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Subject: 
If It Ain't Broke...
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.general
Date: 
Thu, 20 Nov 2003 19:43:04 GMT
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The best (only?) good thing anyone has managed to say about the impending color
change is that it will open up new building possibilities.  I fail to see how a
very slight change to a color does this.  The limited LEGO palette has always
been an approximation of the real world (when's the last time YOU saw a yellow
building?) so changing Grey to Neo Grey (for example) doesn't do anything new
for me.  I already have trouble distinguishing between Grey and Very Light Grey
until they are sitting side-by-side, then it jumps out at you.

The other grey changes are the same.  They are not dramatic enough to do
anything that your imagination shouldn't already be doing for you.  The change
from Brown to Caramel/Poop is the only one that introduces a "new" color, so why
not just roll out one new color and be done with it?

I can think of three possible reasons why TLC might have chosen to make this
change:
1. They hired some graphic artist fresh out of school who looked at the existing
color palette and said "Eeeeww!  They should have done this instead..."
2. They decided that they could shave a penny off the manufacturing cost of
every billion bricks by eliminating some dye from the process.
3. They realized that avid collectors would treat these as new colors entirely
and would run around buying them by the kiloton to complete our collections.

Not to be too cynical, but it is this third possibility that makes the most
sense.

I am astounded that the company would make a change like this apparently without
talking even to their own people about it.  Jake seems to have been completely
blindsided by this, the new colors were already in production before they told
him, and it was an AFOL who first noticed the change.  I'm sure Jake is too
loyal to his employer to tell us how he really feels about this, but I'll bet he
was none too happy to find out that he had a big old bottle of snake oil to get
us to swallow.  Every time it looks like TLC is getting more sensitive to the
AFOL market they turn around and do something collossally insensitive like this.

Will this drive me away from the hobby?  Of course not.  But it has convinced me
to do what I probably should have done a long time ago-- stop buying new brick
and sort/use the brick I already have.  I'll give them a year to figure out that
they made a huge mistake before I buy any of the "improved" colors.  If after
that amount of time they still haven't corrected their error, well, maybe I'll
suck it up and start collecting again.

Meanwhile, I've got some building to do...

- Chris.



Message has 2 Replies:
  Re: If It Ain't Broke...
 
(...) (21 years ago, 20-Nov-03, to lugnet.general)
  Re: If It Ain't Broke...
 
"Chris Phillips" <drvegetable@attbi.com> wrote in message news:Hoo1Fs.1E9C@lugnet.com... (...) color (...) how a (...) always (...) yellow (...) new (...) Grey (...) change (...) so why (...) this (...) existing (...) of (...) entirely (...) (...) (21 years ago, 21-Nov-03, to lugnet.general)

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