Future Castle Sets?

[BrickJagger]

As LEGO Ideas has grown and matured

This is the problem: Ideas hasn't grown and matured. Almost every project on Ideas is someone's reused MOC or a ten minute LDD build with the digital landscape still in the background.

Actually, the CUUSOO / Ideas sets that have been approved to date are almost evenly divided between licensed ones based on entertainment properties and ones that aren't (7 to 8, respectively). And seven of those sets, including three unlicensed ones, include minifigures.

My post said that none of the non-licensed sets that get through have figures and while that is false, there certainly aren't many. Upon further inspection, I only see two out of the eight with figures, being the Research Institute and the Mech.

[Blondie-Wan]

This is the problem: Ideas hasn't grown and matured. Almost every project on Ideas is someone's reused MOC or a ten minute LDD build with the digital landscape still in the background.

Those are the submissions. I'm talking about the entire program / platform / theme. It's evolved and matured substantially since beginning in, what - 2008? It was originally limited solely to users in Japan; both the Ideas program site and the products it yields are now available globally. The program started slowly, producing single sets one or two years apart; it now brings us as many as four sets per year. The range of set sizes and prices has expanded from a narrow $35 to $50 (USD) to as much as $70, and as little as $20. The process and guidelines have been refined substantially - sure, you might laugh at that, but remember that when it began there was no time limit for a project to get its votes, much less guidance than we have now about what sorts of projects were likely to be approved, and not even a requirement that projects depict LEGO builds at all (a number of older projects would just have photos or drawings of real-world, non-LEGO objects, like a photo of an actual house, with a description saying "LEGO should offer a model of this house" or some such thing). Virtually every set released along the way represents some sort of first for the theme. Heck, even the very name is different from what it began with (from "LEGO CUUSOO" to "LEGO Ideas").

My post said that none of the non-licensed sets that get through have figures and while that is false, there certainly aren't many. Upon further inspection, I only see two out of the eight with figures, being the Research Institute and the Mech.

There's also Hayabusa, which has a minifigure as a display accompaniment, despite the actual main model being not minifigure-scaled, as well as depicting an unmanned probe.

[BrickJagger]

^ Good points, I think there was a miscommunication over that part.

There's also Hayabusa, which has a minifigure as a display accompaniment, despite the actual main model being not minifigure-scaled, as well as depicting an unmanned probe.

Doesn't that count as a license?

[Blondie-Wan]

Doesn't that count as a license?

I'm honestly not sure whether it's licensed from JAXA (Japan's space agency, like NASA or ESA). I do understand that for US government agencies such as NASA, they don't technically license products (or trademark or copyright things) in the way that private entities do, but perhaps things are different with Japan. Just to be safe, though, that's why I said "licensed ones based on entertainment properties", to cover myself.

At any rate, I tend to distinguish between licenses based on narratives and characters - movies, TV, comics, video games, etc. - and licenses of things like real-world corporate products and brands, portrayals of real-world objects and locations that are authorized by some agency, etc.; I was under the impression most of us do.

[gedren_y]

The Ideas route as a way of proving demand would require getting many similar ideas to pass the review threshold. This would have to happen consistently over time. That kind of concerted effort is difficult to maintain.

The best we could hope for with Ideas is either the one-and-done sets, or a popular license that could generate enough crossover appeal that it merits expanding into a whole theme (Minecraft).

To pass the review stage, these set proposals would have to not overlap any currently developing products. Lots of qualifying castle type set ideas being passed over on that basis, though, would be good news.

[Artanis I]

On the "let's vote for LOTR/Hobbit Ideas to convince TLG to make more" subject

Completely disregarding licences, LOTR Ideas are dead in the water, the only reasonably sized and designed one is the Osgiliath set that is nowhere near reaching 10000, it seems that voters are only interested in massive display pieces that could never ever ever be made into a set. It proves the point that there is not enough demand for LOTR sets when Faramir & Gondor soldiers and a realistic design can't encourage fans to support it. It won the Eurobricks contest for "design a LOTR set that could actually be produced" and if that's not enough to encourage support then forget about it.

[Nexo Bricks]

:/

[x105Black]

:/

... ?

[BrickJagger]

:/

A very deep post indeed. I'm inclined to agree.

[azog]

:/

This post made my day

[Vorkosigan]

Have you guys seen the Minecraft set "The Fortress":

Honestly all these not-castle castles are a bit depressing to me. Its got a brick built horse and sheep so fans of the yellow castle should be happy right ? If this was like $60 I might buy it for parts but at $110 MSRP its unlikely to get that low.

[Artanis I]

You know what else is depressing? The rearing horse has been released in ONE (Scooby Doo) set since 2014. That's disturbing to me. One of the high points of Castle 2013 was the use of the (new at the time) horse with new barding & helmets, and it looks like we may not be getting any more in the near future.

[Blondie-Wan]

That's just natural ebb and flow in part usage; there will be other years in which there are scads of horses.

[x105Black]

They had the brown horses on the Pick-A-Brick wall for a bit last year. Managed to get a good few of them. But yeah, I'm looking forward to the year we get "scads" of them. Hopefully they will give a nice variety of colors and prints.

[Lyichir]

They had the brown horses on the Pick-A-Brick wall for a bit last year. Managed to get a good few of them. But yeah, I'm looking forward to the year we get "scads" of them. Hopefully they will give a nice variety of colors and prints.

HORSES on the pick-a-brick wall? Man, I wish I'd been there for that! I'm not even a huge medieval builder, but that kind of deal on a complex and slightly rare animal design would be too good a deal to pass up!

[nine09nueve]

HORSES on the pick-a-brick wall? Man, I wish I'd been there for that! ...that kind of deal on a complex and slightly rare animal design would be too good a deal to pass up!

Yeah I thought so too at first but I wonder exactly how many horses could you actually get in a pot... Compared to the price on BL? Then I saw how many I could fit in a big pot and thought... *drool*

They had the brown horses on the Pick-A-Brick wall for a bit last year. Managed to get a good few of them.

Where was this amazing madness to be found??!!

[Blondie-Wan]

I've never seen horses on the PAB wall at any LS I've ever been to, alas. The closest I've gotten to that were scorpions on the PAB wall, and horses in PAB on S@H. They were actually quite cheap for a brief period - fifty or seventy-five cents apiece, I think (!), but eventually went up to a dollar or more. These were the older horses, without the articulated back legs; I think they must have been clearing out stock in anticipation of the new horses introduced in 2012, though I don't know why they'd raise the price partway through if they were doing that - I'd have expected the opposite. Anyway, these were older-style horses, in white only, with the printed bridle.

[TheLegoDr]

Well, in my job I've noticed a lot of contact lens manufacturers raise the prices on their older materials because they want people buying the new product (thus cheaper). But for horses, if they were clearing out stock it would make more sense to lower the price, so I don't know.

[x105Black]

Yeah I thought so too at first but I wonder exactly how many horses could you actually get in a pot... Compared to the price on BL? Then I saw how many I could fit in a big pot and thought... *drool*

Where was this amazing madness to be found??!!

I fit 9 in a small Pick-A-Brick cup, and filled in around them afterwards. Yes, these were the newer horses. It was important that they were, the bending at the hips really helped to maximize space.

This was months ago, at a LEGO Store outside of Atlanta.

[Blondie-Wan]

I fit 9 in a small Pick-A-Brick cup, and filled in around them afterwards. Yes, these were the newer horses. It was important that they were, the bending at the hips really helped to maximize space.

This was months ago, at a LEGO Store outside of Atlanta.

Atlanta?! The one at Sugarloaf Mills, or the other one?

[Vorkosigan]

I got some of those brown horses at the Schaumburg Illinois store during Brickworld 2015. It was a good deal but they are tricky to pack. I didn't realize the new horses have been so neglected in sets though.

[Rogue Angel]

We've had them here in Wisconsin a couple of times, and I fit 8 or 9 in a small cup, picked up 16 of them or so. It came out to ~$1 each, so a decent deal.

[Artanis I]

A decent deal?!? They are going for much more than that on BL!

Of course, the brown ones aren't as sought after as the white or black ones, but still...

[x105Black]

Atlanta?! The one at Sugarloaf Mills, or the other one?

Sugarloaf it is.

[Rogue Angel]

A decent deal?!? They are going for much more than that on BL!

Of course, the brown ones aren't as sought after as the white or black ones, but still...

If they would have had all 3 colors, I probably would have picked up another 30 or 40, but I only need so many brown horses.

Also, at the time, they were available for about $0.50 more on Bricklink, so a decent deal (IMO). It's nothing like finding Gray 2x2 tiles or snot bricks on the wall, or leaves. Those are the great deals for me.

My Lego store currently has cats, laptops, dk green hoods, red hoods and spartan torsos in the BaM, which was 20% off all last month. That was also much more exciting for me personally, or when they had seagulls last year.