Subject:
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Re: LEGO Factory impressions
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.cad
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Date:
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Fri, 26 Aug 2005 05:06:21 GMT
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Viewed:
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3702 times
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In lugnet.cad, Joe Strout wrote:
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Well, I’ve built my first LDD model (a Railroad Crossing sign) and uploaded
it to LEGO.com. Some initial impressions:
1. LDD is very frustrating if you’re trying to do anything even slightly
nonstandard with the parts. In my example, I want to attach the crossing
arms, which are rotated at 45 degrees, to an unrotated 1x1 brick (attached to
a lantern brick). This appears impossible. I spent probably 10 minutes
futzing with this last step, which I earlier did in about 30 seconds in
Bricksmith. I finally gave up, and just put the crossing “close enough” but
not actually attached.
2. The “instructions” that LDD generates are not very good. I checked the
“Build Up From Base” option in Preferences, and it still had me positioning
three parts floating in midair in step 3, to be connected to other things in
step 4. From this I conclude that the LEGO software engineering team has
been operating from a top-secret space station in orbit about the Earth, or
possibly Mars.
3. The part selection is a little frustrating too; it doesn’t even have any
1x1 black bricks, nor brown lantern brick. I had to stick a black lantern
brick at the top of my brown post, which looks rather dumb. I know, they’re
planning to add more parts, but I thought they’d at least pick a handful of
useful colors, and make sure all the standard bricks are provided in them.
That doesn’t seem to be the case, at least not yet.
4. Perhaps the most disappointing realization: my 13-piece model costs $18.95
from S@H. Yes, it also comes with 401 extra parts, but I didn’t want 401
extra parts — I wanted my 13-piece model.
The new LEGO Factory is an impressive beginning, and the poor instructions
really aren’t a big deal. But the other limitations above conspire to really
limit what we’ll be able to do with this.
Best,
– Joe
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A few nits of my own:
- The cursor no longer changes to reflect what tool you are using. In 1.3, if you pressed ‘d’ for the clone tool, the cursor switched to a little version of the clone icon. Now the only indication is that the current tool’s button is highlighted.
- The “all parts, any color” palette is gone - as far as I can tell. There is a graphic for it in the LDD folder, but I can’t figure out any way to enable it. No mention of it in the docs, either.
- The autoconnect seems to be dumber than in 1.3 (when it was actually fairly decent), and even more dependent on the view. The only way I could stick a 1x1 round plate between four studs was to rotate all the way to a top-down view and zoom in.
- Since the price of your model is determined by how many bags of parts you use, why not break up the palettes by bag instead of by set? Then you could just add the parts you need instead of a whole palette - and end up with a lot fewer extra parts.
- Uploading a model just to get the price is ridiculous. TLG: give us the list of parts in each bag, and explain the pricing structure.
At present, LDD 1.4 fails at providing a reasonable way to order custom sets, as
well as being a step backwards from 1.3 in terms of utility and usability.
Marc Nelson Jr.
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: LEGO Factory impressions
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| (...) Forgot one: Why is there a limit of one per customer when buying custom LEGO Factory sets? Marc Nelson Jr. (URL) Marc's Creations>> (19 years ago, 26-Aug-05, to lugnet.cad, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | LEGO Factory impressions
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| Well, I've built my first LDD model (a Railroad Crossing sign) and uploaded it to LEGO.com. Some initial impressions: 1. LDD is very frustrating if you're trying to do anything even slightly nonstandard with the parts. In my example, I want to (...) (19 years ago, 26-Aug-05, to lugnet.cad, FTX) !
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