Rick

I really like the truck design, but I can imagine you want to see some variety (although this year's orange truck - 7686 - has a 'long' nose). I agree on the pieces capturing the shape of the tank nicely, the only downside is the technic holes showing on both ends of the tank. I suppose the 4 x 4 could go with the helicopter to make a forest fire fighting set (instead of being part of a separate set with a boat trailer). Furthermore, on the pics linked below I don't see a coupling mechanism for a trailer. http://www.flickr.com/photos/28476480@N04/...012187/sizes/o/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/28476480@N04/...993301/sizes/l/

The Octan tanker is good. I'm not sure yet about the airport or the fire helicopter (the modern airplanes just are too much composed of big pieces to my taste). The seaplane is cute. Wasn't the fire 4 x 4 supposed to be towing a speedboat? It could be a nice set. Too bad the fire station and tractor with pigs aren't displayed. That old fire truck with 10197 is a MOC, right?

The tripping waiter nice work!

The bottom of a 1 x 1 tap piece connected to the top of a 1 x 1 brick with studs on two or four sides, so that you can feed the flex tube through it. The 'tap' can then go into the mast piece.

"Imagination", that's what Lego is about. Great little scene. Great expression on the guy lifting the stone.

Although I'm not buying the theme, I really like the innovative set designs in the line. The 2010 line appears to be no exception to that. An great example of how Lego's 'own' (non-licensed) themes can be developed into a successful product line.

True: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?S=6675-1 I wouldn't want TLG to ever bring out 4-wide trucks again, but this is an absolute classic. Great color scheme on the whole set.

* Holding laptop 5 cm from eye * I feel crazy arguing over 10 x 10 pixels, but I guess its a jumper plate with a tap piece. Hope we'll see some higher resolution pictures of all City sets soon. After seeing the first pictures and the new set names, I'm starting to get a good feeling about City 2010.

I love replies like these, you admins must be having fun keeping everyone in suspense.

Amazon.de has it as well for around €16/€17. They deliver books for free, also to The Netherlands.

Which has ended (?, not sure), but which I certainly don't expect MB - as a direct competitor to Lego - to be allowed to make when TLG owns the Disney license.

Looks great (and parts-intensive ). Looking forward to more pictures.

As much as I enjoyed browsing last year's creations, I'm not a fan of all the violence in the MOCs. But then again 'pillaging' and 'violence' seem to go hand in hand, so I'm curious as to what will change - if anything.

I'm a minifig racist: only classic yellow in my collection. TLG is (was, at least) excellent at developing their own strong themes, so I think they should build brand loyalty for their own Pirates theme. Owning the Disney license probably makes sure that no other toy company can develop a competing PotC theme, which would 'protect' their own Pirates theme. I hope TLG will choose this path instead of the easy (and expensive!) path of bringing out a PotC line.

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=32226

Pirates of the Caribbean

I never said that - at least I certainly didn't mean to say that. I don't know about today's kids, I just know for sure that when I was a kid, (most) kids used to have imagination. Not trying to say kids today don't, I just don't know for sure, that's why the "(used to)" is in parentheses. What I mainly meant to say was that I think TLG should consider whether they wouldn't be better off in the long run (I guess this is the heart of the problem, there is no 'long run' anymore today) building their own brand reputation, like they did in the 80s, instead of relying on SW, PotC, Indy, and so on. To make kids go to the toy store to buy Lego, not buy PotC 'merchandise'. I just feel licensed products take away some of the creativity, imagination, you can build anything you want, ... I know there are SW builders out there who are very creative, but still... it just isn't 100% 'Lego' for me. Perhaps I'm getting old. But given TLG's business decisions, it indeed seems profitable to focus on licensed themes. It may hit Pirates now, and that's fine in a sense: I really can't blame TLG for trying to make money. I'll most likely just stay away from those lines. As long TLG is making profits on licensed themes to make 'yellow-only' (does this make me a racist?) City and excellent S@H exclusives every now and then, TLG is getting my money.

I am really surprised - besides SW - that those licensed lines seem to be making a bigger profit than its own lines for TLG (there must be a sensible reason for TLG to invest in the Disney and other licenses, so it must be making them money). Licensed themes - again besides SW - typically last for only a few runs. I really feel TLG should be building its own brand image, through its own themes. They used to be strong on that in the 80s and halfway through the 90s, so why can't they be now? Children (used to) have enough imagination to 'play' PotC with Lego's regular pirate lines. At least I never had problems with the fact that the forestmen sets didn't have 'Robin Hood' written on the box and the minifigs didn't look like Kevin Costner. Lego had a super strong brand image with my parents, knowing that they could always expand my collection next year, because there always would be City, Castle, etc. sets that would match my existing collection. I am afraid TLG is not investing enough in its own brand loyalty (also: its 'own' yellow figs, compared to licensed flesh-colored figs), but then again... maybe that's not so important anymore nowadays. Playmobil - another strong brand with my parents when I was a kid - seems to be investing much more in its 'own' brand, staying away from licenses and nevertheless producing great themes with innovative set ideas (not that I am a fan of Playmobil or even buying the sets). I really doubt whether 'we' - AFOLs - have any influence on TLG's product line decisions, or are even considered in these decisions. I think the maximum that we can expect to achieve is to have S@H exclusives tailored to the AFOL market every now and then (Modular series, MMV, and I still haven't given up my hopes for a Pirates exclusive set). In recent years, TLG has been pretty 'generous' - which means it must be making profits for TLG, but that's fine, they earn it for making good products - towards AFOLs in this respect.

Signed... and a piratey-smiley to put some optimism in this thread.

Tractor and pigs! Great! btw: I think this is the link whung is talking about in the previous post. Big set list with some small pre-lim images, most of which we have not seen before. edit: hmm, that direct link doesn't seem to work. Perhaps obvious, but you have to click the "Chystané novinky 2010 >>" link at the right of the page.

There's also this thread, which is rather speculative as well, with - in my opinion - a better title given the recent news about Pirates being discontinued... but I'll of course leave it up to the mods whether we need two of these threads.

Resistance was already futile before Siegfried turned into a borg... The rubber bands are a little too distracting for my taste.

If they do surprise us, then we also know the answer to the title of the thread...

As you keep repeating this: Do you know something we don't? In this case I sure hope you do (*cough* s@h exclusive *cough*). And... aren't you supposed to have a piratey avatar as a pirate regulator?

Yeah, yellow appears to be a problem still. The 7641 City Corner had both almost transparent and some kind of alien looking yellow in it. The alien color can also be found on some of the 2009 Pirate minifigs (one of the soldiers in 6243 Brickbeard's Bounty had an 'alien' head and some minifig parts in 6241 Loot Island suffered the same fate). I'm glad to hear that the dark-red is ok though (and that there's not too much yellow in the 10197).