Dodger

For the life of me I don't know why they didn't bring in enthusiast collectors to actually unbox and assemble these things while the hosts talked. The hosts are doing such a bad job of doing both at the same time, they're almost anti-selling things!

Has anyone seen anywhere in the UK that's including the Elrond figure with the game?

I discovered this to my disadvantage when I found they don't accept the VIP card. Pretty poor do.

It's not as 'obvious' as you might think. On the Amazon France site some of the Lego SW sets have English on the front and French on the side. And on the German Amazon site I found. SW set with Englsh on the front and SIX languages on the side! Same in the German site for the very first LOTR set I checked, Mines of Moria. I think for licensed sets they have to have the name. That being the case, I don't see why they can't do it across the line. There's no consistency.

Aside from costs and availability, I have another (UK vs US) question which I find completely baffling. I recently bought the Ninjago Samurai Mech for my daughter. Watching a video review on YouTube, I noticed a strange difference in the packaging, namely the US box has the box number, age range, NAME of the set, and number of pieces. The UK box only has the set number and age range. This is the same for many, if not most sets. (Exception being stuff like Star Wars and LOTR, but even they don't have the piece count). Any idea why? Are they afraid of people doing price-per-piece comparisons or something?

Please take this constructively! 1) Video quality is nice, mike is a little too loud. 2) it would help to talk about the model as it's built. Maybe a bit of trivia from the movies? 3) The copyright message (why the need?) is intrusive, being across the middle of the model. If it needs to be there at all, it should be right at the bottom. 4) The product review is really just a description of the set. How about your opinion? Do you like it? Is it age appropriate? Does it represent the real thing well? Is it value for money? Would you recommend it to a friend? Is it still available to buy, or should we look on bricklink or eBay? Etc Just some thoughts. Keep it up though I like SW Lego videos!

Prices aren't just down to inflation or greed. Lego is plastic, and plastic is made from oil. And oil, unfortunately, isn't getting any cheaper

For anyone interested, www.tested.com are running a daily video series where they are competing to be the first to build either the Death Star playset, or the SSD. It's quite entertaining, but most of us will be shaking our heads at their 'method' :) Two things to note: there is a little coarse language, so be careful if you have children nearby, and also although episode 0 is free (the sort) you need a $5/month membership to watch the rest.

I just got a free copy of LU with my spring 2011 catalogue, as a thanks for being a VIP member. That's aside from the fact that I was one of those idiots that preordered the game, thyself missing out on the free rocket set! But is it a move of desperation to now be giving it away? If you look around the MMO world, there are plenty of high profile games (not least LOTR online) that have move to a free play + micro transactions model, and are making 2 or 3 times the revenue from when they were subscription only. TLG should strongly consider this model. They also dropped the ball with cross-pollination. Where are the physical LU sets in stores? Wher are the themes like Atlantis or Power Miners in LU? This lack of basically free marketing is bizarre and inexplicable. I know I've definitely bought Indy, Star Wars and Harry Potter sets after playing the video games. A shame that such an awesome concept has been so poorly handled.

Er, but the thread title is "Star Wars sets anyone? Q's & A's on availability and PRICES" Me confused

I had a mismoulded leia hairpiece from that very set. I just went to the web site and filled in a replacement request, and it came through a week later.

I think the IGN comment about it being a 'fixer-upper' is spot on. Despite all the negative points I listed, there is a lot to like. I think in a few months it will be worth revisiting, right now I'm probably not going past the free month. I have the console lego games to distract the little 'un anyway ;)

Well well! Looks like something might be coming for storage: Figmentia is a mod on the official game forums.

I agree with the offline part, as there is virtually no social interaction possible. But then they couldn't charge monthly /cynic I can help you with a couple of points though: You can move the inventory window on the screen. Don't know if this is new to the final version. You can move with the mouse. Right button+move moves the camera around and click on middle mouse runs. You still need keyboard for jump though. That reminds me of another peeve. There are a couple of times where you have to look around, or make a tricky jump, and a hint window pops up. EVERY FLIPPIN' TIME!! Yeah LU, I learned the double jump in the tutorial I don't need to be remind 8000 times.

It's good for what it is, but has a LOT of problems. 1) The racing is basically broken. Whoever is in the lead at the first corner will win, as they get all the speed boosts and will just stay in front, unless they're an idiot. 2) The backpack space is very limited, and there's no off character storage. So you end up having to ditch most of the cool (useless) stuff to make room for important things. For a game based on customisation, this is pretty terrible. 3) Rampant kill-stealing. Last hit gets the kill. So you can spend ages (and a few deaths) whittling down that ape, then someone wanders past, gets one hit, and picks up all the loot. Needs fixing. 4) Content. I know launch MMOs are usually quite light on content, but LU is criminally sparse. Play a couple of hours a day and you will have finished everything available in a week. Seriously. 5) The building areas are all private instances, and the building engine is pretty clumsy to use. Needs refining. 6) The Chat system is SO locked down (for safety) it's basically unusable. It often won't even allow words that are actually in the game. For example, I had a Spanner weapon. I wanted to trade it, but when I put "Anyone want a Worthy Spanner?" in the chat, the word "spanner" was disallowed. Completely ridiculous. So the game is played in silence, as no-one can talk! 7) No grouping. Want to team up to kill that (pretty tough) dragon? No can do, and last hit get's the reward for all the work (see 3). So what's good? Let's remember the target audience is kids.! It's bright, colourful and well animated. The controls are very simple. It can also inspire them with things to make from real lego. My 5 year old loves just running around smacking things, which is the only reason I'll keep it past the free month. Because honestly, anyone 8+ will finish all there is to do within a week, and the only thing then is to run through it all again with a different Faction. Also, most of the problems above are easily fixable, if the desire is there to do so. However, all of it was brought up in the beta and was met with a deafening wall of silence, so we'll have to wait and see. Overall I'd say great for kids as a drop in, drop out game. Flawed, but with a solid foundation and tons of room for improvement. Could be great if the problems are fixed and more content comes soon and regularly.