Dark Ages. What did it?

[Quarryman]

Clearly other interests for me, namely computers. Some time in 1996 my love for them eclipsed my love for the brick. And that lasted until early 2004 when I discovered Brickshelf, Bricklink, Lugnet, etc. And so I learned that those two hobbies/interests could be combined in a nice way.

[Norro]

bandminton

That stuck out for me amongst the list of alternatives...

KKII.

Great answer!

God Bless,

Nathan

(Yes I was too good for a dark age... that or my complete disconnect with popular culture kicked in yet again...

[Freddie]

I chose "other", because well, it was a mix of things, really. It started '97-'98, with Town Jr. really, which really put the brakes on at first. Then there was high-school, of which I had some depression, not really wanting to do anything, and school taking up all my time. Any spare-time I would potentially have was used for travelling between school and home. So to speak, I was pretty much down all the time, until November '05, when I got a job at a toy store. I noticed that the sets weren't as bad as they used to be, and with the employee-rebate, prices where what I considered decent. So I bought one 7236, which led me to buy the police bike, and that got the ball rolling again.

[Eilif]

Thanks for your replies folks. Very interesting stuff. Alot of what has been mentioned here mirrors what TLG themselves have stated as taking folks from LEGO, especially computers and video games.

Zorro 3999,

I here you with the miniatures. For a number of years, 40k took whatever LEGO cash that girls didn't take. Now that I'm married to a lady who hates 40k and thinks LEGO is positively charming, it makes it really easy to spend time/money on LEGO.

Enigma...,

"whatever" means whatever you want it to. As for "beta-testing", designing, building, whatever you call it, it's still playing. Embrace the play!

Commander Andrew,

Another one bites the dust ;-)

Tacitus,

GI Joe, I'd forgotten about that. GI Joe was perhaps the longest running competition for LEGO as a kid. They are still up in my dad's attic somewhere...

Guss,

Sorry to hear about that. I was lucky enough to have all my childhood LEGO waiting for me when I came back to the fold.

Quarryman,

I think alot of folks were pleasantly surprised to find that LEGO and Computers are "compatible". Glad to hear you've found some balance.

Now to all you non-Dark-Agers. OUT OUT OUT! This is not the thread for you. I love you all dearly, but this is co-miseration thread. Your presence only makes us feel more guilty for our shamefull abandoning of the brick.

Edited October 2, 2008 by Eilif

[RichardAM]

My parents played crazy mind games and insisted I was too old. I gave in and assumed I was.

A few years later on a boring afternoon I was reassured this wasn't the case, in the discovery that there was a multitude of different-aged Lego fans online. Nostalgia alone brought me out of my dark ages, and i'm probably a bigger fan of Lego now than when I was younger.

[simonjedi]

I just grew out of it, focusing on Computer games and warhammer because that's what my friends were into. I still knew about the hobby and was tempted to buy some sets "pre-undark ages" but did because it was too "not cool and bothered about what people think of me and other BS like that"

then "lego star wars the game" came out just as i was starting college, where people don't care about you're hobbies and stuff.

[hollisbrick]

My parents played crazy mind games and insisted I was too old. I gave in and assumed I was.

A few years later on a boring afternoon I was reassured this wasn't the case, in the discovery that there was a multitude of different-aged Lego fans online. Nostalgia alone brought me out of my dark ages, and i'm probably a bigger fan of Lego now than when I was younger.

Do they ever

This is also A reason which I forgot about, my mum always kept telling me that I was too old, but I think that she didnt want to pay for it even on my b-bay Now I got a job and she doesn't care what I do

[Snake...SNAKE...SNAAAAKE?!]

When it was 2005, I was 15 and I fell for the evil ploy called Yugioh.

for a year i missed the CCT and Jedi interceptor!

I'm still beating myself up for it. Ow!

[voxel]

Hi!

I voted "Shame".

When I was 14, I suddenly felt "too old" for certain toys and ditched Lego (and Playmobil and some cowboy stuff). And, shame on me, I actually sold it myself.

I remained nerdy though and started focusing on computers (we had Apple IIs at school; later I got a Commodore C 64).

Only 15-16 years later I overcame the Dark Ages.

[fenrir]

When I was 13 I went out with friends. so somehow I never bought, or played or collected lego for some years.

untill, in 2005 I saw a Lego Viking set in a store, and fell in love again with Lego.

I was 19 at that time and had a girlfriend. And somehow had some problems with myself about being ''too old''

I'm glad my girlfriend accept my hobby, and always builds with me when I bought a new set.

I Like those days in a hotel room, with some Cola Vieux and a great Lego set......

[CP5670]

I had a kind of semi dark age, where I lost interest in the System themes in the late 90s but remained a Technic builder. I kept my System collection in storage but didn't do anything with it. I never cared much about fitting in with other people as some others have described, but town and space were in decline at the time and I was getting more heavily involved with computer games in my free time (I had/have always been a big gamer but that was when multiplayer gaming really started to take off, and I was also getting into game modding and customization).

I got back into the System themes at some point in 2003. I had been using ebay since 2000 to pick up many old Technic sets (8868 was the set that started it for me, as I didn't know about it at all until I saw it there) and I bought two Model Team sets at one point, which used more traditional bricks and stud-based building than Technic. I had enough fun with them that I decided to get a few space sets as well, which eventually turned into a huge buying spree as I found hundreds of old sets that I used to stare at in the catalogs for hours but had never gotten in the past.

[Sandy]

I have to admit that in my teens I grew out of LEGO for a long while. I kept playing with them whenever my little sisters and cousins were visiting our granny's house (where I used to live), but I didn't purchase anything new until this spring.

It took me years to get over the shame of buying LEGO for myself, even though I always remembered how much fun they were in my childhood and teens. Gladly I'm now old enough to have my own kids (even though I don't have any) so I can enter a toy store and buy some sets without any excuse of me being there.

Now all I need is more time to actually build them. I've got my 10.000+ pieces that I currently own (according to Peeron.com) sorted and stored in boxes here in our study, but I have so many other things to do (job, studying, internet, tv, my boyfriend, my Nintendo DS etc.) that I haven't got around to building much with them.

But yeah, I'm definitely out of my dark age that lasted ten years, and I guarantee that Eurobricks will see a lot more coming from this Lady in the near future!

[brickzone]

Lack of sets I wished to buy (with limited finances - so I *had* to be choosy) and the awful Town Jr. The downturn in Castle was a factor - I didn't like Royal Knights, Fright Knights or KKI. I did build for a couple years after, but my dark ages did begin with a lack of Lego purchasing.

I would probably have enjoyed Adventurers (indeed I am now collecting the sets). I love Harry Potter sets now, but they were vastly overpriced at the time. KK2 kept me away from Lego too - again not just due to the design, but combined with the prices it seemed a poor deal. Also about that time was when I left home and went off to Uni. So Lego wasn't on my mind (indeed I also went into dark ages as regards being a fan of Star Trek - that only changed last year with getting the entire Next Generation cheap on DVD).

So what would have changed it all and prevented dark ages? More money, better Lego sets in the mid-late 90s, staying at home rather than moving out for Uni.

City '06 and six-wide vehicles got me back into Lego, combined with awesome Lego sections in German dept. stores in Munich! First new purchases were the Airport Fire Truck, Ambulance and police car.

[overcute2]

I automatically went into the dark age from around 1999, I was 12 at that time, it might mainly because I had other interests, and many sad things happened to me in my teen age, therefore LEGO was not in my mind, personally I think the design of the sets in those years were not so good, they just can't attract me. I bought less than 5 sets between the period of 98-2007 .

Just until the year 2007, I spotted a 7654 in a sale inside a store, and then I went to the web and search through auction site, eventually bought a 7655, the dark age has ended, and I am on it again. During 2008, I bought back a lot of old star wars sets, actually some of the were very expensive, If I could start it one or two years earlier, then I can save a lot.

I think the LEGO has been improved since around 04, there are a lot of new minifigs heads and hair, and movie themes, the playability increased much.

[Capt. Kirk]

I started with the first ships and vehicles of Classic-space in 1978-1979. Still for me the best Lego sets ever. With the holy grail of Lego, the LL 928. In the meantime I also collected in that periode the first Castle sets like the yellow castle and some town/city sets. But in 1981-82 the Castle line stopped (shame on you TLC). Because City/Town & Trains was not realy my cup of tea only Space remained (Fabuland was also not my dada in those days). Until Futuron (1988-89) I collected every thing of Space but on a given point the Space-line has gone the wrong way for me... with Space Police, M-Tron, Blacktron Future Generation, etc. So bye bye Lego for me because the killed for me the 2 momost beautiful themes... Space and Castle.

I was a year or 16-17 and started to going out to the clubs and I came in contact with sex, drugs & house/techno. I used drugs untill I was 25-26-27. Then needed 4 years to get myself back on the good track. Started to work and started my own company (grafic and concept design). After some years I meet my girlfriend and we started to live together. I moved my personal stuff from my parents house to our house. And what did I found on the attic at my parents house... indeed my old lego and the lego virus.

First bought some Lego on ebay, then discovered the lego sites and forums, then discovered bricklink and then started to build MOCs. This I do for 1 year now. I like many different themes now but have little interest for train and city/town. This is my little history of my Dark Ages and the re-discovery of Lego.

Edited January 24, 2009 by Capt. Kirk

[LordGalewind]

I have not had my dark age yet, but certain signs are pointing towards it. With my income, focus, and interests gearing more toward college and work, lego has become a smaller priority for me. I recently disassembled, cleaned, and replaced parts in 200+ Technic and Bionicle sets in preparation of moving out soon. Dark Ages or not, when I finally graduate, get involved in my career, have a home, and yes a wife...those lego sets will still be hanging around in storage to be resurrected.

Edited January 24, 2009 by LordGalewind

[WetWired]

There was a point my parents stopped buying it for me thinking I was getting too old and I had to save up for sets myself (which usually only meant small sets)

Eventually I discovered computers and video games and grew out of it, until I was 27 and played lego star wars the video game :P

[donneyboy]

Well, first off my dark ages were 2005-2007. I liked the sets, but I was in to star wars vehicles, and action figures, so that's where my money went. Also I started buying a ton of cds, and then a electric guitar, and amp. So in 2007 I spent about 600 dollars, which i could of bought legos. My dark ages were caused because of my friends, they thought I was gay because I liked legos, so i quit, but in mid spring 2007 I went back to legos, and sold some of my star wars stuff, and i also sold my electric guitar, with amp for 400 dollars. So then I bought all the legos I could.

[posades]

For me it was a mix of several different things; I was growing up, experiencing "changes" so to speak ; my parent's also believed I was getting too old for that type of stuff, and so they stopped buying me sets. Since I didn't really have a steady form of income this forced me into my dark age as well. Finally, I started getting into video games more, and so any money I would get would unfortunately go to buying more games. To tell you the truth I don't remember what got me into LEGO again, I think it was seeing a set or two on super sale at KBtoys and buying them. It snowballed from there and now I can't get enough.

[Loganwan]

I had sets growing up, and built with them all of the time. They were always around. When I got to my teen years, there was other stuff to take up my time. When I was in college I got into building model cars. I grabbed a few of the little Exo-Force sets and then I was hooked. Hundreds of dollars (thousands?) later I am again in the world of LEGO with no stop in sight.

[BrickBox]

This thread is very interesting to read for me, as my own dark ages ended just a couple of weeks ago!

When I was 13, I felt I would be to old for playing with lego, I remember 6479 being the last set I got for christmas in 1998. I decided to abandon the beloved brick, and at first it wasn't easy. But when other hobbies filled the gap, I lost the interest in it. And then there were computer games of course! They totally absorbed me for a quite long time.

Occassionally I grabbed a Lego catalogue in some store, feeling ashamed, though. But there was nothing to bring me back, since around 1998 the qualitiy of Lego began to decrease rapidly, especially with all that junior crap. The only theme I considered to be still "real" Lego was Star Wars, but I only bought one of those (7130) as my very last set, already being in the dark ages. I don't know anything of what Lego did after 2002, and beeing busy with school and later with studies, I totally forget about it.

Until recently, I came across the peeron website, providing scans of old Lego catalogues. Seeing all those pictures woke lots of old memories, and so I ended up buying many old sets at ebay that I always wanted to have but never got as a child :) . I spent way too much money on it, it was indeed a Lego shoping spree :-o . But I managed to end it (that is, for the time being). Now my huge old Lego collection probably won't stay long at my parent's flat anymore...

[Erdbeereis]

I don't think there really was a specific "reason" behind my dark ages. I never was a huge LEGO-freak pre-dark ages. Sure, I built some things now and then and got a few small sets, but nothing near the manic I am now.

So, I never technically had a dark age simply because there wasn't really an "original age" if that makes any sense. I was quite young back then so my interests changed each week.

Honestly, I don't see myself having another dark age. Especially now that I've found so many great communities like this one to keep me involved with LEGO-related things like reviewing and such.

[JimBee]

I guess I just lost interest (I picked "other" in case you were wondering ). I used to only collect Bionicle as a kid (maybe I'm still a kid to some of you), with little or no system sets. I did a little minifig customizing here and there, but that was just childish tinkering. I was too young to be interested in the internet or news (in anything; hobbies, local incidents, etc.), so I just bought (or begged my parents) whatever I saw at the store. I bought Bionicle from the beginning (2000 or so) until 2004. The only sets before that that I can remember are a 1999 Star Wars set and a 1999 RoboRiders set (I probably got some sort of Duplo or Classic set as a small child, but that's another story). Anyways, I lost interest in Bionicle just like any other hobby that a kid has. When Revenge of the Sith came out, I bought a few sets, but I really didn't care for Lego at all. I finally came out of my 3-year drak age in 2007, with the release of the Clone Battle pack.

Not a very long story, but neither is my life. I never really worry about other people's opinions on my hobby, either, so it was never a factor in my dark age.