Dreamweb

I must agree all these monsters are a disappointment and look rather poor. However I choose Yeti as he looks the least silly of them all (and it's NOT because Yeti is the only one of those three that I own).

Here you can find another Lego cog, made by a Polish MOC-er Lomero.

I don't find these pirate accessories very appealing as they are obviously based on the 4+ Pirates... Just look at the Jolly Roger emblem - identical to the one on the Captain Red Beard's Pirate Ship's sails and flag... And all these accessories have that Jackstone-ish feel, so they're definitely not my type.

It's quite simple. If you look at the hull you will see that it's made of Red Beard Runner's hull (1 bow section + 2 middle sections + 1 stern section) plus a long custom middle section made of many red inverted slopes. Red inverted slopes are much more common than their brown counterparts so it was easier to get as many of them as I wanted. I also had quite a lot of spare white and black bricks, hence the colour scheme. The custom red middle section has the length of 3 5/8 standard middle sections (29 studs), so together with two Red Beard Runner's middle sections it gives a total length of 5 5/8 standard middle sections (45 studs). In the future I'm planning to build a ship with 7 standard middle sections (brown hull), I already have the necessary parts.

I like the idea SuvieD mentioned to me in a PM - to make a "Sid Meier's Civilization" kind of game. I must confess I came up with the same idea even before he suggested it, because, you see, "Civilization" has been my No 1 game for a long time, and it will probably stay this way.

The game is currently one possible way of utilizing the pirate map and it's Mr tole_11's idea so perhaps he could tell us even more about how he imagines it. I'm no expert in RPG so here are some basic questions I could think of: 1. How would people move around on the map? 2. How do you imagine darkening areas on the map - would that mean that every player has his own map with his part of the world sent to him and no one sees the complete map? 3. If so, how can the game be played on a forum - if you aren't allowed to see your opponent's map, you can't see his moves either (because you can't see the area where he moves), so is it possible to make your moves and other actions by writing posts? - other people would know what you're doing!

Having considered this, I don't think building a MOC should be a condition to participate in the game - after all not everyone has enough time/bricks/talent to build a MOC and this shouldn't be the reason to exclude him from the game if he wants to play. Of course building your fortress or something so that other players can actually see it makes the game more interesting and helps you "feel the game" more, but it shouldn't be obligatory.

These are all great ideas, however I don't have any experience with RPG. But I like the idea of a strategy - perhaps not an RTS as this would be difficult to play on a forum, I think a game in turns would fit better. This has given me an idea - perhaps each forum user could get some territory by building a MOC - a base, which would be afterwards placed somewhere on a map. This however might be difficult as making a MOC is not a simple and fast thing to do...

Yes, but they could have always made a wall that opens (or a roof). But that would of course rise the piece-count and the price... Well, as I say - that's just a minor disadvantage and even with it - this set is still a masterpiece.

Well, lots of things can be done with it. One of them is making the map with locations of various original Pirate sets, like TheBrickster suggested. Another possibility is to create my own fictional world and then write stories which take place there (that's the hard way :-) ), or - a bit easier - make a map with all MOCs on it to show how far they are from each other etc. This is however currently impossible in my case since all my Pirate MOCs are ships and other mobile objects... However I might make the map now and the necessary MOCs later. Perhaps someone's got other ideas what purpose such a map might serve?

I never had the set but my friend did so I had the opportunity to examine it and play with it. I think this is one of the best-looking Pirate sets ever made and it shows the magic of the 80's - early 90's Lego perfectly. And I agree it was a great idea to make a tavern set and it was a good starting point for making more kinds of specialised buildings like the forge, armoury, shipyard, shops etc., too bad Lego never did that. Actually there is only one thing I don't like about this set - the mess hall and the floor above it don't have a back wall. So why is there a door if there's no wall? Plus the back part of the building is open to attack because of it! The only explanation I can think of is that this set represents just the front part of a bigger building and there is actually something behind the brown-bearded soldier's back (see the picture). The lack of stairs leading to the upper level and the fact that the back part of the building ends exactly on the baseplate's edge support this theory. Apart from this the set is excellent. I gave it a 5 but - for the record - it should be actually 4.5 because of these really minor disadvantages.

So my information was incorrect, thanks for claryfying. This reminds me of the comic book by Athos: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=103976

The Atlantis idea reminds me of the computer game "Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis", which was based on a movie that was never made - and that was because Harrison Ford didn't want to play in it, AFAIK.

I've seen many great smaller ship MOCs, it's obvious that usually huge ships just look better because of their impressive magnitude, but if you make a smaller ship it's sometimes very hard to find room for all the details - while on a big ship you have plenty of room for that. So making a great-looking small ship is also a difficult task - just maybe not as time-consuming as building a big one. I myself am planning on making two Renegade Runner sized ships, three Imperial/Armada Flagship sized ones (perhaps with a little longer hull) and one using Emperor's Ship's hull. But all of this will have to wait because my current strategy is to start with bigger ships and then, when I have less bricks available, move on to the smaller ones.

After 9.5 months i took the test for the second time - I had forgotten most questions since the first time anyway. This time I scored 90% - that's a 4% improvement.

The Pirate Comic Book had a map with Eldorado Fortress and Forbidden Island shown on two separate islands, however it was very simplified. Also, on the boxes and instructions of many Pirate sets we saw something like bird's eye images of seas, islands with locations of actual sets. I have an Orient Expedition map with all the sets on it, but it's also very simplified. I'm thinking about a real map, but on the other hand not too complex one - it should look like it was made in - say - the 18th century, when the action takes place. So no isohypses or other stuff like that - only things someone could've drawn on the map in the 18th century.

I came up with an idea recently. Due to my profession I have some experience with map making. So I thought of doing something like that: 1)Take the famous Lego Pirate map piece: 2)Scan it 3)Enlarge 4)Use the original print as the background and based on it make a more detailed map, with towns, roads, ports, whatever... And the treasure location too. So, this is just a vague idea. The point is to make my map look like the real thing, the Lego piece being just the simplified, minifig scaled replica. Now, what do you think of that? And - more important - what do you suggest this map should show, I mean, any ideas to inspire me? As far as I know the map doesn't represent any real part of the world - or am I mistaken? So it should probably show some fictional realm in which the Lego Pirate action takes place. An uncharted (in our world, but known in the Lego world) island in the Carribean maybe? Any suggestions will be highly appreciated.

You mean those with anchor tatoos? Yes, they are absolutely great, I have only 2 of them but I'm happy anyway :D About the ship - it's just a boosted RBR but I don't care - I like it, look TLC, this is how RBR should've looked like from the beginning! However it definitely needs sails - including the jib which the RBR lacked!

The sails are paper - I tried canvas as well but they were too heavy and I just couldn't cut them without fraying. So I finally gave up - I'm not a tailor :) I'm here, just not as often as I used to - due to some other activities. But I'll be back for good when my new MOC is ready - but that's going to take some time since I haven't started making it yet. It's going to be... you'll never guess... another ship! Bigger than this one. So I'm currently preparing myself mentally for this difficult task :) I'm waiting until I have enough energy to begin.

I'm flattered by placing my Merchant Vessel here, however it seems a little strange to me to include this ship and do not include De Rode Draak which in my subjective opinion is a better MOC.

I started building the ship near the end of December 2005 and finished in the beginning of February 2006. So it took be about a month. A month and a week maybe. However the first half of that time was really crazy - I had nothing else to do, no job, nothing, so I would just sit and build this thing for 5 hours a day - almost every day! The second half was different - I had other things to do so I wasn't spending so much time working on the ship anymore, just 2 -3 hours every now and then. It took me two evenings to configure the rigging, making sails included. Here you can see my ship compared to Black Seas Barracuda: I remember how enormous the BSB seemed to me when I saw her for the first time (the real thing, not just pictures). It doesn't anymore :-D

I agree the final result is a bit of a disappointment. OK it is very big and has a lot of details but these strange masts and sails spoil the overall look drastically.

I don't think that's a problem since even official Lego models look a bit too much emerged above the waterline - just look at the rudder, shouldn't it be UNDER water's surface? Or perhaps we should assume that what we see is just the very top of the rudder which is in fact much bigger (and in fact they are quite big when you look at realistic non-lego ship models). Don't forget about De Rode Draak Mr Erik :biggrin:

That's exactly my point. And I'd be really disappointed if I found out that there's nothing but some empty space behind them, where you can't even put a minifig because it can't be reached in any way. And that's unfortunately my first thought when I look at the pictures and don't see the cabin's interior shown on any of them.

The flags are easy to find, the uniforms are the tough part, however of the links you showed us I especially like this one - we can see some Dutch uniforms there. Also, provided the costumes are historically accurate, you can see Dutch soldiers in one of the final scenes of the movie "The Bounty" (starring Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson) - just after landing Lieutenant Bligh is led by some guys wearing red uniforms, but I'm pretty sure some bluecoats can be seen in the port as well. The bluecoats can also be seen on some of the pics found by Kikuichimonji. So maybe we should assume that there were both bluecoats and redcoats among the Dutch, just like among the British, probably representing sailors and soldiers respectively.