jodawill

I remember seeing either a magazine or catalog calling either this guy or this guy "Tattoo Mague" (spelling may be wrong) years ago. I didn't see it in the Mania magazine scans, and I can't find the old S@H catalogs. Does anyone remember them naming that guy? Does anyone have a copy of that?

I feel the same way. There are usually one or two minifigures in each series that I'll buy for a specific purpose. I love the revolutionary war minifigure because they're basically an updated version of the bluecoats (and it puzzles me why they didn't use them for the new pirates theme, although I like both). But I think it's stupid that people just buy them all and put them on their shelves. That's not what Lego is all about. That's just a waste of money. Toys should be played with. If you aren't building with your Lego, what's the point? The only enjoyment one can really get out of collecting things is the process of finding and buying it. The minifigures aren't rare, so there's no fun in hunting for them (especially if you don't feel the bags yourself). So you'll feel excited when you buy it. 10 minutes later, you put it on the shelf, and you never think about it again. I used to collect action figures. It took me far too long to realize it was a waste of money, time, and space. Yeah, it really does come down to parenting. Technology is only beneficial to a well disciplined person. It's a very serious threat to anyone with a lack of motivation. When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time on the computer because I loved programming. I spent more time in front of a screen than anyone else in my family, but I spent the entire time learning, not playing video games or constantly refreshing Facebook like my family does now. It sounds like you're doing a great job with your kids. You're not using technology to replace physical activities or spending time with them. I would really love to have an answer to this question. They responded about the price increase, but they've remained silent on the color choices. I looked into cheaper baseplates when they raised the price. I was really surprised that no one else makes them. As far as I can tell, even Mega Bloks doesn't make them. If they're smart, they'll take advantage of this price increase to introduce their own baseplates and steal Lego's market share for that item.

Picture this: A new company starts producing high quality bricks with old gray and old brown. They offer a variety of baseplates in different colors, sizes, raised, and even some patterns compatible with some from old sets, like the one in Bandit's Secret Hideout (I've always wanted a straight for that). They could produce sets that are reminiscent of the 1980s and 1990s sets, but also not an obvious knockoff; they could still be innovative. If the quality really as as good as Lego, and the only difference was the logo on the stud, I think people would go nuts over it.

In addition to what kibosh said about video game budgets, I have to say this: kids aren't as interested in real toys as they used to be. This past Christmas, I gave a Lego set to every kid in my class. A week later, I asked one of the kids if he liked the set, and he said he hadn't opened it yet because he'd been playing with his new iPad all week. (This kid is three years old, almost four.) In my opinion, this is terrible parenting because kids that age need to have their hands on real objects to develop their motor skills (which he is lacking). But many parents are doing this more now because it's easier than spending time with their kids and cleaning up after them. I don't think the clone brands will match Lego's past quality standards any time soon, but the quality of Lego has gone down considerably within the past few years. I don't know how this will affect their profits in the long term, but something that troubles me about their current strategy is that they've shifted away from being a creativity product to replicating the latest, flashiest themes on TV. There's less emphasis on people making their own stuff and more emphasis on completing collections and buying novelty toys to set on bookshelves. Also, TLG has a tendency to make some really stupid, bizarre decisions, like changing the green baseplates to bright green. While I disagree with the 60% price increase, I understand that it won't affect their profits. But changing the color was an incredibly idiotic move. There's no benefit whatsoever to changing it. It only frustrates the people who have already have a collection of the old ones. The very moment some clone brand starts making decent baseplates, even the purists will stop buying them from TLG.

Real red hair is kind of orangish, but this looks more like a dirty blonde than red. One definitely could argue that he has reddish hair, but if anyone has doubts whether his hair is red, then it doesn't seem right to call him Captain Red Beard. I think we'll have to come up with a new name for this guy.

I have one in my hand right now. His beard is far from being red. It's more brown than red, but like you said, it's orangish. Imagine taking the dark orange color and increasing the brightness. It's very, very not red, so I'm not sure what we're to call him. It seems wrong to call him Captain Roger because his face looks nothing like Captain Roger.

Anyone who thinks the minifigure colors are too bright obviously has no recollection of the original Pirates theme. The soldiers were bright blue, red, and green. The only minifigure I would consider to be dark, really, is Captain Roger. (I do agree that it is unfortunate that the new captain has brighter colors than the original, though.)

I don't think the tricornes are going anywhere. They're just doing something new.

I'm going to buy the entire Pirates wave.

So how tall is the text on the studs?

Here are some of the back printings.

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I don't think so. Vector graphics are much more efficient in each of those respects. They don't have to be rendered, the file sizes are much smaller, and the PDF format supports vector graphics natively. Take a look at Fort Legoredo's instructions. Every page is in beautiful vector form. I think there's some legal issue at play. Maybe they're afraid the Chinese companies will directly copy their instructions if they post the new ones in high quality. As for the original question, have you seen the instructions on lego.com? They're not bad. http://cache.lego.com/bigdownloads/buildinginstructions/6002091.pdf

Most of the older instructions on the Lego website are in vector format, so they can be scaled as large as you want them to be. I have no idea why the newer ones are such crap. I can't even tell what I'm looking at in those. It must be on purpose, I'm sure, but I don't know why they do it.

I'm going to buy the entire Pirates theme (which actually doesn't cost much).

I think the biggest mistake they've made with this is not informing the customers of the change. Here's a great example of the problem with this: I mentioned it to them several weeks ago, and they still haven't updated the product description. They're really going to upset a lot of people. It's out of stock on S@H right now. I wonder - will they realize that people don't want this color and silently go back to the regular color? It wouldn't cost them a dime. They would just have to put a different color into the mold for the new batch. They wouldn't even have to change the label because, as I said, it's labeled incorrectly anyway. Just look at this comparison. I question whether the stock photo of the new baseplate is even a picture of the new color. If it is, it's not a fair depiction of the product. http://i.imgur.com/yTzXJ2h.jpg

Double VIP points are just in time for not only the Pirates theme, but Brickworld Indy. For anyone in the area, you can come see our show on March 14th or 15th and stop by the Lego Store at the Castleton Square Mall to get double VIP points on the Pirates sets. It's going to be a great weekend!

I love this! It's so very philosophical and silly. I can imagine this is going to be reposted all over Facebook with some claim that it was made by PETA or something, though.

Yeah, the number of minifigures in each box is always the same. You can find the numbers in each of the series reviews here on Eurobricks.

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That's what I think it is. It looks too narrow to me to have train wheels.