vexorian

Actually, I will just take the "not buying them" approach since it is much easier and the pieces are not worth it. I am not really all that interested show how my MoCer skills are so awesome that they can even survive the use of av-matoran pieces. There are much better deals out there. Plenty of voyaran and mahri matoran for sale all over my city. The day they run out of them, there are still all sorts of canisters like the metru, vahki, barraki, mahri, phantoka, mistika and glatorian available in toy stores for me and those molds are on average half the cost of the av-matoran molds, so...

Sure they are not useless. They are just not as excessively useful as their high price tag implies. They are merely 'sort of' useful. Seems LEGO learned of their mistake the hard way hence the heroes' limbs are not excessively ugly anymore. I insist, the times in which LEGO sets will start to come pre-built are coming soon. I'll be happy if they just use a better piece/price ratio. When they put the stuff in a canister and charge 8 USD for them they give the wrong idea that the set is similar product to the canister ones instead of being large plastic pieces aimed at an age range that's bellow the one specified on the canister. I sure am happy as well that I get the chance not to buy sets. All those av-matoran, agori and heroes that I won't buy mean lots of money to be spent on other things. Kinda terrifying they insisted on putting agori on the large sets of 2009 though.

Welcome to a place in which reducing someone else's argument to the absurd does not always work that easily. The av-matoran switch happened during the first half of 2008, a year in which claims of recession would have been met with skepticism. Also, 2008/2009 years' canister sets have a much more reasonable per piece cost in comparison. So, the recession is not going to work that well to explain it either. I don't think just the slight change in size can explain the large shift in cost.

To be fair, there are also other markets tat are less expensive. I was surprised today at the toy store when I went to the model section and the prices were so much lower. It seems a canister is worth two tank models, maybe I picked the wrong hobby. Though in this place LEGO is priced a little more than in the US due to taxes and transportation and greed. So maybe it is different up there. .

The heroes look sort of funny outside their CGI haven. At least the limbs are not awful like the agori ones but passable this time. Really want better pics of the villains :/ Hence the reason I soon expect Creator sets to come pre-built. Say these anecdotes explain the simplified, useless parts. What remains a mystery is the ultra expensive cost. usually lowering piece counts is supposed to lower price rather than increasing it... It merely explains the lack of axles and pins. But still, at 8 bucks there could easily be enough articulations to have them more posable and not need limbs in strange angles. The armor could have still been more than one single part... Isn't it the whole point of LEGO? I bet that even for av-matoran the first time is non-obvious and you'll need help. It is natural.

Are we thinking about the target group (7+) or much younger? I'd said LEGO suitable 7 year olds are able to build even the inika without help. Nevertheless, it is not like the lower end needed help to build the pre 2008 matoran... Seriously, an impulse creator set is harder than those. At this rate, even creator sets will come pre-built, I guess that will be a quality success. --- This is boring, need better pics of the villains already.

At the price you have to pay to get that awful av-matoran torso it better be usable in anything you can possibly imagine and more. Imagination is not a good excuse from LEGO's part to reduce the piece count and add more overly specialized parts to the mix, it is a reduction of quality. Sure with imagination someone you can do some stuff with these parts, but with better parts the same person would be able to do much more. In case of the av-matoran torso, if it had all the ball points as separated pieces, you would be able to use it for a lot more things and also for things that require that specific shape. Even the designers themselves with all their imagination seemed limited in what they can do with that torso. See skrall star for a sample of how it was not even possible to have a hunched av-matoran without having having the torso's left overs ruin everything. I don't hate HF, it is too soon to judge it as a line. But the heroes' build is too av-matoranish for my taste and they are all cloned, so I won't be getting them. The villains give me hope. Do notice all we have are CGI approximations of the sets so it is likely they will look much worse in real life. Also, What's up with people considering 8 USD sets as "impulse"?

Hmnn, you are right. I forgot to factor the whole "risk of dying from poison" into the equation, so maybe with that in mind the av-matoran and mctoran are tied. I didn't have to buy nor eat that meal to get Onepu, I feel lucky.

Tangent. McDonalds promotions are always awfully far from being buildable and that's always the case on every theme not bionicle. Nevertheless, they were just the early 2001 attempt and are the exception rather than the rule. Now that I think of it, thanks for bringing the mctoran up, I forgot they were free... It is interesting av.matoran cost as much as a toa-mata and are barely as interesting building-wise as the mctoran... and mctoran even managed to have a function... It is getting off-topic though. I don't think it is arguable that there have been major changes (for worse) in piece count, piece usability, building experience and price between the 2007 matoran and the 2008 matoran. If you really disagree with this point then arguing with you is a waste of time. If you do agree with this point then I do not really have to continue arguing as that's the only point I was trying to make.

Mctoran don't count. The rest were simple . And simple is nice. But just because they were simple it didn't mean they were oversimplified. They had pins and axles and not a giantic, awful multi-use torso. The parts can actually be used on things that are not Matoran. The piece count/price ratio is a magnitude better. Seriously, compare a Voyaran with an Av-matoran. Take a look at the builds, the price and also consider the Voyaran's combiners. As a bonus, consider how Av-matoran look like deformed monsters, while voyaran just look like chibi toa.

Isn't it supposed to be a LEGO-produced kids toy? Creator sets are aimed at younger kids and their impulse sets are a lot more buildable... I expect something along the lines of pre 2008 matoran which were also kids toys and actually much less expensive.

I guess it would be much easier to take the 3d version of the figs that you already had and just render the it. Instead of getting the minifigs, making a pro photograph them and then get the retouching team to photoshop them until we get the glossy effect. BTW, anyone seen the packaging at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hmillington/4...in/photostream/ ? Is it me or is that also a render? I am not able to recognize whether the figs will come in bags or thin boxes, I hope they come in boxes else it would be too easy to find out by simple touch what the bag has...

Really though, have you ever tried an av-matoran set? Pick any 2008 matoran, 2009 agori or 2010 star. Chest, armor torso, hips and neck all come from a single giantic piece that looks awful. You then attach the limbs and it is ready... It feels so LEGO unlike that I too felt the need for a change from Bionicle... With Inika builds, there are at least variations like where / how to put the pins that are needed to put pieces together and then the armor stuff/accessories depending on the line... It is at least mildly interesting. At this rate they will begin to ship the "small" sets pre-built to please the focus groups that want everything simple (odd though, my 7 years old cousin (when he was 7 years old) seemed to love to build toa)

I call humbug. The pre 2008 matoran had very useful parts and a much, much better piece count/price ratio. Clones are annoying too, even the Agori have more variation. We are not asking LEGO for something they haven't ever done before.

Can somebody leak images of the series 2? The expectation is killing me. Since figs are basically a bunch of geometric shapes, all they need is a good renderer and a powerful computer which LEGO should really have. I believe that basically all box/canister pics we've seen in the foreseeable past are CGI.

The pic makes me think the dropship is so small that you'll probably get a lot more interesting Technic fun from 2008/9 vehicles.

Ouch I can already picture buying far too many of these for my own good. Getting 3 robots sure will take buying tons of these... Unless the figs are using China-made low plastic quality parts :( Then I would probably stop buying Lego altogether after such disappointment...

It sounded exciting at first "more flexible buildable figure" ... I thought LEGO would go back to its roots into making it about building toys rather than about following storyline at the same time as we get ripped off by av-matoran-ish builds that have overspecialized pieces. Now that we know it is just because of storyline this really blows. Bionicle's storyline was flexible enough, I mean if it was able to comprise both the toa mata and the decepticons from 2008 then no change in story was really needed to improve the sets... - Another disappointment now is : It is disappointing that there was actually no innovation at all about this. In fact, it seems like LEGO is just playing it safe by making repetitive sets using the av-matoran build they already know is an easy way to get money while not delivering LEGO's usual experience of a buildable set.- Beyond style stuff, these sets are a lot less LEGO-like than the original Bionicle or even the glatorian stuff. They are placing even less emphasis on it being a buildable toy than in the past. -

That would have sucked though. I think the Kanohi were the best collective in the story of just about every toy so I wouldn't agree with any opinion that suggests not to have them. It is simply because, besides of being a collective, they were also amazing for MoCs, my brother and I were not even close to finishing the Kanohi collection, but all the extra faces were very useful for new characters... I think though that it is great that Kanohi could give toa a personality without having to resort to cheap things like ... adding flames to Tahu's. the kaukau is forgivable because it is amazing for MoCs though... I hate Jaller's the only thing in which it can be used is in a fire toa with the same color scheme as Jaller's . It is also incredibly lame this underwater guy has a flame mask ...

A permanently attached to arm weapon can never be a good thing. Honestly, textures are relatively uncommon in Bionicle, they were strong in 2009 and 2007 but not so much in the other years (I like to pretend the Inika never happened though). It is weird though now thanks to your post I have figured out what makes me think of 2009 bionicle when I see the heroes' cgi pics... they have textures. At least their armor keep that texture-full style you see in 2009 stuff. There are also much less pin holes than usual not unlike the ultra armored glatorian bodies we've seen last year... BTW, thanks to the lack of those holes and stuff they look even further from something LEGO would make than the toa-mata looked to me... Sure the cgi lightning on the hero pics makes the textures hard to notice, but they are there... Now, if you are talking about blended colored pieces which I don't love, that is a difference. But perhaps the villains will have them...

Strange... Anyway Inika and Piraka look like nothing in the rest of Bionicle. The later sets kept the build but the looks were completely different. What's strange is this: I've owned most of the slizers and all the toa mata. At least from my point of view, the differences between those lines were quite drastic.... and the toa mata/nuva style remaining at least until 2005. The hordika seem to follow the same style as the mata for me. Nowadays compare HF with 2009 bionicle and I can't see the differences, maybe it is because we focus on different parts of a style. For example, I would find it hard not to consider the heroes as just armored agori. And the villains, one even looks like a piraka... The rest just seem to follow the guidelines used on 2009 (which is imho a good thing) . IMHO if last year they showed me pics of Von Nebula and called him a skrall or makuta, I would have believed the whole thing. Rotor is nice and is probably the one that looks the most like a slizer, I am already saving for him...

Edit: my god, I fail.

Insectoids :( As a kid I always loved space themes and was a tradition to get space sets for christmas. That year I watched a TV advert of insectoids in cable and they looked awesome... except that apparently the store from which I use to get LEGO from had problems in customs that year and they didn't get ANY set from that year :( . It was a sad christmas and insectoids never arrived to this city :(. Anyway. I would bring spyrius, except since nowadays bad guys are always non-human, the spyrius droids would have the lead role ^^.

I don't think so. I think that the nuva style geometry has been gone for long. When I see my recently acquired Tahu Mistika, he is already in the same style as these things. I guess when you compare HF to 2001 Bionicle it is quite different but compare it to 2007+ bionicle and at least I can't see much difference. It is actually hard for me to look at that screen shot and not think of 2009 glatorian... Why is it that lines that could be used in so many settings tend to be the ones that last the least? When you use logic, it would appear that the opposite is true, and that they can last more time if they are more flexible in settings. But for some reason that does not seem to be the case...

I would make sure purple remains hard to find, that's what makes that color special after all. I would then make sure each theme has bucks with pieces for that theme in at least 3 variations of size. Every set must have alternative builds. And not only town should get love in the form of 16+ massive sets. We need space ships in that price/age range as well! Licenses get back to use yellow faces+hands. Hmnn, what else? Oh I would ban retailer-exclusive sets. Just forgot, get rid of that ... thing in China that is producing some pieces right now that are definitely lower quality than real LEGO. Edit: Oh and what Mikey said.