Hinckley

Def is smart, and a father, so I'm glad he's been participating, especially with suggestions for the poll. I do appreciate that these sets seems just as complicated to build as the other City sets and other themes for this age range. I don't think they made it simpler which is something that annoyed me about the Belleville series.

You can just skip them. I appreciate your help. Let me re-consider the existing options. I hadn't even thought of that... That is strange and incongruous. I think the edits with def's suggestion now best reflect the full conversation we've been having here. Let me know if anyone has any further feedback and I'll do my best to improve the poll. Anyone who has already voted and likes the new options better can either edit or delete their current votes and start over.

I'll add your questions, but I don't think the poll I created was sarcastic. As usual, I'm open to changes and discussion. No need to at me. And the pink monster trucks answer was bumped by someone else, not me. Anyway, my interest is to created the best poll possible. Thanks for your suggestions. They are excellent suggestions and the best way to get a consensus on what's being discussed. I do wish you could make suggestions without being so and towards others...

Poll added.

Which community do you think they would seek help from? The LEGO fan community is hardly their target market. They test-market their product to children and parents in the USA and Germany. According to the designers I've spoken to, the challenge is pleasing the children in the States, where parents buy the kids whatever they want and to the parents in Germany, where the parents are very opinionated and don't consider what the children want as much as they buy things that they, the parents, deem appropriate for the children.

Doesn't the ridiculousness of your comparison do the same thing? Honestly, in my opinion, one should never accuse anyone of terrorism or Nazism unless there are actual atrocities occurring. Playing the Nazi/Terrorist card on people personally gives me the creeps. Can't we have an intelligent discussion without such alarmist and over-dramatic accusations? Even if other people are already over-reacting to things? Discuss this how you want, but I don't like this sort of thing.

OK, so I did the same thing with my niece (8) and my nephew (10). My niece wants the set with the horse, the puppy, the treehouse and the bear. My nephew wants the pterodactyl and has no interest in "the Barbie sets." That was fun! I told my sister what I planned to do and about the new girls' line and she said " They're not pink like the last ones, are they?" She's all nutty about girls and colors, etc. While her daughter sat there looking at the sets, wearing all pink, my sister agreed that the colors aren't too girly. She did wonder why girls needed new colors and I suggested their years of test-marketing probably showed the LEGO group something. I respect anyone's opinion for the sake of it being their opinion and anyone has the right to express said opinions. However, I would ask you to keep this topic in perspective. Thank you. And one last thing:

I think this is a good example of how to bring something up after a game has conclude. It gives everybody the chance to check in with how they play. What's nice about how Brickdoctor presented it is that he's expressing how he experienced it, not really blaming anyone for anything. He seems well adjusted to the results and it's an opening to a civil discussion about a specific behavior. This is a great idea to "de-brief" this way in a game conclusion. Everyone can look at what's being pointed out and take from it what they will for the next game... I agree. This is definitely a positive discussion to have. Not to mention, there may not be kids in some of the games, but some of us, myself included, have been know to act like children. I try to take ownership and learn from it when I can. It helps to have someone point it out to me, though, in case I do commit whatever childish behavior again.

You! I love you! Thanks for turning your home into a sociological experiment lab (completely safe for the children) and sharing the results. I loved reading your post! "What do the kids think?" "The kids want to play with toys, duh. "

We want to all be adults, but despite our guidelines there are some kids here. We should definitely be careful not to intimidate them too much. And I'm not saying anybody is going to go murder anyone. I'm saying gaming justification is a slippery slope. Anyway, great points you made above the one I quoted. This is turning out to be a nice discussion. This brings up a really good point that I brought up during Prison Riot! I, personally, feel I need to remember that "mates" part and not let things get to me so much. But even my "mates" have gone out of their way in recent games and gone beyond verbal wrestling. That's why I bring this up, mostly. I've been a little surprised by some of the veteran's behavior and I think some of the vets should consider analyzing their own behavior. Like I said, maybe I'm just too sensitive and God knows I've been a dick in the past, but it does help to check in and make sure our Mafia community is positive and welcoming...until we start oinking. Insulting generic Scum is a definite and clear tactic. Suggesting they are undercover babies is something really easy to laugh at, even for the Scum. There's definitely a difference and what you describe there is, without a doubt, a fair tactic. That's just my opinion, anyway.

And from the "What? Really??!! " files, there's controversy brewing over the new LEGO Friends line due out in early 2012. Picture is link to original article What could the controversy possibly be? Find out and weigh in on the subject in this topic. ___________________ Further reference links Businessweek: (cover story) LEGO is for Girls Ology.com: LEGO Friends are LEGOs(sic) for Girls AfterEllen.com: Feminist Friday

In a ball-game, you know who's on your team and who isn't and trash-talking is therefore clear. Since you don't know if the person you're "game-insulting" is on your side or not, you take the risk of actually hurting their feelings. I think I understand the difference as you've just described it and I think we see way too much of the inappropriate type in EB mafia games. I'm not saying it's you and won't say anyone in particular, but I think it's worth everyone keeping in mind. I can't think of a game in recent memory where someone hasn't had their feelings hurt. We should be responsible for what we say. Post-justification is fine, but thinking of all the implications first is the best way to go, I think. Insulting intelligence as a game tactic? Interesting theory. I'm not sure I'll try it in the future. I've definitely gotten frustrated with players in the past and questioned their intelligence out of frustration with having to repeat information or game rules. Sok and Pie come to mind as guys I haven't been the nicest too. In both cases, I spoke with them about what I thought was going too far and have done my best to change that behavior in games I've played since. I get as intense as anybody but I can't justify what I felt turned into personal attacks in the past (with sok and Pie, specifically). To really boil it down to simplest terms, I used to work for a children's theater company and we did anti-bullying assemblies at schools. What we taught the kids was appropriate teasing is where everyone is having fun and inappropriate teasing is where someone feels sad. The skills we taught focused on the kid who was sad and what he or she could do to handle such situations. We didn't focus on the person doing the teasing because most programs already do and the ones who really understand it will express remorse but just continue to do it. Bullies are excellent leaders and powerful manipulators. Am I still talking about this? I guess so. Pardon me for rambling. Oh, and when I was a kid, there were a bunch of kids who killed their friend while playing Dungeons & Dragons. But that was in character so it was all cool.

Awesome topic!! When my flight lands I will front page it.

I don't think that's an equal comparison by any stretch of the imagination. People "stalk" in this game for many reasons with varying results. But as the discussion was about activity that hurts people's feelings, I don't see how activity stalking is relevant. Besides, my response was in response to your quote, not necessarily solely your behavior, so no reason to think that was meant just for you.

That will never happen. One of their last, maybe the last, remaining patents is on the minifig. They protect it very closely. If they deviate too far from the patent, they could lose it altogether. I think we'll see the classic minifig represented for a very long time. No worries there.

People should also consider "Internet-level" tact. Having a thick skin is advisable, but so is being careful what you say to people. It does work both ways.

This is what they always do, though. In recent history we've seen it with Cars, Toy Story and Indiana Jones. They obtain a license and release sets based on classic material. The sets based on the new movie come out around six months later. They originally did this with the Star Wars license, although there were two years (I think) before the new trilogy was released. That's a different story because of how many new films were coming out and the license was contracted over a number of years. It seems to be their business model when obtaining new licenses that have new movies coming out.

Am I correct in understand that it achieved 10,000 supporters in just one week? That could definitely be skewed if it's just people supporting it because it's Minecraft and not because they would actually purchase it. I wonder if the CUUSOO beta version has a way to ensure that all supporters are coming from different IP addresses or if it's not being generated by a program or web-bot.

No. That one is fine right where it is...

For some reason, the Minecraft news motivated me to get my stuff up there. I just posted 8 projects. Great opportunity for shameless self promotion, right?

Power functions lights don't seem to light interiors too well in my experience. They seem to be better suited for headlights.

Do we love grogall, or what?

daoudbazaar brings us a mini-review of a new LEGO Friends set, which are starting to show up on store shelves! Click here to check out some pics and thoughts about this new set!