Grover

I probably wasn't clear; I should have said more originality in the set designs. In my opinion, they treated Castle 2013 as if it were a City line, rehashing old sets (i.e., a million police stations, etc.) but even more thoughtless, using almost identical designs over again. I would like to see new sets altogether, and, if rehashing, significant changes. It felt to me like Castle 2013 was phoned in and that they in fact did not spend a lot of time thinking about designs, what would sell, at what price points, etc. I certainly see those things in Nexo, KK2, and others, even if I personally do not care for the theme or designs, but I did not see that with the Castle 2013 theme. Hopefully that makes more sense. And, while expressing personal preferences that are pipe dreams, I'd like to see old grey, old dark grey, and especially old brown. I can deal with the bley and dark bley, but that reddish brown is ugly to me. Never happen, but hey, might as well throw it out there.

That's not really what I heard from it, nor is it any different than diehard fans of any other theme out there. I think it's diehard fans expressing their personal opinions. I, for one, don't care one way or the other about any of those things. I do, however, not want to see a mindoll Castle theme, and would like to see more thought put into set designs. I'm sure you have your personal opinions as to what you want to see as well.

I kind of assumed it was a bunch of LARPers on an acid trip. :-)

I think that the corporate mindset has been detrimental to themes that are not top financial performers. If a particular line, such as Castle, does not perform as well as City, then it may be eliminated as the idea behind companies is to maximize profit. Hence why we see the Friends line and others. Principles have little to do with the theme choices except when they coincide with avoiding alienation of the most profitable sector. And yes, I agree with x105 Black that we have not really been thrown a bone. Sure, if Castle had been on hiatus for a year or two, and during that time we had LotR, then sure, I'd consider that a bone being thrown. However, with Castle having been gone for 5 years now and getting NK and Elves? Really? The Disney castle is OK, but is literally a cartoony castle compared to a fortress. Hogwarts is appealing to me for parts, not for the set itself. I'll buy one and use all the parts to make my own MOC castles. Pretty much all I do anymore except buying old castle sets on Bricklink.

I think that's true of many of us. I have been spending much of my money on old sets on BrickLink because there is no current castle line. I'm kind of enjoying this reprieve as a chance to get all the old sets that I didn't get during my dark ages, but that won't last long. Once I have all the old sets, it's not like I"m going to buy NK or something because it's the closest thing to castle that I can get. I'd rather buy duplicates of old castle sets than that.

I am 100% OK with that. :-)

An expert level Castle set is my dream. My total pipe dream is that they come out with an Expert line of Castle modulars (turret, gatehouse, wall, great hall, etc.) that would fit together like the modulars do for City. Won't happen, but I can dream and make my own MOCs.

I agree. It makes me hopeful, too, as, in my opinion, the designs are getting better. 1. Harry Potter is more real castle than Nexo. 2. HP and Castle have run concurrently, as others have said. 3. "Yay, Nexo is dead". I don't even bother to qualify that with any other statement, just glad it's gone. 4. Lego just brought back a 4 wide vehicle, a few days ago: https://brickset.com/sets/4000030-1/Truck

That looks really good to me, too. I'm all for color schemes like that. Sadly, that came about during my dark ages. Otherwise, I would have bought a couple of those just for parts.

I agree--it is very much a space theme. For those who really liked the classic space, it was great. For those of us who wanted Castle, not so much. As for tan castles, I'm 100% for it. Tan, white, salmon, light grey, dark grey, black... any color that could be conceived of as even semi-realistic. But blue? No one ever built blue castles. Neon orange? no. Most castles were built with the stone from their region. Carcassonne looks very different depending on the lighting (browse some of these pictures): https://www.tripadvisor.co.nz/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g187151-d578756-i18518243-Chateau_Comtal-Carcassonne_Center_Carcassonne_Aude_Occitanie.html From light grey to tan to salmon. I also think it would be interesting to see castle designs from the old Roman forts built on a hill, to pallisaded walls, to high castles and double concentric designs with full gatehouses. There's a lot of options for designers.

Personally, thought that Nexo Knights combined the two worst parts of the above: poor color choices (neon and primary colors) and crazy over the top cartoonish fantasy elements. Really a techno-space cartoony element. None of that appealed to me at all and I did not consider any of it a castle theme. I wasn't too crazy about the troll wheel and the other over the top designs from the Fantasy Era, as x105Black points out, although I did like the colors for MOCs, and I was much happier with those designs than Nexo Knights or not having anything at all. I side with Klaus-Dieter, though, in that I really liked the Kingdoms line with all the neat colors and detailed medieval buildings of both military and civilian sides. More factions like that, perhaps some more detailed updated stuff like the wolfpack guy from the CMF line a while back, would be very cool to see indeed.

Oh yeah, TLG won't do military, just saying that I am uninterested in helicopters in general. The military ones are a little more interesting, but they'll never make them for sure. I'd be quite happy to have knockoffs of Toyota sedans and minivans. We need some more purely passenger vehicles to fill out the city for sure. I doubt they'd sell, so they'll likely never make them, but such is life.

Ford Mustang by a longshot. Pretty much any car, really, except maybe a Festiva or something. I could maybe get behind an Apache or an Osprey or something, but an AS350? Bleh. My opinion, though.

Agree 100%.

Yes, City has been churning out the same thing for 30 years from one perspective. However, these sets are not the same designs over and over. Sure, it's a lot of police stations over the years, but the design changes. I think that castles are awesome, but they don't vary the design. Take a look at these: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?S=6080-1&name=King's Castle&category=[Castle][Lion Knights]#T=S&O={"iconly":0} https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?S=7946-1&name=King's Castle&category=[Castle][Kingdoms]#T=S&O={"iconly":0} https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?S=70404-1&name=King's Castle&category=[Castle]#T=S&O={"iconly":0} There's no variation beyond the superficial there. Look at some of the actual castles out there: http://www.carneycastle.com/index.htm All the different regions have completely different styles. It doesn't even take that much imagination to make variations like that. Certainly didn't to make these variations that kept police stations from going totally stale: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?S=381-2&name=Police Headquarters&category=[Town][Classic Town][Police]#T=S&O={"iconly":0} https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?S=6384-1&name=Police Station&category=[Town][Classic Town][Police]#T=S&O={"iconly":0} https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?S=6636-1&name=Police Headquarters&category=[Town][Town Jr.][Police]#T=S&O={"iconly":0} https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?S=7744-1&name=Police Headquarters&category=[Town][City][Police]#T=S&O={"iconly":0} https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?S=60174-1&name=Mountain Police Headquarters&category=[Town][City][Police]#T=S&O={"iconly":0} So, does City thrive on rehashes... but not really. The Castle rehashes are just that. The old castle line did well because there were things like the black falcon's fortress, the knight's castle, and others that were in fact just what you are talking about in variations on the police stations, etc. Unfortunately, the rehashes of the King's Castle (and others) are not that exciting at all, as they are just color changes with no real design modifications.

Lol. I'm not sure what any of that is. :-) I'm certainly not saying I'm normal, though!

Really? That surprises me. I'm not saying it's not true, just surprised. I hated helicopters as a kid as I saw them as a waste of bricks and something not easily put into a state that looked like it was natural. They always had to be landed or suspended by string. Interesting that's what kids want.

I respectfully disagree with Gedren_y and agree with SirBlake on the castle theme interest. My experience is very much in line with SirBlake's: US kids are more interested in castle than western themes. Maybe that wasn't the case in the 1950s, but it's certainly not now. I never invested in any of the western themes and don't know any of my friends who did, but almost all of them were heavily interested in the castle line of Lego. A few were interested in Space as well, although I think space is kind of screwed with the SW theme that seems ongoing (that's a whole different thread, though). I do think that a well-thought out castle theme (not just rehashes of the same castles) would be sustainable for 20+ years. Just think about how sustainable EQ/WOW/Skyrim/Witcher etc. has been for years. Sure, it will take some effort to make things enticing, but that's the same issue they have with the City line now. I think that Castle 2013 was a bunch of rehashes of old sets which is why it didn't do well. How many King's Castles have been released over the years? Meh. I think that a great idea would have been to take a shot at civilian life, some foresty factions like they had done in the past with the forestmen and wolfpack, and they would have fared much better. How about stand alone tower? A windmill? A farmhouse? A public fountain? A theater? Tons of ideas they ignored, and instead we got the forest ambush, gold getaway, the gatehouse, and the king's castle. I did like the dragon mountain, personally, and didn't feel that it was too much of a rehash of old themes, but there was so much left on the table it was disappointing. I think you could take any theme and make it do poorly with unimaginative sets. I do, however, agree with Gedren_y that Disney is not the force it once was. I think that mass media has eaten a lot of the market share, although the reasoning is speculation on my part. I don't know if that is good or bad for castle; sure, Disney uses a lot of castles in their stories, but their more modern ones are starting to get away from them (Pocohantas, Moana, etc.), so maybe not. It's also not to say that there aren't competitors that could have greater use of castles. In any case, we can argue until we're blue in the face, but I think we will have to wait until we see what Lego comes out with to be for certain we're getting another castle theme. I am all in favor of discussing what we'd like to see and throwing ideas out there for TLG to pick up, in as much as they do or don't read these forums. It is also my opinion that the historic forums have some of the best MOCers on the boards. Their incredibly detailed builds are pretty exciting and almost all expertly done. It can't hurt when all the MOCs are awesome!

Ironically, I have always found that it has been the Europeans who are more excited about the Wild West than Americans. There's also a fascination with Route 66 and old American cars over there.

I am with you. More generic cars would be great. I remember as a kid not liking the lack of cars. Looking around, I see mostly cars and pickup trucks, with a few things like garbage trucks and service vehicles. Looking around my Lego town, you have a dragster, several semis, a monster truck, two cement mixers, a snow plow, a pickup with a caravan... and 2 actual cars. Unless you MOC something, you don't have enough cars. Personally, I think that any set that is a house should come with a car. Even vehicle sets that are touted to be nothing but vehicles and to come with a car, like this: https://www.amazon.com/LEGO-Education-Vehicles-Set-Motorcycles/dp/B0085Y3V5Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1518386500&sr=8-1&keywords=lego+education+vehicles That set doesn't even have a car. Why not delete the helicopter from the police, fire, and hospital sets and put a normal car in its place?

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who is perpetually disappointed by helicopters. You can see a few occasionally if you're in a big city, but they are not as common as cars. However, we tend to get a 1:1 or a 2:3 ratio of helicopters to cars in sets it seems. I have actually refused to buy some of the police and arctic sets simply because they had helicopters in them and I'm tired of them. I find that they're hard to display and lose their interest when they are everywhere. I am excited to see what the new hospital is going to be like and the people pack for the mountain as well. I'm hoping we get a few more mountain sets this year later on.

I understand the worries about costs. TLG is a company and thus needs to take these things into account. However, I think there are two camps of the animals: Those that want to see brick built animals and those that feel the animals are like minifigures. I am in the second camp. I don't mind brick built animals like are in some of the creator sets, but I prefer the animals to be like minis: horses, bears, cows, etc. molded. I don't think this makes it too much like Playmobil. Playmobil makes entire structures out of single pieces seemingly, reducing the buildability of things. If we want to build animals, why have minis? We could build them, too. Thus, I look at animals and minis as characters.

I think that's one of the things that I loved about the generic Castle themes--you can use it to make whatever you want. Themed series, for instance, like this new Batman, are not as useful to me. The Rubber duck float ring is really cool, but it has a batman mask. Some of the characters are useful for other things, but they have batman logos on it, making it useless for anything other than that one specific figure. Maybe I'm old school, but I even prefer the generic smiley faces on the characters. I'm OK with other faces on most of the sets, but I really want to see the classic smiles on the Creator Modular sets again.

For me, having a herd of 50 dairy cows when they only came in the Farm set back in the 2000s and now the cows are $35-40 on the aftermarket? I can't afford that, so have to turn to BrickForge, etc. Lego is losing money on me and probably many others who would buy these animals as well. I also have no problem with Lego making some unique designs for cows, etc. and putting them with larger sets so that they have some appeal, but then making a different stamp (spotted vs. unspotted pigs, or jersey vs. holstein cows for instance) available in larger packs. Also, how about some Lego sheep? I think a shepherd mini with a bit of landscape and fence piece, plus 2-3 sheep would be an awesome small set or polybag.

A few of these franchises, like Star Wars and Marvel, have been active the entire time. Star Wars mostly through merchandising and re-releases for a while, and Marvel through comic books the entire time, although the Marvel Universe is boosting sales right now I'm sure. I think about things like Mask and Voltron from my childhood. I loved those as a kid, but even with the Voltron Ideas being produced at some point, would I buy it? Only if I had an abundance of money and nothing else to buy at the time. Maybe not even then if I could get a good deal on bulk bricks elsewhere to help with my MOCs. Those were themes that I really loved and now I don't care. Probably partly to do with the fact that I am no longer inundated with these themes. I also completely missed Bionicle in my dark ages, so I really don't understand what the hype is about. The figures in the most recent Bionicle line don't appeal to me and I am left wondering why people were excited. Apparently the Bionicle line helped save Lego (with Star Wars), for which I'm grateful, and I certainly don't dislike it (unlike the minidolls), just don't really get it, probably because I was not there for the first wave that was hyped.