Yes, but think of how licensed sets are always ridiculously expensive compared to other themes, and -- while they often do contain rare pieces -- they do not really contain a lot of pieces overall. So, for instance, when the PoP theme comes out, I am pretty sure a lot of people (including me, probably) will be buying the set with the "civilian house" (or whatever that is) just for the camel. They'll be paying over $20 (I believe) for just a camel, basically, since there isn't much interesting stuff there besides it...wobnam wrote:If you think a LotR line wouldn't produce a huge number of useful new parts for us Castle builders, I guess we'll just have to disagree on that one. I want LotR for the parts. I have no interest in building LotR sets or mocs.rogue27 wrote:You miss my point. We just had three years of sets that were "Lord of the Rings" in everything but name. Your wish has been answered. There is nothing to see here.
This is my point: LotR filling one of the license spots will benefit Castle builders a lot more than most of the other possible licenses I can think of. (Unless, of course, as Bruce points out, it means no original castle line... but) If we can have original castle + LotR, I'd rather have that than original castle + Batman or SpongeBob or whatever. It might even force the original castle to take a different approach, like a more civilian or historical direction to avoid competing with LotR.
And then again, as some people have said here already, we pretty much have a LotR type of "setting" in the current Castle theme, don't we? Well, what do we have? Orcs, trolls, dwarfs, undead, dragons, wizards... and if you really want a hobbit, can't you just use dwarf legs, and think of some appropriate head and hair for it? I don't see the point of making a new mold for them...
I'm with Bruce N H on this, basically: licensed sets kill creativity... but not only in the sense that it sort of compels you to build ONLY from the given instructions; it also discourages people from making MOCs that depict things from a given movie or whatever the theme is based on. And not to mention, those horrifying flesh minifigs...