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

[SirBlake]

On 3/29/2017 at 3:16 PM, kabel said:

I think I may repeat myself here, but what I don't get is why Lego is giving anything historical the boot, whereas Playmobil does their castle and pirate stuff over and over again and seems to be doing alright. In fact, their current Egyptians/Romans topic is so well designed that my kids forgot all about Lego over it. So why would the folks at Lego assume, that historical themes don't sell when Playmobil proves that there still is a huge demand for themes like that?

Great point. I really don't know how that decision making happens. TLG just seems more wrapped up in market research and focus groups and lately has been going big and flashy at the expense of the formerly described "evergreen" themes. 

The sad part is, it wouldn't take much to satiate the castle/pirate/space types with small offerings. A single city modular size set per year or 3 under-$50 sets per year would do so much to keep the community satisfaction high. There are just so many of us that feel forgotten. It's really putting a black mark on the hobby.

[Aanchir]

On 3/29/2017 at 4:16 PM, kabel said:

I think I may repeat myself here, but what I don't get is why Lego is giving anything historical the boot, whereas Playmobil does their castle and pirate stuff over and over again and seems to be doing alright. In fact, their current Egyptians/Romans topic is so well designed that my kids forgot all about Lego over it. So why would the folks at Lego assume, that historical themes don't sell when Playmobil proves that there still is a huge demand for themes like that?

Counterpoint: why do we assume that they assume that? There are a lot of theme categories like pirates, secret agents, underwater, etc. which frequently go years without new sets, but also importantly, keep coming back. Would LEGO do that if they didn't sell well? We certainly don't see that approach with, say, Western or Monorail.

Furthermore, I'll grant that Playmobil has historic themes LEGO never has had, like Ancient Rome and Ancient Egypt. That said, their selection of new Castle and Pirates sets this year is not extensive: only about three new Castle sets for 2017 and two new Pirates sets for 2017, and half of those are single-figure packs more analogous to polybags or collectible minifigures than regular sets.

It's important to remember also that Playmobil is not a construction toy. This means they have to adopt a different business model than LEGO in many respects. Most LEGO parts are not set or theme specific, so LEGO can rotate out themes and retire individual sets more frequently than Playmobil and still get their money's worth out of the molds. The differences between the two brands also include different target age range (Playmobil is generally aimed younger), business interests in different parts of the world (Playmobil is not nearly as mainstream outside of Europe as LEGO is), and different expectations from buyers. And, of course, that LEGO as a company is far bigger and more profitable.

No designer I've heard comment on Nexo Knights has insinuated that there's anything wrong with more traditional historic themes — their impetus to create Nexo Knights is always just framed as simply wanting to try something different with the Castle concept. Nor is Nexo Knights ever described as if it were the new status quo. That only ever seems to be assumed by its detractors. By comparison, AFOL designers like Mark Stafford have often been very open in online discussions about which classic or AFOL-preferred concepts truly have a hard time resonating with today's kids.

[SirBlake]

On 3/31/2017 at 5:50 PM, Aanchir said:

No designer I've heard comment on Nexo Knights has insinuated that there's anything wrong with more traditional historic themes — their impetus to create Nexo Knights is always just framed as simply wanting to try something different with the Castle concept. Nor is Nexo Knights ever described as if it were the new status quo. That only ever seems to be assumed by its detractors. By comparison, AFOL designers like Mark Stafford have often been very open in online discussions about which classic or AFOL-preferred concepts truly have a hard time resonating with today's kids.

Let's not hang too much responsibility on designers. The designers make what they're told to make from other decision makers. I'm sure many designers, if not most, love traditional castle but they're not being directed to create those themes these days. 

[zoth33]

17 hours ago, SirBlake said:

Let's not hang too much responsibility on designers. The designers make what they're told to make from other decision makers. I'm sure many designers, if not most, love traditional castle but they're not being directed to create those themes these days. 

There is no castle theme out now so obviously no they wouldn't be designing them.  The designers probably design things all the time that get shot down or have to tweak them to fit into a certain theme.  Its ok to take a break sometimes.  Everyone was really disappointed by the last castle wave and now that we don't have one everyone complains that there is no castle.  I think that in time Lego will have a new castle theme and they are probably already designing and creating things for it now.  I think everything will be fine just give it some time. 

[Aanchir]

19 hours ago, SirBlake said:

Let's not hang too much responsibility on designers. The designers make what they're told to make from other decision makers. I'm sure many designers, if not most, love traditional castle but they're not being directed to create those themes these days. 

Sorry if I wasn't clear — I'm not trying to blame the designers for anything. I'm just saying that designers like Mark are generally pretty open and honest with us about which themes excite the kids they test with and which don't particularly. And as far as I've seen, none of them has suggested that Castle is among those that don't. By comparison, they've never tried to hide kids' disinterest in monorails. So if LEGO didn't think kids liked Castle, why would they hide that?

[legostarwars1425]

I hit "YES" in hopes of there being a better variety of mid-evil pieces being created. I like doing castle related MOCs so that's why I hit yes. Now it is a theme for kids, and that is what they go by. Meaning if the kids like it, they produce more. So I think kids very much like it, hence they keep making more. So... they probably will keep Nexo-knights and ditch castle. Now I am not saying they won't create more like castle in the future, but for now, they will keep making Nexo-Knights.

[BrickG]

I don't hold out much hope. I think all these "silly" things like Ninjago, Nexo-Knights, Chima, etc probably legit sell a lot better to kids than the more plain ones like Castle, Pirates, etc. I'd personally rather have more historic (though not necessarily accurate) and classical representations. But I don't see those kind of sets selling as well or letting Lego have their own IPs and make money off that. Lego can't really OWN Castles but if they give it a brand and unique look, BAM, it's a franchise. If anything, from a business point of view, I think going back to generic (but cool to me) things would probably be a terrible idea for them. I wouldn't be surprised if they replaced even CITY with "CitEx-JoGo!" or something weird some day. :P

[Aanchir]

17 hours ago, BrickG said:

I don't hold out much hope. I think all these "silly" things like Ninjago, Nexo-Knights, Chima, etc probably legit sell a lot better to kids than the more plain ones like Castle, Pirates, etc. I'd personally rather have more historic (though not necessarily accurate) and classical representations. But I don't see those kind of sets selling as well or letting Lego have their own IPs and make money off that. Lego can't really OWN Castles but if they give it a brand and unique look, BAM, it's a franchise. If anything, from a business point of view, I think going back to generic (but cool to me) things would probably be a terrible idea for them. I wouldn't be surprised if they replaced even CITY with "CitEx-JoGo!" or something weird some day. :P

City tends to be a reliable bestseller without any kind of futuristic twist, so I wouldn't anticipate any huge changes to its formula in the foreseeable future. LEGO has had more futuristic takes on the City/Town category in the past in the Jack Stone and World City themes, but neither sold as well as the more familiar-looking, modern-day stuff. It probably helps that City has found its niche with the 5–12 age range that traditional Pirate and Castle sets generally target, rather than the older 7–14 age range of themes like Ninjago, Bionicle, and Nexo Knights. Older kids tend to have a greater demand for stuff that feels to them like something nobody has ever seen or played with before. But for younger kids who are still coming to terms with the world around them, a toy police car, fire truck, pirate ship, castle, or space shuttle still feels pretty fresh and exciting in its own right.

Arguably, the nearest recent equivalents to Ninjago or Nexo Knights in the City category would be Agents and Ultra Agents. In fact, when the first Agents set rumors emerged in 2007, the Eurobricks topic for the theme was in the Town subforum, and the reaction there was about as vitriolic as the reaction many Castle fans here had towards Nexo Knights. In that case, though, the City theme had already proven a strong enough core to continue without any kind of interruption, so once Agents discussion was moved out of the Town category, tensions calmed down considerably.

[Mr. President]

I think this next observation goes here better than anywhere else:

If you look at the box for the new Classic creative builder box (10703, the one with "extra doors and windows"), one of the designs showcased on it is the front wall of a castle. It's a minor thing, but it does suggest that Lego hasn't forgotten about the classic castle style, even if they're not emphasizing it in the current lines.

[Oederland]

On 29.3.2017 at 10:47 PM, ElectroDiva said:

 

I just googled the current Playmobil historic sets and WOW - they're fantastic. Not patronising or dumbed down - just really well thought through with a genuine historic vibe.

 

Why can't TLG do something like that? Kids would lap it up (the intelligent ones anyway) and it would be a historic MOC'ers dream

More generally speaking, Playmobil seems to have a different strategy when it comes to themes. E. g. there has been a new line of knights every few years, with only a few sets released after that / in between, often only small ones consisting of minifigs, or rehash special editions of previous sets (with different emblems and such; in the past these rehashed sets seem to have been US exclusive). However, the other sets remain on the shelves, which is not the case (or to a much lesser extent) when it comes to Lego.

Anyway. I don't think we will see any traditional castle sets as long as Nexo Knights is around. The theme obviously refers to knights and castles in some ways, as Ninjago refered and refers to Asian ninja / samurai / dragons / temples. Thinking of it this way it was in fact quite consequential to mix the "European medieval" theme with futuristic elements after the successful "Asian historical" mash-up. It looks as if the Nexo Knights theme sells well, and one could easily think of various extensions similar to the fantasy era, e. g. one subtheme including dragons (more "European" style ones), sceleton armies, orcs/trolls - and then there are still plenty options for "crazy" stuff like the snake people in Ninjago.

With regard to the traditional Castle theme, I'm not sure whether children are not interested in that any more. It might also be the case that the last few subthemes were just not attractive. When looking at the City theme there has been a huge evolution over time, with (much) more realistic vehicles (there's still some issue with the superlarge mudguards on street cars, but not sure whether this is problematic for children). I liked the 80ies Town style, which was what I was playing with, but looking at the sets nowadays I can only compliment the designers (which doesn't mean that I like every single set). In contrast, the Castle theme feels as if it were stuck somewhere in the past with e. g. their clumsy catapults. I don't think this has to do with sets targeting younger children. It's basically outdated design. The 2013 Castle theme looks like a disaster. Red and black just doesn't work well together for the bad fraction, at least not this way, with red elements on the vehicles and structures, leaving aside e. g. the cartoonish variants of the already rather cartoonish catapults. IMO two of the sets of the Kingdoms subtheme were also designed poorly (7949 Prison Carriage Rescue - really no way to make the cart look more like a cart and not a random mess of pieces, 7947 Prison Tower Rescue - what's that? A wall/hill of bricks? Even clone brands are able to come up with better and fresh designs). Then there's 7188, I'm not sure whether the carriage is what boys are looking for (I can't help but knights is a typical "boys" theme, isn't it). Give it different colours and it would be a perfect carriage for the Disney theme (similar to Cinderella's Dream Carriage 41053). Finally there's 7189 Mill Village Raid - no idea, isn't it odd that the barn is much larger than the windmill? The set might also have been too large (and therefore too expensive) and too "civilian" at the same point. For AFOLs it might have been great, but would a child want to spend lots of money on a knights set which is mainly about medieval farming? After all, the City farm subtheme also lasted for one season only (plus the 7684 Pig Farm & Tractor exclusive in 2010), so maybe children into farms prefer different types of toys, and children into knights don't care much about medieval farms. In contrast, 6918 Blacksmith Attack is a nice, little set with a civilian component which is nonetheless strongly related to warfare. One could think of similar sets, e. g. a small inn where soldiers can come together, a set with a tent, a farmer's carriage in which soldiers can hide (like the Playmobil 6005 set), a small cottage with a farmer and a few animals including one horse that could be "recruited" by the soldiers (the one in 7189 is rather a nag than a warhorse). A merchant with a carriage including weapons and a barrel, some vegetables.

I also think it is important to have variety. Nexo Knights has lots of character minifigs, not the usual rather generic soldiers from Castle. I have never understood why TLC doesn't try to bring more variety to the Castle theme by increasing the number of different torsos (even Chinese brands like Enlighten can do better). As a child I was happy to enjoy the differences, even if the difference was a black helemt with blue plume vs. one with a yellow one. After all, this is more or less what knights is about for children, brave knights in shiny armour with lots of different coats of arms meeting for a tjost or in a battle.

In summary, I think the problem with the last Castle themes has been 1) bad design 2) too few sets (some of those possibly not being attractive for children, but rather for AFOLs, this might have been the case for the LOTR theme as well) 3) not enough variety with regard to fractions and too generic warriors - in contrast, the Playmobil soldiers seem to be highly individual (I think you would have no "doubles" at all with regard to torsos and such even when buying all sets).

Edited April 12, 2017 by Oederland

[Aanchir]

I was just trying to find the source that confirmed Nexo Knights had been in development since around 2009. Turns out it was this video at around 1:15. So the idea of "futurizing" Castle wasn't conceived in response to any sort of failures on the part of Kingdoms or Castle 2013. But I also found an interesting post from Nabii again and thought a certain part of it was worth pointing out:

On 10/14/2015 at 5:32 AM, Nabii said:

The only thing I do ask castle fans to remember is that you are adults, you can wait a few years, build models yourself, show us what you think a more classic castle theme should be, because although we would never copy you the styles and part usage you show us can have an effect. Look at Space police 3, without the AFOL space fans influence those sets would have looked very different, the way fans were building space MOCs was reflected in the sets. This is a chance to rest the traditional classic castle theme for a year or two, give it a chance to breath. In the meantime the fans can take the parts in Nexo-Knights and Ninjago (and Scooby Doo - whatever) to show us what is possible. This is the point of LEGO bricks after all.

So even before the theme launched, designers weren't forecasting it for more than a few years. Barring the possibility that Nexo Knights has wildly surpassed expectations like Ninjago did and yet this time LEGO has been strangely silent about it, traditional castle should probably be back in 2018 or 2019.

[SirBlake]

32 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

...traditional castle should probably be back in 2018 or 2019.

I hope you're right. I miss buying Lego.

[x105Black]

4 hours ago, Aanchir said:

The only thing I do ask castle fans to remember is that you are adults, you can wait a few years, build models yourself, show us what you think a more classic castle theme should be, because although we would never copy you the styles and part usage you show us can have an effect. Look at Space police 3, without the AFOL space fans influence those sets would have looked very different, the way fans were building space MOCs was reflected in the sets. This is a chance to rest the traditional classic castle theme for a year or two, give it a chance to breath. In the meantime the fans can take the parts in Nexo-Knights and Ninjago (and Scooby Doo - whatever) to show us what is possible. This is the point of LEGO bricks after all.

I understand why you bolded the section that you did, but I would like to emphasize another section of this quote about showing the designers what you want in a Castle theme.  I think that this following thread would be a great place to do that:

If not there, then maybe we could start a new thread.  In that thread we could post photos of builds and ideas of the kinds of things we'd like to see in the next Castle theme.  I also think that we should do so soon, since development of the next Castle theme should start in 2017 if it is due to appear in 2018.  I know I've posted many ideas, as have several others, and it's great to have a thread like the above to collect all such ideas, making for a great go-to resource for the designers to pull ideas from.

But no matter what, we also have to understand that your ideal Castle theme is not mine, and vice-versa.  Some people want a heavy focus on Fantasy, others on History.  Some people want to see a wealth of new factions, others want a return of the old.  Some people want a new twist on the theme by choosing specific ancient cultures, others want a more traditional European Castle theme.  No Castle theme is likely to appeal to every fan of Castle themes, as there is a great variety of what can be offered.  Perhaps a series of polls could help, but those could also be skewed in many ways.  Regardless, we should all celebrate the return of Castle when it happens, even if it doesn't completely cater to your preferences for a Castle theme, and hope that subsequent waves will include what you would like to see.

 

[BrickJagger]

Cue the excitement: Sir Von Lego just said over in the Nexo Knights thread that the theme will most likely be done after this year.

While I find this highly disappointing, it's a double edged sword because we could be getting Castle back as early as next year 

Speculate away!

[Lyichir]

12 minutes ago, BrickJagger said:

Cue the excitement: Sir Von Lego just said over in the Nexo Knights thread that the theme will most likely be done after this year.

While I find this highly disappointing, it's a double edged sword because we could be getting Castle back as early as next year 

Speculate away!

Even if Nexo Knights ends after this year, don't necessarily take that as a guarantee that regular Castle will come back right away. The past decade has pretty consistently featured a new castle theme every three years—even in cases where the previous castle theme only lasted for two (as with Castle 2013 and arguably Kingdoms if you don't include the D2C Kingdoms Joust). I don't want to see people whining that Lego has abandoned castle altogether if Nexo Knights ends and there isn't a castle theme immediately ready to take its place.

Edited April 16, 2017 by Lyichir

[x105Black]

7 hours ago, Lyichir said:

I don't want to see people whining that Lego has abandoned castle altogether if Nexo Knights ends and there isn't a castle theme immediately ready to take its place.

Well it will certainly feel that way...

But taking the time away from Nexo Knights hopefully means that they can put a stronger focus on Castle and really develop it to be something that speaks to what a lot of the fans want.

[SirBlake]

On 4/16/2017 at 0:30 PM, BrickJagger said:

Cue the excitement: Sir Von Lego just said over in the Nexo Knights thread that the theme will most likely be done after this year. 

That is great news! I hope it's true. 

[Pulp Detective]

More rumors for the end of Nexo Knights: https://brickset.com/article/27598/is-nexo-knights-coming-to-an-early-end

[Lyichir]

1 hour ago, LOTR34 said:

More rumors for the end of Nexo Knights: https://brickset.com/article/27598/is-nexo-knights-coming-to-an-early-end

Unsourced rumors.  I feel like this seems like an example of the "telephone game", where the existing rumors were miscommunicated and then reported in increasingly widespread sources. Without a primary source (or a secondary source who has established themselves as reliable when it comes to rumors like this, like several members here on Eurobricks), I would not consider this particular variation of the rumor to be reliable. It would take a more concrete source for me to believe that Lego's relatively large summer Nexo wave (which had an impressive showing at multiple toy fairs) had been cancelled outright on such short notice. Slightly more plausible (assuming this rumor has any validity at all) would be a regional release like the final wave of Chima action figures or the final wave of Ultra Agents, or even a "store exclusive" final wave like with last year's final Bionicle wave. But for the wave to be cancelled altogether would basically either require that the decision were made ages ago, before production started (implausible, since in that case the Toy Fair showing wouldn't happen) or for Lego to have decided not to ship these sets at all after they had already been produced (also a pretty ludicrous proposition since failing to sell already produced sets would be an unnecessary waste).

Edited April 19, 2017 by Lyichir

[x105Black]

Maybe Nexo Knights isn't going to cancel it's summer wave, but the fact that it is ending some time this year is the best Castle news in a long time.

[Artanis I]

30-40% off Nexo Knights is something. Not a major retailer, but it's still noteworthy.

http://brickingaround.com/2017/04/18/on-sale-30-40-off-nexo-knights-at-outer-rim-trading-co/

 

[AmperZand]

6 hours ago, Lyichir said:

Unsourced rumors.  I feel like this seems like an example of the "telephone game", where the existing rumors were miscommunicated and then reported in increasingly widespread sources. Without a primary source (or a secondary source who has established themselves as reliable when it comes to rumors like this, like several members here on Eurobricks), I would not consider this particular variation of the rumor to be reliable. It would take a more concrete source for me to believe that Lego's relatively large summer Nexo wave (which had an impressive showing at multiple toy fairs) had been cancelled outright on such short notice. Slightly more plausible (assuming this rumor has any validity at all) would be a regional release like the final wave of Chima action figures or the final wave of Ultra Agents, or even a "store exclusive" final wave like with last year's final Bionicle wave. But for the wave to be cancelled altogether would basically either require that the decision were made ages ago, before production started (implausible, since in that case the Toy Fair showing wouldn't happen) or for Lego to have decided not to ship these sets at all after they had already been produced (also a pretty ludicrous proposition since failing to sell already produced sets would be an unnecessary waste).

A distinction needs to be made between if NK will be cancelled and when. 

The story that NK would be ending first appeared in Blocks magazine. Is that a credible source? Well, I have every issue of Blocks and it has never until now been a source of "news" in the sense of providing information that wasn't already widely available online. In fact, it has always been something of a mouthpiece for TLG. It's not an official LEGO magazine, but might as well be. It never leaked information, speculated on any rumours or was ever particularly critical of TLG. One gets the impression that it was very much a I'll-scratch-your-back-if-you'll-scratch-mine relationship between it and TLG: LEGO would continue to provide Blocks with sets to review, access to exclusive events etc and in return Blocks would evangelise for TLG. I doubt that Blocks would do anything to jeopardise that arrangement. So if it's reporting that NK will be ending, you can be pretty sure that that information didn't just originate with TLG, they approved it.

As for when, it seems likely that the summer NK sets are already in production. If the decision to axe NK is recent, we will still see the summer releases albeit in possibly smaller production runs which could affect which region(s) or retailer(s) have it. If the decision was taken a while ago, the summer sets will not have gone into production so won't appear at all. The fact that the summer NK sets were shown at trade events earlier this year is no guarantee that they will be produced. In all enterprises, marketing is often the last to know. It's entirely possible that LEGO's marketers were earnestly promoting NK summer '17 at London and Nuremberg while senior execs in Billund knew that the line was for the chop.

    

 

[Roebuck]

If nexo kinghts is cancelled it increases the chance dramatically for a classics theme like castle, pirates and even western to show up in a year or two

Which theme do you think will pop up first castle, pirates or western?

[Lyichir]

4 hours ago, Roebuck said:

If nexo kinghts is cancelled it increases the chance dramatically for a classics theme like castle, pirates and even western to show up in a year or two

Which theme do you think will pop up first castle, pirates or western?

I don't see why Nexo Knights would prevent either pirates or western in the first place (if anything, I'd think that having a non-traditional "castle theme" like Nexo Knights would be an opportunity to offer a less common historic theme like Western a chance alongside it).

In any case, Mark Stafford posted on Brickset that at the very least the rumor they reported (that Nexo Knights was ending AND the final wave of sets would not be released) was false. That doesn't necessarily rule out the theme ending after this year or even partway through next year, but it does show that the unsourced claim in Blocks magazine was false.

Edited April 20, 2017 by Lyichir

[ElectroDiva]

On 12/04/2017 at 3:53 PM, Oederland said:

In summary, I think the problem with the last Castle themes has been 1) bad design 2) too few sets (some of those possibly not being attractive for children, but rather for AFOLs, this might have been the case for the LOTR theme as well) 3) not enough variety with regard to fractions and too generic warriors - in contrast, the Playmobil soldiers seem to be highly individual (I think you would have no "doubles" at all with regard to torsos and such even when buying all sets).

I'd agree with points 2 and 3 but not necessarily with point 1. I don't think the quality of the designers work per se has been an issue but the restrictions placed on them in terms of piece count and unique pieces across the range (probably for commercial reasons). It does make you wonder how a company like playmobil can seemingly afford to give their designers more leeway though 

 

19 hours ago, Artanis I said:

30-40% off Nexo Knights is something. Not a major retailer, but it's still noteworthy.

http://brickingaround.com/2017/04/18/on-sale-30-40-off-nexo-knights-at-outer-rim-trading-co/

 

 

TLG also seem to have been doing a lot of offers on their Nexo Knight range through their website/stores recently. In the UK about a third of the entire range is currently discounted on their website (+ triple VIP points at the moment). I don't think I've ever seen such extensive discounting across a range before (with the possible exception of Chima)

 

I do hope the rumours of Nexo Knights demise are true (I really dislike it as a theme) but wouldn't want TLG to abandon  historic / fantasy themed sets completely - which they may well do if Nexo Knights has been a big failure.

 

IMO, they just need to revert to more traditional/established historic and fantasy designs rather than constantly trying to invent new cross media intellectual property.