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My point was that Lego did revisit deep sea divers, and may one day do the same for Vikings. And if there was a lesson learned from Aquaraiders it was that they sold very well. Lego said so in one of their published reports. The real lesson hopefully learned is not to drag any one theme too far. The Aquaraiders sold well because they came and went before the designers ran out of ideas and the public tired of deep sea diving Legos.

Vikings were pretty cool, but I quickly grew tired of them. I still haven't found a use for all the viking figures and pieces I have... anyway, I also think they are gone for good. But, the bigger question here is: What will Lego do next, in terms of Medieval adventures?

My take on Vikings is that it would have been hard to explain the different armor, helms, and weapons. Then I got the bright idea to make dwarves out of the figures. The new armor, helms, and weapons could be described as mithril. This worked out great as I had always wanted Dwarven factions. I guess great minds think alike; LEGO made "their" dwarves using the Viking torsos as well a few years later. I wouldn't mind if LEGO made some more Viking sets/figures; perhaps in 2011 or later. We can always use different torso designs.
-Tower

natelite wrote:i think the vikings would sell well if tlc has cast them as the bad guys. bad meanie rough vikings attacking helpless villagers, while the noble knights fend off these invaders. unfortunately human vs human combat would go against tlc's ethos. and as sir kohran said, big gigantic monsters aren't little kids' cuppa.

don't want to go off topic too much but i think a giant spider (constructed, not from a singular piece) would be a great addition to the trolls/skeletons faction! perhaps it could come as a mount for the troll chieftain.

Well, I think TLG is trying to avoid "human on human" violence. Hence the skeletons and trolls. So IF the vikings came back they probably wouldn't be evil.

Lord Tyler II wrote:

natelite wrote:i think the vikings would sell well if tlc has cast them as the bad guys. bad meanie rough vikings attacking helpless villagers, while the noble knights fend off these invaders. unfortunately human vs human combat would go against tlc's ethos. and as sir kohran said, big gigantic monsters aren't little kids' cuppa.

don't want to go off topic too much but i think a giant spider (constructed, not from a singular piece) would be a great addition to the trolls/skeletons faction! perhaps it could come as a mount for the troll chieftain.

Well, I think TLG is trying to avoid "human on human" violence. Hence the skeletons and trolls. So IF the vikings came back they probably wouldn't be evil.

Well looking at recent lines, KK2 was pretty much all human vs human, as was KK1. And the classic lines are also all humans fighting, with the occasional dragon.

Lord Tyler II wrote:

natelite wrote:i think the vikings would sell well if tlc has cast them as the bad guys. bad meanie rough vikings attacking helpless villagers, while the noble knights fend off these invaders. unfortunately human vs human combat would go against tlc's ethos. and as sir kohran said, big gigantic monsters aren't little kids' cuppa.

don't want to go off topic too much but i think a giant spider (constructed, not from a singular piece) would be a great addition to the trolls/skeletons faction! perhaps it could come as a mount for the troll chieftain.

Well, I think TLG is trying to avoid "human on human" violence. Hence the skeletons and trolls. So IF the vikings came back they probably wouldn't be evil.

I would doubt that LEGO is done with Human vs Human. LEGO, for now at least, is just taking a break for a while just to see how popular the "Fantasy" line can be. Within a few years LEGO will probably switch back.

Natelite, do you mean a spider like "Aragog" from the Harry Potter sets? That would be cool if LEGO brought "him" back. I bought a few of those sets luckily...
-Tower

Didnt the lego designers mention testing human vs human factions only to have the kids say "they're just knights in different colors"?

So it seems there's no desie to avoid human on human fighting.

There's never been a desire to avoid human on human violence. In fact the Viking line was the first line in Castle history to have non-human enemies.

I think that is somewhat what his point was, risking being a bit presumptuous. Since the Lego Viking era many themes where conflict exists have only one human faction and a nonhuman enemy. In some ways I can see his point.

The current castle line, Exoforce, Mars mission, are a few that come to mind. I can see the trend though that does not mean TLC has to do this. Batman, SW and the new Agent series all have humans fighting humans.... Batman you cannot really avoid it, SW was out before Vikings and the new sets do seem to pit almost exclusively clones verse robots. Agents is the only new series where I think this human verse human takes place.

Either way I am not bothered but I can see what he is talking about.

R

timber_wolf899 wrote:Didnt the lego designers mention testing human vs human factions only to have the kids say "they're just knights in different colors"?

I don't know if this is true or not, but I pray it isn't. Really, those would have to be pretty darn dumb kids to not understand the concept of different factions. But in this day and age, who knows?

Dan

timber_wolf899 wrote:Didn't the Lego designers mention testing human vs human factions only to have the kids say "they're just knights in different colours"?

This sounds very vaguely familiar to me, but I can't recall what the source was, so consequently how reliable...

But, for what it's worth, if that was a survey during the KK2 times... well... in a sense, all the different-coloured knights were, indeed, one faction.

Personally, I'm not too concerned if Lego stops making human vs. human themes, since my collection is old enough and I'm going to be around long enough in the future that pairing them up with someone else, no matter what the theme, shouldn't be too hard, but, on the other hand, the Agents argument is rather compelling.

Formendacil wrote:This sounds very vaguely familiar to me, but I can't recall what the source was, so consequently how reliable...

From this interview with Matthew Aston, Creative Director of TLC Playthemes:

A lot of you have asked or commented on the different factions and why we chose Skeletons over two human factions. This decision was made for several reasons; Firstly we did a large amount of character testing with different kids, where we compared different scenarios, products with different characters, including very classic Knight against Knight factions and more fantasy based opponents. Practically all of the kids found the fantasy based bad guys much more exciting, magical and compelling. When presented two human factions, the response was very much ‘It’s just Knights in two different colours!’ and they found the entire theme and the products a lot less appealing and inspiring.

So all in all, pretty reliable!

badger

Sibley wrote:

legokilt wrote:I have seen a few tan and black viking helmets on bricklink and this is what first made me wonder if they are going to release new ones.

Those are non-production parts that were produced to test molds. There are a lot of such parts, like red Darth Vader helmets and clear skeleton horses, which never appear in sets but somehow end up sold on Bricklink.

wrong, it's what I've been saying for a long time, they are the speckle bl silver and metallic gold helmets that normally appear, without the metal layers on them.

This is the same with the light bley dwarf helmet, kettle helmet, grill helmet and flared helmet.

(In some occasions these can be purchased directly from LEGO for certain persons or groups, and these can buy parts without prints on them or as here, before the layer has been brought to them.)

Vikings was a great line for figures, the ship was a great parts pack. (bought one fore 36 euros)

TT

Tower of Iron Will wrote:
I would doubt that LEGO is done with Human vs Human. LEGO, for now at least, is just taking a break for a while just to see how popular the "Fantasy" line can be. Within a few years LEGO will probably switch back.
-Tower

Agreed. Also that interview confirms that. Right now kids just see knights vs evil being as the norm. The public's taste will almost certainly change in time and then so will Lego.

I think one thing that will never change is that people love minifigure. I admit I look at the fig count first when examining a set. Thus the flaw in the Viking line. Tons of not so useful pieces and "not enough" figures for the price point.

Sibley wrote:Those are non-production parts that were produced to test molds. There are a lot of such parts, like red Darth Vader helmets and clear skeleton horses, which never appear in sets but somehow end up sold on Bricklink.

Tanotrooper wrote:wrong, it's what I've been saying for a long time, they are the speckle bl silver and metallic gold helmets that normally appear, without the metal layers on them.

You're both right. Some of the "rare" pieces are just metallic items without the metallic coating applied. This includes the tan and black Viking helmets and the off-colored dwarf helms.

However, there are also instances of other off-colored pieces that are not intermediates in a production process. They're made from the same TLC molds as the regularly colored parts you'd find in sets, are composed of the same ABS plastic as TLC parts, and the colors match those of other similarly-colored parts. This includes the red Vader helmet, dark blue and red Kepi caps, trans-skeleton horses.

The reasons for the existence of the later pieces is somewhat disputed. Some items (the trans-clear skeleton horse) are said to have been given out to members of the FOL community that have had contact with TLC in some official capacity (Ambassadors or something similar). I've also heard the following stories regarding the other parts in colors that you can't find in sets:

- They're test and/or cleaning injections of a mold that are then given out to fans, dumped into Pick-A-Brick displays, or improperly removed from the factory.

- They're custom orders from LEGOland builders to complete certain builds.

- A factory worker at TLC was doing some "after hours" injecting of molds to produce items in colors they aren't currently available in and was selling them to secondary sellers. Eventually the individual was busted, but not before they produced a good many of them.

Each of the stories has its holes, and it's always possible it's some combination of some or all of them. If someone has a definitive statement from TLC on the issue, that'd certainly be great. Everything I've written above is just the whole of the explanations and rumors I've read over the years.

Back on topic, if TLC's core audience (younger builders) was more in tune with Knights vs Fantasy, that's fine. Really, I've loved the first few waves of the Castle line as well and agree that the Skeleton and Troll factions made for some creative and evocative figs and sets. I've heard rumblings that the Elves sets are just as great (if not more so) and given the direction TLC has taken in the past few years, I have no doubt they'll guide the Castle line into fun places.

badger