.

Nice review Panda. These trains are quite nicely built. I myself own the 7715, which is kinda similar (especially the wagons), but with the red and blue color scheme. One question though. I can remember having a sticker-sheet with all kind of rail companies from the 7715. Why putting on our "Neighbours" stickers (DB) and not that of the NS (blue and yellow, like you mention)? Anyway, again thank you for the nice review. In your layout are quite some exotic sets I would love to see reviews of. So I am looking forward to some more reviews of you!

Hello EB community! Although I am around here for quite some time, even with account, I never introduced myself. Call it lazy, call it shy, call it fear, but I just call it awakening from my Lego hibernation (or just a state of denial that I have left the "Dark Ages") In real life Lockt is a 26 year old guy from The Netherlands that is called Gert-Jan. Living in the central part of The Netherlands working as a Process Engineer on a petrochemical plant where polymers are produced also my profession is with plastics. Besides the obvious brick-madness I am a percussionist in an orchestra and still in rehab from my Guild Wars adddiction (PC MMORPG game). From the latter the name Lockt originated where my Guild Members are still in confusion if I am just bad in english or the name is originating from real life family name. The truth is in both, but the name originates from my family name; Locktree (of course to be translated to Dutch :P) And now the all important "Great History of the Lego Brick in the Life of Lockt"-story, which is probably recognised by many here. At the age of 3 I got my first lego set. But the first I realy remember is 7715, since it was a train I was already crazy for at the age of 4. During my childhood I was scattered between the love of City/Trains and the more "assertive" (and thus boy-attracting) lines of Castle and a little later Pirates. I can remember my 7th birthday very well: december 1989, when Pirates where released. With exception of the soldiers ship, I have all the sets from that first release. And when I have the guts to buy Lego on E-bay I will certainly get that one "lost set". I decended slowly in my Dark Age a few years later. And it was much later I emerged from it, attracted by some very nice castle MOCs I discovered on the internet. My interest in Castles was strong, but with KK2 on the shelfs it was not easy to crawl out of my Dark Age. Finally I crawled out and after moving to my own place now I started to reconstruct everything I have. My Brickshelf account just contains pictures of the collection Castle, Pirates and "Various". (When Moderated: Link) City is not there, but will come soon when my first Lay-out is finished. Although I am a big fan of original sets, I tried for the first time in my life to build a MOC in this lay-out. But that is a different story.... I am looking forward to my time forward on EB and I would like to thank you all for a lot of great inspiration the EB community already gave me and for sure will give me in the future! Regards Lockt

I was a big train fan, and still am, but Lego cured me from it, by switching system one, two, three (blue tracks to 4.5/12V grey track to 9V) times and in my Dark Ages a fourth time (RF). Now the fifth change (PF) is happening and town has limited space for all these types. It seems the new PF system is flexible and versatile, and more backwards compatible. What I do love of trains are the buildings around it. I love crossings, stations, cargo platforms and cranes. I don't know what it makes me.... town or trains? lets be honest and just vote trains...