More botanical sets blooming soon

I am wondering if there is actually a third set. The set numbers of the two "that shall remain unmentioned", are 1 number apart...

People have already bought these sets from retailers that don't honor street date. From what I've seen, they look great and I will probably pick some up next time there's a good GWP or 2xVIP.

@shaase:
Audrey II thinks you would be nice, and wants to know if you’re free for dinner.

Ok, I’ve seen these leaked, and they’re both GORGEOUS!!! I can’t wait for the official reveal!

I've seen the pictures and I think they look great. Really looking forward to getting hold of them.

Hoping for some really NPUs & recolors.

I thought the cactus would be out by now! seriously I love the line and am goad they are doing it, here is hoping the increase the limit for creator roses to higher than 2 so I can get one set for me & a friend, both I got before were for a child for her graduation & wedding 10+ years from when I got them

@Doctor_Hugh
Have you ever heard of a thing called "patience?"

Audrery II
Triffids
Killer Tomatoes
Pod People / Body Snatchers

All of these would be so awesome to own. (It would also be the end of the human race.)

I'm hoping for a giant beanstalk.

@sjr60:
I believe it no question. Not only have they posted job openings for people who would manage or shut down leaks (which appears to have had some nominal success on occasion), but any claims of “genius marketers” can be easily dispelled by looking at the earliest form of the LAN. Rather than approaching groups and asking them to appoint an Ambassador, high-profile members of the AFOL community were issued invitations as individuals. This resulted in a few LUGs with multiple Ambassadors, while several large LUGs (including my own, which is one of the most active in the world) having none. Ambassadors were asked to sign NDAs before joining, were regularly given choice information before the rest of the community had heard about it, were almost _NEVER_ given permission to release that info to the public, and consequently couldn’t even talk about it when leaks inevitably did happen. Pretty much every single Ambassador who was individually invited ended up quitting in frustration because the program accomplished nothing but to breed resentment within the community that this hand-picked group of elites got access to info months in advance.

Given the amount of IP-based product, in many cases their hands are tied. Movie studios can be very secretive about upcoming releases, plus for high-profile movies they even contract with major media outlets for exclusive first reveals. A toy company publishing merchandise images early would put the movie studio in breach of contract.

@TheOtherMike:
I’d prefer Dr. Professor Reginald Bushroot, and his pet, Spike.

@chrisaw:
The Ideas team is also not the entire company. They have to decide if they can bring a project to market. Prior to Sesame Street, they weren’t allowed to create new molds. They can’t touch active licenses. They can’t always secure new licenses at the time a project hits 10k. They have a limited amount of bandwidth (there’s only so many sets any individual can crank out in one year). They can’t repeat existing projects. They are limited to no greater than a 50/50 mix of IP vs non-IP, so a lack of workable original designs forces IP designs to be rejected. Just because something doesn’t work for them doesn’t tie the hands of the rest of the company, but of course it will never stop people complaining about “stolen” ideas, even when you can point out what rule the project clearly violated.

@Binary_Code said:
" @sjr60 said:
"
I don't believe for a second that 'leaks' are unintended. They're all part of Lego's marketing to gradually build up the interest for new releases. Same as the Lego Ambassador (Advertiser) Network. People just get excited to think they've found out something secret!

The new botanicals look fantastic though!"

I think there's probably a less conspiratorial explanation here. With the supply chain issues the whole world has been experiencing lately, Lego seems to be holding off revealing new sets for longer, presumably to have a greater degree of confidence in the sets actually making their way to shelves by the promised release date. Similarly, stores are more likely to break street dates in order to fill empty shelves. That leads to sets like these, the Muppets CMFs, the Thor sets, and others showing up in the wild before being officially revealed. Lego isn't exactly in a position of needing to artificially manufacture hype at the moment..."

Excellent points made here!

@chrisaw said:
" @MainBricker said:
"Yet again I feel sorry for the Lego Ideas creator who had his idea rejected only for Lego to do it anyway without his input."

The set in question was likely in the planning stages before the first Botanical set was even released, as is well known territory by now with this old argument. Hence why it would’ve been rejected."

Lego need to amend the rules for submitting Ideas models to exclude themes they have no intention of accepting. Every review period there are number of excellent modular and medieval buildings which are always rejected (the Blacksmith excepted). Any flowers now probably fall into that category as well. There is always a risk with models based on an IP but there is clearly a demand for buildings which Lego are ignoring time after time.

The two ideas selected from the latest review shows the Ideas project has become a joke. If Lego simply listed the themes which are off limits and selected more ideas in each review it could redeem itself. As it stands Lego are showing a level of contempt for the creators and supporters which beggars belief.

@Doctor_Hugh:
https://ideas.lego.com/guidelines

1. Politics and political symbols, campaigns, or movements
2. Religious references including symbols, buildings, or people
3. Sex, nudity, drugs, or smoking
4. Alcohol in any present day situation
5. Swearing or profanity
6. Death, killing, blood, terrorism, horror, or torture
7. First-person shooter video games
8. Warfare or war vehicles in any modern or present-day situation, or national war memorials
9. Large or human-scale weapons or weapon replicas of any kind, including swords, knives, guns, sci-fi or fantasy blasters, etc.
10. Racism, bullying, or cruelty to real life animals

https://legoideas.uservoice.com/knowledgebase/articles/356076-license-conflicts-and-resolutions

This one is pretty much all about excluded IP, and there’s a lot of it, so I’m not going to copy/paste everything.

@yellowcastle said:
"A) Releasing information on new waves while current waves are on sale can inadvertently encourage consumers to ignore current sets and wait for what's coming next when they may have ended up buying more had they not known about what's next. I.e. Dark Troopers coming out in a smaller, more affordable set."

This is an extremely anti-consumer practice IMO. Lego isnt entitled to achieving sales by misleading their customers. If you have to rely on customers being uninformed in order to want to buy your products, maybe you need to be making better products

Honestly, I suspect the leaks are simply if XYZ fake Lego competitor doesn't know about them, they will take longer to replicate/steal and Lego will have a head start in the item being on the shelf.

Also some people like surprises - ie me. I sometimes watch something if it has a leak - but honestly couldn't care less as generally I wait until the item hits a discount at retail.

@PurpleDave said:
" @Doctor_Hugh:
https://ideas.lego.com/guidelines

1. Politics and political symbols, campaigns, or movements
2. Religious references including symbols, buildings, or people
3. Sex, nudity, drugs, or smoking
4. Alcohol in any present day situation
5. Swearing or profanity
6. Death, killing, blood, terrorism, horror, or torture
7. First-person shooter video games
8. Warfare or war vehicles in any modern or present-day situation, or national war memorials
9. Large or human-scale weapons or weapon replicas of any kind, including swords, knives, guns, sci-fi or fantasy blasters, etc.
10. Racism, bullying, or cruelty to real life animals

https://legoideas.uservoice.com/knowledgebase/articles/356076-license-conflicts-and-resolutions

This one is pretty much all about excluded IP, and there’s a lot of it, so I’m not going to copy/paste everything."

I assume that is meant to reinforce my comment that the rules are distinctly lacking when it comes to highlighting the themes and types of sets which will fail the review process ( castles and modular buildings alone account for a large percentage of supported models). That list certainly seems to include a lot of which have nothing to do with models; 3, 4, 5 & 10 in particular.

I like the one set very much, and the other so-so. Not so unfortunate that leaks come out imho, for anyone other than the people who are trying to keep it a secret. It shouldn't be too hard to avoid the leaks if one doesn't want to know yet.

@yellowcastle said:
"There are a number of other factors that play a role with when/how information is released into the wild by LEGO including but not limited to:

A) Releasing information on new waves while current waves are on sale can inadvertently encourage consumers to ignore current sets and wait for what's coming next when they may have ended up buying more had they not known about what's next. I.e. Dark Troopers coming out in a smaller, more affordable set.
2) With growing competition (and IP stealing clones), the less heads up they have, the better you can beat them to market with your products."
Exactly right on both points! I was going to make the same points but you beat me to them.
Not sure about having one point as 'A' and another as '2'. Should be 'A' and 'B', or '1' and '2' ;~)

@PurpleDave said:
" @sjr60:
I believe it no question. Not only have they posted job openings for people who would manage or shut down leaks (which appears to have had some nominal success on occasion), but any claims of “genius marketers” can be easily dispelled by looking at the earliest form of the LAN. Rather than approaching groups and asking them to appoint an Ambassador, high-profile members of the AFOL community were issued invitations as individuals. This resulted in a few LUGs with multiple Ambassadors, while several large LUGs (including my own, which is one of the most active in the world) having none. Ambassadors were asked to sign NDAs before joining, were regularly given choice information before the rest of the community had heard about it, were almost _NEVER_ given permission to release that info to the public, and consequently couldn’t even talk about it when leaks inevitably did happen. Pretty much every single Ambassador who was individually invited ended up quitting in frustration because the program accomplished nothing but to breed resentment within the community that this hand-picked group of elites got access to info months in advance.

Given the amount of IP-based product, in many cases their hands are tied. Movie studios can be very secretive about upcoming releases, plus for high-profile movies they even contract with major media outlets for exclusive first reveals. A toy company publishing merchandise images early would put the movie studio in breach of contract."
Exactly. Also, leaking makes it look like LEGO has lax security which is bad for its brand image in the eyes of consumers (parents, AFOLs etc) (as well as IP holders). LEGO would never deliberately want to convey that impression.

@magmafrost, Companies avoid cannibalising their own sales. That's a commercial fundamental. Marketing is aligned accordingly and neither LEGO nor any other brand is going to let consumers know information that could compromise future sales.

Companies are constantly bringing out better or cheaper products. If they waited for the impossible-to-better product, they would lose out to competitors offering lesser but acceptable products in the meantime - so that isn't a viable commercial strategy.

@Doctor_Hugh said:
" @chrisaw said:
" @MainBricker said:
"Yet again I feel sorry for the Lego Ideas creator who had his idea rejected only for Lego to do it anyway without his input."

The set in question was likely in the planning stages before the first Botanical set was even released, as is well known territory by now with this old argument. Hence why it would’ve been rejected."

Lego need to amend the rules for submitting Ideas models to exclude themes they have no intention of accepting. Every review period there are number of excellent modular and medieval buildings which are always rejected (the Blacksmith excepted). Any flowers now probably fall into that category as well. There is always a risk with models based on an IP but there is clearly a demand for buildings which Lego are ignoring time after time.

The two ideas selected from the latest review shows the Ideas project has become a joke. If Lego simply listed the themes which are off limits and selected more ideas in each review it could redeem itself. As it stands Lego are showing a level of contempt for the creators and supporters which beggars belief."

Surely the fact that Ideas exists at all shows how much Lego value their creators.
Most companies wouldn't touch an idea like that with a bargepole.
The only thing that beggars belief is the unbelievable arrogance you are showing by thinking Lego have to run their business how you think they should

@Terreneflame said:
" @Doctor_Hugh said:
" @chrisaw said:
" @MainBricker said:
"Yet again I feel sorry for the Lego Ideas creator who had his idea rejected only for Lego to do it anyway without his input."

The set in question was likely in the planning stages before the first Botanical set was even released, as is well known territory by now with this old argument. Hence why it would’ve been rejected."

Lego need to amend the rules for submitting Ideas models to exclude themes they have no intention of accepting. Every review period there are number of excellent modular and medieval buildings which are always rejected (the Blacksmith excepted). Any flowers now probably fall into that category as well. There is always a risk with models based on an IP but there is clearly a demand for buildings which Lego are ignoring time after time.

The two ideas selected from the latest review shows the Ideas project has become a joke. If Lego simply listed the themes which are off limits and selected more ideas in each review it could redeem itself. As it stands Lego are showing a level of contempt for the creators and supporters which beggars belief."

Surely the fact that Ideas exists at all shows how much Lego value their creators.
Most companies wouldn't touch an idea like that with a bargepole.
The only thing that beggars belief is the unbelievable arrogance you are showing by thinking Lego have to run their business how you think they should"

Lego can run their company however they want, but frustrating their customers the way they are is not a good idea. That's just common sense. I've recently returned to Lego after many years so the majority of that post is a distillation of the many comments I have read by fans of their displeasure with the Ideas review board. They started out making some frankly poor sets from very few ideas and now make a few generally excellent sets from a very much large number of ideas.

@dudebrick said:
"A large Piranha Plant would be nice"

If they actually did this Lego would have my money.

@magmafrost:
Not making early announcements is _NOT_ misleading their customers. Misleading would be marking the boxes as “product made in X country” and actually importing them from Y country in the middle of the night. Misleading would be marking the piece count on the box, and padding the number to make it look better. Misleading is making a false statement, not choosing to not make any statement at all.m

@Doctor_Hugh:
No, it was meant to counter your claim. They may not be as easy to find as they should be, but the second link includes a comprehensive list of restricted themes by category, including active IP licenses, car brands, anything that falls under the Architecture theme, a couple misc items, and a list of all the subjects that are permanently banned for having already been produced as an Ideas set. I don’t know why Old Fishing Store has been removed from the list, but that was the first of at least four harbor-style buildings submitted by the same creator, and the first through the gate blocked the others from even being considered. Modulars fall under the “no active themes” clause, which I don’t see listed on the second page, or in the list I copied, but it’s a well-known rule from the inception of the Cuusoo theme that became Ideas. There’s probably a set of general rules that covers that. So they’ve done a terrible job of making it easy to find all the rules in one central location, but they have done a pretty thorough job of documenting many of the reasons projects will be automatically rejected.

Regarding the four items you numbered, all of those can be central aspects of a project’s design. The Winchester tavern from Shaun of the Dead actually did get rejected at least in part because of item 4 (and was directly responsible for this numbered list being compiled and posted). Moe’s Bar from The Simpsons would never be allowed for the same reason. A brothel would get rejected for item 3. Item 5 would be a problem for anything featuring graffiti that includes profanity. And a scene involving a plantation slave wouldn’t get past item 10.

@Zander:
Well, companies _should_ avoid cannibalizing their own sales. Not all do, but that’s just one of many reasons most new businesses fold within five years. McD’s is a great example of a company that has managed to survive doing so. They set up the Dollar Menu in the US as a way to attract thrifty eaters, but the margins on those items are incredibly low, franchises get tons of grief if they don’t participate (and can’t change the prices when they do), and lose sales on sensibly priced items when they do because it might be cheaper to buy two cheeseburgers than one double cheeseburger even though you actually get more food that way (two buns and twice as much condiments).

@Doctor_Hugh:
Check the comments any time new CMFs are unveiled, reviewed, or go on sale. Pretty much every series is the best series they’ve ever produced and simultaneously the worst series they’ve ever produced. It just depends on which customer you ask. Some will collect the whole wave, and others will skip it completely. The same happens with every new theme. It’s a terrible theme that nobody will buy, and it’s so amazing people will collect the entire theme and even buy multiple copies…again depending on exactly who you ask. The important thing to note is that this is a company whose products are no longer easy to find in most educational stores because that accounted for a significant chunk of their overall sales, and instead they have managed to supplant Hasbro as the largest toy manufacturer in the world (until Mattel bought Mega Brands to jump ahead of them). They’re clearly pleasing a huge percentage of their fans, or there wouldn’t be so many products that sell out large quantities of sets immediately after launch.

"2. Religious references including symbols, buildings, or people"

LEGO should stop making religious sets (easter, xmas...).

@miskox said:
""2. Religious references including symbols, buildings, or people"

LEGO should stop making religious sets (easter, xmas...)."

most xmas sets have a santa.. and easter a bunny...
seriously no santa or bunnies
.. what next no goats, cows, sheep, no viking or marvel sets

oops reread previous comments

@PurpleDave, What you describe is loss leading in which the net effect is positive, is intentional and has to do with pricing, so not genuine cannibalisation in which the net effect is negative, happens by accident and has to do with overlapping products/market segments.

But yes, companies *should* avoid cannibalisation but due to errors/mismanagement sometimes (often?) don’t.

For the first time I feel I'd like to buy, build and display a botanical set, they really look great, nice part packs too, I think new parts introduced as well.

@Zander:
No, see, that was the intent. Get them in the door with a cheap burger or whatever, and upsell them with stuff off the regular menu. But what they found happens is a lot of people exclusively buy from the Dollar Menu, because there are burgers, nuggets, fries, a drink, desert, and basically no corner of the menu that has been left unrepresented. So if you’re willing to stick to a sampler menu, you can save quite a bit on the same caloric intake. The problem is, fast food is the most affordable way to eat out, so it attracts lots of people who are operating on a tight budget. The people who are willing to go over $10 a head per meal are generally across the street at a restaurant with wait staff, so the Dollar Menu never really earns its keep. If you’re interested in reading about the full 20 year history (yes, it’s been that long) of the Dollar Menu/Value Menu/McPick 2/Dollar and More Menu, this site has a pretty comprehensive rundown of when and what changes have been made over the years, as well as how successful it has(n’t) been, and some honest opinions on it by franchisees:

https://www.mashed.com/137972/the-truth-about-mcdonalds-dollar-menu/

Anyways, this seems to be a great time to throw in my favorite corporate mismanagement “quote”, as one of the owners at my last job was fond of tossing around sarcastically: “We lose five cents on every unit, but we’ll make it up in volume.”

So the Horizon: Forbidden West Tallneck gets revealed in February but comes out on the same day as this undisclosed set that we’re just hearing about officially.

@Trigger_:
The Tallneck was just a plainvanilla reveal. This one has a joke worked in. April showers bring May flowers. Can’t reveal it before May 1st, or the joke doesn’t work.