From the Simpsons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fcyva_ltKug
Lego has changed since we were kids (2014)
281–290 of 301 posts
Re: Lego has changed since we were kids (2014)
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, some things are really difficult to do any better with standard pieces but honestly that can't be excuse. The quality of pieces that xingbao can deliver is simply not up to the task and they should have expected that. Plus the pressure that is put in the pieces by the weight of the models might cause them not age well. So the benefit of using standard pieces might not be that great in this case. As for the revi…
i have read through the comments. most complain about the price and the hanging nacells. none of the commenters have built this model yet. most sound self righteous and they were never going to get this thing anyways. i'll wait until i see more reviews from people who actually built the thing. maybe i am biased towards lego alternatives, but i don't think that the same model with original lego bricks is going to be a…
Yeah, fair enough.
I had my own mid-sized Enterprise-A falling apart multiple times when I tried to pose her for photos. I dread having guests over that want to take a closer look/touch it so even as a display model it does not work for my personal need. I could just have had bad luck though.
My point is not that it is a bad model for people that know what to expect. I had fun building her but that people that just like Star Trek and might buy their first Bluebrixx set might have a very bad time.
I hope they will introduce sets that play more to their strengths, that is architecture. Mini figure scale bridge and all.
Again, I love Bluebrixx and I hope they succeed but no need to sugar coat them. They have serious issues when it comes to quality control and professionalism. You can tell from their videos where they are as surprised by the set they are reviewing as the viewer. Zero preparation and the sets are sometimes not even properly assembled. Even had signs upside down for the Chinese modular buildings.
Re: Lego has changed since we were kids (2014)
#283I agree with some of this. But also, my mostly complete Ice Planet set has been my singularly most cherished toy ever. I still have it today.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with well structured sets with instructions. As long as they use enough standard pieces to be able to mutate.
Re: Lego has changed since we were kids (2014)
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the post: > Now: The bricks still exist, obviously, but now each set contains many odd shapes that are specific to that particular set and do not work with any other creation. To further this point, there are central components like motored hubs that are only available to specific sets and can't be bought as individual pieces. A lot of people will point at token actions Lego still does that match the old philoso…
Well sure, new pieces and specialized pieces are going to be sold in the set they work with. The point is, parents are choosing to buy the new sets with specialized pieces. You can also see in the article the points about the parents being frustrated while building, sad when the set is destroyed, etc. So yeah, Lego is marketing and making profit, but it's the parents that drive/enable that. As stated before, we see t…
There's different categories of what you call "specialized" pieces though. Some only make sense in a specific set (e.g. a light saber piece in a Star Wars set), and some are completely generic but only exist in the sets that couldn't work without them.
It might be different now, but for a while you couldn't get the 4 ports Power Control Hub outside of 2 or 3 sets. You could buy weaker and bulkier hubs separately, but the specific smaller new generation hub only came in sets.
It's interesting listening to Lego designer interviews, when asked about future plans they'll often mention that some development is totally possible, they'll just have to wait for a set that makes use of it.
Re: Lego has changed since we were kids (2014)
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
An alternative viewpoint: Minecraft is Lego, and Lego isn't. When there were fewer themed Lego sets, Lego was a sandbox. You had a mish-mash of generic pieces and your creativity. Modern Lego sets are extremely tailored, both in theme and with sets having bespoke pieces - even if you throw all of your newer sets together in a pile (which people tend not to because each is supposed to be a thing), the pieces aren't as…
There are a lot fewer bespoke parts than you might think. Creating new molds is expensive and if you look closer you'll see that odd shapes are reused for different purposes in different sets.
For some firsthand examples, I have a few of the "botanical" sets, and they have things like Technic wing/fin pieces for leaves, flowers made out of car hoods and trunks, and pink frogs used en masse for cherry blossoms.
Re: Lego has changed since we were kids (2014)
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
A simple spaceship https://www.lego.com/en-be/product/space-shuttle-adventure-3...
You have to sift through pages to find this one and it is 50 euro for a small set.
There's few other generic-ish space sets you can find just by putting "space" into the search bar on the Lego site:
https://www.lego.com/en-be/product/lunar-roving-vehicle-6034... (cheaper, similar play value)
https://www.lego.com/en-be/product/lunar-space-station-60349 (slightly more expensive, bigger)
https://www.lego.com/en-be/product/lunar-research-base-60350 (more expensive, but much bigger)
The space sets are definitely there in general, they're just a sub-theme of "City" now for some reason.
There's also a few space fantasy sets under the Monkie Kid line, like https://www.lego.com/en-be/product/chang-e-moon-cake-factory... and its rabbit-piloted moon mecha.
Re: Lego has changed since we were kids (2014)
#287Genuinely curious: Has anyone here personally experienced a The old "build from the bottom" Lego Technic was just so inviting for technical tinkering. We built all kinds of machinery out of them. Not kids any more on this occasion; we dug out the Legos from the late 1970s to play with them just for fun once we were grown up. But representative. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw3dUbRfMSw The "What it is, is beautiful…
Technic hasn't gone away at all. They've got everything ranging from the old-fashioned air hydraulics (https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/heavy-duty-tow-truck-4212..., notice all the gearing designed into the tow assembly so it can be genuinely load-bearing) all the way up to RC vehicles that are entirely brick-built outside of the motor (https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/app-controlled-cat-d11-bu...).
Re: Lego has changed since we were kids (2014)
#288I don't remember her name but I once met an experienced market researcher about 10 years ago who worked for Lego in the 80's and 90's to study their users and figure out how to grow the company. She basically went on to explain the complete strategy that you still see them executing. Lego identified that at the core, there are 4 different needs.
1. Kids who like to imagine and create characters on their own and build Legos they can play with. This is typically at an early age. Hence the generic sets around trains, cars, dollhouses, etc.
2. Kids who love their favorite characters and play with them - hence Lego did partnerships with Marvel, StarWars, Disney, etc.
3. Kids who like to display their work with pride, build it once and never touch it again - hence the architecture series.
4. Kids who like to build and rebuild different things from the same set - hence Lego technic.
She used Kids to mean not just by age but anyone who is a kid at heart :) After hearing it, I can't unsee it in a Lego store and am always amazed at the genius of doing market research. We have glorified these things in startups, but when done properly it helps any company.
Re: Lego has changed since we were kids (2014)
#289If you don't like the licensed sets, or even sets with instruction books, then you're still covered. Lego, Mega Bloks, and others have buckets or bags of just parts. To stick to Lego without a themed set, look for The Lego Classic line. If you want them as a themed set but maybe without a media license, there's the Lego Creator line (which does include some licensed material like the Bond 007 Aston Martin DB5). Kit 1…
It is a real pleasure to see old-school lego sets at costco - 1500 piece set with no theme.
Re: Lego has changed since we were kids (2014)
#290I really dislike all the bizarre "lego ain't what they used to be!" comments - they honestly come from people who haven't spent time with modern legos. For reference I was born in 1970 and played with legos probably from 1975-1985, and then seriously picked it up again in 2012 or so when my son was old enough to play with them. People paint this picture of these new legos that are made up of like 5 parts that you jus…
For me, the biggest difference between Legos when you and I were kids and now is that the sheer number of different pieces makes it too often nearly impossible to find the piece you need when building something from "the pile". My kids also have a lot of Legos (by volume, more than I ever had). When engaging in free play (i.e. not building a new set from the instructions), I find that the things they make tend to be…
> I find that the things they make tend to be much smaller than many of the things I built when I was a kid.
Could this be that the constructions are the same scale but you have gotten bigger?