Morcia 20 years from now...

[Cutty]

Nice you found this topic fellow AFOL (or TFOL if you're younger...).

Here I will present some of my thoughts on how I would imagine, and like for that matter, KK2 to continue in it's iterations in future years.

Well what have we now?

We have Morcia. Land of colorful and stereotypic knights, no account on female population known, unorthodox procedures of throne procession, a loose structure of feudalism (given the handful of tenures governed by the knights) and some hints at magic works.

We have Ankoria, for seconds. Not much to say about it except for this: the "Dark Lands" in the story. We all know modern stories of the fantastical kind just NEED to somehow contain at least ONE of these...throw in a "Forgotten/Forbidden Land" as well and you're set and good to go.

No need for saying that the evil guy will always, and I'll repeat it just for emphasis: ALWAYS, settle there, no matter how unlivable, hostile and plague ridden the sombre country of choice may actually be. No need for agriculture here. Minions don't need any sort of food, or comfort or resources for weaponforgery...no, gentlemen.

What happended so far:

- Dark Lord/ Magician/ Fallen Knight /Wannabe King/ Obvious Suspect For Future Cases Of Treason betrayes the good and wise king, imprisons him and assumes power in the country

- Four of the colourful knights foil his plans, free the king and in the passing rediscover some ancient knight-magic...yadda,yadda

- Dark Lord/ Magician/ Fallen Knight /Wannabe King/ Obvious Suspect For Future Cases Of Treason flees and makes his refuge in already mentioned "Dark Land" *yawn*, threatens to reclaim the land of colourful knights by force

- The knights set out to foilhis plans again, overcome his army, infiltrate his hideout and put him out of his evil business once again...the day is saved...*yawn

[SuvieD]

The story for kk2.03 is already set, and Jayko as king along with his "new" knights must fight of Vladek again. Little is said about it yet but that is the story for the book that comes out next spring.

I think your ideas would make a better theme on there own. Drop KK2 off and start a new massive kingdom where children can design their own knight set for $15 in the LEGO factory and then LEGO could release five $20 sets each with a different climate (desert, snow, grass, rock, water) and a special $50 ultimate castle bucket with 2500 useful castle pieces and 20 generic figs, armor and helmets for soldiers and cowls and capes for peasants. That way people can build their own castle and have their own spot in the kingdom.

I really like the desert castle idea. A little more modern city of Troy or perhaps Constantinople. Some great ideas with the hidden ruins and maybe a special fortress like the cave for the forty thieves.

[Cutty]

My chain of thought was actually, that I don't WANT to drop KK2 since I always find it very sad, that newer lines of one certain theme (space, castle...) might possibly only be of limited compatiblity. And: Why abandon Shadow Knights?

As I ended my last post with: I ran out of time...so I might continue here. And let me state it anew:

I want to make sure, that older parts of KK2 are still compatible with newer sets of the same line.

So let me take up the red thread here....ok! Shadow Knights emigrate to another continent...into the desert.

As for the reasons we have here: We can introduce adventurer-like sets of arabian, maybe even persian or babylonian architecture in the castle-line. We may have oases, caravans, markets, ruined fortresses. And we may have to reform Shadow Knights someway, so we just re-christen them: "Scorpion Knights" or "Knights Of The Scorpion Order"...their leader could bear a title along the lines of "Desert King", "Scorpion King" or the like.

We already covered Black Falcons...so what comes next? Old characters!

I see Danju being a Knights-Trainer of some sort. Think Yoda in his Exile here. I imagine him running a school for knights of some sort, with many children learning from him.

Santis is for me the "family guy" of the knights. Something like being not only

[SuvieD]

There is another thread floating around here, someone at CC found a link to scholastic books and it is outlined there. The book isn't out until spring but it does confirm that Vladek indeed comes back and "new" whatever that means knights will fight him. My hope is for a white and silver knight.

Why do you want to keep Morcia and the story? It is not nearly as open ended as it could be and is already bottled by the first two years. I say we should like a snake shed off the old skin and come out with something castle that is new and better.

[Cutty]

Well as I already said the changes would strike a compromise between TLC's new policy of story driven themes, generality and compatiblity with older sets. I didn't mean to keep certain aspects of KK2 for kicks or because I somhow keep a sympathy for it (Way no!!!), but to indeed show up a way TLC might go to bring KK2 to a point where we have the the biggest amount of freedom while still being tied into an overall story-concept.

As for that snake skin-shedding image: Don't you agree that although said snake might lose its "outer shell" it still remains, in certain aspects, the same individual snake?

In fact I see that comment rather as one strenghtening my concept than contradicting it. Because the reform is indeed what I planned from the very beginning.

Well, I will then just settle my cause and bear another year of mediocre castle-sets and ultra-lame chlich

[Mister Phes]

Pretty lame and stereotype storytelling so far and apart from the "Dark Lord raises to power yet again!"-storyline, I see little to none interesting ways of continuing the story 

So what do we need now?

Several wishlists of castlerians exist containing mostly things of the following list:

- generic soldiers (spearmen & archers)

- realistic coats of arms (armours & helmets)

- realistic weaponry (SWORDS!!! & shields of course)

- believable heraldry (monkeys?! come on!)

- civilian townsfolk of some sort

- return of classic castle factions

- less storytelling in exchange for generic sets

Oooooooooooooo! The Monkey Troupe might get to play castle dress-ups.

Mentions of these wishes from all those who want them fulfilled were passed onto LEGO through Suvie D's survey weren't they? :^D

From my perspective, nevermind the story... First of all they need to gid rid of those pastel coloured knights and those ridiculous looking helmets....

[Assassin]

Which ridiculous helmets were you refering to mister_phes ?

If it was the helmets worn by the jelly-beans, then I'd agree, but if it was the helmets worn by Vladek's troops, then I'd have to disagree, those ones grow on you after a while.

[Mister Phes]

These horrible things...

How did the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers wind up in a medieval LEGO theme?

[Khorne]

Danju's helmet, IMO, looks the best of all. He looks somewhat better if you paint him. Of all the KKII knights I think that Jayko is the best, the blue is better than purple and stuff, but of course, it can't beat the Vikings or Classic Castle. :-D

[Mister Phes]

I think its the colour rather than the design that I don't like. Maybe if they were a shade of grey or chrome they wouldn't look so bad. But as they are they look rather stupid.

[Sir Kohran]

There is another thread floating around here, someone at CC found a link to scholastic books and it is outlined there. The book isn't out until spring but it does confirm that Vladek indeed comes back and "new" whatever that means knights will fight him. My hope is for a white and silver knight.

That was me. ;)

As for KK2, I can't see much changing in the way you want within the next five years or so. All your ideas would be great in a more advanced Castle theme; but KK2 is aimed at little kids who loved the "cool" fighting in LOTR and want more of it. I just can't see it changing much in the future, I'm afraid.

I think your ideas would make a better theme on there own. Drop KK2 off and start a new massive kingdom where children can design their own knight set for $15 in the LEGO factory and then LEGO could release five $20 sets each with a different climate (desert, snow, grass, rock, water) and a special $50 ultimate castle bucket with 2500 useful castle pieces and 20 generic figs, armor and helmets for soldiers and cowls and capes for peasants.

Yes, this is the sort of theme that would work, instead of trying to adapt KK2.