Rattlebricks

Lego should include raised baseplate again like 6081, 6082, 6086, 6090 instead of a hollow castle.

The latest Kingdom castle looked more like a square fortress because they're trying to copy that old 80s castle design. Those type of building design might be cool in 80s and early 90s but people these days simply not interested on square shape fortress that being labelled as castle . They need to come up with a much more interesting design.

All good points there. I throughly agree. Basically its every big company syndrome, just like the big techs, they'll eventually monopolized everything. Ironically , its basically Lego Movie 1 storyline.

I agree

Well, as I mentioned before, ninja is never a very popular theme worldwide , but Lego managed to make Ninjago popular and today's kids deemed that theme as Cool. In this case , Lego becoming trend setter (which they should be) rather than following current trend. So its depend on how Lego wants to promote it.

I do like some of the Vladek sets, but the colour scheme of the sets and minifigs, even the helmet designs does looks silly. But I noticed that out of all the castle & kingdom sets , that one seems the most hated by the castle fans.

Well, the wolfpack or it could be an additional sets that accompany the main castle sets. My point is that castle/medieval themes are still and will remain popular in pop culture. However, Lego simply prefer easier route by doing lisenced themes that guarentee certain number of sales. Space theme being replaced by SW, castle being replaced by Harry Potter and LOTR/Hobbit, traditional Piretes replaced by pirates of Carriebean, Lone ranger instead of WWW, Indiana Jones instead of adventure/islamders. They simply cater to movie fans. I like the Forestman & Rogue minifigs from series 1 & 16. A nice nods & upgrade of the old forestman & wolfpack. Now if only we'll get more in future.

Tons of video games still and will always have medieval & fantasy elements. Games like Warcraft and Diablo are another example. Warrior wearing armor plate, shield and melee weapons, blacksmith, castle, fortress, wizard, ... Who the fck would actually say kids today aint into these kind of themes? Zelda BOTW sold over 20 million units and its has big medieval & castle/kingdom elements. Yet, Lego never think of reviving Forestman theme. Now if Lego only aim for 3-8 year old kids then yeah, they might prefer something like chima & ninjago.