Subject:
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Re: Spare parts - or - Harry Parter part duex (was: Castle Nightmare)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.castle, lugnet.general
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Date:
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Sat, 15 Nov 2003 23:54:53 GMT
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Viewed:
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1323 times
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In lugnet.castle, Anthony Sava wrote:
> But that's the real kicker of it all, isn't it?. LEGO Castle is what it is
> because we make it what it is. LEGO Castle is the fan's theme. LEGO only
> supplies the bricks. It's the same with space, with town, with trains, with all
> the known themes.
>
> I mean, take Mecha, I don't remember LEGO ever making a LEGO Mecha line? But a
> group of builders decided on building something a certain way with the parts
> available to them and gave it a name. So what's different between that and
> Castle?
>
> If the new LEGO Castle line are bionicle-esque, so what? I don't buy sets for
> the sake of the sets. I never have, I never will. Everything is only spare
> parts.
>
> In fact, I've bought about ten times more Harry Potter and Star Wars sets than I
> own Castle sets, and you don't see my kingdom suffering.
>
> LEGO can do what it wants with it's product line. If they fail, they learn from
> their error. If they succeed, so be it. We, as AFOLs, only make up less than
> 1% of all of LEGO's income (not an official number, read it somewhere, forgot,
> and now am guessing). LEGO will do what it wants with its product, and we have
> no right to demand a new set or series to the specifications of our desire. All
> we can do is suggest and cross our fingers.
>
> If you want to create change, do something positive. Email LEGO. Jake and Brad
> have both said that all emails sent to the designers and builders from the LEGO
> website are read and sent to the right people, regardless of their importance.
> Making threats isn't going to help the situation here. You can be negative, but
> be so constructively.
>
> Will I be dissappointed if the next Castle line is Bioncle? Yeah, I will be.
> Will I buy one or all of the sets? Sure, if I see usable parts. If I don't see
> usable parts, I'll pass them over like the entire Bionicle line (after having
> purchased one Bionicle set and came up with a personal decision after building
> it). It's no skin off my back. LEGO has continued to create great Star Wars
> and Harry Potter sets that have great parts, and some of the new lines have them
> too. Heck, the skateboard sets are light grey tile bulk packs!
>
> The talk of the new rounded studs worry me, but we Castlers won't be affected
> too much. Most of our work does not revolve around SNOT, and our MOCs are
> typically held together by gravity, so the grabbing strength of bricks isn't as
> important to us as it is to other themes. I hope that it's not a permanent
> thing, but if it is, we'll adapt.
>
> And color variations don't really hurt us castlers either. I mean, what castle
> have you ever seen that was truly monochromatic?
>
> A long time ago I made a Megablock [1] of myself (and alienated half of Lugnet)
> demanding that Castle deserve better than the LEGEND re-release it got in the
> Guarded Inn (I wanted an actual 'Castle,' and was never fond of the Inn). We
> must always remember that LEGO does what it thinks will help LEGO, not any
> particular theme. LEGO is a business, that's what businesses do. That's the
> joy of capitalism.
>
> You may get joy from the sets themselves, and that's great, that's your thing.
> To me, I just buy a box full of parts. Sure, I'll build the set if I've never
> owned the set before, but then it goes right to the scrap bin. And I will
> continue to buy whatever sets I see that have parts I want or can use regardless
> of theme or original purpose.
>
> Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. You are, I am. LEGO is. And if
> it's TLC's opinion that a series go a certain way, se la vi. All we can do is
> share our opinion, and it's up to them what they do with it. Let's not light
> our torches and gather our pitchforks just yet. The least you can do is wait
> for the sets to come out and make a personal judgement when you see them.
>
> --Anthony
> http://www.ozbricks.com/ikros
>
> [1] Reference to the C-C.com chat room vulgarity filter
Hi Anthony,
You have made some good points there. Well thought out. I must say I may have
been a little overemotional when I wrote that post.
Lego needs to be the one supplying the bricks, with juniorization and
pillar-brick construction, they have not been doing a good job of supplying
actual brick. I am not sure what it is like where you buy, but most of the sets
you have been purchasing for parts are not commonly discounted here in Western
Canada. With no stores like T__get and K-m__t etc... to compete with TR_ and
W_l-M__t, stores here do not have the sales we see advertised in the states.
(Fill in the Blanks, I'm not here to advertise for retail chains :) )
Without sales, off themed sets can leave you with a lot of parts you really
don't need and you end up paying a lot of money for very little substance.
One of the major problems with the introduction of a castle themed bionical line
is the loss of shelf space to more "brick free" sets. With lines like NBA and
NHL and of course Bionical, we are seeing a lot less actual brick on the
shelves. With the dramatic cuts in shelf space I have seen lately at a lot of
large retailers, we can't afford more shelf space devoted to non-brick sets. The
introduction of another line of sets like these takes away from our ability to
purchase sets to get the brick we need for our MOCs. The new designer lines have
been a step in the right direction as far a set design and bringing creativity
back to kids, but where are the bricks for buildings? These are the faults that
make me rail against the introduction of another Bionical line, especially in my
favored theme.
I have yet to build and keep a set for the sake of the set, I am not a
collector, but a castle set will always have more value to a castle builder than
say a sports or racing set would. With less and less brick sets being produced,
those of us with limited access to Shop@home and pick-a-brick stores are going
to find it hard to continue growing our collections. Bricklink is an option and
I frequent it often, but if you do a search on bricklink, it is very hard on the
wallet when it comes to purchasing quantities of light and dark grey brick.
That being said, I didn't mean to start a big argument here and I will take my
retail protest and keep it local. Sometimes when we post something we aren't
aware just how opinionated everyone else is too. :)
WL
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