MAB

That's the problem though. Adults want continuation of a theme but they want it to be different to what has gone before. It's got to be the same but different. That is unrealistic for a toy aimed at kids that are going to come into the theme at different times. A castle is pretty much a necessary requirement, and yet adults complain and won't buy it if one looks the same as a previous one. Yet they'll also complain if the colour is changed and is "wrong" or the parts used are too different. They'll complain that they bought a carriage a few years before and now there is another carriage and it is a waste of a set, yet the kid cannot buy that old set at retail any more yet they need a carriage. If a theme is to continue, repetition is necessary. AFOLs can always MOC using the parts. It is a bit hypocritical for AFOLs to complain about too much similarity in a theme they want to continue in the same style, then complain when LEGO decides to have a complete refresh (whether this is based on AFOL comments or not, and it is probably not).

What do you mean by not as well designed? For example, these two are pretty comparable. £25 vs £30 (UK RRPs), 247 vs 257 parts. They are both essentially a wall, a horse and a siege machine. The difference is one is aimed at 6-12 year olds, the other 8-14. The first is necessarily simpler, quicker to build and bigger with a simpler siege engine. It is aimed at a younger market. Does that mean it is not as well designed and thus necessarily perform poorly? Maybe in adult eyes the design is more simple, but that is the point, it should be as it is aimed at younger kids than the equivalent LOTR set. It is designed to be simpler to build, that doesn't mean the design is worse. And I see to remember all the complaints about LOTR at the time too. Too junior, just walls, the siege engine unnecessary, need more walls in the Mines of Moria, too small Weathertop, Gollum's cave not detailed enough, Rivendell too small, Black Gate only half as big as it should be, ...

Why do they need to make it fresh? It is already fresh to anyone that didn't have the previous range. This sales model works very well for City, catering for the majority of the children (boys) very well year after year after year. They do a fire-engine, they do a helicopter, they do a ship, etc and they repeat. As soon as one goes, another comes. Castle 2013 was fresh to anyone that hadn't got the sets from three years before and considering the age range of about 6-7 to about 10-11, kids into the theme will come and go on a similar time cycle. If the theme skips a carriage, what are minifigures going to travel in? King's Castle was similar to the previous one, but again it is a necessary part of the theme. And if it is similar, then the parts are similar (in style and colour), so castle builders should have enjoyed it as it gave them parts in the colours they want. We've already seen all the problems people complain about for changing the parts to space-like parts and non-traditional castle colours, yet if 2013 was a failure for AFOLs then it is an indication that AFOLs don't want parts packs in traditional colours. They put a dragon in the theme, and it had been what about 5-6 years since the previous one. So people didn't want new dragons but do want the theme to continue in a similar way. It's got to be the same, but it's got to be different. It's got to assume that everyone has everything already done, but has to be consistent with everything that has come before. Nexo Knights was very fresh - they tried something that hadn't been done before in LEGO. But it was too fresh for the adults wanting the same as before but different.

So people don't want them to go where old Castle themes went? If sets like King's Castle and Dragon Mountain are uninspiring and offer little of interest to most Castle fans, then clearly there is little reason for LEGO doing more traditional style castle sets every three years and they should intersperse traditional castle with something else. Which is probably why LEGO made Nexo Knights.

Yet tell someone Galaxy Squad is Classic Space and they will laugh at you. And if you MOC and don't have the correct mix of blue and grey with yellow windscreens, it is not Classic Space. If you have the newer style helmet, it is not Classic Space. Same with the many subthemes of Castle.

They probably wouldn't be as high if there were current traditional castle sets.

https://brickset.com/sets/list-5289/page-3 Mark Stafford designed a fair few of them.

Yes, the new ones are, I was explaining the old. I doubt it will be a colour sensor, and RFID/NFC is more likely. Very cheap colour sensors are quite bad at getting constant colour readings under different light conditions. And I doubt they would use quality sensors for such a simple task. This can be overcome by having a light underneath the train to provide relatively constant light conditions, but this is unlikely. So my money would be on RFID, cheap, reliable and low power. The bright colours will be there to help kids identify which is which. One of the nice things about the old style ones was that you could make your own easily enough by sticking a couple of layers of thick card or plastic on top of the rails.

Here is a site explaining how the old intelligent train worked: https://www.ullright.org/ullWiki/show/lego-duplo-intellitrain The "tiles" are all the same length, but the bars have different length. By varying the patterns on the bars, different signals are sent to the train. This was all mechanical, with no need for RF. (table copied from website) Left Centred Right Reverse Station Horn Repair Shop Train Wash Cargo Tunnel not used Octan Fuel not used Stop

Nexo Knights could have had brilliant sets (and in fact some were good), but if it is going up against big movie franchises then sets based on those franchises will naturally sell better. This isn't down to the product itself, it is down to the media associated with the theme. I'm also not sure it would have done better if it was done when Chima was. Chima suffered in part because it wasn't Ninjago. Again there were good sets, but Ninjago was peaking (both in product and in media) when it was stopped. Anything that replaced it was going to have a hard time following. Of course, they could have thrown loads of money at NK like they have done with Ninjago, bringing out a NK movie to compete with other themes on a more equal footing. But they have done that with an established popular theme (Ninjago) and the movie was comparitively a bit of a flop. NK was reasonably strong for the first couple of years. Not with AFOLs but with kids. I know people will say it wasn't, but if it wasn't why did LEGO continue with it for two and a half years?

Funny enough there was this vote about which Classic themes people wanted to return. Classic Castle, Classic Space, Classic Pirates, Classic Town or All. I was the only person to vote none. I don't want to see any of them return. To me Classic Castle means the old sets and building styles. I don't want yellow blocky castles (surely the most famous Classic Castle of them all), old brick built horses, rather plain looking factions. We now have many more brick styles, better printing on minifigs, a wider range of colours. I want any new sets to be using modern bricks and styles. I want traditional castle. Same with Space. I don't want just mainly blue spaceships with yellow windscreens. I way prefer what LEGO City sets look like these days compared to the old Town. They also managed to do the Disney Castle alongside NK.

Truly incredible. But poor Smaug.

The original tiles were the same length, the bar on the top was different lengths (the standard bar was always the same).

Why even go that complicated. Lots of simple toys (like the old duplo "intelli-train") work on essentially pressing buttons. The bars on the tracks pressed a button underneath the train for a particular time compared to a standard bar, and gave it different functions. Similarly code bricks in the toolo mybots worked in a similar way.

With that many you'll need a lot of bus stops, so double them up and make a train station roof instead ...

They have chosen not to make religious buildings or sets since their early church sets, but they have no (public) policy that they will never make religious buildings or sets. The rules on the ideas site apply only to ideas. However, they bend their brand values to suit themselves. For example, they break the brand value about modern warfare / vehicles when it comes to some licenses. The no religious buildings brand value when it comes to St Marks. The no national war memorials brand value when it comes to the Arc du Triomphe. The no human scale weapons brand values, with all the scaled up toy weapons such as swords that they sell around themes like Castle and Nexo Knights.

Let's face it, if they do a traditional castle theme with two factions, people will complain about always making sets based on conflict and how they actually want peasants and civilians rather than soldiers. If they do peasants, then people will complain they want more army builders. If they do a battle pack, there will be too many soldiers based on the same torso. If they don't, there won't be enough soldiers based on the same torso. If they do two factions, others will want 3 factions, or 4, or 5. If one faction appears evil and one good, then people will complain that the story line is too pre-determined. They should bring back old factions, but update the ensigns. But the new designs don't perfectly match the old, so there will be complaints and people will say this is why the theme has been a complete flop. And we need different factions. More factions. But not too many. And they should be: wolf, falcon, lion (heads), lion (full body), crown, dragon (green), dragon (black), boars, bats. But not too many of them. But all of them. Why no red dragons? Stupid decision. We should have had more. And a battle pack for each. And mixed battle packs. With different torsos in for variation and also the same torsos as I want my army to look uniform. Actually, they should be based on real historic emblems, such as cross keys, fleur de lys and the red cross of the crusaders. Sales would have been much better if they kept it realistic concerning the history and I can prove it with facts. If they do a grey traditional castle, people will want a yellow Classic Castle. If they do a classic yellow one, people will complain about juniorization of sets these days, and the bright colours, comparing it to the detail of Orthanc. If they do a large detailed castle, it will be too expensive but also not big enough at the same time. If they do a medieval market set with pigs in it, it'll be the worst decision ever made by LEGO as someone wanted goats not pigs. There won't be enough horses, or there will be too many pushing up the price of sets. And they should have gone back to the classic horse with no articulation. Or not, if they did. Or introduced a new horse with more articulation. Wait a minute, they gave us all those factions but still no forestmen? Stags. We need stags.

It does seem odd, I've never seen anything like that in any head. I've seen cracks when they are crushed through play, but they tend to crack vertically. For it to happen on replacements from the same seller too makes it sound like they are coming from a dodgy batch, that was probably dumped in bulk by lego rather than appearing in sets. Unless they have been badly stored or treated in some way. Very strange.

They don't have a strict policy and they do go there if it makes sense to. For example, St Marks in the Venice Architecture set. They do have a strict policy on religious submissions through the Ideas site though, religious submissions get rejected.

Presumably the answer is sales / financials. Only LEGO knows what the sales figures for traditional castle themes are like.

Torsos are generally at 72p for me now, whereas they were mainly 59p before Christmas, so they've gone up by 20%.

No they don't. Sometimes you have to be more creative in designing a set that matches specific requirements than if there is no specific design brief. For example, a SW spaceship needs to look like the ship it is meant to be, whereas a generic ship can be easier to build since it doesn't need to look like anything in particular. It depends what else he has seen or read. If he has read space novels or seen other space based films, he will probably play out scenarios from or based on those stories. If he hasn't then he may well feel he has no connection with the classic spaceman as he has no feeling for who the character is. When kids play, they normally play something they know. So if they are given a generic pirate, they will often act out scenarios from or based on existing pirate stories, making people walk the plank or burying treasure. That the pirate doesn't have a name makes no difference, they play based on what they have been told about pirates. Some may make up their own stories based on the stereotypical pirate behaviour that they have been taught, just like some playing with Boba Fett will create their own stories about Boba Fett based on him being a bounty hunter.

It isn't a CMF series and they aren't minifigures.

There is no need to big as big. Bluetooth receivers can be quite small and they won't need the "dome" top to catch the IR beam from many directions. The nice thing about bluetooth is that it can be completely embedded inside and thus hidden.

The characters, setting and story are only defined if you want them to be defined. But this is true of non-licensed themes too. Take a LEGO fireman. Is he a cowboy? No. Is he a doctor? No. Is he a spaceman? No. He is a fireman, and he will need to be found around a fire and fire engine. He will put out fires. Take a forest man. Is he a spaceman, a doctor, a fireman, a cowboy? No. He is a forest man. He will live in the forest and probably shoot a bow and arrow. The narrative is implied by the costume he is wearing. In some cases, licensed characters are less well defined. For example, Han Solo fits perfectly well into a (fleshie) City. Maybe remove the guns on his legs, depending on the local gun laws in your Lego town. But just because the SW stories exist, doesn't mean a kid cannot make up their own stories about what Han Solo (or a storm trooper or anyone else) gets up to, just like they can make up stories about their fireman or doctor or forest man. If people want truly generic non-licensed characters in sets where nothing is defined, then it will be back to plain torsos to remove all hints of narrative.