Aanchir

Fairly nice opinion piece, but it really hurts to hear it repeating claims that Friends is "simple to construct and celebrating not architecture and action but beauty salons, cupcake bakeries and poodle parlours." This sort of claim makes it clear that while the author has an opinion on the ethics of gendered play, they lack background knowledge of the LEGO brand since they make the same off-beat comparisons as the theme's detractors. Compare this theme to something it's on even footing with, like the LEGO City theme, and it becomes clear that there's no oversimplification in LEGO Friends, nor is the content of the Friends theme lacking in architectural details compared to other themes. If anything the LEGO Friends theme just has its detail organized differently, with more attention put towards making friendly, comfortable interiors with easy access for play and less attention put towards a set's external facade.

The "visual appearance" part is where things get tricky. Almost all of these parts are visually different than their variants. And a lot of people could also probably find ways to take advantage of their functional differences-- even slightly different dimensions on the underside of a brick can make a difference, as some people have discovered when certain arch pieces have been re-molded with different wall thicknesses, or when the interior supports were added to the macaroni brick. The bricks on this list that I'd consider 100% interchangeable in both function and appearance are: The 1x1 cone The lightsaber hilt The 2x2 plate The 2x4x3 brick The 2x8 brick The 1x2 tile The 1x4x3 panel The 1x2x3 panel The broadsword (since, as I mentioned, they are exactly the same piece-- use the "shape selection tool" to see this for certain) Ones that are verifiably NOT interchangeable are: Qui-Gon's hair (different texture) The "girl" wig (different texture) The treads (different shape) The arch pieces (different wall thicknesses) The 3x4 wedge plates (different underside supports) The "S" bricks (different supports beneath column which allow for different connection points IRL) The quarter-cylinder bricks (different underside supports which allow for different connection points IRL) Ones that are unclear are: The handcuffs (have not compared IRL; may just be a material difference) The Hero Factory spike (have not handled both IRL; may just be a material difference) In general it should also be noted that Bricklink can be unreliable in determining whether parts are different, even if AFOLs have identified obvious differences. One example is various Chinese-made variant parts from the early Collectible Minifigures series, and another is Darth Maul's head from the latest Sith Infiltrator set-- Bricklink says it's the same head decoration as on the classic Darth Maul minifigure, while anyone who does a side-by-side comparison should be able to detect the obvious differences. Extended-mode only parts tend to be either parts introduced to sets most recently, parts which have never existed in any colors on the current color palette (since the basic LDD mode doesn't include any discontinued colors), and certain parts which are deliberately omitted from the basic LDD mode because they might cause confusion (for instance, the 1x1 cone variants). However, what gets put on the basic LDD mode and what doesn't is an imprecise process, so things don't necessarily follow strict "rules". Some variant parts do have both versions on the basic LDD mode for various reasons (for instance, the BIONICLE/HF Y-joints, which exist in different colors from one another). Some newer parts do sneak into the LDD basic mode, though none of the new parts from the latest update have since the LDD basic mode's palette has remained unchanged in 4.3.5. I'm sure Superkalle could get a more direct answer from the LDD team, but these are just the patterns I've seen, and they're not authoritative by any means.

Not likely, since the term PWR Armor originates from the bogus plot summaries that were posted on IMDB for this season's episodes, back when a lot of people still thought pirates would be the main bad guys for the season. Since those summaries got next to nothing correct it's unlikely they'd have been correct about a term that was never seen elsewhere.

I'd say if any, 6188 NOSE CONE SMALL 1X1 - TR should be one of the first to go, since the LDD team has really never put forth an effort to differentiate between material-only variants, nor has Bricklink, and the fact that any part on LDD can exist in any color makes material distinctions like this fairly redundant. In the same vein, 76275 should probably be the next to go-- again I don't know of any distinctions besides material/color. 59489 is fairly unique compared to the standard 1x2 slope, but chances are it can be removed since the feature that makes it unique-- the custom engraving-- is impossible to replicate on LDD. Needless to say, the duplicate broadsword (99232) can be removed from the parts tray, though the brick itself should remain on LDD since it is the only variant available. I'm hesitant about dismissing the China variants, since there might be some differences in detail, but the differences are probably not functional in any regard, at least on LDD (like material differences, the LDD team has shown no inclination to include all China variants or even the most distinctive to AFOLs, like minifigure parts). Thus, 94148, 97492, and 93888 can potentially be removed. I am reluctant to see any of the others removed, though many could afford to have their renders improved, such as the 9V train tracks. This is probably because the default palette of LDD mode hasn't been updated since its release, and was missing a number of parts new to this year at the time of its release. As a Hero Factory fan this couldn't be more obvious to me-- some of the parts from this year which are available on LDD Extended mode do not appear in any colors in the basic LDD mode.

Bluh... I'd love to take part in this contest (though I was generally happy with the BIONICLE Stars, and the changes I would have made generally involve parts that don't exist). It's a moot point, though, because I don't have any constraction sets with me at college besides this year's Hero Factory sets, and I don't think I could make anything even approaching my vision for a last wave of BIONICLE with only those sets. Sadly, LDD doesn't have the parts I would need either.

Dark Azure isn't really used in any BIONICLE or HF parts, so I'm not sure what you mean by "return". Are you confusing it with classic teal (Bright Bluish Green) or Medium Azure (used in Thornraxx)? But it's not impossible for it to show up. Personally I'd rather see more parts in colors like Bright Green (Green Lantern's primary color), Dark Green (classic green), or Bright Orange. The first two are used very scarcely but are bright, lovely colors that stand out from the Bright Yellowish Green used in Hero Factory. The third is used quite frequently, but there aren't nearly enough decent Hero Factory parts in that color. Dark Red, Earth Blue, and Earth Green are popular requests for Hero Factory, but personally I don't think they work quite as well for HF as they did for BIONICLE. I quite like how HF has stuck to brighter colors; the kinds of colors a non-initiate might associate with LEGO. We can have a few of them, perhaps as accents like in Black Phantom, but I wouldn't really like seeing heroes or villains using those as primary colors when we could be getting brighter, more versatile colors or neutral colors like blacks and grays.

I'm not infallible. To be perfectly honest I should have looked up the figures before trying to answer that question, since I didn't have my own collectible minifigures on hand to consult. Very often the difference between looking intelligent and looking stupid is just knowing where to look something up!

The three flags all have different styles of clip (look closely). Not a functional difference but definitely an aesthetic one, as with any other clip pieces. The curved and straight railroad tracks are obviously very visibly different, but the real difference is both functional and aesthetic. The very badly rendered 74746 and 74747 are supposed to be 9V tracks, while 53400 and 53401 are Power Functions rails, which lack any electrical components. The two door frames are RADICALLY different in real life (one allows a door or window to attach on both sides, while one allows a door or window to be attached only on one side). A major functional difference. The two Exo-Force robot arms have visible differences in the upper arm supports (one has thicker supports, likewise visible on the real-life parts). Again, an aesthetic difference, not a functional one. The two 4x4 wedge slopes are different in that one has slots underneath to allow studs underneath the angled portion while the other does not. Functional and aesthetic difference. The two ball caps have easily visible differences in real life. 86035 should have a curved bill. Neither should be removed, but 86035 definitely needs to be rendered better. An aesthetic difference, but an important one. Of the two guns/nozzles: 58367 has more detail along the barrel, but this makes it difficult to clip things to the barrel. It is also a softer material than the simpler 60849. Functional and aesthetic difference. The two long wigs have differences in level of detail, but part of this is just due to the rendering, since 4530 should have deeper grooves and a visible anti-stud. I have never seen the newer 96859 in real life so can't judge whether the two are identical or near-identical in real life. The clips 6019 and 61252 have obvious aesthetic differences in real life. 61252 should have an O-shaped clip rather than a U-shaped clip, at least in its modern incarnation. I've already mentioned the 2x2 plates. One is Chinese-made, one is made in other factories around the world. I do not know if there are any functional differences. The two pairs of handcuffs have different thicknesses. The difference between the engraved tile and the regular 1x2 tile is expressed in the name. One is engraved and one is not. However, since the engraving varies from brick to brick (these are the same design ID as the unique number-engraved tiles from the first edition of the Santa Fe Super Chief) and varies depending on the decoration (none of which are available), the engraved version is probably useless on LDD. I have no idea if there is any difference in shape between the transparent and non-transparent versions of the 1x1 cone. It might involve mold differences to account for the different material (polycarbonate for transparent, ABS for solid-colored). But whether these differences have any impact on the shape of the final brick is unknown to me. 30144 lacks supports between the walls and the center tubes, while 97492 has them. Otherwise they seem identical. I do not know if this is a rendering difference or an actual difference, but I will hazard a guess that 97492 is a Chinese-made variant and both are still in production. The same applies for 3007 versus 93888. No idea what differences might exist between the two lightsaber hilts. All the arch variants are different in the thickness of their outer walls on the curved portion. Presumably this allows studs to attach to the inside of the curve on some and not the other. 6087 and 76766 seem to have different supports inside the column portion. Not sure if this is IRL or digital-only. I do know that 76766 is the more current one, unless it has been replaced since I last checked. 48183 and 90194 have visibly different undersides-- 90194 has additional supports on the center row of anti-studs. 88323 and 57518 are different in that the tracks of 88323 are beveled. I also believe that in real life there is a difference between how large a loop they make when the textured sides are facing in/the toothed sides are facing out. But I may be mistaken in that those two real-life variants may share a design ID, whereas these may be merely cosmetic variants. The two broadswords have the same Design ID, so this is the only true duplicate here. The problem is not that they are near-identical parts, but rather that they are the same part but for some reason listed twice in the parts tray. The panel part 60581 is a good example of an ABS-specific part (in that a different mold would have been used for transparent polycarbonate parts, at least when this mold was introduced). It has sharp corners. The newer variant 87543 has blunted corners. The panel part 74968, in contrast, is polycarbonate-specific. The newer variant has no such specification. Here you can see that the LDD team does not consider it important to keep two variants that only vary by material. As such the transparent 1x1 cone listed earlier can probably be removed. 10247 has a support that goes all the way across the bottom. The support for the older 2444 is broken in the center. Thus the newer variant 10247 is sturdier, but the older variant theoretically allows Technic elements to recede further in real life. 6191 has asymmetrical supports on the underside. The newer 10314 has symmetrical supports. This means that contrary to what LDD's connection points tell us, 6191 should not allow plates to be attached by half-stud increments, while the newer one should. No idea if there is a difference between the Hero Factory spike elements. It may just be a material difference, in which case one could be removed. The two flex cables 61356 and 76275 seem to vary only by color/material. Flex cables and tubes in general tend to specify color with their Design ID as well as their Material and Element IDs, and I don't know the reason for certain. One could probably be removed. The tires 3139 and 59895 vary in texture in real life, but this is not expressed in the LDD renders. 3139 should have ring-shaped ridges around the side surfaces. Any Hero Factory fan can tell you in a heartbeat that 60176 and 93571. 60176 was introduced in 2008 to fix a problem with breaking joints, but in fact it remained extremely brittle. Three whole years later, 93571 finally fixed the problem of breaking joints which had plagued BIONICLE sets since at least 2007. 61054 and 89651 have differences in the axle holes (note that one side of each is open) and in the pin holes (one side has the indentations for the ridges of two pins continuous with one another). There is also a difference in the joint itself though I don't know if one is more brittle or has more friction than the other. 6016 and the newer 62113 are different in shape. Look at the indentations-- the newer one has a smooth edge across the entire rail, with indentations between the struts, while the older ones had larger indentations with flat rings around them, aligned on top of the outermost struts. I do not know if the difference is functional as well. In general, I feel that if anything this list demonstrates exactly why duplicate parts should be given the benefit of the doubt. Often the differences are subtle, subtler even than LDD may be aware of. But chances are some AFOL might notice the difference of the two variants one day. They may even find a use for them (which may or may not involve illegal connections). Personally I think that we might as well keep these duplicate parts in LDD, though they may require re-rendering to make the differences more apparent in some cases. That way people who build official sets can always count on the correct variant being available.

C'mon, guys, do you want me to spoil the whole book for you? I'm reluctant to share everything in the book, but I guess I probably should since I don't know its publication status in Italy or other European countries. Explaining how this event takes place would sound severely underwhelming without the context of the rest of the book, so be warned that major spoilers lie ahead. If you have any inclination to buy the book for yourself and don't want all the most suspenseful mysteries of the book revealed, read no further.

True that. If a character who appears so frequently in the show were killed off in another medium entirely, it would surely confuse people who don't follow all aspects of the theme. I think that's one of the things that made the BIONICLE storyline so convoluted: it was fine in 2001 to let the different media cover different parts of the story, because things like the mask quest followed an obvious pattern and it was unnecessary for any one medium to fill in all the gaps. But by 2003, the BIONICLE story was being told in bits and pieces across a lot of media. BIONICLE at that point crammed the majority of its story into the books, which did not have lasting success and as such were not always accessible to all fans. I think the BIONICLE story was probably most accessible between 2006 and 2008, since you could get the whole story (or the important bits at any rate) from either of two media: the comics and the books. 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2009 excised the most important story moments from the comics so that people who wanted the whole story would have to watch the movies or buy the movie novelizations. It's ironic that one of the time periods blamed for the story becoming so convoluted was in fact one of the most straightforward for a casual fan (i.e. a fan not concerned with getting every detail) to follow. Hero Factory seems to be taking a somewhat different approach than BIONICLE did. In Hero Factory, pretty much every story medium is largely independent of the others. The increasing continuity in the Breakout special might cause a change in that trend, but as of right now you don't need to follow more than one medium to have a grasp of where each story begins and ends.

I am very grateful for this feature. It will be excellent for building sets (or MOCs you have inventoried and generated as LXFs with LDD Manager). But I can imagine other uses for it as well. For instance, I have for a while been in the business of generating color charts on LDD to make certain older colors more accessible (and understandable) for LDD users. Imagine if the same could be done for parts. I could conceivably create a palette of all available decorated parts in the correct colors (I already have some files of those, albeit not up-to-date), and LDD users could then use that palette to "paint" the correct decorations onto the parts of their already-built MOCs. Likewise my complete LDD color chart could be accessed without having to close the model you're currently working with-- just switch to the palette of its parts, grab the one you need, and then switch to LDD Extended mode to use the eyedropper tool on them so you can paint parts of your model in those colors. Granted, this isn't very convenient with LDD's visual interface, since you can no longer just identify the color name and number by clicking on that brick, but for smaller color palettes like a BIONICLE-specific color palette it would work splendidly. I imagine one consequence of this change will be that LDD mode will become much more widely-used, since the parts in it are no longer limited only by those pre-programmed for it, but rather limited by terms the LDD user creates for themselves.

I wouldn't be so sure about this. In the case of the 2x2 plate you may be correct, but in the case of other similar parts that vary by where they are produced, LEGO Customer Service seems to offer both. Compare this part from 2172 Nya (2011 set, Chinese-made brick) and this one from 9561 Kai ZX (2012 set, non-Chinese-made brick). No idea if TLG will actually offer both of these bricks through Customer Service, but they're both listed if you fill in those sets' item numbers on the Customer Service website replacement parts form. Whether a Design ID is old or new depends on when a part was introduced, not whether it is current, and thus in some cases both versions of a part can be currently in production. It should be noted that the basic LDD mode seems designed to reduce confusion in the case of seemingly-identical bricks. I can't say I totally approve of how it does this, in that it uses the oldest Design ID for the 1x1 cones rather than the newest, but it still does try to eliminate redundancy and not confuse less experienced users. It should be noted that all of the Element IDs in LDD should be correct from a production-end standpoint. One reason Bricklink Part Color Codes might not be the same is that sometimes the same part-color combination can have more than one Element ID. I do not know exactly why this is, though it may have to do with instances where parts are taken out of production and later put back into production. The oldest Element IDs I know of (some of which are still in use today, like the 1x2 brick from Kai ZX above) are just the Design ID with the Material ID tacked onto the end. It should also of course be remembered that Bricklink has a tendency to conflate certain part molds and colors that Bricklink users can't differentiate between. Thus Bricklink part color codes can often designate multiple part-color combinations and thus multiple true Element IDs. This should not be a problem too often in LDD basic mode since that mode's parts library is limited to current colors in most respects, and there are very few extremely obscure or confusing colors these days. But, for instance, Silver Metallic parts could easily have totally different Element IDs than the Part Color Codes listed on Bricklink because Bricklink's vague "Flat Silver" designation can include any number of silver colors that happen to look roughly similar, whereas Silver Metallic is a very specific color introduced in late 2010/early 2011.

Great use of the Kraahkan! You definitely put a lot of creativity into figuring out how to give it well-fitting eyes, but the end result looks perfectly natural. My one criticism is that the almost all-black build, while consistent with the character's description, causes the MOC to lose some of its details. Changing the color of some parts of the skeleton might help, although I understand that there are probably some parts of the design that you'd rather keep with a low-detail, streamlined look.

Great work converting the Bohrok design into something using Hero Factory connections! I love his somewhat bowlegged stance. I also love how red is used as an accent color on an otherwise black build. Great backstory, too.

I'd like to do so very soon. But I've got quite a lot on my plate currently-- in addition to schoolwork, I'm in the process of writing several set reviews for The Ninjago Wiki, and I've got not one but two Ninjago graphic novels to work on articles for there. So when I do get free time when I happen to have those books available, I still have to be selective with my time. I really should stop making excuses for not contributing to wikis, though. I haven't done any casual editing on either site in quite a while.

This does seem likely, although at the same time I still do not particularly like the concept. LEGO Racers and many other themes have managed to incorporate "battle vehicle" concepts without too much specialization. And the Ninjago spinners managed to incorporate a battle function that was pretty minimalist in its design, with product designs pretty standardized. For that matter, even classic LEGO Racers (Xalax series) had stuff pretty standardized, whereas these seem like they'll have a separate animal-vehicle mold for each faction, which doesn't particularly appeal to me. I will probably warm up to the Speedorz as more information and pictures become available. Who knows? There may be some hidden brilliance to the interior build, or the exterior parts may prove more versatile than I can currently imagine. As it is, though, while I see the appeal and the justification for the designs being how they are, I'm not really drawn to these, even less so than with the Ninjago spinners which were a simple enough concept to enjoy.

I prefer physical graphic novels in a lot of cases, but not physical comic books. The main comic books I've had in physical form are the bonus comics that came in LEGO magazines for so many years (mainly the BIONICLE comics, plus a few others), and some of the earliest ones have not weathered the test of time very well. When it comes to something I actually plan to read over and over again, I like to have something that feels substantial, and currently e-editions don't feel much safer to me in that regard than single-issue comics. It's easy to misplace a digital file, after all. Of course, I felt the same way about music for quite a while, preferring CDs to digital music, and while I still have never bought music online (preferring to at least own a hard copy if I should have difficulty moving around my digital music), I do almost all of my "listening" on an iPod. If only there were an easy way to transfer hard-copy books and comics to a space-efficient digital form like you can transfer music on CD onto a computer.

I was wondering something the other day. Once the Ninjago TV series ends and the Legends of Chima series presumably replaces it, how often do you think Ninjago reruns will air? Will Ninjago reruns cut into the time slots allotted for LoC reruns, or vice-versa? To be perfectly honest until last year I had basically stopped watching TV in general. Ninjago, MLP:FiM, and The Legend of Korra got me back into the habit, although now that I'm at college and don't have most of the channels for those shows I'm having to resort to the magic of the Internet to keep up-to-date (or will eventually, since currently new episodes aren't airing for any of those three shows). So I don't quite know how the airing of merchandise-driven TV shows like this tends to go. It's possible that brand-new time slots will be granted to Legends of Chima for its reruns, or that Ninjago reruns will be moved to a different time slot rather than outright replaced. But it definitely makes me curious since Ninjago sets will be on store shelves for a while still to come, and the show is the brand's main form of advertising.

Done. I'm surprised that there was nothing asking about other websites you use for LEGO-related news and discussion, though. I'd have definitely listed BZPower and deviantART, where there's always a lot of discussion and media related to LEGO's story themes.

In most cases, those so-called "duplicates" are in fact unique versions of the parts, and I'd be happier if they were not removed. If you have a particular version you want to use, you can consult the LEGO Customer Service website's replacement parts database and look up the set that the version you want to use came in. To clarify further, for the three cones there are three versions listed. The first is the original solid-colored version of the part, the second a transparent version of the part which I believe was introduced slightly later. The third is the most distinctive-- it is the version that replaced the solid-colored ones in 2008 and the transparent ones a year or so later. It has a small "rim" around the stud to keep it from forcing the walls of bricks apart like the older version could do. The 2x2 plates are slightly less unique. The one with the smaller Design ID is the classic one, whereas the one with the larger Design ID is the one manufactured in China and used in sets like the 2011 Ninjago spinner sets. A lot of the earliest Chinese-made parts have unique Design IDs, although around the time of Minifigures Series 3 TLG started using their classic molds in the Chinese manufacturing plant if they didn't already have unique molds for those parts in service. Still, I think it's worthwhile to keep the multiple variants. For people who don't differentiate between the versions, they do no harm, whereas for the people who do they provide a benefit to the accuracy of LEGO models.

Here is the original instruction leaflet that demonstrates how to attach it to the Ultimate Dume set. As you can see, it's designed to fit on that set's unique head construction, so it can't connect directly onto any existing head piece. If you need to see the construction of the head itself in more detail (for instance, to find where the relative placement of the connection points for the mask and the connection points for the Toa Mata head are), the head's construction begins on page 42 here. Personally, I'd say that for a Hero Factory MOC you'd be better off improvising something completely custom than relying on the head design that the mask was designed to work with.

Well, Evo's got a consistent "tech" theme just like Nex has, but while Nex's theme specifically involves networking/communication, Evo's design theme seems to be heavy weaponry. As Mr. Makuro introduces them in Ordeal of Fire, "Nex is a communications expert and Hero Outreach," whereas "Evo is artillery". Their Breakout set designs echo these established design themes. Rocka's theme is really the most vague simply because when he was introduced, his design theme was based on the very mission-specific 3.0 wave of sets. So while his personality was well-established in the Savage Planet story arc, we never really learned anything about whether he had a specific design theme. It also should be noted that Rocka broke from the tradition established in previous waves in that he had neither a first name nor a promotional nickname, whereas Julius Nex is "The Tech-Head" and Nathan Evo is "The Steamroller". And I agree the smaller look for the heroes looks kind of cute, but really I like them shorter to set them apart from Toa in a different way. In general, Hero Factory sets have had pretty good proportions since the 2.0 wave, but I think the taller Hero sets break from this a bit in that the legs of the medium-sized Heroes are longer than they should be relative to the bodies. It's worth noting that the mid-range hero sets this year have about the same proportions as Knights' Kingdom II figures, except that unlike Knights' Kingdom II figures they don't have a "crotch" that extends very far below the hip joint, which makes the visual proportions seem a bit more skewed. One reason I definitely like that we're switching back to smaller Hero sets is that I was personally quite worried that things would go in the opposite direction, and we'd see the size of Heroes increase every year much like we saw with a lot of BIONICLE figures (though, to be fair, after around 2006 the average size of canister sets stayed pretty consistent-- the sets just began to vary between very short and very tall characters).

Those are the same prelim descriptions that were originally featured for both of the first two books, if I remember correctly, in which case they probably aren't even plot-relevant. We may get more accurate descriptions in time, although I'm not totally sure since the description for Legion of Darkness implies it will have a lot of modern-day heroes, while the introduction to the preview in The Doom Box suggests that the story will be entirely a prequel about the origins of Alpha 1 Team. Of course, it could be that the synopsis given in The Doom Box is the inaccurate one. They're especially unlikely since

That is indeed very confusing. I wonder if that employee had their facts wrong, or if Ninjago really has been successful enough to continue it past its planned conclusion. The problem with continuing things past their intended conclusion is that you would get things like that-- instances where the new story has tenuous ties to the previous story and feels somewhat tacked-on. The introduction of new characters in KK2 made it difficult for me to appreciate that wave's final year to its fullest. Of course, it's most likely that the LEGO Store employee was just talking about the new Ninja minifigures in 2013 and was confused. It wouldn't surprise me, since the new figures' costumes with their heavy use of black do feel quite different than any of the characters' previous costumes (and the Gold Ninja, if he is in fact Lloyd, would be nigh-unrecognizable to a person who didn't follow the Ninjago theme). This seems like the most likely scenario to me, since a simple LEGO store employee probably wouldn't know of any plans further in advance than the upcoming wave.

NRG Jay is Bright Blue (Bricklink's Blue)with metallic blue and yellow printing, while NRG Zane is Light Royal Blue (Bricklink's Bright Light Blue) with silver, white, and a very small amount of metallic blue printing. The two look very, very different even without Zane having his traditional uniform color (white). Compare NRG Zane with NRG Jay. Surprisingly, a Google search turned up very few photos of the four NRG Ninja together, perhaps because they're part of separate waves and so few people have had opportunities to find all four in stores at the same time.