Future Castle Sets?

[zoth33]

3 hours ago, x105Black said:

So I recently purchased Benny's Space Squad.  I'm just here to report the disappointment that my x105 visor did not clip onto the remade old-style helmets.  It just doesn't quite fit.

I would really love to see them release a remade x105 visor...

That set is so hard to find.  The only one i've seen was at a lego store here in Connecticut.  I'm really hoping the next wave of Harry Potter sets have some great stuff in them.  

[MAB]

10 hours ago, zoth33 said:

That set is so hard to find.  The only one i've seen was at a lego store here in Connecticut.  I'm really hoping the next wave of Harry Potter sets have some great stuff in them.  

I keep seeing piles of them. I think the first ones (over Christmas) to hit the shelves sold out to people waiting for classic space, but since being restocked I regularly see them. I imagine sales will pick up once the movie is out at cinemas and more kids have seen it.

[x105Black]

I found a lot of them at Wal-Wal-Marts. Only needed one for myself, but I may buy a few more astronauts.

[Digger of Bricks]

Here's a Castle-themed LEGO Ideas project worth mentioning here that was submitted just today:

Classic Castle by DERBOOR

[TeriXeri]

 

The thing with IDEAS and AFOL Designer Program is, that usually the sets that get voted highly on have huge part counts, to get to the scale and detail they have.

While I can understand the "big" Castle of a wave having ~1000-1500 parts, the other sets of a wave are important too.

I greatly prefer smaller towers, bridges, harbours, prisons over something like a "vehicle" set, in a Classic or Fantasy Castle theme. (doesn't include Nexo Knights)

I don't mind if a small/medium sized Castle style set isn't fully closed on the backside.

Now I could have used 80s and 90s Castle sets as an example instead but designs and parts use was even more different then this.

(This is only focused on the buildings) 

 

~400-600 parts : 

 

~300-400 parts:

~200-300 parts :

Under 200 parts:

 

 

 

Edited February 25, 2019 by TeriXeri

[MAB]

Yes, I cannot see many people dropping £300 / 300 Euro / $300 on a large castle set, unless it was connected to a license. Castle does not have the popularity of series like Ninjago and I doubt an equivalent type set to Ninjago City would sell so well - even though many of us would probably buy it.  Whereas a series of smaller sets, with one £100 / 100 Euro / $100 set as the flagship set would be better for incidental sales.

[Aanchir]

On 2/25/2019 at 8:30 AM, MAB said:

Yes, I cannot see many people dropping £300 / 300 Euro / $300 on a large castle set, unless it was connected to a license. Castle does not have the popularity of series like Ninjago and I doubt an equivalent type set to Ninjago City would sell so well - even though many of us would probably buy it.  Whereas a series of smaller sets, with one £100 / 100 Euro / $100 set as the flagship set would be better for incidental sales.

Honestly, something I’ve been feeling for a while is that it may be about time that the price of a flagship Castle/Pirates set get hiked up to $120. I’m aware there’s some risk there, but themes like Ninjago, Friends, City, Legends of Chima, and Nexo Knights have often had flagship sets anywhere from $120 to $150. Whereas $100 has been the price point of other flagship Castle and Pirates sets since 2005!

Granted, a $70 to $100 set can still be outstanding in terms of size, visual appeal, complexity, and play value —plenty of Ninjago and Elves sets have demonstrated that much. But I still get the sense that raising the flagship price point even just a bit could be a positive thing for these themes… particularly if it meant that sets at the next price point down like the various $50 enemy castles/prison towers could also get a boost to a somewhat more versatile price point of $70 or so.

[TeriXeri]

3 hours ago, Aanchir said:

Honestly, something I’ve been feeling for a while is that it may be about time that the price of a flagship Castle/Pirates set get hiked up to $120. I’m aware there’s some risk there, but themes like Ninjago, Friends, City, Legends of Chima, and Nexo Knights have often had flagship sets anywhere from $120 to $150. Whereas $100 has been the price point of other flagship Castle and Pirates sets since 2005!

For Nexo Knights, imo the best sets were the 2 biggest Castles (Volcano Lair/Knighton Castle), around the €120-€140 price point, 1100-1400 parts and lots of minifigs each, and the side-builds weren't too big.

I could see them make great normal Castles or Pirate Forts at that price point if they don't focus too much on siege vehicles or ships in the same set.

I don't mind them making seperate larger Siege vehicles and Pirate ships, but I think the main structure sets should focus on the buildings.

 

Edited February 26, 2019 by TeriXeri

[MAB]

^^ That probably wouldn't bother me too much so long as there was play value in the additions, and not just size of building. As an AFOL, I'd want the focus to be the building. However, as a parent, I want the set to contain enough to be played with as a stand alone without the kids needing more sets to be able to play with the flagship one. So, for example, the three big NK sets were essentially castles with a couple of mech type builds or vehicles. The add ons were big enough to add play value without taking too much away in part count from the main structure.

[Aanchir]

8 hours ago, MAB said:

^^ That probably wouldn't bother me too much so long as there was play value in the additions, and not just size of building. As an AFOL, I'd want the focus to be the building. However, as a parent, I want the set to contain enough to be played with as a stand alone without the kids needing more sets to be able to play with the flagship one. So, for example, the three big NK sets were essentially castles with a couple of mech type builds or vehicles. The add ons were big enough to add play value without taking too much away in part count from the main structure.

Yeah. Truthfully, after Nexo Knights and Elves I have a lot more confidence that price point isn't as big a limitation on what kind of size and features are possible in Castle sets as I sometimes might have imagined. After all, Ragana's castle and Jestro's lair (at $100 and $120 price points, respectively) were able to include a lot of the typical features of flagship LEGO Castle sets (dungeon, throne room, catapults, traps, etc) while still making room for stuff like bedrooms, washrooms, and kitchens/ that more traditional Castle sets left me wanting.

If LEGO can make room for all those types of features in a $100 set, or those PLUS a bunch of weird and wacky fantasy elements like turrets, buzzsaws, and giant hellmouths in a $120 set, then surely they should be capable of a unique and well-furnished traditional flagship castle at similar price points to ones they've had in the past.

But of course, even hypothetically assuming LEGO could deliver a simply outstanding flagship castle at a $100 price point… pushing that to a $120 price point could still offer some advantages by allowing them to throw in, say, a molded dragon, and a couple more minifigs/horses.

Edited February 27, 2019 by Aanchir

[thetang22]

It’s kinda funny all the talk of needed “play features” that are discussed these days.  I seem to remember my play features were 2 minifigures with swords...and having a sword fight on a building or in front of said building was a blast as a kid.  Sure, there were some of the other types of play features mentioned above...but they didn’t seem so “required” because simply having minifigures with weapons was action enough for me and my childhood imagination.  Times change I suppose.

[Aanchir]

Just now, thetang22 said:

It’s kinda funny all the talk of needed “play features” that are discussed these days.  I seem to remember my play features were 2 minifigures with swords...and having a sword fight on a building or in front of said building was a blast as a kid.  Sure, there were some of the other types of play features mentioned above...but they didn’t seem so “required” because simply having minifigures with weapons was action enough for me and my childhood imagination.  Times change I suppose. 

I think there are definitely still plenty of kids who could enjoy that just as well — certainly many AFOLs seem to cite examples like that when they generalize kids today as only caring about playing with the minifigures and not about creative building, particularly with regard to the licensed themes.

But it's important to recognize there have probably always been a lot of kids who wanted something more from their toys than that, and if they couldn't get it from LEGO would stick to other types of toy that did include that type of stuff like working projectile launchers, lavishly furnished interiors, transformation features, etc.

As an example, some of the articles about the development of LEGO Friends illustrated how common it was for girls to feel frustrated with a typical LEGO castle's lack of interior detail, since it meant there was nothing for the characters to DO inside, whereas many boys enjoyed it just fine because for them, its primary feature was to set the stage for playing out battle scenes. It wasn't any big deal for them whether the people had anywhere to eat or sleep. That's a particularly huge and glaring example of a previously untapped demographic, but there are probably many smaller ones out there that could get a more enjoyable experience if LEGO found ways to make sets that acknowledge those preferred play patterns.

Before Nexo Knights and Elves, my feeling was that LEGO's omission of stuff like that from traditional Castle themes was just a matter of it being too impractical to include the play features that traditional Castle sets usually lacked AND the play features they already had at $100 or lower price points. But now, it's clear that they CAN do a lot of that type of stuff even within conventional LEGO Castle price points — albeit perhaps not at such a low target age range.

[MAB]

16 hours ago, thetang22 said:

It’s kinda funny all the talk of needed “play features” that are discussed these days.  I seem to remember my play features were 2 minifigures with swords...and having a sword fight on a building or in front of said building was a blast as a kid.  Sure, there were some of the other types of play features mentioned above...but they didn’t seem so “required” because simply having minifigures with weapons was action enough for me and my childhood imagination.  Times change I suppose.

To add to aanchir above, what I really mean by play features is that it shouldn't just be adding bricks to make something bigger but to make it playable too. So it isn't just a set that needs to be built and the play ends there. If course some kids and more adults like to build to display, but a flagship set should have more than that.  A ballista to fire something, a siege engine, a dragon, something along those lines. I think Nexo did that well, without taking away from the main build.

[x105Black]

19 hours ago, MAB said:

To add to aanchir above, what I really mean by play features is that it shouldn't just be adding bricks to make something bigger but to make it playable too. So it isn't just a set that needs to be built and the play ends there. If course some kids and more adults like to build to display, but a flagship set should have more than that.  A ballista to fire something, a siege engine, a dragon, something along those lines. I think Nexo did that well, without taking away from the main build.

While I agree that there should be something more, I always feel that siege engines take too much away from the Castle build itself.  I'd rather see things like breakaway walls and floors, functional portcullis or gate, and other such features.  And the molded dragons, yes, please!  I'd love to see LEGO expand upon the current selection like they have with the raptors and tyrannosaurs in the Jurassic themes.  More life-like colors would be appreciated as well, and other creatures!

[TeriXeri]

I wonder why IDEAS has such a lack of actual popular Castle sets, and currently there's only 1 active I can see over 2000 Black Falcon's Fortress (288 days)

Besides that there are currently a few Medieval Blacksmith/Inn/Village/House ideas ranging from 750 to 6800 votes, but those are not castles.

In the past 3 similar sets have actually made it to 10.000, again, not castles.

 Mesadon Gatehouse is about to expire in 14 days, and as far as I can see the only other high voted current castle type set over 500, but Classic Castle (418 days) seems to hit 500+ soon enough. (not counting japanese castles or microscale)

Edited March 3, 2019 by TeriXeri

[DaleDVM]

I love the debate, but I have a hard time taking a strong stand on what makes the best castle set at this time.  I am desperate for any castle at this point...  I know this much.  Fright Knights followed by Knights Kingdom I and II slowly bled the castle theme.  Fantasy sold great.  Kingdoms sold well.  2013 Castle did not.  Lesson?  Don't make the factions look too cartoonish and it will sell.  Not releasing new castle at the same time as LOTR/Hobbit is probably smart too.  I know that a return to fantasy is the best idea for sales.  Kids love obvious bad guys.  (skeletons, trolls, etc)

Fact is...  It has been way too long since we have had castle to buy.  However, my wallet has been spared for a few years now.  I think with a several year drought of castle to buy, anything will sell relatively well at first.  However, longevity requires a quality attractive product.  

I think next year we may see something happen.  I hope so and it does seem to finally make sense with other themes winding down.  I just want a couple of decent factions.  I am hoping for some new useful molds obviously.  There have been a lot of new parts (over the past 3 years) that will benefit a new castle that haven't been able to be used by the designers yet.  I think a new castle may take on a new look than what we have been used to in the past.

I don't desire a rehash of old factions.  If I want the old factions they are already available.  There are plenty of things to use for heraldry that have not been used yet.  

The one thing I desire above all else is more civilian sets.  I have over 6 thousand castle figs.  Yet only a few hundred are peasants/civilians and not much variety as we all know not a lot of variety has ever existed.  A new medieval market type set perhaps with a sawmill or stonemason hut for a change of pace.  Add in a new farm animal.  That is what I am hoping for.  And it would sell...

 

[TeriXeri]

11 minutes ago, DaleDVM said:

The one thing I desire above all else is more civilian sets.  I have over 6 thousand castle figs.  Yet only a few hundred are peasants/civilians and not much variety as we all know not a lot of variety has ever existed.  A new medieval market type set perhaps with a sawmill or stonemason hut for a change of pace.  Add in a new farm animal.  That is what I am hoping for.  And it would sell...

I agree about more civilian sets for sure, but certainly not at the huge scale they are posted on IDEAS, but more reasonable, even if they had open back designs I wouldn't mind.

[BardDandelion]

I would love to see regular Castle series, similar to City. Call it Medieval and every year make some kind of subseries - Medieval: Tournament, Medieval: Merchants, Medieval: Bandits, Medieval: Farm etc., let it grow and expand with new factions and themes. That would be awesome and I would buy it as crazy. 

[MAB]

On 3/3/2019 at 4:22 PM, TeriXeri said:

I wonder why IDEAS has such a lack of actual popular Castle sets, and currently there's only 1 active I can see over 2000 Black Falcon's Fortress (288 days)

 

1

I think the answer has to be because they are not popular.  After all, they tend to be large sets that are not that dissimilar to what LEGO has done in the past (just more parts / expensive).

On 3/3/2019 at 4:46 PM, DaleDVM said:

I love the debate, but I have a hard time taking a strong stand on what makes the best castle set at this time.  I am desperate for any castle at this point...  I know this much.  Fright Knights followed by Knights Kingdom I and II slowly bled the castle theme.  Fantasy sold great.  Kingdoms sold well.  2013 Castle did not.  Lesson?  Don't make the factions look too cartoonish and it will sell.  Not releasing new castle at the same time as LOTR/Hobbit is probably smart too.  I know that a return to fantasy is the best idea for sales.  Kids love obvious bad guys.  (skeletons, trolls, etc)
 

 

2013 Castle was often criticized by AFOLs because it was too similar to the Kingdoms sets. Yet Kingdoms was somewhat similar to Fantasy Era (just different types of baddies) and didn't get criticized as much. So LEGO may have got the message that this style of Castle was not wanted.

As to obvious bad guys, there were some brilliant fantasy style baddies in Nexo Knights, especially the red demon style monsters.

[zoth33]

14 hours ago, MAB said:

I think the answer has to be because they are not popular.  After all, they tend to be large sets that are not that dissimilar to what LEGO has done in the past (just more parts / expensive).

2013 Castle was often criticized by AFOLs because it was too similar to the Kingdoms sets. Yet Kingdoms was somewhat similar to Fantasy Era (just different types of baddies) and didn't get criticized as much. So LEGO may have got the message that this style of Castle was not wanted.

As to obvious bad guys, there were some brilliant fantasy style baddies in Nexo Knights, especially the red demon style monsters.

Just think if the 2013 line came out now with the drought of a castle line we've had lately people would eat it up.  I'm just hoping for something exciting castle wise in the future.  Hopefully some new crests and new villains, maybe a recolor of the CMF goblin and new print or some kind of totally new villain like a Draconian type creature.  Just me hoping for something new.  

[Aanchir]

On 3/3/2019 at 11:22 AM, TeriXeri said:

I wonder why IDEAS has such a lack of actual popular Castle sets, and currently there's only 1 active I can see over 2000 Black Falcon's Fortress (288 days)

Besides that there are currently a few Medieval Blacksmith/Inn/Village/House ideas ranging from 750 to 6800 votes, but those are not castles.

In the past 3 similar sets have actually made it to 10.000, again, not castles.

 Mesadon Gatehouse is about to expire in 14 days, and as far as I can see the only other high voted current castle type set over 500, but Classic Castle (418 days) seems to hit 500+ soon enough. (not counting japanese castles or microscale)

I think many of the most successful projects on LEGO Ideas often skew towards whatever has a sense of "never seen before" — especially with stuff like castles that LEGO tends to keep revisiting again and again, since builders don't want to wind up in a position where there's a good chance of a set already in development rendering their project redundant.

Something else to keep in mind is that until a couple years ago, very few Ideas sets had a $100+ price tag. So in order to reconcile that and the amount of detail needed to make a non-licensed project particularly attention-grabbing, I think a lot of project creators were motivated to avoid making those projects as large as a typical LEGO castle would need to be. Just compare Medieval Market Village, which at $100 offered not one but TWO charming medieval houses at an AFOL-oriented building level, with the Kingdoms Joust, which at $120 didn't even contain what most AFOLs would think of as a complete castle.

With all these sorts of conflicting motivations and design considerations in play, as well as fans not having nearly the same kind of insights as LEGO themselves and so having to make educated guesses about what would or wouldn't be a deal-breaker in review, I would hesitate to treat LEGO Ideas as any indication of what would or wouldn't have a strong business case as a regular set or theme.

On 3/3/2019 at 11:46 AM, DaleDVM said:

I love the debate, but I have a hard time taking a strong stand on what makes the best castle set at this time.  I am desperate for any castle at this point...  I know this much.  Fright Knights followed by Knights Kingdom I and II slowly bled the castle theme.  Fantasy sold great.  Kingdoms sold well.  2013 Castle did not.  Lesson?  Don't make the factions look too cartoonish and it will sell.  Not releasing new castle at the same time as LOTR/Hobbit is probably smart too.  I know that a return to fantasy is the best idea for sales.  Kids love obvious bad guys.  (skeletons, trolls, etc)

I'm not sure that I can agree that the 2013 Castle factions were that much more cartoonish than the Fantasy Era ones.

• Fantasy Era had much more cartoonish vehicles and siege engines for all of its factions, such as the King's Battle Chariot, Dwarves' Mine Defender, Troll Battle Wheel, and Skeleton Prison Carriage.
   
• Among its locations, Skeleton Tower of course has a ludicrous skull-shaped entrance that looks like something straight out of He-Man, but it and King's Castle Siege alike also have precariously positioned towers, bridges, and/or parapets that seem like they could collapse at any moment, and almost certainly wouldn't have been viable using real-life medieval castle construction techniques and materials. The Dwarves' Mine is laid out like some kind of crazy Rube Goldberg machine that moves gold and silver crystals in a complete loop with no specific point of origin or destination. And Trolls' Mountain Fortress, like Jestro's Volcano Lair or Garmadon's Dark Fortress, is more committed to establishing an over-the-top grim and evil aesthetic than any sense of realism.
   
• As minifigures are concerned, the most "cartoonish" human characters in either series are the evil wizards… and of those, the Fantasy Era evil wizard has blood-red robes, a Dracula-esque pointed, scalloped cape, and a glowing red glass eye, while the 2013 Dragon Wizard has more understated black robes, an ordinary (albeit brightly colored) cape, and a pretty plain-looking bearded face.
   
• The human knights in both themes wear fairly ordinary-looking tabards, mailshirts, and/or plate armor, often with the very same crown emblem. The lion and dragon knight heraldry has been criticized as unrealistic, but besides the question of whether kids would even know what to expect from realistic medieval heraldry, the lion is fairly similar to motifs from real-life heraldry, like the coat-of-arms of Dalmatia or Spreitenbach, and the front-facing dragon head is hardly any less authentic than the unusually realistic human skull or heavily stylized troll skull emblems used in Fantasy Era.
   
• Among the 2013 sets, the architecture of the King's Castle is fairly tame by both real-life and LEGO standards (rectangular gatehouse, octagonal towers, straight walls, and no precarious bridges or overhangs). Its biggest logistical weakness is unreliable access to the upper levels, a common issue in LEGO play themes (even in some advanced and highly detailed sets like the Kingdoms Joust and Temple of Airjitzu). Dragon Mountain is certainly spooky and evocative with its spikes, red and black color scheme, and being built on the ruins of an older castle, but even so, that all still feels like it could be physically plausible in real life.
   
• The vehicles and siege engines are likewise fairly tame… a stylized but low-tech and practical battering ram and catapult in King's Castle, even more ordinary wheeled catapults in Dragon Mountain and The Gatehouse Raid, and a no-frills carriage, ballista, and cart in Gold Getaway and Forest Ambush.

I don't mean for any of this to suggest the 2013 Castle sets were stronger designs overall than the Fantasy Era ones, but the strengths of the Fantasy Era sets weren't due to any lack of cartoonishness on their part! On the contrary, the Fantasy Era designers demonstrated a willingness (if not outright eagerness) to make those sets and character designs highly outlandish if it made them more fun or distinctive.

That said, I'm also not entirely certain about whether the 2013 Castle sets were even any less popular than the Fantasy Era or Kingdoms sets that preceded them, or if that level of popularity was simply no longer enough to justify a three-year commitment after standards for LEGO sales had been raised so high by both new themes like Ninjago, Friends, Legends of Chima, and continued growth in themes like City, Creator, and Technic.

It's also possible that between the huge efforts that went into developing sets for The LEGO Movie and the unexpected rush to get new Ninjago sets into development for 2014 (after they'd already finished creating what was thought to be its final wave and been reassigned to other themes), resources that might have been expected to be available for new waves of Galaxy Squad or Castle sets may have been spread a bit thin. After all, don't forget that one of LEGO's big struggles from 2014–2016 wasn't in designing popular sets and themes, but in managing and growing their development and manufacturing capabilities so that they could actually meet demand on their MOST popular sets and themes.

So all in all, I think it's risky to try and draw meaning from which themes/subthemes have sold better or worse than others, when our community rarely even has a reliable sense of which themes DO sell poorly. Often we're only making assumptions based on AFOL community feedback, clearance sales, or themes being cut short "prematurely" (itself a highly subjective term). All of these things can happen for any number of reasons besides weak sales.

And considering how many people here on Eurobricks have wrongly assumed that longer-lived themes like Legends of Chima and Nexo Knights were failures even though both those themes surpassed sales targets, I don't know how much any of us can really trust our assumptions about which shorter-lived themes succeeded or failed.

[MAB]

^ I believe he meant that Knights Kingdom (esp. KK2)  was cartoonish, and 2013 Castle was out at the same time as LOTR. Although I got confused when I first read it, thinking he meant 2013 was cartoonish too.

 

[Artanis I]

Actually no, it's an argument I've heard before, the HERALDRY is being considered "too cartoonish" (must be an important thing for some people to discount an entire theme over it, personally I never noticed before it was brought up), but it's true that 2013, Royal Knights and KKI (and some others) had more cartoonish heraldry than most other factions. Not talking about the set designs, the minifig designs or colour schemes or anything, just the animals on the shields, flags and some torso prints.

 

Kingdoms vs Castle 2013:

 

Various others:

[Aanchir]

13 hours ago, Artanis I said:

Actually no, it's an argument I've heard before, the HERALDRY is being considered "too cartoonish" (must be an important thing for some people to discount an entire theme over it, personally I never noticed before it was brought up), but it's true that 2013, Royal Knights and KKI (and some others) had more cartoonish heraldry than most other factions. Not talking about the set designs, the minifig designs or colour schemes or anything, just the animals on the shields, flags and some torso prints.

While the heraldry in the 2013 sets is more stylized than we're often used to, I wouldn't call it "cartoonish", at least not to any greater capacity than LEGO in general is cartoonish. Frankly, it's sometimes bewildering to me to see graphic designs closely resembling "real" animals in a world populated by stumpy little block people!

And again, I doubt that this sort of slight stylization would have given most kids any particularly negative impression. Honestly, from a modern perspective a lot of authentically medieval depictions of animals and fantasy creatures tend to look downright silly, sort of like how a lot of pirate flags look from a modern standpoint! And even a hypothetical subset of Castle-loving kids who would elect not to buy Castle sets based purely on their printed designs would hardly be comparing them against printed patterns from sets released decades earlier.

To put it another way, even if you think of the 2013 Castle heraldry like something that would appear in a cartoon, there are reasons why the people who create cartoons design things in that manner, and part of it is because they want their work to resonate with kids in a way that centuries-old principles of visual design might not.

[mon-o-mat]

In my eyes 2013 castle was too cartoonish. Not only the minifigs or the heraldy, but the overall colour-code. The badies were to obviously bad and especially their pure black helmets and armor didn't look very good to me. The bright red and black 'castle' they got wasn't any better. The Kingdom one was mostly black too, but at least it was combined with dark brown and green colours.

The 2013 King's Castle wasn't that bad, but it wasn't better than the 2010 one for sure while the bright blue details weren't appealing either.

@BardDandelion Really good idea. Multiple waves of castle sets don't even have to be connected to each other, but at least share the same overall style.