KotZ

Exactly. I originally did not like Ninjago, but it has grown on me in the past two or three years because the sets are just really good and cool, and the pieces are pretty useful in various other themes. I can guess one of my favorite themes, Exo-Force, was similar for adults at that time.

As Incognito said, this thing is huge. I'm loving the design of the swiveling guns.

As someone who lives in LA, don't visit. If you do, go to Hollywood Boulevard for ten minutes, go to Venice beach for three hours. You'll get your fill. If you want interesting places that won't make you hate humanity, visit any one of the numerous museums (Getty, Huntington, Broad, etc.) Walk around DTLA and the arts district. Go to Malibu. Go visit the LEGO stores in Glendale and Topanga.

70652 Stormbringer, 75211 Tie Fighter, a bunch of PaB parts from the Wall and online (just came in Saturday), 40270 Bee Brickhead, 40336 Newberry Juice bar, Awesome Remix Emmet, Monkey King, Gardener, and Fright Knight.

Or if you can't build out, build up? What about apartments? Or condos?

Based off the Australian show and UK shows.

I'm sorry, but making a TV series is an insane amount of work and money. It's millions of dollars on a gamble essentially. For the shows that are successful, there's dozens that aren't. I've worked at a TV and film production company that specializes in content for children and co-viewing. The pitches we received that didn't make it were astronomical. The ones we decided to shop around and didn't make it were dozens. The ones we shopped around and got picked up for just one season at minimum I can count on one hand.

I don’t think anyone’s mind truly would change, especially with how set in your view you are. But you should acknowledge the citations provided from TLG’s own reports and trends that have been going on and studies conducted.

Haha not you Sea rats. The real pirates who take our ships. Because a weaker other factions mean stronger Olson more easily :p

I would suggest more sets with playable features for the more “boring” ideas. Maybe the bus has folding things for bikes, at the most basic. also quoting and mentioning do the same thing, but quoting allows people to point out what they are referring to.

I think originally you might have been mixing up Adventurers/Johnny Thunder for those, so no worries either way. Now if they put things like Pharaoh’s Quest under City, then that would be an issue and no to make sense. City is clearly supposed to be a grounded realistic type of theme.

Meaning that what research is being done shows to Lego’s internal departments that these subthemes in City for things like transport, news, etc. are not viable enough to have multiple sets dedicated to it at this time. Police and its various sub themes are what sells right now. And making independent themes for explorers, space, and all of the other sub themes that you say don’t belong in city isn’t viable either right now, so they throw a few in City. As MAB said bits and pieces in sets work for things like news, but full blown sets may not be interesting to kids. Kids are story driven in play, and that’s why starting with Bionicle (I think) themes became very story based, even as simple as “cops and robbers.”

Completely agree. Do they still do those minifigure packs as well?

Nice work! It's got just enough color and texturing without overpowering the greys. My only suggestion would be to put things inside the castle ward, like carts, stables, and some texturing on the ground.

I think I'm still use to that concept of ether from H1 for magic, but yeah, passive abilities (for all classes) would be a challenge. Anyone else is more than welcome to throw ideas in.

And so I know where all of the other factions ships are so some random pirates can find them

I think that most of us agree that there are an overflow of police and police-like subthemes for CITY, but that is what sells to kids and seemingly what kids want. Your other ideas and themes are valid, but the market data just does not support making these themes or spinning off things like explorers or space into their own themes at this time.

I agree for AS. It's been on shelves for awhile, and it takes up shelf space to keep sitting there.

And how do you know they haven't been given a fair chance? LEGO playtests themes and sets with kids before they are released. A posible reason we are not seeing a full blown news subtheme is because kids just aren't interested in such a theme during playtests.

I honestly did not pay too much attention to the theme that year. But it could be easily guessed to be a police adjacent theme, especially from the States and the Coast Guard does do police-like work out on US waters. i never mentioned Space Police which is a space theme. I said Sky Police which seems to be aerial vehicles like helicopters. Sky police is a 2019 sub theme (according to Brickset). so yes, your point about regular police is somewhat accurate, but since 2008 (if you include coast guard) at the earliest has been police adjacent. If you don’t, in 2012 Forest Police was started. So essentially it’s been four years of regular police and about five or specialty themes.

Possibly yes, it would. It's one of the evergreen themes, like Castle, Space, and Pirates. But now LEGO has only one of those classic four stiill going. And certainly the subthemes under CITY contribute to it being a successful, continuing theme, among other reasons of having characters kids can look up to. It's the classic "Timmy what do you want to be when you grow up?" "Well, I want to be a firefighter police officer construction worker astronaught" and so on. All the subthemes are just various flavors that fit under a city category. In 2019, the subthemes (according to Brickset and aren't magazine give aways or a calendar) are Construction, Fire, Great Vehicles, Sky Police, Space, and Town. Of these, Space has 9 sets, Police variant has 7. Great vehicles has 6 with a mix of vehicles of types. In 2008, the subthemes (going off same criteria above) are Airport, Cargo, Coast Guard, Construction, Fire, Police, and Traffic. You can make the argument that Coast Guard is just a variant of Police subtheme, thus bringing a combined "justice/law" theme total to 19 different sets. Even separated, Coast Guard and Police has 10 and 9 respectively. 2008 had more police and adjacent related sets than we have now or any of the previous years. For 2020, Brickset currently has slated Construction, Fire, General, Police, and Traffic, along with 11 others that have not been given a subtheme yet. Currently Police and Traffic are tied with 6 sets each. Perhaps LEGO is easing back on various police subthemes, and I'm sure their market research and testing back them up either way they decide to go, but studies have shown that kids benefit from story structured playtime, and one of the easiest ways is through stories that have clear good guys and bad guys, like a Police set. If LEGO sees a shift to less police or its subthemes, they will shift to that. LEGO has absolutely done their market research (as cited by Ronan54 through the stats he posted), and police and various police subthemes have been around in the CITY theme since 2008 (I'm including Coast Guard for this). You have to go to 2005-7 for no specialty police sets, and these were the years following World City which ran from 2003-4 and were basically only Police sets mixed in with like four or five rescue sets and then the other half was trains,.

Using membership for a website like EB is a terrible metric. Users can't delete accounts, so when a user leaves, their account is still there. Many people just drop off the site and don't return. There's no true way to measure how old a user is, and there are certainly TFOL and KFOLs on the site. If ages were used when signing up here, and then compared to user usage and site traffic, then that would be a better way to use that metric. I would suggest checking into a survey by TLG to see who identifies as what when purchasing product and specifically for who. I would say that the number of adults buying product just for themselves has gone up from 5%, but I would guess it's nowhere near close to 50%, or even 20% which I think would be a really good portion to change marketing tactics to. And while there are core groups of AFOLs like the ones here on EuroBricks and other dedicated sites, there's a chance that a lot of these adult buyers are not repeat buyers. They'll buy the Stranger Things set, the Friends set, etc. Those "one-off"items because it intersects with a previous interest. Of course, LEGO's goal is to bring in more buyers of any age, but I would figure that these AFOL-light as I'll term them are not actively buying the various subtheme sets like CITY, Friends, etc. Maybe they'll buy the Licensed sets because it intersects with an interest, like the Stranger Things I mentioned earlier. They go for nostalgia. Maybe model trains that people paint and build has a similar metric in casual fans and hardcore fans. Also, some fans don't buy LEGO and choose to go digital only for various reasons, from budget, to space, to any other reason.

Wow! What a fantastic shot. I’m really enjoying the shapes and pieces used for this.

Maybe that corner deli and some parts from a Pick a Brick wall or online to supplement the set to expand upon. Getting some tan parts for the roof could help with that pub/inn feel.

Very cool! As others have said the landscape is well done. And those minifigures are great.