Discussion: Your thoughts on Lego's kid-ifying of themes

[Tzan]

I don't really have a specific reason why I prefer males to females, just a personal preference... so I guess I've been kind of hardwired to prefer them.
I guess I didn't clarify properly earlier on. My bad! Hopefully this will clear it up!...?

Yes, yes, perfectly clear now.

[stubby]

Dude, you worked on Lego Universe?!? That's so dope!

Have you not heard the story? Lego Universe was based on BrikWars 2005. My first day on the job, I had to sit through a presentation where they told me and everybody else about BrikWars.

I wish it would've went on longer. Did it die because people weren't willing to pay the fee?

It died because it was too expensive to moderate. Lego wouldn't allow a single slip-up in terms of inappropriate chat or builds from the players, so every single thing had to be reviewed by human moderators. There was no way to make it work; the per-user cost of moderation was more than you could charge in subscriptions.

For a brand that can't allow the tiniest safety breach, it was an impossible project from the very start. They just didn't know enough about how MMOs worked to realize it until it was way too late.

[stubby]

Now, city, I mean, I don't know, but in the real world I still see five dude garbage men to every lady, and five dude cops to one lady cop. I wouldn't have a a problem with more lego female garbage men (garbage women? garbage people?) but I still see more dudes than ladies doing that stuff irl.

I don't know. I never worked in law eforcement, but I have a lot of friends who do, and I've spent a lot of time working with the criminal justice system (mostly in regards to other people's crimes and procedures, in case you're wondering - when I was a kid I had a firm policy of never getting caught, and as an adult I don't crime anymore), and most of the people I know from in there are women (my numbers may be skewed because I ended up dating a bunch of them). I'd guess that maybe the reason you see more male officers is because you're mostly seeing traffic cops rather than the full range of police roles, but even among the traffic cops I know, it's still mostly women.

[Venge]

Lego Universe was based on BrikWars? I never heard that before, awesome! How ironic that mod-heavy Lego based that game on very not-PG BrikWars.

[Zahru II]

Gamma Ray is a great introduction to the Power Metal subgenre.

This is the only good post in this thread.

[Kastrenzo]

Its time to face hard truths

SPACE IS DEAD.
And fiends rule the day.




honestley though I've not paid attention to sets for about 2 years, theres been very little out there I was impressed with enough to buy.
I only buy sets when its to salvage parts. or when it's got a good structure I want to expand onto or otherwise use

I hate that Friends exists in it's current form, it's stereotypical to girls, and the minifigs arne't cross compatible with the exception of hairpeices.

I actually really liked the style of paradise/paradisa *was never quite sure what the theme name was *
I have a sister who's half my age, I'm 25 and she's 10 or 11, and I used to play lego with her but its always been difficult for me to get interested in what she's doing because I hate the look of the friends minifigs. and the color palattes are like 50% pink always no exceptions.

eventually im going to have to start making a pinkian faction I tihnk..

[Av4l4nChE]

@TheVengefulOne

The only power metal I've listened to is DragonForce ( stereotypical, I know ). I haven't really explored that genre very far.

@stubby

Now that you mention that about the moderator thing with Lego, it makes perfect sense. They've always been crazy about "appropriate" creations.
I'd always figured no one wanted to pay so much for one game. I mean, wasn't it like $50 a year? You could buy a years worth of Xbox Live Gold for about that much, and get access to much more.

@ Zahru II

I respectfully disagree. I think ( aside from the conversation veering too far and too long into the whole female fig thing ) that we've had some good conversation, and I know I've learned a lot of Lego knowledge and history in a short amount of time from the illustrious stubby. That makes it awesome for me, hopefully you guys have enjoyed it to some extent, too.

Here's a question for everyone: What is the story behind the creation of your SigFig, and how should I go about creating mine?

[stubby]

Lego Universe was based on BrikWars? I never heard that before, awesome! How ironic that mod-heavy Lego based that game on very not-PG BrikWars.

It wasn't Lego's idea. They contracted an existing MMO studio, NetDevil, to make their game, and I don't think NetDevil told Lego about the BrikWars connection. Lego still doesn't "officially" know about BrikWars and my understanding is that they'd like to keep it that way for as long as possible.

[Av4l4nChE]

Huh. That was a question on the back of my mind: what does Lego know about us, and what do they think?
I guess the answer to the latter part would be pretty obvious.

[Duerer]

Gamma Ray is a great introduction to the Power Metal subgenre.

One of the first metal bands I've listened to in general. I really like the Land of the Free album back then yet I barely listen to it anymore.

[cleanupcrew]

[]

[AZKAMAT]

I still don't want to discuss the girl business in any political-confrontational context. I'll tell you all this much though; .edu and .gov websites are better for learning about what sorts of people go into what fields than any experiences you might have. Or any other sorts of curiosities you might have for which quantitative analysis is possible (i.e. which sex works more hours per year on aggregate?).

I simply do not like it because it requires a variety of suspension of disbelief I just do not find fun. I've been that way since before I could read. On the grounds I do not find it fun, what grounds have you to say more than "Meh, I do," and maybe add "and here's why."

No. We'z gotsta INQUIRE into why dat dar Av4l4nChE feller tinx diff'runtly n'uss. Widdiz diff'runt TASTES wut ain't like our'n.

Anyway,

"SPACE IS DEAD"

But how could an idea so ossum die? As in seriously, wtf happened to it? I assume he was talking about Space as meta theme.

"Here's a question for everyone: What is the story behind the creation of your SigFig, and how should I go about creating mine?"

I like this question. I do have a signature figure, but I'll probably never set it to my avatar. The picture I currently use is actually a victory shot from the first story-driven campaign I ever played. Spongebob and Patrick got government backing to go treasure hunting, and hired a bunch of mercenaries (randos with Brickarms) and got a military pilot (the AT-AT Driver) as part of the backing. Together they had an epic adventure, and that picture was taken before I put it all away forever and went off to public highschool for the first and only year of it. It was my original Brikwars experience and I'm extremely sentimental about it. If can manage to pull off the big battle scenes I want to try and do for this year's HH (SO EXCITED; always wanted to do one since joining) you'll see my sig fig.

For the second half of this question, I'd actually suggest making several badass figures and making bios for them. Then decide which one you like best. For me, mine is supposed to be like me if I had existed in my brikverse, warts and all. You might be different though, and not care if your signature character resembles you in any real sense.

Changing topic, I'm quite disappointed that the topic I raised of inscrutable set direction wasn't discussed. It really puts me off on some sets.

One thing I've noticed in the discussion; a lot of you (my perception) mention you primarily/only buy for the parts. I'm not like that; I often buy a set because I dig the base model (not always). For those of you who are like this, do you feel like Lego is kid-ifying the parts or is this just an issue for us who like the sets themselves. I'm interested in your perspective.

[AZKAMAT]

If five women to one man sold better, then the sets would be five women to one man instead.

I'm a firm believer that this could be arranged, just not at Toys-R-Us

[Av4l4nChE]

Changing topic, I'm quite disappointed that the topic I raised of inscrutable set direction wasn't discussed. It really puts me off on some sets.

I talked about it a little, when you mentioned the Hoth Battle set, but no, I didn't go into any deeper thought. To be honest, I don't really dislike sets like this, provided they call them what (I believe) they are: Battle packs. Sets designed to expand a certain theme or subtheme, like the Hoth Battle is designed to seriously expand your Rebel and Snowtrooper armies.

Or perhaps Lego did it to give us a set that covered almost all of the scenes on Hoth ( the wampa cave, the snowspeeder rescue, the command center, the trenches, etc. ) honestly, the only things they DIDN'T include would be the probe droid (honestly, that wouldn't have been too much to add, or to build out of your spare parts) and the AT-AT, which if they have any set with an AT-AT in it, they need to do it justice size and feature-wise, which means it gets its own set.

Any other sets you can think of that are dodgy in the Set Direction department? I'm sure there are others, but I can't think of them at the moment...

do you feel like Lego is kid-ifying the parts or is this just an issue for us who like the sets themselves. I'm interested in your perspective.

I'm not in the same category as the buy-sets-for-parts-ers. I mostly just buy medium-sized orders of parts from Bricklink. The Republic Fighter Tank has been the first actual set I've got in a year.
However, I did give some thought into the "does Lego kid-ify the parts, too?" as well.
At first, I was like, "yeah, they do!" I would compare the recent influx of new types of pieces ( not specialty pieces, like, say the Ninjago power sword things-I have no idea what they're called, I dislike Ninjago-but base construction pieces ) to some Halo Mega-Bloks sets I bought way back. Before I came to my senses and sold them, I marvelled at how the sets had a TON of different types of pieces to achieve the model's shape, not really utilizing creativity with already existing pieces in the construction of the model.

When I saw Lego coming out with new pieces, this is immediately what my mind jumped to. But after some consideration I thought: Hey, why does it matter? Every new piece that releases brings untold ways of customizing and building in a way not possible to achieve before, or maybe you could build like that, but having to use several pieces, whereas this one piece takes on the role of several, etc. I don't really see many of the new pieces now as "kiddy" except the brightly colored pieces from Friends or the themes for juniors. Or the pieces deliberately made to look like they are for toddlers clears throat Joker's Steamroller! clears throat. And perhaps the new projectile transition. Although, I will admit: the Stud-shooters' idea was brilliant in that you have a HUGE and very common ammo source should you ever lose the studs, amirite?

Another thing: The other reason why I despised the Mega Bloks stuff is because while they had a large variety of pieces, they were C grade construction. Flimsy strength, varying dimensions in the same type of piece, and impossible to separate. Lego is not like that, and I just gotta give a little shout-out on the side to show how grateful I am that Lego makes it's bricks to last, so we can actually have some value out of them past the first time we construct a set.

[AZKAMAT]

Any other sets you can think of that are dodgy in the Set Direction department? I'm sure there are others, but I can't think of them at the moment...

Another thing: The other reason why I despised the Mega Bloks stuff is because while they had a large variety of pieces, they were C grade construction. Flimsy strength, varying dimensions in the same type of piece, and impossible to separate. Lego is not like that, and I just gotta give a little shout-out on the side to show how grateful I am that Lego makes it's bricks to last, so we can actually have some value out of them past the first time we construct a set.

Yes. https://shop.lego.com/en-US/Batman-Scar ... Fear-76054
Set 76054. Not sure if I'm adding this to my original issue, but I am not a fan of making big sets like this being made out of smaller ones. What in there is the 'main event' of the set? Is it the chopper? The harvester? Why not just break this down into 2 separate sets to give more people with lower access to the one they like most? Save the big price tags for big ass models. Something that's more in line with my original set direction stuff is exemplified in a few of the Creator 3-in-1 sets that are dwellings. There's this sprawl on the front detail but the main event of the set (the house or whatever) looks lacking or barebones. Note my use of the word "few."

On the Mega Bloks stuff, I bought one of their UNSC battle pack things a few years back just to see what was up in the Negaverse. I found it to be rather trippy POOP.