Cpt Smileyface

While cost is probably part of it, I don't think it's everything. Lego models are mostly things like buildings and vehicles. Look at the real world: how often do you see a purple building or a lime green car? Not too often. We do see greens and orange cars in themes like racers, which is exactly where we see cars like that in real life. I do wish they'd use colors like that as accent colors in more sets, though.

I guess it depends on if you're planning on playing the game or not. Me, I don't care about the game at all, so I'm in it for the minifigs and accessories. For me, I started with 2516 - Ninja Training Outpost. Just one minifig, but it has lots of weapons. 2258 Ninja Ambush is nice if you want a skeleton minifig, but doesn't have as many weapons, although it does have a golden sickle. When I saw 2260 - Ice Dragon, I couldn't resist. It's a really cool model and I'm very happy with it. I like it because it has a mix of Bionicle style parts and traditional Lego parts rather than just one or the other.

I came out of my dark ages about a year ago. Until now I've been playing with traditional Lego, but would like to get back into Technic and need to know what would be a better first big set to buy. I'm considering either 8053 - Mobile Crane or 8043 - Motorized Excavator. What I'm looking for in a set is a model that uses some interesting building techniques that I can learn from, as well as a good parts pack to get me started with MOC once I finish playing with the main model. So far the only Technic I've built since coming back is 8047 - Compact Excavator and 8051 - Motorbike. I had a lot of fun with both of them and want to learn more, and get enough Technic pieces to do some MOC. Besides the motors, is there anything else 8043 offers to make it worth the extra $100? Are there any other sets I should be considering given my needs?

All of the current modulars are designed to connect with each other, which leads to some design constraints if they want to keep them compatible. They all have a front sidewalk and some type of back yard, so a 16x64 wouldn't fit with that theme.

I have a Christmas Eve party at my house every year. This year, all of the young kids were in my room playing with my Lego. I got some strange looks from some of my older cousins when they saw me sitting on the floor playing with the little kids and they realized the toys were mine, but everyone was impressed by 10210 Imperial Flagship. When it comes to buying Lego for myself, I don't care if anyone knows. I've worked at a grocery store before and have seen people buying things much stranger than Lego. Whenever I'm at Walmart, I always walk through the toy aisle to see if they have anything new. I'll occasionally have my regular purchase plus a small Lego set. I think most clerks just assume I'm buying for someone else.

I got 10216 - Shuttle Adventure this year. This is the first LEGO I got for Christmas in 15 years! I started putting it together as soon as we finished opening presents. Great set, I'm very happy with it.

That makes sense, thanks for the information. I'd always assumed it was heat cycles until now.

In my experience with extreme temperatures, it's not short term exposure that causes damage, but cycles between hot and cold. I keep a small Lego model on the dash of my car. Even after a hot summer day in the sun, or a cold winter night, the bricks are just fine. However, over time, they've started to loose their clutching power. The bricks expand and contract ever so slightly with changes in temperature. One change doesn't seem to make much difference, but lots of heat cycles add up.

Maybe that's the whole point. People want a whole team of baseball players, a whole army of elves or samurai, but who really needs more than one fisherman? On the other hand, of the figures that I'd only want one of, he's probably my favorite. I personally think it's too early to tell, we've only seen the contents of a few boxes posted, that's not a large enough sample size.

The idea of not reprinting pieces is probably because of the collectible aspect of the minifigure series. If a piece is reprinted, it lowers the value of the original. It's a fine balance between pleasing those who bought them because they are collectibles, and pleasing those who bought them to use in their MOCs. While a skateboard would be a great piece for a city set, printing one in a set could hurt the value of the collectible skater. I've played collectible card games which have this same problem. A rare and valuable card might sell for hundreds of dollars. There may be a huge demand for that card among players of the game, yet they won't reprint it because it would lower the collectible value. It's too soon to tell how big of a deal this will be with the collectible minifigures, but we'll see in time. It may very well be that people don't care about the collectible value and just want unique pieces, in which case we may eventually see the pieces printed in standard sets. On the other hand, if it takes off as a collectible, TLG will have an obligation to collectors to keep the value high by not reprinting unique pieces. Either way, some people will be happy with the decision, others will not.

That worked for me, thanks

Same here. I uninstalled the program and downloaded it again, and it still doesn't work. EDIT: If I bring up the task manager, I notice the LDD.exe process is running, and using 100% CPU, and a whole mess of memory, the program just doesn't load. After a few minutes, the process eventually shuts down, but still doesn't load. I'm using Vista 64, I'm curious what OS the people who have this problem are running.

I had a missing piece in one of my sets, I filled out the form and had the replacement in about a week.

I would like to join. I love macro photography and have had some fun taking pictures of my lego sets, and would love the chance to both improve my skills, and share my photos with others.

My first pirate set was Lagoon Lockup. I sadly don't have it anymore, but still have a few of my old pirate sets, and most of my minifigures. I've recently gotten back into Lego after not playing with them for about 15 years. My first new set after all this is none other than the new Imperial Flagship. I figure I'll start out well.