Earendil said:

Is the question, weather the item nuber in the upper right corner of the packs shows what is contained, solved yet?

Barcode would be the same for all of them, but the item number might change. I guess the only way to know for sure would be to ask the guy taking the pictures to take a picture of both the zombie and diver bag item number.

Or, once we start collectiong them we can make note of which code came with which figure. There are enough of us that if each of us buys one all of us will have the full collection and enough of the same to see if the codes are the same for one figure or not.

I hope there is a series three, I love minifigures and these are a great chance to increase my collection variety

  Peppermint_M said:

Or, once we start collectiong them we can make note of which code came with which figure. There are enough of us that if each of us buys one all of us will have the full collection and enough of the same to see if the codes are the same for one figure or not.

I hope there is a series three, I love minifigures and these are a great chance to increase my collection variety

I'm torn on this. Part of me wishes that the numbering was true as it would allow me to get the figures I want first, but another part of me likes the idea of a completely blind purchase. Moreover, numbered bags would give bricklink scalpers an edge picking out the rare or more desired figs. If it is anything like other collectable items, certain figures will be plucked out of the display before the box even hits retail shelves to be sold on the secondary market at a significant markup. At least a completely blind system negates such a practice giving all consumers an equal chance at something good.

I agree on the series three though. So far the first two series' have included an amazing range of figures we would likely never see in a conventional set. I'd love to see what they come up with next.

I think that LEGO might have thought it through with the barcodes and not used a different number for each figure, It would allow for people to just stand by a box, and find their figure with the number.

I think the barcode numbers will be random.

A good example of this (even though its way off topic) is Mattel and Hot Wheels with their mystery car series:

Yes, I know its off topic but it provides a great example of their numbering system and an example of barcode numbers.

It features a dual barcode set up, one is a random sticker code on the top rear of the card which is most likely quality control, and the other is the main barcode.

Out of the hundreds of these I had opened, not two cars had a matching code, they were all different, or if the codes were the same, the cars inside were not.

So, If LEGO had thought this through, they would not have put a single code for per figure, that would be way to easy to get figures.

Although you cant tell unless you actually buy them and go through an entire case of them, I'll do this when I buy mine.

Just my opinion from past experience on barcode stuff like this.

Edited February 12, 201015 yr by Polish Guy

One good point in the discussion is to read that people have different interests.

Whereas someone prefers the zombie or the forestman, I'm not a bit interested in these.

I think it's a good way to open up our own Eurobricks CM (not Copmike! ) trading post whenever the first Collectable Minifigs hit the shelves.

Then you cand send me all the nurses you'll find.

What is a sickbay without nurses?

For another point:

Some minifigs should be easily to find out even in a sealed bag, just by feeling it:

- the skater (skateboard)

- the stone age man (club)

- the cheerleader (two pom-poms)

the more difficult ones:

- the nurse (2x2 tile - patients chart)

- the diver (air tank)

- the robot, cowboy, magician (different hats)

- maybe the wrestler (the cape is normally sold in a small paper box)

So all we need is tact.

Wow - that counts for some threads in here as well...

  Holodoc said:

One good point in the discussion is to read that people have different interests.

Whereas someone prefers the zombie or the forestman, I'm not a bit interested in these.

I think it's a good way to open up our own Eurobricks CM (not Copmike! ) trading post whenever the first Collectable Minifigs hit the shelves.

Then you cand send me all the nurses you'll find.

What is a sickbay without nurses?

For another point:

Some minifigs should be easily to find out even in a sealed bag, just by feeling it:

- the skater (skateboard)

- the stone age man (club)

- the cheerleader (two pom-poms)

the more difficult ones:

- the nurse (2x2 tile - patients chart)

- the diver (air tank)

- the robot, cowboy, magician (different hats)

- maybe the wrestler (the cape is normally sold in a small paper box)

So all we need is tact.

Wow - that counts for some threads in here as well...

Exactly what I was thinking!

I'm going to feel for the ones I want!

Just about everyone who has had a close contact with the bags says that it is impossible to feel the contents of the bag. Perhaps if you use brute force and damage the bag in the process... good luck doing that in a store...

One of ours ambasadors get this email from Lego:

  Quote

I actually have some final product for minifigures on my desk (as in I opened pre-packed bags and hoped for the best) and they are great quality. I've seen the whole line out of the package and it looks really good.

the second part of this answer is to explain something having to do with the china/quality complaints. The lower quality stuff you've seen (magnets, keychains, etc) was lower quality because it was being made by an outside agency for a purpose outside of the normal LEGO product line. It was part of what we call extended line and wasn't watched over as closely by Quality Assurance until we started realizing how bad some of this stuff was looking. We are now looking at extended line much more closely.

Minifigures is part of the LEGO Product line (not extended line) and therefore is held to much higher quality control than extended line. The reason some things are made in china is because that's where we have the technology to do complex printing on figures now.

The theme is don't focus on "where" something is made focus instead on "why" something is made. The minifgures are coming out of a different factory because its so radically different both in packaging and product to normal boxed LEGO product, but since its part of the main LEGO Product line, its being watched very closely and I assure you its really fantastic.

If it wasn't sitting on my desk staring at me, and yet still fantastic I wouldn't say this to you guys.

It's looking like they are not so bad quality - even if they are made in China. Hmm... Interesting. I must buy one and then I will rate it...

  Lordofdragonss said:

It's looking like they are not so bad quality - even if they are made in China.

Yanno not everything made in China is bad.

-Omi

So they do not have shoplifters stateside and on the continent?

Over here, trading things for kids are kept behind the counter, from cards to plastic toys. Or right up by the cash desk so staff can keep an eye on easily pocketed items that are disireable to those of lesser morals or who don't quite understand the concept yet (i.e children). Lego is valuable, even the impulse sets have security tags these days and we have been told they are to be sold from usual stockists. This means in the UKs case, supermarkets TRU and The Entertainer/independent toy shops. All of these retailers keep their small items close to the cash desk and in the case of supermarkets, behind the tobacco counter. Thus nixing any plan to feel for the contents, you are quite likely to just be handed a random bag(s) from the display box.

I wonder if any kind of sportsman will show up? Considering how wildly varied sports tastes are from place to place.

at first, I'm not gonna care what I get. I plan on buying TEN of these things, and hoping that I don't get too many doubles.

to me, my first purchase of ANY random product is always exciting, because I'm always guaranteed something I don't already have.

are there ones I prefer more than others?, sure, but the only one I don't care for completely is the clown.

  Lordofdragonss said:

One of ours ambasadors get this email from Lego:

  Quote

the second part of this answer is to explain something having to do with the china/quality complaints. The lower quality stuff you've seen (magnets, keychains, etc) was lower quality because it was being made by an outside agency for a purpose outside of the normal LEGO product line. It was part of what we call extended line and wasn't watched over as closely by Quality Assurance until we started realizing how bad some of this stuff was looking.

It's looking like they are not so bad quality - even if they are made in China. Hmm... Interesting. I must buy one and then I will rate it...

I'm not sure I totally buy that, I purchased 7942, Fire Pick Up Truck the other day & the quality of the tailgate was horrendous! The plastic is almost translucent!

This is a regular set which I assume is produced by Lego themselves & not an outside agency

  Aanchir said:

Thanks for that news. I was just commenting to my brother during dinner that it makes absolutely zero sense to distrust LEGO parts made in China, or any place outside of Denmark. After all, LEGO has been making parts in foreign countries (Hungary, the Czech Republic, and recently, Mexico) for a while, and I have yet to see any ordinary LEGO product of substandard quality.

You must not have been looking very carefully then. One issue in particular is especially pervasive, and there is plenty of evidence of it here for example.

You are right that the place of manufacture has little significance though. A lot of this stuff has been coming out of Denmark, before TLG started moving anything from there.

  Omicron said:

Yanno not everything made in China is bad.

-Omi

Amen to that! As I said, if the company actually cares about the quality of their products, then it doesn't make a difference where they're being produced. If, for instance, China produces specially-printed parts like Rock Monsters as various people have suggested, then they've done a spot-on job so far-- I have yet to hear tell of a defective Rock Monster.

  escortmad79 said:

It's looking like they are not so bad quality - even if they are made in China. Hmm... Interesting. I must buy one and then I will rate it...

I'm not sure I totally buy that, I purchased 7942, Fire Pick Up Truck the other day & the quality of the tailgate was horrendous! The plastic is almost translucent!

This is a regular set which I assume is produced by Lego themselves & not an outside agency

That's been a problem in a lot of themes for a long time. Even with good quality control something can sometimes slip by. Otherwise, LEGO wouldn't bother with their replacement parts system at customer service (which I highly recommend for a defective part like you describe).

What I don't like about the email is why would LEGO put their logo on something that is not meant to follow LEGO's quality standards and is not made by LEGO at all. I mean, corporate image is supposed to be important...

Something other companies do is have two logos for two differently focused qualities of products, perhaps LEGO should begin doing that for these 'extended line' things?

And there are quality issues in sets outside the extended line. But they do not tend to be as bad as the magnet sets. Discoloration is annoying but it is not as horrible as the bad plastic. Something that bugged me though were the toy story minifigs' plastic.

  Quote

That's been a problem in a lot of themes for a long time. Even with good quality control something can sometimes slip by. Otherwise, LEGO wouldn't bother with their replacement parts system at customer service (which I highly recommend for a defective part like you describe).

This particular issue is so widespread that there is little point in asking for a replacement. Chances are that the replacement will have the same problem.

  Quote

And there are quality issues in sets outside the extended line. But they do not tend to be as bad as the magnet sets. Discoloration is annoying but it is not as horrible as the bad plastic. Something that bugged me though were the toy story minifigs' plastic.

Not sure what exactly you mean by bad plastic, but one of the main indicators of that is discoloration caused by translucency. I believe that is what people have complained about with the China-made minifigs, but we've been getting plenty of that with normal Lego bricks too.

^ I spy off topic(???ness???)^

I for one can't wait till these figs come out. I am most likely going to pick up a dozen or so of the first edition .

  CP5670 said:

This particular issue is so widespread that there is little point in asking for a replacement. Chances are that the replacement will have the same problem.

Not sure what exactly you mean by bad plastic, but one of the main indicators of that is discoloration caused by translucency. I believe that is what people have complained about with the China-made minifigs, but we've been getting plenty of that with normal Lego bricks too.

Well, when I see that pic which you linked all I see is a variation in color which could be because of different plants not using the same tints. But the purple bricks don't have that aura of crappiness I got to see in things from the so-called extended line. Like the board games' figs. It could be that the purple bricks pic was not a good example but the plastic just looks discolored and not translucid.

Most of the recent sets I got were bionicle though so I am not sure about it. I did notice that the Skrall blades which are composed of two different kinds of plastic have that crappy feel in the inner color though, even there the transluscency is not nearly as bad as clone brands (not talking megabloks but Chinese clones, never seen a bloks' box in my whole life) The figs from the board games do look to have the same ultra bad translucency as the clone brands.

So although I admit the quality seems bad in those purple bricks, it is not nearly as bad as what the ambassador called the extended line.

---

Series 3 speculation/wishlist:

* There's a terror sub-theme going on. I'd think of mommies or maybe frankeinstein.

* The mage needs an assistant.

* First, we need a sportsman and I still insist in that a soccer player would be good considering the year.

* I'd like a barbarian warrior.

* sci-fi seems missing from series 2. I'd like an alien, something like the current alien cliche - gray body, black large eyes, no noise...

* Fiddle player?

Edited February 12, 201015 yr by vexorian

color inconsistency is going to be a factor when you have more than one factory producing product, it's been that way since toys were made out of plastic, and it's not going to end, so, like it or not, it's a fact of life.

there are plenty of deco variations on vintage Star Wars figures that attest to that, and it continues to this day in other lines.

new Minifigure Collector's box

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=420325

Is cool and in the Lego store €.9,99

  vexorian said:

Well, when I see that pic which you linked all I see is a variation in color which could be because of different plants not using the same tints. But the purple bricks don't have that aura of crappiness I got to see in things from the so-called extended line. Like the board games' figs. It could be that the purple bricks pic was not a good example but the plastic just looks discolored and not translucid.

Most of the recent sets I got were bionicle though so I am not sure about it. I did notice that the Skrall blades which are composed of two different kinds of plastic have that crappy feel in the inner color though, even there the transluscency is not nearly as bad as clone brands (not talking megabloks but Chinese clones, never seen a bloks' box in my whole life) The figs from the board games do look to have the same ultra bad translucency as the clone brands.

So although I admit the quality seems bad in those purple bricks, it is not nearly as bad as what the ambassador called the extended line.

I was referring to not only that picture but the next several in that thread too, particularly the one with the Technic triangles. The translucency is more apparent in real life, since you can see how light passes through the pieces in a way that is not obvious in photos. There is also an example here.

The worst cases of this effect I've seen, mainly in 2007, were at least as bad as Megabloks. Lego has improved since then but is still a long ways off from its old level of opacity. Although it's worth noting that minifigs (in normal sets) seem to have shown more of an improvement than many other types of pieces, so the quality of these new minifigs will hopefully be at least decent.

Edited February 12, 201015 yr by CP5670

Great to know that the minifigs will be of normal quality!

  Aanchir said:

If, for instance, China produces specially-printed parts like Rock Monsters as various people have suggested, then they've done a spot-on job so far-- I have yet to hear tell of a defective Rock Monster.

The rock monster "rock" printing is pretty bad though. If you own 8908 Monster Launcher and use the catapult a couple of times on a hard surface, the printing scratches off slightly on the sharper corners. Then if you scratch that part very lightly, more printing comes off! I've had the same problem with one of Squidman's eyes. Now one of his eyes aren't round anymore!

  legomilk said:

new Minifigure Collector's box

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=420325

Is cool and in the Lego store €.9,99

Interesting, but I think that that deserves its own topic, as it doesn't have anything to do the these collectible minifigs.

  legomilk said:

new Minifigure Collector's box

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=420325

Is cool and in the Lego store €.9,99

Odd - why are there only 15 spots?

Nevermind - I thought this related to the collectible minifigs.

Edited February 12, 201015 yr by Edmond Dantes

  legomilk said:

new Minifigure Collector's box

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=420325

Is cool and in the Lego store €.9,99

Woah! This looks great! No more dust on my minifigs!

  Edmond Dantes said:

  legomilk said:

new Minifigure Collector's box

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=420325

Is cool and in the Lego store €.9,99

Odd - why are there only 15 spots?

Nevermind - I thought this related to the collectible minifigs.

Because it's not supposed be for these collectible minifigs but for these ones (which comes in package of 5): clicky