Sloppy posted:Also lovely Hot Wheels. Only Matchbox had strong axles that wouldn't get bent after like a week. Sadly they all are terrible these days. Didn't they make Tyco as well? Aw poo poo -- I just realized that the Duplo I had as a child were a sham. They were Tyco brand And no, Tyco has been a division of Mattel since 1997.
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# ? Mar 1, 2014 01:20 |
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# ? Jun 3, 2024 22:07 |
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Sloppy posted:Also lovely Hot Wheels. Only Matchbox had strong axles that wouldn't get bent after like a week. Sadly they all are terrible these days. Didn't they make Tyco as well? Mattel owns Hot Wheels, their corporate office is a couple blocks from my house and they have a huge toystore in the lobby. Every wednesday they have xx% off certain items too, which is cool.
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# ? Mar 1, 2014 01:22 |
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Man, trying to complete with Lego is dumb. They've got name recognition, all the most popular IPs, and top notch quality. The best thing to try and do is compete around them.
Jonas Albrecht fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Mar 1, 2014 |
# ? Mar 1, 2014 01:25 |
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That's pretty much exactly what they do with the CoD and Halo licenses.
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# ? Mar 1, 2014 01:33 |
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Crotch Fruit posted:Of course not the old 4 stud wide, I mean 6 stud wide and with a 1930s look. Then be more specific next time. Classic means two things in lego speak. The Wreckage Road set has a pretty cool car, but it's 8 studs wide. And not 1930's. But I could see it working with some modifications.
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# ? Mar 1, 2014 01:33 |
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Lego Movie sets have started to crop up in Australia, by the way.
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# ? Mar 1, 2014 07:32 |
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Still way, way before the movie will ever show up here.
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# ? Mar 1, 2014 08:08 |
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Matel buying Mega Brands? Obviously that will get them Mega Bloks, and Rose Art as mentioned previously in the thread. According to Mega Brands website, they also own "Mega Puzzles" (just traditional cardboard 2D puzzles) and "Board Dude" (looks like just a regular cork board to pin poo poo too). Mattel owns Hot Wheels, and Matchbox already (since '97), and the key difference between Hot Wheels and Matchbox was that Matchbox was originally a UK brand and focused on making realistic cars and Hot Wheels made more exotic and "concept" cars. The problem I find with Mega Bloks today (besides horrendous quality issues. . .) is they do not have any of their own models or parts, everything is a licensed build using custom pieces only good for one purpose. Mega Bloks might as well just be selling another pre-assembeled toy models, instead they are taking a model, cutting it in half and rejoining it with studs so they can claim "it's just like Lego!" Consider this piece of poo poo is compatiable with Lego, good luck finding out where the stud connections are and forget trying to re-purpose those pieces as anything but a mech. The need for speed Mega Bloks line is retarded. . . The "customizable" bit is you can GLUE a spoiler on the back, or add a sticker with racing stripes to the hood. This poo poo is totally just like Lego and kids would never feel ripped off getting one of these. . . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ1BX87a7N0
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# ? Mar 1, 2014 17:07 |
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Been building the Parisian Restaurant this week, just the roof part to go. The detailing in this thing is absolutely amazing, it's really really good. Easily one of the best modulars, together with the Pet Shop. I could have a closer look at both of them when I'm finished to see which one is better, but I'm also happy to have both of them being joint best.
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# ? Mar 1, 2014 17:18 |
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Crotch Fruit posted:Mega Bloks Stuff Then there's the whole WoW sets, which failed for one of two reasons: 1) No inter-connectivity to the game. Like why couldn't they put a code in the spectral Tiger box to unlock it in game (or hell, make it so the one you got in game looked like it was built out of Mega-blocks) 2) No Female figures. I knew a lot of female WoW players, or at least a bunch of guys that played female WoW characters, and not having figures for them cut the market beyond half. If some people would buy those 3D printed models WoW was selling for almost a $100 then the fact that no one was buying the MB kits was really sad.
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# ? Mar 1, 2014 18:58 |
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Anora posted:Then there's the whole WoW sets, which failed for one of two reasons: 3) If you actually are playing WoW you don't have time to build with blocks.
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# ? Mar 1, 2014 20:26 |
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Rathina posted:3) If you actually are playing WoW you don't have time to build with blocks. 4. Every single one of the models was lovely and barely qualified as a "construction" toy. Good luck finding individual "bricks" in that zeppelin.
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# ? Mar 1, 2014 21:52 |
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Was getting a few things at Target and did my customary "cruise through the lego aisle" just because I'm a manchild, didn't buy anything but there was a giant empty hole where all the movie sets go. All they had left was one ice cream truck. Safe to say lego has a hit on their hands. Also looks like the millenium falcon microfighter is popular because it was gone too. Had a bunch of the other ones though.
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# ? Mar 1, 2014 21:57 |
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My girlfriend got me this US-exclusive set while on holiday in New York and it's just awesome. The variety of bricks is awesome, especially for SNOT techniques, and the included handbook is beautifully done. It pretty much defines what LEGO for adults is about - not mindlessly following instructions but engaging your childhood imagination to construct models of amazing things. Definitely worth getting if you like architectural influences in your LEGO.
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# ? Mar 1, 2014 22:11 |
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kim jong-illin posted:My girlfriend got me this US-exclusive set while on holiday in New York and it's just awesome. Goddammit I want that. But I see no way to get it here. (= Belgium.)
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# ? Mar 2, 2014 00:45 |
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If anyone gets the March $75 exclusive Martian Manhunter minifigure and wants to sell it, hit me up.
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# ? Mar 2, 2014 01:09 |
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I've seen that architecture set at the lego store for most of the last year, haven't gotten around to buying it mostly because I hate the colors they put in it. I typically don't find much use for full sized bricks either. Didn't know they were US exclusive, maybe I should pick one up just from a collection standpoint.
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# ? Mar 2, 2014 02:17 |
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I just ordered The Lost Tomb from the Indiana Jones line. I'm pretty excited, as I've been wanting to collect these for a long time now, and this will be the first actual set I'll be getting.
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# ? Mar 2, 2014 02:21 |
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Only just caught up so this is old news by now, but that Ghostbusters set looks brilliant. I finally started on the backlog, built the Curiosity Rover tonight. I love all the moving parts, they all seem to do things that I just haven't seen in a Lego set before. The wheels are just brilliant. And there's barely any visible studs, loads of flat panels.
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# ? Mar 2, 2014 02:42 |
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xzzy posted:I've seen that architecture set at the lego store for most of the last year, haven't gotten around to buying it mostly because I hate the colors they put in it. I typically don't find much use for full sized bricks either. They went out of production randomly so the Lego speculators jizzed uncontrollably and bought up all of the stock to resell for 350+ or such. I am so glad they're back in production because gently caress those people.
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# ? Mar 2, 2014 04:07 |
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jeeves posted:They went out of production randomly so the Lego speculators jizzed uncontrollably and bought up all of the stock to resell for 350+ or such. I am so glad they're back in production because gently caress those people. I wish Lego would consider doing print on demand for some of their older sets.
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# ? Mar 2, 2014 04:09 |
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Jonas Albrecht posted:I wish Lego would consider doing print on demand for some of their older sets. Yeah, but how they they do production and such means this is impossible. I doubt they still have molds for some of their older pieces.
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# ? Mar 2, 2014 05:29 |
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omg the little 80s style robots e: jeeves posted:Yeah, but how they they do production and such means this is impossible. I doubt they still have molds for some of their older pieces. yeah, they don't. The most famous instance of this is monorail track, but I'd imagine a lot of the late 90s-era specialty pieces are irreproducible as well.
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# ? Mar 2, 2014 05:41 |
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jeeves posted:Yeah, but how they they do production and such means this is impossible. I doubt they still have molds for some of their older pieces. They could do some of the old stuff that doesn't use many unique bricks. Some of the stuff from the 60's any one of us could probably build right now since it was almost all 4x2's. The 80's and 90's are hard because like you say they don't produce a lot of those pieces anymore. Mr. Glass posted:omg the little 80s style robots The 80's never had those 1x1 45 degree slopes.
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# ? Mar 2, 2014 05:42 |
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xzzy posted:The 80's never had those 1x1 45 degree slopes. omg those little homages to 80s robots
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# ? Mar 2, 2014 05:44 |
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Mr. Glass posted:omg the little 80s style robots This is mine the day it releases. Are they any pics of the underside though? Looks top-heavy.
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# ? Mar 2, 2014 05:46 |
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Mr. Glass posted:omg those little homages to 80s robots Okay I approve of your post now. Big Mean Jerk posted:This is mine the day it releases. Are they any pics of the underside though? Looks top-heavy. You could briefly see it in one of the videos that came out of it being demonstrated at a toy fair. Assuming they don't glue those demos together it looked really solid.. the girl was swooshing it around fearlessly. The inner details appear held together with technic bits, as the wings have an "extended" mode where they pop out a little bit.
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# ? Mar 2, 2014 05:51 |
jeeves posted:They went out of production randomly so the Lego speculators jizzed uncontrollably and bought up all of the stock to resell for 350+ or such. I am so glad they're back in production because gently caress those people. I was very pleased to see it come back to the store, both because it's awesome and we had a lot of customers looking for it, and because resellers and speculators piss me off, so anything that shafts their efforts pleases me to no end!
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# ? Mar 2, 2014 06:00 |
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Neurion posted:I was very pleased to see it come back to the store, both because it's awesome and we had a lot of customers looking for it, and because resellers and speculators piss me off, so anything that shafts their efforts pleases me to no end! Confirm times a hundred. I really hope the Death Star is continued to be produced forever, and that they follow through on the rumors of re-releasing an even better UCS Millennium Falcon.
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# ? Mar 2, 2014 06:34 |
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Considering even the rarest and oldest lego pieces can be had for under $20 the whole idea of speculating on the long term value of sets is amusing to me. Granted, $20 for a single piece is a pretty big appreciation but there's a relative handful of those out there. The biggest chunk of the pie chart is under $1. Obviously there's some money to be made there, but the amount of work necessary to see a return seems way out of proportion.
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# ? Mar 2, 2014 06:50 |
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Oh joy, the seacow is 300€ for me but 180€ for americans. Thanks lego, you are even worse at pricing than steam.
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# ? Mar 2, 2014 08:49 |
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It's 250€ ($390AU) here. You're not the only one being screwed. drat shame as I've long lost my last Lego Pirate ship and it looks like a hell of a replacement. In other words, noticed the Lego Movie sets out on shelves! Picked up the Ice Cream Truck because I'm a sucker for that pink, green, and white. Next up will be the plumbing truck because with a plumber for an in-law I can't pass up a Lego toilet. Still sucks we have another month until the movie actually comes out, though.
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# ? Mar 2, 2014 09:08 |
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I love how the old west plane set gives you a ton of saloon parts. Sneaky Lego, but very much appreciated. Also, that Martian Man Hunter is great, just in time for my order! I don't even know who he is (obviously he's some DC guy) but he looks rad.
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# ? Mar 2, 2014 09:16 |
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xzzy posted:Considering even the rarest and oldest lego pieces can be had for under $20 the whole idea of speculating on the long term value of sets is amusing to me. Granted, $20 for a single piece is a pretty big appreciation but there's a relative handful of those out there. The biggest chunk of the pie chart is under $1. The ones from the Star Destroyer cost literally as much as half the complete set costs. Three pieces are 50% of the total value. Yes. Or how about Sand Green bricks, of which most were only available from the Statue of Liberty set, which goes for at least $1500? If you look, there's plenty of examples of insanely expensive parts.
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# ? Mar 2, 2014 11:14 |
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A quick one for ausgoons, is there anywhere decent online that allows for preordering of Lego? Those Arctic sets - which I'm not even sure when we're getting - have tickled my memories of my childhood Deep Freeze Defender, so I'd like to lock in getting as many as I can before I can talk myself out of it (or more realistically, talking myself into getting too much of it) Also, any Bricklink-like sites that are goon-approved for Australia? The Bricklink site lists a few that have some good parts selection but who knows which ones have offered best 'value'. I'm mostly part surfing to build a few trucks and cars that are only in the bigger City sets.
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# ? Mar 2, 2014 12:07 |
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jeeves posted:I really hope the Death Star is continued to be produced forever, and that they follow through on the rumors of re-releasing an even better UCS Millennium Falcon. As someone who bought the UCS Falcon for enjoyment and not resale this doesn't bother me at all. Anything to piss off speculators is good in my books because I noticed as soon as it became mainstream lego sales trickled down to nothing in canada best you can get is 20% and anything exclusive never goes on sale minus the UCS B-Wing last year from S&H. A Sandcrawler playset is looking to be the next big star wars set, pictures are out on brickset. It looks OK but not a must have and the jawas don't even have capes. April 1-15th is Double VIP points at S&H. I blew all my VIP points this month on the modular restaurant since you don't collect VIP points on it and my friend really wanted the Martian Manhunter minifigure. Chapters.ca has 20% off lego movie sets, first time they have been discounted in canada as well as the movie minifig bags/series 11
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# ? Mar 2, 2014 13:54 |
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After seeing the new Robocop I was inspired to throw this together:
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# ? Mar 2, 2014 18:23 |
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Target's doing a buy one get one 40% off http://www.target.com/sb/lego-toys-...tegoryId=180009 Stores are pretty picked over but maybe some stuff people want online.
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# ? Mar 2, 2014 19:06 |
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Jonas Albrecht posted:I just ordered The Lost Tomb from the Indiana Jones line. I'm pretty excited, as I've been wanting to collect these for a long time now, and this will be the first actual set I'll be getting. My son got that one when it originally came out. It's one of the better Indy sets (which are hit or miss).
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# ? Mar 2, 2014 19:57 |
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# ? Jun 3, 2024 22:07 |
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Since I took the kids to visit the grandparents this weekend, they decided to look through my old collection (in a old ice chest) for space minifigs. We found 6 Reds, 5 Whites, and 2 yellows but no blue spacemen. Turns out the blue spaceman didnt come out until '84...after I stopped getting Legos. Also found a couple of the 1974 model minifigs.
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# ? Mar 2, 2014 20:06 |