Deathleech

I agree with JopieK. Some stickers would go a long way, especially on the description plates. As is they look a little bare just being blank white tiles. Also I think some round white headlight pieces might look better for the snow on the tree. Other than that I think it looks great!

Lego doesn't seem opposed to doing bad guys (Joker, Wicked Witch), grunts (ACU Trooper, Cybermen), or lesser characters in their Dimension packs which gives me hope we might see Sauron, Eowyn, the Witch King, or even Gondor Soldiers. At the same time though, it seems they packed the first wave with LotR material and none of the later waves have ANYTHING (that we know of so far). None of the LotR sets have new molds either, unlike several other themes, which also doesn't give me much hope.

If there are no new sets that interest me, I generally lose interest in a hobby and will switch over to one of my many others. That means less and less time messing with my Lego sets and less time on the forums, until it is non existant. I would only sell my existing collection if I needed a large wad of cash.

I dunno if I ever would sell my entire collection off, but so far this year and possibly next look like I won't be spending much money on Lego. I originally came out of my dark ages for the LotR stuff and since that seemingly has ended it's left a big gap. There just aren't any themes that really catch my eye. I probably will pick up TBBT Ideas set, but other than that I don't think I will be buying anything anytime soon (unless the 2016 themes can REALLY impress me with pics).

Being on HBO means a big hit to ratings. HBO generally cost an extra $15 a month while ABC is included with most standard cable subscriptions. I also heard Game of Thrones was the most pirated tv show which is another huge factor not being added in. As for Knights Nexo, I am wondering how the fantasy part plays in? I see a lot of people talking about the sci-fi and historical part, but rumors said it had a huge fantasy element as well. Will the bad guys be trolls/orcs? Will we have some dwarves and elves on the good side? Will we have wizards who use magic as well as the sci fi stuff? I am anxiously awaiting pictures before I make any judgements.

While the new Ghostbusters packs look nice, it's kind of annoying that only Venkman (so far) has the updated arms with the patch. The Stay Puft Marshmellow Man is also horribly under sized, especially compared to the Terror Dog he comes with. I know Lego couldn't do him to minifig scale, or even come close, but he just looks wrong as a normal sized minifig. I mean what's the point? How do people plan on using him exactly when that's not how he appears in the film at all?

That's what I was thinking, and that was a huge flop for Lego? They should know better this time around than to give us a bunch of named knights in different color armor. Hopefully they learned their lesson last time...

Perhaps, but AFOLs generally don't have the same interest as kids. From my understanding, Chima isn't really big among the AFOL community but it's huge with kids. I'm sure if they do cartoon tie ins and what not the next "castle" theme will be a huge hit. The only problem is very few AFOLs will be interested in it. That's great for Lego, but not great for us.

Then they should do themselves a favor and release several high quality pictures of what's coming rather than wait for something that will look like crap to leak

We were having a discussion in the History forums about this very subject. One member said none of the smaller LotR projects get anywhere near 10,000 votes so there must not be interest. I pointed out most of them weren't very impressive, especially when compared to the huge Minas Tirith, Rivendell, or Lothlorien sets that ARE getting support and which all are $200+ minimum sets. A 50 dollar, 450 piece set set doesn't look that impressive when you compare it to a 200 dollar, 2,000 piece set that is more MOC like than an it is an official Lego set. As you said, it's a catch 22. The smaller projects are more likely to pass Lego's review, but due to their size they don't generally get voted for as much to reach the required 10,000 votes. The large, really impressive looking projects seem to have an easier time getting 10,000 votes, but then once they make it to review Lego has never passed one to date. Of the 14 projects currently in review, at least 8 or 9 of them are over $100 sets that have little to no chance of being made due to size alone.

Yup, and that's kind of my point. We haven't heard much in terms of concrete details other than it is a "historic theme", it will have a slight steam punk influence, and it's going to be heavily action/adventure oriented. I mean do we even know if it has proper knights at this point?

There haven't been a ton lately, but there was the AT-At you spoke of, the lightsaber hilts, the Invisible Hand ship, the Sandcrawler, and the bucket of 100 minifigures (99 Stormtroopers and 1 Darth Vader). I am sure I am missing some but those are all the ones I can remember off the top of my head.

Without collector's though, there wouldn't even be the option for most to buy an event exclusive. The only way to get said sets would be to go to the event itself and get them. Other than that there would be none selling on eBay or BrickLink or what have you.

This got me thinking... isn't Ninjago kind of historical though? I mean I know it has lots of fantasy elements and lots of action, but at it's core it's based around ninjas which are from history (no matter how crazy they may be). If we DO get another action/adventure theme with a history basis, couldn't we also get a "normal" Castle theme during it's run?

I know the possibility is there, but it doesn't seem like the pay off is. So they get thousands upon thousands of people excited for a set that reached 10,000 supporters only to have it never pass review because Lego already has the license and is making sets for it? Plus, as ShaydDeGrai points out, Lego really has no reason to ever produce an Ideas set from a pre-existing license theme they already have. It would just cut into their profits having to pay the Ideas creator a small portion of the revenue and they have the license regardless of the Ideas project. I'm sure most of the Ideas have been pitched in Lego meetings anyways. They have employees who's full time job is to work with one theme and sit around and create new sets and ideas for it all day.

The chart also seems to be wrong. It lists LotR as costing $1,303 if you buy the entire line. Wave one should have cost $373, wave 2 was $203, and Orthanc would have added another $200 to that. The total should be $776, not $1,303. I am guessing they added the Hobbit in with the LotR... but that doesn't make much sense considering they have the Hobbit listed separately on the very same chart.

Yup! Tons of pristine bricks from the past several decades waiting in their boxes ready to be used.... some day. Collectors also have a near infinite amount of cash with said MISB sets. Some of them have gone up in price pretty dramatically. So they have tons of cash flow and a huge surplus of new bricks. Seems like collectors might not go down so easy, huh?

I know, I was agreeing with you. The Lego production process takes a few years from concept idea to finished project hitting shelves so there is no way they stole the Helicarrier idea and got a massive, $350 dollar set out all in six months. Heck, in six months they probably already had their own Helicarrier in production at their factories, or pretty close to it. I suppose, but then how disappointed are those fans going to be when the same licensed projects make it to review only to fail time and time again? I am interested to see if Lego will ever release an Ideas set that is based on an existing license they have OR if they will release a set that is over $100. So far we have had Cussoo and now Ideas for a few years and neither have ever passed review despite dozens upon dozens of projects making it. If Lego has no intention of ever making these kinds of sets, or the chance is so slim they probably never will get made, why let fans get their hopes up when a project reaches 10,000 supporters?

I'm not even sure why Lego lets Ideas projects based on existing licenses go through. It just seems like it's opening a can of worms. Both of those are excellent examples. I am sure Lego had these sets in production before the Ideas were ever submitted, but to your casual fan who doesn't know the lengthy Lego creation process it could look bad like they are stealing ideas. And for what? In case they get a really good Idea submitted they never thought of? It hasn't happened yet. They should just make a new rule that no Ideas can be made of existing Lego licenses.

What's up with that face he makes when the fig is first shown off? He looked kinda ticked, like "Why didn't anyone tell me about this? My publicist is fired!". Or maybe he is just responding to the hosts cutting each other off?

Nor will a Zelda one. I'm anxious to see how the next review phase goes that has yet another Legend of Zelda Ideas set. You would think Lego would be all about getting that license, if at all possible, considering how many sets have made it to review. We are at what, 4 or so now?

Usually sellers will list something in their description if they take longer to process orders. Even if they don't explicitly state they have slower processing and shipping times, you can usually gather as much if they say it's just a side hobby or something they do for fun in their spare time. There are other things to take into consideration as others have said too like the size of the order, complexity, etc. Reading the actual feedback is a good way to find out info about the seller. I noticed a lot of people will leave positive feedback nowadays just because they don't want negative left for themselves in retaliation. They will state the seller sucked or list any problems in the feedback description. Just looking at the number of positive feedback isn't always the best way to judge a seller or buyer. Another thing to note is if you order from a different country it can dramatically increase the time it takes to get an order. Customs can hold packages up on top of the longer travel distance. I have had a few orders from Europe or Canada take nearly a month to get to me because in large part due to customs. I think it's important to keep expectations realistic and look at more than just the best price or high/positive feedback score. So often people buy the cheapest priced item they can find, but don't bother doing any research on the seller. I had one guy who took several days to invoice me and then another week and a half to send out my items. I knew full well going in this was going to happen though because he clearly stated he had a full time job, was going to school, and had a wife and kids to take care of on top of all of it so his shipping times were slow.

Yup, we have alligators, bears, camels, ostriches, chickens, frogs, snakes, horses, pigs, cows, rats, monkeys, sharks (a few kind), and husky dogs that could easily serve as wolves(?), just to name a few. Of course there are more, like elephants, but I think some like those would require new molds as the old ones are getting pretty out dated by now. I know some other companies like Playmobile use to have zoo themed sets and I used to love them as a kid. I really wish Lego would do the same. I think kids would eat them up for the animals alone, but adults could get a lot of use out of them as well. Imagine the farm part of a zoo having tons of farm animals. It would be great for people wanting more animals, people wanting to have official farms, even Lego history fans wanting to MOC something medieval and using it as a base. Lego wouldn't even need that many new molds if they were smart about it. Their existing horses could serve as Zebras, the husky dogs might work as wolves, etc. About the only new molds I think they would really need are something for lions (with a mane) or tigers, giraffes, and a new elephant one? Other than that it seems they already have most of the big zoo attractions covered.

We haven't seen or heard anything about the January 2016 Lego releases though, have we? Other than the SW Construction figs? I know there have been some other SW leaks and the next monsters CMF, but those are all due out in 2015 still. Lego seems to be really tightening up on their leaks.

I have been playing a lot of Destiny lately and I think that game would make for a decent Lego theme. Destiny is already pretty similar to Halo, which Mega Bloks unfortunately has the license for, so it would be a good alternative for Lego to snatch up. Lego already has several molds that would work for the different races in Destiny too with just some slight modifications, like the Vex using the SW Battle Droid bodies, the 4-armed Fallen possibly using Lord Garmadon piece, etc. There are tons of ships and locations that could be used as well. For instance the Sparrow would make for a great $9.99-12.99 set and include a Warlock, Hunter, or Titan guardian with a few Hive. The jump ship would be a good $24.99-29.99 set, a walker or tank around 50, drop ships around 80-100, etc. Of course there are tons of iconic locations as well that could be done.