MetroiD

Great topic Brickster mate - as usual, you're precisely the man to start up the best discussions. I'd love to see this one pan out to umpteen pages with ideas, btw :] As to water - we've just ordered a pile of trans-clear, trans-light blue and trans-dark blue plates and tiles so that we can start experimenting on fountain designs for the city. It is my belief that any LEGO city MUST have a brick-built fountain because there is a very special feel to that structure if it's built properly. Real water, on the other hand, adds a new level of realism to any MOC or layout and is definitely a fascinating idea. As a matter of fact, I've already discussed that with members of my freshly-founded Bulgarian LUG (we don't even have a name yet! ) and we've come up with a technical sketch of how we could make a medium-size fountain work using a pump and a hidden (non-LEGO-built) container. The only issue here is related to dirt / calcium caused by water trickling down over LEGO bricks, which might at some stage have a negative effect on the bricks - but I guess that's a chance we'll have to take. I'd love it if someone would share some info as to whether their bricks have deteriorated too much after being exposed to lots of water... Other than fountains, I would most definitely like to use real water as part of my own city - ideally, it would feature a river of some kind. It would most definitely not however be poured directly onto LEGO pieces, I'm thinking of moulding the riverbed out of some other material and then filling it with water, so that I don't have to worry about the bricks - just like it's shown in the video that Captain Zuloo has posted. As with pretty much all kinds of terraforming, I'm not necessarily convinced that using authentic LEGO bricks is the best/only solution and would like to experiment in order to create hills, rivers and even some other kinds of moving water (other than fountains). I'll keep you posted on my LUG's water story developments.

Regardless of the quality of the new City sets for 2010, I feel there's one thing I'm really happy about - LEGO haven't "gone green" and forgotten about the good ol' gas-guzzling Octan company! And by the way, I'm quite happy with the 2010 City line-up so far. It might be a case of deja-vu for most AFOLs or even TFOLs around here, but bear in mind that kids don't remember how the sets used to look like 10 years ago. I'm sure these new sets will sell great - apart from the firefighter boat perhaps... As for myself, I've only set my sights on the bacon... oops, pig farm - and that means I can go ahead and splash out on the 10197 Fire Brigade and the Emerald Night :] Yay!

For the sheer amount of creativity & zany ideas that went into this train, it's one of my top favourites in Cat. 1. There are a few extremely elaborate and unbelievably realistic train models that have been constructed for this contest, but this one is by far the funniest one. And, of course, it is REALLY well built too - I love the feel to it and would give it top marks any day ;] With this, fonz, you've most definitely jumped the shark

Good points there by Joebot and Legoist - my thoughts precisely. Can't agree more about the obvious difference in quality between city structures and vehicles in the last few years. As to the new sets - another "brand new" fire station? I won't even bother checking, every single town / world city / city fire station has been looking exactly the same to me, ever since the 80s. After the wonderful 10197 Fire Brigade set (which btw is the _only_ fire station my city will ever have), I don't think we can judge TLG for anything ;) Now, as to the fireboat - you guys have pointed out most of its flaws and that is definitely one of the most absurd sets not just in terms of how close it comes to reality (which seems to be a bit too important to us AFOLs), but also in terms of playability. Just by the looks of it, it looks most unstable and anything else but solid... They could have put much less parts in it and yet made it so much more fun! Putting too much of everything on top really wasn't a good idea and the good old '90s 4031 firefighter boat is still light years ahead in terms of sheer quality. I'm not really certain that kids would like this one, let alone AFOLs... but that might just be me.

Hey there komşu , I totally love this one to bits. I believe it's my favourite Cat 3 entry so far! And btw, the way you've secured the offset house, roof and tracks is simply brilliant. But I digress... Best of luck in the contest mate!

We're currently waiting for our Town Plan to arrive from Germany... Not sure if we'll keep the buildings as they are - most probably not, since we're going with the CC-modular look for our town, but the one building I definitely love is the movie theater. Of course, it will take some work to change that structure and give it a modular look, but even regardless of our plans, just for the idea of it, the theater grabs the top marks.

Regardless of its height, this one is a great MOC and looks extremely realistic. The work you've done on the back is amazing...

Green is lively and interesting, but can only by used in rural areas, whereas grey suits the "city" look much better. The problem with roadplates anyway is that they look somehow weird and are almost impossible to combine when placed alongside the CC-style modular buildings. Tiling them over would not be a solution either since that way you get a pavement that's simply _too_ wide to look realistic and you're back to the drawing table... I personally have tried to think of a solution to this problem and so far have come up with the idea of placing the modular sets as they are (as opposed to changing their pavement width), then placing a street baseplate in front... and then using rails. Yeah, rails. A tram that goes along both sides of the actual road and remains a bit "hidden" because of the extra pavement tiles you'd use on top of it and on the entire street baseplate. That way the pavement remains OK and not too wide and you can add a great feature to liven up your streets. I'll try to do this and post a few pics to show you guys how it looks.

The inner corner house is my favourite here as well :] Great MOCs, alex, they're most definitely inspiring to all fellow modular-town lovers. Btw, have you considered adding some green space in that beautiful town of yours? Parks and stuff? I think they'd look great alongside these buildings - you said yourself that green makes any city look better ;)

You should put this in a special truck showroom in your town... Minifig truckers would look at it and say, "Woah, look at that beast, let's hope the municipality buys some and lets us drive it around..." Btw, I love how you've combined Technic + System in order to ensure that all the great features of this one work! I think trying to make the front end a bit "curvier" would make it look even cooler...

Ralph, that's absolutely stunning! I myself love minifig-scale vehicles, but the real problem with those is the fact that such a small scale limits the builder to a place where he has to choose between keeping as close to the original as possible, playability and sturdyness... I completely share your view that looks should come first even when building in this scale, since the other two problems are things that the original LEGO designs focus on - which is why they turn out a bit more kiddish. Yet somehow all your minifig-scale vehicles combine spot-on looks with a level of detail that's hard to believe, and that takes _some_ talent. Studying what you've come up with over the years has been a huge inspiration, I must admit... And I'm thrilled to see that you're still building these wonderful models :) Keep up the great work! Looking forward to seeing that display, btw

Long time no see guys :) Seeing as I currently don't have the right selection of bricks, I guess I won't be entering the Train Contest this month. However, Brickster, if you do organise a Camper Contest, I'm definitely in, since I'm working on one right now... Given, its camping capabilities are extremely limited seeing as it's a bit on the small side, but then again it was the original "first" camper that started it all way back when such vehicles were not supposed to cost tens (hundreds, sometimes) of thousands dollars and feature furnishings richer than those you'd have in your own house :) Btw, some very nice subtle changes to an overall great set, Matt! Good job

Mad cow, bird flu, swine flu, mad admin. You should have seen it coming guys, nature takes its toll, simple as that. Coming up next: Fellow flu! On a side note: Bon Boner Day, Partabone!

Given the choices, I guess we'll take prison as our excuse. Now's the time to see if watching hours upon hours of Wentworth Miller acting cool will be worth it. Ta-ta!

Hey guys, just wanted to let you know that we'll be taking a break from LEGO building for an indefinite period - which means we won't be building anything for the marvellous TrainTech contest, unfortunately. Furthermore, I am aware of the couple of reviews I left unfinished @ the Reviewers' Academy, I will definitely get back to those and improve them once I get the chance. My sincere apologies to the Academy Teachers for having had to put up with that mess. @ TheBrickster: Mate, please excuse the fact that I'd been on/off for the last few months, thus effectively ruining Scruffy's chances of going on a cruise around the world... It's been a weird time for me/ us. I'll somehow find a way to get back to the poor ol' mutt tho, I promise! Hopefully, we'll be back stronger, with better creations to show and less impatience on my side :] See you soon fellas!

Hi guys, we're back after a month's hiatus while roaming abroad.. Lovely surprise here, the collaboration between Railbricks and Eurobricks is really wonderful news, a huge THANK YOU to everyone who made it possible. We'll try hard and think of something zany for this contest... as a matter of fact I've already got an idea what I'd like to build! Cheers once again, looking forward to all the great entries!

Well, since we're talking about trains... Since for some weird reason, the above doesn't work as an embedded video despite the "youtube" tags, here's a link for anyone interested http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TQByv_xkuc ...sorry for being "off topic" here, admins. Just couldn't resist.

A very original idea and a great build too, well done! I was wondering whether you had planned on puttin this diorama in a proper surrounding (i.e. a modern "concrete paradise" city), despite the fact that you aren't that much into town? Furthermore, the tree really IS quite big and you could also add some building machines to put it all into context even more (i.e. construction of parking garage planned). In any case, this is a wonderful MOC. Wonder why it hasn't been blogged anywhere yet - seeing as it "handles" a topic which is really current....

Monorail steam train... You absolutely rock. What an awesome highlight... Next up - amphibian Santa Fe Super Chief?

Is it rust my rawesome canine senses or do you ruys also smell rertilizer? Smells runny tho, not quite rike Jeb's regular rertilizer... I rink the smell's most concentrated around here... * starts sniffing around and disappears somewhere behind the wagon

Just to make it clear, and with this I intend to conclude my posting in this thread since you seem to be taking this all a bit too seriously - I don't believe that there is anyone among us who would argue about the need for maintaining a proper forum with no off-topic rants and dysfunctional English being utilised. I don't know how anyone got the idea about moaning regarding "not overwhelmingly posting support", if it was from my post, then I think it has been misunderstood. The way I see it, posting a MOC here does not automatically mean "tell me just how cool the thing I built is!", but instead is something more of a request for constructive feedback and criticism from equally devoted fans who can really spot ways for you to improve. The points being made here in this topic all refer to finding the most plausible level of tolerance. And, once again, none of the mods need to feel irritated and/or distort the points being made here by branding them as "silly". Nobody is saying that the moderators are being unreasonable, please understand that - otherwise they wouldn't be visiting this forum, now would they. We're all here for the fun and if some place is no fun, we'd move on. One more thing, since I don't want Hinckley to misunderstand me - I don't have any gripes about anything regarding that incident, I only shared it as an example of what I meant when talking about the level of tolerance. The whole story was dealt with that very same day. What I meant was that someone else in my shoes might not have been all too happy about it, regardless whether that other member had it coming to them or not. Once again, please try to see my point and understand that this is in no way personal and I'm only referring to it as an example.

I don't mean to be disrespectful to any of the admins or mods around here, especially since I've befriended some/many of you guys, but I totally understand where both brickbuster and (especially) 5150 LEGO are coming from. In that sense, I must say that I support their point of view. I do hope that you continue reading my post beyond this point, since judging by the above reactions I may have pulled on all the wrong nerves by saying that. My first posts in this forum where meant to share some of my/our less-than-perfect MOCs - what I was looking for most of all was some constructive feedback as to how I could improve those, seeing as MOCpages was not one of the places where I could get that. What I instantly received in turn was mocking from one of the forum's rare visitors regarding the size of the .jpgs I uploaded. A common mistake by all newcomers, which of course does NOT in any way make it any more tolerable. After duly resizing the pictures - a thing I always remember to do before I post anything on a forum but somehow managed to forget this time - I got a few more comments, one of which was a playful one-liner. The admins gave me proper warning to take care of my pics (which I did immediately after having noticed the mess), and I'm grateful for that. The member whose "kind" welcome had been so heartfelt simply edited his post and all seemed to have been forgotten. The member who posted the one-liner funny, albeit short response received a warning which he in turn took a tad bit too seriously. I hope that by now you're starting to see my point. There is an unwritten rule here that short posts are not wanted and that if one does not have anything constructive to say, they are better off not posting anything. Logical and good as an idea as that is, it is not always the best way to react towards new people joining in. A response in the manner of "That is one lovely MOC, I really enjoyed that" or "Thank you for that, I'm glad you appreciated it" shouldn't really be seen as spam - at least not in my point of view. That said, I also understand where the admins are coming from - however, speaking from personal experience, I do believe that in time members of the EB community get used to the no-nonsense talk and really begin to appreciate it. A perfect policy would be to give a new member a few days and see if their behaviour changes in any way, then give them proper warning and scrutinise them if they continue with their negative approach. I've seen that happen many times around here and I think it's a sensible approach. Killing off one's enthusiasm by letting them know how unconstructive and useless their short post had been is however not really the best of ways to make anybody feel welcome. A final note - I respect and/or have become good friends (as much as that can be said about virtual interactions) with all of the afore-mentioned members. Despite understanding some of brickbuster's grievances, I do not feel he needed to start a second account just in order to make his feelings known. In that sense, perhaps trying to take a lighter approach and actually have some fun around here would have worked wonders for you, brickbusting fella. EB is a very friendly place to be - once you get to know the people around here. And in regards to locking this thread - that does not help anybody, now does it. Noone is pointing fingers, we are simply trying to have a normal discussion like regular grown-ups.

Ruff! Rust bear in rind rat I ron't rike guns and rave a habit of snatching them raway rom their owner's hands if they're aimed at someone!!! ...resides, rose stones ridn't do any ramage whatsoever. Ranyway, it's rarting to rook rike there's roing to be some work ror my keen retective senses today?

Well, since you ruys rave all rut stopped raying attention ro me, rowing rocks at your rain was my rast resort!

Metroid minifigures... Why make minifigs, I mean Samus is a robot and a metroid has absolutely nothing in common with a minifig... What's supposed to be so great about that idea in the first place anyway? Oh, and good luck reaching 100% @ GTA 4. How tough / fulfilling that must be