Aanchir

Might as well share that my tile has arrived at home. I don't yet have it myself because I'm still up at college until the end of this week, but I have confirmation from my parents that it arrived.

In that case, what should be done is to differentiate the effect between "metallic", "chrome", and "pearl" colors. After all, there are colors which I believe have the same RGB value on LDD-- White and Metallic White. Their "swatches" when you have selected the colors with the eyedropper tool are exactly the same, in any event. Their only difference is the effect programmed for them-- how much light they reflect at various angles on LDD. Since there aren't any other lacquered gold colors on LDD currently (though I believe others may exist), it shouldn't produce any problems. Then again, that sort of thing could have a much higher graphical requirement. Not sure necessarily how that works. But as I see it, it would be nice in a future version.

Agreed. I always hate anything that assumes people can "run out of ideas" when they're not placing overly-harsh restrictions on themselves. If ideas are a limited resource, then they're going to run out no matter what happens. Even if LEGO stops using new ideas doesn't mean that the ideas will somehow "replenish themselves". For that matter, if ideas are a limited resource then there's no reason why LEGO wouldn't have already used them all up in other themes over the past several decades. In contrast, I believe that ideas are a practically unlimited resource. Consider every occupation that has ever existed, every human culture that has ever emerged, and every character role that has ever been written. Even if you eliminate several of these as bad or boring ideas, there are still countless possibilities to choose from. The only way the collectible minifigure series will end is if people simply stop being interested in collectible minifigures altogether, and if that happens it won't matter how many ideas have been used up and how many are still unused-- the product line will end.

Ummm... the latest wave of Hero Factory sets are almost all hard-plastic parts. Also, the price-per-piece for canister sets has hardly gone up since the beginning of BIONICLE (and there are inescapable financial reasons it would have gone up even if the sets had the exact same contents year-in and year-out). The softer parts exist for a number of reasons (choking hazards having nothing to do with them, since a soft plastic part is even more of a choking hazard than a harder part, and in fact this is the reason there aren't any soft-plastic pieces in Duplo), and in the form of weapons and armor they have existed since near when BIONICLE first began. Also, you fail to realize that in using price-per-piece to argue today's Hero Factory sets are bad, you're using the same tired logic that irate AFOLs have often used to say that BIONICLE and other constraction themes have [i[always[/i] been bad. In other words, by your logic the BIONICLE you're so nostalgic about is a cheap, pathetic excuse for a theme. I'm a BIONICLE fan and a Hero Factory fan, and we both know BIONICLE was a decent theme. But the hopeless logic you're using contradicts this, and tells us that we should remember BIONICLE as valueless trash we still haven't completely gotten rid of. This is the reason why price-per-piece isn't and never has been a reasonable means of assessing a constraction set's value.

Also, the original macaroni brick has been discontinued for over a year. The newer one has never appeared in a transparent color, and has interior supports that might have made it less versatile in a transparent color. Although admittedly it could possibly have helped create that crystalline look that a lot of lighthouse lenses have.

Well, yes, but with that kind of argument you're falling prey to the same sort of generalization that makes many people frown upon any "repeats" of old ideas-- that all skateboarders are the same, all pirates are the same, etc. Personally, being able to design a fig without being constrained by the theme it's a part of can allow for creative designs. Just consider the Traffic Cop-- he's technically a police officer and even has the same badge emblem as other officers in the City theme. But not being a part of that theme, he was able to be a far more unique idea than any of the generic officers who appear in City. In the same way, a collectible fireman could have a different color scheme than your typical LEGO fireman-- perhaps a more realistic Sand Yellow (BL's Dark Tan) uniform with Bright Yellow (BL's Yellow) or Cool Yellow (BL's Bright Light Yellow) stripes, possibly with a yellow or red helmet. He could alternatively be a firefighter in a more old-fashioned uniform, like the classic LEGO firemen. There are countless possibilities, many of which LEGO couldn't easily touch upon in existing themes where there's usually a certain "style" minifigures need to adhere to in order to fit in.

Just used LDD 4.1.7 to make 6890 Cosmic Cruiser from the Space theme: LXF File Errors: The correct decorations are unavailable for pieces 3004, 3010, 3839, and 76382. These pieces have been left blank. Parts 3943, 4081, and 4085 are all newer versions of those molds than those which appeared in the original set. Since they do have the correct part numbers, however, they are as correct as they can ever be unless LDD's data structure is changed to allow multiple part designs to share the same design ID. Other than that, no errors! It was fun building this, although it was far more boring a design than any of the Space sets from today or from my own childhood.

There's already discussion of this going on here. Superkalle and I have basically analyzed most of the new features there: about 12 new pieces, no new colors we know of, and no new decoration surfaces on the parts that needed them in previous versions. It's not meant to be a big update, and some of the main improvements are certain decorations which previously had bugs and which are now fixed.

Cool! So I guess I found most of those new parts-- just missed that airplane part and the tire. I find it awfully weird that RGB is a hindrance for adding color 299. I thought that since switching to 4.0 they were assigning new RGBs that closer resembled the parts' colors in real life? That was the explanation given for changes in the appearance of many colors including 5 Brick Yellow. I guess they must still have some sort of objective way of arriving at the colors rather than just approximation, or else they could just vary the color arbitrarily.

Actually, it looks like it's a totally new piece. It's the first spherical 8x8 windscreen. There was an 8x8 "bubble windscreen" previously in the Agents theme, but it had a more pointed ovoid shape. Using the two together, I'll bet you could make a big transparent egg!

OK, I've managed to open LXFMLs on LDD a couple times now, even though I can't quite figure what I'm doing differently to get it to work. As far as I can tell, there are no new colors in the latest update. That's a real pity; I was really hoping for 299 Lacquered Gold. In decorations, there's more good news: the skirt now has its decoration right-side-up. Still no improvements with the decoration tool however-- those that were inaccessible before are still inaccessible. Parts that were previously on LDD but lacked decoration surfaces still have no decoration surfaces. And I don't yet know whether there are any new decorations. EDIT: Other new parts include 3933, 3934, 60033, and 92738. I hope Superkalle can generate a full list of new parts.

LDD updated to 4.1.7 for me this morning. Changes I've noticed: The Pharaoh's Quest face decorations, as well as the freckled face, have been fixed. The body armor piece 2587 has been fixed so it once again fits on minifigure bodies. However, it appears the LDD team failed to categorize it with minifigure accessories-- it is now in a category marked with a question mark along with (for some reason) piece 86208. New parts include 92747 (the oval-shaped shield from this year's Battle of Naboo set), 89520 (the new knights' helmet from Kingdoms), piece 4770 (the old-fashioned LED cover), 30378 (the battle droid head), 92580 (a new windscreen from one of this year's Atlantis sets) and SEVERAL OLD-STYLE HINGES (4315, 4625, and 4213) . There may be others that I haven't even noticed. I'll look for new decoration surfaces on parts that have decorations available next. Anyone else found anything impressive in the update? EDIT: For some reason, the new version tells me I have to re-install LDD anytime I try to open an LXFML-- even if LDD is open and running. That's bothersome, and prevents me from doing any decoration testing without the decoration tool. Anyone else having this problem?

In general, I'm also in the camp that prefers modern-day LEGO designs to those of the 90s. The 90s was my childhood, and I'll admit that I loved many of the sets from that era. But overall LEGO has undergone many improvements since then. The Hero Factory theme far outdoes most Throwbots or BIONICLE sets. Action themes like Power Miners and Atlantis have more interesting functions and more refined builds than Time Cruisers or Rock Raiders. City sets today, including "offshoots" like the modular buildings, are far, far more interesting than Town sets of the late 90s, using clever SNOT techniques and tastefully-stickered parts rather than simple builds and overspecialized printed vehicle hoods or grilles. Even the Bricks & More theme, as simple as it is, has more reasonable selections of basic bricks and more impressive "model ideas" than the Free Style theme. It's possible that this mindset I have owes itself in part to the fact that I never had a dark age. Instead, I was watching the changes in LEGO sets firsthand from my childhood to adulthood, and the closest thing I ever had to a dark age was when BIONICLE sets began to take up most of my LEGO budget and I stopped purchasing Star Wars sets. Overall, LEGO set designs have been on a path of steady improvement in many ways, even if occasional sacrifices had to be made for those improvements to emerge. And LEGO set designers have demonstrated that they will not let themselves be limited by the loss of older parts or building styles-- instead, they use newer parts and techniques in amazingly innovative ways.

Well, actually, extra parts are a quality control measure usually added on a basis of weight rather than whether or not you will need extras of the piece. Cheese slopes, being especially light, tend to get extras, as do 1x1 round plates. The purpose of extra pieces is to ensure that the correct amount of pieces gets packed in each bag. By adding extras of these light parts, the total weight of those pieces is higher, and thus if you don't have enough to actually build the set it will more likely be caught during the weight check. At the same time, packing an extra of these pieces helps if the set is missing only one-- the extra one will take its place.

I don't think the use of different plastic on Chinese-made figs has anything to do with cost. The benefit from Chinese production is generally one of lower labor costs, not lower materials costs. And furthermore, TLG made the decision to use a different plastic reluctantly due to Chinese production laws (if this report is to be trusted-- I'd really like an official written statement by TLG explaining this situation so we don't have to rely so heavily on word-of-mouth). As for the legs using lower-quality plastic, keep in mind that in many cases a mold can have as much influence on the look or "feel" of a piece as the material. In fact, the surface finish of a part is an important consideration when designing new parts, especially because consistency of appearance between different pieces depends on it heavily. Since the collectible minifigures use different leg, waist, torso, and arm molds from minifigures produced in other countries, mold differences may be a factor in issues that seem to afflict particular pieces. It probably doesn't explain the translucency issue since the insides of the legs are visually identical to those of non-Chinese-made minifigures, but it could explain the differences in feel (including one report I heard once about how the legs of collectible minifigures seem to have sharper corners than other figs). Well, TLG isn't using different plastic for different collectible minifigure parts because all the collectible minifigure parts are made in China. There wouldn't be any point using a lower-quality plastic for certain parts and keeping their traditional plastic for other parts. I think the more likely explanation is that the quality of the finalized plastic pieces is more of an issue of variability than one of parts being consistently bad. While the feeling of the parts may raise questions about the durability, I think the fact that we haven't heard any horror stories about the collectible minifigures' parts breaking answers at least some of those questions. Closest thing we've heard to that was the issue in Series 1 with arm joints becoming loose after switching them around with other figs-- I'm not sure if this was ever resolved, since I personally don't swap arms around on my minifigures as a principle and the lack of more recent reports of that problem may just mean people have stopped switching arms around on collectible minifigures for fear of damaging their parts. Still, keep in mind that for TLG, the durability and longevity of a piece or set is a far higher priority in terms of quality than color inconsistencies. So I have no doubt that they thoroughly tested the plastic they're using in the Chinese production plant before committing to producing minifigures from that plastic.

I don't see how it's imbalanced. The collectible minifigures are some of the most recent minifigures to come out of the Chinese production plant, so they're probably the best reflection of what problems that plant has yet to sort out (and by extension what problems they may have resolved). Personally, I think it seems to me that the quality of Chinese production has improved lately. We're not seeing nearly as many quality disaster stories as we were seeing in the early days of Chinese-made magnet packs and collectible minifigures. This isn't proof that the quality of Chinese-made products has improved, as it's possible that the people who are more likely to notice these quality problems have just stopped buying sets with Chinese-made minifigures in general. But I think it's fairly strong evidence that TLG does not intend to let these quality problems continue without any response. Since Ninjago is such a huge investment for TLG, it doesn't seem likely that they'd let quality slip back after an improvement like this. But naturally, I don't have any Ninjago figures from spinner sets so I can't attest to their quality. I only know what I've seen from reviews here on Eurobricks, which I feel I can generally trust.

I actually thought it was more powerfully written to have him die without any fanfare. Nobody expected him to die, and no one had a chance to say goodbye (Totally didn't intend that sentence to sound like it was in iambic pentameter, but it works). He had no fanfare, no chance for people to even give him a parting glance... you just found out abruptly and without any chance to prepare for the news that he didn't make it. It, along with Hedwig's death, really set the tone for the rest of the movie and established that anyone, no matter how important or undeserving of that fate, could die. Anyway, I'm kind of surprised that the Knight Bus has shown up on the TRU website, even though it's the most logical one to make the first appearance among these sets. Personally, I'm kind of indifferent about these sets, and am willing to wait patiently for them-- I'm much more enthusiastic about the upcoming books like the visual dictionary.

Well, that was a fun contest, wasn't it? I was kind of hesitant to share this before the end of the contest, but after I created the topic for my MOC and began to disassemble it, I began to put together LXF versions of the two components of this MOC: Modular Submarine Dread Colossus I built these primarily to get a piece count for the overall model (it's 1039, in case you're wondering). The main reason I was hesitant to post these before or during voting was that I figured many AFOLs would be disappointed in the MOC if they saw it without stickers. As a lot of people know, I'm incredibly "pro-sticker" for nearly anything other than LEGO animals and minifigures, and since all of the parts in this MOC came from sets I actually owned they all had the original stickers. My brother and I even built many parts of this based on whether the stickers looked appropriate for this MOC-- for instance, we avoided using too many stickers with set numbers next to each other since the set numbers often didn't match. The LXFs also show off certain parts like the back of the legs that I'm not too proud of. These tended to be consequences of our limited parts here at college-- our main sets we have with us are Hero Factory, Space Police III, and Atlantis, and during the entry period we even had to go out and buy two new Atlantis sets just to have all the parts we needed. In retrospect, these LXFs might not have done as much harm as I was worried about. The submarine is far from boring, and the main thing that really causes problems in the LXFs is the ugly static pose the Dread Colossus is in (I have very little patience with hinging things on LDD). But in any event, these can potentially give you a better look at this MOC from more directions. I especially invite you to look at the construction of the Dread Colossus's feet, which I built myself and am immensely proud of. Anyway, to those who voted in the contest: In what areas did this entry surpass other MOCs, and in what areas did it fall behind? What changes could I have made to the model to make it earn your vote? I'd love to hear your opinions! Thanks to everyone who voted for me, and to everyone who at least took the time to look at my model before casting your vote!

Congratulations to the winners! You all had magnificent entries! However, I can't say I'm too happy with the results. There were many entries including my own which I didn't expect to win or even to place. However, I couldn't help but notice in the voting (and now the results) that there was an incredible bias towards Pharaoh's Quest entries. Perhaps part of that is just that there were more Pharaoh's Quest entries than entries for other themes (18 for PQ against 12 for Ninjago and 10 for Atlantis), but in general I got the idea that both trends were in part because AFOLs in general simply prefer Pharaoh's Quest to the other two themes in question. I may just be a bit bitter because PQ is by far my least favorite of the three themes, and two of the entries were among the least action-packed in the contest. I'd have loved to see the amazing and action-filled Spinjitzu Training Temple or one of the other amazing Ninjago entries among the winners, just for variety's sake. However, naturally, I'm not saying that the entries that won did not earn their victory. They were by far the most popular, and entries for any contest decided by a public vote have to be designed with that characteristic in mind. It'd be cool to see the overall ranking of the rest of the entries, so it would be easier to see trends (for instance, how much favor each theme had, how much the overall size of the entries played into their popularity, and whether certain subject matter (for instance, architectural subjects, vehicle subjects, or monster subjects) was more popular among voters. However, I suppose such an action would just cause members like myself to bicker about these trends, so I won't ask that such information be divulged. People with more time on their hands or interest in knowing the results than myself can easily tally up the point totals from the voting topic on their own time anyway.

A lot of that would just be ignorant people who assume that all Chinese parts are lower-quality than parts from "respectable" European nations or Mexico. There are slight differences in the Chinese-made parts and other parts, but they're almost imperceptible and I can assure you any Chinese-made fig will fit in perfectly with other figs. If you had two, one Chinese-made and one non-Chinese-made, you may even completely forget which was which unless you specifically looked for the hallmark mold difference under the arms or the printing difference on the minifig neck. There is only one consistent "quality" difference I've noticed in Chinese-made minifigures: a little bit of light will show through their legs if brightly backlit. However, it's not a situation that really ever comes up while building or playing with LEGO sets. It's your decision whether this is justification for the minifigures to be shunned from your collection, though. If you really need to compare a Chinese-made minifigure with a European- or Mexican-made one, I recommend you first buy one of the $3 Collectible Minifigures. These cost a lot less than spinner packs, and if you're buying the spinner pack primarily for the minifigure you'll want to "test the waters" before making the $10 final purchase.

Villains I especially like include Raw-Jaw and Waspix. I'm not a fan of Scorpio, whose inconsistent leg designs ruin his buglike appearance for me, or Witch Doctor, whose design seems to completely undermine the design ideals that made me like the new building system and the Hero Factory theme in general so much. Fangz is OK, but frankly his color scheme is fairly boring, and the spears coming out of his lower jaw are a bit awkward. Heroes I especially like include Bulk 3.0, Stringer 3.0, and Rocka 3.0. I'm just having a hard time getting excited about Furno, Stormer, and Nex so soon after buying the 2.0 versions. It's possible I'm just too used to the BIONICLE release pattern, wherein the "canister sets" would alternate between heroes and villain, thus giving more design variety, more color scheme variety, and more time in between two versions of the same character. It's entirely possible that by the time these sets appear in stores, though, I'll have gotten over the feeling of freshness that still lingers for the 2.0 wave, and I'll be ready to invest in these jungle-themed designs. I'm not sure which sets I'm actually getting. Probably Bulk and Stringer, if only so that I can try to visualize my Bulk and Stringer LDD concepts in real life. I may end up getting Raw-Jaw, too. But overall I'm just not too excited about the third wave quite yet, in part because the jungle "theme" doesn't excite me as much as the more generic sci-fi settings and character designs of the previous two waves.

Yeah, that's my Flickr page. Most of the info on those colors is collected from LDD, even though the "matching" between the LDD colors and the colors we're actually beginning to see in sets was all my doing. If it turns out that some other Material ID like 320 or 327 belongs to these things I've mentioned, then I'm the one who will be to blame for identifying them wrong. Those six colors have been on LEGO Digital Designer for several versions now, and I had long been speculating when they might start to appear. LEGO Material IDs are generally assigned in the order in which the colors make their first appearance, and since the most recent new colors as of last year (315 Silver Metallic and 316 Titanium Metallic, both new to last year) were approaching very near these six colors I figured it was only a matter of time before these appeared in real life. I expected all of them to debut in the new girls' theme as soon as I heard rumors of it (there's been some discussion of it in the Town subforum here for quite a while-- see Etzel's link ), but clearly some of them are making their debut even sooner in themes like Alien Conquest, Cars, and the collectible minifigures. As of the latest update to LDD, we know not only the Material ID numbers for these colors but also their names. And Ogre, sorry my wording was so unclear. The product I'm referring to is basically a clock like this one, except instead of a stormtrooper it's a non-licensed female minifigure with a pink shirt (222 Light Purple/Bricklink's Bright Pink) and lavender pants (324 Medium Lavender). "Extended Line" just means that it's a LEGO-brand product that isn't an actual set-- in other words, basically anything that's classified as "Gear" on Bricklink would be considered "extended-line".

First of all, since when do spinner minifigures have lower quality than those in larger sets? Only difference I've heard of is that they're produced in different places, and they have slightly different molds. Neither of those things has anything to do with quality. I haven't heard anything about the spinner sets being "bad". Only serious problem I know about them is the ridiculously high price.

Lovely model! But there are a few errors. It was hard to check for them since the Bricklink inventory seems woefully inaccurate; in the end I had to go through every piece in the order they were added in the instructions in order to be sure of what was in fact an error. Bricklink says there should be only two 2x2 45 degree inverse slopes (piece 3660); your model has four. According to Bricklink and the instructions, two of these are supposed to instead be 2x2 bricks (piece 3003). You have two 4x10 black plates (piece 3030) where Bricklink and the instructions say you should have one 4x10 black plate and one 4x8 black plate. The 1x6 arch piece should be part 3455 rather than 92950. Great work on this beautiful set!

Well, there's still the problem that not all parts in that color on Bricklink are listed as Flat Silver. Some are listed as Pearl Light Gray, some are listed as Metallic Silver, and some (inexplicably) are listed as Pearl Dark Gray. Still, for assembling a wanted list it should suffice given that nowadays they're doing a slightly better job with labeling that color consistently as flat silver (there are still some egregious errors in PotC set inventories, of course).