Aanchir

Frankly, though, my problem is with the claim that it was "a failure that never should have happened", since that seems to suggest it has a lot of lasting consequences. As it is, the AFOL community has largely recovered (and grown larger than it was even then). And TLG's sales have continued to improve since the change in spite of any small losses that might have taken place because of the color change. What "some fans" decide doesn't really make a measurable difference in the long run. Some fans of Star Wars probably swore off the entire franchise when the prequels first came out, but that doesn't make the prequels a failure when there were more than enough new fans and old fans alike to offset the loss. Also, you're speaking to a US customer who has been a die-hard LEGO fan his entire life. I wasn't very active in the online LEGO community at that time, and I certainly wasn't active in AFOL circles (I only began to discover the online BIONICLE fan community in 2005), but that doesn't mean I was an oblivious fan who didn't care either way when TLG made changes. The way I see it, TLG has made a lot of decisions that have been unpopular with AFOLs, but assuming they were all failures for that reason is ignoring the bigger picture. There may have been a failure to predict the AFOL backlash, but it wasn't an overall failure for the company. This is, of course, assuming that the opposition was considerable enough to have had an impact. I and a number of other people who have posted in this topic mention preferring the new bluer colors. LEGO may be a company that strongly values quality and customer satisfaction, but that doesn't mean they're a company unwilling to make sacrifices when a marginal part of their consumer base raises a stink over a change that will potentially make the brand more popular with their target audience. The BIONICLE fan community tends to have a number of gripes that AFOLs often ignore, such as that Technic pins should all still be black and grey. Should TLG listen to these minority voices without questions, even at the expense of other LEGO fans? Of course, LEGO was struggling to stay afloat on its current fanbase. Pandering to a small percentage of those fans without taking any measures to increase satisfaction for new customers would not have been a particularly sound business model. 5% is millions of dollars worth, but at the same time it's a trifle compared to however many dollars the remaining 95% is worth. And while I'm not fool enough to claim that every decision made at AFOLs' expense prompts an equal and opposite increase in every other segment of the consumer base, it still remains clear that when it comes to a decision between satisfying a small segment of the community and satisfying a much larger segment, the larger one will win out. The influence of AFOLs may have been underestimated at the time this change was made, but as with many changes TLG has made since, it has not been significant enough to overrule changes that overall benefit the company. If the gray colors had been as poor in quality as Mega Bloks colors were at that time, some AFOLs would still have been sour about seeing them change. Any change made by a company as big as LEGO is going to bring out a lot of opinions both good and bad. But just because the benefits of the change weren't immediately obvious to AFOLs doesn't mean they weren't there. A kid buying his first set and encountering the new greys might be happier with the color quality than they would have been if buying a set that contained the older greys. It's something that neither an AFOL nor a TLG market researcher can easily measure. But to assume that TLG didn't put any consideration into the change just because they didn't think much about the AFOL perspective is remarkably pretentious. We're important to TLG, but we are not the primary audience, and so we won't be TLG's top priority unless that changes (which it wouldn't unless the fundamental nature of the company as a children's toy company were to change).

And furthermore, no matter what your political views, there's an obvious reason companies should try to be greener-- because their customers want them to be. There's definitely a "bragging rights" advantage to having an environmentally-conscious image, especially when your competitors can't make the same claims. So it's not as though companies have nothing to gain through "greener" business practices unless there's a global emergency at stake.

From my experience, it's that there will be one extra of each piece below a certain weight for each bag that piece appears in. So the Taj Mahal was an extremely unusual case-- they were all in a bag together, which contained nothing but 1x6 plates.

Ain't nothing wrong with virtually-gibberish BIONICLE community usernames. I've tried using other usernames like "Skybard" on other sites, but I like the uniqueness of "Aanchir". And I prefer to keep this name nowadays since people may recognize me from way-back-when.

The Dark Stone Grey joints are probably because builders had trouble telling the 5M upper limbs and 5M lower limbs apart in Hero sets. However, it seems that Dark Stone Grey is now the default color for all 5M lower limb beams, so I'm sure many people will be as disappointed about this as they have been about red axles or blue pins (an issue that has never bothered me personally). It could also be to make the building instructions easier to read, as mentioned in the first design consideration here. Overall, I'm still not a fan of Scorpio, mainly because there just seemed to be no effort put towards making the legs have similar color organization. The first and third sets of legs have Black armor and Silver Metallic "feet" with Bright Yellowish Green "toes". The second set of legs is much shorter and has Bright Yellowish Green armor, Black "feet" (if you can call them that here-- they're clearly vestigial), and Bright Yellowish Green "toes". That second set of legs is really what messes everything up for me. Scorpio does get points in my book, however, for being the only villain set this wave not to rely on warm colors. With the tremendous imbalance in the 3.0 heroes, it's a shame there aren't more greens or blues among the villain sets. Of course, I can't think of any color schemes I'd have preferred on any of the villain sets other than Scorpio, so I guess I can't complain. Thanks for the review!

I can help with the colors. Holly Shiftwell is 124 Bright Reddish Violet, which Bricklink calls Magenta. 221 Bright Purple is the official name for the Dark Pink color which appears in post-2004 sets, and so doesn't actually look very purple at all. You're correctw with all the other colors. Anyway, this set is pretty cool, although imprecise. If the back of whatshisname the boat guy was widened somehow, he might have been able to float properly, so it's disappointing that he's so inaccurate. The ability of LEGO boats to float is one of the reasons I tolerate parts other AFOLs consider <insert that tiresome argument> and frown on brickbuilt boats most of the time. At the same time, the same <insert that tiresome argument> parts that often allow LEGO boats to float do not exist in a size that would really suffice for the rear section of this guy, so perhaps brickbuilt would have been the best solution in this set.

I have doubts about this, and here's why: back in 2008-2009, when boxes were known to be oversized compared to their contents, I discovered something interesting about the boxes for large sets: at least one image, whether on the front or the back of the box, would be approximately actual size (if memory serves this was invariably the larger of the two images). This was one of several reasons I objected to smaller box sizes-- this would not be possible many times on a smaller box, since the image was already tight for space on the current box size. In other words, while the parts of the set took up only a small portion of the box, the constructed set took up most or all of the space on the box front. Smaller boxes, in my opinion, could be misleading in terms of size, since the image on the box oftentimes can no longer reflect the actual size of the model. Thankfully, TLG has apparently dealt with this to an extent by changing the depth of each box more than the height or width. This allows the size of front and back images to be largely maintained. I can't help but think this was deliberate-- if a parent buys a kid a buildable castle, they're more likely to assume the size of the castle will be reflected by the image (unless a human child is pictured for scale) than that the size of the box reflects how densely-packed the individual contents will be.

Not the case nationwide-- the recycling center near where I live accepts numbers one through seven without argument. Most BIONICLE canisters are number 1, which can be recycled pretty much anywhere in the US I think. But I wouldn't want to do that in any event-- they're very useful for storing and transporting the actual sets, and if I ever stop needing them for that purpose I'll be able to find something else to store in them. My family has no shortage of odds-and-ends with no place to keep them, and BIONICLE canisters are usually every bit as useful for that as Tupperware, Play-Doh cans, or the other odd containers my dad uses.

It's not unheard of for a set to have an unusual and/or inexplicable number of extras for a certain piece. I remember when my family built the Taj Mahal, we were surprised to find nearly a full bag of 1x6 white plates. We couldn't find anywhere in the instructions where we'd missed them, and sure enough, we checked Bricklink to find that it was normal for it to come with seventeen extras. This was even stranger than in the case of Diagon Alley, since larger, heavier parts almost never come as extras-- the function of extra pieces is generally to ensure that lighter parts don't go missing without being caught by the weight check, so the function of these extra plates in the Taj Mahal was a mystery.

Not true at all. There are 182 bricks in the color Medium Stone Grey, which is the TLG's official name for Light Bluish Gray. If you encounter any other issues where you can't find parts in a certain color, it's always worthwhile to check the Peeron color list and make sure you're looking for it under the correct name. LEGO's names don't follow the same rules as Bricklink's, and so you'll likely miss what you're looking for if you're relying on the Bricklink names. Pick-A-Brick does have multiple problems with colors. For instance, the "Exact Color" drop-down menu is missing several colors including Silver Metallic (the current pearl silver color, introduced in late 2010-early 2011, which Bricklink calls Flat Silver), Titanium Metallic (the current pearl dark grey color, also introduced in late 2010-early 2011, which Bricklik calls Pearl Dark Gray), and Warm Gold (the current pearl gold color, introduced in 2006, which Bricklink calls Pearl Gold). There are also other factors that can cause confusion, such as certain parts using Design ID numbers that don't correspond to the Bricklink ones. But at the same time, you won't find anything you're looking for if you're looking for it under the wrong name.

Well, one possible reason they're pre-assembled is so as not to give people the impression that they should be taken out and switched around. Naturally, people do this anyway, but as it is it's not encouraged since it weakens the hinge. They're not designed to be added and removed multiple times.

I just realized while browsing the online LEGO Pick-A-Brick that there are two styles of Exo-Force robot arms. The first is the classic 2006 one: Design ID 58342. The second is a newer one is Design ID 98313, and is slightly different in the upper arm portion-- the older one has thinner supports at the front and back "edges" of the upper arm, whereas the newer one has thicker ones. The newer one's Design ID and Element ID suggest that it is brand-new to this year, even though the Titanium Metallic ones on Pick-A-Brick have the old Design ID rather than the new one. Any word on which version is used by Stormer? I encourage you to search either Design ID on Pick-A-Brick if you want to compare images.

Well, we do know the overall pieces in the full six kits is 1,125, and the overall price is $99.98 US. So yeah, 9 cents per piece. We don't know the specifics about how many pieces each kit has, although the zoomed-in image of the Kits 2-6 subscription on LEGOshop.com suggests Kit 2 (Microbuild Designer) has 222 pieces, while Kit 4 (Flight Designer) has 150 pieces. Kit 6 would seem to have 222 pieces as well.

The word "failure" gets thrown around a lot for anything TLG does that doesn't go perfectly. A negative reaction is one thing, but is there any significant evidence that TLG's sales suffered the least bit as a result of the change? If there were any huge impact to sales, I imagine they wouldn't have hesitated to change the colors back. But I've seen no evidence that TLG faced any repercussions from the change other than disgruntlement from some AFOLs. And AFOLs, no matter what market they're a part of, are a minority compared to the toys' actual target market. It's true, there was a minor failure in that they didn't prepare for any negative repercussions at all. But since this failure did them no considerable harm in the long run, it's hard to argue that the change was a failure overall. In my opinion, it would have been silly to introduce new greys without getting rid of the old ones. Having both versions out would just be redundant. And what benefit would there have been to introducing new greys if they weren't going to be used consistently? It would just be expanding TLG's color palette when they were trying to do just the opposite.

My latest title is Party pooper. Since I tend to swim against the stream on a lot of LEGO-related issues, this could stem from any number of my posts-- this one fits the title pretty well, though, I'd wager. Alternatively, the post could be because as of yet I haven't returned to correcting official sets in the LDD subforum (so my previous title "colour master" doesn't apply as much as it used to). But that seems pretty doubtful-- I think the title probably stems from some post of mine rather than just inaction on my part. No idea who would have given me this title, and I'm not "chummy" enough with any of the staff to make an educated guess. But personally I don't mind; I've heard a lot of far worse accusations, and at least I probably deserved this one!

With "selective" I kind of meant more along the lines of how AFOLs will be more likely to have a "grand plan"-- either to complete each set, or to build an army of some particular figs, or whatever. A KFOL would not necessarily have that same motivation-- they'd buy the figs they want most, but without any huge plans that involve multiples or a complete set of 16. So basically the situation you bring up in your first paragraph is what I meant by "selective". I apologize for using a misleading term; I should have chosen my words to better reflect what I was really trying to say. To put it briefly, the AFOL will likely be a lot more strategic with their purchases than a KFOL. Also, keep in mind that a KFOL can't buy things on their own all too often, but many will have parents who wouldn't hesitate to make small purchases such as these, even if they end up adding up to a big price in the long run. I collected Pokemon cards as a kid; I should know. For that matter, I collected BIONICLE sets, which are more expensive per purchase, and yet most years between myself and my two siblings we managed to get nearly every set. It's that habit which I'm currently trying to break free from. Furthermore, I think the "power and desire" of AFOLs is often overestimated. It's easy to assume that because we choose to spend our adult lives on what is not normally considered an adult activity, we are more avid fans of LEGO. And there are certainly the occasional AFOLs who are more avid fans than the average kid, and far more avid buyers. But at the same time there are many AFOLs who don't buy the minifigures for whatever reason, and some who can't even afford to buy new sets on a regular basis. The "extreme" cases of AFOLdom are mistaken for the conditions of the typical AFOL. In reality, for every AFOL who can afford a full box of minifigures there are probably several KFOLs whose parents are willing to make a purchase of equal value for the kid.

Yes, like all the other non-rookie Heroes. At the same time, since there have been two versions with dual weapons it's nice that they're acknowledging some continuity there, and it feels good to see writers for the magazine arriving at the same conclusion I did when designing my Bulk 2.0 MOC. Personally, I would be extremely happy if it were a conscious decision by the designers to give Bulk 3.0 two weapons as a reference to Bulk & Vapour, although that may be a bit too much to hope for.

Sounds more like a rumor than anything. Now, I don't doubt that such a theme is possible, but I do have doubts that info on it would be leaked this early (especially when none of the big LEGO fansites have picked up on it).

Back in the 90s my dad used to spend many long hours on the telephone with LEGO Customer Service, for various reasons (the one that springs to mind most easily is the bug-ridden LEGO software like the LEGO Rock Raiders game, but there were other issues). Back then, for our trouble we'd usually get a free keychain in the mail, and my brother and I accumulated quite a collection of them. I don't think they're doing that anymore, which is a shame considering that most of our minifigure keychains are badly broken (something that seems to be the rule rather than the exception if you keep them on a backpack). But at the same time, it was very reassuring that TLG actually cares enough to offer material consolation for those things they can't actually replace. My dad's still the main one who talks to customer service on the phone over issues (I prefer to use e-mail, and have never been fond of phone conversations). My dad recently got PO'd about a discrepancy on the LEGO website, where he got a VIP e-mail about the White House set being available in the US and followed the link to find that it wasn't, in fact, available. But no matter how furious he is when he first makes a call, he has a good sense of humor, and usually ends up laughing and joking with the customer service representative for most of the call. As for the e-mail customer service, it's not as much of a back-and-forth conversation with me most of the time, so there's not that same obvious feeling that TLG cares about your request. But at the same time, I always feel comfortable e-mailing LEGO customer service any time I find anything on the LEGO website that needs to be addressed. I recently made an e-mail about the online Pick-A-Brick not offering all colors currently available from that service in the "Exact Color" drop-down menu, and while it still hasn't been fixed (Silver Metallic and Titanium Metallic are conspicuously absent), I still am confident that they did listen to my e-mail, since it was more for their benefit than mine. And of course the Customer Service website is a godsend. It makes it easy to access PDF building instructions for most sets, and the Replacement Parts site is a great way to look at the inventory of a set-- whether just to see high-quality renders of a part, or to double-check a part's color if you don't trust Bricklink. The fact that they are often willing to give you a price quote on a part you don't have even if you're not actually missing it demonstrates how the company goes above and beyond what might be experienced with another toy company.

The comic's very nice. The colors kind of bother me a bit, since rather than the lush jungle colors we've seen in web animations everything seems a lot more faded. This type of coloring and lighting worked for the swamp in the 2008 BIONICLE comics, but I can't say I'm especially fond of it here. They're really pushing the increased piece count from the first wave as an asset. It's interesting, since this sort of comparison is almost never used for marketing other sets. I think this is one of the things I like about the new building system and the marketing for it-- TLG is really proud of the actual construction potential the 2.0 and 3.0 part designs have, and they don't try to hide it. The potential for MOCs is being promoted just as much as the figure in each package, as has been demonstrated with the latest LDD palette and the Hero Recon Team program by DesignByMe. Those combi models on the back of the comic aren't all beautiful, but they're definitely imaginative. It tickles me pink that the magazine feature mentions Bulk's "trademark two-handed weapon system". It was a pattern I noticed between Bulk & Vapour and Bulk 3.0, and I'm pleased that I incorporated it into my Bulk 2.0 MOC on LDD since it just seems to fit him so well. Can't wait until I can get my own hands on some of these third-wave sets.

Looks like I finally broke down and decided what I'd be bringing to Brickfair. I'll be exhibiting Rise of the Dread Colossus. Unfortunately, this is proving extremely frustrating to rebuild, since LDD's building instruction generator is utter crap on a model this big, and since this involves taking apart basically all of my family's Atlantis sets (and harvesting key pieces from several Space Police ones). I've rebuilt both mini-subs for the most part, and hope to rebuild the rest of the main sub today.

I think this set is great, even though I'm not as hyped about collecting Alien Conquest sets as my twin brother is. Did you catch the designer reference on the sticker sheet? I have one big question no other reviewer has really been able to answer for me. Does the curve of the new alien windscreens match any other parts? Until I own it myself (or better yet, it gets added to LDD) I can't find out for myself.

I'd also like that, but I think it would be better for a collectible minifigure than for a part of an actual space theme (possibly similar to this guy. Greys are these days considered a little bit cheesy, at least that's the impression I get from popular culture here in the States. Personally, I like the aliens in this theme because they have individual personality and yet a unified aesthetic.

Perhaps the dome/globe pieces first introduced as eyes for the BIONICLE Barraki could have worked, then. After all, they are coming out in white in the Ninjago Skull Truck, so obviously producing them in non-transparent colors isn't a problem. Bit too late, I guess.

Well, white never got a new Material ID like the greys did, but that's probably because the "target color" is still the same-- it's just more resistant to yellowing and possibly a bit purer in color when you first pull it out of the box for the same reason. I agree about using old and new greys together, although I've seen MOCists pull it off effectively-- and to the advantage of their MOCs, which either gain a "mottled" look (if the greys are alternated) or just have one additional color in the "neutral" zone than they would have otherwise.