Subject:
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Re: what makes us different?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.pirates
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Date:
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Wed, 9 Jul 2003 17:26:23 GMT
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Viewed:
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2765 times
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In lugnet.pirates, Richie Dulin wrote:
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I reckon there are a few reasons:
1. Building decent ships is a challenge, and tends to involve some difficult
to find parts.
2. There is less popular culture inspiration for piratic
stuff than for space (or even castle or town).
3. There is a generally high
standard for MOCs on .pirates.
4. Space and Castle are so much easier to
build for.
5. There aren’t that many .pirate fans.
To elaborate:
1. Building decent ships is a challenge, and tends to involve some difficult
to find parts.
Building a decent looking sailed vessel is a challenge. There are curves,
there is rigging, there are sails. Couple this with a limited supply of parts
(<10 lego sets involving decently large sailed vessels), and that those sets
are (or at least have been) discontinued. It’s difficult to get parts to
build with - but not impossible (I have acquired all the ship parts used in
the Port Brique vessels since the official demise of the pirate line, and I
haven’t even had to pay a fortune for them).
What ship specific parts are there?
5 mast pieces, three hull pieces (in two widths), three rigging pieces, an
anchor and some sails.
2. There is less popular culture inspiration for piratic stuff than for
space (or even castle or town).
Even once the parts problems are overcome, where does the inspiration come
from. How many great space movies are there? How many great pirate-type
movies are there?
While we might see a ripple of interest in pirates as a result of Pirates of
the Carribean and Master and Commander, we can’t seriously expect much
compared to the SW saga and LOTR.
There’s the recent Hornblower series, of course, fairly popular, but didn’t
do much for the building of sailing ships (although my Intracty leant very
heavily on the Hotspur).
Everyone seems to know what a battlement is - but who knows where the mizzen
mast goes? Most people can tell you what a lightsabre is - but who’s heard of
a boarding axe? People know about chainmail, but what about chain shot? In
fact, Star Wars gave us the ion cannon, but who knows much about iron cannon?
3. There is a generally high standard for MOCs on .pirates.
It may be an elitist argument, but the standard for MOCs on .pirates is high.
Look at the recent vessels - Stephen Rowe’s
British and French
ships and Mike Swansons
Mort de la Mare for
instance. They are, IMHO anway, very nice work.
It might be a bit daunting posting something not quite up to that standard...
I know I wasn’t sure about posting about
Hornriker’s cutter (but not
just for reasons of standard) or even the
Digne for that matter.
4. Space and Castle are so much easier to build for.
This point carries over from 1 and 2 above. It’s relatively easy to build
a half-way decent spaceship, or castle for that matter. With space you can
lean into space-opera, with castle into fantasy, but with sailing ships
you’re stuck with certain matters of physics, scale and history (although, as
the French Squadron of Port Brique will tell you, you can bend history a
bit).
How do you build a castle that’s bigger and better than the last one? Much
the same as the last one, you just put more bricks on more baseboards (it’s
actually a bit trickier than this, but by-and-large, castles do scale up
well).
How do you build a spaceship that’s bigger and better than the last one?
Well, it’s trickier than a castle, but basically, you can just build things a
bit bigger, a few more modules and so on. More difficult than a castle... but
not too much more.
How do you build a tall ship that’s bigger and better than the last one?
Here, you run into problems. Is there a hull size wider than a wide hull?, Do
ships with too many centre sections look like canoes? How tall can you get
those masts anyway? Why don’t the ratlines reach the fighting tops anymore?
How is that tiny anchor going to hold the light frigate in anything more than
a gentle breeze? Where can you get a decently large gaff sail (or any gaff
tops’l, or how about a mains’l of a decent size)? A ship’s boat larger than a
rowboat?
These can all be overcome, but it’s just not as straightforward as other
themes.
5. There just aren’t that many .pirate fans.
It’s an outworking of 2 particularly, and 1 as well, but there just
aren’t that many .pirate fans around. (But let’s not have a rollcall to find
out! :-) )
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Hear Hear! great coverage of all the issues. you make some very powerful
points. just to add my own to your thoughts: building ships is a challenge, the
parts are relatively scarce, and when they do come up, they can be expensive.
what puzzles me though, (i ebay to find all my parts) is that all the pirate
ship part auctions sell. people are buying the parts required to build ships,
but the ships themselves are no where to be found online. obviously, not
everyone who builds posts online, but one would imagine there would be more out
there. second, the BSB was voted in as a lego legend, so people must like the
pirate line at some level, so why are more not into building for it? are they
perhaps, happy with their stock BSB? (a great ship, IMO the best, but one can
always improve on lego sets :-) ) so, the interest in pirates is there, but
interest in building MOC ships needs to be cultivated.
the elitest argument has a very large ring of truth to it. on average, the
quality of models posted on .pirates is high, and that can be intimidating. but,
one’s model does not have to be better than the one before it, in reality, whos
to say that some designs are better than others? i think that i may say that, we
just like seeing other peoples MOC’s, regardless of if they are not the biggest
or best, (or even if they are), for in viewing others creations, one may get
ideas for ones own future creations, or even how to modify a current one. hey,
you could even call posting “sharing information”, because perhaps you found a
way to make a better mousetrap, and by posting it, it will not only generate
interest, but will benefit others in their creations.
the other arguments Mr Dulin makes are dead on. i have nothing to add to them.
but, the moral of the story, is: if you have a creation, POST IT! we love to see
them, whether it be your first one, or your 100th one, it matters not.
thanks!
steve
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Cheers
Richie Dulin
| | Port Brique
Somewhere in the South Pacifique
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| | Misérable
Building a safer South Pacifique
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Message has 3 Replies:
 | | Re: what makes us different?
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| (...) Big Snip! (...) Hi Guys, Nice Discussion! I agree with most of what's been said. I think that ship building requires that you adhere to certain accepted standards or people won't accept it as a ship! In space you can pretty much build anything (...) (21 years ago, 9-Jul-03, to lugnet.pirates, FTX)
| | | Re: what makes us different?
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| (...) I agree that the BSB is the best, my BSB is still mostly intact (though the red gun port lids have been replaced by white ones... the red being needed elsewhere). My BSB is scheduled for a rebuild, to modernise it a bit - and upgun it alot. I (...) (21 years ago, 10-Jul-03, to lugnet.pirates, FTX)
| | | Re: what makes us different?
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| In lugnet.pirates, Stephen Rowe wrote: <snip> (...) I might just take that to heart. All the stuff I see posted on pirates is cool, but out of my league brick-&-skillwise, so I generally build smaller stuff. Current project is a Spanish caravel, (...) (21 years ago, 12-Jul-03, to lugnet.pirates)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: what makes us different?
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| (...) I reckon there are a few reasons: 1. Building decent ships is a challenge, and tends to involve some difficult to find parts. 2. There is less popular culture inspiration for piratic stuff than for space (or even castle or town). 3. There is a (...) (21 years ago, 9-Jul-03, to lugnet.pirates, FTX)
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