Blondie-Wan

Oh, I forgot to note this in my earlier post... Do it! post some pics when you get done. That would be sweet. Well, I'll have it soon, so I'll try to remember that. :)

Just ordered 75020 Jabba's Sail Barge, with which I'll receive 5002123 Darth Revan and the 2014 May the Fourth poster. Yay!

Not to mention being close to what Lucas himself did for some of the Falcon's scenes in the original film trilogy. Nicely done!

Mine's actually not showing "Projects of Interest" on my home page at all. Rather, I have the black bar across the top of the page with the LEGO Ideas logo, the search box and my login, then the band of options (Discover, Submit, Community, etc.), and then the blue box with all the basics ("Have an idea for a LEGO set?", etc.), and then immediately below that are "Staff Picks" (currently: Cadillac 1959, Flying Dutchman, Honda CBRrr REPSOL version), and below that, "Popular this week", then "Projects in review", and then finally "Products for Sale". This is on an iPad mini, mind you. I suspect there are different versions of the site shown on different sorts of devices. I shall have to check out the site on a PC to see how it looks to me that way.

What, could one not do so before? I haven't submitted any of mine yet, so I didn't know, but I'd have thought automatic support of one's own projects was pretty much a given.

I had no problem moving over and setting up my account on Ideas, and I'm using Safari on an iPhone. I'm looking forward to seeing the site on a full-blown PC screen, as soon as I get home from work.

I don't profess to know when LEGO might decide to revisit dinosaurs as a theme, but consider how often they've done them in the past: Dinosaurs (DUPLO) (1997) Dino Island (subtheme of Adventurers) (2000) Jurassic Park III (subtheme of Studios) (2001) Dinosaurs (2001) Dino Attack / Dino 2010 (different names, some different content in different regions) (2005) Dinosaurs (DUPLO) (2008) Dino (2012) And these are just the ones I know about. There have also been individual sets that use dinosaurs in some fashion. It appears to me that dinosaurs are one of those play theme ideas that LEGO regularly comes back to every so often (and really, it's such a classic toy concept I'd be very surprised if they did otherwise). While they might not be quite up there with City, Space, Castle, Star Wars and Pirates, I can't help but imagine they'll do another dinosaur theme before too many years have passed.

How would you filter things out, though? How would you define "junk projects" in a way a computer will recognize?

Awesomesauce! But it's not really surprising to me that LEGO folk would know a fair bit about an aspect of the Star Wars universe, after all. Congrats on getting your first thousand votes!

I have a bunch of MOCs I've had percolating in my mind for some time, and I'm finally getting ready to start building them, and I hope to do so without actually investing in a bunch of new parts, for the most part, although I have bought or plan to buy some sets that contain a number of parts I intend to use. The most expensive one is the Haunted House, but it also costs more than all the other sets put together, and this is for several different MOCs I'm planning. I may make a Pick-a-Brick purchase or two with the intention of getting parts for these MOCs, but I'm talking about small purchases - say, a couple of cups' worth from a brick-and-mortar LEGO Store, so about $30. I'm in no financial shape to hit Bricklink or Pick-a-Brick or anything else and drop $1000 (or more!) on parts specifically for a single creation; that's more than I've ever spent at any one time on LEGO at all, in fact, even when buying a "large" order of multiple sets.

I think the OP was talking about VIP accounts that people open just to vote for projects, and don't use for making purchases. LEGO would have data on a bunch of people who just vote for projects, but that might or might not actually buy any LEGO sets themselves. There's nothing about that that would be cheating; it'd just be strange, and not much of a source of good data.

My fiancée and I live together, but no one lives with us except her dog. We therefore haven't had any issues with other people messing with the bricks, but I do keep the dog out of the "fun room" (where my LEGO is kept).

I imagine there are sets that use the parts in something other than nice, neat pairs, so that one part may be produced and/or used in different quantities than its counterpart.

Your creation is a terrific one that I think would make for the basis of an excellent set, and I supported it myself a while back. I do think that for a project to be successful in getting to the target of 10,000 votes, it's not enough for the creator to update it, maintain it, check in on comments, etc. on the site; it needs to be actively promoted elsewhere. I know you started off doing so here (since your thread here on EB about this house was how I learned of it myself); have you kept this up? That is, have you tried promoting it on Facebook, Twitter, other LEGO forums on the web, etc.? You might also want to try thinking beyond pure LEGO fandom, assuming you haven't already. For example, all those science fiction and fantasy projects - Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Doctor Who, etc. - get their votes not just from LEGO fans who check out the CUUSOO site anyway, but also from fans of those movies and franchises and whatnot, who follow links that get posted on sites dedicated to those series. Since your project is a beautiful house, I wonder whether you might do well to post links to it in forums for homemakers, architectural enthusiasts, etc. Have you tried that?

Quite lovely.

I wasn't talking about the new rules, or arguing against the time limit. I was merely making a tangential comment opining on the viability of this one particular project (the piano).

I'm not so sure of this one, actually. I can see a lot of more "casual" buyers of LEGO who'd never in a million years look into the hobby deeply enough to even learn of CUUSOO / Ideas' existence, let alone support or create projects, but who might well pick up a copy of that set if they see it in a LEGO Store.

The thing is, they want people voting who are actually interested enough in these projects to buy them if and when they become products. If voting is so easy that anyone can do it in a second without having ever visited the site before, they'll get a lot of meaningless votes. Voting is pretty darn easy right now for people who actually care about the projects - it doesn't take much time to register. They do ask some questions when you vote (how much you'd pay, why you're interested, etc.), but that's undoubtedly because the info is valuable to them when projects enter review. Very true, and I have every confidence this will happen eventually. Of course, it's worth noting the site's earliest users overwhelmingly spoke not English but Japanese. I think they will indeed start promoting it more, now that it's moving out of beta. However, I think offering LEGO prizes simply for voting or registering is wildly impractical; they'd be losing money on a venture intended to make them money. Even if you mean giving out prizes randomly for every so many projects or votes rather than for every single one, there's still a possibility of people voting for or even creating projects they don't actually care about, just for a chance at scoring some free bricks. It could clutter the site horribly, skew the support for projects, fill review batches with scads of 10k votes-getting projects whose supporters may or may not actually be interested in them... you get the idea. More action on social networks is definitely part of the equation, but it's largely our part. The users are supposed to take charge of promoting their own projects, and the successful ones are ones that have done so. Promotions in-store and / or in the catalogues is a definite part, and one I think will happen - actually, catalogues do already promote it to an extent, albeit not necessarily with double-page spreads. Those mileposts seem pretty well-set, actually. As you note, they've already tweaked the points at which they offer comments, to arrive at the ones they have now, and I think it's working pretty well. They already have things like the LEGO CUUSOO Facebook presence noting whenever a project gets a new official LEGO comment for hitting a certain milestone (and it also selects various projects of interest and posts them to its wall, including brand-new ones that have just gone up). Mmm... this one I really don't know about. Different projects, even ones that overlap on the exact same subject matter, may have various distinguishing features - for example, the two Doctor Who projects that have already reached 10k votes aren't identical, and while either could be seen as just saying "do LEGO Doctor Who," the actual content of the two projects is pretty important to many supporters, so that many users have a distinct preference for one or the other. And still other projects cover other, entirely different things from the franchise. The new one-year limit will already pull out a lot of such extraneous projects without LEGO CUUSOO LEGO Ideas folks having to expend a lot of extra effort to weed them all out.

Intriguing. On the whole, it will probably make it a little tougher for a set to make it... but given how many projects were making it to the mark each review period, I think there'll still be plenty of projects each period for the CUUSOO Ideas staff to choose from. (Wow, calling it "LEGO Ideas" is going to take some getting used to.) That kids as young as 13 can submit ideas now is great. It may be hard for us to keep in mind sometimes, but kids are still LEGO's primary customers, after all. I wonder whether the Ghostbusters and Exo-suit sets will carry the CUUSOO or Ideas name on the box. Also, since certain sets that run for a while sometimes get packaging revisions, I wonder whether the currently-active CUUSOO sets will get new Ideas boxes.

I hadn't known they were there at all before seeing others mention it in this thread. I have occasionally seen LEGO at Walgreen's in the past, but very infrequently - the last time might have been a bulk bucket in the early / mid-2000s. This was certainly the first time I'd seen any of the Minifigures at one. I do know there are various stores aside from the obvious ones that carry LEGO products, at least from time to time. I recall that when Minifigures Series 1 was out, people were reporting seeing them at places like Urban Outfitters (!). Walgreen's (at least here) has the TLM Minifigures for a buck above list, which is why I bought just two, as I know there are still a few out there in other places, and I'm hoping to pick up a few more from vendors that don't mark them up above MSRP (I have an Orlando trip coming up soon, so hopefully I'll be able to get some at either the LEGO Store at Downtown Disney or in one of the shops at LEGOLAND Florida). But I wanted to make absolutely sure I got Shakespeare and thus got at least one complete set, and I didn't want to take any chances on missing out on the figure entirely just to save one dollar.

Edit: never mind; this isn't the thread for it. Carry on.

Following the earlier tips in this thread re: Walgreen's, here in the US, I just went to a local one and found they do indeed have them, and bought two. I haven't opened them yet, but I'm pretty adept at packet-feeling, and I should finally have the William Shakespeare I needed, finally completing a set. Huzzah!

Swanky! But how did you get it so soon? I consider myself a big fan of the franchise in general, including much EU, but not much of most of the material taking place millennia before the movies, and I've never played the games from which this character sprang, so it doesn't carry much meaning for me, honestly. However, it's a nice enough figure, and any LEGO is worth having for something. I do think I'll be getting stuff during this year's May the Fourth promo anyway, so I should wind up with one. If I don't think of a use for it soon I may save it for use as trading fodder. Thanks for the review!

Well, as incredible as this may seem, it's possible not every LEGO fan agrees with you. Shocking, I know. Moreover, whether other projects were "better" than this one or not, it still doesn't mean they would have been approved. Projects get declined for various reasons, and all the projects that were declined at the same time this one passed had various strikes against them - the Legend of Zelda one would have called for special molds, Purdue Pete and Andy the Android are both mascots which TLG has decided it doesn't want to do, Space Troopers was essentially a slight variation on an existing current theme, the Batmobile Tumbler was something they already offer in an extant theme, Portal and League of Legends are probably a little too "mature players only" for LEGO, and the Mini Shops would have entailed licensing not one but several different outside brands, at least one of which is probably resistant to letting another company make toys of its stores... the list goes on. If the Exo-suit hadn't gotten approved, it's conceivable it would just have meant that nothing got approved out of those batches, rather than something other than the Exo-suit getting approved.

Maybe. They just say "late spring," which could be in May, or sometime this afternoon. You and I both! I voted for that one myself. Yeah, I see they used the numbers we'd have expected them to use for CUUSOO for the later Minecraft sets instead, even though only the first one is considered a CUUSOO set. It's like the 211xx numbering scheme is now shared by the CUUSOO and Minecraft themes. 21108 will be the Ghostbusters set, so I assume the Exo-suit will be 21109. A bunch of people in the Sci-Fi forum (for starters) respectfully beg to differ. I haven't even seen the final model, but I imagine I'd love to get a couple copies myself. I'm guessing that's the sort of thing that'll be taken care of when it officially goes out of beta.