World Map will be the largest set ever

Brickset.com

Here's a press release for the seventh addition to the Art theme which, in terms of number of pieces, will be the largest set ever released:

31203 World Map

Rated 18+, 11,695 pieces

€249.99 / $249.99 / £229.99 / AU$399.99 / CA$349.99

Available from June 1st at LEGO.com

The new addition to the LEGO Art collection contains the most pieces ever included in a set in the LEGO Group’s history, with its 11,695 elements allowing builders to immerse themselves in creating a stunning representation of the earth from 2D LEGO tiles.

The new 31203 World Map can be reimagined in a number of different ways to express the personality and travel memories or wishes of different builders. Customisable brick-built pins can be placed to mark out destinations already visited or highlight those still on the builder’s bucket list to give this masterpiece a personal twist before it’s proudly displayed.

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Source: https://brickset.com/article/59525

KungFuKenny

The color choices are too jarring for me... Those white continents have me thinking they should have included Sid the sloth, Manny, and Diego as figs...

Paperballpark

If they'd done the oceans blue (even just different shades of blue) and the land in greens for vegetation, tans for desert and whites/greys for mountains/snow, then I think it would have looked a lot better.

And as for those patterns, well the less said about them the better!

Bumblepants

Isn't there a globe set upcoming in Ideas? Perhaps the odd color choices here are in order to contrast with that set.

bricktuary

I don't mind it. It would have been insanely dull if it was just blues for the oceans, even shades of blues. As it is, it's merely tedious. 

SumoLego

Paperballpark said:

If they'd done the oceans blue (even just different shades of blue) and the land in greens for vegetation, tans for desert and whites/greys for mountains/snow, then I think it would have looked a lot better.

Well, that's the beauty of LEGO... you can make it whatever color you like...

panchox1

I kinda like it.

JudgeChuck

SumoLego said:

Paperballpark said:

If they'd done the oceans blue (even just different shades of blue) and the land in greens for vegetation, tans for desert and whites/greys for mountains/snow, then I think it would have looked a lot better.

Well, that's the beauty of LEGO... you can make it whatever color you like...

Only by purchasing another 10,000 1x1 plates and tiles though! ;-)

It's not for me. I'd have much preferred a colour scheme based upon topographical / geographical features, with some greens / tans / grey etc. The landmasses just look plain and the colours they have chosen for the seas just look odd.

Astrobricks

I’m glad it’s not just an unimaginative copy of some schoolroom map. That said, I probably won’t buy it, but who knows :)

Brainslugged

If there really are hundreds of pieces left over, why couldn't they have used the extra parts to raise up the land masses by a stud (at least)? Not only would it look a bit nicer and create more distinction between land and sea, but it would also create actual relief and mean that an artificial shadow wouldn't have to be created by using dark tiles on the right side of each land mass. Those dark tiles further compromise creating accurate looking countries at such a low resolution, so it would free up some much needed real estate for land rather than (fake) shadow.

At least this means I don't have to blow a huge amount of money on the Colosseum. The main attraction of the Colosseum was because it was the largest set ever. I have zero temptation to get the map - unless for parts at 50% off (which I think is actually a pretty likely eventuality).

Edit: I guess studs for the land v tiles for the sea does give a bit of relief for the land, but I still think it would look better with the land raised up further.

FireFox31

Missed educational opportunity.  The land masses showing colors for their biomes and topography could have really engaged people in learning about the part of the world which we inhabit.  Instead, we learn that "the ocean has various depths".

As with all Art sets, this must make your fingers simply bleed.  And how would you ever remove those 1x1 round tiles?

graphite

I know everything is a "set", but I would say this is the largest piece count for a "product".  Mosaics just aren't "sets" to me.  Large piece counts for mosaics just isn't as impressive as when you are building something 3D from the parts.  Another is it or isn't it UCS topic for me.

Paperballpark

FireFox31 said:

As with all Art sets, this must make your fingers simply bleed.  And how would you ever remove those 1x1 round tiles?

Having just taken apart an Art set to use the bases, I can say that the new wide brick separator really works well. It can remove 7 round tiles at a time, and you really power through the 16x16 plates. Sadly, the edge of the separator goes a bit blunt after a while, and I found that using a second separator for the second half of the tiles worked better.

msanders

I really like the Art theme. I have built a number of them and they look really cool on the wall at home - my wife is definitely impressed! Its great also because I was running out of room on the shelves and book cases so now I can populate the wall with Lego!!!! May be the floor next, or doors.....ah, and ceilings.....

I am undecided on the new World map set. I think it will look great on the wall but there are currently so many great sets coming that I might just run out of money.... (well, I ran out of money a while ago!)

JudgeChuck

It's my 50th birthday in a week or two and my other half told me, very pointedly, to not make any spontaneous purchases. She won't tell me why.
PLEASE don't buy me this set!!! :-DDD ;-)

Astrobricks

Paperballpark said:

FireFox31 said:

As with all Art sets, this must make your fingers simply bleed.  And how would you ever remove those 1x1 round tiles?

Having just taken apart an Art set to use the bases, I can say that the new wide brick separator really works well. It can remove 7 round tiles at a time, and you really power through the 16x16 plates. Sadly, the edge of the separator goes a bit blunt after a while, and I found that using a second separator for the second half of the tiles worked better.

Great. Now Lego can sell us new, sharp brick separators, emulating the razor industrial complex ;-)

Chris87

Does anyone else think this would sit better under the LEGO Education sets as opposed to the LEGO Art theme. The other Art items are very coloured and detailed and this set seems a little lacking considering it's the largest set ever released. A bit of colour and terrain onto the land masses would have made it stand out much more. The oceans look quite good I think with the depths etc. but why only the water and leave the land bland with the white studs? Imagine how good it would look if you had terrain showing the Rockies, Himalayas etc., even showing Uluru on Australia would add something. I think they have missed the finer details on this one.

Phoenixio

The most impressive version this could have been probably could have had depth, something like 4 studs deep total, with the deepest oceans at the lowest, regular oceans, land and then mountains or elevated land.  You could obviously do with more degrees of elevation, but then the number of pieces increases as well.

In a way, it's also cheating to call it the biggest set ever because it's only 1x1 pieces.  I'd be curious to count the total number of studs in some of the other bigger sets.  Imagine laying some of the big Star Wars set flat, that'd certainly cover similar areas.

bricktuary

^ I wonder what the largest set by weight of pieces is

The_Rancor

I’m assuming that’s the Colosseum or UCS MF/ISD

stlux

@bricktuary StoneWars maintains a list of largest sets, including their weight, here. (Including box and instructions.)

The top 3 by weight:

1. #75192 Millennium Falcon - 13.2kg
2. #75252 Imperial Star Destroyer - 12.5kg
   
3. #10276 Colosseum - 10.8kg

They don't have a weight yet for #31203 World Map, but Tom Alphin measured it at 5.4kg in his review. That's similar to #70840 Welcome to Apocalypseburg and #71040 Disney Castle, and puts it around position 25 by weight.

So both by Price Per Piece and Price By Weight, the set's RRP is not bad. (Both #70840 and #71040 were/are more expensive.)

@Brainslugged The extra parts are so you can build this alternative: 


@FireFox31 Biomes/topography might have been rather difficult at this scale - e.g. the whole Iberian peninsula is 3x3 studs. The level of detail would be "here be mountains"/completely ignore there's mountains?

Just keep in mind that the likely core target audience for this set is not AFOL's. Pictures of it hanging on a wall make it look better than the standard set pictures.

Similar to @msanders, walls are some of the last remaining places I have to display my Lego... I'm looking forward to alt builds people will post on Rebrickable.

BooTheMightyHamster

I'm going boss-eyed looking at that!

bricktuary

@stlux thanks that's really interesting. I guess unsurprising that 75192 is the heaviest, but slightly surprised the big Technic sets (BWE, Liebherr) are not even close.

At 12kg that's not particularly swooshable

SumoLego

JudgeChuck said:

Only by purchasing another 10,000 1x1 plates and tiles though! ;-)

Details, details.

Because I'm great at thinking up projects I'll never follow-up on, I think doing a 'night' version with the artificial light across the globe would be very cool.


(With some tweaks, as this is very dark.)

Aanchir

I definitely see a lot of customization possibilities here, even if you stick strictly to the parts and colors that come with the set. Like, instead of color-coding the oceans by depth, you could color them in solid colored stripes based on latitude, longitude, time zones, sea surface temperature, etc.

Or you could leave the oceans and bodies of water blank (as in this image) and use the colored tiles to decorate the landmasses — either with abstract patterns, or color-coded by elevation, by continents/subcontinents, by temperature/climate, etc.

I suspect that this customization potential was likely one of the reasons for not just sticking to "true-to-life" colors. Additionally, I feel like seeing parts in lots of wildly varied colors come together into one complete image probably makes for a more varied and exciting building experience compared to having to painstakingly lay down thousands of parts in slightly varied shades of blue.

And of course, a lot of LEGO's 18+ sets often aren't aimed strictly at AFOLs, but at adults with a more casual interest in LEGO — and if you ask a random adult what they imagine when they think of LEGO, chances are they associate it not with astonishingly photorealistic colors and details, but with vibrant assortments of rainbow-colored plastic bits that add a splash of color to their surroundings.

So needless to say, I suspect most adults in the market for a LEGO world map instead of a more "traditional" paper one (or something similarly understated) are people with a taste for decor that stands out (particularly by looking artsy, playful, or whimsical), not decor that fits in.

Casper_vd_Korf

with the customizations, we really need a contest somewhere...

Astrobricks

Casper_vd_Korf said:

with the customizations, we really need a contest somewhere...

Hmm… Where could such a thing be hosted? 🤔

Galactus

It's clearly a set to be displayed. That makes me wonder what colour the landmasses will be after a period on the wall...

Astrobricks

Galactus said:

It's clearly a set to be displayed. That makes me wonder what colour the landmasses will be after a period on the wall...

Closer and closer to dirt color I suppose. If it’s humid, maybe some green.

bricktuary

The good news is that over time, as the ice caps melt and the continents are slowly consumed, we can keep our maps up to date! Just replace a couple of white pieces with blue every now and then.

klinton

Does a pile of studs really count as the "largest set, ever"? I mean, it's got a tonne of pieces, but 99.99999% of that part count is going to be single studs.

Astrobricks

klinton said:

Does a pile of studs really count as the "largest set, ever"? I mean, it's got a tonne of pieces, but 99.99999% of that part count is going to be single studs.

Actually it’s mostly 1x1round tiles.

Paperballpark

bricktuary said:

The good news is that over time, as the ice caps melt and the continents are slowly consumed, we can keep our maps up to date! Just replace a couple of white pieces with blue every now and then.

Remind me to keep my blue 1x1 round tiles on a high shelf so that the rising sea levels don't get them.

Blockwork_Orange

An interesting looking set that would display well in a store, but not so well in my house.  I have the same feelings about the coliseum.  Too big to display well in a "normal" home. 

Aanchir

klinton said:

Does a pile of studs really count as the "largest set, ever"? I mean, it's got a tonne of pieces, but 99.99999% of that part count is going to be single studs.

I think it's fair to say it's the largest by piece count, no matter how small or basic the pieces happen to be.

And at 82 studs (65.6cm) by 130 studs (104cm), it probably also covers the largest 2D area as viewed from above. #10221 Super Star Destroyer is longer but narrower, and because of its wedge shape, its area as viewed from above is only around half that of a rectangle with the same proportions.

Of course, some of the other "largest sets" out there are almost certainly larger by weight, since the World Map is flat and contains mostly small parts. But I suspect that it would still rank pretty high even by that metric, since there aren't really any contenders for "largest set" that DON'T include small parts in large quantities!

Aanchir

Blockwork_Orange said:

An interesting looking set that would display well in a store, but not so well in my house.  I have the same feelings about the coliseum.  Too big to display well in a "normal" home. 

I almost feel the opposite about this one! The flat layout of this set is optimized for wall display. And compared to homes, stores tend to have a lot less vacant wall space (especially at or around eye level), since most of it is covered up with shelves for the store's wares/inventory.

I guess how much free wall space you have in a home would depend heavily on how long you've had that home and how much other decor you've already got for its walls, though. I'm sure the apartment my wife and I share would have plenty of space for a set like this, but my parents' house where I grew up might be a little less accommodating, since most of the ideal places to hang a large wall display like this are already occupied by paintings, photos, mirrors, etc.

Astrobricks

Aanchir said:

klinton said:

Does a pile of studs really count as the "largest set, ever"? I mean, it's got a tonne of pieces, but 99.99999% of that part count is going to be single studs.

I think it's fair to say it's the largest by piece count, no matter how small or basic the pieces happen to be.

And at 82 studs (65.6cm) by 130 studs (104cm), it probably also covers the largest 2D area as viewed from above. #10221 Super Star Destroyer is longer but narrower, and because of its wedge shape, its area as viewed from above is only around half that of a rectangle with the same proportions.

Of course, some of the other "largest sets" out there are almost certainly larger by weight, since the World Map is flat and contains mostly small parts. But I suspect that it would still rank pretty high even by that metric, since there aren't really any contenders for "largest set" that DON'T include small parts in large quantities!

@stlux answered the weight question yesterday:

stlux said:

@bricktuary StoneWars maintains a list of largest sets, including their weight, here. (Including box and instructions.)

The top 3 by weight:

1. #75192 Millennium Falcon - 13.2kg
2. #75252 Imperial Star Destroyer - 12.5kg
   
3. #10276 Colosseum - 10.8kg

They don't have a weight yet for #31203 World Map, but Tom Alphin measured it at 5.4kg in his review. That's similar to #70840 Welcome to Apocalypseburg and #71040 Disney Castle, and puts it around position 25 by weight.

So both by Price Per Piece and Price By Weight, the set's RRP is not bad. (Both #70840 and #71040 were/are more expensive.)

@Brainslugged The extra parts are so you can build this alternative: 


@FireFox31 Biomes/topography might have been rather difficult at this scale - e.g. the whole Iberian peninsula is 3x3 studs. The level of detail would be "here be mountains"/completely ignore there's mountains?

Just keep in mind that the likely core target audience for this set is not AFOL's. Pictures of it hanging on a wall make it look better than the standard set pictures.

Similar to @msanders, walls are some of the last remaining places I have to display my Lego... I'm looking forward to alt builds people will post on Rebrickable.

bricktuary

At least they remembered to include NZ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjTLOh_zz1g

DeMontes

SumoLego said:

JudgeChuck said:

Only by purchasing another 10,000 1x1 plates and tiles though! ;-)

Details, details.

Because I'm great at thinking up projects I'll never follow-up on, I think doing a 'night' version with the artificial light across the globe would be very cool.


(With some tweaks, as this is very dark.)

Oh with little leds, that would look fab!

Fauch

bricktuary said:

At least they remembered to include NZ

they forgot my region

Yellowcastle

All European countries were apparently prescribed at least a 1/8 portion of a round 1x1 plate so... :o)

1265

Fauch said:

bricktuary said:

At least they remembered to include NZ

they forgot my region

France surrendered once again. :)