Lyichir

Wait, each pack unlocks a unique battle arena? I thought the way it worked was that each pack could unlock the singular battle arena for that franchise (similarly to how any Ninjago character in Season One could unlock the Ninjago Adventure World but it didn't matter which character you used). Does this mean that, say, Supergirl and Green Arrow each unlock different DC Super Heroes arenas? Or that Finn and Jake unlock different Adventure Time arenas?

You seem to have missed the point of what my brother was saying—Ragana regains her body in the fourth TV episode, meaning that she could definitely return in a new outfit. Now, I don't know whether that's going to happen or not (as her return in that episode may simply have been to justify her continued use in subsequent webisodes rather than having anything to do with next year's sets), but I certainly wouldn't mind her continued use as a major villain!

If it were a larger set it'd need some other solution for the envelope—the one it uses is already fairly small relative to the size of the gondola, and making the gondola larger would necessitate a larger "balloon" as well.

No, LDD uses official Lego color terms. The color Bricklink (and most AFOLs) call "green" is officially called "dark green". The color Bricklink calls "dark green" is officially called "earth green". The color Bricklink calls "lime" is officially called "bright yellowish green". But bright green goes by the same name both officially and on Bricklink.

If the forest and water monsters truly aren't the subject of next year's sets, then clearly they were never designed to "advertise" anything—rather, that alone would be evidence that they were conceptualized as media-only characters from the get-go (making their inclusion in chapter books an obvious choice). You could compare many, many characters from past Lego themes, such as Captain Soto and his crew from the second half of the 2012 Ninjago TV series. On the same token, though, Captain Soto was finally released in a set this year, so you never know what concepts Lego might decide to revisit in sets...

Very interesting! The marbled 2x2 plates especially, since their colors make them look almost like maps!

Morro might not have new prints (being a more recent fig like Chen), but if Samukai were to appear in a set I would think he'd be more likely to have new prints. The other Skulkin in the Day of the Departed sets do, after all, and since the parts for Samukai have similarly been long out of production they might as well mix things up with a new design. That said, the long absence of Samukai's unique head and shoulder pieces is just as much reason not to expect him—it's unclear whether Lego would revive the use of such an old part for use in a single set.

I don't know if I necessarily want/need more unnamed troops in regular sets (since the story is focused primarily on the named knights and I'm much more fond of them in general), but I do find it odd that apart from the Ultimate sets (which feature unique variants of all the figs), the named knights in most of the retail sets have more or less the same costume. It's a lot different from many other themes I enjoy like Ninjago (which even in its first year mixed things up with the standard and "DX" costumes, and recently has tended to have unique new costumes for the summer story) or even Elves (which despite keeping the characters' costumes mostly the same between winter and summer sets did outfit characters in many of the summer sets with additional capes and, this year, hoods). I certainly wouldn't have minded if the knights in the summer sets had gotten capes or some other similar "upgrade" from the costumes they wore in the winter, though I suppose standard capes would not have worked well with the heavy armor the knights normally wear. One thing that is interesting is that despite the unnamed Royal Soldiers being limited to only a few smaller sets, there is an incredible amount of diversity among them so far. In addition to the two different helmet types in the regular retail sets, two of the knights in the Knights Army battle pack have different head, torso, and leg prints from those more common versions, and the promotional King's Guard figure has yet another unique set of prints.

This is kind of tangential to your post, but it just occurred to me that if Dimensions DOES get ported to NX, and the current rumors about the NX being a portable console are true, it'd make the NX version the only version of the game with any degree of portability (though that could be as much reason not to port it to that system, considering that the Toy Pad is required and the NX may not have standard USB connections in the first place).

Maybe, though if Nexo Knights does have a wave with Sea Monsters like those in the Book of Monsters, I would not be surprised if those sets ended up taking inspiration from Viking ships... I would think that if any historic theme were to run alongside Nexo Knights, it might be the perfect time for a non-Medieval, non-European one, like the return of Western.

I do agree that the Lego Batman Movie story pack will most likely include Batman, but here's an alternative idea—what if it includes BRUCE WAYNE instead? I mean, turning into his alter ego is one thing that the current Batman figure can't do, though it might be tricky to give Bruce Wayne useful enough abilities to justify a dedicated figure. Does Will Arnett voice Lego Movie Batman in the introductory cutscene? I do hope that they do get him to do original voice work for the story pack, either way.

Why do you say Ninjago won't have many waves yet? It's still massively popular, and the movie will presumably make it even more popular (regardless of it being a new continuity). There will probably be plenty more years with plenty more dragons one way or another. I also don't really know what "realistic colors" is supposed to mean for a dragon. :P

Leprechauns, huh? If that turns out to be the case it's a little hard to speculate about sets or settings... Perhaps next year the map will extend to the Forest of Deep Secrets in the South? Personally I'd been hoping for the Desertlands in the West or the Sparkling Sea to the East, since those would seem to offer more novelty. But who knows? I won't make any judgments until we see the final sets.

Hey, some of the sea monsters seem downright Lovecraftian. "Seaweed" sells them a little short. :P

I think them not considering Skylor to be the "Orange Ninja" may not be because they don't consider her a ninja, but rather because they consider her to be the YELLOW ninja. After all, Flame Yellowish Orange is about the closest a minifigure outfit can get to yellow without it just looking like they're in the nude.

I suspect that neither Day of the Departed nor The Hands of Time are going to be full "seasons"—the way they've been talked about, they seem more like one-off TV specials like the pilot. Specifically, Day of the Departed's air date and focus on ghosts makes me suspect that it will be sort of a Halloween special, and if they continue to follow that logic then The Hands of Time may be a Christmas special. We don't know what The Hands of Time will be about specifically, but in the panel they mentioned it will examine Kai and Nya's parents in more depth. With that in mind, it could be another time travel episode (shudder) or even just a lengthy flashback episode. If The Hands of Time does in fact air before this year is up, I'd have to wonder whether it would form the basis of any sets next year. Though with the likely possibility of some of next winter's sets being more Day of the Departed sets, it wouldn't be too unsurprising for others to be based on another previously-aired special.

Personally I think nailing down an "era" of best sets is hard because for most of the past decade, sets have been gradually improving. I'd consider this year's sets better than last year's in general, and last year's better than the year before, and so on and so forth. And when I look back, even sets that seemed phenomenal at the time (and were a vast improvement on what had come before) start to seem dated. For instance, I loved Ninjago from the get-go, but the earliest Ninjago sets pale in comparison to some of the more recent sets.

It's not any more "historic" than Nexo Knights (or Knights Kingdom II or Fantasy Castle, for that matter), but if you ask me Lego does already have a perfectly good Castle theme running alongside Nexo Knights—that being Elves. Just built Ragana's Magic Shadow Castle yesterday and was amazed at how great it is—not only does it have a great structure and overall aesthetic, but it packs in plenty of livable detail and interesting functions, as well. The day before that I built the Queen Dragon's Rescue set and was similarly impressed. The Elves theme is a fantastic source for medieval-fantasy architecture and in general I'd consider it one of the best Castle themes in years. Of course, there's also still the possibility of another Castle theme beyond those, particularly if a good enough license comes along. Personally I'm still holding out hope that the numerous Ideas projects that have made it to review might have been enough to convince Lego and Nintendo to pursue a Legend of Zelda theme next year, to tie in with the upcoming game for Wii U and NX.

Not really. Lego Island as a franchise hasn't necessarily aged well (and the same can be said for many Lego games of that era). Given the choice, I'd much rather see a sequel to the more recent Lego City Undercover.

We don't know that all of the BrickHeadz will be licensed. The fact that the Super Heroes logo is secondary to the BrickHeadz logo suggests that the sets could encompass multiple themes like Dimensions, possibly including in-house ones. That said, it doesn't have nearly the same appeal as Mixels as far as affordability and playability are concerned, and as such I doubt they could be considered a direct replacement even if Mixels DOES go away (which itself is far from a sure thing).

Yup. I think the set descriptions pretty much confirm it, though they don't specify their exact relationship:

I definitely wouldn't consider it to be that impossible. The creators of Dimensions have expressed interest, and Disney Infinity is being outmoded much more quickly than even I'd expected (with the in-game store on consoles and the mobile versions in their entirety being shut down after this fall). I doubt we'll see any Disney franchises until season 3, but that's not to say it won't happen. That said, I'm highly skeptical that you'd find any sorts of "hints" in other games, especially not ones that came out earlier this year.

I don't know about that. Both of those sets were recalled because of structural deficiencies—the inability to hold a pose or support the model's weight, and they were recalled specifically so that they could add parts and modify the instructions to rectify the error. A miscolored headwrap, even if it's a widespread issue, does not cause any problems for the set's durability or playability, and as such I don't know if it'd be a big enough issue to provoke a recall.

You're far from the first person to want Lego Universe back, but it's not really that simple. MMOs are an expensive business model. Unlike traditional video games, they require constant investment in servers and moderation, and they have to be able to make that money back somehow. During its lifespan Lego and NetDevil experimented with multiple revenue models (starting with paid software and transitioning to a "free-to-play" model with paid subscription for most content), and nonetheless they could not keep the game profitable. That's why it ended up getting axed. Even its successor, the much less impressive Lego Minifigures Online, could not remain profitable with a character-based revenue model. Generally, Lego has a bad track record with MMOs and even if they do give the genre another go in the future, I doubt it will be with an older game that never had much success making a profit.

The one people describe getting is Cole's from the Possession and Skybound waves: Black with Dark Grey bands around it, rather than Dark Grey with Black bands around it like the new Cole is supposed to have.