Wolfpack

This! We are exluded and ignored and then we cannot even talk about it in the threads intended for the topic. And when we say we are not interested in licenced stuff, they try to present it as if we hate other fans and designers. We who get nothing from lego are instructed to forcibly like, to pretend with other themes and to rebuild licenced sets, but those who get dozens of licenced themes never get the same treatment, god forbid they would get a theme or two less, because they cannot pretend and imagine and use rebricable or whatever, no they direly need that Fortnite, Zelda, Harry Potter, Lord of the rings or whatever and if lego would not make all of them that means we hate them and they are not allowed to exist.

Yes, they have. The ideas, imagination and stories of J.K Rowling and George Lucas.

Well written. This is the exact impression I got from this debate. We explained numerous times what we like and why we like it and still they are trying to force us to instead accept some different thing we do not like. Yes that is exactly what I want and what I like! I want to see what they will come up with. I want to see the marketing, the advertising. I want to see the name of the theme, I want to see the logo, I want to see the designs, the colour scheme and of course I want to see what the minifigures will look like. I want to say Wow, this is such a fantastic creative idea by the design team. And yes, I think Raven Knights Castle would be different from a Kraken Knights Castle. It would certainly be more different than one XY Star Wars thing from another XY Star Wars things from a few years ago. And even if they would magically be similar, it would still be something created by "my favourite artist" and not by Marvel or Disney. I do not care for their characters, I do not care for their stories. I do no want to pay more for the licence I do not care for and I do not want to support them. If I would care I would buy movies or books. The question why I cannot make a Wolfpack boat myself is dishonest (Of course I can and I did). It is like asking Star Wars fans Why can't you use a bucket of nonlicenced grey bricks and build whatever you want? The debate is not about anyones ability to build stuff, but about what lego is offering to the kids and fans. With your logic we do not need licenced or nonlicenced or any themes at all. Lets just have lego selling only buckets of bricks and then the people use Rebricable for the things they like.

Well, I am not sure that is completely true. It is something you are constantly trying to plant us for discreditation. Me and I believe a lot of other fans prefer original sets to remakes. But there are no new sets. There are no sets for Raven Knights, no sets for Kraken Knights, no sets for Serpent Knights, no sets for Griffin knights... And even the old themes, it is not like everyhing was already done. Wolfpack for instance had three sets, a tower, a carriage and a rock, while Star Wars had what 1000 sets? Three hundred times more. If Star Wars fans can get 57 xy-fighters, surely we can get I do not know one boat? We would love new non-licenced themes, but there are no new themes. No roman theme, no ancient greek theme, no Egypt theme, no Europa theme etc. Or something else completely, you know, surprise us like with Vikings or Adventurers back in the day. They will make another 1000 Star Wars sets before another historic theme.

Yeah I was thinking about the themes in the eighties or nineties. If something was hinted at, it was usually not explained why it is like that. Why is a Lion Knight a prisoner in the Forestman tower? What happened? On one poster or in one catalogue two factions could be allies and on another foes. It stayed open and in the next wave the roles could change. Black Falcons used to fight Lion Knights, but in the last set they came as friends. Now the Dragon knights are coming with a Sea Serpent. Are they bad? I would not say so, but you can and that is the beauty of it. But still, are the Dragon knights in 2010 inherently evil? There is no official canon or movie or something that says so and we can have a constructive debate about it on the forum. Yeah, they are raiding the village, but just with a little reposition of figures the story can change fundamentally. The Dragon knights could be trading or helping the villagers or even protecting the village against the "evil" red knights wanting to rise the tax. Or maybe this village was their ancestral land taken away with a fraud. In the old days the set would be named just Mill VIllage and such scenarios would be presented on the back of the box or in the Idea book and kids would wonder what can happen or why did it happen. In the nonlicenced theme set image I always saw only one of the possible depictions of what is going on. Usually that is the depiction that sells the best and if I remember correctly the research around that time showed that is some type of action or conflict, that is why the Knight in 1980s blacksmith is just visiting and the 2010 Knight is attacking the blacksmith. But that is not the only possible depiction. At least it used not to be. And even when something was completely clear in all pictures and in all descriptions, it was because lego designers made it so to fit the universe which is still hundred times better than Disney, Spielberg, J.K. Rowling or whoever deciding it.

SpacePolice89, exactly that! I could not have written it better myself. Classic themes have a very loose story and most of the characters are not named or defined. Anyone can choose what is happening, who is good, who is bad, it is even possible noone is, it is all about imagination. For instance Black Monarch Castle. Who is he? Why is the castle named after him? What is his goal? Who is he allied with? This is what I like, not some scene and characters from the movie or a book. And yes, of course we can get a licenced set and rebuild it and imagine it is something else, but I find this "argument" very insincere and problematic. It basically goes against the actual lego intentions and in many ways also against legal contracts (BDP palette etc). Firtsly, licenced sets are on average more expensive than normal sets, so even if that would be possible it would be much more expensive and therefore harder to do. Secondly the intention of lego is to build those models and have them displayed, that is why they put the stupid coloured bricks inside, if I remembered correctly they even said it in one interview, so you cannot make anything else or it is so much harder. They do not put those bricks on PAB and as I said also not in BDP palette. There are no alterante models on licenced sets and I also think the licences were (one of) the reason(s) they removed them. So as I said I find these arguments insincere. It is like I would say to Star Wars fans: You can just buy a space set and imagine it is the [insert Star Wars vehicle name]. What is the problem? That seems like a fairly trivial hurdle for the developed adult mind. But i would not say so because I understand how modern world works. That is actually not true. Fantasy and Kingdoms were great themes and according to all I know and have information they also sold well. The problem with Castle 2013 was that it was crap. It offered nothing special and it was boring. They tried to do make the sets cheaper and were cutting corners left and right (just compare the parts and moulds to mentioned predesessor themes). And as I already said it is not about Castle or Pirates. It is about making imaginative, creative and diverse themes. Lego used to make new themes that lasted for a year or two and than something new again. It was a toy that was educational, that had no modern weapons, very limited conflict and that encouraged alternate builds and creativity. It is no more that. And it is not about me playing with it. Of course I can buy pieces and build whatever I want. It is about millions of kids, it is about buying gifts and the society we want to live in.

I think that I clarified everything more than adequatly and who actually wanted to undertand my opinion understands it by now. The only problem was that I did not specify that I am interested in minifigure themes only, which I then emphesized right waway. If anyone still has any concerns it is probably dishonesty on their part. You can cherrypick, turn words around, relativise etc. but (after the final retirement od Dramzzz) the ratio stays 2 to 20 or 3 to 19 or something similar. I do not like it, others like and that is it.

So you admit it would make no sense from the corporate view. :) The benefit would probably be less marketing, less budget, less IP recognition etc. especially in the long term, so more of everything for other themes. In modern world labels are extremly important.

This! It is all about worldbuilding. I want to see what the designers can come up with. Ideas, imaganation, stories. With licenced themes everything already exist outside of lego. I want things inside of lego universe, something people at lego based only on a vague idea or even imagined from scratch. Like Krentz and others always did. Vikings is a great example. Lets make vikings. Lets make them fight nordic bests. Fantastic. Paradisa, Time cruisers, Aquanauts, Islanders, Adventurers... excellent themes. And it is not just classic themes, which still have a lot of space to explore. Hidden side was also great and Dreamzzz was solid, though a bit too inconsistent for my taste. Basically anything except town. This was for me the best part of lego, each year with new catalogue there was excitment what did they come up with this year and there were more new themes. The best thing was when they creeated something you did not even know you would like. Licenced themes have nothing of that. If I would like Harry Potter (and in some extent I do) I would go read HP books. J. K. Rowling is not crazy to make next HP book about bricks, for instance Harry and Ron going to Lego masters. So why would we do something like that? It is just like having a favourite painter, a movie director or a writer or something. You usually like them because of original content, not becuse of rewriting or repainting foreign stuff. Difference between nonlicenced and licenced themes is like difference between art and craft.

Yes, I also believe (if I remember that catalogue correctly, do not hold me for a word) that Diving, Arctic, Ninja etc. were their own themes. That was the distribution of themes I liked. All the other questions you should direct to tlg, but if you ask me, it would probably be the marketing? MAB, I care about reality, not fantasy. I want lego to do it, not someone in his head.

Finally we are getting somewhere, those are the issues I am talking about. 1. Yes, that would certainly be a step in the right direction. It would be a huge difference if they would just make one Disney theme with combined Disney stuff. But the legal contracts are probably preventing them from doing that. As for City you are only talking about subthemes here. If they wanted to explore new directions and worlds, they should break it to different themes without the City label. 2. It will still be Ninjago though. I would be fine with "Unlicensed theme that you don't want as it is for modern kids" 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc. even if I personaly would not like them. That was my argument all along, I have no problem with "modernity". It would change the ratio for the better. 3. Yes, it would be. I very rarely spent money on BDP, but I would spend some on regular sets (with new parts) like LKC. So with only BDP and no original themes people like me spend nothing. But I understand that some people would buy anything just that it is vaguely related to castle or pirates, even if there are no instructions or new parts. So for those people they just outsource the process to BDP to reduce the costs. icm, a theme is what lego labels as such. The themes are listed in a table of contents. Each theme has its own definition. This is definition for City: Explore the bustling world of LEGO® City, where there’s lots to do! Visit fun town centre destinations, play exciting emergency services stories and discover new frontiers, including the ocean and space. Build cool vehicles, take a ride on the train or put on exciting arena stunt shows.

You can make a new list for yourself, if you still have some issues with mine. Just list licenced and non-licenced minifigure themes after the retirement of Dreamzzz in a few months. I am pretty sure the ratio will be similar. And why haven't you quoted the whole post? I explained I would be more then happy with only one or two sets per year for Western, Castle, Pirates etc. It is not about the size of a theme. I would be even happy with completely new modern, fantasy, historic whatever non-licenced themes. I find it funny how people here are rigourously defending the huge reduction of proper non-licenced themes as something great. And yeah, people can like whatever they want. I never denied that. Surely I can also like something then? @icm Just open a lego catalogue, it is very clear what is a theme.

Yeah, I am only interested in minifigure scale. If you enjoy playing with duplo, technic, scala, belville or whatever, great, but obviosly I am allowed to discuss the aspect of lego I care about. I just went through the catalogue and wasn't paying anough attention for the themes I do not care for. However I see Wicked actually has sets with minifigs. I am not an expert for licenced themes so I do not know when the D&D, Simpsons and PotC retire, but some of them will probably continue with new sets. Even if you ignore those and Wednesday, the ratio stays cca. 2 to 20. So instead of cherrypicking wheteher it is 3 to 19 or 2 to 21, maybe we could focus on the real issue I presented. Lego system used to be 100% original, but now only cca. two of 20 or 10% of all minifigure themes remain non-licenced. I am talking about themes, because that it what i care about. I would prefer three themes I like with a few sets than a theme I do not like with 127 sets. If they made only two sets for Castle, Pirates, Adventurers, Space, Vikings and Western a year, I would not complain. For me it is not about the number of sets, but the variety of themes. If you do not like town, then there is only one theme left for you. And if you do not like Ninjago, there is also only one more left. If you do not like neither town nor Ninjago then tough luck. But on the other hand, if you do not like Star Wars and Harry Potter, you still have cca. 18 themes to choose from!

I am talking about minifigure themes. Monkie Kid and Dreamzzz already ended. So we have Non-licenced: town/city Ninjago +arguably Creator, which is not really a coherent theme Lincenced: Bluey Spidey Disney (Toy Story etc) Batman Fortnite Animal Crossing Super Mario Sonic Minecraft Wednesday Wicked Jurassic World Harry Potter One piece Marvel Star Wars Speed Champions Editions + Lord of the Rings Zelda D&D Simpsons Pirates of the Carribean ... So the ratio is something lige 2 to 20+.

Absolutely. It is all just licenced stuff nowadays. The regular themes have been demoted to DBP. Since the start of it in 2024 we got exactly zero new sets for Castle, Pirates etc. Zero in three years! There are only two non-licenced themes left! One is town and the other feels licenced anyway with all the characters and story set in stone. We came to the bizarre situation where the best theme, despite all the simplication and flaws, is Creator.

Yes it was, twice. First it was exceeded and in the end it was reduced to 148,425 (with no real explanation or logic, why would Fortuna get sold out the same second as Alchemist). Exactly because you do not know when the fans will order and what, you need clear rules and you need to follow them. It has to be clearly stated what are the exact conditions for each set to sell out. I am talking about buyers and also designers. They have tons of rules for us to follow and sign (and it is getting legally worse and more restrictive each series, just check the guidelines updates), but they can change whatever they want whenever they want it and cannot follow the basic standards of customer oriented transparency on their part. This for me is not a way how you do things. I'm just sad about those corporate practices, especially on Bricklink, where I had only positive experiences with all the buyers and sellers and everything in the last decades and I really love the basic idea of the programme and the designs and designers are fantastic. It is so great to have something where the fans are included, to see all the people creating marvelous things, to see people vote and talk about it, to follow the crowdfunding and everything, but it seems this inclusion is losing meaning with each series. I believe the original motto of the programme was Follow along or something like that, but the number of votes and selection is happening in total secrecy (which is almost worse than the first Invitational), then they removed bars, now they are just changing everything the last day... I just don't want this to became another Ideas. That is all I wanted to say, I did not want to usurp this thread with all the BDP stuff and selling analysis.

They made very bad predictions this time and their handling was really amateurish for such a large company. As someone said in the comments, "This situation cannot be explained by the official rules of crowdfunding, so it is either an IT problem or a lack of transparency." Obviously now we see it is the second. They got greedy and increased the limit to 40.000 for Fortuna (and 45.000 for Alchimist) and cca. 160.000 total and then they were sold out before they reached that number. The sets were still available according to all the numbers and even showing in green as available on the site, but were actually sold out for hours. And that on the last day of crowdfunding, when they know the sales are one of the highest, so it should not have surprised them. One second there were five thousand sets left and the next second they were sold out, I mean come on. That practice was completely misleading and deceiving and now many people are dissapointed. And that problem was something that even I as an average fan with no economic knowledge and some basic math could have predited. I much preferred the old system with progress bars, that was at least transparent. And I think transparency is key in such programs. I have no problem if they increase the numbers for more popular sets, but they should have always stayed within the agreed arrangment and determined total numbers (e.g. 150.000). It is not that hard. Just make a progress bar, make it 30.000 at first and when you are completely sure you have enough capacity, make it 35.000 etc. If it sells out, it sells out, with clear markings and transparency everyone knows at which quantity and when it will sell out. And I know anyone who wanted to buy the sets had "enough" time. It is not about that at all, it is about transparency and building customer trust.

It does not seem so. It looks like I was right. They found out that they misscalcualted and will sell more than 150k and then they started tampering with the quotas (Alchemist) and even changing the numbers of sets sold, so now the sets are impossible to buy. Either they are sold out or they made a mess with the code.

No, it cannot work this way. You have a fantastic build, but the creators of WALT and antique collection are promised up to 30k sets according to the rules. They cannot simply stop selling them before the end because of other sets. They explicitly said the reallocation can be made only for the amount of sets that are ceratain not to sell. Otherwise a top selling set could just theoretically sell 149k sets in an hour and everyone else would be screwed.

I know all that. But it seems there is no more 150k total limit. The numbers do not add up.

It looks like there is no more 150k limit on the ordered sets??? Fortuna 40k Sushi 40k Alchimist 45k WALT 20k? Antique collection min 15k? I do not understand. They said the limit is 30-50k per set and 150k total.

With 600 entries it is not easy to inspect them all, but there are some entries I like. From fantasy there are Elven Academy, Dark Village and Skeleton Fortress. Those kind of sets I would buy, but I doubt they will be chosen. Western is strong again, especially Fort Huck and there are also some smaller builds like The Barber & the Photographer. The station is also back. Pirates have The Volcano Hideout and Last Stand, beatiful builds, but I doubt the set with this size will be chosen again. Paradisa has some nice smaller builds utilising the new torso, especially Ice cream truck. Of buildings I must mention Empire Station by jazlecraz. Also some winter villagesque sets might have a chance, I like Santa workshop. I love ancient roman warship, but I wish such sets would be put in the history/period category, which is again very small and mostly dissapointing. There are some nice castles (no suprise there), but I like the most The Joust, The Training Ground and Ambush. Hydra Shipyard is also back. Maybe there is finally time for a classic space set, there are some nice submissions. My favourite would be Lunar Cargo train. In the end I most mention Polar Nomads. Not the technically best build out there, but it is like watching old Arctic sets from 2000 catalogues. I would not say the overall quality is "lesser", but the palette is limited and we already had nine series. It is not easy to impress. If they want to utilise the new torsos from the vending machine, this is probably the last chance to do it.

Anything before 1999. If I had to choose, I would say 1990 or 1991. Great town, castle, pirates sets, monorails, no burps etc. Here you can see a catalogue from 1990: https://images.brickset.com/library/Catalogues/c90uk.pdf

Licences. They changed the company fundamentally. Only two themes remain, everything else is licences. They went from worldbuilding to sculpting foreign IP, from a creation to a medium.

Those are probably parts for Outlaw Forest Den (and other BDP sets). Currently there is no evidence for a 2026 castle set yet: https://brickset.com/sets/theme-Icons/page-5 11370 is licenced set, 11371 is modular and others are smaller sets (40913 is a GWP for the first set).