Grrr

The no back thing has never been an issue for me - almost every lego building produced has no back - to me it's as much part of the lego world as yellow people. It also allows for greater access and easily visible details.

It is starting to approach the quality of fright nights sets - but still not near the quality of even teh dragon knights sets we had a few years back. The main thing for me however is that while the set design may not be the greatest - at least the parts/figs are going to be integratable into what I build these days - no jellies for instance (I mean, I don't build 12 faction mocs anyway, so always plunder the other factions parts).

OK, so at anything past around 2 o'clock the motor spins - albeit very slowly at that point. Lights get quite bright quite quickly though. At the low settings the motor doesn't seem to have a lot of torque though. The switch element (pole reverser - http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/6551 ) works a treat to open/close 9V circuits.

As a town fan I am definately excited, in particular regarding next years sets. A few I will still not buy due to large pieces issues (7998 tipper truck for instance), but overall I'm loving the quality of the sets - the brickbuilt platform in the 7997 train station for instance looks like a great source of basic parts (and I do need more bricks in bley now that it is here to stay). The only thing that I don't like, and makes me hesitant about the new sets is scaling. Some of my favourity lego vehicles are based off the 4 wide and 5 wide platforms. 6539 and 6693 are two examples - these vehicles were to me in scale with minifigs - the thing is though, the car with the new octan station is larger then the octan tanker was with the last station. The new 8 wide vehicles are even getting too wide to stay on their side of the road, and the 7998 truck should not exceed the size of my old 4.5V trains - that is ludicrous. As a result I will buy the better sets, but many of the larger scaled sets will be omited from my purchases due to not fitting with the lego I have already. I think that lego needs to get its town scaling settled again. If you look at the sets of the 80's/early 90's - all models were relatively in scale to each other, regardless of whether they were a house, car, or fire station.

If I remember correctly it does - I will dig out my transformer tommorrow and have a look for you.

The other thing to remember is that the cost of production (and thereby the balance left for profit) is directly dependant on the price of OIL. Bear in mind that plastic is made out of oil, and that to get these wonderful boxes which are half full of air to us; they need oil. As we all know - oil is a scarce product, and overall; the price can and will only go up in the long term (though there will definately be ups and downs). In all reality, development costs, and the administration/wages for their 5000 odd staff can't be that high compared to the actual cost of the plastic and paper that make up the sets - and the transport costs. Unfortunately I can't really see any way to get plastic/paper any cheap to TLC - I wonder if somehow they can recieve other's recyclable plastics and use those - though I doubt this is possible with the same quality levels. Logistics and transport definately show room for improvement. If I use S@H to get lego here in NZ, I pay near half the price of the set in freight - air freight - even though there is a central warehouse here in NZ that distributes lego to toystores - one has to wonder why they can't send it directly from there - and have the lego brought in by boat (which is a lot cheaper and more environmentally friendly) - as well as making the product cheaper and thereby more desirable. They could even take some of the savings and put them straight into their profit pot. To be honest I doubt we will ever see lego again as it was during the GKC era - but we can wait and hope. I do believe that we need to go back to the unified lego system (miniland, legoland, lego system), and have the product brand rebuild itself rather then compete against itself. I have also seen how godawful lego's distribution here in NZ is at the moment - it is hard to find any particular sets, shops run low on stock, and don't stock a complete range - as a result many have stopped stocking it completely. Worse still, with the cost cuts made in packaging, the lego sets are often shop soiled and look worse then ever - I now frequently see large lego sets ducttaped shut and in the bargain bin. I would suggest going back to the smaller packaging of the past, which will save drastically in freight costs, and also retain more structural integrity. Instead of making the boxes appeal due to their enormous size (only to disappoint when they are found half empty), I would suggest going back to the large models that used to be in every store - these are a lot better then any box art will ever be - particularly when motorized and well setup. Overall however - I do feel that the core product quality is this year finally returning to a level that it was some time ago, sets with high part counts (particularly of basic elements), and good solid model design. I do feel that Lego is moving on from the issues after GKC's death - overdiversification (how many times have they stung themselves on the girls' market), over marketing, and bad design decisions.

Now that has got to be the best moc idea I have seen in a while - I was wondering where to go with my next project (as I have recently disasembled all my futuron sets). As a lego theme it would be great - though modularity would be the ultimate issue. It would also be great reason to see the return of the classic crater plates that I love so much and need more of.

I do like the changes - but I also hope they aren't making sights like this: more common. There is nothing that annoys me more then pages upon pages of near empty posts - and worse still when they resusitate old threads.

I have come accross a seller here in NZ who still has a couple of new ones : - http://www.trademe.co.nz/Toys-models/Lego-...on-83608308.htm She has multiple auctions of these.

Lego only has 4500 employees worldwide? - That's insane - and seems to be dropping at a rate of knots. 59 million should be a nice cashflow injection - particularly as everything seems to be outsourced now so their unforseen costs can be that high anymore.

I'm not so sure on that - Have you seen the amount of MISB 6399's still floating around - it's insane. And in this we are talking about what is on of the most admired sets of all time (have a look at how many people want it on various wanted lists). I think lego should do longer production runs of some current sets however - often I want to get a set a month after release only to find it is sold out, and very difficult to back order. In regards to legends - I think they were a real mixed bag for lego. The castles ones sold like hotcakes - which is unsurprising as they are great parts packs and some of the best sets in history. Other sets like the town main street didn't sell that well at all (though arguably this was an awful choice for a legend). I think lego would do better making legends or similar rereleases of some smaller sets - 6693 comes to mind for instance - that truck still looks as modern as it did 20 years ago. It's a pity they've moved everything to 6/8 wide in the way of vehicles.

When I read a comment a few weeks ago about combining the worst elements of UFO and Life on Mars - I honestly thought that they were kidding - but no :(. Anyway - space is probably my lowest priority theme at the moment - and I still need to finish off my classic space/futuron collection - so I'll survive in the meantime. Thankfully the new Castle, Creator, Technic and Town sets are neat :). There are a few good new pieces in these sets which will be good for mocs - but the problem is I won't be buying the sets (except maybe a few years down the line second hand for quarter of their original price).

I'm in love with that bulldozer. The scaling is very nice - and will fit nicely next to 8459 (my favourite technic set of all time). The RC electric system is awesome, and I can definately see if being of use in mocs assuming it is still 9V. Being infrared, the range isn't going to be too great, but neither was the range on the 120cm cords that came with my control centre for that matter. It is also nice that they are using the same motors/recievers etc in the creator sets - so it shouldn't be a biggie to build up a collection of the pieces. (I am hoping that multiple sets of infrared recievers will be ok in the same model though). And if the pc game that comes bundled with the bulldozer is any good - all the greater :).

I'd been looking for a set to bolster my collection of tan pieces - and that house is just wicked. I will get a couple. The ferris wheel is nice - but I will wait to see it in person, and the dinosaur is take it or leave it. Definately up for a couple of those houses though - those pieces can be used to make an excellent set of terraced houses.

And we have a picture of the main castle too :):

You actually use the lego s@h in NZ? - I always found the shipping to be extremely steep. If you are doing an order let me know, there are a few bits and pieces that I wouldn't mind getting.

Something like this company will be what you are after - http://www.emachineshop.com/ The pricing will vary by several hundred % from one supplier to another - so I would suggest shopping around. I have had a few cogs made for an engineering project at uni - was no big deal, ended up costing around 50c each. This was from a local supplier. I would suggest having a look through the yellowpages, and emailing a few local people with what you would like to do. Some will put it in the too hard basket, but some will be able to help you out at little cost. When you have found a supplier who can do it for you - find out what software format they prefer, and design your parts appropriately. Something like Solidworks is probably the best bet for designing the parts.

Just sorting through my lego made me remember one of my regrets in this regard. Some time ago my local kmart had accidentally misentered the price of 6027 on their computers. They were selling for $1.09 rather then $10.99. At the time I thought 5 would be enough. They had around 30 of them. I now wish that I had bought all of them :(.

I made some quite clunky transformer mocs when I was a kid - I wonder if I still have pics somewhere.

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=203192 They are in the same folder as his above imperial army picture :).

As has been said by many before me in this thread, the civil war will just be very similar to the Western theme (not that I have any issue with more western sets mind). I think lego would be very hesitant to start selling military themed toys - particularly were these can be directly linked to any event or locale. It makes awful business sense to sell a product which actively divides your market. The other big problem is that when you go for a big story as a theme - you very quickly run out of material. You can't really repeat the same sets easily or the people who bought the first generation set won't buy the second, and you can't not have a set at any time of all the major events (city without a fire station would just be stupid for instance - but how many kids want two fire stations. The only reason it works for town is that at any time there are ~6 very large sets, which should keep a kid going until they grow out of lego; small themes don't have this luxury however). I also think that lego is best to stick to characature/romantisism of events, as then it will never get pinged for things being wrong. Some of the Star Wars sets have very big discrepancies with those in the movie, leading to them not selling sell - but how many of us have a very defined idea on what a pirate ship or a constega wagon looks like? To be honest I think the overall lack of history/adventure movies in the recent past has really affected lego's theme building options - while there are movies of these genr

You might want to take a bit of care with your statistics. The average pay in NZ is closer to NZ$40k (www.stats.govt.nz). The average net surplus/deficit after costa of living are deducted are acutally better in NZ than in the states (on average, there are some very rich and very poor people living there). On average Lego prices in NZ are around 20% higher then in the US (based off price comparisons on Lego.com, xe.com for currency conversions).

I bought a 6987 for xmas for myself :). Other then that - all sorts of stuff: A knitted jersey, wooden chopping board, wasgij puzzle, rice rissotto cookbook, a painting, some garden tools, solar garden lights, feijoa trees - and monies - which will be used to finance further lego.

All the 9v items that I have used (first 2 gen 9V motors, micromotors, light, sound modules, even trains) will run off the speed regulartor, or even off the old square battery boxes. I still use the original technic control center for this purpose. From what I have found, any 9v power source will as many items as you want it to, though the motors lose torque and the lights dim (eventually going down to nothing). The train regulator has the least issues in this regard however, being mains powered. What I have also found is that on a heavy load one can increase the voltage going in (though do this at your own risk) to reduce these effects. (I use a third party multivoltage adapter for mine as my only regulator has a british plug on it).

I almost get the impression that who-ever is scanning them may have legitimate access to the catalog, but is not in a position were they are supposed to be distributing it - therefore doing scanning it discretely.