Blondie-Wan

I suspect there won't be a Level Pack for Chima. I suspect that world / realm / level / universe / whatever will be in the base game with the starter pack, and we just need to add characters.

From IGN: (More at the link)

I hunk they will indeed be minidoll sets, but I also think they'll still be action-adventure-oriented. The only way LEGO will make it more about shopping and recreation and whatnot is if that's the direction DC will take the whole sub-franchise in. LEGO's portrayal of the characters will match those of the other licensees and of DC itself.

Huh, that's strange. It's been just over a year since it was released, so I guess it makes sense that it might be retired, but I'd have expected it to be around at least as long as the DeLorean time machine. Also, there doesn't appear to be even the "sold out" listing we could expect to see for a few months - it's just... gone. I'm guessing it's just a temporary glitch or something, and will be back soon.

I wouldn't expect Smash TV to be in LEGO Dimensions either, for the same reason. I might even wonder a wee bit about Robotron 2084, but since it's one of the games specifically shown in the announcement video I strongly suspect it'll be in the game, along with Defender.

We should also start planning on adding the universe(s) of the various classic Midway Arcade games, though we might want to wait until we know just what games are in there. The announcement video features Defender and Robotron 2084, which I seem to recall having read once were set in the same universe, though at the moment I can't find any reference to that.

That can't be right. If nothing else, we know it's just not true - there's the Wonder Woman Fun Pack for LEGO Dimensions, which I realize may not be what most here mean when they say "set" but it still is one, and it clearly stars Wonder Woman... We know they won't be Friends sets; Friends is a totally different theme. I'm guessing you mean minidoll sets, i.e., sets that use the same figure type (minidoll) as Friends. That seems likely to me, but I'm pretty confident there won't be sets that have Olivia and Batwoman hanging out at the beach together.

Um... are we allowed to use Bricks & Pieces to just plain buy parts? I thought it was meant only for replacing lost or damaged parts in sets we actually have, not just buying... whatever.

Midway's TRON arcade videogame rights are almost certainly superseded by Disney's ownership of the overall franchise, and unless Midway specifically has blanket rights concerning all home game use or something, I think there's no way Disney will let TRON be used in someone else's toys-to-life game (especially since they are in fact already using it in Disney Infinity, albeit in a limited capacity).

Not everything - thirteen projects have been approved already, and more are approved all the time. And TLG doesn't "steal" sets. Even those licensed franchises and themes that have been CUUSOO / Ideas projects that didn't get approved and that later got LEGO Dimensions packs or whatever have key differences between the fan projects that were proposed for sets and the actual sets that resulted. The Portal project on CUUSOO was not for an add-on pack for a videogame, with the only physical brick components being a minifigure and two tiny side builds, but for a whole little environment with walls and a floor and everything. The Portal 2 Level Pack for LEGO Dimensions is fundamentally different from the Thinking With Portals! CUUSOO project. Similarly, the The Wizard of Oz 75th Anniversary project on CUUSOO portrayed a whole section of the Yellow Brick Road, the Emerald City, etc., and minifigures of Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man, etc., while the Wicked Witch Fun Pack for LEGO Dimensions has none of that. It is fundamentally different from what CUUSOO voters voted for. The only connection is that it's based on the same property, and that's not something the project creator owns. And Scooby-Doo never even had a CUUSOO / Ideas project that got to 10,000 votes before LEGO started working with the license; it still hasn't.

I would have to assume that since some classic arcade games were shown in the announcement video as teases, those particular games would likely be some of the ones in the game. That gives us Defender and Robotron 2084 (!), it seems...

Wait, what? They hate who, and when / where did they say that? I find it difficult to believe they "technically stated outright" they hate a character from an active license. Did they really?

To each his own. I'm actually not a fan of the show, but I do think this is a pretty well-done living room and set of furniture - perhaps not so glorious as some of the more accomplished MOCs I've seen, but hardly bad. In all honesty, I like this set a lot more than I like the actual show. I hear you re: licensed sets and themes, but keep in mind they help expand the hobby overall, rather than simply displacing non-licensed ones. Lots of people get brought in - I myself was finally lured back out of my dark ages by LEGO Star Wars, but since that (re)entry point brought me back I've gotten into City, Castle, Creator, Friends, and plenty of others. Moreover, Ideas projects for licensed entertainment properties naturally attract fans of those properties, who might not even be LEGO fans, and one can't fault them for that. Note, too, that while licensed themes attract more votes (simply because members of those fandoms who aren't necessarily also LEGO fans come in and vote), the disproportionate attention those projects get when gathering support is offset by the increased scrutiny they face in the review, so that while licensed projects dominate the review batches, a smaller percentage of them actually get approved, so the final mix of official sets between licensed and non-licensed is close to half - at the moment, of the 13 CUUSOO / Ideas projects approved to date, six are licensed and seven are not.

Seven, actually. That said, the build is relatively simple, but it's fairly true to both the original project and the actual show's set on which they're both based. And it does seem to have some nice decorative elements and such. I'm torn. I have mixed feelings about the show, to the point where I can find it entertaining sometimes and yet still be unsure whether I want to actually own anything associated with it, and yet I do like the core characters and the cast who plays them. And I have to say I like this set, though I have to seriously consider whether I like it enough to spend $60 on it that I could instead spend on other LEGO sets. But I can't deny this set has real appeal.

That's certainly possible, but it's still funny that they'd do it at the same time.

That's lovely, Legonardo (even if a few nonstandard connections have me twitch a bit). This seems like a minor thing, but even the color scheme is well thought-out, evoking old parchment or vellum or something. LEGO itself actually has done its own Vitruvian minifigure imagery, on a 2 x 2 round tile found in a few Life on Mars sets back in 2001, but their take was a little different: Theirs is cool, though obviously yours would look a lot more impressive on a wall or under glass in a museum display case.

I actually liked it quite a bit. I wish the limited animation used for the Elves videos weren't quite so limited. It's actually well-drawn, at least, but could stand to be more fluid, especially for this material. Of course, full animation is expensive, and it's probably a bit much to hope for lavish resources to be allocated on a production that's intended principally as promotional material for a toy line rather than an artistic entertainment creation in its own right. I do very much enjoy the animation that's here, though. And I find I actually enjoy the humor in the writing, and most especially the music is really good. I would actually like a CD release of the score and the "If You Dare to Believe" song.

Possibly, and I did think of that, but I thought all the projects were briefly held for approval before posting (so that no one gets to post stuff that's indecent or otherwise totally unacceptable), rather than showing up as soon as they're submitted, which is why they tend to show up in groups of several projects, all clumped together on the site at once (and also don't get posted on weekends). As far as I can tell, these two are both part of a large group of projects all posted together, or pretty close together, and if the second were posted after its creator saw the first one, it would have to have been done very quickly afterwards.

Oh? That's interesting, and a bit strange (about WB nixing the original part, not about this one being new in this color; that's merely interesting, not a bit strange). Where'd you learn this?

Hey, it happened again - this time, two separate projects based on Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure were posted within hours of each other, submitted by different people.

Yeah, the Engadget writer's appraisal of LEGO Dimensions as the lesser game appears to be predicated upon the gameplay being similar to that of other LEGO games that TT has done over the years, as though that had somehow ceased to be fun. The writer almost seems to think of games as fashion, or something - "it's like something from years ago, therefore less good!" Whatever... The Engadget article does at least offer intriguing new additional info:

Hey, gpricey, welcome aboard!

Well, I for one am looking forward to it. I supported this project (and your other projects, BTW - I love all your highly-functional creations), and I certainly plan to purchase it. While I did also support most of the other projects in its review batch, your maze was possibly my favorite, and I always thought it was in at least the top two contenders out of this batch. And hey, obviously at least 9998 other people felt it was worthwhile, too! Congratulations, and well-done.

All the instruction booklets that were briefly available on LEGO's servers did indicate the models were mostly built while in-game. The only parts of the sets for which any of the add-on packs have instructions are the figures (the parts that least require them). From the looks of things, not only does the game provide the initial instructions, but also the Creator-esque alternate model instructions, and rebuilding the physical models may then in turn be directly reflected in the game. I have no doubt people will make the in-game instructions available out-of-game, for all those unable to access them... although I wonder how TLG will view this. If they're making the instructions available only in-game, it may be that they're really not expecting or encouraging people to get the add-ons without getting the core game after all. Perhaps they hope to have the packs drive sales of the game, like the old razor & blades sales model, only with both sides feeding each other equally (like how Apple began selling music to drive the sales of iPods while simultaneously using iPod sales to drive the sale of music). If that's the case, could it be that TLG might look unkindly upon sharing instructions? I would think they'd stand to sell more product overall by making at least the basic builds of the add-on packs accessible to non-players, but perhaps they see it differently... Why would we need to discuss both together? Here we talk about the builds and the minifigures and in the other we talk about the game itself and how the packs interact with the game. Ultimately there's going to be some people who buy these packs only for the pieces, so this topic is the ideal place for anyone interested in the parts themselves. Well, now we know - the digital and physical aspects of this are integrated, possibly to a degree exceeded (or even matched) only by MindStorms, and I don't see a lot of call for separating discussion of physical MindStorms builds from MindStorms programming and putting them in separate forums, with the programming part stuck in the same non-LEGO area as discussion of, say, ice cream, rugby, Sandra Bullock movies and cat videos. At the very least, gameplay is required just to access the instructions, so the real, physical builds are also all digital ones, which places them in the same realm as LDD stuff, and LDD builds aren't segregated off into Culture & Multimedia.

There's an interesting article on the game here discussing the development, the goals, etc. one tidbit I found particularly interesting: Elsewhere, various articles discuss the multiple builds and their in-game uses; PC Mag notes the Batmobile variations, along with how one gets further instructions: EW's coverage, while not explicitly mentioning this, includes this screenshot that suggests the Scooby-Doo material will be cel-shaded to evoke the hand-drawn animation of the show, just as the game is apparently presenting all the stuff from The LEGO Movie in a mock stop-motion style like the movie itself (will The Simpsons get this same treatment?): Engadget distressingly says it's not as good as Disney Infinity. They do mention Peter Venkmann specifically, though.