AndyC

Sounds like you've had really bad luck there, like Thego every time I've had to contact TLG's customer service it has always been incredibly helpful and is certainly one of the best I've ever had to deal with. The three weeks in delivery limbo does sound particularly bad, although in fairness it's quite possible the delivery company being used was the weak link there and TLG probably can't reasonably refund the money until the delivery company have admitted it's been lost (and who knows how long that might take!)

The other way of looking at it is the Friends theme has been an enormous success for TLG, so whatever perceived defects us AFOLs might think there are in the figures, the target demographic clearly don't see it as an issue.

I think the one thing the Marvel films show, regardless of whether you like them or not (personally I love some like Iron Man and thought others, like Captain America, were dreadful) is that there are better ways of dealing with a wide reaching universe than had traditionally been the case. Before they came along you'd have seen either a bunch of entirely disconnected films or a very specific sequence with a continuing storyline, neither of which really allows the writers to get creative in the way the separate-yet-connected Marvel movie universe has done (whilst not faithful to the comics per-se, it's probably more faithful to the idea of the comics and the ability to do crossovers than anything else has been). I think the same could work with the Star Wars universe too. And it avoids the issue you see in things like the PT, whereby the need to keep everyone's story so tightly connected starts to stretch the credibility of things somewhat (I mean, Anakin building C3PO for example?) The potential to give strong characters the ability to have their own storyline and yet intertwine them where it makes sense might well be a big improvement in many ways. On the whole I'm hoping good things come from Disney taking over the reins of Star Wars, I think they're well aware of the potential it has and will treat it with the respect it deserves. Obviously the loss of some things so far is a bit disappointing, Lucasarts has a special place in my memory (even if, in truth, they haven't done much great in recent years) and The Clone Wars is another disappointment. In fairness though, nobody really knows what led to that decision, it possible CN had a contract allowing first refusal of any new series, which would have made it very awkward for Disney to continue. I guess we just have to wait and see how the movies go, hopefully they will at least be better than Phantom Menace anyway!

I've had a 9V cross track on my Bricklink wanted list for ages, but they've always been too expensive to consider (given that none of my other track is 9V). Hadn't even thought of trying a brick built design, but your idea is inspirational. Might as well remove that from my wanted list then....

Nice review. I really like most of this model, but I just can't get past how glaringly wrong the clock pieces look. Real shame because otherwise it'd be great. Trouble is I can't think of a way of MODding it to easily fit the clocks in, short of just making the whole thing a lot bigger - at which point it doesn't seem worth buying.

Love it. I'm currently using a couple of the old Tie Fighters as bookends, but this (and a few other recent MOCs I've seen) is making me think it's time to come up with something a little bit more custom.

Can't you just use an axle with a couple of bushes on it?

Note also that you can change which of the four channels the remote is on at any time without interfering with any of the running trains. So you can (with a little effort) actually control all 8 possible trains from a single remote if you want. Does get a little more tricky to quickly stop one if that's important though (although not necessarily more so than swapping which remote you're holding I guess!)

Legally you have every right to protect the copyright of your design and it is most definitely not permissible under the law in most countries to re-sell someone else's design without permission (note this is subtly different to if they buy the instructions from you and then sell their copy). However the cost of taking someone to court over it is probably unlikely to make it a worthwhile endeavour unless you also happen to be selling the design yourself and can show the seller is making significant profits on it. In most cases in the Lego community it's probable the money involved isn't going to be worth the legal fees and hassle involved.

Well it certainly made me smile, so objective achieved I think.

http://cache.lego.com/downloads/brickfest2006/brickstress.ppt "Custom" is perhaps a poor word to describe it, but it's what the community has generally adopted and so we're basically stuck with it. Essentially what is meant by "custom" parts is anything which is either modified original LEGO or non-LEGO brand parts. Something being "custom" doesn't necessarily mean it's worse (or better) however there are many people who don't like using non-LEGO pieces and so avoid them. And even amongst those "purists", there are sliding scales of what people consider acceptable: some people won't even use non-LEGO string or rubber bands, others maybe draw the line at home made stickers. Everybody is different, but to some extent almost everyone in the hobby constrains themselves to some degree - after all what would be the point of building something out of bricks at all if you can just mold exactly the end product you were aiming for?

Yup, got that mail too. Oddly it said "we hope you or the LEGO® fan in your life are enjoying the LEGO Palace Cinema that you purchased recently", which is a touch pre-emptive as I was actually waiting for the double points to order it!

Except that's probably already true and has been for years. If you buy set X in the States, parts may have come from the Mexico factories, whereas the same set X bought in Europe may well have taken those same pieces from the Denmark factory. Adding another factory for localized production into the mix doesn't really change that in any way.

Amusingly that's the only set I ever did sort, mostly because a couple of friends were coming round to help put it together and (a) it meant I got to "play" a bit before they got there and (b) I figured anyone else might find trying to sift through a few thousand pieces a tiny bit frustrating!

My collection covers pretty much everything from Friends to Technic and just about everything in between. Most things I'll buy if I think they look good, or have particularly interesting parts included. Naturally some are more prevalent than others, but nothing is really out of the question.

One "advantage" to not sorting is that it can make the build last longer, which if you're not in any hurry can be more fun. And it reminds me a lot of playing as a child, where there were no numbered bags and so the "hunting for the piece" was just as much a part of the process as actually building.

It fits on a single stud, it just isn't deep enough in reality to take studs on both sides at the sane time. Ultimately it's intended as a minifig accessory rather than a building piece as such.

Yeah, polycarbonate connecting to ABS is ok, the problems really only arise when both pieces need to be transparent since it generates excessive amounts of friction and is pretty difficult to separate. I guess there has never really been any need for a minifig with just a transparent arm before (I have no idea who this SW character is or why it matters for him!). I doubt this should be seen as any kind of sign of a flood of transparent figs though, no matter how many cool possibilities there might be!

Brick outlines, as well as the high quality rendering, is done with Pixel Shaders (with outlines requiring PS3 IIRC). Presumably there wasn't much point in writing "low quality" rendering versions of the outline shaders, given that any graphics card which supports them is more than capable of rendering in high quality without issue. Downloading now, looking forward to seeing what all the new bricks are.

I'd say so, it's only missing decorations after all and that's pretty common in the LDD thread. I would probably put a face on the minifig though.

Superman lifting the BNSF, love it.

A set being discontinued doesn't necessarily equate to TLG charging you for replacement parts. A few years back I bought a MISB 4483 AT-AT and one of the technic beams was damaged. On a long shot I contacted TLG and they happily sent out a replacement, which given it was in old grey is pretty impressive. I'm guessing in the case of the dino it's because it's a large and expensive piece that they can be reasonably sure had been stolen from the set. Unfortunately this kind of stealing out of boxes and then returning sets is becoming increasingly common it seems. As much as I'm not a fan of the boxes you have to literally rip open, I suspect they're better at preventing this sort of thing.

Way off. That's what happens when you originally write 1000 votes, realise the mistake and scale again (badly). It's been a long day....

Let's say developing a new mold costs minimum $100,000 (a reasonably conservative estimate) and an expected Cuusoo production run is 10,000 sets (based on voting requirements). Therefore the cost per set of a new piece (assuming the cost can't be amortized across future Lego sets because it's specialized, as the LoZ ones usually are) is roughly $1000. Can you really imagine people spending that much on a single set?

I don't know why anybody is even remotely surprised by this, it's pretty much what the Cuusoo team have been saying since day one. New parts are extremely unlikely to get made through Cuusoo, new parts that are effectively going to be exclusive to a one-off set are just never going to be financially viable. Now a more inventive builder might actually try and work within that. A LoZ statuette of Link perhaps? Or maybe some Miniland scale Zelda model. Either of which could potentially pull in much of the same fanbase and yet be well within what it possible within the Cuusoo framework.