TeriXeri

Creator Viking Ship / Noodle Shop rumor came early too , and those often launch in June(EU)/August(US), while other sets beside Tiger are March releases. So those Space sets could still be June. If it's March, that's nice however, if it's a small themed wave of 3 sets, it could happen, 2020 "Elite Police" were also a 3 set wave back in August 2020.

The last (orbit) Space Station and Underwater Base sets were good (for being within City theme), and looks like that continue the trend. Lunar Base also could be very interesting, would be the first time for City, and a long time overall for LEGO to have a surface space base set (the last (non licensed) space base set that wasn't a 3-in-1 alternate build was Space Police 3 I believe in 2010?)

I'm not a huge Blizzard fan right now, used to be, but a LEGO version of Warcraft sets would be awesome to see in set form (minifig scale but not CMF), sets are pretty endless on what they can make, from Castle to Pirates, to Sci-Fi within the lore. I know MEGA had warcraft sets long ago, but there is so much left that it wouldn't be a copy. However I think Overwatch should probably be done first before touching another Blizzard game franchise, should be somewhat "easier" to cover a limited number of playable characters , LEGO has done about half of the characters so far. If there would be some big location set , I'd love to see a Castle Eichenwalde or Temple of Anubis area, even if it's only part of a level/vignette.

I have a few of those, and when I hold the button a few second they start working again. Doesn't seem to be a battery issue.

I like the fact that The Training Center and Dojo Temple can be combined, and together they have a full team of ninja + wu, no duplicates. I got into Ninjago in 2019, and the Legacy monastery set was a good starter as it contained a full legacy team as well. I wonder if the style is anything like 70728: Battle for Ninjago City somehow

The inside of the block is N64, the outside of the block is not, but no doubt 100% based on the "New Super Mario Bros" design , which has been in use since 2006 and has been used in other Mario Games like Mario Maker, Mario Run, Mario 3d Land, Mario 3d World etc, and even LEGO mario has 2x2 versions of the yellow block. To me it makes sense for LEGO to use a block design that has been in use constantly for 15 years (or even 36 years if you count the older designs going back to 1985 which has the 4 dots in the corners as seen in the LEGO NES set or 1985 game itself). It's also consistent to the other LEGO mario sets : As for the N64 theme around it, choosing the 1st 3D Mario game made into LEGO versions of Mario levels is very logical, LEGO already made a 2D mario game last year with the NES, which happened with the 35th anniversay of Super Mario Bros and Mario on Console in general. Also I assume this was made for the 25th anniversary of Mario 64 US release date (29 September 1996), close enough to October 1st.

Station or Crossing might be a bit more likely this time around with City having more focus on buildings again, and with the new roadplate system should be easier to make a level crossing inbetween roadplates, roads will be 2 plates high, so will the top of rails.

With the 1x1 bracket pieces, saddles aren't even that big of a deal anymore, but still would be nice to see as well, but yeah, 4 Reindeer for €40 (NL) pricing is still a fantastic set.

I never liked stickers on LEGO parts, no matter the age, kids might just not be perfectionist as AFOL in terms of preserving sticker quality/alignment. As a kid I never worried much about putting 10+ sets into a big pile of bricks , but if a sticker was dirty/peeling or not aligned I didn't like it . When I came back to LEGO in 2016 I didn't like stickers still, now in 2021 it's a little less dislike as I learned applying them with a bit of (dish)soap water a while ago, which tends to get better results then applying them dry and risk damage/fingerprint etc trying to apply/correct them, the water also reduces airbubbles and dust under a sticker somewhat (if the water is clean) and allows sliding them a bit after, and then using tissue paper to soak up most water to fix it into place. As for City 2022, seems the Horse Trailer will be rumoured at €29,99, here's hoping there will be more then 1 horse for that budget.

I actually took the drawbridge apart, to make 2 main builds (I always tend to make main build of a set anyway to check completeness of pieces, it's more fun then sorting and counting, and the drawbridge MOC set had not been built as main build at the time yet), and then put them back to back to test how it'd look, it forms a Castle that's about 55cm x 35cm , altho symmetrical (180 degrees) so pretty boring to display, that's why I suggested it's more of a playset which can turn into 2 seperate mainbuild castles. I'll start MOCing the Castle at some point later again, I just felt this topic was the most relevant place, as it discusses what can be done with 2 sets.

I agree that blue-white striped "pirate" torso doesn't really fit in that set, but on the other hand, I can imagine IDEAS and 3-in-1 having some overlap, and technically LEGO did pick all 3 torsos in the 31120 Castle from IDEAS sets , Striped Torso from Barracuda Bay, and then Black Falcon Torso/Leg/Shield from Blacksmith. At least that overlap between IDEAS Pirates/Castle torsos with 3-in-1 seems to be some design decision when LEGO decided to do "Classic" themes in Creator 3-in-1. That's also why I think it's pretty curious to see a 3-in-1 Viking Ship appear when there's currently one up for vote in the IDEAS 2021 round 1 expected in like 2 weeks from now (last year was 30th of september)

Going back to main topic, it should be only a matter of time before the 1st IDEAS review of 2021 , 57 submissions. Viking Ship is an odd one here, in it's original size small enough to serve as an army type pack (with fabric sails and printed shields etc) and would fit with the rumoured summer 3-in-1 set it could bring prints/parts for, but that's mainly assuming LEGO does their "double" releases like they had with Barracuda Bay and Blacksmith combined with 3-in-1 versions. But again 57 submissions is just gigantic so could go anywhere at this point

3-in-1 Doesn't automaticly mean no new parts/prints. As of now, the blue Pirate Captain torso is still unique to 31109 Pirate Ship. Also it's too early to rule out the Viking IDEAS submission (even while it's part of a very big 57 submissions 1st review of 2021) perhaps bringing parts wider available like how Blacksmith made Falcon parts available for 3-in-1. Both sets might be ships, but so were the Pirate Ship IDEAS and 3-in-1s, 3-in-1 being more focused on brick built and alternate builds, IDEAS could have a different focus like more figures or shields etc.

After the Drawbridge experiment, I recently built my 2nd set as the main build, surprised me how it looked putting them back to back when opened. It's probably the most boring way to get a larger area of Castle with 2 sets (especially considering official 2nd and 3rd builds), but still an easy option, especially for like kids to play with 1 bigger castle, and then still having 2 castles against eachother without any pieces changed. For pure display I wouldn't do that option, and this version of the taller castle still looks impressive.

Even seperate from the show, or the people / story behind it , I can already see LEGO started a trend to hook in a new line of collectors of TV show sets / apartments, could be for multiple reasons like parts, figures, display, completionism, or using the interiors in MOCs etc, but I do think LEGO hit a wide market here despite not obvious at first glance. Remember that IDEAS/Cusoo originally started Minecraft theme and that's still going, and this type of set also started via Ideas originally. This apartment does look pretty good with all the masonry work, and the contrast of modern kitchen etc. The price is steep compared to the F.r.i.e.n.d.s or Seinfeld sets, 37.5% more expensive then Seinfeld seems a lot. (€80 vs €110)

I agree the idea of a LEGO "Tower" line of sets could be nice, LEGO even has a Tower video game with stacking floors. On the other hand, doing it via the video game was a much easier way to incorporate many many variations. (click image to enlarge)

I personally don't mind back or hinged foldable builds, but I can imagine if it has to be displayed in a 3D space that full enclosed with either removable roof, or easy to lift and then hinge for play would be prefered. Also most 3-in-1 buildings (the ones I have most of), don't have stairs or ladders, and many Castles, or City/Town buildings didn't have them either for all floors, the details are nice to have but if it's complex or takes a lot of room (like a full staircase) , I don't have issues with them left out. Some other sets are just a simple wall ,or single side of a building with no interior (Chinese New Year Temple , or Story of Nian for example), those sets still have much detail in other areas. For "Alien Space", I think you can get away with a lot of imagination as well, rules could be a bit more complicated if its strictly based on some existing work (movie/game/book etc), generally Sci-Fi tends to get away with "force field" or some tech to keep radiation out and oxygen in, but even LEGO Star Wars sets of like Death Star Duel or something aren't fully enclosed but have 1 side with a window of that particular scene to depict the "outside" space.

LEGO really seems to be in a design period with using a lot more rounded plates, its not exactly new to LEGO as 4x8 curved plates existed as far back as the 50s and 60s, but this set really reminded me of it.

I can still see a lot of potential in this house for color swaps, brown to make it more like a block hut, greys to make it more medieval (swapping window types as well) etc, or even a non-snow variant should be possible. If anything, it seems LEGO is currently in some Renaissance period with rounded bases on sets and rounded plates, half, quarter, heart, rounded corner 8x8 etc. I say Renaissance because rounded plates aren't exactly "new" , this is from the 1950s/1960s.

I remember the times before the mid 90s where Brown / Green / Tan bricks and plates were pretty much almost non-existent. Turning point seems to be after 1996, with themes like Western , Ninja and Adventurers, and Star Wars including a lot more regular brick types of green/tan/darkgrey/brown, before that it used to be mostly only seen in specialized parts like palm trees, bridges, pirateships, cart wheels etc. And bulk brick boxes usually mainly had a few base colors as well, with later including colors like green and others. I had a 15+ year break from LEGO after 2001 so haven't fully experienced LEGO's development in the early 2000s but color wise 1985-1995 looks a lot different from say 1996-2010, and even now, themes/sets like Star Wars Star Destroyers/Falcon/AT-AT will dominate in greys, while themes like Friends has more pastel tints. But even now LEGO is evolving colors, with prominent colors like Coral being used in more and more parts now, and Turquoise made a big comeback, while it seems Neon orange is phasing out.

40424: Winter Snowball Fight is still available at lego.com at the moment.

Seeing how the stage sets are pretty much being "dumped" at 50% off or more now I think this theme is considered over for now. So in the last couple years there have been multiple themes that suddenly ended or were dumped , not exactly in the same way but still is noticeable. 2018 Nexo Knights : I think this ending was most likely somewhat planned ahead , since the show officially stopped at Season 4 (2017) , the app still got updated to the last wave of sets, and the magazine still had 9 issues in 2018. 2019 LEGO Movie 2 : sets either disappeared in the last wave of sets (the sparkle baby set for example), many other sets are still available at fairly big discount , seems it was a major overproduction and maybe hoped for more success/hype on the movie. 2020 Hidden Side : last wave of sets were only available very briefly, and then vanished. (especially the Castle of Mystery set seemed to have a low production run) , smaller sets, mostly wave 2 and 3 still available for discounts. 2021 Vidiyo : currently stage sets being "dumped" at massive discounts over 50%. I don't consider Nexo Knights a failure due to the way it ended, and had 2 years of sets/books/tv show/app and other merchandise during it's main 2 years, also never seems to have had as much "overproduction" leftovers like TLM2 and Hidden Side still have. (note I base this on the current webshop situation in Netherlands/Western Europe, things could be different in other regions)

Not all sets have them but Brickset has most of the links to official instructions if available. I won't list all the 3-in-1 but here are some. 31088: Deep Sea Creatures - Whale https://www.lego.com/cdn/product-assets/product.bi.additional.extra.pdf/31088_X_Whale.pdf 31073: Mythical Creatures - Snake https://www.lego.com/cdn/product-assets/product.bi.additional.extra.pdf/31073_X_Mythical Snake.pdf 31058: Mighty Dinosaurs even has multiple extras : https://www.lego.com/cdn/product-assets/product.bi.additional.extra.pdf/31058_X_31058 4th Model.pdf - Brontosaurus https://www.lego.com/cdn/product-assets/product.bi.additional.extra.pdf/31058_X_Dino Island Recon Plane.pdf - Airplane https://www.lego.com/cdn/product-assets/product.bi.additional.extra.pdf/31058_X_Green Ankylosaurus.pdf - Ankylosaurus https://www.lego.com/cdn/product-assets/product.bi.additional.extra.pdf/31058_X_Scary Scorpion.pdf - Scorpion

If the Viking ship has enough brown-ish parts, I do hope for at least 1 house/fortress wall type of build. As for sails, probably brick built and typically the most common depicted pattern are red/white stripes (actually kind of prefer darkred stripe as it might look better in the other builds) 3rd build could be a surprise like a Fenrir wolf build (set 7015 reference / Norse mythology)

For a City / Creator 3-in-1 type of setting, I think 4-6 wide cars at most, and trucks can be a little bit wider. I do have some 3-in-1 8 wides, but some exceptions can be made for Campers/Caravans, as long as they aren't like next to City/3-in-1 buildings it still looks fine, since those are Outdoor vehicles with more detailed interior like bed/kitchen etc. Of course for actual car modeling 8+ wide is much nicer/realistic.