Consensus of the new themes: Castle and Mars Mission

[xwingyoda]

well actually, these city sub space themes would not make me happy as a space fan. those sub sets are just city sets with a space shuttle or a rocket, that's not space. :-X i can understand that it satisfies the needs of city fans who want more than the current city line, but it doesn't help the space fanbase

Hey Sne, don't get me wrong, that city space is NOT to have in lieue of another space theme ;-) Both can easilly coexist !! I was just referring to city extensions ;-)

*yoda*

[snefroe]

Hey Sne, don't get me wrong, that city space is NOT to have in lieue of another space theme ;-) Both can easilly coexist !! I was just referring to city extensions ;-)

*yoda*

in that case, i'd welcome them if the quality is as high as the current line, actually, with this quality, i'd even accept another police station X-D

[xwingyoda]

in that case, i'd welcome them if the quality is as high as the current line, actually, with this quality, i'd even accept another police station X-D

Hush you crazy Belgian !! Do you want TLC to hear us :-| X-D :-P

Please no more police crap for a long time :-P

*yoda*

[snefroe]

Hush you crazy Belgian !! Do you want TLC to hear us :-| X-D :-P

Please no more police crap for a long time :-P

*yoda*

oh come on, *yoda* , after all the sw sets, the eiffel tower, the castle sets, UCS MF... you'll be broke anyway! X-D

Frankly I hope they would drop the MM series and go with ANOTHER space theme. Similarly, I would love to see castle start again with human factions, however I'd rather them just add more human factions to the current theme.

i think we should get sw4j into Lego's board! :-P

[Brainbox]

I wonder what the kids

[Brick Miner]

"A very good point. But, that's not to say the two can't coexist. Someone may be drawn in by a particular set design, then end up finding out about the storyline and buying the rest of a theme. Sometimes, design can actually lead into subject matter/playability.

the two can coexist, and i think that is what happened with me and WW (thankfully the connection was made, as it has turned out to by my fav theme X-D )... but the topic of this thread was the kid's perspective of the two themes, MM and castle 2007 (with a lateral comparison to KK2). i was referring to the concret example in the thread, not a hypothetical one.

but i do agree, the best theme(s) are the marriage of playable story and set construction, i just wish the kid agreed ;-) (still can't understand why he would like KK2 over castle 2007 *wacko* whats not for a kid to love about skeleton armies, dragons, and wizards.)

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to sum up the AR issue: so, it sounds like we are making an educated guess concerning their continuation, or lack of :-D id say you are right, sne. i was just asking if we had "official" word yet.

- Brick Miner

Edited June 6, 2007 by Brick Miner

[snefroe]

still can't understand why he would like KK2 over castle 2007 *wacko* whats not for a kid to love about skeleton armies, dragons, and wizards.)

- Brick Miner

1) kk has been around for a few years. it must have some fanbase, castle is brand new. wait a year and we'll talk again...

2) maybe the kids don't really like the skeleton army. maybe they do want the traditional soldier vs soldier with high profile (coloured) knights, not armies...

[alex54]

I was thinkng of that recently: TLC should stop those AR themes and focus on City SUB themes like they did before a lot more !! We could have the return of Space, Paradisa, Divers and a lot of things like that that goes well in whatever city instead of those Alfa Team, Dino and wortless themes that just do nothing apart played with within its theme. Thats why I loved that shipwreck set - the best of the AR line IMO ;-)

*yoda*

Just hope that the God of Bricks have heard you...

2) maybe the kids don't really like the skeleton army. maybe they do want the traditional soldier vs soldier with high profile (coloured) knights, not armies...

I don't know why... I'm like BrickMiner, I still can't understand why children would like KK2 over castle 2007... Maybe it's because I'm not a child now... Hard to think like them, and like this new generation... Writing this, I sound like an old man :-D

[Berry Syedow]

Actually, I would think that it is almost exclusively fanatical AFOLs buying this set. There is NO WAY any kid under 12 would even be interested in this, and normal teenagers do not sit at home building this kind of stuff. Neither of these two groups have the money to get this type of set, and if they did, it would not be spent on Lego.

I believe that this group of sets will demonstrate to TLC that AFOLs are a more lucratic potential marked for Lego than had been thought previously.

Maybe I need to change sources. I've heard a lot of people say that AFOLs tend to overestimate their buying power while others say the exact opposite. The LEGO website should introduce tags such as AFOL/Parents/Teens and so on so that it can get some concrete data on who's buying what.

Frankly I hope they would drop the MM series and go with ANOTHER space theme. Similarly, I would love to see castle start again with human factions, however I'd rather them just add more human factions to the current theme. Also, I'm curious about what will replace aquaraiders.

I'd like to see a more realistic space theme; One that involves exploration, mining, and the shipment of materials without the silliness of martians. I'd also like to see a new space faction dedicated to overtaking the universe. :-D

Just hope that the God of Bricks have heard you...

I don't know why... I'm like BrickMiner, I still can't understand why children would like KK2 over castle 2007... Maybe it's because I'm not a child now... Hard to think like them, and like this new generation... Writing this, I sound like an old man :-D

The kids must have really liked the storyline of KKII. The idea of Heroes with powers must be very appealing to them as well. Little children are also completely irrational. ;-)

[maiq the liar]

I wonder what the kids

[snefroe]

I

[Zzz]

I keep coming back to this... that's why Lego needs the Adventurers! Built in story line, characters, awesome web site at the time.

exactly my opinion! I really want new sets! Such a great theme with a story that attracted kids and teens and afols. Cause there are not too many originals perhaps? Just Indiana Jones and a few movies?

Btw - it could be I am completely different from todays kids but I really have no clue how to play with star wars Lego - the characters and the stories are so fixed! I loved it to play with M-tron or other space things from the past, where you could make own characters and stories. Is it really that different today?

[xwingyoda]

See, that is something I really dislike in all these conversations: why the hell do we need a storyline ??

G society makes kids totally idiotic these days.

During my childhood I made my own stories and sets and I was happy about it !! But now NO sir, society/TLC need to feed kids crappy story to sell their lines, whats wrong with the picture ??

Come ON, how many kids play with the adventurer line thinking its Indy ?? a whopping lot I'm sure !! Movies, books make the universe kids want to relate to, and bricks is a perfect link, so NO darn stupid storyline is needed...

Oh well, I'll stop my rant now :-P

Storyline OFF !!

*yoda*

[5150 Lego]

See, that is something I really dislike in all these conversations: why the hell do we need a storyline ??

G society makes kids totally idiotic these days.

During my childhood I made my own stories and sets and I was happy about it !! But now NO sir, society/TLC need to feed kids crappy story to sell their lines, whats wrong with the picture ??

Come ON, how many kids play with the adventurer line thinking its Indy ?? a whopping lot I'm sure !! Movies, books make the universe kids want to relate to, and bricks is a perfect link, so NO darn stupid storyline is needed...

Oh well, I'll stop my rant now :-P

Storyline OFF !!

*yoda*

Great point! I used to make my own storyline with my legos. I remember Ice Planet 2002! Probbly one of the best lego themes ever! I remember writing a story based on ice planet for school! I might even still have it somewhere.

Bring back Ice Planet 2002!

[highlandcattle]

Ok I'm going to raise a few points here:

-In Belgium (or at last in the store I work@) PLM outsells LEGO by 3 to 1 at least. and PLM never has a story.

-In Belgium sets without stories outsell those with stories (You can still find Orient Expedition sets in stores that don't mark their prices down. City is by far the most poluar line followed by SW and Creator. Batman is really hard to find.

-In Belgium we don't have a history of super heroes, all our comic book heroes are regular people who get to go on the craziest adventures (TinTin, Spirou , Suske & Wiske, Kiekeboe).

Perhaps it is just different for which part of the world you live in. Perhaps Americans prefer stories and other countries don't.

[Jipay]

Bah, kids these days disgust me, they have no imagination, and need to be spoon-fed some ill thought up storyline in order to enjoy their toys.

That aside, it makes me wonder why Creator sells so well...

Agree. In France we never had ANY storyline going with the sets for decades. NO names for the pirate line, nothing for castle, nor space. it's only when I discovered the online AFOL community that I realized the US and other countries had plenty of crapy stories to "support" the themes.

Edit : I should have read page 3 :-D

[Brick Miner]

Agree. In France we never had ANY storyline going with the sets for decades. NO names for the pirate line, nothing for castle, nor space. it's only when I discovered the online AFOL community that I realized the US and other countries had plenty of crapy stories to "support" the themes.

wait, what ???

i could be mistaken, but here in the states we didn't have a storyline for decades either ??? it wasn't until the adventures came out that we started to see development of a full story. and as far as i understood, that story was universal to all counties *wacko*

i would assume that other countries, like france, would have seen this transition in product conceptualization at the time of the adventurer's 1998 line.

this assumption is wrong ???

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actually, as i am typing this i realize that the UK sets introduced names earlier in the 90's than did the US boxes did... for example, the 1996 wild west set #6755 is called "sheriff's lock up" on US boxes, and on UK boxes it is titled "Sheriff Duke". similarly, pirate set introduced the name of broadside and ironhook, and while broadside's name did appear later on US boxes, ironhook's name was never introduced to the US.

so if anything... the UK can be credited with the initialization of character development. id say, anyway.

- Brick Miner

[Zzz]

it wasn't until the adventures came out that we started to see development of a full story.

really? was there a story with egypt and amazon already? didn't know.. thought it began with the OE?

oh - and I guess every culture is based on storytelling! americans are crazy for superheroes and I really don't want to go too deep into that but there is a reason. In Europe there are other big traditions of storytelling like theatre and opera and literature that was all here before there was even a US culture for the biggest part. but this only a bit out of the topic.. ;-)

The marketing of Lego was and is different in different countries. But this is because of different budgets, "creative" marketing people and so on and on. There was a story in the 1996 (??) city line with the bad guys in Europe and there was even a storyline (with it's own comic book!!!) of the very first pirate issue (in 1990??)

The comic was amazing and was in my opinion only available in Danmark and Germany, never in the US.

But to cut long things short: I can only speak for myself and I LOVE it to make up own stories and when I see new things I think " wow... I could play this or that with it....!" I collect SW but it is impossible for me to play with it. Boring...

:-)

so WHEN are the new adventurers sets coming, tlc?????????

[Brick Miner]

really? was there a story with egypt and amazon already? didn't know.. thought it began with the OE?

well, i guess we have to determine what we are calling a LEGO "story" here.

character development is definitely is one element of story telling. and character development can happen on many levels... visual character development happens all the time, though, i don't think people would necessarily call it story telling. however, i think it should be recognized as some form of story.

this type of character development, i would say, started very early in the development of LEGO products... the pirate line executed visual character development very well. though, it could be argued that LEGO started to visual develop their characters with the castle line. so, the building blocks of character development, and consequently story telling, began far before the adventurers of 1998.

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however, i think that most people would consider a "story" the telling of the conflict between the characters, and not just suggesting that conflict. this type of story is not seen in many LEGO lines, and is not seen in either castle 2007, MM or AR.

personally, i feel story "happens" way before the conflict is told. i think it starts with character development, and the adventurers were the first line of fully-developed, all-unique characters, each with suggested background stories and interaction conflict, by conforming to known literary archetypes.

- BrickMiner

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EDIT: i decided to give an example ;-)

there is certainly more story development in this set...

than in this one...

this is an example of how LEGO stories were starting to be told way before narrative conflict, as seen in bionicle.

i really like this suggested story telling via character development and theme conceptualization... even the forementioned ice planet 2002 featured this type of story.

- BrickMiner

Edited June 9, 2007 by Brick Miner