Looks interesting! (But not the Minecraft sets so much!)

I think these already look perfect.
The build will probably leave many gaps as you see on The Farm, but I think the sets are pretty acurate to the game.
Can't wait to see the rest.

So ridiculous I'm almost lost for words. I imagine many Minecraft fans will love them but they honestly look like something my 7-year old niece would create if left alone for 30 mins.

"The Lonely Mountain" is nice, now we get to see the details.

The Calenders are pretty much copy-paste!

Mine craft set looks far better than I was expecting. I like the minifig.
Have to admit I'm a fan of mine craft but not so much of the micro worlds. Maybe pick up one to check it out

With a ton of existing parts that I have plenty of, the only drive for these sets are the figures and new items. While I see the potential in combining two of 'The Cave' together to make it look complete... I feel as though the Spider doesn't fit in with that set (Honestly the Spider looks rather terrible and isn't to scale with the other figures)

The issue being with these sets is that if you went on Bricklink or Pick-a-brick you could easily get all the parts for this a lot more cheaply than what they are charging. My only drive to buy the sets is the bucket in 'The Cave' and potentially the 'Creeper' figure in 'The First Night' or 'The Mine'

Other than the Creeper and Steve the other mobs don't interest me - as the focus of Minecraft has always been Creepers and Steve. While their is potential in these sets they are ruined by the lack of new pieces. Chances are I will simply go to Bricklink and purchase a ton of 2x2 and 2x4 bricks and re-create these in a much more impressive fashion for a lot cheaper.

Interested to see 'The Ender Dragon' set as a I feel that will include some interesting new parts - though we will have to see...

The spider is fairly accurate. At that scale though it was always going to look blocky. It's a perfect match really. I wonder how or if they are going to have the ores too.

I have better things to do then playing computer games, so Minecraft doesn't interest me at all. I build like that over more than 40 years ago. I'm also absolutely not interested into licensed sets. Almost all too expensive for what you get.
Leaves the Advent calendar: and they look very, very poor.

Minecraft polybag - it would be nice.
But large set - no, thanks.

Ugh, the "Lonely Mountain" looks really bad. Except for the new dragon, which is kind of an improvement. Why are more and more sets just giving us fronts of buildings? Why not one proper set-up instead?

cool

The Friends Advent calendar looks pretty nice. A dinner and then items to play outside and see a deer. Nice. I like the gift that opens up too so one can put something inside. I just really wish we'd get a Santa Claus mini-doll.

I'm pleased, nay, thrilled with the minifig-scale minecraft sets. Admittedly, I'm a fan of minecraft - but I'm a fan because it so closely mimics "old-school" LEGO. That is, LEGO before we were inundated with specialized bricks. As such, I believe LEGO has done an excellent job of recreating the feel of these sets. You'd think that would be easy, but the danger is to "do too much" with them. Thankfully, they have avoided that.

People may complain that there aren't enough unique elements in these sets, but I believe that it a strong point. Minecraft caters to both adults and small children. My eight year old and all his friends and relatives play (for example) - partly after seeing me play. This was a habit encouraged to head off interest in age-inappropriate things like "Grand Theft Auto". I believe that the average child's LEGO collection will be much smaller than an AFOL's collection. (My eight year old's is about a tenth of mine). So they will mostly have "common pieces".

Additionally, the video game has expanded tremendously in scope in the past two years. They regularly update the game with new settings (called biomes), and in the next update will have things like pennants, rabbits and armor stands. There are currently more than 30 biomes in game (42, but a lot are similar). Additionally there are caves, mines (with railroads), villages, and abandoned temples. Presumably LEGO will make use of some of these settings if sales keep up.

Again, these will be blocky representations, but that's OK. Kids have great imaginations and don't need to be inundated with specialized pieces. They do get fixated on themes (I was fixated on Classic LEGO Space as a kid) but they also they also add elements from other themes as well.

I look forward to seeing what they come up with.

I think it would be cool if LEGO makes a collectible minifigure line for Minecraft.

Except for new parts and new colors (carrot top in light orange/tan? In the farm) i have no use for these sets. Never played minecraft, but any theme that brings new parts and colors is OK in my book.

What the heck is that other mob in the Cave set?! It looks like someone took a Creeper's head and stuck it on Steve! I do wonder whatever happened to the Minecraft Co-Build Project. There was a great Creeper that came out of that.

Interesting sets, but I have WAY better things to spend money on than this.

Huh. I guess they decided to forgo the horns on the cow and "shear" function on the sheep. That's kind of a shame. Still, both sets look nice enough and I'm eager to see the rest of the line. And I like how they've done the legs on the spider!

But, uh, you've got to ask what the point of a video is when you're just going to show still images...

@PicnicBasketSam: That's a Zombie ;)

I think these look fantastic, a lot better than the prelim pictures! Now I can't wait to see the remaining mobs, accessories and sets :D

While I tried playing Minecraft when it was a huge fad I never really got that into it. When I originally heard about this I though Lego and Minecraft were the perfect combination, on paper they are the perfect combination. But now that I am seeing these sets I don't think there that great and I am certainly not buying any of them. While I understand that they are supposed to be blocky like the game there problem is that they don't just use one kind if brick. They should just all use the square brick like in the game they only use one shape of block. While overall I don't like it I do like the fact that they are telling kids to use these same bricks and make their own models. Telling kids to use their imaginations is the core value of Lego and I'm glad to see that reintroduced

The mine looks pretty decent, but looks kind of small for a playset. The farm looks okay, but I probably won't be taking it home with me. Advent calendars look great, but the lonely mountain seems overpriced.

For all you minecraft fans out there, shouldn't the farm come with a hoe? Anyways, they look great. A great selection of mobs and blocks are given at a fair price. I do they should have tries to use just blocks, but that would have been hard for detail (i.e. ladder, torch, crops...), but I think they look fine.

I do wish they would have given Steve and the zombie short sleeves, since they're doing that now.

The MineCraft sets are pretty underwhelming (this coming from a MC fan)...the lava is atrocious and the stone isn't all that great. The figs/minifig accessories come close to making up for it but not really.
The other stuff is ehhh as well; the Lonely Mountain is alright because rare parts but not really impressed.

Maybe I'm looking at it wrong... But are those black pneumatic T-pieces connecting the spider's legs to its body in The Cave?

I'll be buying the SW advent calendar for Vader and the Christmas tree droid.

^ I see it too! Yes! This would be GREAT for my Exo-Suit Blacktron crossover!

^^^ Well spotted! Lets not get our hopes too high though. I'm looking at it and I'm not sure what kind of brick it's connected to. Perhaps it's a new 1x1 brick with a T-piece connected to it much like 99021: Bush W/Connecting Piece http://brickset.com/parts/6020189
It is possible that they will start making T-pieces in other colors in the near future though, I noticed a Dark Grey one sold on bricklink a few months ago...

@donutsftw: It's definitely a black T-piece, take a look at the picture on Hamleys.com: http://www.hamleys.com/lego-minecraft-the-cave-21113.ir

You have to zoom in to spot it :)

I'm a minecraft fan and I have to say lego can do much better than this. I bet the price is going to be ridiculous. Both sets are terrible in my opinion.

^Not terrible, just meh. Only thing in the sets worth getting are the minifigures, but probably not for the price the sets will be.

Minecraft... What a load of crap!

Not sure what I think about those minecraft sets... D: They have potential. I'm gonna wait to see the alternate angles to judge. I hope that they make more video game sets in the future though.

^^^^^ Ah yes, it's definitely a T-piece in a Brick 1X1 W. 1 Knob. Seems too good to be true, but it looks true!

The only thing I noticed was the Storm Trooper in the SW Advent calender looks like it has a new helmet. Possibly Ep 7 style? Anyone know or am I just seeing it wrong?

^ It's a snowtrooper.

These minifig-scale Minecraft sets just don't look like anything special to me.

It worked MUCH better as a micro-scale concept. Strangely these new sets look a lot like the blocky Lego sets from the 70s and 80s, but since Lego has evolved (I'd say for the better) since then, these don't look all that appealing.

I imagine they'll do well, curious to see how well.

Is it just me or has Lego run out of ideas for Star wars advent Calendars..... it looks like another year with models we had a few years ago, with perhaps one colour change, at first glance it looks like 4 of the ships are repeats and possibly two of the minifigs......... and If I get another gun stand........ Come on lets have 2014 micro sets, may even encourage people who get a Calendar to buy the big sets....

The first thing that popped in my mind when I saw the picture of the featured minecraft set is that the head of that minifig looks a whole lot like Huw's avatar. :)

There are some interesting new parts but the sets themselves are not that interesting. The Star Wars calendar looks pretty good. Especially the holiday themed figs.

Those Minecraft sets illustrate why I find Minecraft laughable. It looks like a badly done 20 year old Lego set! I thought real world Minecraft WAS Lego, and that Lego (even without specialist parts) is so much more sophisticated than that now.
I'm sure it'll sell, but that won't stop me sniggering at it! :P

I think I'd only buy a minecraft set if it had more of the exciting locations. These seem like they would be pretty easy to replicate with a basic collection of bricks. The skeleton is a pretty good rendition though! I'm interested to see if Lego creative enough to make a good looking Enderman because those fellows really don't fit the minifig mold. Anyway, interesting enough. Sad to see that there is not much treasure in the lonely mountain... just a lot of play features and an entirely molded (as opposed to even slightly brick built [like the AMAZING ent]) dragon. Oh well... personally the Hobbit lost interest when the second movie veered so far away from the the book. The Hobbit hole is still a fantastic set though, and I highly doubt I'll ever take it apart.

Wait, Brickset putting a link to a TTV video? This can't be right....

Anyway, the sets look a lot better than what I expected. The things that I really don't like are the tree in the farm (seriously? How hard is it to build a tree?), the cow being brown (cows in minecraft actually look black unless you closely look at them, then you would see that they are actually really dark brown) and this one is kind of personal, but I would have really liked to see a new build for steve and the zombie, since they don't look too minecrafty with regular minifigures build. A new body mold, arms and legs would have been better.

Forgot to mention that Steve would have looked better with printing on the sides.

Never played the game and have no interest to ever play it. Good luck to the theme/line but this has to be a very niche product. Very interesting.

I'm not much of a gamer, but the Farm looks interesting for the new pieces. The Cave, meh.

I have never bought an Advent Calendar set, and this year isn't going to change that, either.

Lonely Mountain looks great, IMO...but it needs to be less than $100 for me to even consider it. I already can't afford the sets that are out now, so odds are against me getting this one. Maybe I'll pick up a Smaug-less copy off eBay at a discount, but at the current price it simply isn't worth it to me.

Disappointed a bit in how these Mine crafts look. Do like how the 'figs look, especially the Steve. Again for another good looking Star Wars calendar.

Minecraft is not appealing to me.
I prefer to avoid having a look on any of its sets... :-(

Money saved! Minecraft has no appeal beyond new pieces and three advent calendars which do nothing new except the vader fig and the tree bot. Would be nice if they did a different calendar like the kingdoms or pirates ones.

^Oh, totally. I'd love a Ninjago or Middle-Earth Advent Calendar- knowing LEGO, their top choice for a new calendar would be CHIMA! But, it looks like the yearly (and terrible IMO) Friends calendar has filled the slot for interesting Advent calendar. Thumbs-down, LEGO.

I don't get it, what were you all expecting a Minecraft Mini-Figure scaled Theme to look like? The pinnacle of LEGO design or something?

I don't care for the game at all or find it that appealing, however I still think these sets look unique, interesting and fun enough to collect. I'll probably pick'em all up eventually. I think these sets are looking pretty impressive I mean from a basic design standpoint aimed at capturing the likeness of the game.

It might not rely only on bricks, however when has LEGO ever relied only on bricks in a Theme these days? Minecraft more than likely has to be priced accordingly for a licensed Theme, don't want to use too many pieces forcing a bump up to the higher price range when they're aiming to get the kids into this. Yes I'm looking forward to them and to seeing what else LEGO has in store.

I'm not skipping/missing the SW Advent Calendar this year, I failed to get it last year and this year I'm getting both it and the Friends calendar. They do look nice. I just wish that the Star Wars calendars didn't cost so much for the content you actually get, as a licensed Theme higher prices are to be expected, but for what you get in the calendars you sometimes fail to find a good price per piece ratio on them.

The Lonely Mountain is a nice looking set and I'm looking forward to these sets to come out. I just wonder though will LEGO drop the Middle-Earth License after this year or will they do like they did with Harry Potter and let it carry on for a while with a few sets a year? I'd still like an Oliphant to add to my LEGO animals collection.

I still dont like the Minifigs. I feel like they could have gone without even adding the Steve minifig since so many people use skins to change their appearance. I stand by my idea of releasing a handful of themed brick buckets (Cave, farm, fortress, *insert-biome*, etc) that include basic bricks, printed ores, tools, mob-figs, and then an inspiration booklet.

Honestly, I don't get what all the fuss about the Minecraft sets are about. Did people expect the sets to be the most interesting set of them all? Did people expect to see incredible techniques?

And the biggest thing I don't get is that with every other licsened theme people wish the sets sacrificed play value and excellent parts for accuracy, yet with Minecraft, people are saying that they wished it was less accurate so that they would get better parts and play value.

On a more positive note, I really like the sets because they're accurate. They're unlike any other sets I know, and they're probably as close to the olden days of LEGO part wise then you're going to get nowadays. I can stand the spider being huge as I understand that it would be rather difficulty to make it accurate scale wise.

And for those who are wondering where the creepers, and houses are, remember that there are still plenty sets left! Steve's House, The First Night, and The Mine are just a few, and I expect there to be many more sets.

@ Castleguy121. They're LEGO sets, of course you can connect them.

I'm very disappointed with these sets.

Speaking of new parts, I am equally excited on the strong possibility of the black t-piece.
Also, If the bucket in the cave is silver instead of gray, that'll be new (although gray has only appeared in two sets ( http://brickset.com/sets/containing-part-6057487 ), and this will be the first time it's actually been used as a bucket).
I'm also seeing the Clikits bracelet flower ( http://brickset.com/parts/4216479 ) in bright yellow and red, which I believe are new colors. I am glad to see this, as it is to me a great detail element.
Lastly, the yellow carrot top ( http://brickset.com/parts/4119479 ) looks new. It might be able to complement the yellow bush ( http://brickset.com/parts/6055785 ) in an autumn build, although I'm sure others will find more uses for it.
The selection of printed parts, although Minecraft-specific, look good to me, particularly the crafting table.
Seeing the new parts in only these two sets makes me eagerly await images of the others.

I was wrong - the bracelet upper part (http://brickset.com/parts/4216479) in red is not new, having been included in several Friends sets (http://brickset.com/sets/containing-part-6035617). Sorry about that!

First time seeing this year's advent calendars. Have to admit that I'm not impressed with the Friends one. Oh you're a girl playing with Lego? Here, make yourself a kitchen. Friends has so much more potential than what they put into these calendars, especially when looked at alongside the SW and city offerings.