TLG’s 2019 line up

[koalayummies]

20 hours ago, leafan said:

You know what; rather than new sets of castles they've already done, I'd rather see a dedicated CMF line like "CMF Classics: Castle", which would be a line of 15 or so new Castle Inspired minifigs (and repeat for other classic themes).

Wouldn't having a series of minifigures made up of kings, heroic/evil/frightening knights, queens, princesses, musketeers, forestmen, rogues, forest maidens, elves, swashbluckers, wizards, battle dwarves, cyclops, fauns, goblins, vikings (i.e. all existing CMF) constitute as things they've already done?

[leafan]

16 hours ago, koalayummies said:

Wouldn't having a series of minifigures made up of kings, heroic/evil/frightening knights, queens, princesses, musketeers, forestmen, rogues, forest maidens, elves, swashbluckers, wizards, battle dwarves, cyclops, fauns, goblins, vikings (i.e. all existing CMF) constitute as things they've already done?

Yes if you put it in very basic straw man argument terms like that, but as we all know, there is a design element to it that makes them pop; and room for expansion. Are you saying that there is no room for new Castle or Historical figures because they've all already been done? Why do any more costumed minifigures again then? They've been done.

Castle was just an example too, it could be done for literally any older theme that people like, such as Classic Space, including Blacktron, Ice Planet etc.

[3797]

On 12/26/2018 at 10:09 PM, Aanchir said:

People have been saying for years that licensed themes are taking over, and yet non-licensed themes like City, Friends, Ninjago, Creator, Classic, Technic, and Duplo continue to be some of LEGO's biggest hits, with only the Star Wars theme reliably measuring up in terms of overall sales and popularity.

Typical Aanchir post, lol. There's a well known German shop owner on YouTube. He keeps mentioning that Duplo and Star Wars are dead. 

As Mylenium pointed out: Castle (as well as well made trains, btw) would sell in Europe. Pirates, too.

[Lyichir]

57 minutes ago, 3797 said:

Typical Aanchir post, lol. There's a well known German shop owner on YouTube. He keeps mentioning that Duplo and Star Wars are dead. 

As Mylenium pointed out: Castle (as well as well made trains, btw) would sell in Europe. Pirates, too.

I guess that owner of a single shop in a single country must be the one with the best insights into sales for a global company, then.

Your insistence that "well made trains" would sell well also seems to fly in the face of the middling sales of the majority of Creator Expert train sets. Unless by "well made" you're trying to argue that no previous sets have been.

[Anonknee Muss]

1 hour ago, Lyichir said:

I guess that owner of a single shop in a single country must be the one with the best insights into sales for a global company, then.

Your insistence that "well made trains" would sell well also seems to fly in the face of the middling sales of the majority of Creator Expert train sets. Unless by "well made" you're trying to argue that no previous sets have been.

Oof. It’s still a good insight to German sales though.

[3797]

2 hours ago, Lyichir said:

I guess that owner of a single shop in a single country must be the one with the best insights into sales for a global company, then.

Your insistence that "well made trains" would sell well also seems to fly in the face of the middling sales of the majority of Creator Expert train sets. Unless by "well made" you're trying to argue that no previous sets have been.

Are you related to Aanchir?

Said shop owner is in contact with other shop owners. He mentioned it multiple times. He also gets feedback from his customers who keep asking for certain things like trains and castles. He gained quite a large following on YouTube. The comments on those videos are evidence enough that there is demand. You can read pretty much the same comments on promobricks and elsewhere. Also, he's not the only shop owner who's been talking about these things. He just happens to be well known and doesn't have to suck up to LEGO in order to get free review sets. It also matches what I heard from my co-workers and elsehere. In the past few years I heard countless times that kids wanted pirate ships, castles and trains. Not once have I heard about a kid asking for the remote controlled "Batmobile". My friend's 4 year old has a Playmobil tractor. But yeah, a 100€ remote controlled Batmobile that consits of a whopping 321 pieces and doesn't even include a proper remote was such a great idea...

And no, I'm not specifically talking about Creator Expert trains. I told you guys countless times how badly they were marketed (not available in regular stores, for example) and that they were released shortly after the height of the economic crisis of 2007/08, when most people worried more about paying the rent for their apartment and putting food on the table. Those who wanted an Emerald Night with 3 waggons had to spend 300€. On toys. On the internet. In 2009. The rent for my apartment was less than 130€/month, back then.

City trains are the problem. They aren't well designed and there's no affordable "push along train" like the old 7715. In fact, I feel that the current Duplo trains are much better sets than the current City ones. The last good "playline" trains were the Metroliner, Load N' Haul Railroad, Freight Rail Runner, the 60052 Cargo Train and to some extend (badly marketed) the Lone Ranger Constitution Train. All the other ones either weren't mentioned in the main catalog or were badly designed and thus not much fun to play with or look at. Many reviewers of sets 60197 and 60198 complained about the lack of proper doors and thus the lack of an important play feature.

Spoiler

Just because you brought up the "international" thing: The US of A is NOT the centre of the universe! It doesn't matter what you US guys may think or want. LEGO is a European company that was made big by us Europeans and if Asia can get special sets, then us Europeans should be able to buy at least one castle as well as a train that is more than just a boring box on wheels (60197, for example). It's bad enough that all the police officers in the City line look like US cops. 2019's fire fighters look very different from our's, too. Do you see us Europeans endlessly bitching and moaning about or arguing against Marvel and DC related sets? You got your Power Puff Girls, Spongebob and Adventure Time failures, so why can't you let us have a castle and a decent train?

And of course you do have official sales numbers for the trains that you claim didn't sell well enough, don't you?

Edited January 1, 2019 by 3797

[Pdaitabird]

Well, I don't know anything about sales, but as far as my personal taste goes (which is, of course, the only thing TLG should consider when designing sets ) I agree with @3797 that City trains (and pretty much all modern diesel and electric engines) seem pretty uninteresting. At least they threw us a bone this year with a new Hogwarts Express - I'll take what I can get!

[koalayummies]

12 hours ago, leafan said:

Yes if you put it in very basic straw man argument terms like that.

Addressing the exact thing you were talking about isn't a straw man argument.

12 hours ago, leafan said:

 Are you saying that there is no room for new Castle or Historical figures because they've all already been done?

I was addressing the fact that you said you don't want to see certain things that have already been done and in the same breath proposing things that have already been done.

Edited January 1, 2019 by koalayummies

[icm]

Please, I think this conversation might be more productive if the certain shop owner on YouTube were to be named so that we could all see his or her videos ourselves.  What's the name of the channel?

On the subject of the 2019 lineup, it's the same old cycle - at the start of the year I don't see much interesting product, but as more information comes out via rumors the year looks better and better.  For instance, a couple weeks ago I wasn't looking forward to anything past the January release.  However, I'm quite excited by the rumors about a big new Space wave for City, another version of Anakin's Podracer, a 1989 Batmobile, and some summer Hoth and Endor sets.  Then there probably ought to be good product for Episode 9 in the fall, and we still don't know anything about the summer wave of Creator or Technic ... so even though this year's winter wave is a little weak, I'm sure there's plenty of good stuff just over the horizon.

[Lyichir]

2 hours ago, 3797 said:

Are you related to Aanchir?

Said shop owner is in contact with other shop owners. He mentioned it multiple times. He also gets feedback from his customers who keep asking for certain things like trains and castles. He gained quite a large following on YouTube. The comments on those videos are evidence enough that there is demand. You can read pretty much the same comments on promobricks and elsewhere. Also, he's not the only shop owner who's been talking about these things. He just happens to be well known and doesn't have to suck up to LEGO in order to get free review sets. It also matches what I heard from my co-workers and elsehere. In the past few years I heard countless times that kids wanted pirate ships, castles and trains. Not once have I heard about a kid asking for the remote controlled "Batmobile". My friend's 4 year old has a Playmobil tractor. But yeah, a 100€ remote controlled Batmobile that consits of a whopping 321 pieces and doesn't even include a proper remote was such a great idea...

And no, I'm not specifically talking about Creator Expert trains. I told you guys countless times how badly they were marketed (not available in regular stores, for example) and that they were released shortly after the height of the economic crisis of 2007/08, when most people worried more about paying the rent for their apartment and putting food on the table. Those who wanted an Emerald Night with 3 waggons had to spend 300€. On toys. On the internet. In 2009. The rent for my apartment was less than 130€/month, back then.

City trains are the problem. They aren't well designed and there's no affordable "push along train" like the old 7715. In fact, I feel that the current Duplo trains are much better sets than the current City ones. The last good "playline" trains were the Metroliner, Load N' Haul Railroad, Freight Rail Runner, the 60052 Cargo Train and to some extend (badly marketed) the Lone Ranger Constitution Train. All the other ones either weren't mentioned in the main catalog or were badly designed and thus not much fun to play with or look at. Many reviewers of sets 60197 and 60198 complained about the lack of proper doors and thus the lack of an important play feature.

  Hide contents

Just because you brought up the "international" thing: The US of A is NOT the centre of the universe! It doesn't matter what you US guys may think or want. LEGO is a European company that was made big by us Europeans and if Asia can get special sets, then us Europeans should be able to buy at least one castle as well as a train that is more than just a boring box on wheels (60197, for example). It's bad enough that all the police officers in the City line look like US cops. 2019's fire fighters look very different from our's, too. Do you see us Europeans endlessly bitching and moaning about or arguing against Marvel and DC related sets? You got your Power Puff Girls, Spongebob and Adventure Time failures, so why can't you let us have a castle and a decent train?

And of course you do have official sales numbers for the trains that you claim didn't sell well enough, don't you?

Never once did I say the USA was the center of the universe. I would object to your delusions that Europe is, though.

I'm Aanchir's brother and have no idea what she did for you to foment such a vendetta against her. You seem really bitter and cruel and while it sucks that Lego doesn't seem to make you happy anymore you could do a lot of people a favor by not taking it out on other people. I'm not the one stopping you from getting Castle and Train sets.

[The Cobra]

On 12/23/2018 at 12:37 PM, ElectroDiva said:

Appreciate there are topics already for individual themes going into 2019, but it would be interesting (for me at least) to hear people’s thoughts on the overall line-up for 2019.

 

I have to say, this looks like the worst year since I came out of my dark age (2007). City is sitll about Police and FIre, Creator has no stand-out sets. Ninjago remakes are ok, but still remakes they are. TLM2... I'm getting Benny's squad and Uni's sweets. No interest in SW or Minecraft or most Licensed themes, happy Nexo K's are gone. Friends: see Creator. I'll be missing Elves, as much as I am missing a good Castle theme. Speed champions is a good theme with a bad lineup.

Some catalogs are online.

Reemea (can anyboday tell me what does it mean?) - Italy - Switzerland - France - Netherlands - Finland

[Peppermint_M]

Okay, can we have mature and adult conversations here on the forum? The point of the discussion is our thoughts on the 2019 line-up and whether we like them/want certain ones.

What I now see is a big old pile of wishlisting for "dream" sets and members having personal arguments. 

So, can people return to a civil discussion on topic and behave like mature adults?

[allanp]

From what's been revealed so far, which really isn't very much so way too early to judge the year yet, I think there's some good stuff in the Technic lineup, namely the corvette and the new large sprockets in the rc racer and new smaller wheel arches. RUMOUR has it there's a spider crane, car transporter and maybe even a large excavator planned for the second half, but that that with a big grain of salt. I do feel there is less anticipation for this year to come as there has been in previous years but I think theres a good reason for this. With all the copycat companies out there TLG have been forced to control leaks and that's really all there is to it. Were not as excited because we haven't seen what's coming like we have in previous years. But judging by TLGs investments in new parts at least for the Technic theme I see no reason to worry that this year won't be as bad as some fear just yet. We are adult fans who like larger builds. These traditionally come out later in the year so we need some patients. For all we know we might get a pirate theme including 2000 piece pirate ship, islanders with a large brick built island playset with Indiana jones type traps, a new castle theme with a 4000 piece English castle that isn't square but made up of lots of angled wall sections built on brick built sloped grounds and smaller sets like medieval houses and town squares and market stalls and add on sections of modular castle wall with different wooden structures built on the sides to encircle it all and add on modular castle circular towers with internal spiral stairs and battle packs with 20 minifigures and working trebuchets and a whole new 2x2 box section monorail system for the Jurassic world theme and a highly detailed Technic RC pneumatic excavator using the new large sprockets and the return of model team with a massive 1:8 scale American 18 wheeler with trailer and lots of chrome. Or we might just get a rerelease of galidor. Way too early to tell.

[Digger of Bricks]

8 hours ago, Lyichir said:

I'm Aanchir's brother and have no idea what she did for you to foment such a vendetta against her.

Say, you two are siblings?! Cool, I never knew!  Are you also twins? I just noticed on both of your profiles that you share the same birthday. 

[leafan]

13 hours ago, koalayummies said:

Addressing the exact thing you were talking about isn't a straw man argument.

I was addressing the fact that you said you don't want to see certain things that have already been done and in the same breath proposing things that have already been done.

Well obviously new minifigures have greater room for expansion than new Castles, although I'd like those too.