TheQ

Basically they have a technical problem. I guess their database server is down and the admin hadn't had time to reset it yet. In plain words, their "archives" are not working for some reason and that's why the site doesn't show anything. We can't do anything about it, the problem is 100 % on their side. BTW: Even if you were banned, you could still use MOCPages site. You couldn't comment but you could still check creations, atleast by logging off and checking the site as a guest. Also, if you were banned, surely they would have send you an email?

The value for people like me is to try stuff that is hard to do, basically aiming for achieving that "OMG, I would never had guessed that that is possible!" comment. This might mean a lot of time is spent on just iterating throught very working but all slightly "wrong" versions of mechanism, colorschemes, forms etc. just to achieve that final, acceptable version. This whole process of creation is itself a value for some people (for example me) eventhought it would not add value itself to the model. Of course, every builder has different idea of actual goal of building: Some aim for playable and sturdy models, some aim to make models realistic and good looking and some just do stuff for the fun of it. And I think some people are crazy enough to improve unnoticiable stuff simply becase they actually notice it, even if the larger audience can't notice the improvement at all.

*This was originally posted just before server crash but sadly, it didn't survive. So, repost!* My first commissioned work is finally finished! This display is themed around the early time of finnish TV and especially showcases the filming of one of the first long-running finnish tv shows, "Heikki and Kaija", in the early 1960s. In this display, the filming crew is filming the actors while editors in the "control room" do the preparations to broadcast the signal to viewers. Back in those times, videotaping the program was not common practise, atleast not in Finland where this technology was cutting edge and very expensive. Because of the lack of videotapes, there is only handful of episodes of "Heikki and Kaija" show in digital form which is kinda strange as the show ran 10 years! When it comes to this creation, it was created to fit in the new permanent display of the Rupriikki Media Museum. Because of the diorama had to be built to showcase real life event, real life equipment and real life persons, I used dozens of pictures to design and built this diorama. Of course, some artistic freedom had to be used as LEGO bricks not very, very flexible material and as not everything could be shown in very detailed way. However, both the museum and myself are in the end happy how the creation came out. Miniland scale is rather rare building scale nowadays so it was fun to challenge myself a bit! More pictures at Flickr, Brickshelf and MOCPages.

Picture is link to larger image I tried couple of different solutions and the design shown above seems to work the best. Filling half brick area is really hard, I would even say impossible, so I had to try the second best route: Filling the area in such a way that it would minimize the empty area. Above design is not perfect as the tile is bit out from the exact "route" of the train wheel and the empty area is not as minimal as it could be but I do not think those are big errors. Of course, since I don't own newer PF train engines and don't have those older rails with me now, I couldn't test the design. If anyone can, I would gladly hear how it works out!

This seems very neat and handy trick. It definetly helps people like me who own only loop or two of newer tracks and would like to expand the rail network further. Of course, one problem that comes from using the older rails is the color difference between the tracks but I am sure that clever builders can make it work with some nice coloring. Blue might be bit hard, thought, but perhaps it could work as some space rail? One thing that could improve your design, as far as I can see, would be to remake that "rod-clip-tile-holder" in bricks. I think few basic SNOT bricks like 52107 could hold those 1x4 tiles in place? The said SNOT bricks could be then moved outwards by using those 4070 aka "headlight bricks". I'll try to do some testing in LDD and post the results here later.

All the creations have been absolutely blast to see but those WIP pictures you have sent have been the most interesting pics in the whole thread for me. I recently read through the whole thread and it amazed me how much thought, time and design you do to make these fantastic trucks. One question came to me when I was watching your progress, thought: How much you balance between Model Team and TECHNIC in each creation? It seems that your trucks are more like "Model Team with bit more TECHNIC bits" than "TECHNIC trucks with Model Team outlook". By this I mean that you don't seem to strive to technical details (lack of suspension comes to my mind) but to have more balanced outcome. So, it would be interesting to hear your thoughts about this balance. BTW: Have you thought about the lack of Ackermann steering geometry in your trucks? The most recent Scania has it bit better but older ones seemed to lack the geometry. I hate to toot my own horn but I have once installed Ackermann steering for smaller creation (8169 Lamborghini Gallardo to be exact) and it seemed to work nicely for the scale. Of course, this set up takes bit more space and has more potential for errors than yours but still, I think it might be interesting thing to test for you. Oh and I have to say that I did not come up with this geometry all by myself, it is based on experiments done by members in Nicjasno.com's former forum.

"Planet Ogel is in great danger! The Invasion force consisting of monsters, baddies and nasties has attacked the planet. They have been conquering the wilderness but now they seem to have been directing their attacks against major supply lines. This does not bode well for the Governor-Commander Justunus and his men. They have to strike hard to ward off the Invasion!" This module was built for Palikkatakomo's event at Model Expo 2012. Module was part of larger "Invasion!" diorama and it was meant to present wall of the city that the main force of Nasties were targeting towards. The actual wall is not so pretty to look at but it is more "interesting" for it's technique. Long story short, it is made out of SNOT frame that can be connected easily via TECHNIC beams to the module below it. This allowed the whole wall to come off and the modules below it (two 32x32 modules) to come off. This allowed the MOC to be much more easily transported. Oh and while the wall itself wasn't that pretty to see, I am very satisfied with the figures I prepared for it. I particularly like "Demon soldier" and "Summoned deamon champion" that can be see in the left side on this picture (leftmost is Demon soldier, red-grey character next to him is the Demon champion): More pictures of completed diorama and whole Model Expo 2012 show can be found at Nomadig's Flickr gallery. More pictures of this creation can be found at MOCPages, Brickshelf and Flickr.

This creation was actually made to advertise the Alien Conquest theme and thus, I and BCii used the nicest set of the theme to get the kids interested! Oh and I was thinking if this MOC belongs to SciFi or Town but since there is so much town/farm incluence on it, I view it more as a "scified version of Town" than "townfied(?) version of Space". Hopefully my selection is Okay (not ok-ey).

"Mysterious transmissions and shady govermental agencies were correct, Aliens are coming! But are they coming to Conquer or do they have something else to say..." This creation was built for local toy-store Lelu-Tapuli to celebrate then-new Alien Conquest theme that was coming up. The creation was built by me and another local builder, BCii, following our LUG's, Palikkatakomo's, community building standard ModuVerse (more specifically bit larger ModuCity version of ModuVerse). It was rather simple build but it was fun to come up design for the "ditch", police car and "mud peace sign". Pictures are also available at Brickshelf and MOCPages. Pictures of the actual display can be found from Flickr. Pictures of previous creations displayed in toy store can be found here.

Setting aside the communication problems (or lack of communication), it can still be noted that the set wish lists and money receipts took a long time to travel inside TLG's own inner workings. I can understand the problems of gathering few dozens of wish lists but still took nearly five weeks to for the sets to get posted to the volunteers. I have not personally ordered anything from the Shop@Home but I think their delivery time is much shorter than that. If the main reasons for delay were missing wish lists, telling about the issue to the fans might have had worked better than just the silence. I believe that majority of the problems are caused by fan's involvement. Big corporations like TLG aren't always "up to the date" with recent deveploment and their inner practises can forget to mention something important. In this case, the whole process of asking the fans to involve the project and giving them some payment could possibly be rather new concept to TLG (I don't know how often fans help around with TLG's events or when was the first time it happened) and they simply don't yet know how to deal with them. After all, they aren't employees but a customers also. I think this is particularly true in this event where fans used their own money and wanted the reimpursement. All kinds of finansial things should be taken at the upmost priority and care and after all, this was rather large sum we are speaking about. Companies shouldn't pay the employee's wage 6 or in this very case, over 10 weeks late. I do hope that other people who might have similar experiences share their stories with us the fans and TLG. Only by interaction and feedback we can improve things. Oh, and Copmike.. Well, I want to thank you for showing the best possible attitude Ambassador could show. Making a phone call to help fellow fan of LEGO in trouble and talking about the issue directly to TLG makes me feel proud to know that your kind of people are representing us AFOLs :)

Mark and Chris did very good job in these sets. (Mark Sandling was responsible for "Space Skulls" and Chris Giddens for "Star Justice") As far as I know the reason for 1x2 plates being used was that there wasn't 1x2 bricks available in LDD brick catalog. Not sure if this link has been told here but in these two podcasts both guys tell more about the sets: Return of Space 1 and Return of Space 2.

If, for some odd reason, some EB members should visit Finland and would like to buy some sets, here is some basic information about LEGO situation here: Major shops: Large supermarkets and hypermarkets, like, Anttila Prisma and Citymarket have very good stock of the standard LEGO sets. They usually have BIONICLE, Star Wars, City, Castle and Town sets but nothing special like larger TECHNIC sets. It varies alot so if you don't find set on one store, visit another. Prices are around the same no matter which store you visit. Toy stores: Vast majority of Finnish toy stores have LEGO sets on sale (even Pick-A-Bricks if you are lucky). They usually have smaller stock than markets but have few more special sets like UCS. The prices vary alot, mostly depending if they are in large town or in country side. Few large toy store chains have move to the southern Finland, namely Toys R Us and BR Toys. One special toy store I should mention is Pii Poo. Situated in western Finland, it is the LEGO specialized store that also sells individual bricks and older sets. I haven't personally been there yet but I know the owner's son who runs PiiPoo netstore and he has said that there is wide range of products in the store.

Why do LEGO toys have value to you? -I have always played with them. A thought about using those small bricks to build large, vastly decorated models has always inspired me to play and build LEGO bricks. Bricks give you feeling of control and that small noise inside your head saying "what if I do it THIS way?" What makes LEGO brand construction toys worth your money? -Design of the models, versability of bricks and of course, they bring memories. In what way has the LEGO brand let you down? - Largely unaccepted color change, which I have only now seen "in action". -Recent deveploment of bricks (back in the days, you had to think how to make some happen, now there is special brick for that). -Reducing number of bricks per set amount. - Bionicle. I have never understood it totally. Recently, how has the LEGO brand improved? - What I find best improvement is communication between consumers and company. Deveploment of "Sandcrawler" was truly a perfect way to bring up the chat between the public and the company. Also, some new "innovations" are really usefull (click-hinges). What would you like to see LEGO (re)introduce in the next three years? - Bring back the old themes! LEGO doesn't need licences, there is some much better ways to desing new sets! Also, it would be nice to see more techniques that are currently used by AFOLs being used in sets. In my opinion, adding techniques like SNOT in the sets makes them much better. But don't over-use one technique ^^ What does LEGO need to do to sell more products for less cost to them? -Less specialised bricks (less need to make new molds), less colors What reason(s) do you have for not buying new LEGO sets? - Set having too high price. - Pieces used in the set aren't usefull enough. What would it take for you to spend more money on new LEGO products versus buying sets/parts on the second hand markets? - I don't really buy LEGO sets from second hand markets, reason being that I have seen them sold in local markets for seven years. But, I would say design and prize. What will it take for LEGO to remain the best construction toy for all ages and be a profitable company? - Bring back the innovation! Let the kids show what you can do with these small bricks. - Reduce the prize of sets. What are your home country, first name and age? Finland, Tuomas Kukkamaa and 18 years old. Is there anything you would like to say with this last question that you feel someone at LEGO should not go without reading? - Nothing.

First off, there is one thing good and one thing bad in this line. Bad: I really hate how the bionicle-ish parts are blended with standard "system" bricks. I am not a Bionicle-person, so sorry for those how like that area. Also, those weapons.. I don't know, I liked more about those non-realistic one-color weapons. Good: The designers of the sets have oblivously looked at some peoples creations. Some techniques like that wolfs legs, are almost directly from BrickShelf. And on a side note, any western-people? Check out that castle set!

and here is the main fan-baed website. Full of info, faqs, mods and newbies. Link: Lancers Reactor There is also Starlancers and Dungeon Siege (I and II) community, but those are small.

That is European Catalog 2005, the first one. They are freebies atthe shops and they usually get them at March. Like Officer Barbrady says: "Nothing to see here, folks. Lets calm down"

Well, after googling around I found a link for you (very suprising that I found it ;) ) Here you go: Freelancer at Ebay. I bought my copy many years ago and still play it. There is many interesting mods for that (no, none LEGO related. Yet) so it is really nice game.

Yeah, I play it. I usually play it in the mods, which are: Tides or War (Star Wars mod which is decided to time between two death stars) and Evolutions. In ToW, I am Rebel flying a B-wing and in Evo.. civilian still.

Ah, thanks for clearing things up, Sam. Either way, set might be interesting.

Hmm.. I am deeply sorry if this picture has been sent to here before, but I just hadn't got enough time to look around 12 pages? Anyway, as I visited the ol' 'Shelf for seeing what kind of MOCs have arrived, I came across this following image: PICTURE. Look at the right side of the picture? Under the X-wing? Now, what is that thing? I am truly clueless.

If I recall correctly, there was airport in the Billund. That would be answer?

Hope of the mankind.. Stupid thing that evolution didn't kill or the basic instict that is vital to us? Who knows, but I am eager to see the colors and the 'figs of this set. This set seems to be good source of "dirt" pieces. Following the colorscape of the Geonosian Fighter? I do hope so because I have 16 of these pieces: PIC

Bley has invaded Town? Yep, I am bit confused about this happening.

i would says BRB mainly because I find it "legendary" set. I have seen it only couple of times but it is still impressing showcase of that time's LEGO culture.

Rather nice MOC you got. But because I know that every builders wants to hear so contrustive critism (yeah, they do. They just don't say it ;) ) 1: Color-scape of this creation is bit "thrown". I don't mind that greys, bleys and stuff like that have been put together, but it could make much better look for this MOC. IMHO, great colorscape <=> stand out of the mass. 2: Greebles? Were are they? I just cant seem to find them. 3: Many of the weapons don't look or feel "Star Wars-ish" which is kinda sad because this is alternate model of AT-AT. Bigger weapons. You know the deal. 4: Your driver's seat is very great. That is major plus from my side 5: Legs do work. Although I don't really like click-hinges, I am very impressed how you made legs. Keep it the good work.