vexorian

That piece is still ugly not in a "looks like Dragon feet" way but in an "boy Bionicle's pieces are always so ugly and look so cheap" way. Anyway, I was just talking about the Dragon bolt render. I now watched the trailer and it looks better there. I hope the trailer is more accurate to the set than the render. Edit: Although the trailer just does not allow you to watch Dragon bolt up close. It seems they had to do many trade offs when building dragon bolt, in order to give it the wings and tail they had to really sacrifice the body

I mean the Toxic Reapa claws are much more needed bricks than the Piraka claws, which besides not being pretty looking have appeared in tons of sets already.

I hope Dragon bolt is lacking 600% of its bricks. It currently looks like a mal nutritioned horse with a dragon head. The awful bionicle claws (as opposed to the new ones from Toxic Reapa that do not break) do not help. The only good thing about it is the dragon head, but we have seen 5 of them in NinjaGo already.

Judging by my stand, Kardas is the only Bionicle set I keep on it. So, I guess it is Kardas.

I meant that the character in Jet Rocka will be the same size as the character in Speeda Demon's set. I don't know about you, but I do not think Speeda Demon is a titan. When I made the post I didn't know that Aquagon/Dragon bolt were furno sized. But Furno is smaller and less exciting than Stormer. Aquagon seems to be a large set but like in Jet Rocka, it seems most of the detail will be spent on wings rather in actually having a large figure.... Lest we compare these three waves with the time we had Witch Doctor and large Rocka in the same wave... Is that a small bag? It seems to be the same as the wider bag to its left. But it would be very odd for them to put the same bag twice. If we assume that it is a different small bag, then it seems that Aquagon and Dragon bolt will share a lot of features. Maybe Aquagon is some sort of hybrid between Dragon bolt and something else. Edit: sorry, wrong bag (I was talking about the bag behind the monitor). Behind the bottles, I think that the small bag is Evo.I insist that Dragon bolt is probably the small set and Aquagon the large set, because that is what the set numbers suggest. 44008 SURGE 44009 DRAGON BOLT 44010 STORMER 44011 FROST BEAST 44012 EVO - 44013 AQUAGON 44014 JET ROCKA My current theory would mean that 44008-44011 are medium sets, 44012 is small and 44013-44014 are large. It makes sense that the sizes appear in sequence, right? This would also explain the missing set from the screenshot, if the set is medium then it would be bellow Frost Beast in the medium set column, so it wasn't caught by the camera. Edit: So behind the bottles (and bellow Evo) really is another small set! Then Aquagon would have to be small, to be next to Evo in the sequence. But then, Dragon Bolt would have to be the large set, and it would be odd to have it between Surge and Stormer... Ouch. Edit: And there is no medium set bellow Frost Beast, so yeah, it seems Aquagon is a small set. Tired of both Furno and Rocka to be honest, it does not help that their sets, except for breakout rocka have a tendency to be the low points of each wave...

Jet Rocka's box suggest it will be large, but by the proportions it seems rocka will be similar to speeda demon. What screenshot? The only part of the video that I could catch that has HF stuff has only one box: Jet Rocka's. You can see both the front and back of the box though. The rest are all bags and one is repeated.I tried to use a super resolution program (photo acute) on multiple stills from the video, but it turns out it is very difficult to do it. Is this actually an improvement of the picture or not? I have no idea, if you think it is better, I can try doing it with the rest of the pictures: I suspect that interpolation does a better job. This is what happens:

So, no actual titans this year. Not going to do wonders to convince me there is no decline in the theme. The small, small hope is that Aquagon is a titan. Also, what if the thing we think is Dragon bolt is actually aquagon? It has blueish in the color scheme.

Would be far more disappointing if in a plot with these mind control slugs things, no hero goes controlled by them ever.

hmnn But looking at the set numbers, it is unlikely Dragon Bolt is a big set. He might even be a small set. Aquagon on the other hand, sounds like could be another dragon and only Jet Pack Rocka has a larger set number.

I didn't really give him symmetry. Oh, the pic does not allow us to see that it has the arms in the usual positions. I think XT4's personality is more about having tons of arms like a swiss army knife. I pondered on the thought on giving it more tool arms instead of legs. My main problem with the legs were the lack of armor in the gray bits, when the legs are long it becomes too noticeable.

I just wanted to show how much better this looks (to me) than original XT4. Didn't touch the laser.

Two new molds are probably still too much of a cost. Specially because CUSOO sets are not mass produced, so all the sales of the Zelda set would have to cover for the new molds.. I guess it also depends on the "cost I am willing to pay" field people use when supporting a set. If most people's choices were too inexpensive to justify two new molds. Then so be it.

That is a bizarre thought. Photo quality credits go to my brother.

I would discuss Chima's action figures, but those skeletal legs and arms in the Crocodile and the out of place legs in the lion still make me try to change topic. Oh wait, now I notice the strange black blob on the Croc's head! How exciting. Maybe the birds will be better. Good luck finding a new image before a couple of months though. Now that you mention it, it is very confusing to keep using that word. Let us avoid it from now on. Yet another win for team HF! Number one!!1 Are the changes in color schemes not a big departure? To me at least , they were. The the lack of the larger builds is to me a very important drop in available set quality and a big departure from previous waves. This one is a non-negotiable fact: Remove the titans from any Bionicle wave and the average set quality of the wave will drop. Larger actually makes it a site an easier target. The EU placement is probably a better reason. Like was mentioned.

Yes, this is the new XT4. XT5:

Lime mahri sockets were much weaker than the average Mahri+ socket (Or maybe Inika+ ?) but they are all very weak.

Missed the link to the CUSOO blog, was wondering about Eve online and thought Portal entered the review before June (memory is messy).

What about the other themes that entered review?

It remains me of Atlantis, Power miners and Stars for being so different to previous waves. It reminds me of Stars for being mediocre.

Yes. All sets from waves >= Mahri use weak, breaking-prone sockets. They are easily recognizable because the curved things are far thiner. Actually, the only socket you might have a chance of not breaking after some use is the one in the head. (By use I mean assembling and disassembling, but some of my Glatorian-era sockets broke by just posing the Glatorians) You might try to be very careful when removing sockets, but I sometimes wonder if that is merely a placebo.

I wish that after the Bionicle-Maori debacle, they would have spent a bit of time in google with the word "Chima" before using it. HF has already been replaced by a fantasy-like theme. They just need to remove HF from the label. Maybe leave it there and say "From the creators of Hero Factory". The first HF things we got were a more limited, and more expensive Bionicle build system. It was justifiable to dislike it. Where? Your entire argument is "HF is doing good here so it must have been so successful it convinced TLG to try two constraction themes at once.Still not seeing any evidence that HF was such a sales game changer. My argument is based on multiple things: That HF has not shaken over the world. That the latest HF wave we have any info of is mediocre and seems to have a visual style of Chima's instead of its own (Reminds me of Atlantis, Exo Force, and Bionicle's last waves). That HF has been around for 4 years already and that we know that TLG learned not to over extend a constraction line to far long like Bionicle. And that Chima constraction figures are the only thing we know of 2013-2 yet. All I am saying is that probabilities are such that I would bet that HF is going away rather than bet on it not going away.

I just wrote this as a blog's reply, I feel the need to paste it here. -- First of all, I must underline that a year ago, the only information most people had about LEGO friends was the business week article: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/lego-is-for-girls-12142011.html It was ominous because if the research procedure that the article describes was true then indeed LEGO were being sexist and endorsing gender stereotypes. There is no way around it but their market research experiments were sexist by design. Then we have the boxes. Although LEGO friends does not feature that much pink. The boxes of course have to be pink. I would like to apologize for holding LEGO to a larger standard than other toy companies, but that was not a nice move in anyway. Finally, I think that overall friends sets are great* . But I think that LEGO fluked in here. At least that is the conclusion I am making after seeing the finished friends sets, the advertising and the business week article regarding the "thought" and studies put into this. The success with LEGO friends was a fluke, because if TLG merely followed the sexist market research they conducted, the result would have still been another Belvile. TLG got lucky in that their designers actually know better than their stupid market researches. Whilst research was revealing a ton of gender stereotypes to make TLG make yet another mediocre girls theme. The designers knew the real answer to make friends a good girls theme : WELL DESIGNED SETS. That is the key difference between Belvile and friends. The sets actually have construction in them. The sets actually have innovative build techniques and are interesting to the eye. The 80s comedian's stand up show-esque study "girls like beauty, boys like role play" was a big fail and it was completely fair that it was giving TLG such a bad reputation. I'd like to thank the sane minds in LEGO that figured out that in order to sell sets to both girls and boys, the sets have to have some good construction involved. Thank you LEGO designers, you did a good job and saved TLG from making another flop. It is time for TLG to stop making dumb market researches and focus on delivering an actual good construction toy product. That is their key for success. *The segregation is minifigures for boys and girls is still bad.

It seems the head is great for many uses, except being a head. In these heroes it acts more as part of the neck. The visors are probably the only thing that is going to make me buy multiples of some of the heroes.

Except we do not know that yet. The Chima action figures are the only action figures theme we have heard of for the second half of 2013. It is actually looking like the opposite. It seems that HF 2013 sets were designed to fit Chima's look rather than the other way around. The 2013 wave of HF is looking to be transitional already.Talking about proof, there is hardly anything that would hint that HF sales are exceeding any expectations. When themes exceed expectations, TLG usually announces it, like with Friends. I just cannot picture TLG making two unlicensed constraction themes at the same time. I think the most we can expect right now is to have one last wave after brain attack sold with Chima as a good bye wave like what happened with ninjago. I actually think that the idea about Chima was exactly that. To merge the ninjago idea with the HF idea and make "the most successful Boys theme".

I only need a counter example to show that HF sales are not impressive. Single exception is proof against "For all". So, my anecdtoal evidence is more than enough to show that HF is not the most stellar theme ever. It would have to be in order to allow LEGO to take the risk of having two constraction themes at the same time...