Itaria No Shintaku

Is anyone else fearing that Nexo Knights is meaning NO new castle them

Will TLG produce historic castle themes in your opinion while Nexo Knights is in production?  

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  1. 1. Will TLG produce historic castle themes in your opinion while Nexo Knights is in production?



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Wouldn't that be 2019 instead of 2018? Since Nexo Knights debuted this year, 2016, 3 years later would be 2019.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see it in 2018 (or sooner), just wanted to see if I was missing something.

Sorry, I miscounted. You're right that 2019 would probably be the next year a new Castle theme is launched.

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Sorry, I miscounted. You're right that 2019 would probably be the next year a new Castle theme is launched.

Dang, I was hoping you knew something I didn't.

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Next year Elves has goblins.Elves is the real castle theme :D

That's too bad, we need a Castle theme that appeals to boys (no minidolls).

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I'm actually interested in the hoods they've got in new Elves sets. If they fit minifig heads, they could possibly be a nice addition for Elven Rangers or Mages.

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I'm actually interested in the hoods they've got in new Elves sets. If they fit minifig heads, they could possibly be a nice addition for Elven Rangers or Mages.

I just don't like the flesh ears sticking out of them.

They are scurriers size

That's interesting news.

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There's something kinda ironic about the way many AFOLs talk about mini-dolls. Many would certainly like to believe that if the mini-doll didn't exist, girls would have still liked themes like Friends, Elves, and Disney Princess just fine, regardless of the type of figure. But then when there isn't a minifigure option equivalent to sets or themes that come with mini-dolls, having the wrong style of figure is an instant deal-breaker. Are only boys and grown-ups allowed to be that picky about their play figures, while girls are expected to just settle for what's available?

The hoods on the current LEGO Elves sets fit minifigures just fine, as do all LEGO Elves hairstyles. At least, that's how I feel from testing them out on the Forest Maiden. Take note, however, that the cloaks that go with those hoods do not fit minifigures, due to having a smaller neck hole. The hoods still look fine on minifigures without any sort of fabric cloak due to the minifigure's bulkier shoulders, so if you're a purist the only drawbacks will be the color of the hoods and ears, and if you're not afraid to touch them up with a dab of paint then even those concerns are mitigable.

The goblins in the upcoming LEGO Elves sets sound fun to me, but from the descriptions I've seen, they sound like they'll be more fairy-tale/folkloric goblins than Tolkien-esque goblins. As such they could be great for populating magical forests, but not so great facing down armies of human soldiers. That's not to say they won't have useful parts like hair or headgear, though.

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Are only boys and grown-ups allowed to be that picky about their play figures, while girls are expected to just settle for what's available?

I think this statement is based on the presumption that minifig = boys, and minidolls = girls. I just don't agree with that. I do agree that minidolls = girls, because you can see the obvious parallels between their design aesthetic and the design of traditional girl dolls.

However, I think the minifig by its fundamental design is unisex. It was a figurine that had such generic design aesthetics that it truly depended on the setting and outfit/utensils to determine if the minifig felt more masculine or feminine. By it's very design, it did not seem any closer to a 70-80's action figure than it did a 70-80's doll figure...not until it was put into a particular setting.

The hoods on the current LEGO Elves sets fit minifigures just fine, as do all LEGO Elves hairstyles. At least, that's how I feel from testing them out on the Forest Maiden.

I assumed that was the case based on my own experiences too, but good to hear that regardless.

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I think this statement is based on the presumption that minifig = boys, and minidolls = girls. I just don't agree with that.

LEGO did a scientific research on this very fact. The results were pretty clear as fas as I know and that was why they introduced the minidolls. I don't have the link right now but a search on the net should reveal it.

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And what exactly was the nature of said test? Was it putting a minifig up against a proto-type Minidoll and asking kids which feels more "girly". If so, no doubt they would choose the minidoll design, as it is suited more so for girls than boys. That would not change the fact the minifig is pretty well androgynous - defined by the setting that it is in, and intended use within a given set.

I believe the reason why a minifig may "feel" more boy than girl is that Lego has a long history of using them in ways more traditionally suited for boys. Due to that, they are naturally going to seem more fit for a boy in any tests they do.

My point is that the core fundamental design of a minifig is just as close to a GI Joe, or early Star Wars toy as something like a Polly Pocket or a Barbie. The body of the minifig was also very androgynous...suggesting it could be meant for boys or girls. Seriously, you put a minifigure in a Barbie-doll like setting (like the Friends line) and the toy is going to feel intended for girls....you put a minifigure in some sort of combat setting (like Ninjago) and its going to feel intended for boys.

The only thing Minidolls do is make ANY set they are in seem intended for girls, because that's exactly what they were intended to do.

Edited by thetang22

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And what exactly was the nature of said test? Was it putting a minifig up against a proto-type Minidoll and asking kids which feels more "girly". If so, no doubt they would choose the minidoll design, as it is suited more so for girls than boys. That would not change the fact the minifig is pretty well androgynous - defined by the setting that it is in, and intended use within a given set.

I believe the reason why a minifig may "feel" more boy than girl is that Lego has a long history of using them in ways more traditionally suited for boys. Due to that, they are naturally going to seem more fit for a boy in any tests they do.

My point is that the core fundamental design of a minifig is just as close to a GI Joe, or early Star Wars toy as something like a Polly Pocket or a Barbie. The body of the minifig was also very androgynous...suggesting it could be meant for boys or girls. Seriously, you put a minifigure in a Barbie-doll like setting (like the Friends line) and the toy is going to feel intended for girls....you put a minifigure in some sort of combat setting (like Ninjago) and its going to feel intended for boys.

The only thing Minidolls do is make ANY set they are in seem intended for girls, because that's exactly what they were intended to do.

No, the testing was much more involved with that. The idea that a new figure was needed in the first place came about after plenty of play testing and finding what kids liked and disliked about standard sets, and how their play patterns differed. One of the key takeaways from that was that girls generally were less able to identify with the blocky minifigure designs, and without that emotional connection they had less fondness for the iconic simplicity of the traditional minifigures. And the design of the mini-doll wasn't about what was perceived as "girly" but rather about what actual girls responded better to than traditional figs.

Here's another decent article about the subject: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-12-14/lego-is-for-girls

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So the girls couldn't "connect" with something androgynous like a minifig, but boys either can or don't care?

And the design of the mini-doll wasn't about what was perceived as "girly" but rather about what actual girls responded better to than traditional figs.

Sorry, "girly" to me is pretty much exactly what you just described (something designed for girls to respond well to it). Of course they would respond better to something designed to look more feminine than androgynous.

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So the girls couldn't "connect" with something androgynous like a minifig, but boys either can or don't care?

If you read the two articles linked above you'd already know the answer to that question. The LEGO Group found that boys tend to play with toy figures as characters, whereas girls are more keen on projecting themselves onto the figure as a sort of an avatar. Essentially, boys tend to play with toy figures in the third person, while girls tend to play with them in the first person. And girls had difficulty projecting themselves onto a figure that looked more like a noseless yellow block-man than like a real person. This was all discovered before the LEGO Group even began developing or testing an alternative figure. The minifigure being "androgynous" never had anything to do with it — the problem wasn't that the minifigure didn't look "girly", it was that it didn't look real or human. Which presented a much bigger obstacle for first-person play than third-person play.

And developing the mini-doll wasn't just a matter of shrinking down a doll, asking girls if they liked it, and putting it in a box. The LEGO Group tested many concepts for the mini-doll in order to come up with a design that girls would love just as much as boys loved the minifigure. For instance, one common criticism minifigure-lovers have of the mini-doll is their lack of wrist articulation. Mini-dolls with minifigure-like arms were, in fact, tested with girls, and they didn't like them. They preferred a narrower arm with no major change in thickness at the wrist, even if it meant losing that point of articulation. A lot of effort also went into ensuring the mini-doll still felt like it belonged to the LEGO System. So more detailed hands were rejected in favor of minifigure-like hands, and more doll-like sculpted faces were rejected in favor of smooth, printed faces with just a little egg-shaped bulge for a nose.

And the question remains: if it's really so hard for you to believe that girls and boys have different styles of play or different tastes in play figures, then why would it be any harder for boys to enjoy sets with mini-dolls than for girls to enjoy sets with minifigures? It's a huge double-standard to assume that a style of figure girls have been shown to prefer is ONLY appropriate for them, but a style of figure boys prefer is inherently gender-neutral and should be acceptable for anybody. How are lifelike body proportions and facial features things that only a girl could tolerate?

Edited by Aanchir

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As I said, a quick search reveals the research, but here it is:

http://www.zdnet.com/article/legos-latest-design-research-what-girls-want/

It is an interesting article in certain aspects. The part about "boys play in third person, while girls play in first person and inject themselves into toys" may very well be true. As a father with a 10 year old daughter (as well as 1 year old son) I do believe this fact to be quite true.

Where I disagree with the article and the supposed "research" that people like to point to (if this is the article that people are basing these opinions on), is it still doesn't definitively say that minidolls will be more popular amount girls. If anything, Its based on assumptions. Girls can do EVERYTHING with minifigs that they do with minidolls, and even some things minidolls cant (like change hands, arms, legs individually, etc).

If anything, this article just proved my point even more. There are no reasons why girls can't "inject themselves" into minifigs just as much as they do with minidolls. Same goes for ANY toy, a girl can play with a box of rocks and still pretend it's her just as much as boy can play in third person with it.

Bottom line, it's a marketing strategy. Has it been successful? Yes. Could those products of been just as successful or even more so with that minifigs? IMO yes. But we will never know that for sure.

I'm not really sure why this topic has turned into a minidoll debate, we have plenty of those elsewhere.

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Where I disagree with the article and the supposed "research" that people like to point to (if this is the article that people are basing these opinions on), is it still doesn't definitively say that minidolls will be more popular amount girls. If anything, Its based on assumptions. Girls can do EVERYTHING with minifigs that they do with minidolls, and even some things minidolls cant (like change hands, arms, legs individually, etc).

If anything, this article just proved my point even more. There are no reasons why girls can't "inject themselves" into minifigs just as much as they do with minidolls. Same goes for ANY toy, a girl can play with a box of rocks and still pretend it's her just as much as boy can play in third person with it.

The fact that girls can identify better with the mini-doll than with the minifigure isn't just "assumptions". It's what the LEGO Group found during their research and development. Certainly some girls enjoy the minifigure, and there's no reason why any girl would not be able to enjoy the minifigure. But the research showed that many girls were able to identify better with a toy figure if they felt it looked like them. That meant they could identify better with the mini-doll than with the minifigure, just as, to use your example, they could surely identify better with a minifigure than with a box of rocks.

Do you genuinely believe that the LEGO Group didn't think to test the type of figure they already had with girls before concluding that they didn't respond to them as well as boys did? It's not as though the higher-ups at LEGO wanted to believe that one of their most enduring icons was sabotaging their own efforts to make girls into LEGO fans. It took solid evidence to convince them that redesigning the minifigure was necessary to creating toys that would appeal to girls as well as themes like LEGO City appealed to boys. Astrid and Fenella were quite clear about this when presenting their panel at Brickfair VA the year LEGO Friends launched, as were other designers during the LEGO Inside Tour last year.

Edited by Aanchir

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The only thing Minidolls do is make ANY set they are in seem intended for girls, because that's exactly what they were intended to do.

While I agree with much of what you said in your post, this part I'm not sure of. It's because you used the definitive word "only" in the sentence. They indeed do that, but they do other things (like increase the number of girls interested in a set).

And the question remains: if it's really so hard for you to believe that girls and boys have different styles of play or different tastes in play figures, then why would it be any harder for boys to enjoy sets with mini-dolls than for girls to enjoy sets with minifigures? It's a huge double-standard to assume that a style of figure girls have been shown to prefer is ONLY appropriate for them, but a style of figure boys prefer is inherently gender-neutral and should be acceptable for anybody. How are lifelike body proportions and facial features things that only a girl could tolerate?

Girls and boys definitely do have different tastes (my opinion, this is more due to nurture than nature, meaning that minidolls only increase this division). That said, it is harder for boys to enjoy sets with minidolls than it is for girls to enjoy sets with minifigures. Minifigures are indeed more gender neutral, and there have always been female fans of LEGO, but minidolls have an increased appeal to a wider group of girls. This means that more little girls get sets with minidolls (and probably increases the amount of LEGO that girls receive as gifts).

Bottom line, it's a marketing strategy. Has it been successful? Yes. Could those products of been just as successful or even more so with that minifigs? IMO yes. But we will never know that for sure.

It absolutely is a marketing strategy, and it is definitely working. It's hard to tell if the products would have been as successful with minifigures. I'd say no, not among girls at least. I presume that the gain of girls buying sets is higher than the loss of everyone else that would have bought the sets with minifigures, in most cases. With friends, I'd guess it's true. With Elves, I'd say it's less true, but still probably true. This is due to the overall marketing of the sets, though. It would likely take more than swapping minidolls for minifigures to really change those numbers.

That said, I don't like minidolls, and would love to see sets like the Elves theme without the female driven marketing.

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And the question remains: if it's really so hard for you to believe that girls and boys have different styles of play or different tastes in play figures, then why would it be any harder for boys to enjoy sets with mini-dolls than for girls to enjoy sets with minifigures? It's a huge double-standard to assume that a style of figure girls have been shown to prefer is ONLY appropriate for them, but a style of figure boys prefer is inherently gender-neutral and should be acceptable for anybody. How are lifelike body proportions and facial features things that only a girl could tolerate?

I'm not quite sure what I said that lead you to respond with "if it's really so hard for you to believe that girls and boys have different styles of play or different tastes in play figures"... I'm fully aware of that, and don't believe I really said anything to indicate otherwise. Whether it is innate, or conditioned, anyone can tell by walking down the toy aisles at a store which toys are intended for boys and which are intended for girls. The fact that many toy stores have actually created 2 separate gender-specific Lego toy sections in recent years kinda furthers what I was saying. If for any reason someone takes offense to me saying one aisle is "meant" for boys and the other is for girls....I don't know what to tell you. When I say that Lego develops a mini-doll and has it placed in the "girl aisle" of toys...if that's something that upsets you (because I suggest those toys are meant for girls), then I'm sorry you get offended by that.

"But you said they are ONLY intended for girls". Ok....I'll amend that to, "they are only intended for people who like toys that are intended for girls". If that still offends you, I'm sorry but we are just going to have to have a difference of opinion. There ARE toys that are intended for girls. There are some boys who like those toys, but that doesn't change the fact that said toys are intended to appeal to girls rather than boys...the same way there are toys that are intended to appeal to boys rather than girls. Sure, any business would be fine with a larger market (both boys AND girls), but it's MUCH easier to appeal to one or the other, and accept a few unexpected fans from the gender you didn't market to.

If you feel I'm being insensitive about this issue, something to consider is that I'm a full grown man, and I'm more than happy to admit I played with Barbies with my older sister when I was a kid. And she also played with my "boy" toys like Ninja Turtles, He-man, GI Joe, etc... I fully understand there are people who can have fun with toys intended for the opposite gender (I was guilty of that as a child). But I also understand that is rarer than not, and not the sort of thing that companies design for.

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I'm not quite sure what I said that lead you to respond with "if it's really so hard for you to believe that girls and boys have different styles of play or different tastes in play figures"... I'm fully aware of that, and don't believe I really said anything to indicate otherwise. Whether it is innate, or conditioned, anyone can tell by walking down the toy aisles at a store which toys are intended for boys and which are intended for girls. The fact that many toy stores have actually created 2 separate gender-specific Lego toy sections in recent years kinda furthers what I was saying. If for any reason someone takes offense to me saying one aisle is "meant" for boys and the other is for girls....I don't know what to tell you. When I say that Lego develops a mini-doll and has it placed in the "girl aisle" of toys...if that's something that upsets you (because I suggest those toys are meant for girls), then I'm sorry you get offended by that.

"But you said they are ONLY intended for girls". Ok....I'll amend that to, "they are only intended for people who like toys that are intended for girls". If that still offends you, I'm sorry but we are just going to have to have a difference of opinion. There ARE toys that are intended for girls. There are some boys who like those toys, but that doesn't change the fact that said toys are intended to appeal to girls rather than boys...the same way there are toys that are intended to appeal to boys rather than girls. Sure, any business would be fine with a larger market (both boys AND girls), but it's MUCH easier to appeal to one or the other, and accept a few unexpected fans from the gender you didn't market to.

If you feel I'm being insensitive about this issue, something to consider is that I'm a full grown man, and I'm more than happy to admit I played with Barbies with my older sister when I was a kid. And she also played with my "boy" toys like Ninja Turtles, He-man, GI Joe, etc... I fully understand there are people who can have fun with toys intended for the opposite gender (I was guilty of that as a child). But I also understand that is rarer than not, and not the sort of thing that companies design for.

Sorry for making assumptions. In your posts, you seemed to have a hard time believing the LEGO Group's findings that boys and girls tend to relate to the minifigure differently, or that there was anything about it that was skewed in favor of the way boys play.

I'm not saying that the mini-doll is not designed for girls specifically or that I have any kind of problem with that. I have no problem with gendered marketing on a fundamental level, although there are definitely specific examples of gendered marketing that I would consider good or bad (for instance, I dislike any kind of marketing that "talks down" to its intended audience). I realize the LEGO Friends and LEGO Elves sets are not aimed squarely at me, and I'm fine with that, particularly since as an adult, I could say the same for most LEGO products. I'm happy to enjoy what I can of my favorite themes regardless, and do my best not to assume that any themes should be more geared more towards my particular interests than they are, even though I'm not afraid to speak up about what I don't like about them.

But I don't believe that the minifigure is "gender-neutral" simply by virtue of NOT being designed for one gender specifically. Regardless of intent, I'm not convinced a toy that overwhelmingly appeals to boys rather than girls can truly be considered "gender neutral", even if it has no obvious gender coding in its design. A failure to appeal to a particular demographic means that demographic's preferences were not fully considered in its design. So it's weird to me that girls are often expected to just enjoy the minifigure as much as boys do as long as they have gender-balanced characters to choose from, yet few people expect boys to be able to enjoy the mini-doll the same way girls do regardless of the gender of the characters.

Incidentally, I have similar questions about whether the yellow-skinned minifigure is indeed as "racially neutral" as the LEGO Group often purports. Even if the intent is that people of any race can identify with a yellow smiley-face (and I fully respect that intent), it's not entirely clear whether people of all races actually do identify with the minifigure in an equal capacity. A lot of the AFOL conventions I've been to skew pretty white, at least among the exhibitors, and I'm never sure how much of that is due to inequalities in the US making it easier for white families to enjoy an expensive hobby like LEGO, and how much of it is because people of different races do not relate to the LEGO minifigure or the LEGO system the same way.

I really wish the AFOL community did more self-analysis, like the Brony community used to do with the herd census, so we'd have a better sense of how diverse our community really is, and whether there's more that we could do as AFOLs or the LEGO Group could do as a company to make the LEGO fan community more welcoming to people of all backgrounds. But most AFOL surveys I've seen and/or participated in limit demographic questions to gender, age, and nationality, rather than other categories like race, sexuality, and disability status, which could all offer interesting insights into the community.

Pulling things back around to the subject of Castle, LEGOLAND California announced yesterday that the Kingdom rooms at their LEGOLAND Hotel will be refitted as Ninjago rooms next year. However, this isn't as bleak for Castle fans as it might sound, because the reason for eliminating the Kingdom rooms specifically is that next year LEGOLAND will be beginning construction of a new Castle Hotel, separate from the main LEGOLAND Hotel. That hotel will be opening in 2018.

Obviously, the LEGOLAND parks are owned by Merlin Entertainments, and so shouldn't be taken as any sort of precognition of future LEGO Castle sets (the preview images shown in

starting at 1:08 are clearly based on the earlier 2013 Castle range, and not on some not-yet-announced Castle theme). However, this at least indicates that Merlin considers Castle a popular theme among their park guests. So regardless of when exactly LEGO Castle will come back, it's safe to say that its popularity endures and it isn't gone for good. I'm still of the opinion that 2019 is the most likely year for a Castle comeback, possibly with other licensed castles in the interim.

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Just my 2 cents.

Elves = Girls

Minifigs = Girls/Boys (Mostly Boys)

And what comes to being racially neutral, if someone cannot cope with the yellow skinned lads and ladies. (which most consider white due to mostly white kids playing with the toy I assume, could be changing in the future.) It's their personal problem. Better buy Politically Correct licensed sets then.

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I'm going to refrain from commenting on the gender/race issues simply because I think it is a swamp of political correctness from which there is no escape. It is what it is and I can deal with that.

Pulling things back around to the subject of Castle, LEGOLAND California announced yesterday that the Kingdom rooms at their LEGOLAND Hotel will be refitted as Ninjago rooms next year. However, this isn't as bleak for Castle fans as it might sound, because the reason for eliminating the Kingdom rooms specifically is that next year LEGOLAND will be beginning construction of a new Castle Hotel, separate from the main LEGOLAND Hotel. That hotel will be opening in 2018.

Obviously, the LEGOLAND parks are owned by Merlin Entertainments, and so shouldn't be taken as any sort of precognition of future LEGO Castle sets (the preview images shown in

starting at 1:08 are clearly based on the earlier 2013 Castle range, and not on some not-yet-announced Castle theme). However, this at least indicates that Merlin considers Castle a popular theme among their park guests. So regardless of when exactly LEGO Castle will come back, it's safe to say that its popularity endures and it isn't gone for good. I'm still of the opinion that 2019 is the most likely year for a Castle comeback, possibly with other licensed castles in the interim.

Now this is interesting. For a whole castle hotel, I can see them being motivated to build it as generic (dare I say, evergreen?) castle so that it can be relevant as long as possible. (Re: not blue with trans orange and tank treads)

I would not be surprised if it coincides with a more classically castle theme given the timing.

Edit: I wonder if they'd be motivated to create an entirely separate faction like they did for the traveling children's museum exhibit.

CR_Lego2014.jpg

Edited by SirBlake

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Yeah - theme'ing it classically would definitely keep it relevant. History doesn't change, so it's always safe theme'ing after roots of the series. They could have featured areas that are based on whatever the current Castle line is...but that should be small in comparison to the whole.

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