Blondie-Wan

What the heck? I posted this in Licensed, not here...

The latest LEGO Ideas review results are in, and there shall indeed be an official LEGO Voltron set released next year.

An intention to produce a whole theme wouldn't keep them from doing the Voltron set; they've launched themes before using CUUSOO / Ideas sets more than once, after all, as seen with Minecraft and Ghostbusters (as well as Back to the Future, Doctor Who, and Adventure Time all getting LEGO Dimensions packs in addition to their CUUSOO / Ideas sets).

Well, never mind what I said earlier today. Over on the LEGO Ideas Facebook page, they just announced a contest - guess the review results, and everyone who guesses correctly will be entered into a drawing for a free copy of the Caterham 720R. Sweet! My takeaway from this is that a) the results are coming very soon after all, and b) they are indeed approving at least one of the projects, as they surely wouldn't want to have a contest drawing additional, extra attention to review results that come as a letdown. Oh, forget about that, too - the NASA Apollo Saturn V launched on June 1, not July 1. Man, I must be going senile.

I can't tell what I'm supposed to be looking at with all the Photoshoppery. I do think I can see the LEGO logo on the box under the wrapper, but this phantom Falcon cockpit of which others speak continues to elude me. That said, I've long wanted an updated UCS Millennium Falcon, and I do think we're getting one. It's really the ideal choice for a special Star Wars set for a major anniversary year; I wouldn't be surprised if they do it a third time for the 50th in 2027, in fact. (In fact, mods, I think we should start the 2027 Rumors & Speculation thread now. ) It's pretty clear from the wording of the official LEGO tease that they're referring to the volume of the box, though I can also see the piece count being in that ballpark.

I picked up a bunch of these when they were clearanced for about 70 or 80 cents (!); I should have a total of 24 copies, more than I have of any other set (aside from some of the blind-bagged Minifigures). About half of them are still unopened. I've been waiting for that perfect moment to open the remaining ones all at once in a big 7201 building session, but given how the minifigures have been updated since 2002, I've been toying with selling them and using the proceeds to acquire current sets. However, these have value to me now not just for the stormtroopers, but for the two plates in old dark grey - that entire color is no longer being made, after all, and I can always use old dark grey plates. Decisions, decisions...

That would mean the three sets for this year are all released at neat two-month intervals - the Apollo Saturn V on July 1st, the Fishing Store on September 1st, and the Women of NASA on November 1st. It would be fantastic if they could just continue doing that and release whatever the next set after that is on January 1st, and keep going all through the year, releasing six Ideas sets in 2018. I've been wondering whether (and hoping) we'd see the Ideas line get bigger, and start yielding more than the current record of four sets a year (done in 2014, 2015, and 2016). Just think - if they wait until after that to announce the next review results, there could be projects from four separate batches (three complete batches, plus the heldover Voltron project) in review simultaneously!

YMMV, but with everything that either exists now or is coming in September - the core story mode, three 6-level add-on stories, ten additional add-on levels, 30 Adventure Worlds, 16 Battle Arenas, and 75 playable character figures (not to mention all the offline building potential offered by all the physical LEGO elements in the packs, including those character figures) - I think there's plenty in the game already to make it worth having, even if they never release anything else for it in Year 3 or beyond. But I hope they do, of course.

Indeed, maybe the reason either there is no Year 3 or we just haven't heard about it is because they've had a tough time getting new IPs for the game. (That's mostly a joke. I know that if nothing else, they could surely get anything controlled by Warner - The Hobbit, Looney Tunes, The Neverending Story - or LEGO - Bionicle, Elves, Nexo Knights, etc. But it does sound a little as though they ran into more walls than anticipated when trying to secure properties for Y3.)

I believe the one discussed a few weeks ago, a few pages back in the thread: (bolding added to original post for emphasis) Note that a lot of these were apparently merely considered and were shot down for one reason or another, and wouldn't necessarily have made it into the game no matter how many years it ran. It does illustrate there's still lots of room for more material to be added, though. Oh, and yeah, I'm afraid it does sound to me like there won't be a pack with Lord Vortech. It'd be kind of funny if they did, though - imagine on the package, in the space where it has the logo of whatever franchise the character comes from, it could just have the LEGO Dimensions logo again.

"Dying", perhaps, but I don't think it's fair to call it "dead" when it's not only still being supported, and even not only still being sold, but actually has new material coming out that's still months away. The writing may be on the wall, but the game is still viable for the time being.

I think they could lower the prices if they chose to do so. I'm sure not all of the frequent sales have been at a loss; the game should have some pretty decent margins, especially now. Granted that the standard pricing on Fun Packs seems to have already been permanently lowered once, from $14.99 USD to $11.99... but that should just mean the Team Packs should be lowered in turn, since they're each equivalent to two Fun Packs, just bundled (and the pricing reflected this economical approach, being $4.99 below what two Fun Packs would cost), but now a $24.99 Team Pack is $1.01 more than two $11.99 Fun Packs. There have also always been plenty of sales on LD, some quite substantial. I suspect the standard pricing includes substantial margins, especially now, almost two years after launch. I think they might be able to halve the Starter Pack prices now and still make it profitable. That said, they may not want to. Aside from whatever they get from selling the game and additional packs at full price, I can't help but wonder whether they actively rely on sales to get substantially more buyers, since undoubtedly lots of people put off by full pricing will jump at reduced ones if they think they're getting a great deal. Making the regular prices that low might diminish the impetus some consumers feel to buy it now whenever it's on sale.

Interesting that in the descriptions under each of those they mention the specific times to watch for LEGO Dimensions news. Since they follow up the last one with "say it once, say it twice... and third time's the charm", I'm guessing that'll focus on Beetlejuice, and since it's one of three remaining themes in Year 2, to me that suggests each livestream will contain a LEGO Dimensions segment focusing on one of the three themes to be added. But I guess we'll know in a few hours!

I'm sure we'll see lots of cool stuff from the remaining material, as well as perhaps some highlights of the most recent additions. That should all be great. I imagine the question of the game's future will hang over everything, though. I can't imagine it not coming up given all the recent chatter about it, but at the same time it seems unlikely they'd openly acknowledge an impending discontinuation when there's still stuff scheduled for release months from now. But hey, it's just a few days away now, and then we should know more than we do now, whatever the word is.

I think the fact it got its supports incredibly quickly bodes well for that project. While it's not the only factor considered in the LEGO Review, they do take into account how quickly a project gets supported as an indication of demand for it (i.e., the business case for the set), and the Voltron project was one of the fastest vote-getters in the batch it originally came from (along with Women of NASA, which of course was approved). I also think that while it would be one of the largest Ideas sets, it still wouldn't be quite as large as either the Apollo Saturn V or the Fishing Store, so it's certainly in the range of sets they'll seriously consider. Best of all, though, is the fact it got held over for further consideration. That to me indicates that they really see potential in it and are trying to make it work (whether it's working out a design, hammering out the licensing, whatever). While only a relatively small fraction of the projects that make it to review get approved, the percentage of ones that are held over from one review batch to the next and then get approved is quite a bit higher. Still not a guarantee, of course, and it very well might be declined after all, but I think the project's chances are almost as good as they could be.

I think the rule instituted not long ago that projects need to be no more than 3000 pieces will do that. Projects that are clearly larger than that simply aren't accepted any longer. Well, as I've noted many times over the last several years, LEGO Ideas has been pushing boundaries all along, and while it started out entirely with sets under $50 USD, they've gradually released larger and larger sets. Up through the end of 2014 and beginning of 2015, they released nine sets, all of them $49.99 USD or less (well, except for the first not having a USD price since it was Japan-only, but comparable), then in the rest of 2015 they had three sets in a row at $59.99. After that, they did one at $69.99, then one at $79.99. All the while, the sets continually broke new ground in other ways. It's clear the program began somewhat cautiously, but as it's progressed they've experimented with it in various ways, including using it to produce larger and larger sets, and while I've been wrong many, many times about what they would or would not do, I was right that they would eventually do large sets as they're doing now (though I admit they're doing a couple huge ones in a row much sooner than I thought they would). If you dig through the old pages of this thread you can find various posts from various members doubting Ideas would ever produce a set with over a thousand pieces or a price above a hundred dollars or whatever, yet here we are getting two in a row. The next set after the Old Fishing Store should be the Women of NASA one, which should be a return to smaller, less expensive sets, but in the meantime it's now been firmly established that large, expensive sets of the sort one finds in the Creator Expert / D2C / Star Wars UCS lines can be produced under Ideas. Whether one will or will not be approved from any one particular batch is all down to the merits of a particular project; simply being big is no longer a clear guarantee of rejection, the way it appeared to be not so many years ago, but nor is it a guarantee of approval, either. I think we can generally expect to see Ideas sets in a range of sizes and price points from here on out.

It was yet another LEGO attempt at bridging the gap between physical bricks and virtual play. It consisted of a small set of basic bricks plus a downloadable app for iOS and Android devices. One would do things like have a timed build to recreate a "2d" brick sculpture (single player of bricks) and then photograph it with one's phone's camera, for example. It was kind of neat, but didn't last long. Here's one EB thread on it. It should give you an idea of what it's like. Unfortunately, when LEGO discontinued it they didn't merely discontinue the set, as one might reasonably expect; they all pulled the (free) app from distribution (while there were still some copies of the set here and there in stores), so that someone who bought the set late would be unable to download the corresponding app and make full use of the bricks. Fortunately the bricks would still be perfectly good, usable, ordinary LEGO bricks, but I'm sure a few people felt stung by buying a set with a promised interactive digital component, only to find it no longer available. I don't know why they felt a need to pull the free app out of distribution, but it's no longer around.

As much as I love and adore LEGO, I have to say this (presumed) premature cancellation coming after those of LEGO Universe, Life of George, Fusion, and LEGO Minifigures Online doesn't do much to foment trust in LEGO's future digital endeavors - much the opposite, actually (and regrettably).

I'm coming back to this thread after months away, getting all caught up on the developments of the last few months, and I must say I'm disappointed. I had encountered the cancellation rumors elsewhere, but wasn't putting much stock into them until now. Argh. I've wanted to get into this game since even before it was released, but haven't been able to - I don't even have one of the five systems that runs it yet - and now I find out it's being cut short before I can properly throw myself into it. I have started getting some of the packs for it, though, in hopes of getting the game and an appropriate console eventually, and not wanting to be stuck unable to get desired packs for it by the time I do. All I have so far, though, are the Simpsons and Portal Level Packs, and the Wizard of Oz Wicked Witch Fun Pack. At this point it seems profoundly unlikely I'll be able to get everything, but hopefully I can at least get something for each franchise / world, and all the essential stuff I care about most (Back to the Future, Doctor Who, Ghostbusters, Adventure Time, The Lord of the Rings, and The LEGO Movie, plus various single-pack themes). Three down, many many many more to go... Onto other things. The additions reportedly planned for Year 3 are an odd bunch. Some, like Avatar: The Last Airbender, seem like no-brainers to me, but others not so much. Minecraft seems like a good choice at first, but then with LEGO Worlds and regular Minecraft already out there, it seems a bit stranger the more one thinks about it... though I guess the draw would be in being able to use the wealth of characters from outside franchises in the Minecraft environment, have interaction between Steve and the other characters, etc. James Bond doesn't strike me as the most LEGO-friendly property out there, and a while ago I wouldn't have thought they'd ever entertain the idea at all, but then I'd have said the same thing about The Simpsons, The Big Bang Theory, and Gremlins, so obviously I'm not the best judge of such things. Still, though, I'd rather see them just use their own in-house Agents theme. They've certainly seemed to enjoy mining the 1980s for properties for this game (Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Gremlins, The Goonies, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, The A-Team, Knight Rider, Midway Arcade, etc.). I can think of a few more I'd like to have seen added that I think could have worked well: Big Trouble in Little China Labyrinth The NeverEnding Story Ah, well. At least this caps the total number of packs I have to worry about. I just wish I had some of those 99 Cents Below stores near me, though it sounds like they've largely been cleared out now anyway. I'll have to pay normal prices, I guess, and pick up as much as I can while I can.

I picked mine up on Thursday the 1st at the LEGO Store at the Sugarloaf Mills Mall in Lawrenceville, just outside Atlanta. The Store had sold through most of its allotment by the time I arrived in early afternoon; it's a good thing I didn't wait any longer. Multiple other shoppers came in and asked for the set while I was talking with the store staff. I put it together on Sunday the 4th. It's amazing how quickly it went together considering the size, but it was a very rewarding build, and the finished set is beautiful. Everyone associated with the creation of this set, both the two Ideas users and LEGO's internal team members, should be very proud. They really knocked it out of the park with this one.

We haven't had three selected at the same time, but we have had three selected from a single review batch. Birds, The Big Bang Theory, and Doctor Who all came from the same batch; the first two were chosen right off, while the Doctor Who project was held over for further review (along with a similar Doctor Who project), and ultimately accepted in the following review (alongside the following batch's WALL•E). If we had the three projects you suggest chosen, it would be kind of a reversal of the above scenario - three projects chosen at once, but only two from the same batch as each other (since the Voltron project originally came from the previous batch).

Such things are a fairly common occurrence with projects that garner lots of support. Utilizing social media to promote a project is expected; it's a fundamental part of the Ideas process. How would you know? Lots of people who aren't quite what we'd consider AFOLs do still enjoy LEGO; it's a significant part of childhood for many, many, many people, after all. Besides, part of the whole reason for being of LEGO Ideas is to pitch and produce new sets outside the bounds of what LEGO already produces. It's not supposed to appeal solely to LEGO fans (though obviously we're among the target audience for it; it's just not exclusively for us). Someone who is a Gilmore Girls fan may be inclined to purchase Gilmore Girls merchandise without necessarily being a fan of that type of product otherwise. In fact, that's a significant part of the value of the Ideas program to LEGO itself - after all, they hardly need any help from outside to come up with Star Wars and Marvel sets that already sell to fans of those properties, but there are any number of other entertainment properties whose fans may or may not already buy LEGO otherwise, but who might be inclined to buy a set based on subject matter they love. LEGO would surely like to produce sets that appeal to people outside their existing customer base (and thus sell LEGO to people who don't already routinely buy it) than to people in their existing fanbase who already buy as much LEGO as they can anyway. Something like Gilmore Girls may seem a long shot, and it's more than possible it'll be declined just as the Golden Girls project was (and indeed, as the great majority of Ideas projects are), but it's worth it to LEGO to give it consideration. I'm sure it's a factor for just about all of them, even if the extent to which it's a factor varies from project to project. I'd bet that virtually every project to get a large number of votes got them from a combination of voters who are fans of LEGO, voters who are fans of the subject matter, and voters who are fans of both.

Assuming it were scaled up proportionately to the difference between the nanofigures and regular minifigures, it would be a fair bit over two meters tall, I think somewhere in the neighborhood of eight or nine feet.

I trust lots of people frequenting this forum made a point of having a bit of LEGO Star Wars fun on this day; I know I did! What special builds did everyone opt to do? Whether it's an official set you've had set aside for a special occasion or a MOC you've been working on today, let's hear about it! Speaking for myself, I've long had a MISB copy of 10198 Tantive IV stored away, just waiting for the right moment, and I decided today was the day. I'm pleased to now have a fun, playable and remarkably sticker-free replica in brick of the very first Star Wars spaceship ever sitting on the table in front of me, and I'm delighted with it. Putting it together after watching Rogue One has made for a very satisfying Star Wars Day.

I've updated the initial post once more to use the name of the final set (as opposed to the original Ideas project) in the thread title and add a few more tags. As they no longer use "11", I'm guessing this is now intended as a more general Apollo Saturn V set, rather than Apollo 11 specifically. I think you're right. If nothing else, I certainly expect to see it in the gift / souvenir shops at science museums, planetariums, Kennedy Space Center, etc., as well as in Toys 'R' Us. And honestly, it still wouldn't be too bad a deal! Though I'd certainly rather pay TLG's price than whatever TRU might charge (even if they don't mark it up, they still won't have VIP points).