Story-Driven Castle Themes?

[valon]

i said this several times before but i hope one of the people here puts a theme on worldbuilder everybody has said very good ideas

[Lego David]

1 hour ago, MAB said:

As to numbers of factions, Chima had lions, eagles, gorillas, bears, beavers, rhinos, crocs, ravens and wolves all introduced in the first season. I don't think kids found it difficult to follow, my son was 6-7 at the time he watched it and was able to follow the story perfectly well.

Chima is also one of the rare examples of a modern LEGO themes driven by ambigous factions (something a lot of Castle fans seem to want). Sure, its made pretty clear that Lions, Eagles and Gorillas are good guys, and the Crocs being obviously the bad guys, but the Wolves and Ravens were more of the amigous type that you can't really tell if they are good or evil, since they acted entirely out of their own interests. I assume a lot of Castle fans would want the same type of factions but with normal human minifigures instead of animals.

[valon]

2 minutes ago, Lego David said:

Chima is also one of the rare examples of a modern LEGO themes driven by ambigous factions (something a lot of Castle fans seem to want). Sure, its made pretty clear that Lions, Eagles and Gorillas are good guys, and the Crocs being obviously the bad guys, but the Wolves and Ravens were more of the amigous type that you can't really tell if they are good or evil, since they acted entirely out of their own interests. I assume a lot of Castle fans would want the same type of factions but with normal human minifigures instead of animals.

and other creatures to, dragon lands is like that a little bit 

Edited March 10, 2021 by valon

[zoth33]

18 hours ago, MAB said:

In other words, repeat Ninjago with knights instead of ninjas vs every faction that can be thought up. However, it misses out the builds, and builds are important. Ninjago had a lot of vehicles, how would they fit in?

Not what I was thinking.  Like I said you could swap out some main characters during seasons by having them off on another adventure at the time and make location based sets too.  Like the story in legend of Zelda, yes you will have a lot of repeat characters, but that's how you build a story.  If you change the characters each season no one will be invested in it.  Look at the elves line they had a story driven by the characters if you change the characters very season the story goes no where.  I'm also not saying it has to last as long as Ninjago.  They could do a run of 3-4 years then end that story and pick up another storyline with a character that was introduced during the first run and expand a popular secondary characters story arc. and so on.  I did not mean like Ninjago with a ton of vehicles but Ninjago has some very nice location based sets too.  But you have to build a story with the characters over time not just one off things it won't work.  Just think of it like in fantasy adventure books like Dragonlance.  You have the original trilogy of the Dragonlance chronicles and then there was spin offs for the twins Raistlin and Caramon.  Also books telling the backstories of other characters like Tanis, Sturm, etc.  Or even another example like the Elder Scrolls Online where you have a main cast of characters used in the game and they explore different areas of the world in each dlc.  Then certain character dissappear for a while then their story returns at a later time.  Just think of the possibilities if they could pull something like that off.  There would be so many different location based play sets and different seige engines, carts, carriages, etc they could build.  They also could make so many different races like gnomes, elves, dwarves, men, halflings, centaurs, minotaurs, ogres, orcs, vampires, gargoyles, demons, trolls, mer-people, werewolves, wererats, imps, dragon men, draconians, etc.  And they could make several different factions within each like Sea Elves, Forest Elves, Moon Elves, etc.  It could be epic if done right and would keep kids and adults interested with different races and factions within the races to explore.  

[brittlebrown]

I didn't see this mentioned, but I remember as a kid they tried to merge Castle with characters and story similar to Ninjago with Knights Kingdom!... II?

Not the Bionicle-esque, but there was an iteration of the characters that had names and unique personas. I don't recall if they had a show or not, but I always thought Ninjago was another series in this style.

 

The bionicle hybrid never interested me, but I did have a few of these sets prior to the proper Castle/Fantasy series that followed this. Considering they abandoned this character-driven concept for their next series, I'd wager they didn't see the sales results they wanted. 

After this, I think the Castle and Kingdoms did ok, right? I remember not being into the red/green of Kingdoms, but it's grown on me over time. I might even go back to pick a few up now that I'm thinking about it. The only issues is the most coveted sets of those series, the Medieval Market Village (10193) and Kingdom Joust (10223), were filled with the notorious pieces I made my username for. 

After that, you have 2 of my least favorite castle series out there; the most recent Castle run, and the Nexo Knights. 

While I can just say simply Nexo Knights wasn't my thing, so I don't think too much about it, the last Castle run was just awful. I have a bad feeling it gave Lego the impression kids don't want to play with Castle anymore, but really I think it was down to the design. Squeaky clean vector art lion logo on the shield with painfully plain color combinations made it about the least visually appealing Castle series I can think of. I'm not sure if they wanted to move into a younger demographic, or wanted to try a "safe bet" with a by-the-numbers Castle run, but the hard left turn that was Nexo Knights tells me they didn't get the profit they wanted out of the series. 

In summary, you have the failure with Knights Kingdom as a character-driven series in the early/mid 00's (though was probably related to the wild ride it on from bionicle to classic lego), a faceplant with their most recent medieval/fantasy castle line that may have indicated a lack of interest (over a lack of creativity on Lego's part), resulting in "the kids just aren't into castle anymore. stop production." 

I think it'll take a lot of imagination to get Castle back into the spotlight, but if you look at the origins of Ninjago with Castle Samurai from the late 90's compared to the most recent Ninjago lineup, I think it can be done. Lego has to see an opportunity there again, but there's still tons of great old Castle to collect in the meantime... and the medieval blacksmith featuring updated black falcons was nice this year. There's also some hope Lego could do a 3-1 like they did with the $100 Pirates set in the Castle theme, as this seems to be the perfect avenue to revisit old themes without developing an entire line. 

 

 

 

 

 

[MAB]

5 hours ago, zoth33 said:

Not what I was thinking.  Like I said you could swap out some main characters during seasons by having them off on another adventure at the time and make location based sets too.  Like the story in legend of Zelda, yes you will have a lot of repeat characters, but that's how you build a story.  If you change the characters each season no one will be invested in it.  Look at the elves line they had a story driven by the characters if you change the characters very season the story goes no where.  I'm also not saying it has to last as long as Ninjago.  They could do a run of 3-4 years then end that story and pick up another storyline with a character that was introduced during the first run and expand a popular secondary characters story arc. and so on.  I did not mean like Ninjago with a ton of vehicles but Ninjago has some very nice location based sets too.  But you have to build a story with the characters over time not just one off things it won't work.  Just think of it like in fantasy adventure books like Dragonlance.  You have the original trilogy of the Dragonlance chronicles and then there was spin offs for the twins Raistlin and Caramon.  Also books telling the backstories of other characters like Tanis, Sturm, etc.  Or even another example like the Elder Scrolls Online where you have a main cast of characters used in the game and they explore different areas of the world in each dlc.  Then certain character dissappear for a while then their story returns at a later time.  Just think of the possibilities if they could pull something like that off.  There would be so many different location based play sets and different seige engines, carts, carriages, etc they could build.  They also could make so many different races like gnomes, elves, dwarves, men, halflings, centaurs, minotaurs, ogres, orcs, vampires, gargoyles, demons, trolls, mer-people, werewolves, wererats, imps, dragon men, draconians, etc.  And they could make several different factions within each like Sea Elves, Forest Elves, Moon Elves, etc.  It could be epic if done right and would keep kids and adults interested with different races and factions within the races to explore.  

I think for something like that to work, they have to both get the story right (as in interesting) and make sure users can engage with the story, which is often a problem as the cartoons are rarely freely accessible in all countries. Otherwise if people's favourite heroes just disappear from sets, there is less continuity and hence buy in and the sets appear to be a somewhat random mixture. One of the good things about Ninjago is that you can pick any set in any era and you can identify the heroes and villains, even if you don't know the story arc. 

If sets are heavily linked to a story, they need to make sure everyone gets access to the story.

[Alexandrina]

9 hours ago, zoth33 said:

They also could make so many different races like gnomes, elves, dwarves, men, halflings, centaurs, minotaurs, ogres, orcs, vampires, gargoyles, demons, trolls, mer-people, werewolves, wererats, imps, dragon men, draconians, etc.  And they could make several different factions within each like Sea Elves, Forest Elves, Moon Elves, etc.  It could be epic if done right and would keep kids and adults interested with different races and factions within the races to explore.  

Does any theme really need that many races? I have a decently-big interest in fantasy as a genre and I'm not entirely sure what all of those are. The general public will be even less so. Dwarves and elves are well-known (and presumably halflings are Hobbits, in which case they'll have decent cultural penetration) but minotaurs are in the public eye indelibly linked to ancient Crete and hence would look out of place in a medieval setting. Equally vampires are linked to Dracula and the Gothic Victorian literary genre, so would also feel out of place in a medieval setting. Demons? Too controversial. No way Lego ever have an in-house theme with a faction called "demons". Mer-people? How are they interacting with other races? In a medieval setting, there's not going to be much deep-sea diving, so either you have to contrive a way for them to interact or they have no impact on the main storyline - and in that case, just make them a separate theme. Imps bring to mind Lincoln Cathedral more than any fantasy characters. Wererats are a term I've never come across before, so the general public's got no chance - and while the name is descriptive enough for me to imagine, I have no idea what the difference is between dragon men and draconians (I presume you don't mean the alien race from Doctor Who), and how is that difference going to be conveyed in Lego form?

The problem a lot of people (myself included) are having with this is that we're coming at it from adult lenses - with particular focus on what we would like to see. There's a lot of discussion on having loads of races - but no suggestion of how they could be incorporated into a storyline. If it wasn't based on a story, it would be easy: stick cool-looking figures in the sets, and let the kids figure out how they all relate to one another. But with a story, it's harder.

Looking at the episode guide for Ninjago, the average season seems to have sixteen episodes, with a runtime of eleven minutes each. (I'm assuming that a theoretical new TV series would follow the current format, rather than going back to a format Ninjago dropped two years ago). Let's cut thirty seconds an episode for titles and credits, leaving us with 168 minutes of content in a season - and sets in the initial run will be based on the first season, since Lego are neither going to spoil future developments in their own IP nor commit to something which they have no idea if it will be profitable or not.

Now, Episode 1 will likely be devoted to introducing the main characters, probably with a minor obstacle for them to overcome and a mystery hook at the end so people come back next week. I'm actually writing a brickfilm series right now, and eleven pages into Episode 1 - which is where the episode would cut off in a Ninjago-length episode - I've just reached the first wrinkle. To achieve this, I've delayed the introduction of half of the main cast and most of the factions until later episodes, and two of the main characters who have appeared get only fleeting introductions at this point. My main cast as demonstrated in the first eleven pages consists of five main characters - Lego will probably go a similar route.

So what happens next? Personally speaking, if I was in charge of planning a Lego Castle series, I'd split the cast up. Episode 1 is introduction, Episode 2 is the big problem that the series has to solve - and at the end of Episode 2 the main cast are in two separate groups. This allows you more flexibility in storytelling. You can by default have two storylines, and thus three factions (if we're counting the main characters' faction as distinct from anybody they interact with) in every episode. For some episodes, one faction might not appear. The balance over sixteen episodes would probably be something along the lines of ten episodes featuring all the main characters (including two at the start when they're all together and one at the end for resolution of the series arc) and three episodes devoted to each group. When splitting the storylines, you'd have to be aware that you've got five minutes per storyline - so in practice you'd get a lot of two-parters or more split stories. I'd be surprised if more than five factions could be properly introduced in one season. Maybe you'd have one or two more as minor roles, but these are also the sorts of roles that rarely get turned into minifigures.

Over time you could definitely get loads of factions - after all, other than the main characters, no faction needs to appear all the time. But I'm wary of people listing off two dozen niche fantasy races and (over time) people getting excited about the prospect of this happening, when in reality you'd be looking at at least seven or eight seasons before you could properly introduce all the factions you've listed thee.

[Lego David]

10 hours ago, zoth33 said:

They could do a run of 3-4 years then end that story and pick up another storyline with a character that was introduced during the first run and expand a popular secondary characters story arc. and so on. 

That's the exact thing they did with Bionicle, and it worked pretty well there. In 2001-2003, you have a story with the original 6 heroes, and then 2004-2005 they completely changed the characters and setting into a prequel story, then 2006-2007 they changed the main characters again, but continuing from where the 2003 story left off, until finally returning to the original 6 heroes in 2008. I honestly have no idea why they haven't used this strategy again for Ninjago. Changing the main characters every 2-3 years can help a lot in keeping a story fresh, but sadly no other LEGO theme has ever done it besides Bionicle. 

[MAB]

1 hour ago, Alexandrina said:

Does any theme really need that many races? I have a decently-big interest in fantasy as a genre and I'm not entirely sure what all of those are. The general public will be even less so. Dwarves and elves are well-known (and presumably halflings are Hobbits, in which case they'll have decent cultural penetration) but minotaurs are in the public eye indelibly linked to ancient Crete and hence would look out of place in a medieval setting. Equally vampires are linked to Dracula and the Gothic Victorian literary genre, so would also feel out of place in a medieval setting. Demons? Too controversial. No way Lego ever have an in-house theme with a faction called "demons". Mer-people? How are they interacting with other races? In a medieval setting, there's not going to be much deep-sea diving, so either you have to contrive a way for them to interact or they have no impact on the main storyline - and in that case, just make them a separate theme. Imps bring to mind Lincoln Cathedral more than any fantasy characters. Wererats are a term I've never come across before, so the general public's got no chance - and while the name is descriptive enough for me to imagine, I have no idea what the difference is between dragon men and draconians (I presume you don't mean the alien race from Doctor Who), and how is that difference going to be conveyed in Lego form?

Castle doesn't have to be medieval. Gothic Victorian would do me fine.

 

[Lego David]

1 hour ago, Alexandrina said:

Demons? Too controversial. No way Lego ever have an in-house theme with a faction called "demons".

I mean, they did the Lava Monsters in Nexo Knights, and let's face, it, it is pretty clear what those monsters are supposed to be demons, even if LEGO used a different name for them. 

[DaleDVM]

20 hours ago, valon said:

i said this several times before but i hope one of the people here puts a theme on worldbuilder everybody has said very good ideas

I put some outlines and ideas out there as have others.  However, I would hope that LEGO would make some sort of determination that a castle theme is worthy enough that perhaps they hire and pay someone for creative content.  Pitching AFOLs to engage in an "unpaid theme battle" against one another is ridiculous. Winner gets their favorite theme produced?  Does the winner get paid for their time?  Or is it just the pride that this is their theme?  But, more importantly, do the hundreds/thousands of losers get paid for their time doing TLGs work?  I know the answer to that one: No way!  In the meantime the owners of TLG will take home billions more exploiting AFOLs talents.  Ideas was bad enough...  Now they want AFOLs to make entire themes for them.

What really concerns me, is the thought that getting a new castle theme is riding on how good AFOLs are at pitching a story to TLG.  Kind of tragic after 8 years of no Castle.  It almost seems like TLG is using a stick disguised as a carrot on LEGO fans.  The thought of fans of different themes competing like this sickens me.  The worst part might be that someone could come up with the literally the best story ever for a Pharaoh/Egyptian type of theme, yet TLG is never going to accept it because of how poorly Pharaoh's Quest sold.  But TLG is not going to tell people what themes are actual possibilities and who is just wasting their time.  

IMHO fans need to start treating TLG like the for profit corporation it is.  They work for us, not the other way around.  Every dollar, pound, euro, etc that TLG makes and every job there is paid for by the customers.  We buy their product and it is within a customers rights to ask that the company deliver on what we want.  TLG uses our feedback and then has the right to produce what they want, or think will sell the best.  And we vote with our wallets.  Which is why in the last 8 years I have saved up a lot more money than usual.  

If people want to create TLGs content for them free of charge that is fine.  I hope they find their time spent rewarding.  I know that so many AFOLs are absolutely brilliant and creative.  TLG knows this.  That is why they are trying to tap their creativity.  I just think fans deserve to be treated better than this by such a profitable company.   

[valon]

1 minute ago, DaleDVM said:

I put some outlines and ideas out there as have others.  However, I would hope that LEGO would make some sort of determination that a castle theme is worthy enough that perhaps they hire and pay someone for creative content.  Pitching AFOLs to engage in an "unpaid theme battle" against one another is ridiculous. Winner gets their favorite theme produced?  Does the winner get paid for their time?  Or is it just the pride that this is their theme?  But, more importantly, do the hundreds/thousands of losers get paid for their time doing TLGs work?  I know the answer to that one: No way!  In the meantime the owners of TLG will take home billions more exploiting AFOLs talents.  Ideas was bad enough...  Now they want AFOLs to make entire themes for them.

What really concerns me, is the thought that getting a new castle theme is riding on how good AFOLs are at pitching a story to TLG.  Kind of tragic after 8 years of no Castle.  It almost seems like TLG is using a stick disguised as a carrot on LEGO fans.  The thought of fans of different themes competing like this sickens me.  The worst part might be that someone could come up with the literally the best story ever for a Pharaoh/Egyptian type of theme, yet TLG is never going to accept it because of how poorly Pharaoh's Quest sold.  But TLG is not going to tell people what themes are actual possibilities and who is just wasting their time.  

IMHO fans need to start treating TLG like the for profit corporation it is.  They work for us, not the other way around.  Every dollar, pound, euro, etc that TLG makes and every job there is paid for by the customers.  We buy their product and it is within a customers rights to ask that the company deliver on what we want.  TLG uses our feedback and then has the right to produce what they want, or think will sell the best.  And we vote with our wallets.  Which is why in the last 8 years I have saved up a lot more money than usual.  

If people want to create TLGs content for them free of charge that is fine.  I hope they find their time spent rewarding.  I know that so many AFOLs are absolutely brilliant and creative.  TLG knows this.  That is why they are trying to tap their creativity.  I just think fans deserve to be treated better than this by such a profitable company.   

people get paid several thousand dollar if they build a theme and people who helped with it also get a decent bit of money, even if they just added a minifigure, on the part about lego being a company, duh company wants to make money, wich is what companies should do and i think that is not a bad thing. I agree that lego should make a castle theme, because alot of people who like lego both older and not, really like castle but i do not see how that has to do with lego being a company that wants money. if they did not want money, i would think they were unwell in the skull

[Lego David]

26 minutes ago, DaleDVM said:

I put some outlines and ideas out there as have others.  However, I would hope that LEGO would make some sort of determination that a castle theme is worthy enough that perhaps they hire and pay someone for creative content.  Pitching AFOLs to engage in an "unpaid theme battle" against one another is ridiculous. Winner gets their favorite theme produced?  Does the winner get paid for their time?  Or is it just the pride that this is their theme?  But, more importantly, do the hundreds/thousands of losers get paid for their time doing TLGs work?  I know the answer to that one: No way!  In the meantime the owners of TLG will take home billions more exploiting AFOLs talents.  Ideas was bad enough...  Now they want AFOLs to make entire themes for them.

They specifically stated in the LEGO World Builder guidelines that they are gonna pay 37.000 dollars to the creator and 12.500 dollars to the contributors of a theme idea they want to officially produce. If they are only interested in a few specific characters or elements from a theme idea, but not the full theme, they can also purchase just that for around 1500 dollars or so. Here is a link to the official guidelines, if you want to know more: https://worldbuilder.tongal.com/about/world-guidelines

Honestly, this seems like fair deal to me. Not only do you get the chance to see your creation become an official LEGO theme, but you also get payed a decent amount for it. I see nothing bad about that, personally. Sure, its a little dubious for such a big company like LEGO to ask fans to come up with ideas for them, but honestly, I am happy they are giving us a chance to use our creativity, and even potentially get paid for it. 

 

Edited March 11, 2021 by Lego David

[valon]

20 minutes ago, Lego David said:

They specifically stated in the LEGO World Builder guidelines that they are gonna pay 37.000 dollars to the creator and 12.500 dollars to the contributors of a theme idea they want to officially produce. If they are only interested in a few specific characters or elements from a theme idea, but not the full theme, they can also purchase just that for around 1500 dollars or so. Here is a link to the official guidelines, if you want to know more: https://worldbuilder.tongal.com/about/world-guidelines

Honestly, this seems like fair deal to me. Not only do you get the chance to see your creation become an official LEGO theme, but you also get payed a decent amount for it. I see nothing bad about that, personally. Sure, its a little dubious for such a big company like LEGO to ask fans to come up with ideas for them, but honestly, I am happy they are giving us a chance to use our creativity, and even potentially get paid for it. 

 

it lets people try to bring back old theme like castle and pirate as well such as what lego david is doing with fantasy pirates

[Alexandrina]

2 hours ago, MAB said:

Castle doesn't have to be medieval. Gothic Victorian would do me fine.

 

Gothic Victorian would appeal to me too, but I wouldn't call it Castle. 

[MAB]

1 hour ago, Alexandrina said:

Gothic Victorian would appeal to me too, but I wouldn't call it Castle. 

Why not? If it involves castles, I wouldn't mind LEGO making a more diverse theme to include more than just a few hundred years of European history. It might even help sales to diversify from the Euro-centric medieval period.

[valon]

17 minutes ago, MAB said:

Why not? If it involves castles, I wouldn't mind LEGO making a more diverse theme to include more than just a few hundred years of European history. It might even help sales to diversify from the Euro-centric medieval period.

there were not castles outside of europe i think in the 1800, a theme like that would nice if it had soldiers from then, if it did not, i would use the castles for napleonic wars

[MAB]

22 minutes ago, valon said:

there were not castles outside of europe i think in the 1800, a theme like that would nice if it had soldiers from then, if it did not, i would use the castles for napleonic wars

 

There were fortresses in ancient Roman and Greek times and outside of Europe too. Personally I don't care if something is formally a residence or seat of power or administration or just a military base.

[Alexandrina]

1 hour ago, MAB said:

Why not? If it involves castles, I wouldn't mind LEGO making a more diverse theme to include more than just a few hundred years of European history. It might even help sales to diversify from the Euro-centric medieval period.

I can't wait see how a theme set in the Victorian era would have castles in it. They were pretty much all disused by then. 

[valon]

1 minute ago, Alexandrina said:

I can't wait see how a theme set in the Victorian era would have castles in it. They were pretty much all disused by then. 

what would it be about, if it had napleonic soldiers, that would be very nice

[Alexandrina]

55 minutes ago, valon said:

what would it be about, if it had napleonic soldiers, that would be very nice

The thing is, Napoleonic era hews very close to pirates. There's a brilliant painting of the Gloucesters at Quatre-Bras, a few days before Waterloo - the uniforms of those soldiers are very similar to the redcoat uniforms. These redcoats or something similar were used rihht through the nineteenth century (I don't know enough about the French armies in this period to know what uniform they wore).

[valon]

Just now, Alexandrina said:

The thing is, Napoleonic era hews very close to pirates. There's a brilliant painting of the Gloucesters at Quatre-Bras, a few days before Waterloo - the uniforms of those soldiers are very similar to the redcoat uniforms. These redcoats or something similar were used rihht through the nineteenth century (I don't know enough about the French armies in this period to know what uniform they wore).

french uniforms looked like the french forgien legion in  early world war 1, in the 1800's, if a theme like that had pirates type soldiers that would be cool

[MAB]

1 hour ago, Alexandrina said:

I can't wait see how a theme set in the Victorian era would have castles in it. They were pretty much all disused by then. 

Castle doesn't have to literally mean a castle though, does it. We rarely get a true castle within Castle. They could do forts, palaces, and so on. As above, extending Castle to mean not just a couple of centuries in one region, but to cover more of the world and history, might make it a little less boring to buyers. They could do a stately home facade like Highclere or Castle Howard or Balmoral. Obviously Windsor which is still used along with Victorian era soldiers. Any era could contain soldiers and have the Castle vibe. Or they could do a twist. They could do romanticised castle, more fairytale like (Neuschwanstein and so on). Or Victorian style follies. They could even do something like Belvedere Castle in Central Park to get American appeal. Or they could do something towards Monster Fighters, vampire castles and so on. 

Personally, I'd prefer some non European ones though. Persian or North African or Chinese would be a nice change.

[Alexandrina]

Just now, MAB said:

Castle doesn't have to literally mean a castle though, does it. We rarely get a true castle within Castle.

The thing is, if you have a theme set in the Victorian era, you're going to have:

• No castles
• No knights in armour - the sword might still have been in use by this period, but guns were more common and redcoats had replaced knights
• No siege towers/crossbow carts since these had been phased out
• An increasing tendency towards technology depending on exactly when in the era you're going for, as the Industrial Revolution gathers pace

Would this make an interesting theme? 100%. But to me that's playing so fast and loose with the fundamentals of what Castle is that it's hard to argue that such a theme would still be Castle. I'm interested to know what exactly defines the Castle theme in your eyes.

[MAB]

For me, anything really that is (land) soldier based. English civil war, Tudor times, Musketeers, American revolution and Civil War, French revolution, Napoleon, I'd include it all. Obviously it is not all set in actual castles, as stately homes became less fortified but as long as there is a castle vibe to it (a couple of factions and some location) I'd be up for that. Probably anything prior to 1900 to keep it out of the modern warfare era. Obviously I would not expect them to do specific wars where the factions are identifiable and may cause offense, such as the Indian Rebellion or Boer War which may push back the date further (earlier). Or the other way in history, to more ancient times.

So for example (just sticking to UK type themes) if they did a theme that was more Tudor clothes in a palace or English Civil War style with muskets or going the other way, Vikings or further back Saxons, Romans or Celts, I'd be happy with any of that style, even if the building they are associated with is not a formal castle.

I don't think LEGO would ever call a theme Warfare or Military, so some catchall more kid friendly term such as Castle could cover other eras and importantly locations. If they labelled a 16th Century Japanese castle with contemporary Japanese style soldiers as Castle, I think it would be as popular as a European style, especially if we had already had a round or two of European style. Similarly doing a theme with muskets instead of swords might help not keep repeating medieval ideas if Castle was to go on for more than a year or two at a time. I'm not saying no medieval, just if something is to last then a bit more variation might be good.