Future Castle Sets?

[Weil]

1 hour ago, MAB said:

I had a wooden castle as a boy. I don't think I ever worried about where the people in it slept and ate. I wonder if kids are any different today.

 

Haha, I also had a toy Castle and never cared about these things.  Though my sibling later played with the same Castle and pretty much only cared about people's day to day lives in it (when they also had other toy settings available).  So I guess everyone is different.  I'm sure the "fighting" aspects of castle probably still hold a broad appeal though.

[Aanchir]

7 hours ago, MAB said:

I had a wooden castle as a boy. I don't think I ever worried about where the people in it slept and ate. I wonder if kids are any different today.

Well, some kids certainly are (and probably were back then, also). In some cases, girls seem to care more about these sorts of features than boys do. This article about the development of the LEGO Friends theme gives an example:

Quote

For one project, Lego gathered a group of boys and asked them to build a Lego castle together. Separately, they gave the same task to the group of girls. Both groups worked together to build the castle, but once it was assembled, there were stark differences in how the two groups proceeded.

“The boys immediately grabbed the figures and the horses and the catapults and they started having a battle,” McNally said. “The facilitator said, ‘What about the castle?’ And they said, ‘Well, that’s just the backdrop for the battle.’”

The girls, on the other hand, were more focused on the structure—and not too impressed with what they found. “They all looked around inside the castle and they said, ‘Well, there’s nothing inside,’” McNally said. “This idea of interior versus exterior in the orientation of how they would then play with what they built was really interesting. If you think about most of the Lego models that people consider to be meant for boys, there’s not a whole lot going on in there. But [the girls had] this idea of, ‘There’s nothing inside to do.’”

“Both girls and boys were saying they liked building, but there were nuances in what they were looking for,” he added. “We heard girls overwhelming saying we would much rather build environments than single structures. They were really just looking for a lot more detail than we were offering.”

Mind you, I don't mean to suggest that this is some innate or biologically wired gender difference, either. After all, a lot more girls grow up playing with dollhouses and similar toys than boys do, and that probably helps to shape their expectations for other types of play experiences, just as growing up playing with toy cars could impact a child's expectations for what features a LEGO car ought to have.

In my own childhood, my interests in these sorts of features might have been impacted by experiences with "dollhouse play" (for instance, at my grandparents' house, I would often play with the dollhouse and dolls that my mom and her sisters enjoyed while growing up). But I think some of the more significant influences for me included:

• Fictional portrayals of medieval life (movies, picture books, fairy tales, etc) in which lavish banquets and other medieval luxuries featured prominently. After all, what is King Arthur without his Round Table? What is Sleeping Beauty without a bed to sleep in?
• Reference books like David Macaulay's Castle or the Eyewitness: Castle guide book, which focused every bit as much on the role of a castle in the lifestyles of its inhabitants as on its strategic/tactical significance in armed conflicts.
• Other non-LEGO medieval toys like Playmobil castles or the Mega Bloks Legend "Lion Kingdom" set. Despite having much less building value than LEGO, these sorts of toys were sometimes better at including lifestyle-oriented features like banquet halls, bedchambers, libraries, stables, and smithies, in addition to the sorts of features that were common in LEGO castles like dungeons and throne rooms.

Bear in mind also that my childhood love of LEGO began in the 90s: a time when LEGO Castle interior details were at least making some slight positive strides. For instance, the Royal Knights theme (as maligned as its minifigures were for their "cartoonishness") gave us the first minifigure with recognizably "kingly" regalia like a fur-trimmed cape and golden crown, as well as the first castle with a recognizable "throne room". Likewise, Fright Knights, to its credit, gave Basil the Bat Lord a dining table and fireplace in his own throne room/great hall, in keeping with the Gothic literary tradition of vampires and other aristocratic evildoers living lives of luxurious indulgence.

The increasing prevalence of named characters and tie-in media in 90s and 2000s LEGO themes (like the wizard Majisto from Dragon Masters or King Leo, Queen Leonora, and Princess Storm from Knights' Kingdom) also helped make it easier to think of LEGO minifigures as people whose lives extended beyond whatever scenario they happened to be dressed for in a particular set. I suspect this character-driven element is a big part of why today, even themes like Ninjago, Nexo Knights, and Monkie Kid that are largely boy-targeted and have a heavy emphasis on action play still manage at times to include many more "lifestyle features" than traditional Space, Castle, or Pirates sets.

Mind you, I totally recognize that for many buyers, standard sorts of Castle sets with standard sorts of features (like the 2010 and 2013 product lines) might be plenty adequate. That said, plenty of AFOLs in this thread and others have already brought up how frustrating it is not to get more sets like Medieval Market Village and Mill Village Raid which focus on everyday medieval people living everyday medieval lives, rather than just on armed conflicts between different knight factions. Furthermore, the Elves theme has demonstrated at various points that it's possible to include lifestyle-oriented features AND conflict/action play features in the same theme or even the same set, even while keeping to about the same price range as Castle sets.

As such, I don't see any reason to think that more lifestyle-oriented features in the Castle theme would be a bad thing, nor that it's any less realistic to hope for than the various other wishes for the future of the Castle theme that have been brought up in this thread.

Edited February 1, 2021 by Aanchir

[Alexandrina]

1 hour ago, Aanchir said:

Mind you, I totally recognize that for many buyers, standard sorts of Castle sets with standard sorts of features (like the 2010 and 2013 product lines) might be plenty adequate. That said, plenty of AFOLs in this thread and others have already brought up how frustrating it is not to get more sets like Medieval Market Village and Mill Village Raid which focus on everyday medieval people living everyday medieval lives, rather than just on armed conflicts between different knight factions.

This, I think, sums up perfectly why Castle really needs a full theme reboot - and why nice as the Blacksmith is, having a set like that every few years will not truly sate the appetite for Medieval. Some people want more everyday lives, and the Blacksmith goes some way to addressing that - but having a civilian structure doesn't please those who want more sets from the traditional Castle ilk. Equally, while Lego would get good mileage from a subset of the fanbase by releasing a big castle every few years as the extent of their medieval offering, that wouldn't be enough for people like you or I or anybody else who wants to see much more civilian life. A full theme avoids this issue - it doesn't have to be either or, there's room for traditional sets full of knights in their castles and smithies and stables and other medieval miscellany. People who want both can buy both, people who want one or the other can buy one or the other, and everyone is happy.

[Poco Lypso]

21 hours ago, Alexandrina said:

This, I think, sums up perfectly why Castle really needs a full theme reboot - and why nice as the Blacksmith is, having a set like that every few years will not truly sate the appetite for Medieval. Some people want more everyday lives, and the Blacksmith goes some way to addressing that - but having a civilian structure doesn't please those who want more sets from the traditional Castle ilk. Equally, while Lego would get good mileage from a subset of the fanbase by releasing a big castle every few years as the extent of their medieval offering, that wouldn't be enough for people like you or I or anybody else who wants to see much more civilian life. A full theme avoids this issue - it doesn't have to be either or, there's room for traditional sets full of knights in their castles and smithies and stables and other medieval miscellany. People who want both can buy both, people who want one or the other can buy one or the other, and everyone is happy.

 

I think there is a huge discrepancy between what lego is offering and what fans actually want and its generally a pity lego isnt paying enough attention.

Imo castle or historic builders dont really care about a castle theme like the one we had in 2013. Albeit it would prolly be better than having no sets at all, lol. And I suppose Lego has done their homework and realized kids these days are less into classic themes and more into ninjago-like themes that are accompanied by a tv show. And if I compare a colorful theme like ninjago with the lackluster 2013 sets I won't blame them.

BUT Lego MUST have realized there is a "huge" fanbase that ARE into historic themes and yet they offer NOTHING (I don't really count ideas sets) besides the occasional cmf figures. And thats actually a sad thing. Lego should create historic sets on a regular basis catering to the adult audience. Those sets should be less focused on play features and more on detailed structures and advanced building techniques. Those sets should feature minifigures of all kinds of historic context and the sets should make for amazing parts packs. I am sure these sets would sell and its not unlikely many more adults would come into the fold.

Now you may ask why I am writing about the obvious? It was yesterday that I came across a popular  german youtube channel. The guy in the vids tends to bash lego products (he quite often has a point though) and also presents products by the competition. While browsing through his channel I spotted a couple of sets that made me think: If these were made by Lego I would buy them! And that made me sad. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Pulp Detective]

I'm rather curious about the secondary builds for the upcoming creator set.Hopefully one of those is a wizard tower or something along those lines. 

[Aanchir]

9 hours ago, LOTR34 said:

I'm rather curious about the secondary builds for the upcoming creator set.Hopefully one of those is a wizard tower or something along those lines. 

Oh, a wizard tower would be lovely! Dragon Masters was my first Castle theme, and it had a couple sets along those lines which I have a great deal of nostalgia for, like Majisto's Tower and Majisto's Magical Workshop.

[natesroom]

On 2/1/2021 at 3:13 PM, Aanchir said:

Mind you, I totally recognize that for many buyers, standard sorts of Castle sets with standard sorts of features (like the 2010 and 2013 product lines) might be plenty adequate. That said, plenty of AFOLs in this thread and others have already brought up how frustrating it is not to get more sets like Medieval Market Village and Mill Village Raid which focus on everyday medieval people living everyday medieval lives, rather than just on armed conflicts between different knight factions. Furthermore, the Elves theme has demonstrated at various points that it's possible to include lifestyle-oriented features AND conflict/action play features in the same theme or even the same set, even while keeping to about the same price range as Castle sets.

As such, I don't see any reason to think that more lifestyle-oriented features in the Castle theme would be a bad thing, nor that it's any less realistic to hope for than the various other wishes for the future of the Castle theme that have been brought up in this thread.

I think many many historic lego fans want to build factions, not just army building. we want more diversity in being able to build different and unique factions complete with armies, unique features for them (i.e. buildings, etc)

[timemail]

As a kid in the 80's I only had one Fabuland and one Classic Space set as my parents could never afford Lego. I only got into Lego when Ecto-1 was released in 2014 and I really enjoyed putting that together. My next plan was to buy every Castle set that came out and build a large Lego Castle display. I was planning to get the castle, knights, civilian buildings, the lot. At the time I assumed Castle would be available yet unfortunately it never was. I have a grand total of 0 Castle sets currently. Sets are too expensive on the resale market and so I have made do with a few City, Star Wars, Winter Village and pop culture sets.

I will buy a couple of the Blackmith and not open them in the hope that a new theme comes out - by itself it is pretty useless to me. The Creator Castle may give me the ability to build a Castle from scratch and the Blacksmith may be opened then.

But for me and potentially many other new Lego users over the 7 years since there was Castle on the shelf, I am hoping that there will be some semblance of a repeat of previous themes to get my basic Castle in place, followed by add on sets to increase civilian life and military life. My view is that Lego is trying to cater to new markets more than existing ones so potentially I will get what I want in a repeat of Castle sets to bring new people in. There may be a set (like the blacksmith) to cater to the older fans, but if there is a wave I think it would not be much new.

Ideally though the Creator Castle will allow for a big castle to be built and a wave will come in to allow for the civilian and military life. Which would be ideal if it is a long term theme. This is what I have been most excited for when I started building Lego 7 years ago, and I am still waiting for my first (hopefully of many) set. I will admit that in the last year I have been strongly considering just abandoning Lego and looking for a suitable replacement brand. Hopefully the coming year will make it so I won't need to do that.

I have also voted for the Castle in the 90th anniversary set (God I hope it isn't yellow though). Who knows what will happen - we may even get a UCS Goat.

Edited February 4, 2021 by timemail

[LegoPerson11]

I'm quietly optimistic that Medieval Blacksmith is the beginning of a series. The excitement around it is palpable! 

I'm dreaming about a medieval kitchen, to buttress the medieval castle (see what i did there). 

[Poco Lypso]

5 hours ago, timemail said:

As a kid in the 80's I only had one Fabuland and one Classic Space set as my parents could never afford Lego. I only got into Lego when Ecto-1 was released in 2014 and I really enjoyed putting that together. My next plan was to buy every Castle set that came out and build a large Lego Castle display. I was planning to get the castle, knights, civilian buildings, the lot. At the time I assumed Castle would be available yet unfortunately it never was. I have a grand total of 0 Castle sets currently. Sets are too expensive on the resale market and so I have made do with a few City, Star Wars, Winter Village and pop culture sets.

I will buy a couple of the Blackmith and not open them in the hope that a new theme comes out - by itself it is pretty useless to me. The Creator Castle may give me the ability to build a Castle from scratch and the Blacksmith may be opened then.

But for me and potentially many other new Lego users over the 7 years since there was Castle on the shelf, I am hoping that there will be some semblance of a repeat of previous themes to get my basic Castle in place, followed by add on sets to increase civilian life and military life. My view is that Lego is trying to cater to new markets more than existing ones so potentially I will get what I want in a repeat of Castle sets to bring new people in. There may be a set (like the blacksmith) to cater to the older fans, but if there is a wave I think it would not be much new.

Ideally though the Creator Castle will allow for a big castle to be built and a wave will come in to allow for the civilian and military life. Which would be ideal if it is a long term theme. This is what I have been most excited for when I started building Lego 7 years ago, and I am still waiting for my first (hopefully of many) set. I will admit that in the last year I have been strongly considering just abandoning Lego and looking for a suitable replacement brand. Hopefully the coming year will make it so I won't need to do that.

I have also voted for the Castle in the 90th anniversary set (God I hope it isn't yellow though). Who knows what will happen - we may even get a UCS Goat.

Replacement products are a big no-no for me for several reasons and in the end I am a lego purist. In my previous post I mentioned a replacement brand (there were two actually) which came with really nice sets (for about half the lego price). The sets were really nice to look at and as I said, if it was lego I would buy all of them (even at double cost). One thing I didnt mention is those sets came without minifigs. And tbh what is a historic scene without protagonists. I really hope the blacksmith will usher in a new wave of historic sets - but I havent got my hopes up too much.

[MAB]

On 2/2/2021 at 7:20 PM, Poco Lypso said:

Imo castle or historic builders dont really care about a castle theme like the one we had in 2013.

 

I think the biggest problem was that it didn't continue. After all, 2013 was very similar to the first year (2010) of Kingdoms. Yes, there is the fantasy aspect of the Dragon, but aside from that the style of sets is very similar (which again was a bit of a negative, since people complained it was just a recent rehash). If Kingdoms had only lasted a year, I don't think it would be any better than 2013 Castle. What makes it better is the second and third year, mainly MVR and Joust. If 2013 had gotten follow-up sets like that, I am sure it would be treated more kindly. Although neither MVR and Joust look as good as MMV, which for some reason is Fantasy Era despite no fantasy elements. But even that is not great compared to most castle MOCs. Simply because AFOLs want more detail than LEGO is ever likely to do in a $150 or less set.

So for me, 2013 was fine for what it gave us - bricks in castle colours for MOCs, a few horses, some very nice knights/soldiers (Dragons, as good as Kingdoms), some acceptable but not great knights/soldiers (Crowns, not as good as Kingdoms), the Dragon (good for fantasy, or sell it if you want "realistic").

 

[Poco Lypso]

2 hours ago, MAB said:

I think the biggest problem was that it didn't continue. After all, 2013 was very similar to the first year (2010) of Kingdoms. Yes, there is the fantasy aspect of the Dragon, but aside from that the style of sets is very similar (which again was a bit of a negative, since people complained it was just a recent rehash). If Kingdoms had only lasted a year, I don't think it would be any better than 2013 Castle. What makes it better is the second and third year, mainly MVR and Joust. If 2013 had gotten follow-up sets like that, I am sure it would be treated more kindly. Although neither MVR and Joust look as good as MMV, which for some reason is Fantasy Era despite no fantasy elements. But even that is not great compared to most castle MOCs. Simply because AFOLs want more detail than LEGO is ever likely to do in a $150 or less set.

So for me, 2013 was fine for what it gave us - bricks in castle colours for MOCs, a few horses, some very nice knights/soldiers (Dragons, as good as Kingdoms), some acceptable but not great knights/soldiers (Crowns, not as good as Kingdoms), the Dragon (good for fantasy, or sell it if you want "realistic").

 

I meant 2013 viewed as a whole but I agree a 2nd or even 3rd wave could have made it fantastic.

It's a pity I started a year later and was able to grab a few of those sets. Had I known how things would develope I might have bought more :). But there were rumours about a new big budget fantasy castle theme coming out soon. Oh boy... lol.

Deep within I hope they come up with a legend of zelda collab for the release of botw 2.

 

Edited February 4, 2021 by Poco Lypso

[Lyichir]

9 hours ago, Poco Lypso said:

Deep within I hope they come up with a legend of zelda collab for the release of botw 2.

I'm with you on that! I recently was feeling a bit nostalgic for Breath of the Wild (having gotten it on Wii U when it first came out but since then getting a Switch and putting it into storage), so I broke the console out again and hooked it up to my TV. Even though I didn't have any major quests left to do, just aimlessly exploring for the occasional Korok Seed or treasure chest felt like coming home... I'd love it if we might finally get sets based off of that, if not a broader Zelda theme.

Of course, to be honest it's quite hazy as to when that will come out. Could be next year or could still be several years from now. So far Lego's collaborations with Nintendo have benefitted from not being tied to any specific major game release date, so I'm not exactly sure what the chances are of them launching a theme like that alongside a new game. I'd love to be wrong, but if not, there's still plenty of opportunity for another sort of castle theme.

Edited February 5, 2021 by Lyichir

[Grover]

12 hours ago, Poco Lypso said:

Deep within I hope they come up with a legend of zelda collab for the release of botw 2.

I'm hoping that @soccerkid6 designs a new Castle line since he's working for TLG now!

[Shroffy123]

What's the consensus of incorporating non lego parts and custom figs into people's collection? I'm tempted to purchase minifigs from sites like esty due to the lack of a lego castle wave. 

[MAB]

10 hours ago, Shroffy123 said:

What's the consensus of incorporating non lego parts and custom figs into people's collection? I'm tempted to purchase minifigs from sites like esty due to the lack of a lego castle wave. 

Many castle figs are cheap enough on bricklink or ebay, probably better prices than etsy. 

[Aurore]

19 hours ago, Shroffy123 said:

What's the consensus of incorporating non lego parts and custom figs into people's collection? I'm tempted to purchase minifigs from sites like esty due to the lack of a lego castle wave. 

I doubt there is a consensus...
I'm personnally a purist when it comes to my own collection. But there are plenty of awesome MOCs that feature third-party accessories, weapons and customized minifigs or prints (very few parts from rip-off brands though).

[leafan]

So I'm presuming that this Creator 3-in-1 Castle rumour is true for this summer, but what are people's thoughts on the minifigures?

Generic knight with no heraldry, new heraldry or a throw-back to a classis faction such as Lion Knights/Crusaders?

I'd prefer the latter, due to us already having a new Black Falcon torso; but I won't hold my breath since there was only 1 unique print for the 3-in-1 Pirate Ship set.

[Lyichir]

1 hour ago, leafan said:

So I'm presuming that this Creator 3-in-1 Castle rumour is true for this summer, but what are people's thoughts on the minifigures?

Generic knight with no heraldry, new heraldry or a throw-back to a classis faction such as Lion Knights/Crusaders?

I'd prefer the latter, due to us already having a new Black Falcon torso; but I won't hold my breath since there was only 1 unique print for the 3-in-1 Pirate Ship set.

It's also possible that they might reuse the same Black Falcon prints they made for the Blacksmith Shop in the 3-in-1 set as well. One possibility that could be really cool is if they do that for the knights but also introduce new minifigure prints for a king or lord tied to that faction (since the classic theme only had generic soldiers with no obvious ruler or leader).

[valon]

https://ideas.lego.com/challenges/8bd43da4-eb65-4161-a213-905b5a8aa804?query=&sort=top

 

in this video i noticed a royal chariot and castle. There was also a princess tower that looked like a alternate build of the castle

 

 

[Aanchir]

13 minutes ago, valon said:

https://ideas.lego.com/challenges/8bd43da4-eb65-4161-a213-905b5a8aa804?query=&sort=top

 

in this video i noticed a royal chariot and castle. There was also a princess tower that looked like a alternate build of the castle

Ooh! While I was uncertain about some of the builds being set-based at first, the castle that appears around 0:53 givs off STRONG Creator 3-in-1 vibes. And the similar parts used for the parapets at 0:08 and the tower at 0:22 definitely lend credence to those being based on the same set. I certainly feel like if the castle weren't based on a set, it would have more likely used a traditional studs-up build for the battlements instead of SNOTted 2x3 tiles.

That said, the choice to populate a lot of this video's scenes with CMFs (or slightly modified ones) leaves us in the dark about what minifigs the actual 3-in-1 castle will include. As @Lyichir mentioned, it'd be plausible for it to reuse the new Black Falcon torsos since they're already in production, would help LEGO to get more use out of that element, and would certainly be much appreciated by fans in a less expensive set like that (especially one that many AFOLs might end up buying several of as a "parts pack"). But it's also not implausible to think that there might be entirely new minifigure prints introduced for that set, much like how last year's 3-in-1 pirate ship introduced a new torso pattern for its pirate captain.

Thanks so much for sharing this find!

[zoth33]

I am hoping for more black falcon kinghts but if they make another faction I am also down with that.  I just hope there are more than one printed knight in the set.  I am going to say that one fig will be a king this is just speculation though, it's just what I'm thinking at this point.  So hopefully they put more than 3 figs in the set but we will see hopefully soon.  

[leafan]

2 hours ago, zoth33 said:

I am hoping for more black falcon kinghts but if they make another faction I am also down with that.  I just hope there are more than one printed knight in the set.  I am going to say that one fig will be a king this is just speculation though, it's just what I'm thinking at this point.  So hopefully they put more than 3 figs in the set but we will see hopefully soon.  

Yep I'm hoping for at least 5, including at least 2 non-Knight minifigs.

[zoth33]

7 minutes ago, leafan said:

Yep I'm hoping for at least 5, including at least 2 non-Knight minifigs.

Yeah I think that's a good number especially if it's a decent sized set.  I'm hoping if the knights aren't black falcons then they have some nice heraldry.  A nice peasant fig would be great too.  

 

 

[Niku]

I guess at least a black falcon torso, and hoping for a new noble and peasant torso.