AndyC

Hint: The B-Wing isn't particularly iconic. It's quite an interesting design but that is all, most folk probably wouldn't instantly associate it with Star Wars other than by sheer guesswork. Fact is you can show someone with only a marginal passing interest in Star Wars an X-Wing and they will know exactly what it is, likewise for a TIE Fighter, the Falcon, an AT-AT and probably a Star Destroyer. Most of the other vehicles probably require a degree more geekiness to be recognised, in varying degrees with Snowspeeders, Slave I and Sebulba's Podracer probably being reasonably recognisable. PT ships tend to be less recognisable simply because they're largely derivative, which was of course a necessity to give the historic feel to them. That said, a UCS Venator would still sell like hot cakes (assuming George Lucas is kept out of design decisions this time!) because it's simply another gorgeous variation on the ISD and much loved by fans. Quite why is hard to say, something about it is just 'right' wheras say the Acclamator is instantly forgetable.

Love it, the mini movies always make me chuckle.

Indeed, it makes the site completely unusable. And any site where closing a pop-up ad causes a pop-under to launch in another window is simply never going to get my business.

Old? It's a crucial part of the pneumatics system, used to split air flow and still used for that today in sets like 8110. Admittedly I think it's usage has long grown beyond that and I think most of the ones I now have came from elsewhere, but I can see the logic to it. It makes a lot more sense (to me at least) than the little claw piece (#48729) and a few of the others in there anyway.

If it does and in those quantities, it's time to seek medical advice.

Really not going to have quite the same 'feeling' for a little kid when they unwrap their birthday present, only to find a dull brown cardboard box with a number on it. Remember the feeling you had as a kid (and maybe even still do) when your eyes scanned over the box for a brand new set, taking in every exciting detail. That's an important part of the product experience and probably worth far more in sales than a little bit of ink ever would be. It also doesn't really 'fit' with the way most stores operate, with the possible exemption of 'catalogue stores' like Argos. Cellophane is almost certainly less environmentally friendly and recyclable than cardboard. It certainly is if they're combined since you have to perform the necessary processing to separate them. By contrast just pulping the cardboard is relatively trivial. That would undoubtedly be an expensive operation (there's a reason the sprues are there in the first place) and unless you have a way to actually recycle those pieces doesn't really help the environment either. Now, I believe TLG can recycle ABS to some extent, so I can only imagine it's the cost that stops them. In the long run it would be better if the sprues could be eliminated entirely, but I guess that would introduce it's own problems for small light pieces like flowers. How does that work for people without computers? And even when they do, it might well not be in a place where the kids can build conveniently. It'd also really suck if, having received your plain brown box for your birthday then spent all day at school dreaming of your LEGO, you got home to be told you couldn't build your new set because 'Daddy was busy using the computer'. And it's probably a lot cheaper and more environmentally friendly for TLG to bulk produce instruction sets than it is for people to print them off at home. That probably depends on how effectively you can bulk transport such pieces back to your central treatment facilities. There is also the issue of collecting and storing unused bits for potentially long periods of time, depending on how much gets brought in. To some extent it also goes against the 'reusibility' aspect of LEGO bricks, as you're supposed to be encouraged to continually reinvent with them rather than seeing them as a single use thing. Reuse > Recycle. For eInk display devices like Kindle, you only actually use power (and only a tiny amount) when changing the contents of the display, so it's not entirely untrue. LEGO instructions on Kindle would be awesome, but they kind of need a colour eInk display for that to be a practical option. Possibly. The psychology involved with things like that is never as simple as it seems. There's also the problem that kids often don't see the value in quite the same terms and receiving a 'big' present is somehow better.

I couldn't choose between them, I'm pretty sure you'll not be disappointed whichever you go for. Probably worth getting them sooner rather than later though, as neither can have much life left I'd imagine.

I believe that's actually a new part for this year and quite possibly this set too.

Absolutely fantastic, you've really captured the feeling of that kind of house. Reminds me a lot of the house I grew up in. Plenty of really clever building techniques from the bathroom sink to that lovely bay window effect. And a cool little milk float to go with it too.

I think that on the right hand side, where it is now for me it seems, it's not a big deal and certainly a good idea if it helps fund the continuation of the site. On the left however, it naturally falls into the place your eyes start scanning the page from, which magnifys the impact significantly as you 'see' it before you notice any of the real content.

I'm not sure it would be good for LEGO to lose. If they did, it would inevitably lead to more clone brands producing minifig lookalikes, but at a lower price/quality point. While that might offer you a cheaper way of picking up the odd one here and there, ultimately TLG would almost certainly have to respond by lowering the cost and as such the quality of their products. Cheap isn't always a good thing.

One way to mark days would be to use some of these, attached to the blue bar piece. Cheap and widely available in many colours too.

Right now they have Alien Conquest, the City Space line and, of course, Star Wars. That covers a pretty wide variety of different space interests, so it's not like it's being ignored.

I was gonna say, complex? I thought he was just a dude made of sand! I guess it's inevitable that some of the more obscure but generic names get used elsewhere.

They won't, for about a gazillion reasons covered elsewhere, you'd be better off hoping that some of the rarer piece like the dark blue arches get used in a new set, which will bring down prices (just as happened with the dark red roof pieces for Cafe Corner).

I dunno, I like the look of the piece on it's own but judging by the pictures on page 2 of the thread Rick linked to it really doesn't look good when actually on minifigs.

If you use the online shop@home store, the card isn't necessary, you just log in with your lego id. For shopping in a store, you can probably just get them to send you a new one. Or create a new Lego id and then link the two cards, so they can share points.

I like it, but have the same nagging doubt that it should probably be smaller. I think it'll look oversized near 6 wide trains, but I'm not sure you can make it smaller without losing some of the nice features.

For the non-purist, the problem is easily rectified with a little bit of sellotape to hold the button down. For a Lego only approach, you could take a look at the mechanism in the Creator 5893 off-road power set, it's used to hold a winch brick on but the principle should work with a light brick too.

Hehe, that's fantastic. What a brilliant idea for a set.

Or the (re)designer of the set looked at how much he had to spend on parts and realised he could slip a rare piece into the set without upsetting it visually, making it more desirable to fans. It's certainly not unprecedented for set designers to do this.

The first was used in the 2011 set Battle for Geonosis and the UCS Imperial Shuttle, whilst the second appeared in City of Atlantis in 2011 too. They aren't much use in modern technic designs though, as they don't really integrate into studless designs well.

Hehe, I actually got one of these the other day in a bunch of random "Lego" from eBay. I also figured it probably wasn't a Lego piece but now I know what it is. Thanks.

They're both great sets and I'd have a tough choice picking between them. On balance I do think Battle of Alamut was a better build so I'm leaning towards that, but then MVR and MMV are the only Castle sets I own so I'm perhaps less interested in that theme as a whole.

LDD files will always open in the mode they were saved in. However you can always switch to another one by going to View -> New Themes in the menus.