FBTB Set Guide Beta

[Staff]

After months, if not years, of neglect, and a few weeks of work, I've finally managed to get FBTB's set guide back up and running. I consider it to be in in beta form right now, with only 2010 sets currently available for view. 2011 is next on the agenda and from then on, I'll be working backwards adding more years and other licenses over time along with navigational enhancements and other features.

A big thanks goes out to Huw over at Brickset for his help and support.

To start browsing, click on "guide" on the navbar above, or click here to start browsing. Fair warning: the navigation is very bare bones right now.

Got comments? Questions? Suggestions? We've created a special new forum for set guide conversations.


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Permalink: http://www.fbtb.net/2010/12/28/fbtb-set-guide-beta/

[banthafodder]

Great job guys. Really appreciate the hard work you put into the site an continue to make it the best site out there.

[MrCRskater]

Seconded. This was one of my favorite features on the old FBTB, so it's good to see its return! I like the "Movie Tie-in"/"TV Show Tie-in" label you guys included. Hopefully nobody feels the format is too derivative. It's a solid format, and you guys were thoughtful enough to link through to brickset and bricklink where folks can get more info. Nice work!

One of the things I did like about the old set guide were the reviews that went along with them. Would it be too redundant to include a review with each entry? Either a staff review or a staff-selected review from the forums? Of course, the easiest thing would be to just link each entry through to the review thread for each set on the forums, but this would also allow the least amount of content control. However, it doesn't seem that we end up with many terrible reviews, and this would have the added benefit of associating multiple reviews/opinions with each set, which could be a nice touch. Anyway, my point is that I'd like to see some kind of review associated with the set guide entries. Otherwise, looks great!

[meeotch]

Liking the idea of having a direct link to the thread with reviews on the particular set. What I'm going to suggest may be irrelevant, as I don't know what your plans for expanding the section are, but as it is right now, this page seems a little redundant. I think that the "Guide" button at the top navbar should link directly here.

[Solo]

One of the things I did like about the old set guide were the reviews that went along with them. Would it be too redundant to include a review with each entry?

Absolutely not. Reviews are one of several planned additions to the Guide pages.

[onions]

Liking the idea of having a direct link to the thread with reviews on the particular set. What I'm going to suggest may be irrelevant, as I don't know what your plans for expanding the section are, but as it is right now, this page seems a little redundant. I think that the "Guide" button at the top navbar should link directly here.

that nav bar was the last thing i did at 4am when i pushed it live and made the announcement. i knew i'd mess something up doing things that late into the night. i've implemented your suggestion.

[mandalorian_marshall]

This is such great news! The set reviews portion of the old site was honestly one of my favorite parts. I'd always go there before buying something because your reviews were always so well written and thought out. I've been using Brickset in the interim for reference, but I'm glad that you're bring this back to FBTB. Great job guys, looking forward to features you add in the future.

[yankeeken]

I too am glad to see the set guide make a return. The set guide and the reviews that went along with it was what first attracted me to FBTB.

[legoflesh]

Good job! I only need 5 more sets to complete my 2010 lineup! Are you planning on doing other stuff as well or just sticking to star wars?

[Solo]

As with the expanded focus of the site, the set guide will cover all licensed themes.

[onions]

One of the things I did like about the old set guide were the reviews that went along with them. Would it be too redundant to include a review with each entry?

Absolutely not. Reviews are one of several planned additions to the Guide pages.

reviews are now integrated with the set guide as can be seen here:

http://www.fbtb.net/set-guide/lego-star ... arfighter/

in order to avoid a super tall lengthy page, a short excerpt with a link to the full review is displayed. we have plans that will make that page pretty tall, so this was the best solution to integrate reviews with the set guide.

as more reviews are added, they will automatically appear on a set's entry in the set guide.

[meeotch]

Will Power Miners sets be included in the guide?

[Solo]

I love you meeotch.

[theJudeAbides]

Wow, glad to see you guys finally got around to making this. This was one of the things that initially drew me to the old site, so it's good to see effort going into it again.

I personally have a very large spreadsheet with much of this information (Set #, Set Name, parts, MSRP, year, what you guys refer to as "Theme" and Movie tie in (although mine isn't quite as exaustive as yours, as I group Eps. IV-VI into "Classic") for every single set. I've compiled this list over the years using LEGO.com for pretty much everything 2007+ and Bricklink, Brickset, Peeron, and others for everything older. If you're interested, I could e-mail you it if it would help speed things up for you.

Overall, this is a great start, and look forward to seeing it expanded even further.

Some Suggestions (once you have all of the sets in place):
- It would be cool if there were ship/vehicle pages that details each set that particular vehicle has appeared in (e.g. an AT-AT page, TIE-Fighter page, a X-Wing page, etc...). It should include all sets including MINI, System, and UCS/10xxx sets.
- Something similar, but for each character. It would detail all the different versions (e.g. Hoth Han, Endor Han, etc...) and which sets they appeared in.

Again, if you want help with any of this, I'm more than willing to lend my support. I've been cataloging all the various SW sets (and even some of the figs) for some time now and am more than willing to share my work

[MrCRskater]

Thanks for integrating the reviews, that will be a very helpful element of the set guide! Also, I'd just like to second Jude's suggestions regarding the set collections and minifig appearances.

[onions]

@theJudeAbides: pm coming your way

[eriochrome]

Might be good to get all the currently available models (at the lego store) up on the Set Guide. I noticed that some of my recent purchases like the X-wing and Tantive IV are not there.

[onions]

tantive iv was released in 2009.

x-wing was eons ago.

the earlier years are on my backlog of items to do. the plan is to get everything current for 2010/2011, and then work backwards.

[theJudeAbides]

Yeah, the 6212 X-Wing that's currently available (it tends to come and go) was actually released way back in 2006. Now, I'm not necessarily an expert on these things, but I think it may be setting a record for the longest running production set ever made by LEGO, especially if you don't count the UCS sets (6212 is a System set). However, I think the reasoning behind it is pretty sound: It's easily the most iconic ship in the Star Wars universe and the one that most people want to get, even those that aren't necessarily that big into Star Wars LEGO. Plus, it's pretty much as good as you're going to get at that scale, so unless LEGO does another remodel of it, I think we'll continue seeing it for some time.