danny316p

Dangit. I like the design, but I can't spend $20 on a size too small (I'd need 2XL).

K9 and the Twelfth Doctor? I think they may have spoiled something in the show here...

If we don't see our size, should we assume we won't be able to get that size?

Related: the shirt sizes don't happen to run on the large size, do they?

FWIW, LEGO actually tests the strength of set designs and part connection using an oven, so it can take much more heat than advertised.

I have no directly applicable advice, this seems to be the only sort of damage I've never had to suffer through myself yet. Why do I feel like I'm jinxing myself here?

This really isn't anything to worry about - the same thing happened when the Atlantis sets were new. The dominant theory over the years in the System world was that Target does these things as a publicity stunt - they know we'll all be talking about going into Target, and some of us might buy something else while we're there. What's a few bucks off a LEGO set when they can buy themselves viral word-of-mouth advertising?

As one of our resident old fogies, I still remember when people were angry that Johnny Thunder came in nearly every Adventurers set, looking exactly the same. That said, the newer version of him from the movie is a nice step up - and slightly ironic, since there was nothing stopping LEGO from putting back printing on Johnny Thunder's torso in the first place (1998 was the year that both Adventurers and back printing debuted).

I think it's safe to say that if the Adventurers were ever going to be revived, it would have been for the Pharoah's Quest line. Oh, and arguably, Indiana Jones should count as the new Adventurers, since Johnny Thunder did appear in such Studios sets as "Temple of Gloom".

Sadly worth noting: Pharoah's Quest underperformed. I know I love the kits, bought most of them when they were new, and also bought multiples when they were clearanced out - but the reason I was able to buy kits by the dozen at 50% off is because people weren't buying them at full price. Somewhat justified in the high price-per-part ratio for the Scorpion Pyramid, but even the less expensive sets were not that popular. Sometimes people just don't have good tastes.

 

The parts look fantastic, and the sets aren't bad either. I'm a little distracted by the Detective's Office release, though (not to mention all the other great sets out lately), and it might be a few months before I actually pick these up.

That should be OK, because they're not coming out until March, so you've got a few months to wait.

 

Don't mind me, I lost my mind a while back...

The parts look fantastic, and the sets aren't bad either. I'm a little distracted by the Detective's Office release, though (not to mention all the other great sets out lately), and it might be a few months before I actually pick these up.

Just unstructured creativity.

See also: the LEGO Movie sets. It drives me crazy that some people love the movie sets and still hate Time Cruisers.

I feel a need to tell you crazy kids to get off my lawn. I think the oldest sets mentioned so far only go back to 1998. Some of us own sets going back to 1963.

LUGNET keeps records of their members' best-rated sets, and sends out a top 100 every month. There's very little to argue with on the list, but in case you hadn't seen it: http://news.lugnet.com/admin/statistics/?n=15973 - pretty much any vintage set that shows up there is worth picking up (BrickLink/ebay/convention vendors/yardsales/etc) if you can get it at a good price. On the trolling "kids these days" front, they still don't have anything in their top 100 from before 1978 (to be fair, that was the first year of classic Space and modern minifigures - and they didn't count 375).

It's easy to do cool things with larger sets, so understandably the most expensive sets tend to dominate the top, be some of the best, and provide an excuse for the bias towards newer kits (since 1000+ piece kits used to be rare).

For my part, 8880 Super Car (1994) is a favorite, and probably the most technically accurate vehicle they've put in a set. Newer attempts on the Super Car concept have actually had fewer working features. For a traditional playset, I'm all about 6066 Camouflaged Outpost (1987) (which apparently fell out of their top 100  ). It's got landscaping, hinges, three opening sections, old grey, a horse and 6 Forestman minifigs all in a sub-$25 set.

Most themes are pretty weird when you think about them, and most lists of this kind reveal a lack of interest in researching the topic. Let's talk about the 1979 Scala line (a girl's jewelry line guilty of most of the complaints nonsensically leveled against Friends), or the ACTUAL compatibility issues with pre-DUPLO jumbo bricks instead of people's imagined complaints with QUATRO and PRIMO (both of which are fairly easy to use for anyone with reasonable building skills and decent selection of "normal" System pieces - and some recent changes in DUPLO part molds mean that QUATRO is actually getting more useful as time goes on). HO vehicles from the 50's would be a better "weirdest theme" suggestion than anything mentioned in this thread so far.

...and Time Cruisers was an excellent source of rare/discontinued parts in sets with excellent play features at great price points. By any sensible definition, it wasn't a bad theme, and is actually more in-line with how people prefer to track down hard-to-find parts on BrickLink. The goal in designing kits is rarely to make a top-notch collector's model - it's to make an "experience" that's fun to build/play with, and to include enough special things to make people want to buy that particular set.

Znap is actually MUCH better than people give it credit for, too. It's a fairly sturdy system that is best read as a response to Mattel producing Construx sets - there was no reason for LEGO to expect Mattel's updated Construx line to be less of a competitor than the 80's Constux sets made by Fisher-Price. The first post in this thread claims that Znap is "an odd attempt to make vehicles out of the Technic line, and this was most probably the first try" - a false statement that is just short of out-and-out trolling. The Technic line has featured vehicles more than anything else since its introduction in 1977. Znap is compatible with Technic in the same sense that Bionicle is.

Of themes mentioned in this thread so far, Clikits is most likely to qualify as actually being one of the weirdest - it was actually manufactured by an outside company. Many new colors were introduced for Clikits and phased out after they only appeared in a few pieces. Most of the pieces were new molds, and poor quality control on them meant that it was a total toss-up whether a piece would work with anything else in your LEGO collection (this also necessitated a special separator element). That's before we get into the vellum and paper elements.

These things need to be judged better in context - Bionicle is probably one of the weirdest, but the theme developed in an interesting way to the point where we could spend hours discussing the merits of different waves of it. The in-house video games line of the late 90's was huge failure for the company, and unlike anything before or since. The licensed watch line had similar results (and shares some of the cost and color issues) with the Clikits line. There are also many times LEGO has gone back and crossed lines that they refused to before - they used to have very strict rules about violence in themes (it could only appear in fantasy themes, and was heavily bowdlerized there) to the extreme that LEGO avoided putting brown and green pieces in System sets because they could be used to make military camouflage. Set designers were shocked that they were allowed to use skull and crossbones imagery on the 1989 Pirates line. The 1994 Pirates line (after control of the company passed to a younger family member) was even more scandalous - Islanders and skeletons were suddenly in kits!

...you know what's really weird, considering the long history of LEGO avoiding any depictions of violence and developing sets in-house? In 1999, they did a major push for a new licensed property with "Wars" right in the title! That might be the weirdest, most out-of-character thing the company ever did! You only think it's "normal" now because LEGO Star Wars has been pretty popular for the past 15 years, and the success of that changed how they handle licensed themes.

In short, you crazy kids need to get off my lawn.

It's a darn shame that those reddish brown plates with clips are rare/non-existent. The vertical one is only in one Minecraft set, the horizontal one has never been in a set. A few other parts/colors in the Tunnel Stalker look unlikely to me, such as the octagon thing. I take it you're building in Universe mode...it'd be nice to see some of these in the brick.

This might sound like trolling, but I'm interested in knowing how many of these can actually be built (with part/color combinations that really exist).

I lurked for years without actually becoming a member. BioniLUG was what pushed me into finally joining.

The funny part was that I'd hung around the Bionicle area at BFVA a little bit every year since 2009. I think I come across as that weird stalker guy who suddenly decided to be friends with everybody and already knows weird insider stuff. This is made that much more awkward by the fact that I don't know much of the Bionicle storyline, but did build "one of those" MOCs that ends up stirring up controversy over trophy categories at BrickFair.

I'm holding on to my chrome silver hau (which I haven't even put with my other masks yet :-( ). I've got a red kakama and white pakari I can bring.

I'm curious about the gold masks - do you know what color, exactly, they are? Are you bringing all of your to-trade items to BrickFair?

They're going to use them to line the ball pit at Brickfair Virginia.

Why don't we have a ball pit, anyway? I have a stack of deboxed Star Wars planets that look like ball pit fodder anyway...

I'd actually compare the two for how they push other things in different directions - I see each forum's role in the larger LEGO/AFOL community as a huge factor in what's worth my time (and BZP wins there handily).

Take events, for example:

Try going to BrickWorld (Chicago) without first joining Eurobricks - you'll be shocked how many people come in from Europe to see other Eurobricks friends, and you'll see an enormous collaborative Eurobricks presence, parties you weren't invited to because you weren't on Eurobricks (last year they had an enormous pizza party on the convention floor just for EB members), etc. They also have a second private event every year - one of my friends who is in the cult of Eurobricks flew to Billund recently for an event limited to a few dozen people.

BZPower has a big role at BrickFair VA, but is much more open about it. At several events, there's a friendly guestbook out, the awesome convention-circuit MOC display, a LUG that anyone can join, and occasional "unofficial" events that non-BZPower members can enjoy (I was not asked about BZPower membership when buying my BZP shirt last year, and I enjoyed watching a BZP review video taping back in 2009). There are some "exclusive" activities that non-BZPower members aren't invited to (I don't know if a non-member would be allowed to join in for BZP-organized dinners or games - I suspect many AFOLs wouldn't ask), but the crowd here is polite/discrete enough to not rub people's faces in it - the dinner thing on Sunday night isn't right on the convention floor where everyone can see that they're missing out (interestingly, a few long-time AFOLs noticed the BZP group coming back last year - and I was the only person there who even knew that there was a Sunday night dinner thing). The most important thing here is probably the convention circuit MOCs - rather than take over one convention, try to win an award, and then go home, BZP actually enhances several conventions each year by making sure a niche theme is represented well.

Similarly, both forums run contests. The Bionicle Based Creation Contests are fantastic, and have shown the larger community ways to use Bionicle parts to make things besides action figures. Eurobricks regularly runs contests, but the entries don't inspire or break new ground in the same way.

From a corporate level, it's also worth mentioning the EB had a reputation (somewhat faded now, but not completely gone) for being the site that angers TLG by posting leaks of pictures and other product information. I know people who STILL avoid EB for the sake of not being "one of those leakers". BZP has a much better track record of staying on TLG's good side - I can't remember ever seeing/hearing any complaints from TLG about BZP. A few years back, the leak issue was big enough that I avoided linking to EB on my blog more than necessary.

...which somewhat invalidates my next point. BZPower has resulted in more excellent blog fodder at LMOTD over the years. Compare: http://lmotd.blogspot.com/search?q=BZPower and http://lmotd.blogspot.com/search?q=Eurobricks - I count 2 MOCs built for/described on EB and 5 built specifically for BZP contests/events. Interestingly, trying to get the same data from Brothers Brick shows BZP mainly getting mentioned in Ambassador-related news and Eurobricks mainly getting mentioned when they're first announcing a contest (as compared to when something particularly awesome has won a contest).

I suspect I'm one of the few people who actually has an enormous collection of teal/dark turquoise - mostly in system pieces, but still, we're talking thousands of pieces. I've built a SHIP using it as the main color (said SHIP is very difficult to move and not likely to make it to many shows, so I'm open to suggestions on healthier uses for the color).

I'm most annoyed about sand red being hard to find. For newer colors, I'm having as much of a hard time with the azures and lavenders as everyone else. Olive green is tough too, but at least the Parisian Restaurant has plenty of those.

In constraction, I see to be getting stuck on the different brown colors. I've been trying to build trees out of Bionicle bits for a few different projects, and color matching is a pain because some are only in old brown and others are only in dark flesh. Old grey is similarly difficult, but I usually know better than to try there (the obvious exception being my color charts).

...and of course, we all need more parts in those crazy pearlish Rahkshi colors. I hate having an interesting new color and not being able to EVER use it for more than just accents.

On a related note, Chima solved what was my biggest color problem - bright light orange. I think I bought multiple used Keetongu sets in various levels of disrepair just to get enough of that color to build something. Now it's pretty easy to come by, and in common System pieces.

Fantastic! "Everything is Batman" is one of the few things that actually is awesome.

The size feels a bit small to me. I get that it's possible to hit a high piece count with many little pieces, but it still doesn't feel like $150 worth from the pictures here. Maybe it'll look more substantial in person.

The Winter Village Market similarly felt suspiciously small (although, again, checking a parts list revealed it did have enough parts (and good parts) to meet the MSRP).

DUPLO figures are deceptive - it's very rare that you see them used for much beyond characters, but their hands accept Technic pins nicely. One of the "big ideas" I've been putting off for a long time is building a GBC module where axles are held in place by DUPLO figure hands.

I got started with the original Toa - I think it was 2002 and there were four of them in a used lot I purchased: Tahu, Pohatu, Lewa, and Kopaka.

Most useful:

DUPLO: 2 x 2 brick

System: 1x2 brick or 2x4 brick (depending on the color)

Technic: standard black friction pin

Constraction: socket (part 32174)

This might be "just me", but I find the parts I use the most/sort first/have the most of tend to be the most common parts in sets.

Least useful:

DUPLO: play tables

System: boat studs

Technic: either a CD-ROM, an adapter cable, or a "test mat"

Constraction: Toa Mahri cases. I see BrickLink does not even list this as a real part, so I guess I'll give my vote to the Galidor Module.

I've had a few of these over the years. Customer service tends to correct them quickly enough that I usually forget about it - and most of the time I've needed to call them, it's actually been a malformed piece instead of a missing piece.

First set that comes to mind for a truly missing piece is 4554 Metro Station. For malformed pieces, I definitely remember a large plate being wrong in 10182 Cafe Corner, and an anti-stud in a slope not being functional in 5978 Sphinx Secret Surprise.

We need way more micro- and neo- variations on these space themes. These are all pretty great, although I think the Insectoid did the best at capturing the feel of the original line.