Call me names, but I'll go to bat for stickers.

Even when I was a kid, I wasn't keen on graphic designs on the pieces. I liked the uniformity of consistently-colored pieces. Most graphics only make sense in the context of the set they were packaged in. Stickers give the customer flexibility. Use them when you build the set, and remove them later if you take the set apart and don't want them anymore.

Killing Mindstorms was a head-scratcher to me. Hell, there was an entire international tournament built around Mindstorms. I know FLL still exists, but why kill that darling specifically?

NXT still kicks ass by the way. I have a backup of the NXT programming environment somewhere, it can be coaxed into running on Windows 11.

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FarmerPotato an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Silverlight. 3.0 was built on Silverlight. And I guess other 3rd party proprietary stuff.

I coached FLL 9+ and Junior FLL 6-8. FLL moved on to Boost and Java programming. These days I only do high-school FIRST.

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FinnKuhn 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You can argue this for their sets targeting children and I don't think anyone minds stickers on those.

On display sets for multiple hundred Euros however it just looks cheap due to different surfaces and colors - especially as no one is ever going to disassemble these sets.

	▲	FarmerPotato an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		stickers > just looks cheap due to different surfaces and colors They are cheap! To print on a piece you must run the inkjet assembly line, do QC on it.. With early Collectable Minifig series, I heard they outsourced that. I imagine inkjet lines that run all day for one piece type (maybe having changeable jigs.) It's cheap to print a whole sheet of stickers! Another approach that isn't so cheap is: in-mold transfer printing sheets. I learned about this at plastics shows around 2000; Apple used it on the all-in-one spotted iMac in 2001-ish. Now since Lego ships perpetually ships 1x4s and 1x2s with black smileys or such, I guess carbon black in-mold transfer must be cost-effective. (That's a guess) I know we're gonna be arguing taste in stickers forever.
	▲	ryukoposting 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		I think that's fair, though I'm sure we would disagree on plenty of edge cases in the definition of a "display-oriented" set. It just feels to me like AFOLs poopoo on any set for having stickers, without considering the advantages stickers have from the POV from the POV of a child with few LEGOs and fewer dollars.
	▲	bigstrat2003 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I have some of those display sets and I think the stickers look fine. Yeah it's less convenient than printed pieces, but I think the complaints are significantly overblown.

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closewith 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

But you can only remove them once, and then never recreate the original set. Not great.