With more and more alternatives appearing to Lego which also increase in variety and even surpass at times Lego quality, why focus just on this company for a brick building community? I for example have been badly burned by Lego’s handling of the Mindstorms brand and there are more compatibility broken product lines from Lego.
Is posting other brands alright here? Will it lead to unpleasant conflicts from Lego, if their brand name is used?
To me, especially when it comes to MOCs, it’s like an art form to work within the limitations of what the branded medium provides, or with digital MOCs, what the branded medium could hypothetically provide. Using offbrand or custom pieces to embellish a LEGO structure feel like “cheating” in a way to me, both in the artistic aspect and the engineering aspect. I’m fine if people want to make communities for Megablox for example, or communities for any or all building blocks brands (excepting ones which support plagiarists like Lepin), but a forum for a branded item/medium should be almost entirely built with brand. There’s also what’s called a generic trademark, wherein a mainstay brand’s name becomes a common term for a type of product (ex. “Kleenex” in lieu of “tissue”), that I’d want to avoid since it makes it harder for clear communication among hobbyists and worse for the brand (and in this one case, I generally do like the brand).
Oh, you are opposed to offbrand bricks being discussed in the Lego community. Not just like opposed in general. I agree honestly. And I understand your position now :)
Yes, except if it’s in reference to LEGO™️ content (ex. “LEGO should make a piece like this Megablox piece”, or “LEGO‘s print quality is so much better than [offbrand competitor]”)
I’m opposed in general in the sense that I don’t buy them but if someone wants to buy Megablox or another legitimate competitor, I’m fine with that. Like you, I am opposed in general to plagiarist brands.
As a MOC builder, it doesn’t matter to me what brand I use. I look at it as an art form as well, with the blocks being my medium. What’s important is the final product, not what it’s made with. Nobody cares whether Van Gogh used Faber-Castell paints or whatever.
When using non-lego pieces, I restrict myself to pieces that lego themselves also design, so I avoid specialised pieces. I think we both agree that using pieces that exist outside of lego’s library of parts is “cheating” in a way.
But then again, lego themselves are making a lot of new parts which are made of other parts… Funnily enough, some of the new parts they’re making, I could have sworn they were made by megabloks many years ago :) but that’s a different rant for another time.