dviddy
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Everything posted by dviddy
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I think that's a fair question, though there are a lot of things that happened in the line over those years. The design style of the sets very seriously changed over the line's history. Yes, the first few years still had extraneous mechanical details, but they balanced that with smoother, less-complicated design language that married together very well. Latter years had more visually busy and complex design language, and not all these criticisms are things that I personally noticed at the time. I knew that I liked the sets less, and found them much less visually compelling, but I didn't have the words to describe the how or why. I've also followed the story as much as possible over the line's history, and while I have a lot of negative things to say about Greg's writing, the direction he took the story, etc, it was still important to me. Still is! Plus the community means a lot to me. Though the number one reason I've bought sets and maintained a presence in the community has been because I am, first and foremost, a MOC builder. That alone makes things complicated, because sometimes I hate a set's visual design or build, but it is so very very full of things I want or need for a build (Witch Doctor comes to mind). CCBS parts still aren't as available as I need on Bricklink, and the bricks and pieces option on S@H moves too slowly for the manner I build in. There's a lot more to things than one angle. I don't currently enjoy the visual design change from the 2015 Toa to these. We'll see if that changes in better images, perhaps there's something to the tooling that makes the detailed new parts fit the aesthetic. Maybe in person they will work better. IDK. Sometimes a set looks great in images, but I hate it in person (Darth Vader), and sometimes it looks awful in images but awesome in person (Onua 2015). Agreed, though I can safely say Toa Iruini is my favourite set in the history of BIONICLE. What a great set.
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Yes, I am telling you, sarcastic as you are, that I didn't like Brutaka or Takanuva08. I think they are both poorly-designed sets with awkward construction. In fact, Brutaka is my least favourite "titan" set in the entire BIONICLE run. He's everything I hate about BIONICLE's decreasing set design quality in the latter-years. Complicated for no reason, random spikes and teeth pointing everywhere, giant, over-complicated blades, massive over-detailed mask, massively competing visual textures, dumb wrists and hands, etc. It's literally the set I use as a poster set for where the line went wrong when it comes to visual design. It's a bad set and I have zero problems saying so. Following Brutaka's lead is exactly the worry I have with the randomly over-designed technic parts and constructions these new sets are showcasing. You may not understand the criticism, but some of us enjoy sets with a unifying visual aesthetic more than ones with random competing textures and visual cues. The reason I think, so far, that the 2015 Toa worked better than these is that the new parts, even the piston add-on, were clearly designed to match the CCBS aesthetic while providing visual homages to the original line. The parts, including the masks, all worked to unify the toa with the CCBS system and create a compelling and striking visual design. These seem like a strong step backwards. Maybe final designs will change that, but preliminary images have me delivering a strong "meh". You're welcome to disagree and that's fine, but you asked why people didn't like this, so I'm explaining. Weird, you're the first person to bring up MOCs. I'm talking about sets, too.
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We built very different G1 sets, you and I.
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These... initial impulse is that they feel like a step backwards in every way. Like they took the bad parts of the original BIONICLE line's visual cues and used them all at once. Especially noticeable in that clustercuss of a lower leg design on the villain. Yeesh. Disappointed in single-piece torso armours too. I like the nuva symbol, but I liked how the HF torsos and the superhero plates looked a lot better, and having those designs on the superhero chests would have been fab. Otherwise... definite meh at the moment. We'll see how they look in final shots.
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I mean, "active" volcano refers only to volcanoes in the real world that have erupted once in the last 10,000 years. Mt St Helens in Washington is an active volcano, but as a resident who could see it from my daily commute, you would never know it erupted just a few decades ago.
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Sorry, NDA. ;)
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They will use CCBS, have shells on their limbs in configurations, wear masks, and have weapons. :D
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One of the many reasons I'm actually glad for the policy on BZP. It feels like a lot of the conversation here always falls back to "but where are the leaks???" Consequence of being a BZP-haven for people who want to see leaks the last decade I guess! :D
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Leaks of official sets definitely happened early last year, but the NYCC event was originally planned to be the reveal of the entire new line. Not just as in "here are the new sets," but as in "BIONICLE is coming back and you didn't know until now!!" But all the leaks and all the URL guessing and the early community reveals led them to just straight up admit it was coming back early. But the NYCC event was too far planned to backpedal and plan for more of another theme as well, so it went ahead as a full BIONICLE booth. While they might have the next wave on display, considering, again, the release of Star Wars this December, don't be surprised if the booth is all Star Wars all the time.
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Grievous looks great, I am going to feel bad when I take him apart for his tan. I think Vader looks awful in general.
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Unfortunately, LEGO as a whole, is targeted to boys, and it was partly on purpose. One of the major shifts in LEGO's marketing that (awkwardly) helped them create a better sales portfolio was to shift their gender-neutral advertisements to a boys-oriented market in the 90s and early 2000s. While they've shifted again slightly (the change in LEGO's market situation allows for more freedom to play with these sort of things), the marketing history that started with the beginning of the modern information age has sort of solidified as well. I think it'll change, but it's going to take time.
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This is basically how I feel about it. The gap between the upper torso and lower torso looks like two different sets/builds stuck together with a signpost in between. The cape sort of hides it, but I can't unsee it. The armour doesn't flow in to fill those gaps, and it looks awkward and empty. And the legs are bizarrely thin and spread out. I was really excited for this set but I don't think it'll stay together longer than any potential reshoots for my BZP review.
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With Star Wars coming out in December, I'd be surprised if the LEGO booth at NYCC isn't more Star Wars oriented than anything else, to be honest. I'd almost expect the January Star Wars set reveals before BIONICLE. Those hoping for and expecting BIONICLE set reveals I'm worried are setting themselves up for possible disappointment.
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What are the most underrated Hero Factory sets?
dviddy replied to Logan McOwen's topic in LEGO Action Figures
Breakout Breez is the definitive HF set for me. I also liked Breakout Furno a lot. (Also I think Witch Doctor was a terrible set). -
LEGO got so many calls about Ninjago that they hired more call-center employees just to handle them, according to CEE talks at Brickfair the past few years. I think a lot of AFOLs have underestimated the success Ninjago has had with kids and parents.
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Same. I've had Vader sitting around for about a week now, and I just really don't like him. Spoilers for my BZP review, I guess.
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The return was planned pretty quickly, as TLG had never experienced the volume of calls and complaints about the line's retirement over any other thing, ever. The budgets for each them that year had already been set and the budget for Ninjago's return had to come from somewhere, and it came from Chima.
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HF was a successful line though. It lasted nearly five years! That's a long time for any non-evergreen theme. I did ask Kevin Hinkle at BrickfairVA a month ago how BIONICLE was doing, and he's always been really forthright with answers to those things (like the fact that Ninjago's return is what killed Chima's launch and long-term success, as the two had to share advertising budgets as Ninjago wasn't planned to return when Chima and the budget was created). He said that the numbers weren't in as we were only one wave in at that point, but that the consensus he was hearing was that it was meeting goals and targets that had been set for it comfortably.
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| This MOC is a pretty strong mix of different inspirations. It's a little Legend of Korra, a little Gerudo from Ocarina of Time, and a litle Digimon. Add in a dash of my friend Kakaru/Arkov/Micah's art style, and you've got a MOC. I wanted to do something a little more exaggerated visually, not as in cartoonish proportions or exaggerated body types, but in a similar way to how animators or 2d artists push their lienart to be a little more free and a little more stylized. Sort of like the difference between the 90s Spider-Man cartoon and the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon, or Transformers G1 vs Transformers Animated (or even Prime).
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I am a member of every major English-speaking online community. This is a massive exaggeration pushing the boundaries of outright lying. Several people have pointed at BZP specifically in the past, as if we said the leaks were false. Considering several of us were at the time already aware of the line's return, and the line is our sole reason for existing, it would have been suicide to say the leaks were false. But, unlike most other sites, we also have a personal and close relationship with TLG where we don't allow leaks our discussion of them period. This is why we had more tickets for NYCC to give away than any other site. And unlike Eurobricks, we don't have a former site admin working for the CEE team to overlook our transgressions. Discussion based on false information is useless discussion. It's a pretty big waste of time, and even last year's standee leak was verified as best as possible by TTV and the Piece Out Facebook group it was originally leaked in before being reported everywhere. Leaked description lists have almost always been one hundred percent false. It's August, if the 2016 topic has slow discussion that's because 2016 is still a third of the year away. Images will come as they always do, probably in the next few weeks, maybe a month. That's normal. Until then I'd highly advise folks to stop jumping at absolutely anything and everything. We have a set list from Amazon, even that's more than we normally have! Rather nothing to talk about than more fake stuff to talk about.
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"2006 was the most profitable year for BIONICLE"
dviddy replied to TwistLaw's topic in LEGO Action Figures
2001,2, and 3 outsold the rest of the line almost themselves. There is a sharp decline after 03 that never trended close to the line's first three years. 2006 as the highest selling year is laughably false. Even if we used "most profitable" as a different measuring stick than "sold best", that would be 2003 when the line was responsible for more than 100% of the company's profits. -
To put it bluntly: because people will believe them and spread them, and people are desperate to be the first to know these things. The allure of confidential and often illegal methodology behind leaks coupled with the fanbase not having a massive media event to tide them over, plus the very public and very very early leaks from last year, not to mention the rise of many fan-sites and fan groups with less strict leak policies all feeds into this. Ghost sets, play-testing rumours made after reveals of new parts from the SW lines, early leaks on a Russian site with no pictures, "a confident friend who sent only me this information", etc and so forth. There are, unfortunately, a lot of people in the community who want to be "the person" who is first to present leaks or images or any information possible because they care less about the community, the product, or the fanbase, and more about their own standing within it. It's a problem a lot of fanbases and franchises have to deal with, and until there are pictures, if you guys want to stop falling for fake leaks left and right, perhaps take the course most of the older fanbase has done, which is "wait until pictures".
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BZPower's fanbase didn't start declining in 2005- it spiked many many years after that, and only began steadily declining after BIONICLE was canceled in 2010, with the massive drop-off when our site was compromised for five months in 2011.
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I don't.
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Plus I mean we have several members here reporting this who have a strong history of grasping at and believing every rumor or gossip heard, with almost all turning out false. Could be true, but I'll wait for pictures.