My fear now that I’m in even if by accident, is this may hurt the rest of the lair releases. That would be a huge disappointment for all this who went in willingly. I also fear the price of the remaining sets. Hopefully they will be reasonably priced and then rerelease the living room set for those that may want a second chance. And I absolutely want to see them tackle a technodrome or technodrome-like display. I just hate they are probably going to make that dream disappear with low orders on this. I wish they would have priced this better.
Well that is why it is important that more collectors order this as it can lead to additional cool, (but likely pricey), releases further down the road.
I personally think that the Living Room + Kitchen + Donatello's Lab is greater than the Cat's Lair in terms of quality and space. The Cat's Lair has the light up features but the accessories coming with each NECA diorama look far better than the Cat's Lair's accessories, (SDCC 2022 showed all the accessories off). It will of course cost a bit more than $750 though, but not way more. The kitchen is half the size of the living room and lab, but the accessories are very cool and chunky with that set, as they are with Donatello's lab. I think it will be $300 + $200 + $300 = $800 + shipping, so around $900 all-in if you live in the US compared to $750 all-in for the Cat's Lair. The price disparity doesn't seem too bad when you compare them like that.
Each room has individual walls from the look of it, so they are unique sculpts from room-to-room. Each room can be placed alongside each other in a line, or they can line up behind each other too using the sewer hole in the back wall lining up with the side or back wall of another room, so different collectors can have their modular rooms arranged in a different pattern or configuration to others which is neat. This effect will only be increased with the addition of more rooms down the line that Trevor has hinted at during PowerCon 2023.
I am fairly confident that if collectors back this, they won't regret it in the long run as with further rooms potentially coming, there is a real possibility of creating the best Turtle lair of all time!
When is the deadline on the living room?
Yes, I wouldn't delay, if you are on the fence, then choose to buy it as the upside of those future sets is very cool. As collectors this is all about the long game and building towards an awesome display.
You don't want to be one of those people that inevitably posts just after the deadline saying ''Damn, I woke up late today and the pre-order window has now closed, I was planning on getting it, ooopps! I hope the eBay prices are reasonable!''
I'm interested in seeing how these do on the aftermarket. People will list them super high, of course, but I imagine the ones that will actually sell will be Best Offer Accepted for the most case, with bidding auctions going for just about retail, maybe even below. I don't know that the demand is here at the price point, especially if a third party company throws down.
The line is cooling on the aftermarket, by and large, baring a few outliers. It's a good time to back collect, since a savvy shopper could get several below retail.
My worry if I had decided to collect the playsets would be that they will do accessory packs for Donnie's Lab or the Kitchen, though the Kitchen might come with everything, it'll just be priced as high as the larger sets. If the turtletot set was included with the playset I might have bought. I'm still on the fence if I'm gonna PO just the accessory set. But the living room is empty without the TV... really the cost then is $360 plus tax and s&h.
My fear now that I’m in even if by accident, is this may hurt the rest of the lair releases. That would be a huge disappointment for all this who went in willingly. I also fear the price of the remaining sets. Hopefully they will be reasonably priced and then rerelease the living room set for those that may want a second chance. And I absolutely want to see them tackle a technodrome or technodrome-like display. I just hate they are probably going to make that dream disappear with low orders on this. I wish they would have priced this better.
Well that is why it is important that more collectors order this as it can lead to additional cool, (but likely pricey), releases further down the road.
I personally think that the Living Room + Kitchen + Donatello's Lab is greater than the Cat's Lair in terms of quality and space. The Cat's Lair has the light up features but the accessories coming with each NECA diorama look far better than the Cat's Lair's accessories, (SDCC 2022 showed all the accessories off). It will of course cost a bit more than $750 though, but not way more. The kitchen is half the size of the living room and lab, but the accessories are very cool and chunky with that set, as they are with Donatello's lab. I think it will be $300 + $200 + $300 = $800 + shipping, so around $900 all-in if you live in the US compared to $750 all-in for the Cat's Lair. The price disparity doesn't seem too bad when you compare them like that.
Each room has individual walls from the look of it, so they are unique sculpts from room-to-room. Each room can be placed alongside each other in a line, or they can line up behind each other too using the sewer hole in the back wall lining up with the side or back wall of another room, so different collectors can have their modular rooms arranged in a different pattern or configuration to others which is neat. This effect will only be increased with the addition of more rooms down the line that Trevor has hinted at during PowerCon 2023.
I am fairly confident that if collectors back this, they won't regret it in the long run as with further rooms potentially coming, there is a real possibility of creating the best Turtle lair of all time!
We don't know WHAT the 2 other known sewer liar sections are going to come with. If memory serves, they showed a lot more in the living room last year compared to what's actually coming with it now.
You also can't compare finished quality of the lair or Cat's lair because NEITHER is even out yet. They are BOTH prototypes are the moment, so likely resin or 3d printed pieces.
We don't know WHAT the 2 other known sewer liar sections are going to come with. If memory serves, they showed a lot more in the living room last year compared to what's actually coming with it now.
You also can't compare finished quality of the lair or Cat's lair because NEITHER is even out yet. They are BOTH prototypes are the moment, so likely resin or 3d printed pieces.
We have a very good idea of what these come with, and it is a lot, probably more than the living room actually.
The Kitchen comes with:
- 2 large wall pipes, (similar to the ones that come with the living room)
- A large, chunky fridge
- A large, chunky oven and stove
- A large table with tablecloth
- 2 large cupboards/cabinets
- 4 or 5 chairs
- 1 or 2 Circular sewer hole plugs that have shelves on them that you can use to block up the wall holes
- 2 plug-in wall shelves
- A plug-in wall cabinet
- Around 18 or so small accessories such as a pile of pizza boxes, pots, pans, plates, tubs, wall scroll etc.
The Lab comes with:
- 3 or 4 thin wall pipes with larger boxes attached at certain parts of the pipes to make them look more intricate
- A large fuse or relay box of some kind that plugs into the wall
- Some kind of massive chunky wall unit that plugs into some of the thin wall pipes
- A large, chunky workbench
- 1 or 2 Circular sewer hole plugs that have shelves on them that you can use to block up the wall holes
- A large table
- Some kind of small printing machine and a small monitor look like part of the minor accessories
- A small toolbox
- Possibly some additional minor smashed Roadkill Rodney accessories
So the above is clearly a tonne of stuff that really adds life to these individual diorama rooms and makes them far from just an empty shoe box, like some people in the community have said about these.
As for comparing the 3 room Sewer lair vs the Cat's Lair, we can as the NECA stuff is essentially finished product at this point, and Super7's Cat's Lair will be very similar to the final finished product. We can make very reasonable comparisons now because if we wait until it's all in-hand, it is then too late to make productive comparisons.
While the Cat's Lair is a cool piece, the amount of usable floor space with it is very limited as it follows the Snake Mountain/Castle Grayskull playset format. You have a small amount of space on the front steps and under each of the paws, and then one figure each can perch on the two mountain sides.
Inside the Cat's Lair, the upper control room is very tight for space, you can probably get 4 or 5 figures there. Then downstairs there isn't much space either, probably another 4 or 5 figures if you are lucky.
And that is it, you can't fit many figures on or in the Cat's Lair, (where the figures are actually in contact with the Cat's Lair). These Cat's Lair spaces are all narrow too, (like the NECA street scene), which only really allows the figures to be displayed in a single-file formation rather than being displayed in a larger space like the Sewer Lair where figures can be displayed in more dynamic formations partially in front and behind each other as well as side-by-side.
Super7 cleverly used a rock-coloured mat for their display to give the impression that the Lair is bigger than it really is, but when you have the lair at home, you won't be seeing that, instead it will be your immersion-breaking table top etc. Maybe the mat comes with the lair, (note sure on that), but it still doesn't really count too much as actual floor space in my opinion even if it is included. The usable floor space for just the Sewer Living Room alone is roughly comparable with the whole of the Cat's Lair, and so when you include Donatello's Lab and Kitchen then you have 2.5 times the floor space as the Cat's Lair for only slightly more cost. That makes it another win for NECA in my mind.
I feel like the mental and verbal gymnastics some fans, here and elsewhere, have been doing to justify the price to other fans is proof enough that the living room is overpriced. This might actually be the first time I've seen such a continuing 'but listen guys, it's actually not such a bad deal' kind of thing over a NECA TMNT item. In fact, for a long time people were favorably comparing NECA's prices to Super7's prices by pointing out you can often get two NECA figures for the price of one, often inferior, S7 figure. So it's not like NECA 'Toon Turtles collectors have a history of complaining about the prices of all the releases.
Maybe instead of trying so hard to justify the obviously inflated price, we need to have some perspective when this many people are going 'wait, it's how much?' that otherwise have been avid fans and consumers.
I feel like the mental and verbal gymnastics some fans, here and elsewhere, have been doing to justify the price to other fans is proof enough that the living room is overpriced. This might actually be the first time I've seen such a continuing 'but listen guys, it's actually not such a bad deal' kind of thing over a NECA TMNT item. In fact, for a long time people were favorably comparing NECA's prices to Super7's prices by pointing out you can often get two NECA figures for the price of one, often inferior, S7 figure. So it's not like NECA 'Toon Turtles collectors have a history of complaining about the prices of all the releases.
Maybe instead of trying so hard to justify the obviously inflated price, we need to have some perspective when this many people are going 'wait, it's how much?' that otherwise have been avid fans and consumers.
Because their points often aren't backed up with a lot of logic and reasoning. Many people are just saying ''it feels overpriced'' which could easily be based on their emotional disappointment as they were hoping/expecting the living room to be $150 to $200 and that hasn't happened. Perhaps their expectations were overly optimistic and unrealistic in the first place?
I was hoping it would be priced lower too, but maybe my hopes were just based on incorrect knowledge and not understanding fully the sort of costs that actually go into creating something like this. That is why I am not too disappointed as how do I know I even have a right to be disappointed? Maybe it is only a bit overpriced and I am more accepting of a slight overpricing, so long as it isn't a massive overpricing that is being alledged by some.
If it is so obviously overpriced, why don't you explain why and help me understand more? The main thrust of your point seems to be based on the idea that the majority can't ever be wrong. If you do actually believe that sometimes the majority can be wrong, then how do you know that this isn't one of those times?
From my perspective, whether it's priced accordingly for what you get, or NECA is taking on an unreasonable markup knowing fans will buy anyway, will be something I just can't figure out as a consumer with no inside knowledge of producing playsets for the toy industry.
What I will say, though, is that I would be happy if the furniture pieces were hollow, and if everything was made to the quality of the recent Playmates MM playset, and it retailed for $100 and or below. At the end of the day, this isn't something that needs fancy engineering, articulation, or even crazy paint apps. It looks super simple, which is why so many fans are building their own. I'm not going to pose the couch, or the sewer pipes. Just give me blocks of cheap plastic.
I can sense value, and it wasn't here for me. I paid $275 for the Dragonfly HasLab... apples to oranges? Maybe, but it came with 4 figures, each figure came with a bunch of accessories, the copter is loaded up with a bunch of accessories, it has a stand, and electronic lights. It looks like a much harder piece to engineer than a few walls. It's also harder to pack and ship. It was $25 less than the sewer playset.
I'm going all in on the recent Cosmic Legions line... seven highly detailed, complicated figures with lots of accessories, plus an accessory kit... for $300, the same price as the lair.
Just not spending the money because it can't compare to those other purchases.
As for the kitchen and Donnie's lab... we don't know what accessories are actually going to come with the playsets, and what ones will be packed and sold separately. To be fair, to really get the full living room setup, you need to pay $360 plus s&h.
Because their points often aren't backed up with a lot of logic and reasoning. Many people are just saying ''it feels overpriced'' which could easily be based on their emotional disappointment as they were hoping/expecting the living room to be $150 to $200 and that hasn't happened. Perhaps their expectations were overly optimistic and unrealistic in the first place?
I was hoping it would be priced lower too, but maybe my hopes were just based on incorrect knowledge and not understanding fully the sort of costs that actually go into creating something like this. That is why I am not too disappointed as how do I know I even have a right to be disappointed? Maybe it is only a bit overpriced and I am more accepting of a slight overpricing, so long as it isn't a massive overpricing that is being alledged by some.
If it is so obviously overpriced, why don't you explain why and help me understand more? The main thrust of your point seems to be based on the idea that the majority can't ever be wrong. If you do actually believe that sometimes the majority can be wrong, then how do you know that this isn't one of those times?
By contrast to 'it feels overpriced' the 'logic and reasoning' you (and/or others) are employing is to make up fake numbers about what different pieces are worth, or imagine, with no actual factual foundation, how many times the tooling could be used in comparison to other NECA items that were cheaper.
It's intellectually dishonest to suggest it could be that people are disappointed because of their own expectations when you're talking about people that have already been actively collecting this line the entire time. They're familiar with what all the various things have cost and, from the best I can tell, it's been a rare sight for anyone to be complaining about NECA's prices. In fact, most here have done the opposite. As I pointed out.
But sure, so that your own points can be valid, all those people suddenly forgot how much things cost and are wildly surprised. Weird how those same people aren't complaining about the cost of any of NECA's other items in this line. Including the van. Strange how JUST this item alone has become a victim of people that set unrealistic pricing expectations.
And no, the main thrust of my argument was never that 'the majority can't be wrong.' I made the main thrust of my argument and relevant comparisons earlier in this thread and I'm not going to keep saying the same stuff for your benefit. You're free to go back and read it again. It's all still there. And the only response thereto was simply 'nuh uh.' Super insightful stuff.
And frankly, if you think even my most recent post just amounted to 'the majority must be right' then you might as well stop reading my posts entirely. It won't hurt my feelings. We're just obviously on different wavelengths because you're seeing what you want to see and, perhaps, what's easy to argue against, versus what's actually being stated. Good luck, though.
By contrast to 'it feels overpriced' the 'logic and reasoning' you (and/or others) are employing is to make up fake numbers about what different pieces are worth, or imagine, with no actual factual foundation, how many times the tooling could be used in comparison to other NECA items that were cheaper.
It's intellectually dishonest to suggest it could be that people are disappointed because of their own expectations when you're talking about people that have already been actively collecting this line the entire time. They're familiar with what all the various things have cost and, from the best I can tell, it's been a rare sight for anyone to be complaining about NECA's prices. In fact, most here have done the opposite. As I pointed out.But sure, so that your own points can be valid, all those people suddenly forgot how much things cost and are wildly surprised. Weird how those same people aren't complaining about the cost of any of NECA's other items in this line. Including the van. Strange how JUST this item alone has become a victim of people that set unrealistic pricing expectations.
I've provided reasoning as this living room has more material than the street scene. The living room is one tall plastic layer with two full painted floors to put figures on, and the street scene is two shorter plastic layers with three narrow floors that equate to just one of the floors the living room comes with. Overall it is similar levels of plastic and paint between the two sets as the street scene is taller, but the living room has far more accessory pieces so it likely contains more plastic and paint than the street scene, produced in a lower production run (not at retail),and there is inflation on top, and a small amount of overpricing and that leads to $300 not being a horrible price in comparison. Just a bit overpriced and nowhere near the biggest offenders as I will detail below.
You're also saying people haven't complained much in the past as this line has offered a lot of value in the past and only now with this sewer lair, there is no value and it is overpriced hence why people are outraged.
If you look at the price of a single standard sized figure in this line, it is about $35 - $40. Then a two pack costs $55 - $60. By extension of this logic, a four pack should then be costing around $100 - $110.
However, last year's Style Guide Cartoon four pack, the Jim Lawson four pack and the 3rd movie four pack have all been coming in at $150 and not $110. People have been lapping up these sets with very little complaining about the price, even though it is a four pack of near identical figures with only minor repaints.
The Turtles In Disguise four pack was reasonable value as that was four mostly identical figures, but they each had two additional heads, soft goods and many other accessories above and beyond just their weapons. It was close to being a four pack plus an accessory pack so $125 is reasonable for that set so sometimes there is value there in this line, (and other NECA TMNT lines), but not always.
Buying the Jim Lawson pack and the 3rd movie pack would cost you $300 + shipping, but it should really only cost $200 - $220 + shipping. No one bats an eyelid at this price gouging, presumably because if the item costs under say $200, people don't question things too much. Once an item goes above $200, (the van and sewer lair), suddenly these purchases get way more scrutiny and the van has been determined as good value, but the sewer lair is bad value as it costs $300 when it should be $200, (essentially the same bad value price differential as buying the two recent NECA four packs which people have lapped up).
So this line has regularly had items that offer value and items that are definately overpriced, this is nothing new. Why the outcry from people only now? It doesn't seem logical or consistent.
I'm pretty sure it costs more than it should, but I bought it anyway.
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