Dear Castle Designers [Updated]

[DanDanLegoman]

Plumes will never return?

[Gumby]

Plumes will never return?

Yes, it appears that the old plumes will never return, but the article states that they're looking for a solution. I would be VERY surprised if they didn't come up with a new set of plumes in the next year or 2 or 3!

[Blueandwhite]

Perhaps a new visor without the plume holder is just as fitting.

[baniaj2]

Very great news overall. Good to see that they plan on the theme lasting a while. Hopefully they can get new plumes out sooner than later. I can already here the cha-ching that will occur at brick-link now that old plumes have been officially declared unworkable.

[Old_School_Fan]

I found his responses to be absolutely fascinating on several accounts including the reasoning behind keeping the skeleton horses stationary.

I am personally pleased with the fact that we recieved three non-mobile horses versus one mobile horse in the skeleton prison carriage.

[DARKspawn]

Perhaps a new visor without the plume holder is just as fitting.

You can just keep comments like that to yourself, thankyou very much!

[MarioDAlessio]

Thank you Matthew, for the detailed Castle ’07 Designer Feedback, firstly I like to say what a great job your team and AFOL contributors achieved with the new range and managing to balance the challenges you described.

As an AFOL your response answered my queries on the points of the new range that I may have preferred to differ and as a result my already high appreciation of this line has increased.

Regards
Mario

[Tower of Iron Will]

I'm glad for the info, it helps clear up confusion and stops bad rumors. At lease they are trying to make it better. Of course, after KKII, anything would seem better but I think effort is shown in the new line. Now I can't wait for '08.
-Tower

[Athos]

This was a great idea to do this. I'm very happy to have this kind of interaction with the designers. Here's my thoughts on the info:

With this range of Castle we felt it should be one of our most brick rich playthemes, it lends itself naturally towards that due to the theme and models themselves. We aimed to get as many standard bricks in as possible, and minimize the number of large premolded parts.

This is good news. Hopefully it will continue...

We need to do our utmost to create a compelling model that has an impressive size impression and that will also photograph well on the front of the box.

While it makes sense, that is too bad. I guess that means little chance of a fully designed castle...

Some have been completely scrapped but others were unearthed and we were able to bring back into production.

I wonder what's gone...

Also if we did a Civilian set at retail, it is more than likely that it would be the last one kids would pick on their collection list and they may never actually get that far. We can’t afford to have products sat on shelves that are very slow to perform as we have limited shelf space in the different stores.

Bad news for civilian sets...

a very special item coming at the end of the year too (wait and see!)

I wonder what it is, or do we already know?

I am afraid to say that the old plumes will not be appearing in any future retail products.

I wonder if we'll get new plumes? That would be even better than getting the old ones back...

Gitte Thorsen

Excellent work Gitte!

2008 is going to see the battle grow much bigger, as both sides are being joined by new allies. These reinforcements will bring with them new vehicles, machines and settings to make the theme much more epic.

Good news! I hope there are more buildings because I like them better than the vehicles...

Steve

[Sir Kohran]

Of course, after KKII, anything would seem better

Speak for yourself

Anyway, thanks to Matthew and his colleagues for designing such a well-thought out and high quality line. I also agree with Athos that's it's great to get such a full and personal piece of writing direct from the company. It makes me appreciate Castle and Lego much more.

- Matt

[plucky]

This was an awesome response to lots of questions and issues!

I personally feel this is just a true reflection of our times, if you look at the movies, TV shows, computer games, books, comics and other toys that kids are surrounded by now, it is just different to when we were little.

As someone who's been collecting Castle since 1984, the fantasy element is something I always DREAMED of having more of. Are the times really that much different, or is marketing just catching up to something that really has been around all this time? There IS more in very recent years, thanks to J.K. Rowling, but it isn't new to many of us, just something that there wasn't enough of. Yay for skeletons and trolls and orcs and dwarfs! More! For those geeks among us who use LEGO for D&D, this is even more awesome!

Baddies- Black and Red….can’t get badder than that!!!

Black and Red is second in my book to Black and Purple, but yea, it's one of the ultimate evil combinations

We aimed to get as many standard bricks in as possible, and minimize the number of large premolded parts.

Yay bricks!

We need to do our utmost to create a compelling model that has an impressive size impression and that will also photograph well on the front of the box.

It is unfortunate that such effort must go into such superficial things. More marketing research behind this? *sigh* It's a shame when something has to be "dummed down" to make it more "marketable".

Kids really prefer just to have a big Castle to protect and a load of Battle machines and vehicles.

How about thinking about this from the "kids growing up" perspective. If every year is just another big castle guarding battle machines and vehicles, the kids will grow out of it quickly and move on to something else. If you are lucky, they'll move on to another Lego line. But what about the possibility of putting in sets that are less 'battle machine oriented' sometimes in order to help bridge the "Big Castle" kids towards other things like "Creator" sets? The "Dragon" Creator set is the closest thing I can see to this so far, but I think this line of thought might be something worth exploring more.

we felt that the Vikings style of dragon was just way to robotic and futuristic looking

That is a complaint I have heard a lot as well. So, how about trying for a Viking style dragon that is less robotic? New non-bioniacle molds could easily go a long way towards that. Sure, new molds are expensive, but they were the decision in the end anyway. I don't HATE the new dragons, but some of the Viking Dragons were the best I'd ever seen! Plus, that green dragon coming out looks silly with a knight just sitting on it bareback...

I was asked to tell you which designer worked on these…. her name is Gitte Thorsen

Yay Gitte! Give her a raise

. It came down to the fact we could either afford one poseable skeleton horse pulling the carriage, or if we went for the non-poseable type we could afford three, as well as being able to put them into the two smallest price points.

I was very disappointed with the non-posable horses. I would rather have 1 cool horse than 3 icky ones, so I'm on the wrong side of this. Maybe making the carriage a tad smaller to make it 2 posable skeli-horses! Oh well

I'd also be interested to know which molds went away, and which old ones are still around. I like a lot of the ways the new castle line is going, especially the fantasy element. Now I just need to get an articulation snob somewhere in the design staff! More articulation does not necessarily turn Lego figures into Action Figures, but it makes them so much more interesting!

Thanks for the great response!

[Asterios]

heres a question,will LEGO be bringing out the mythology;Classical line of Romans,Greeks,Persians,Goth(visi-goth),Trojans and Egyptians?

[architect]

heres a question,will LEGO be bringing out the mythology;Classical line of Romans,Greeks,Persians,Goth(visi-goth),Trojans and Egyptians?

Please check page two of this thread where this question was already addressed. Thanks.

Donut wrote:
I just have a generic question:

In the future will you create sets that branches from the medieval time period? As in will you create sets from other historical time periods such as the greeks, romans, etc.?

Designers are not allowed to take suggestions from fans about what products we would like to see. Please only ask questions about the current castle sets which were just released. Thanks.

Ben

Ben

[Asterios]

heres a question,will LEGO be bringing out the mythology;Classical line of Romans,Greeks,Persians,Goth(visi-goth),Trojans and Egyptians?

Please check page two of this thread where this question was already addressed. Thanks.

Donut wrote:
I just have a generic question:

In the future will you create sets that branches from the medieval time period? As in will you create sets from other historical time periods such as the greeks, romans, etc.?

Designers are not allowed to take suggestions from fans about what products we would like to see. Please only ask questions about the current castle sets which were just released. Thanks.

Ben

Ben

ahh but i'm not asking about suggestions,since i've heard of some interesting new themes with a major "Ancients" theme to come

[DanDanLegoman]

Dear Castle designers:

Good job! 2008 looks even cooler than 2007. I'm loving the dwarves and orcs/trolls. And the advent calendar? Amazing.