Citizens of the CCC, lend me your ears!

[DaveOhare01]

Indeed! I think the suggestion of designing our own 'sets' and proposing them to TLC would be a great thing! And, either way, we can build them ourselves -- I'm assuming the kits we come up with will also have directions .

And, of course, there is nothing stopping someone from selling these packaged kits over the Internet of through the mail, even putting them in nice boxes and the like.

As to Will's comment as to the cost of custom parts, weapons, shields and so on -- this is really a function of volume. It's even possible we, as a community, could place an order and have the stuff made in bulk. I'm sure in lots of 1000 or 10,000 we can get the cost down to a few pennies a unit -- it's ONLY plastic, after all.

And, the best point of all, as Lemon_squeezer put it, it would be fun!

Dave O'Hare

[Devari]

Yes, it would be fun! I've always wanted to design a LEGO set...

[Dragon Master]

Great idea. If TLC says no, which they likely will, then lets make customs and sell them. I would be willing to contribute funds. I think the sets should be built using easily available pieces, like those from the current "legend" sets and accessory pack. Maybe they could even include custom factions. I'm all for it. Et toi Mr. Ellerman?

(btw DM - I am just answering your post, and I know that your opinion is shared by a lot of people here. I hope you don't take this personally, we just have differing opinions! )

Perish the thought. However if I was an absolute despot I might through you in the tower for a few years

DM

[DaveOhare01]

Well, untill being laid off two months ago, I used to go to China a LOT. And by a lot I mean I have a tripple-thick passport. And, as a matter of fact, I was just speaking tonight with a former co-worker about the import / export team he is working with etc and so on and so on. Anyway, I've got 5 places in China which will make about anything you can think of. Provided we can come up with molds and the design to be printed on the shield (for example) I can get this done no problem at all. And, being China, it's rather cheap.

The one critical thing is that we don't violate TLC's patents or IP. I quite seriously do not need that sort of trouble. But, doing our own weapons, shields, flags, banners and such should be no prob. Casting the minifigs I think would be a definate no no, so we need to think about that; doing stickers should be just fine.

So, if the community is serious about doing a lot of our own stuff, then between us all, we have the resources, the energy and imagination. We might even save some money!

Dave O'Hare

[David Girard]

Hey, I'm not agree here. If we are going to abuse of poor people and a poor country, I'm no more with this project. That's the capitalist way of thinking, and I'm completely against this way of thinking.

Even Lego don't go making their piece in poor country.

[lemon_squeezer2]

What bad would we be doing? We would actually be giving them good jobs!

Besides, that's the only way this kind of thing could work.

[architect]

Great idea. If TLC says no, which they likely will, then lets make customs and sell them. I would be willing to contribute funds. I think the sets should be built using easily available pieces, like those from the current "legend" sets and accessory pack. Maybe they could even include custom factions. I'm all for it. Et toi Mr. Ellermann?

Hi guys,

I am not in favor of this idea. A concept to design a custom series is cool. But LEGO making it is unrealistic, they don't do that. (I believe they approached Dan Siskind for 3739, not the other way around). Designing for another company with bad quality bricks is not acceptable for me either.

I know we are talented, but I am not about to go and work for companies like MB.

I believe the role of custom sets will remain with individuals or small groups. It is very hard to make a custom LEGO series that is affordable and available to many people. I know this because I have made a custom set.

I think we will get more legends and even a new minifigure set castle line. We just need to be patient.

Ben E.

For those who want to see my attempt at a small line of sets you can check it out here:

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=53017

[DaveOhare01]

Have you ever been to China? Those guys ROCK! I mean, really, they are pretty awesome. They are, indeed, rather poor in the countryside right now, but there are so many jobs and manufacturing jobs going into that region they are getting more wealthy all the time.

I tell people all the time China will rule the world in about 50 years, I'm totally serious on that; the size of the market is massive and the gov't gets smarter and more capitalist each year.

Anyway, all I'm saying is if we want to do a lot of custom stuff, there are ways to get it done cheaply, rather than going to the folks here in the US who do one or two bits at a time by hand. Quality would not be a problem and we would actually be designing for ourselves -- not necessarily for profit.

But, either way, my goal is to see new 'official' sets with new bits to play with. it's just how much pressure TLC needs to see before that happens.

Dave

[Devari]

I believe the original idea as I saw it was to take existing peices, perhaps propose a few more, and make a reasonable castle theme that LEGO could feasibly market and make a profit off. I knew from the begining that the chance of LEGO accepting it would be relatively small.

I thought it to be a good idea for the following reasons:

1. A chance to work on a group project.
2. A chance to use our imagination.
3. A chance to let LEGO know that we really want a castle line.
4. The slim chance LEGO might actually use one or two of our ideas as inspiration.
5. The 1/1000000 chance that lego might actually use most of the proposed theme.

The main reasons I would like such a project are 1, 2, and 3. I don't really care if LEGO threw out the idea without even looking at it. Creativity would be my main drive.

The key here would be to make it so LEGO would actually look at it. We would need to make the best and most appealing design with the least cost possible.

I do not like the idea of manufacturing the thing ourselves. We would be just as bad, if not worse, than a clone brand. We should work with existing pieces. However, I would think we would design our own decals, torso designs, etc.

Designing for another company with bad quality bricks is not acceptable for me either.

I know we are talented, but I am not about to go and work for companies like MB.

I would NEVER design for a clone brand. I wouldn't be able to live with myself. :evil:

Finally, as to legal issues. I believe that if LEGO did like our designs, they would need all of us to sign waiver thingies. That is fine with me.

[wlister]

Personally if I had the chance to design for any toy company, I would take it. If I worked for a clone brand, I would try and improve the quality of the product I was making.

My loyalty to Lego has waned severly these last few days. The whole castle/galidor mess and then the obliteration of the classic gray colors has left me with a sour taste in my mouth and turned me from a Lego purist to a buyer of clone brand products. I will still buy Lego, but mostly from Bricklink, they have gray.

Will

[timber_wolf899]

well theres way more interest than i thought. It seems we are serious so here is what i think we should do now.

1. everyone who is interested in working on the protest theme please email me with your name, email you wish to use, and any special skills you have. i.e. art public relations, etc etc. I will use this information to set up a yahoogroup for us to work on.

2. monday i will set up the group and present a mission statment for us to vote on.

3. The group will nominate design comittee members and vote on them. top three vote getters will be the comittee. If there is a tie vote we will have a runoff.

I think that if we work quickly we can all be designing by next week's holiday vacation.

Does that sound like a resonable plan of action?

[timber_wolf899]

My email address for the group is timber_wolf899@yahoo.com

group address is
longlivecastle@yahoogroups.com

group name LongLiveCastle

<thanks to a slow morning at work the group is up and running.

[Mr. D]

Alright, here's my two cents: I think we need to buy more LEGO sets than ever. LEGO needs money, so we need to give it to them. Then I think we should all send e-mails to people at TLC and tell them what we want.

Mr. D

[TwoTonic Knight]

It is true about LEGO's blatent copying of many Megablocks ideas. And I don't consider Megablocks the enemy. I just think the LEGO mini-figure is better in terms of articulation and design (Yes, I do prefer the LEGO design. Although Megablocks is more realistic, I just like the happy, smiley little LEGO guy). Plus, the Megablocks Dragons figures don't mix very well with my LEGO figures.

BTW, all my Megablocks opinions are based not on pictures, but my actual small colection of it.

~Devari

Mega Bloks minifigs are pretty chintzy. Overly ornate to hide that they are poorly constructed - they just don't have the appeal of the Lego fig. The sets themselves have their uses (I like the terrain bases), but if one wants to criticize Lego for Juniorizing, then this is Mega Juniorizing!

[JPinoy]

Buy Megabloks?!?!?!


BLASPHEMER!!!!

*prepares Ancient armies for a massive BrikWar*

*seeing that 2,800 ancient warriors isn't enough...... prepares the fewer but FAR more powerful Near-Future Military soldiers, tanks, attack helicopters, LAVs, planes, and WMDs for a devastating "Shock and Awe" campaign*