LEGO Ideas Discussion

[Mandate]

Cyrus Borg comes to my mind in that case, although the show didn't clear say something about his disability and no traditional wheelchair was used.

Borg directly states in the very first episode of Rebooted that he's been disabled all his life. And in episodes 29, 30, 31, 34 and 35 he uses a normal wheelchair.

[Robert8]

Another project got the the 10000 supporters: Douglas DC-3

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/17534

Edited February 27, 2015 by Robert8

[Sven F]

If lego didn't sacrifice their manufacturing (and other) complications and costs to make chrome bricks for a proper SW Nubian royal starship, I highly doubt they would do it for this.

[Blondie-Wan]

The updated final proposal for that project doesn't use chroming.

[DD840]

What I don't understand is why they don't knock off the sets that have practically zero chance of passing review at the start of the review process. Yes, the helicarrier and frozen palace reached 10,000 votes but do they need to wait months until the review process ends to be turned down?

I also think they need to have size guidelines clearly laid out. There's no point teasing people if there is an unwritten guideline that sets of a certain size have a very low possibility of passing, just put it in writing already.

[jonwil]

I think the LHC project wont get up even if it gets to 10k, there was a previous model of part of the LHC that went up for review and got knocked back IIRC.

[Robert8]

What I don't understand is why they don't knock off the sets that have practically zero chance of passing review at the start of the review process. Yes, the helicarrier and frozen palace reached 10,000 votes but do they need to wait months until the review process ends to be turned down?

They didn't break any rule since they posted the projects way before we knew about the sets...

IMO, it would be unfair delete them

[ummester]

Another project got the the 10000 supporters: Douglas DC-3

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/17534

This is a really nice build. It would be great to see something with so many parts get through - I doubt it will happen, though.

[Blondie-Wan]

I also think they need to have size guidelines clearly laid out. There's no point teasing people if there is an unwritten guideline that sets of a certain size have a very low possibility of passing, just put it in writing already.

A very low possibility of passing isn't the same as absolutely no chance of passing, though. Obviously they don't want to give people the impression that large sets are likely to happen, but they also don't want to rule them out entirely, either. It's conceivable they could one day have a large project in review at the same time all the internal production concerns are in perfect alignment to do a large set, and they might want to do it.

I think the LHC project wont get up even if it gets to 10k, there was a previous model of part of the LHC that went up for review and got knocked back IIRC.

Yes, but the two are different models, and this one has a frankly much more appealing design (in addition to getting to be the second such project to accrue the votes, suggesting more of an audience than the first one might have). There's still no guarantee or anything, but I think this one does at least have a better chance than the ATLAS-only project did.

[Diamondback]

I'm gonna be blunt about this... any set that I like and support, even if I'm willing to go into the three-figure price point... well, it's a safe bet that if I like it it ain't gonna happen.

[Dorayaki]

What I don't understand is why they don't knock off the sets that have practically zero chance of passing review at the start of the review process. Yes, the helicarrier and frozen palace reached 10,000 votes but do they need to wait months until the review process ends to be turned down?

I also think they need to have size guidelines clearly laid out. There's no point teasing people if there is an unwritten guideline that sets of a certain size have a very low possibility of passing, just put it in writing already.

I kinda agree with your second point. But still there are many other potential factors that could not be written in the guideline. Some factors depends on timing and couldn't be written in the rules from time to time, like a license was forbidden but now allowed. For Frozen castle, it conflicted with an undeclared prodcuts but it didn't actually violate any rule. The only thing he was wrong about could be neglecting the possibility of a future official set based on Disney's longterm cooperation.

I would expect that the review process do try to deal with the projects in order to turn these "unsuitable for actual products" ideas into "suitable". The size issue could be solved by simply cutting their size (unless the project makers insist on "the bigger the better"). Sadly the reasons for rejection are invisible so we couldn't know that whether these rejected ones could be improved.

Edited March 2, 2015 by Dorayaki

[AFOLguy1970]

I am not going to make an assumption that there is an invisible $50 limit on the Ideas sets just yet. Of the current group in review, it appears that the piano is the only set smaller than that threshold. Even the maze looks like it has a considerable size, and it likely needs a lot of support pieces not visible in the photos. There are at least a couple of projects that Lego is might willing to go with that will be larger than we have seen. Hopefully I am right about this, but I would say do not give up just yet.

[Diamondback]

I would expect that the review process do try to deal with the projects in order to turn these "unsuitable for actual products" ideas into "suitable". The size issue could be solved by simply cutting their size (unless the project makers insist on "the bigger the better"). Sadly the reasons for rejection are invisible so we couldn't know that whether these rejected ones could be improved.

I don't know what happens Behind the Scenes, but I'd HOPE they'd at least have the courtesy to tell the designer "here's what went wrong, maybe if you can work on these better luck next time." Sadly, I think Ideas is really more of a charade than anything now... one or two tokens every so often to give an illusion of responsiveness while the design team slavishly adheres to their seven-year clockwork plans whether their "feature of the year" has potential to hang on and last or not.

Man, I miss the days when themes could be counted on to have more than a 1-2 year life...

[Sven F]

If I got this right, a review batch/period doesn't have to approve ANY project in that batch if they decide nothing works. As well as approve more than 1 project if more than one is good enough.

Its not a contest, its an audition with indefinite roles.

Edited March 3, 2015 by Sven F

[Blondie-Wan]

If I got this right, a review batch/period doesn't have to approve ANY project in that batch if they decide nothing works. As well as approve more than 1 project if more than one is good enough.

Its not a contest, its an audition with indefinite roles.

That's exactly right. The batch that got reviewed in the 2014 Winter Review (Macross VF-1 Valkyrie, Legend of Zelda: Iron Knuckle Encounter, Japanese Old Style Architecture, The Adventure Time Project, BTTF UCS DeLorean Time Machine, Sherlock) had none of its six projects pass, while the batch after that (LEGO Bird Project, The Big Bang Theory, Doctor Who and Companions, Doctor Who, BTTF - Jules Verne Train, Modular Apple Store) had three out of six get through.

Note also, though, that sometimes they aren't able to finish an entire review batch at once - occasionally they need extra time to reach a final decision on a project, so it might be "held over" until they announce the results of a later batch, and they announce the held-over project's results with the others. This has happened with four different projects - the Female Minifigure Set (which became the Research Institute), the Landrover Defender, Doctor Who, and Doctor Who and Companions. This can have a side benefit - the Female Minifigure Set results were announced along with the results from the 2014 Winter Review I mentioned earlier (the one for which none of the projects in that batch got approved). The Female Minifigure Set getting held for additional consideration meant it could be treated as a seventh project in the 2014 Winter Review, and when it was approved it meant they didn't have a whole review results announcement with no new sets announced.

I don't think they either held its results back or approved the set just for that reason; I sincerely think they took more time with that one because they really wanted to consider it further, and then ultimately approved it because they decided it independently made good sense as a LEGO set, without consideration for whether any of those other six projects were approved or not. However, I do think they would like to always have some good news to announce, and were probably happy that they could say "yes" to that one at the same time they were saying "no" to everything else in the later batch. They surely wouldn't like waiting a good few months for an announcement only to have to say "we rejected everything!", any more than we would.

Anyway, looking not only at what projects are in what initial review batches, but instead at their final announcement groupings, they've had multiple projects approved at the same time more than once - we just had WALL*E and Doctor Who and Companions approved together, and the review right before that we had The LEGO Bird Project and The Big Bang Theory approved together (while the two Doctor Who projects were held for additional consideration at that time).

Having said all that, I think there is still some competition for resources between projects, since all the approved Ideas sets still have to share LEGO's extensive-but-still-finite production capacity with each other and all LEGO's other regular products. But no, it's not like there's a hard, fast "one set per review batch / period" rule. It is clearly possible for more than one to be approved at once. They can sometimes even produce and release more than one at once - the Research Institute and the Exo Suit were released simultaneously (and both of them just two months after the Ghostbusters Ectomobile).

Edited March 3, 2015 by Blondie-Wan

[Artanis I]

That's about it, there's no competition in theory, but there may well be practically, depending on the situation. They won't release 10 awesome projects at once, and they may release an okay one if there's been nothing else decent for a few months. But you definitely don't win or lose, you pass or fail.

[Robert8]

Does anyone know exactly how many projects are going to be deleted on April 28?

I was checking today and there are hundreds with only 57 days left...

[Dorayaki]

The competition doesn't really need to work in that way. If it's about the production issue, now we've seen that the sets could be released in different timing when the production line isn't in use. It may conflict when ten projects in one review all pass, which is almost equal to a regular theme treat, but that wouldn't happen anyway.

Edited March 3, 2015 by Dorayaki

[Blondie-Wan]

Does anyone know exactly how many projects are going to be deleted on April 28?

I was checking today and there are hundreds with only 57 days left...

I suspect it may be thousands - everything submitted anytime from when LEGO CUUSOO began, in 2008, to May 1st of 2014, that hasn't already either hit the vote target and entered a review batch or been archived. There are, I guess, at most several dozen projects that fall into one of those two categories (that either have already gotten 10k votes - this includes the ones that have actually been approved and become sets, as well as those that haven't - plus a handful of others that have been frozen and archived), but I think for at least the last couple years the submission rate has probably averaged more than one a day. I know there have been days recently when several new projects appear (though the rate does vary wildly from day to day). Even with it having started small, initially only in Japan, I think in those first six years or so they must have gotten thousands of submissions.

That said, I don't think they're going to be deleted, per se; I think they'll just expire (the term used in the official Rules and Guidelines), and won't accept new votes or comments, and also won't show up in search results on the site, but will still be visible on the site by looking under the "Projects" tab on their creators' pages (just as all the previous projects that got archived, or got their votes but didn't pass review, are still visible there the same way). If so, I wonder what happens to an old project's posting if the creator decides to repost it and start fresh - will one be able to see the two instances of the same project under a person's projects, just with one active and one not?

Edited March 3, 2015 by Blondie-Wan

[Sarah]

clearly possible for more than one to be approved at once. They can sometimes even produce and release more than one at once - the Research Institute and the Exo Suit were released simultaneously (and both of them just two months after the Ghostbusters Ectomobile).

...And interestingly the Exo Suit (which I thought would be HOT and snapped up) has sat on the shelves while the Institute has sold out everytime it hit the shelves.

[Faefrost]

The competition doesn't really need to work in that way. If it's about the production issue, now we've seen that the sets could be released in different timing when the production line isn't in use. It may conflict when ten projects in one review all pass, which is almost equal to a regular theme treat, but that wouldn't happen anyway.

But that's the problem. Production line time is the most carefully budgeted and valuable resource for a company like Lego. There is no time when the lines are not in use. Ideas has a production budget per time period. The sets they approve get made within that budget or they get queued up until an ideas production slot is available. This is the effective cap or limiter on the number of sets they approve. "Is this set worth my valuable production budget and time?"

[SMC]

...And interestingly the Exo Suit (which I thought would be HOT and snapped up) has sat on the shelves while the Institute has sold out everytime it hit the shelves.

I think they did a second run on the Exo Suit, I got the Research Institute on sale so that's why they sold out.

[Blondie-Wan]

They initially sold out of both the Exo Suit and the Research Institute on the first day of availability (they were released on the same day), and did additional runs of each. I suspect the Exo Suit got more and/or larger subsequent runs because it's the kind of set many builders would like to acquire in multiples (I have two copies myself, and I'd like to get more, though my finances will likely prevent it), whereas the Research Institute is probably more the sort of thing for which most people who want it will be satisfied with one.

[Robert8]

"Bricksauria | Tyrannosaurus rex" achieved the 10000 supporters. I think this will be last one to reach them before the purgue

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/48453

[BrickJagger]

When is the cutoff date for this review period again? April?