LEGO Digital Designer 4.2

So the new version of LDD is out. Finally. But wait, what happened to Design by Me? Where is it?

Design by Me was abandoned by the company for God knows what reason. Oh wait, I know. It is just too inefficient the way it is. They say it could not have been meant to be, and I agree. You cannot write home a system which has a 10 USD processing fee, already overpriced elements, an untold amount of days processing, and an untold amount of days shipping. I think it lasted a little longer than deserved. I like the idea, and I'm sure millions did, but I guess LEGO saw it as an embarrassment to them.

It is ridiculous sometimes to order a tile for 9 cents a piece when Bricklink has it for cheaper. Same with the bricks. A 1x2 brick in red goes for 11 cents a piece while in store PAB you can fill a cup of them for 2-4 cents. Online PAB still exists, fortunately, but some parts of that are too much. Though the harm from ordering parts and paying premium is not completely evident in Online PAB, multiply the single ripoff element by hundreds when doing DBM. You really have to be rich or have superfluous income to do that.

What I would rather wait for is for LEGO to have a better streamlined custom order service similar to LUGBULK, but less complex. Maybe a faster, cheaper one will do as well. Maybe domestic set making would be a better idea as well, instead of doing it in Denmark. The palette can be shipped in K-boxes and unloaded to a distributor in the US whereas they bag up your set. Or maybe the next idea is to do the design for CUUSOO, but that you have to be 18 and the model has to be an ingenious design.

Now the GOOD thing about it is one stop designing. Now LDD is a considerable CAD rendering program, like MLCAD. LDD has two conventional modes, but I'm happy with the former. LDD mode and LDD extended are the names. LDD extended is like your LEGO Universe mode but it has been simplified. But I do like what they did to the selection of the casual. They added 183 new types of elements and fixed 70 bugs. But additional to the new elements, they provided many existing and new colors for the existent bricks. Yes, some colors that don't exist are there, but what I do accept about that is the ability to create a LU LDD mode model easier without constantly changing the color. Pretty much what I need is on there, and for that I am happy. Besides I have not even ordered from the online service since 2007, so it does not register for much of a loss by me.