Hey all,

Since the issue has been raised in one of those numerous pirate threads, what should be done to help castle in this forum?

-More MOCs would be great but I can only build so fast and others would have to start sharing...

-I'd be happy to do a bi-weekly/whenever-I-feel-like it set review of castle sets but I hesitated on this because I wasn't sure how it would be recieved.

-I'd also be happy to start pulling past and present greats off brickshelf (similar to current piratical practice).

-In the more distant future I could look into a competition, perhaps inviting the wider castle community?

-The main flaw, by common consent, is the lack of a dedicated quazi-insane castle fanatic to daily flood us in all things stone built and armour covered... anyone want to step up?

-The current need is just to step up volume, before something special (aka the new piratey thing) is even considered...

While I'm in a rare serious mood: One other point that would help the whole forum (and EB) would be to really raise the MOCing standard. If we can't do this with our own MOCs we can bring in BS material and review it in more depth than 'WOW' to create a learning/MOCing enviroment where constructive criticism helps builders to flourish...

You're thoughts advertised here in this thread send cash or lego to Nathan...

God Bless all,

Nathan

I am all for increased castle traffic/attention. Castle is my #1 theme for LEGO and I am willing to help in part.

Maybe we could get a sort of castle tutorial thread started. To help builders improve and learn new MOC skills.

A contest is always fun but for castle contests CC really has the standards and the better prizes. Maybe mini contests like the caption contests or even bigger contests for nothing but pure bragging rights or if Yoda is feeling generous titles for members.

I have not taken the time to build much lately myself and I am really feeling it. I have some ideas floating around that are just begging to be let loose upon the bricks. Maybe we could get people interested in a MOC a month club. That way people have time to build something (not always castle of course) and there would be plenty to talk about.

Using other peoples MOCs from bs is okay but not as good as getting it direct from the builder. We shouldn't stop highlighting good stuff though either.

Work in progress type topics might be of some value also. A builder would start something take a few pictures and ask some opinions when they get stuck or would like some feedback. Then as it progresses they could update the original topic until the unveil the final design. It worked well with a recent ship thread though the final design didn't get all that much response (even though it was much improved over the original).

I am out of ideas. I will help where I can. I will start with a MOC and try to get one done and pictured before April ends.

Long live LEGO castle *sing* , and down with its enemies! *skull*

At first I would start by doing an overall Castle Index that I would pin.

An idex like the Pirate Index or the indexes I did in the theater or city forums ;-)

That would be a great database which would help greatly to find the appropriate material !!

Hope this helped ;-)

*yoda*

At first I would start by doing an overall Castle Index that I would pin.

An idex like the Pirate Index or the indexes I did in the theater or city forums ;-)

That would be a great database which would help greatly to find the appropriate material !!

Hope this helped ;-)

*yoda*

That would probably help quite a bit. TT has already made a 'Castle Directory', but it's only got picures of the upcoming 06 sets. One more like the pirate directory would be nice, with MOCs and other castle stuff.

Certainly I am far more interested in castle than in pirates. I got out of my dark ages with the castle sets, and have all the big castles up to 6090.

The last few months have been brutal for any Lego-ish activity. I still have a Robin Hood vs Prince John project in the works, but no time at all to finish it and still enjoy the building (what's the point in forcing yourself to build - it has to be fun).

Still, count me in as a castle-head (along with Adventurer-head and technic-head)

Now, all we need is someone with Phes' maniacal zeal to keep things active....

Since the issue has been raised in one of those numerous pirate threads, what should be done to help castle in this forum?

You're thoughts advertised here in this thread send cash or lego to Nathan...

Excellent! I agree that Castle needs more attention is this forum. We have a man with a plan, and you're just the man I'd recommend for the job Mr Norro. Do you require any assistance?

Excellent! I agree that Castle needs more attention is this forum. We have a man with a plan, and you're just the man I'd recommend for the job Mr Norro. Do you require any assistance?

My contribution is limited to posting more when I'm available... but I'll help where I can.

God Bless,

Nathan

One thing though...

You're doing a good job with these reviews, but perhaps you're creating them too fast. I'd suspect they'd each get more responses if you created one every 7-10 days so it gives the users an opportunity to digest them and allow a discussion to form - if possible. That can happen if a user is there to guide the discussion by asking the other users specific questions.

You could explore other aspects of Castle besides reviewing sets, but if you only want to do reviews at this stage then disregard this post.

As you can see by my avatar I'm a castle enthusiast. I'm currently undertaking a rather large MOC, actually. I'm building a keep. Currently I've finished only two floors out of 4 main floors, a small two-story stable, and a 4-story watch tower on top. So it might be awhile before...I can post it. I'm actually rather excited about it though, I'm afraid it's taking so long because I'm in college, so I don't have an enormous amount of time to devote to it, added to the fact that I'm putting a great deal of detail into it.

Hopefully it'll be done by the end of the year. And after that I hope to make a small landscape to rest it on.

Yeah, Castle is definately my favourite theme, and i build mocs regularly. Lately, my hardrive had been running out of space, but when I get more space, I will post my mocs very often, as I make them very often. We should also start a minifig review topic every week. This would be good, because I'd post more in that than a set review. With the minifig reviews, we can talk about how we use the faces and/or torsos, if we think it fits with the theme, the colour scheme, etc.

And set discussions are great aswell, I love review topics. As nathan said before, - It would be more eficiant and overall a smarter-looking community if people post more than "cool" and "Wow" etc.

We could also have a MOC review. And a Custom minifig review. Maybe even a peice review, like review the usuability of a certain peice, like the castle wal peices or swords or helmets or whatever.

I also have a story on my site which is castle-based and have illustrated the story with edited and tidy looking photos. Maybe some other people might want to get into writing, and then we can make topics, showing previews of our stories and links to our stories and show people our edited photos and such. Im not sure, it sounds quite stupid now when i'm typing, because I can't find the right words...aah well its just a thought.

Well, thats it for now. Sorry if people have already suggested it, but I have to leave shortly so I dont have time to read the other comments first. My typing may be a bit sloppy aswell, so apologies for that aswell.

And like nathan says, God Bless you all!!

-Cyclonis

And set discussions are great aswell, I love review topics. As nathan said before, - It would be more eficiant and overall a smarter-looking community if people post more than "cool" and "Wow" etc.

I've been trying to promote that idea for months now and merely writing didn't seem to do the job. So I envised the Pirate Ranking System so users can be rewarded for the efforts. I.e. the more effort they put in the better they are rewarded.

Maybe that seems like a silly idea but I'm going to try it anyway and if it works maybe something similiar can be apply for castle threads. But don't hold your breath as its a good 6-12 months away and that's only if The Pirate Ranking takes off at. It might fail miserably but it'll probably take a good 6 months to refine.

Anyway Mr Cyclonis your suggestions are most welcome and I don't think anyone has suggested them before. But even if someone has in some other thread at some other time its always good to have added to the collective of ideas that this thread is accumulating.

One thing though...

You're doing a good job with these reviews, but perhaps you're creating them too fast. I'd suspect they'd each get more responses if you created one every 7-10 days so it gives the users an opportunity to digest them and allow a discussion to form - if possible. That can happen if a user is there to guide the discussion by asking the other users specific questions.

You could explore other aspects of Castle besides reviewing sets, but if you only want to do reviews at this stage then disregard this post.

I will branch out but I'm going to be extremely busy until the end of June so the reviews are a hold over... they also will be more like once an approx 10 days in future, I just wanted to give the idea that there would be a template and regularity (of sorts : )

Thanks much and God Bless,

Nathan (who is also working on a big, time-consuming MOC)

This seems very good in theory and if you do an exceptional job the gods may reward you... And I do mean exceptional! The gods around here are not easy to please...