jodawill

I'm really impressed with this. I don't think I'd have the patience to build the entire thing like this. This obviously took a lot of hard work. I'm jealous of your cypress tree. I've never owned one before. I wish I could have a whole forest of those, just like the old catalog photos from the '80s.

It's an interesting theme. I'm not very interested in fantasy, but I think that theme has a lot of potential. It reminds me a lot of the movie Willow. I wonder if the theme was inspired by it. I've always loved that movie. The bat lord reminds me of the evil knight with the skull face in that movie. If Lego brought back Fright Knights and really did it justice, I think I would buy it. I would like to see it focus on the bat lord - not Willa. Witches don't appeal to me at all, but the bat lord concept just sends chills down my spine thinking about it. And, of course, they would need to remove all elements of flying contraptions. An updated dragon in the style of the original would be cool, but not if it's being used to pull something. Wow. Honestly, that sounds like a horrible experience for the customers. The Lego store is an hour drive for me. I would be really upset if I took the day off from work (as I was considering) to drive down there when they open, just to not be able to take one home. I'm glad you shared this! I really wanted to drive down and pick it up myself because I've basically been waiting for this my entire life - the opportunity to buy a great castle brand new in the store. Ordering online kind of cheapens the experience a bit. But I won't risk not getting one. I'll order it day one at midnight.

Does Lego make any effort to ensure sets are available on their official release date, especially stores? Is it really possible the set will be unavailable if I'm there when the store opens on release day?

I really regret now not buying the tournament knight with the raven shield. It's over $20 now! I remember when that came out, I was thinking it looked great, but it didn't go well with any of my other castle minifigures. It would probably look fantastic as a third faction in 10305. I should at least buy one for a tournament setup. But I wish I had bought a couple dozen when they were in stores. Then again, the outfit doesn't really fit a soldier, so I wouldn't have anyone to carry those raven shields. I would totally go for a wave of raven knight sets!

I actually largely agree about Kingdoms being a return to form. I don't like the castle, but there are a lot of strong sets in that wave. I think those are definitely the best castle sets since the mid '90s, if not earlier.

I never had any castles when I was a kid either. I based my decision just off the photos and YouTube reviews I've watched. Actually, to this day, I've never owned a castle. 10305 will be my first. Black Monarch's Ghost was my first set, then I got a couple other small sets - 1712 Crossbow Cart and 6028 Treasure Cart. Those are the only castle sets I ever had as a kid because we just couldn't afford much. As an adult, I've picked up some more: most of the Dragon Knights sets, Forestmen's Crossing, 1877 Crusader's Cart, 7955 Wizard, 6024 Bandit Ambush, 6007 Bat Lord, and 7188 King's Carriage Ambush. No castles at all. None of the castles they've made in the past 30 years have appealed to me, and I just haven't been able to convince myself yet to drop the money down on Black Knight's Castle. I think I will after 10305 is discontinued. The results of this pull are interesting. So far, about 2/3 of the voters think it's been more than 25 years since Lego has released a great castle. It seems Lego believes that people just don't want to buy castles anymore. Is it possible that they're wrong, and the problem is that they just haven't produced any castles worth buying in over 25 years? I hope 10305 sells so many copies, it forces TLG's hand into producing more.

I'm sure most of us would disagree about Nexo Knights, but it may be good news that Lego considers Nexo Knights to be an official castle theme. That might mean that they never actually gave up on castle. Maybe Nexo Knights was an experiment that simply replaced the latest wave of castle sets, and they'll go back to traditional castle soon. (It's already been long enough since Nexo Knights that we could see another castle wave next year.) If they do end up releasing a new wave of castle sets, I would imagine them to be more traditional, a return to form as it were, just like the 2015 pirates theme brought back the blue coat soldiers. That's really impressive. How much time did you spend on that?

Right. It forms a 16x32 baseplate. If you want to make a full castle layout with this set, it's convenient because you can display it either opened or closed in the same spot. It just takes the space of half a (full size, 32x32) baseplate either way. You just have to put the hinge at the back center corners of the two baseplates.

I used two of these. It folds into a half sized baseplate either way.

Welcome! This is an interesting topic to choose for your first post. I'd love to hear how you got into Lego and what you've been building. I've got to say, you don't need a huge assortment of bricks to build custom stuff. I used to, and I downsized my collection by about 95% several years ago because it was just too overwhelming. I was spending too much time sorting and it took up too much space. I built all of my favorite sets from the '80s and '90s, then I sold almost everything else. I regret selling some parts of it, like my 2015 blue coat soldiers, but in general, I'm happy with the result. I divided the sets by theme so I could open up a single tub of parts that go together, and that's how I've been building the past few years - from one tub at a time. Whatever you're interested in building, just get a few copies of a set that has a lot of the parts you need, then have fun building some small stuff from what you have. If you like the result, take pictures, then take it apart and start a new project. That's what I do. It's a lot of fun, and it doesn't cost a fortune. Some people will definitely expand this The Office set. But you won't be able to build much from the parts in this set. Personally, I prefer the kind of set that has enough parts that will allow me to build a large variety of things, and buying multiple copies will allow me to build larger things. If you buy 10 castles, you get 10 times the number of soldiers, and you can build a castle that's 10 times larger, or build something smaller that has 10 times the number of pieces that the original set didn't include many of. The same goes for spaceships, western sets, etc. This The Office set doesn't really lend itself to building alternative things with. It's not really representative of what Lego can do, and inasmuch, I wouldn't recommend it as someone's gateway to Lego. (Sure, someone could prove me wrong by building something cool out of the parts, but it's not really the best parts selection for general building in my opinion.) That's just my opinion, though, and as you can see, not everyone here agrees.

That's easy to fix. I built mine on top of two 16x16 baseplates. My only complaint is that I can't go buy 50 of these at $25 each.

Normally, I would agree with you. Consider a set like the UCS Millennium Falcon (an extreme example, of course). Regardless of the license, the design is just absolutely phenomenal. It's not a set I would buy, but I really appreciate the skill that went into the design. That set absolutely is a piece of art. This The Office set is pretty much the lowest amount of effort that could ever go into a Lego set of its size. Granted, that's mainly just the nature of the subject matter. The build is very simple, but moreover, the design is just obvious. If you approach a developer and say, "I need you to write a Python script that spits out the squares of the numbers 1-100," the answer is just obvious. It requires a base level skill to accomplish the task, but it doesn't involve any creativity. Likewise, there's a base level of skill required to design the minifigure prints and so forth, but the design is so obvious, it doesn't really involve much creativity. I feel like I'm straying from the topic of this conversation though.

If he was really pushed out, that explains a lot. As a kid, I viewed the quality of Lego sets dropping dramatically around that time. I still loved Lego, but I stopped paying attention to new sets around 2001 because I just didn't think the new ones were any good. He was one of the best designers they ever had, no doubt about it. Imagine firing the guy who designed Eldorado Fortress. Unbelievable

True, people have different opinions on what the "essence" of Lego is. I know a guy who only builds with 2x4 bricks. To him, that's the "essence" of Lego, although doesn't oppose his views on people as much as I am. To me, Lego is all about creativity. It shouldn't bother me so much that sets like this exist. I hate Funko Pop dolls, but I can just ignore the fact they exist, and that doesn't make me enjoy my favorite movies and shows any less. I think what really bothers me is how it's been SO long since Lego has made products for people like me. Lego has put so much emphasis on these licensed sets, all of the historical themes have been on the back burner for many years. The 90th anniversary sets are amazing, but they're just one off things, whereas we used to regularly get new waves of pirates and castle. There haven't been any affordable sets in pirates since 2015, and 2013 for castle. I actually gave up on Lego altogether and switched to Playmobil for several years because they just don't make products that appeal to me anymore. The new castle is fantastic, and I'm going to buy as many of them as I can because once they're gone, who knows how long I'll have to wait for new parts. Honestly, whoever submitted that idea is really fortunate. They're going to make a killing. Probably not enough to retire off of, but they might make over $100k. Good for them.

You know, I completely forgot about the Creator castle because it wasn't listed under Castle on Brickset. It looks like I can only add it to the bottom of the list now. Should I add it? Does it count as proper Castle?

There's a bit of irony about my complaining about this The Office set. It's probably going to be one of the best selling sets of all time. The announcement hit the front page of Reddit today. People are all over this. I'm sure my view is controversial considering how well received this set is by the general public. But I stand by my remarks. This set is the antithesis of what I believe the essence of Lego is. A lot of people have compared it to those Funko Pop dolls, and I think that's a great analogy.

Fired? Do you have a source for that? What happened? Edit: According to this article, he retired in 1999.

I've always loved the castle theme, but I remember even as a kid looking at the big castles thinking they look very disappointing. My first set was Black Monarch's Ghost. I was four years old, and my mom bought it on clearance. So I completely missed even seeing advertisements for Black Knight's Castle back then (except there was probably a mini catalog in my set). I don't like the 2010 castle. The modular design is cool. It hearkens back to the old Black Knights sets. But I'm not a fan of the color scheme and all the frilly red parts, and I don't like the way the lion knights look in that wave. It only has one horse and the design of the barding isn't my favorite. There are no skeletons and no ghosts. The portcullis and the drawbridge are nice features. I just don't think it looks very good. At the very best it's just "ok." It's pretty bland. I think there are other castles even after 1992 that look better than it. But that's just my personal opinion.

Several pages back, we had a discussion about how long it's been since Lego released a "truly great" castle, and someone said it was worthy of a separate thread. Here's the poll for anyone interested in participating.

I think most of us agree that 10305 is one of the greatest Lego castles of all time, if not the best. But how long do you think it's been since Lego has made a truly great castle? Not the greatest castle of all time, and not one that was simply ok. When's the last time they made a castle that you think is truly a great set? Defining what constitutes a castle might be a little ambiguous. For this poll, I restricted the options to non-licensed sets where the characters are humans. I'm only including flagship sets here, not the smaller sets. Next, what do you think is the greatest castle of all time?

I would think that someone like that would be reading this thread right now. STEVE, CAN YOU HEAR ME?

I can't recall if I've seen this site before, but I absolutely adore the design of his blog. It really takes me back to the early 2000s when I first discovered the internet, and I love the focus on classic Lego sets. Too bad some of the images and videos are no longer available. Maybe archive.org has the images.

@Victor Imaginator, are you doing ok?

Oh man. You cannot trust this person! If it were me, I wouldn't be upset about a house cleaner destroying a MOC by accident. These things just happen. Lying about it and throwing parts in the trash is completely unacceptable. That's a serious breach of trust. In some scenarios, I might give an employee another chance. Considering this person is coming into your home, I would fire her immediately. I don't think you're overreacting at all. This is your home! If this woman works for a cleaning company, you should tell them too. They might give her another chance, but I wouldn't.

I don't think it's about keeping people out. To me, it's about what kind of behavior Lego is promoting. There will be some people who buy this The Office set to make their own skits and so forth. That's awesome! (I would argue they could have done the same thing without this set in this instance though.) It's about mistaking references for creativity. It's not uniquely a Lego problem. It's a big thing in entertainment these days. Sitting back and thinking, "Ha, yes! I understood that reference!" or "Yes, this is indeed a character I enjoyed!" isn't a real substitute for original entertainment or creativity. If the highlight of your season finale to your show is, "Old character people feel nostalgic for makes a minor appearance," you're not being creative. Lego is selling this kind of stuff because they know thousands of people will see it and blow air out their nose thinking, "Yes, this is the reference I identify with!" as they buy the set. There was absolutely no creativity involved in this set. The original submitter wasn't creative, the designer who turned into a product wasn't creative, and the end consumer isn't being creative or even being entertained by original material. It's just consumerism at its finest. Lego can do whatever they want. It's their company. But personally, I think they're doing everyone a disservice when they emphasize mindless consumerism over creativity (or even simply entertainment).