Ninja of Fire Posted May 31, 2015 Posted May 31, 2015 I think it's odder that the others come with legs! Only Wrayth has a reason for legs, since he needs them to fit in the Airjitzu flyer. But Bansha and Soul Archer don't really need legs in the sets they have them in. Perhaps it takes more effort for the ghosts to manifest legs, and only do so when they want to? Also, I've been a bit bothered that Bansha is so attractive looking. The other ghosts are quite ghoulish, but if Bansha's face design was transposed onto a yellow head and given pupils, she'd look normal. Even though she is the ghosts' token female, LEGO's perfectly capable of making ugly female villains, so I don't get why Ghoultar is a skeletal ectoplasm, and Bansha gets away with a comparatively normal design. I'd laugh if that was a possessed Skylor. Quote
Aanchir Posted June 1, 2015 Posted June 1, 2015 Also, I've been a bit bothered that Bansha is so attractive looking. The other ghosts are quite ghoulish, but if Bansha's face design was transposed onto a yellow head and given pupils, she'd look normal. Even though she is the ghosts' token female, LEGO's perfectly capable of making ugly female villains, so I don't get why Ghoultar is a skeletal ectoplasm, and Bansha gets away with a comparatively normal design. I think you hit the nail on the head when you identified her as a token female. That's probably why the LEGO Group felt like they had to make her so attractive. Boys watching Ninjago have plenty of male characters they can relate to, so it's okay for not every male character to have a face they'd like to identify with. Girls, on the other hand, have far fewer characters to relate to on a personal level (not to mention that the LEGO Group's anthropomorphic research from during the LEGO Friends development process found that girls are more likely than boys to want to relate to toy characters in the first person in general). So as long as the Ninjago theme's gender ratios are so out-of-whack, it's hard to make room for more grotesque female characters. Things have been slowly improving, though, with both more female characters being introduced and recurring character Nya appearing in more sets more prominently. If we're lucky, we might one day get to a point where the gender ratios in the sets better reflect the gender ratios of the show's audience. And then it will be safer to make some of those female characters as horrific as many of the theme's male villain designs. Quote
Takanuinuva Posted June 1, 2015 Posted June 1, 2015 Wrayth might also be female. The minifigures eyes appear to have eyelashes. Although they could also be eyebrows Quote
Mandate Posted June 1, 2015 Posted June 1, 2015 I actually really like that the show's design language uses so few obvious LEGO pieces, because I feel like this allows for more creative license with how the non-set creatures, vehicles, and props can be represented in LEGO. If everything looked like actual LEGO, then it would seem like there is a "right way" and a "wrong way" to build them, and if only the things in sets looked like actual LEGO they'd stick out like a sore thumb. But when everything is stylized (even the things that DO exist as sets), that means that there is no official LEGO design for the the creatures, vehicles, and props that don't come as sets, which means they can be built however you choose. There's also a secondary advantage of stylizing everything, which is that this way it won't be obvious if the sets weren't finalized when the TV episodes were being created. The "it's good that a show uses a stylized appearance rather than LEGO form" argument doesn't work when the TV show's depiction is so outlandishly different from an actual set. Morro Dragon in the show looks hideous, and it's ridiculously far from the set appearance in almost every way imaginable. Quote
TheOneVeyronian Posted June 1, 2015 Posted June 1, 2015 Well, the Ninjago sets have now hit S@H UK! Turns out Chain Cycle Ambush is £24.99 and City of Stiix is £89.99 (not the £100 TRU price). Hopefully I might be able to go pick up the new Destiny's Bounty (was really hoping it'd be £89.99 but oh well) on Friday and maybe do some comparison photos with the old DB (which I also have). Just hoping the new one's worth an extra £40 to be honest. Though I'm willing to bet that comparison pictures have probably already been done... Quote
Ninja of Fire Posted June 1, 2015 Posted June 1, 2015 (edited) Summer sets are out on the Lego Shop, but I can't see any in regular stores and websites. EDIT: For some strange reason, the new Summer sets have been taken off of Lego.com. Does anyone have a theory for that? Edited June 1, 2015 by Ninja of Fire Quote
Mandate Posted June 1, 2015 Posted June 1, 2015 (edited) Australian Prices: $16 AU: Airjitzu sets (each) $20 AU: Ninjago Playmat (?) $30 AU: Blaster Bike $50 AU: Jay Walker One/Chain Cycle Ambush $60 AU: Master Wu Dragon $90 AU:Titan Mech Battle/Ronin R.E.X. $110 AU: Attack of the Morro Dragon $180 AU: City of Stiix $190 AU: Final Flight of Destiny's Bounty Well, I was willing to give NINJAGO a second shot but now I'm thinking otherwise. $946 (not including the playmat, or the D2C) is just plain ridiculous for a single wave of sets. Edited June 1, 2015 by Mandate Quote
Itaria No Shintaku Posted June 1, 2015 Posted June 1, 2015 Today, the sets' pieces were all in the inventory, but 50% of them were marked as "out of stock". Then they removed ALL the sets from the inventory. Now it's "no results" since hours. Quote
8BrickMario Posted June 1, 2015 Posted June 1, 2015 Australian Prices: $16 AU: Airjitzu sets (each) $20 AU: Ninjago Playmat (?) $30 AU: Blaster Bike $50 AU: Jay Walker One/Chain Cycle Ambush $60 AU: Master Wu Dragon $90 AU:Titan Mech Battle/Ronin R.E.X. $110 AU: Attack of the Morro Dragon $180 AU: City of Stiix $190 AU: Final Flight of Destiny's Bounty Well, I was willing to give NINJAGO a second shot but now I'm thinking otherwise. $946 (not including the playmat, or the D2C) is just plain ridiculous for a single wave of sets. I feel sorry for you! Australian prices are insane. I wonder what the City of Stiix will cost in the US. That, Morro Dragon, and Wu Dragon are the sets I want the most. Quote
Itaria No Shintaku Posted June 1, 2015 Posted June 1, 2015 I feel sorry for you! Australian prices are insane. Actually, not. Compared to the rest of the world, US prices are insanely low... That's why on bricklink the cheapest stuff all the times comes from US. Here it's 130€ for the Final Flight. 190 Australian Dollars are 132€, so it's the same price in AUS and in EU, just rounded up. Quote
Ondra Posted June 1, 2015 Posted June 1, 2015 This is ninjago playmat . http://shop.lego.com/en-CZ/Ninjago-Playmat-851345?fromListing=listing Quote
Aanchir Posted June 1, 2015 Posted June 1, 2015 The "it's good that a show uses a stylized appearance rather than LEGO form" argument doesn't work when the TV show's depiction is so outlandishly different from an actual set. Morro Dragon in the show looks hideous, and it's ridiculously far from the set appearance in almost every way imaginable. I guess I'll see when the episode airs in English (I'm not interested in seeking out spoilers before I can enjoy the episodes in full), but the way you're describing it that could lead credence to the possibility that the set wasn't even finalized when those episodes of the show were animated, and thus the creators of the show did not have a finalized set design to base it off of. But for what it's worth, I've been reasonably satisfied with the design of the other dragons and vehicles in the show (some of which HAVE clearly been based on preliminary models when you examine them closely, like Cole's Tread Assault). Quote
TheOneVeyronian Posted June 1, 2015 Posted June 1, 2015 Today, the sets' pieces were all in the inventory, but 50% of them were marked as "out of stock". Then they removed ALL the sets from the inventory. Now it's "no results" since hours. I had that problem too. The new pieces are still in the system though, just search for their design ID. Searching element ID's for the parts in the new sets still yields results, like 6108808 (trans-neon green chain), or 6109556 (spring yellowish green barb). Still, all the parts I wanted are OOS, so I shot Customer Service an email in the vague hope that they might "find the pieces I want in the warehouse" and I might be able to buy them. I really want my Spring Yellowish Green parts! But that aside, I've been disappointed with Bricks and Pieces availability in general recently, parts that were released in May and are available in the warehouse (confirmed available by contacting CS about them) are still marked out of stock Also, none of the instructions are up for the new sets either, though they really should be. And the Ninjago website got a new skin and content but it's now really laggy and the new products in the "products" page don't load, or load a blank page. Something really funny is going on, and I'm not laughing Quote
LegendsOfNinjago Posted June 1, 2015 Posted June 1, 2015 So my Ronin Rex is sin transit from the UK (I Live here in the US and Amazon UK seems to be the only way I can get the sets early), and now I want to get the Destiny's Bounty. Do you thing 140 is worth it geting it 2 months early? Quote
DarthBrickus Posted June 1, 2015 Posted June 1, 2015 I just returned from our local lego store, they had all the New sets and plenty of 'em. Except Ronin Rex, which was utterly sold out on day one. Quote
CET23 Posted June 1, 2015 Posted June 1, 2015 Hey, B&P has been updated! It does seem they have set most of the minifigure parts as out of stock though. Quote
LegendsOfNinjago Posted June 1, 2015 Posted June 1, 2015 Yeah, I noticed that later. Hopefully, they'play fix that. Quote
TheOneVeyronian Posted June 2, 2015 Posted June 2, 2015 Send Customer Service an email and ask about their availability and price, quoting all the Element ID's of the OOS parts you want. It's likely they do have all the parts, but they're not going to update their OOS status any time soon. I mean, I emailed them a month ago about buying a couple of Chima pieces that were OOS, they turned out to have them, I got them in the mail, and a month on, they are still marked OOS when it's clearly not true. Because of that, I have gone and brought up a complaint with LEGO about BnP and it's new part availaibilty, because frankly I've found it a bit shocking recently. I'll see what they have to say for themselves. The whole service is falling apart at the seams frankly, my last BnP order had missing parts and it took 2 weeks after I called them to ship the missing parts! I'm tempted to ditch it altogether and swallow BL's slightly higher prices... Quote
Master_Data Posted June 2, 2015 Posted June 2, 2015 (edited) Send Customer Service an email and ask about their availability and price, quoting all the Element ID's of the OOS parts you want. It's likely they do have all the parts, but they're not going to update their OOS status any time soon. I mean, I emailed them a month ago about buying a couple of Chima pieces that were OOS, they turned out to have them, I got them in the mail, and a month on, they are still marked OOS when it's clearly not true. Because of that, I have gone and brought up a complaint with LEGO about BnP and it's new part availaibilty, because frankly I've found it a bit shocking recently. I'll see what they have to say for themselves. The whole service is falling apart at the seams frankly, my last BnP order had missing parts and it took 2 weeks after I called them to ship the missing parts! I'm tempted to ditch it altogether and swallow BL's slightly higher prices... It's a shame they are doing this, but it is a sound business tactic. Unfortunate for us, but it's more profitable to them if we have to buy the whole set than just one part online. Hopefully they will sell the parts if contacted and won't shut them out completely. EDIT: Just checked online. Not a single new minifigure part in any new theme. They overcompensated for the error in January and prevented any new figure part from appearing. I'm going to email them and post what I find. EDIT 2: Found this on the LEGO Worlds site: Interesting... I wonder what role Ninjago will have in this game... Edited June 2, 2015 by Master_Data Quote
DuckBricks Posted June 2, 2015 Posted June 2, 2015 It's a shame they are doing this, but it is a sound business tactic. Unfortunate for us, but it's more profitable to them if we have to buy the whole set than just one part online. Hopefully they will sell the parts if contacted and won't shut them out completely. EDIT: Just checked online. Not a single new minifigure part in any new theme. They overcompensated for the error in January and prevented any new figure part from appearing. I'm going to email them and post what I find. EDIT 2: Found this on the LEGO Worlds site: Interesting... I wonder what role Ninjago will have in this game... Of course, they may just be re-using vehicles from different themes for it, and it has nothing to do the Ninjago... Quote
PenPlays Posted June 2, 2015 Posted June 2, 2015 (edited) Of course, they may just be re-using vehicles from different themes for it, and it has nothing to do the Ninjago... I thought this was obvious. Monster Fighters, Castle, and Creator are also prominently featured, but have no relevance to story whatsoever. In fact the game, at least at this point, has no story. Edited June 2, 2015 by Penkid11 Quote
Exetrius Posted June 2, 2015 Posted June 2, 2015 I think this discussion belongs in a different thread. Quote
TheOneVeyronian Posted June 2, 2015 Posted June 2, 2015 It's a shame they are doing this, but it is a sound business tactic. Unfortunate for us, but it's more profitable to them if we have to buy the whole set than just one part online. Not exactly. I think that this tactic (if it is a tactic and not just some sort of glitch) would actually drive business towards the secondary market (after all, it's what I'd turn to). And we all know LEGO doesn't necessarily like resellers, but that's a whole different discussion And I'd be buying all the Ninjago sets anyway, but I do like to keep them together. Plus, I need a lot of Spring Yellowish Green barbs, more than what all the sets combined offer (counting spares). I can understand minifigures, but doing it for new parts that people will want to MOC with? I can see that outraging a lot of MOC'ists... Quote
8BrickMario Posted June 2, 2015 Posted June 2, 2015 I think their prime business tactic is to just sell the sets to allow people to get their parts there. MOCers are not LEGO's main target group. Quote
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