Dorek

Check the Club events page; 10th through the 28th they're doing a Hero building activity. Sweet, let us know how that is.

So has anybody been to the Hero Building activity in the LEGO stores? I have no idea what those things are usually like.

I had noticed the visors before, but I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't notice the Heroes and villains all had matching primary color schemes until recently.

You and me both brother. If I ever actually end up getting some any time soon, I'll do a review, but it's unlikely to be before August.

With that one, they had never really planned on doing a second bike set (presumably), it was just a matter of making the large box sets opponents. For the TV show, it was then easiest to recolor the Furno Bike.

Yup. Promotional push about Hero Factory hotline aside, Earth has been officially acknowledged as a planet in the system, and has been mentioned in at least one mission.

I think it's just a matter of analyzing what works for them and what doesn't work. BIONICLE, with its super multimedia approach to everything, wasn't working for LEGO. The only obligatory thing about Hero Factory is basically the fact that it's a constraction line; temporary things like Ultrabuilds aside, LEGO knows that a dedicated constraction line fills a niche audience that's successful on its own terms. It trimmed the fat around what BIONICLE was and kept the essentials to making a profitable line. It's not a matter of playing it safe, it's just taking the past into consideration and moving forward with the necessities to keep the line engaging. If they'd rather cut the number of sets to use the budget for something else, that's a pretty simple business decision.

Yeah, forget supporting the artists by actually paying them for their work. That's for chumps. As for HF FM, that just got abandoned. The whole multimedia aspect wasn't really viable for them (Recon Team, we hardly knew ye).

I think villain factory could work, at least in terms of a one-line novelty. Part of the Heroes+villains shtick worked because the Heroes were impulse buys, but now they're all pretty full-size, as it goes. Not to mention there's always villain in-fighting, but I suppose that diminishes the "factory" aspect.

I'd hazard a guess as to 10L. Also, for anybody that got the LEGO mag last month, was there actually anything about HF, or is the teaser actually for next month?

God help us all if Dark Maker turns into another Daniel Rocka (although all things considered, it's not a horrible name). But yeah, I'd like to see an eclectic bunch too. I was hoping initially for 2012 that the villains were somehow incarnations of past ones, so a Stars-esque line of dudes would sit well with me.

Summaries are up on HS01, though it could use some general tweaking. An interesting story, but mildly predictable. I'm definitely okay with a new one-year arc that caps off the past two.

Ooooh, nifty, I like it. I'm on vacation for half that time, but I think towards the end I should be able to get in there... hopefully they haven't sold out by then!

Realistically it's not mine to distribute; I don't even have the original source, just the scans, from someone who did go to Toyfair.

Summer 2012, actually, and the confidential watermark was also on the finalized winter ones, which is always lulzy.

I still have scans lying around somewhere. Don't know how legal they are to post, persay. They all had that confidential watermark.

How is that prototype awful? There is literally nothing different besides a photoshopped third eye and silver weapons (and the antenna, but really how noticeable is that?). Anyhow, might swing by TRU today, see if they have any of the new sets.

World is the one that always cracks me up. I can look past Keetongu (and we even got a mildly amusing canonical reason for it later) and the prototype images, but the atlas... yeah that's just too funny.

Seems exactly the same to me... it's an encyclopedia, it's going to feature all of those characters. There's a cover spanning several years, but with an emphasis on the most recent line. I can't imagine what anyone else would expect. Nah, just the 22 minutes, but if they do a good job... hopefully we'll see more =P. Or maybe it's actually more of a "special" in the traditional sense, and we'll also get a standard episode or two.

Well, realistically it wouldn't be too hard to remove Rocka's name, but that's part of the problem; the animation team is given a design and a plot, and there isn't much collaboration after that. It'll be interesting to compare these episodes to Ghost and Advance's episode next year. Edit: Speaking of nothing else in particular, Faceoff! finally has a cover. Cue cries of "Rocka and Furno AGAIN?!?!?!?!?111?!!?1?!!?1?!!"

So, back to talking about real things... I love that LEGO actually advertises Jet Rocka's jet (best name ever!) as being compatible with other Heroes. Don't like Rocka? Switch him out.

Yup, they're unprinted; have a few of each myself. I'm sure they'll show up on bricklink eventually, but it might be hard to locate them because of the way they're classified.

Exactly that; is being "satisfied" with something the same as not being able to leave it alone? To me, it isn't, which is why it always amuses me when people lump the two as if they're the same thing. "Acknowledging flaws and wanting to "fix" flaws are two very different actions, especially when the end result is two completely different creations. It's mostly a matter of semantics, but it's common enough vernacular to give me pause and wonder if people can actually separate the concepts.

I get modifying, I'm just wondering at what point does it actually stop being the set that you are modifying, and a completely new (if similar in idea) creation? Maybe you don't actually like the set at all, just a few ideas that the set presents, or a specific piece that you intend to use similarly. I do modifications to my sets mostly to increase functionality; I switch out the locked elbow joints on HF figures, for instance, but I rarely if ever add or take away pieces.

Now, see, the thing I never got is the disconnect between "I love the set" and then subsequently saying "but I'm making a bajillion improvements to him". Ship of Theseus, really.