TeriXeri

Overall, there aren't a whole lot of seasonal sets going on right now, but I think if there would be winter-themed sets, they'll probably be revealed around august/september anyway, exception was the 2017 Friends Snow Resort subtheme which came out in summer. The new Friends Hotel does come with seasonal parts for winter/autumn. As for new 2021 seasonal sets available currently there are those but no minifig sets this year so far. 40462: Valentine's Brown Bear (2021) 40463: Easter Bunny (2021) As for Advent Calendars, I do hope that the 2021 City Calendar will go back to minifig builds instead of Microscale as the 2020 Calendar was pretty disappointing compared to the awesome 2019 version which had great builds/pieces/minifigs.

Would love to see a ski slope type of set.

Wouldn't surprise me if Baseplates will be re-released under the Xtra brand, as those cardboard playmats weren't really long-lasting. However, currently Xtra is LEGO exclusive, which goes against that, so new numbering/packaging under Classic could be likely as well. I also wonder if that would mean that colors like regular green, tan, dark bluish grey could be sold, or perhaps availability of 16x32 sized bases.

For a €140 set the bounty does look small imo. It looks good, but not full-price good.

So far those polybags seem to be linked to the LEGO explorer magazine, I really wish LEGO would sell them directly via their Polybag section on the shop, I think the magazine is available in Germany and maybe UK, but that still means limited distribution. Even within the same theme, last year the City magazine had only 6 issues in NL while some other EU countries had 12, so it's heavily depends on publishers as well, and UK has another different distribution with 2 foil packs per magazine.

Couldn't have said it better here about Disney and HP , I see it the same way.

I don't think a comparison of a traditional LEGO Castle to a set like Disney Castle or Harry Potter is accurate , they look like Castles but that's about it. If you meant multiple Harry Potter minifig sets as a $300 castle, then sure, I can understand it (if you add your own figures etc) , but the microscale hogwarts isn't even remotely close to a Classic Castle set. Harry Potter does have Dragons, but still isn't really about knights. Many people here don't even consider the 2 big Nexo Knight Castle sets as Castles (Jestro's / Knighton) , and to me they come a lot closer to a Classic Castle playset compared to Harry Potter, even while the colors might not be very historic, but especially the Jestro's Lava Lair works very well in a Fantasy setting. That said, IDEAS got Lowenstein , and potentially will get Castle in the Forest via Crowdfunding starting next month , so if LEGO decides not to make their own designs, I can see more IDEAS Castles end up there.

I agree they currently do match tiles, and that makes sense, and for roads they look fine. I still think they probably look great as underlayer, like open dirt or grass patches, but then adding some angled/rounded plates on top for texture/shapes, and unlike a 8x16 regular tile, some small plates can be easily added in the middle on top so there's definately a technical benefit (and potentially more colors available when time passes) I just think using them without a top layer might look a bit strange in a "natural" environment, especially multiple 16x16 with just tiles, depending on lighting also. Then again, it won't really affect me as I don't have huge terrain layouts but I can see where the shinyness could be a concern in large numbers of road plates in an area if people opt to use a lot of them.

Monkie Kid is the closest to fantasy Space right now, and has some crazy colors going on, 80020: White Dragon Horse and 80022: Spider Queen's Arachnoid Base are certainly very Sci-Fi / Space to me, but the exclusivity (full price) turns me away compared to other themes.

I agree the road plates are too shiny for old paths , I wonder why they didn't opt for a matte texture as seen in 8x16 tiles or 8x6 ramps etc, old baseplate roads were never so shiny either. Blue or Dark Tan works fine as normal or muddy water , might look too shiny for large amounts of dirt/grass however.

While all sets have Acacia in the box art , I think the wider Trees (especially the ones in the Wildlife Camp set) are supposed to represent Baobab, which are very rounded and straight, and some very wide short ones exist as well. The 4+ set trees are probably acacia but it's a 4+ set so they use simple parts.

I think it also highly depends how big the Crowdfunding will be for the Castle in the Forest AFOL designer project. (which would be the second castle after Lowenstein). I could see more Castles still have a chance there.

There are 2 wall panel with window in white in the 60308: Seaside Police and Fire Mission, or alternatively 2 in 43184: Raya and Sisu Dragon

Also the alternate builds on the 3-in-1 shuttle are undeniably on purpose based on the Apollo Lander and Saturn V rockets, just at a smaller scale, even to the point of the color scheme using yellow pieces for the lander, instead of being a leftover build.

It certainly could be an interesting build, but that horse stable set doesn't come in cheap at €65. Of course the idea/instructions can always be used as inspiration however.

Sets can always still get a second chance via the AFOL Designer Program , part of which depends on Crowdfunding (while IDEAS voting is 100% free, and sets can reach 10k in mere days sometimes) Right now it's in it's second year, and might well be a big reason why LEGO had so much interest in Bricklink in the first place.

The introduction of the 16x16 regular plate in 2011 also helped that fact, it certainly benefit a lot of sets, alongside 8x8 and 8x16. Most Friends sets that involve buildings are based around at least 1 16x16.

I think the addition of the armor and helmet really helps bring a similar style to this part of the alternate build vs the 6041 set, it's not 100% but it's close enough in terms of weapon/armor available (there's also a sword on a clip on the left side of the armor) I really do hope that Creator 3in1 at some point does include horses however if they make more Castle-theme sets. Or Battle Packs for Castle knights.

Those Tree panels in 60307: Wildlife Rescue Camp might be useful for Dark Forest / Forestmen.

The only explanation would probably be that LEGO probably wanted another fire boat set as the last one retired, and the 2019 Fire station is still in production and also depicted as being on the waterside + has a jetski, and I think they chose a Police building because they just released a smaller police boat + trailer set late last year + a bigger boat this year. I personally don't think the timing is right either for a full-on hospital medical set / theme , but that's me, on the other hand, the syringe piece is quite actual with Vaccinations, so a smaller Doctor type set could still work. That said, Ski Resort just retired late last year, so maybe 2022 (As early as December 2021) has more medical again when hopefully more opens up, also medical theme hasn't been forgotten as there's a (re-used) medical figure + patient in an upcoming City magazine.

LEGO does try to sell gimmicky products like the Road and River Tape, such weird products Do they really expect a kid to stick it on their floor like they suggest? It's cheaper compared to City road plate sets (it offers 15 meters of road/water) , but still a very questionable product. I'm not saying the product is entirely useless, but for a LEGO product it's a bit odd, personally the main thing I could see a use for it, would be to have a smaller road or river decoration on a shelf space, for a floor space, there are much larger non-lego alternative playmats. Cardboard Road/Water/Grass 32x32 sized playmats were also tried in the last few years, but those already retired rather quick. Sorry for going too offtopic (Historic Forum).

I personally have no issue if LEGO retires baseplates, but then again I have no table layout, and the 16 wide roads are better for shelves. (I don't have custom shelves) I'm talking from a single-set perspective here, where regular plates can offer a lot more in terms of shapes/variation compared to a 32x32 or 16x32 (that is, if a set would come with a good amount of plates instead ,of equal or near equal ground area) But I 100% can understand people with large layouts to be affected, it's a very different situation from a single set. I don't have the Roller Coaster, but that set has a huge ground area, yet LEGO chose regular plates there. Barracuda Bay is lovely and if they just kept it on baseplates like the original submission I think the island mode wouldn't be as dynamic, and right now those large blue plates can be used for much more, and the 45 degree corners wouldn't be possible. Raised Baseplates looked quite interesting, I only had one via the Islanders theme back then, but right now , especially for Castles, I see them more as a limitation, and not a benefit, but I prefer the ability to hinge walls over a static hill. Yellow Castle and King's Castle were on baseplates, regular plates 8x8/8x16/16x16 didn't exist, but looking at Knight's Castle, or Black Falcon's fortress, LEGO did use regular plates, almost seems to me that LEGO always preferered using regular plates where possible. Looking at 1584: Knight's Challenge , which uses both green baseplate (8x24), and smaller regular plates, since the baseplate was already in production, and the build is 8 wide, it does make sense to use the baseplate there. 8x16 regular plate didn't exist until 2011, 6x16 was the largest plate for the longest time, and that part has been in use for 55 years by now. Many late 1999, to early 2000s sets were on 8x16 Bricks in themes like Ninja/Castle/Harry Potter.

True, didn't see someone already brought it up in the other Animals thread.

I actually think it's a Bateleur Eagle instead of a Vulture.

That happened to me when LEGO struggled pretty big during the 2000-ish era. Year 2000 Castle was too blocky. Town was struggling with Town Jr / Jack Stone, World City didn't appear until 2004 The last Pirates sets were from 1997*, and those 2001 re-releases weren't really easy to get (LEGO Exclusive in a time when internet was still developing) and I don't remember much advertisement on them. Space mostly consisted of UFO and Insectoid Leftovers , 2001 Mars mission was just something weird to me at the time. Year 2000 Adventurers (Dino) weren't great either. Before sites like Brickset and such, knowledge of sets mostly relied on paper catalogs or store shelves. I had no interest in Star Wars or Bionicle, which were themes that actually came to rise in 1999 and 2001, I did have the Slizers though. Other interests like the big rise of Video Games also played a role for me during the early 2000s. So I honestly didn't even know at the time that World City, Orient Expedition, Knights Kingdom II existed.