fred67

I just have to say that I love topics like this... so many great ideas on how to accomplish things, so many creative builders. Of course, the 1x? with 1x1 rounds has been around forever, but it works great. This is really quite cool looking; I have tons of hinge bricks and occasionally do some smaller curved walls this way, my only problem is getting them to stay in place, so I use an occasional cross "beam" to hold things together, but I'm guessing the steps there might do a decent job of making the tower hold it's shape. There's another technique I found interesting (picture is a flickr link): It uses rings of brackets separated by 1x2 plates, and with 2x2 tiles around the outside. The problem is it's not a "legal" (full) connection, so LDD would definitely not let you do this. I tried this technique myself; it worked OK, but I had a hard time with the illegal connections... I couldn't get them to be equally... uh... illegal, I guess.

If you could break larger MOCs down to more easily managed pieces, that might be a better way to transport them. Second option would be to glue those sections, which would still allow the complete set to be broken down and stored. Ultimately, if I were buying, I would prefer pieces and instructions, though.

Very impressive! Congratulations on a fantastic scene!

How long did it take? I gave them a lot of time before writing again, and that was May 21. The last time I had an issue they answered within hours.

That'd be interesting. I'd be happy enough with a standard 2x4 brick in each color, but you can't even get that from S@H PAB, even limited to solid colors... they only have 15 colors available on PAB for 2x4 bricks as opposed to the 40 solid colors shown in the chart. In fact, the "exact" color selector only has 30 choices total, including transparent.

Unfortunately you can't PM until you have 10 posts, and I'd hate to clog up this thread with a discussion between us, but would really like a Jack w/boat or two (I got a couple of black pearls on the way from another trade). I don't know how to proceed without PMs, but if you look at my profile page you should be able to both leave a comment there and click on my "collectible minifigure trading" link on the top of my profile page. Don't post a reply to that one, either, leave it on my profile page for now if you're interested.

You mean the roof sections above the rounded parts? Large cones, maybe? Maybe even a couple of these: It's going to be hard to be exact, of course... you could always go with plates on hinges, along the lines of Hagrid's Hut:

No... I don't want SW CMFs; it's not that I don't want you to get SW, just not usurping CMFs... nor do I think Pirates, Castle, or any other themes should "take over" CMFs, even for one series. It's also not that I don't like the idea of sets of specific minifigures (something more than battle packs). It should be well known by now why they don't do it with SW, and they are probably hamstrung for doing other licensed themes as well, but I wish they could and I certainly would love to see a series of pirates or castle figures - just not as CMFs.

Thanks for the spoiler.

Is that $400M box office? Because after distribution, advertising, and other miscellaneous costs, that's not enough.

I missed Harry Potter and a lot Star Wars, and am unwilling to pay what people are asking for the sets that I would want... I was sort of in a mini dark ages. Luckily, TLG has released both enough Harry Potter and Star Wars sets to have made me happy...

Not just the torso, the legs/fins, too. Not at my store... 3 for $9.99. You cannot get just one or two.

Submitted email two days ago to customer service... got the auto-reply that they received it, and... nothing... last time I had a problem they answered within hours.

So does anyone know when or how we'll be able to get 30110 and 30111?

30110 and 30111

I agree with what most of you are saying... I missed all the "original" Harry Potter sets as I was concentrating on Trains and having a sort of mini-dark ages. By the time I came around and started buying a lot of sets, HP was supposedly done for good, with no hope of return... I'm really happy they brought it back and I can get these newer versions of sets I missed. I feel the same way about Star Wars, too, after getting the recent Slave 1 and Land Speeder. If I already had a Hogwarts and didn't want a new one, I'd actually be relieved that I wouldn't, you know, be "relieved" of more of my money.

Do you guys know if you'll be getting 30110 and 30111 (Harry Potter) with the paper deal?

I'm wondering what's wrong with the Knight Bus? It's a nice looking set, so I don't think that's the problem... when I try to objectively value them, it comes out as the worst deal in the HP line. I usually start by valuing minifigures at $3.00/each (although I often modify that) and subtracting that value from the cost of the set, then I remove 4 to 5 pieces per character from the total part count. Only after I've done that do I look at price per brick, and even then it's very iffy... if a set comes with a boat, for example (Isla de Muerta), that's a huge deal to get averaged into the brick prices... But the Knight Bus pieces are pretty standard, nothing "big." BUT, to get it all in PURPLE makes a huge difference. I understand TLG has a problem with purple, so even with the most expensive price per piece, it still seems "worth" it... IOW, it's definitely still a buy for me as well. I will be disappointed if those HP 30110 and 30111 sets don't come here. I have to make trades to get the POTC newspaper deals (and still didn't get the Jack Sparrow one).

You can actually buy those parts on Amazon.. they are expensive if you don't get them in bulk... even in bulk. I don't know how you'd get clean sounds on them, though, and it says it only plays 300 times. Having something you can wire up to the LEGO battery pack would be so much better; something with a USB interface to upload clean sounds to would be awesome. I will definitely look into this in the future, but it may be some time.

Updated my post. I have two more COMPLETE SETS of Series 4 MISB checked by "feel" method and guaranteed... Updated wants (30131 and 30132), including an offer of elves for them (otherwise I'm still looking for more myself). Also important: expanded trading to outside North America. My last two deals have been with people in the UK; I still don't think it's worth it for one figure, but I suppose it can be for two or more.

That's funny if it's true... why would there be references (only in decompiled code) to other video games as opposed to game engine pieces? But let's say it's true; let's say I'm a developer and I know people examine the hex/ascii codes in my game... so I throw a string in there to make people go crazy; funnyString = "LOTR Development" It gets compiled in with the code. Ha ha... EDIT: I've been searching around for what contextual meaning LOTR could have besides Lord of the Rings; there is a relatively new game engine technology called "Level of Terrain Rendering." Now, LOD (level of detail) has been used since the dawn of video games (or nearly so) and 3D graphics, but apparently this is some new algorithm for terrain. Maybe it's Lord of the Rings... I find it hard to believe for many reasons. I would like to see the next castle theme go back to some fantasy elements, including elves, which would help us complete the LOTR theme (even if it's not called that), and I can easily believe we'll see something like that come along, but not the actual LOTR theme. It'd be nice to be wrong (and, of course, The Hobbit is finally in production), but I'm not optimistic.

No... I know it's not, but good compilers can do some wonderful optimizations; I realize it's not a "silver bullet" to just recompile with optimizations... if your code doesn't lend itself to being parallelized, then it doesn't lend itself to being parallelized. The simplest use of multicores right now is simply allowing the OS to run separate processes on separate cores. If you're only doing one intensive thing, though, you don't see much improvement.

I'm working on a film studio MOC I love all these classic movie monsters.... I would do something for the series 4 contest, but there's no way I can fit it on an 8x8.

I'd think it's a safe bet that tellblom's program requires internet access... EDIT: as a software developer, I don't like reinventing the wheel... I keep track of my sets at Brickset; they have wonderful features including totaling the MSRP value of your sets, keeping track of wanted sets, telling you your total number of pieces and minifigures. I realize everyone wants something a little different; I suppose something that keeps a DB of your parts based on your sets would be interesting, but I buy so many parts separately it would still be difficult to keep track of.

Sounds about right, Blondie-Wan... I know I had a terrible time getting series 1 and 2, and I can still get 3 and 4 at my LEGO Store as there are hundreds of them on the shelves waiting to be sold, and the buy limit has been upped to 32. Good for them... even with extras it seems they must be making a lot more money, not only selling the quantities that people want to buy, but by increasing the price (in the U.S. anyway) by 50% over 1 and 2. Hopefully it'll keep CMFs coming for a LONG time. Edit: Oh, and to answer the original question, I don't know if production numbers have ever been released; there is a difference between being a publicly traded company (like Matel) and a privately held company like TLG... I don't believe they're required to release such figures because Matel and other companies probably only release that information in reports to shareholders.