Alexandrina

Does Lego have any precedent for destroying moulds? The only moulds I can remember reading anything specific on regarding their retirement - stuff like the OG monkey, goat, etc. - weren't actively destroyed, but rather had worn out through years of use, or had been in storage for so long they became unusable.

Presumably as a minimum: A King A Queen At least a few knights - a few with open-faced helmets, a few with closed-faced helmets, maybe one with a broad-brim helmet Other possibilities include: A wizard (a nod to Majisto) Non-royal nobility - a lord and a lady (strangely enough, a gap in Lego's offering) A ghost (as a nod to the Black Monarch's ghost) Blacksmith Stablemaster Cook Handmaid Young prince/princess Peasantry, both male and female Tavern-keeper Forestmen Clergy (highly unlikely but would fit the setting) Knights of additional factions A jester IMO for the size of the set, twenty-five minifigures is in the reasonable range of possibility (if on the upper end of it) and something closer to twenty is more likely - I don't think there's much chance of them falling far short of twenty, given that Lego will absolutely want to make this a memorable product and as a worst case scenario they could just shove a load of duplicate knights with different face-prints to pad the count. Given that we don't even know the extent of the set (is it a HUGE castle? is it a castle/outer bailey/surrounding village? is the castle a set with imposing walls and not much else? is it chock-full of medieval daily life?) it's hard to narrow-down the possible minifigures - but you could say to me "there are fifty minifigures" and I wouldn't struggle to think up a list of fifty possibilities. Personally I'm hoping that Lego take the opportunity to give us plenty of the figures that have been under-represented in their catalogue. I'm specifically thinking along the lines of female minifigures - as far as I'm aware, barring the old Forestwoman there have been maybe five female Castle minifigures ever that aren't some form of Queen or Princess. We've also never had household staff, which would make for interesting new designs. And there is a huge dearth of feminine headwear. There are about three different types of crown and a dozen or so different types of helmet, but in terms of medieval female fashion we have the old hennin mould from the 80s (available in white, red and black; dated, and the red especially is creeping up in price) and the lavender hennin from the CMF (an okay interpretation, but the colour combined with the dual-moulded hair means it has limited utility) and that's it. Given the sheer quantity of mad designs attested in medieval sources, it's a shame we've had such a meagre offering (and the last time the hennin was released, outside the CMF, was twenty years ago now)

The most minor of minor nitpicks - but my understanding is that these themes (Roboforce at the very least) were released globally, they just weren't included in catalogues outside North America - but were available occasionally in toyshops.

All this talk of goats and I'm here just desperately hoping that we get a revamped hennin. It's been WAY too long since we've had one outside a single CMF. Civilian minifigures are a must on a set this size - and I don't think Lego will disappoint

Maybe it's just my PC, but those links aren't working for me

Not even that! I'm 25 and Jack Stone figures are among the first I had (Max and Tina were the only figures of any description I had at my Nan's for a good decade, so they starred in pleny of adventures)

The second time does broadly coincide with Pirates of the Caribbean (broadly; the 2010 wave of Pirates was far smaller than the main 2009 wave) but the third time doesn't. In 2016 there was only one Pirates of the Caribbean set, which IIRC was a D2C, so there weren't licensed Pirate sets on the shelves. In the interest of keeping on topic, I do feel that there's an element of gatekeeping going on in some places. Yes, Lego is a creative hobby - certainly it fuelled my creativity when I was younger, though I've never been a traditional MOC builder - but there's no reason it has to be just that. We can't all be creative in the same ways. When I watch a film, I'm often looking at the techniques used and thinking about how I might apply those techniques in my own work, but a lot of people just want to watch a film to entertain themselves for a few hours. Equally, it's perfectly valid to just want Lego as a way of occupying yourself for a few hours without having to think too hard, and at the end having a cool keepsake to put on your shelf for a bit. So what if some people build their sets once and leave them built? The bricks are still being produced. It doesn't prevent anybody else from buying bricks and building whatever they want with them

I don't know that that has ever actually happened. Looking at the main classic themes from Lego history: Town/City is still going, and has never been licensed Pirates was not replaced by a licensed theme in 1998 or 2015, nor was it immediately replaced by Pirates of the Caribbean in 2009 Castle was not replaced by Lord of the Rings, the two themes were concurrent; it was also concurrent with Harry Potter through the first two runs of that theme Space was not replaced by Star Wars, since the two themes were concurrent for several years and Space themes have returned since too Adventurers was not replaced by Indiana Jones; Adventurers was five years dead when Indy came about, and has not resurfaced in the decade since Indy disappeared either Western was not replaced by the Lone Ranger, there were more than a decade between sets Trains has not been replaced by a licensed theme (yes, individual licensed Train sets have been produced, but not a full theme)

While doubting it will happen (owing to the maturity of the TV show, more than anything) I would love to see The Wheel of Time given a range of sets. Most if not all of the characters would bring in very useful prints for any historical builders (and the hairpieces for Liandrin/Alanna/Nynaeve would be incredible) and the theme would hit the spot for anyone looking for more fantasy/historical builds. On top of that, in the Trollocs there's a very unique and distinct "bad guy", so kids unfamiliar with the source material could still enjoy some make-believe with the sets.

Agreed, for 90% of Lego users knowing the ID numbers of Lego colours is not helpful - but it's useful for bearing in mind that Number 370 being used doesn't necessarily mean Number 369 will ever make it to production!

1x5 plates exist now, iirc. Not common by any means but they are out there and now that they're part of the range I suspect they'll be used more often

It's very possible 369 never sees the light of day. There are other gaps in the numbers, as well as colours which are known but were never included in sets; it's entirely possible that 369 was a pigment that was considered for production and maybe even made into test bricks before being passed over

Here's one that might ruffle a few feathers: the original Star Wars Phase II clone helmet mould - used in sets from 2005 to 2008 - was the only good representation of Phase II clones, and it would have been better all round if they'd kept producing those clones when sets required, rather than refreshing the mould every few years

Ernie Macmillan, a better broomstick mould, and the Ministry of Magic

I actually hadn't even considered that that was a possibility, but I suspect she'll probably be very useful too!

There are no words for how excited I am about finally getting a lute. It's an integral part of the first scene of my WIP medieval-fantasy brickfilm, and I was considering ways to make a guitar work as a stand in - so the timing couldn't be better for me! That's my second-most wanted part checked off (and the one I didn't expect to ever see) - now just give me an updated hennin and I'll be happy

It kind of works, but at least to me it feels more like a wintry green. I'd use sand green or the old light green from the 90s as lawn on a frosty January day, rather than spring or summer!

Massive (not-yet-complete) Excel spreadsheet. I have a sheet with inventories copied from Bricklink and sanitised, a sheet with the spares copied from Bricklink, a sheet for Bricklink purchases, a sheet for Pick a Brick purchases and a sheet for job-lots, all collated using formulas into a master list that has every part I own (or will do, when I catch up with the backlog and finish it!) Whenever I get a new job-lot, I copy my Master List into a new spreadsheet, counting the parts as I sort through them and adding new entries to the list as and when I come across new parts. When I'm done, I can copy that list over the top of the master list, and copy the part numbers/colours/quantities into the job-lots list so that all calculates correctly. The upside of my method is complete flexibility. I get to list whether or not I have the stickers applied, whether I'm missing a piece or have an unadvertised extra, which variant of a part I had in my set. It's especially useful for those sets where you get a random part included (like the chocolate frog cards in the newer Harry Potter sets). The downside is that it's a beastly file. I HAVE to turn automatic calculation off otherwise I'm waiting nearly a minute for it to recalculate the workbook every time I make even one change.

Without a full study being done, it's hard to look at your own experiences and extrapolate that to kids in general, though. There are plenty of kids who don't care about minifigures at all (someone has to be buying all the small Creator sets that come out every year, after all!) My personal experience is counter to yours - all the kids I've known who like Lego either don't care about minifigures at all or have one or two they like and aren't really fussed about others. Most of my friends when I was growing up had one or two favourites that they always used for play, and the rest of their figures stayed forever in their Lego tub. Personally speaking, my collection started with a tub containing two basic minifigs that were the only figures I owned for about six years. Didn't bother me. I had plenty of fun doing other things - didn't even particularly care for the other figures I got, to begin with. It wasn't until I started brickfilming and wanted specific minifigure parts for characters that I cared a jot what minifigures a set included. And I won't say that's universal. But everyone has different views on the subject. Interestingly, as an adult I've found that I wanted figures first UP TO A CERTAIN POINT. But after two years of trawling second hand markets, I have classic castle knights, I have lion knights and crown knights, black falcons and fright knights, a forestman with a cowl and a maiden with a hennin. And now that I've got the basics I'm not so fussed about the figures any more. If Lego released a Castle theme next year, I'd probably buy it and the figures would be a nice bonus, but I'd be mainly after the castle-specific bricks. (This, incidentally, is the reason I haven't personally bought the 3-in-1 Castle - it doesn't have the sort of Castle parts I want, and I can take or leave the minifigures)

I definitely think Bright Pink needs to be on the list. It seems odd, to me, to disregard a colour which only seems to fall down on having 1x6 bricks and tiles, when 1x2, 1x3 and 1x4 in that same colour are readily available. There aren't too many situations where a MOC requires a 1x6 for structural integrity and two 1x3s or a 1x2 and a 1x4 can't do the same job. Considering this topic more generally: I definitely think more colours is a positive, especially where they fill gaps that are difficult to do at the moment. Others have mentioned Sand Red as being overdue a return, and there's also a distinct absence of muted light green shades. Lime and bright green are both very... well, bright. I think a duller shade that's lighter in colour than the bog-standard green would be immensely useful for plant life. I'm looking out at my garden writing this and trying to work out how I could represent it in brick form, and the answer is that I couldn't, not completely. The grass is not bright, but it's distinctly lighter than my hedge - and yet my hedge is far too light to be represented by dark green. We have olive green as the darker equivalent of this, why not a light olive green?

I think I'm an unusual case, because I had a very early Dark Age between the ages of five and nine (the only set I had between Dobby's Release and later the 2006 V-Wing Fighter was a heavily discounted Racers pack from TK Maxx, which iirc I built once then forgot about) but I was big into Lego then until I was about sixteen; I know from old Christmas lists and my Brickset account that between 2011 and 2013 I went from "I only want Lego all the time" to "I'll buy a CMF here and there, and ask for Lego for Christmas, but I don't even have the willpower to specify what sets I want". My step-sister's son was HUGELY into Lego to the point that his bedroom shelves had custom-cut baseplates glued to them, and we were told "no Lego for birthdays, he has too much". His interest has died down a bit now, I think, and he's 11. Anecdotally from what I remember, my mates at school fell out of Lego in the first two or three years of secondary school, but a lot were never massively into it anyway, and it could just have been that we stopped talking about it at school.

Honest question: why does it need to be based on specific seasons? Aside from the little window where Jim had his own office, the floor plan pretty much never changed, and a minifigure of Dwight or Jim or Pam or whoever isn't going to be very different from Season 1 to Season 9. To my mind it would make the most sense to just do whatever minifigures and easter eggs they want, without worrying about whether it fits in one season or not.

I think this might be the first time I've ever seen a Scala doll in a MOC. And it works! It's impressive how you've done something out of Lego which looks so little like it has any Lego in it at all! I reckon I could have been tricked into thinking it was an Action Man vehicle or something, if I hadn't seen it here.

Which, let's face it, would just be Paradisa for the modern day. I can see why individual consumers might not want them, but not to the extent of advocating for their removal from the line. Not when there are still plenty of minifigures being made - the solution for anyone who doesn't want minidolls is simply just to not buy the sets. What I would argue for is more sets using the Friends colour scheme with minifigures, and vice versa. At the moment there's a binary division of Friends colours/minidolls or City colours/minifigures, but whether someone prefers figures or dolls is separate of their preferred colours - I'd love to see more pink and lavender bricks in City sets too, and that might draw a market from kids who like pink but don't like the minidolls.

I'm not sure this is going to be an issue, though. Nobody's forced to vote on a set - if something's consistently being resubmitted AND getting 10k votes, that's a pretty strong signal to Lego that it's an idea that the public wants. If someone spams an idea that the public doesn't want, it won't reach 10k votes. I bet everyone here has at least one set which never passed the reivew that they'd love to see, and imo it's good that those sets technically have a chance at coming back.