Future Castle Sets?

[valon]

45 minutes ago, Lego David said:

I wouldn't say the kids market is too crowded. The only original action-adventure theme we currently have is Ninjago (I am not counting Monkie Kid, because it was made exclusively for China). I think there is still room for at least one new original theme to run alongside Ninjago right now. 

i agree although monkey king is really cool it is more china. I hope that lego build a castle theme fantasy or no

[MAB]

2 hours ago, Lego David said:

 

This is the only Elves set I would personally classify as a vehicle. This Steampunk-style Airship.

There are others with substantial vehicles such as:

and others with smaller vehicles.

 

 

51 minutes ago, Lego David said:

(I am not counting Monkie Kid, because it was made exclusively for China).

It wasn't, it is sold worldwide.

 

 

[valon]

1 minute ago, MAB said:

There are others with substantial vehicles such as:

and others with smaller vehicles.

 

 

elves is cool, things like that would be epic as a castle theme, elves would be  better with normal figures, the only thing i do not like is that

[MAB]

I think the use of minidolls in Elves was fine. The theme used Friends-like parts, from minidolls to horses and animals to Dragons' heads. They are all the more rounded, somewhat cutesy type designs. Of course, it would have been nice to get minifigure versions of the characters to use body parts with other themes but for use with a self-contained theme, I think it was the right choice.

[valon]

11 minutes ago, MAB said:

I think the use of minidolls in Elves was fine. The theme used Friends-like parts, from minidolls to horses and animals to Dragons' heads. They are all the more rounded, somewhat cutesy type designs. Of course, it would have been nice to get minifigure versions of the characters to use body parts with other themes but for use with a self-contained theme, I think it was the right choice.

i think the those minifigures are useless, but i like the sets

[Lego David]

2 hours ago, MAB said:

There are others with substantial vehicles such as:

Those aren't what I would traditionally classify as vehicles. In my view, "vehicles" are the more modern, Sci-Fi stuff like Bikes, Mechs, Jets, and Cars we get in themes like Ninjago or Monkie Kid. Those Elves sets you showed don't fall into that category at all.

3 hours ago, MAB said:

It wasn't, it is sold worldwide.

Monkie Kid was made specifically for China, and originally it wasn't even supposed to release worldwide at all. The reason it got a worldwide release in LEGO stores was because of the commitment not to do anymore regional exclusive sets after the Chinese New Year controversy. 

 

[MAB]

2 minutes ago, Lego David said:

Those aren't what I would traditionally classify as vehicles. In my view, "vehicles" are the more modern, Sci-Fi stuff like Bikes, Mechs, Jets, and Cars we get in themes like Ninjago or Monkie Kid. Those Elves sets you showed don't fall into that category at all.

Which is a problem when people use different definitions. To me, large builds that are designed to carry people are vehicles. They don't have to be sci-fi.

[Poco Lypso]

7 minutes ago, MAB said:

Which is a problem when people use different definitions. To me, large builds that are designed to carry people are vehicles. They don't have to be sci-fi.

they are usually associated with wheels and engines

 

 

[MAB]

19 minutes ago, Poco Lypso said:

they are usually associated with wheels and engines

Not always, vehicles are (inaminate) things that carry people or items, hence ruling out dragons. Especially if an airship is a vehicle, then why not boats or carts with four wheels.

[Roebuck]

Looks like the next Harry Potter D2C is a 250$ Chess set, so maybe some useful parts for Castle like horses

[gedren_y]

Overthinking the vehicle thing. When it comes to Lego, it's all about the type of play.

The Harry Potter set seems to be Wizard's Chess scene from the movie. Lots of large figure parts, and collapsible chess piece builds.

[Robert8]

11 minutes ago, Roebuck said:

Looks like the next Harry Potter D2C is a 250$ Chess set, so maybe some useful parts for Castle like horses

I imagine the knights might reuse the horse "costume" from Series 18, because actual horses wouldnt fit (assuming it will be around the same size of the Kingdoms chess)

[MAB]

8 minutes ago, Robert8 said:

I imagine the knights might reuse the horse "costume" from Series 18, because actual horses wouldnt fit (assuming it will be around the same size of the Kingdoms chess)

If it is a traditional chess set, and not a scene, then I'd expect it to be substantially bigger than the Kingdoms set as that was just £40 / $50 RRP. This one is rumoured to be 5x the price. For that price, I'd expect it to be closer to the Fantasy Era Giant Chess set (852293), which did have horses.

[Poco Lypso]

37 minutes ago, Roebuck said:

Looks like the next Harry Potter D2C is a 250$ Chess set, so maybe some useful parts for Castle like horses

lol - this post made smile :)

 

[Aanchir]

On 3/21/2021 at 3:38 AM, Lego David said:

Elves was more of an exception, because it was an Action-Adventure theme aimed a girls. I assume vehicles don't appeal to girls as much as they do to boys, so I am guessing that was the reason why they made Elves be almost entirely location-based (there was only one set in that line that could be considered a vehicle).

Fair point about boy-oriented themes often being more vehicle-focused, although Elves actually did have several vehicle sets: for instance, 41073, 41077, 41181, 41184, 41186, and 41195 (and that's not counting the various sets that include a small vehicle as a secondary build).

Moreover, I feel like brick-built animal "steeds" like dragons perform a role more or less analogous to vehicle sets — not only in the Elves theme, but also in more boy-targeted themes like Ninjago or Bionicle. And the Elves theme had a LOT of those! It's not hard to imagine a mythology-oriented theme having a similar emphasis on brick-built fantasy creatures.

EDIT: Just saw the clarification that you're using your own made-up definition of "vehicle", so I guess you can disregard this part of my comment.

10 hours ago, Lego David said:

Yes, mostly vehicle-based playthemes have been a thing long before Ninjago came to the scene, but at that time, vehicles weren't the only focus, and the vehicles weren't exactly in the same style as what we get today. Ninjago introduced a trend of giving the good guys an entire arsenal of four specific types of vehicles: Bikes, Mechs, Jets, and Cars. Those vehicles mostly stay the same throughout the theme's run, with the only thing that changes usually being only the villains. That trend continued with Chima, Nexo Knights, Monkie Kid, and it has even made its way into licensed themes like DC and Marvel Superheroes (most of the time, those vehicles are entirely LEGO's fabrication and appear nowhere in the source matrial). I suspect this trend may have contributed more or less to the decline in more traditional non-vehicle based themes such as Castle. 

I can't really agree with this generalization at all.

• For one thing, the Ninjago theme includes WAY more categories of vehicles than those four you mention, among good guys and bad guys alike: for example, boats, submarines, helicopters, hovercrafts, mobile command centers, airships, and tanks.
   
• The types of Ninjago vehicles can also vary a lot more much between story arcs than you give them credit for. In the "Hunted" sets, for instance, the Ninja had hardly ANY vehicles, and the only enemy vehicles were a mobile command center and a helicopter. The bad guys exclusively used bikes in the "Sons of Garmadon" sets, flying vehicles in the "Skybound" sets, and boats in "The Island" sets. The bad guys in the "Secrets of the Forbidden Spinjitzu" sets had no vehicles at all. And in the theme's upcoming underwater story arc, the ninja vehicles are primarily submarines, plus an undersea mech and a car that transforms into a submarine.
   
• Themes like Nexo Knights and Legends of Chima also don't adhere anywhere near as neatly at all to this "car, bike, mech, jet" approach as you make it sound. It wasn't until the Nexo Knights theme's fourth wave that it got even a single set resembling a car (Aaron's Rock Climber). And a lot of the other main "good guy" vehicles over the theme's three-year run like the Fortrex, Clay's Rumble Blade, Axl's Tower Carrier, Axl's Rumble Maker, Lance's Hover Jouster, and Axl's Rolling Arsenal are a considerable departure ANY of those "Ninjago-style vehicle" categories that you've defined.
   
• A lot of the sorts of "Ninjago-style vehicles" you refer to in themes like Super Heroes don't really have any more in common with Ninjago vehicles than they do with ones from themes like Alpha Team, Agents, and World Racers (or for that matter, with the old-school LEGO Batman sets). Certainly nothing about them is a new trend, although the number of sets like those tends to fluctuate depending on the number of movie-based superhero sets in any given year.

You may not have been around on Eurobricks back in the early 2010s, but I was, and I can assure you that many fans of "traditional non-vehicle based" themes criticized Atlantis, Ninjago, Dino, and Monster Fighters for each being the latest in a long line of action themes with an excessive emphasis on cartoonish, gimmicky, oversized, and "unnecessary" vehicles — and threatening the future of "traditional, non-vehicle based themes". Many folks here also disparagingly compared them to Time Cruisers, an even OLDER theme with a heavy emphasis on vehicles.

Even though themes like Castle and Pirates were still active or recently active back then, there was still a widespread perception among AFOLs that LEGO's continued focus on horrible new "action themes" was threatening to displace theme. In this topic alone, there are numerous examples of Pirates fans talking disparagingly about themes like Agents, Power Miners, Atlantis, and Space Police 3 and acting like it was some kind of gross indignity for LEGO to keep investing in those sorts of themes instead of putting that investment towards themes like Pirates, and proof that LEGO had lost their way or abandoned their core values.

All in all, I don't see any reason to act like there's any overwhelming difference between these recent "action themes" and the many vehicle-heavy "action themes" before them. Certainly they were every bit as controversial among fans of "traditional" themes as themes like Ninjago, Legends of Chima, Hidden Side, and Monkie Kid have been in the years since.

3 hours ago, Robert8 said:

I imagine the knights might reuse the horse "costume" from Series 18, because actual horses wouldnt fit (assuming it will be around the same size of the Kingdoms chess)

Oh wow, I never actually considered how useful that sort of figure could be for chess sets!

Edited March 22, 2021 by Aanchir

[zoth33]

13 hours ago, Lego David said:

I wouldn't say the kids market is too crowded. The only original action-adventure theme we currently have is Ninjago (I am not counting Monkie Kid, because it was made exclusively for China). I think there is still room for at least one new original theme to run alongside Ninjago right now. 

How can you not count it as it's available to everyone.  It doesn't matter if it wasn't supposed to be or not.  It's available.  You can't discount it to fit your narrative.  

[Lego David]

10 hours ago, Aanchir said:

You may not have been around on Eurobricks back in the early 2010s, but I was, and I can assure you that many fans of "traditional non-vehicle based" themes criticized Atlantis, Ninjago, Dino, and Monster Fighters for each being the latest in a long line of action themes with an excessive emphasis on cartoonish, gimmicky, oversized, and "unnecessary" vehicles — and threatening the future of "traditional, non-vehicle based themes". Many folks here also disparagingly compared them to Time Cruisers, an even OLDER theme with a heavy emphasis on vehicles.

Even though themes like Castle and Pirates were still active or recently active back then, there was still a widespread perception among AFOLs that LEGO's continued focus on horrible new "action themes" was threatening to displace theme. In this topic alone, there are numerous examples of Pirates fans talking disparagingly about themes like Agents, Power Miners, Atlantis, and Space Police 3 and acting like it was some kind of gross indignity for LEGO to keep investing in those sorts of themes instead of putting that investment towards themes like Pirates, and proof that LEGO had lost their way or abandoned their core values.

All in all, I don't see any reason to act like there's any overwhelming difference between these recent "action themes" and the many vehicle-heavy "action themes" before them. Certainly they were every bit as controversial among fans of "traditional" themes as themes like Ninjago, Legends of Chima, Hidden Side, and Monkie Kid have been in the years since.

I certainly wouldn't go as far as those people did (seriously, how those people hated those themes so much during a time when "traditional" themes were still active is beyond me) but love them or hate them, you have to admit that the amount of vehicle-based sets has increased significantly since Ninjago came to the scene. For instance, just look at the amount of vehicle based sets (from my generalization) that have appeared last year alone:

You can clearly start to see a pattern here. Some of those vehicles are have more interesting designs than others, but they still feel like they convey the exact same general idea. That makes them feel quite samey, and repetitive. 

I don't have anything against LEGO vehicle sets as a concept, but the fact we're getting so many of them nowdays really bothers me personally. 

Edited March 23, 2021 by Lego David

[MAB]

What is the pattern, that if you want to see something then by careful selection you can see it?

 

You could include sets from the past year from Ninjago, Monkie Kid, Superheroes, other licenses and modern themes that are not spaceship, motorbike or mech based, such as these. I can see the pattern that location based play is alive and well across many themes, even avoiding themes such as City and Friends where locations are common.

 

 

[Poco Lypso]

5 hours ago, MAB said:

What is the pattern, that if you want to see something then by careful selection you can see it?

 

You could include sets from the past year from Ninjago, Monkie Kid, Superheroes, other licenses and modern themes that are not spaceship, motorbike or mech based, such as these. I can see the pattern that location based play is alive and well across many themes, even avoiding themes such as City and Friends where locations are common.

 

 

i dont really see the point here. to make a point you should have just used the same themes @Lego David used. I mean why not even include lego architecture

Edited March 23, 2021 by Poco Lypso

[Alexandrina]

51 minutes ago, Poco Lypso said:

i dont really see the point here. to make a point you should have just used the same themes @Lego David used

The point is that Lego are not producing vehicle-based themes at the expense of other themes - as evidenced by the sheer amount of location-based sets.

[Poco Lypso]

2 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

The point is that Lego are not producing vehicle-based themes at the expense of other themes - as evidenced by the sheer amount of location-based sets.

so location-based sets prove what exactly?

[MAB]

57 minutes ago, Poco Lypso said:

i dont really see the point here. to make a point you should have just used the same themes @Lego David used. I mean why not even include lego architecture

I don't really see your point. I did use Superheroes, Monkie Kid and Ninjago, the themes he used plus some other action / play themes. The point is, if you want to prove something then a careful selection of sets to illustrate your point makes it look like your proof is real, even when in reality it is not and just down to a heavily biased selection. Of course if you only select sets with spaceships, mechs and bikes then there appears to be a majority of sets with spaceships, mechs and bikes. 

1 minute ago, Poco Lypso said:

so location-based sets prove what exactly?

That not everything is spaceships, mechs and bikes. That not everything is the same. That there is variation. But only if you don't discount the things that don't fit with a view that everything is the same these days.

[Poco Lypso]

8 minutes ago, MAB said:

I don't really see your point. I did use Superheroes, Monkie Kid and Ninjago, the themes he used plus some other action / play themes. The point is, if you want to prove something then a careful selection of sets to illustrate your point makes it look like your proof is real, even when in reality it is not and just down to a heavily biased selection. Of course if you only select sets with spaceships, mechs and bikes then there appears to be a majority of sets with spaceships, mechs and bikes. 

tbh - i think you are doing exacly what you are accusing the other side of, lol

I

i just went to lego shop

monkie kid

yes, they have that location based island set

and it is followed by about 9 - 10 vehicle/mecha based sets

 

Edited March 23, 2021 by Poco Lypso

[MAB]

1 hour ago, Poco Lypso said:

tbh - i think you are doing exacly what you are accusing the other side of, lol

 

Yes, exactly. If you ignore things that don't fit a perceived pattern then you make the perceived pattern stronger.

[Poco Lypso]

2 minutes ago, MAB said:

Yes, exactly. If you ignore things that don't fit a perceived pattern then you make the perceived pattern stronger.

Nobody ever argued vehicle based sets can't have location-sets. I didnt really study my way into the topic, but even for me its obvious there is a tendency towards vehicle-based themes. Not really sure if we should even call them this way but unless its licensed theme, like harry potter or minecraft (both original IPs arent vehicle based or focused on vehicles) there is a high likelihood the next lego original IP big bang theme will be vehicle based and follow the same patterns, mecha, bike, airjet etc. 

On the other hand, lego has increased their revenue last year. That means they knew exactly what the trends are and were able to capitalize on the opportunity. And there is a high likelihood their sales wouldnt have been that great if they had just stuck with castle and pirates for all those years :)