Aanchir
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Everything posted by Aanchir
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Yep. Kulta's a nice, spooky name, and an easy one to remember. No complaints here. It's gonna drive me nuts if the community has to go through this whole song and dance every time we get a character whose set is named only with English words, though.
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Nah, the new season started airing in the United States yesterday and will be finished by the end of next week, since they're airing a new episode every weekday. So there'd be no need to preview it at SDCC.
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Lord of Skull Spiders didn't grab the Mask of Creation in the comics or story videos either. I think it's safe to say these TV commercials are no more canon than the Inika and Piraka commercials in 2006.
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All the LEGO activity books that are published in the United States are published by Scholastic, though to my knowledge all of the content (including the bricks/figures) is the same as in the Ameet editions published in Poland. The ones that feature non-stock-art illustrations inside have Ameet Studio listed as the illustrator on the back.
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It could be that they'll be featuring him in a separate commercial. LEGO did that a few times with their LEGO Hero Factory TV commercials. Or it could just be that LEGO thinks having ten characters in one commercial would be too confusing. At Toy Fair the "TV" callouts only appeared on the title cards for two sets: Lord of Skull Spiders and Mask Maker vs. Skull Grinder. But it's not the first time a set this year has been skipped — the Protectors weren't featured in the TV commercial for the first half of the year. The Toa are still being distributed all year, and that's actually nothing out of the ordinary. Sets usually don't disappear from shelves completely until at least a year after their initial release. Come next January, though, the Toa sets will probably be in the process of being phased out, if LEGO is handling BIONICLE anything like their other themes. The only sets that have an intended shelf life much longer than a year tend to be really large $90+ sets like castles, pirate ships, large Technic vehicles, and LEGO Mindstorms kits.
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G2 Bohrok Concepts -- Feel free to join in!
Aanchir replied to CabooseBM's topic in LEGO Action Figures
Fair enough. For me, the most timeless aspect of the Bohrok and the aspect that still holds up today is not their story role or "hive mind" characterization or anything like that, but rather their functionality. And in truth, there are probably ways you could reflect that impressive level of functionality without simply upscaling and revamping the existing designs. For instance, Classic Bohrok could fold up into a ball, but new Bohrok-inspired sets that could fold up into a wheel or disk of some sort could be just as impressive. I too would prefer if G2 BIONICLE avoided $15 clone sets (or clone sets in general, for that matter — I feel like sets have evolved beyond that). My brother proposed that perhaps a Bohrok-inspired creature would be best as an individual villain rather than an army of drones — think XT4 from LEGO Hero Factory, for instance. But I'm not sure I agree with that sentiment. For all I know, the best way to get Bohrok-like functionality in a modern-day set might even be to try for a completely different scale, maybe even something similar in size to the Skull Spiders. After all, some of the LEGO Group's competitors like Ionix have done some amazing things with transforming minifigures and creatures. But overall, this was intended less as an actual hypothetical set and more just to answer the question of whether a model with Bohrok-like functionality could even be created while adhering to modern parts and set design standards. I don't particularly care if we ever get actual "G2 Bohrok", and I think I'd actually prefer if future BIONICLE villains be more original instead of strictly based on G1 villain sets. I just wanted to challenge myself and see whether the Bohrok's functionality truly can be separated from their use of extremely specialized pieces. -
Just to confirm, there will be a Ninjago panel at San Diego Comic-Con this year!
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G2 Bohrok Concepts -- Feel free to join in!
Aanchir replied to CabooseBM's topic in LEGO Action Figures
Here's what I've been able to come up with so far: G2 Bohrok Concept WIP by Scott Barnick, on Flickr -
I guess I get what you're saying, but all things considered, it's not like G1 didn't have its fair share of repetitive/formulaic enemy names (just look at the Rahkshi, Vahki, and Visorak, which were identified by the suffixes rahk, akh, and rak respectively). I guess it's really the intersection of "formulaic name" and "name with obvious meaning" that bothers people...
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True, but if 2005 had started with the Visorak then you'd have had the same problem in 2004. But in general, it's something the LEGO Group tries to avoid. There's no reason they'd want to be in a position where kids can't buy the theme's main characters, and since Toa-sized sets tend to have about a year-long shelf life, that's basically what not having any "good guys" in the first half of 2016 would amount to.
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I still struggle to understand why a meaningful, descriptive name made up of real words can't be an actual name. I don't remember any fans complaining about Dark Hunter names like The Shadowed One, Ancient, Airwatcher, and Shadow Stealer back in G1 (yes, I know those were all code names, but considering they're the only names the characters were ever identified by, it really doesn't make a difference). BIONICLE is the only franchise I know of where so many fans are convinced that only names with no obvious meaning (or worse, no meaning at all) can be "actual names".
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Even if we ignore all the other hints at this list being fake, how plausible is it really that we'll go an entire additional wave without any new hero characters? By the time the 1hy 2016 sets are released, the 2015 Toa and Protector sets will already be on their way out, meaning Ekimu would be the only widely available "good guy" at that point. I find it incredibly unlikely that the LEGO Group would let that happen. And if this list is in fact supposed to validate the "leaks" from that supposed playtester, then why are other sets they mentioned like the new Toa and the new version of Ekimu not even mentioned? I can't fathom why the person who supposedly saw this "leak" would not have gotten a complete list? Unless they were trying to insinuate that the new Toa would be released in a later wave. As mentioned above, that's unlikely. The 1hy2015 wave would need to fill a vacuum left by thirteen sets leaving the shelves, so why would it only include six sets which, as villain sets, would be far more redundant than new hero sets? The set numbers are about the only thing that's remotely plausible here, since set numbers can't really continue sequentially for very long after Mask Maker vs. Skull Grinder or they'll run up against the LEGO Movie set numbers (70800–70819). But we've got an undisclosed source (we're told by the person who made the original post that they've been right before, but not what they've been right about), a range of characters that seem almost purposefully redundant, and a theme that seems to be based strictly on an equally dubious "leak". Maybe one of the "leaks" might turn out to have some authenticity, but for right now I see no reason to give this rumor the time of day. On a separate note, cache.LEGO.com has hi-res summer set pics.
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I'm not sure why that's a really big deal. But in any case, the winners of the Mask of Stone, Mask of Water, Mask of Ice, and Mask of Earth have all shared pictures of them to the LEGO Bionicle Facebook page (scroll down to "posts to page"). This pic is probably my favorite! But I'm a bit biased there — Gali is my favorite of the new Toa, after all!
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That is a great layout! If you bought a second playmat you'd even be able to include Naida's Epic Adventure Ship, since the playmat is designed so the "river" and "ocean" sides can join together! I'm glad that you can fit this many sets on the playmat. I hadn't seen one unfolded, and while I knew there was room for the entire first wave of sets on one side, I wasn't sure how much space the Sky Castle and Pegasus Sleigh sets would take up. Looks like there's even enough room to add a few MOCs to the display, especially if you add a second playmat!
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Ninjago: Masters Of Spinjitsu TV Show Thread
Aanchir replied to Lance's topic in LEGO Media and Gaming
Depends on whether the spacecraft he worked on were manned or unmanned. If I'm remembering the events of "Codename: Arcturus" correctly, Ninjago does have satellites. Furthermore, I seem to recall that there were more objections raised in that episode to the idea of ninja in space than to the idea of people in space. It refers to it as "the former Skulkin general", and Samukai was not the only Skulkin general, just the Skulkins' overall leader. Nuckal, Kruncha, and Wyplash were all identified as Skulkin generals on their old LEGO.com character pages, and it's not out of the question that there might have been other Skulkin generals before them. -
Glad you like it! Yeah, the villagers being largely identical was a mix between trying to keep the set "balanced" and trying to stay accurate to their appearance in the webisodes. Although I did take some liberties from the villagers in the webisodes by giving them transparent arms and lower legs (that was one of my brother's suggestions, and it really does liven the designs up). Of course not! Here's a diagram built on LDD. It's a very simple design, although if I had built it at home I'd probably have needed to use the right angle connectors in Dark Stone Grey rather than black (not that it makes a big difference). I actually didn't even realize they had come in black until I saw them among the parts for this competition, but apparently four black ones were used in this year's Technic cherry picker.
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The fourth webisode is up. This one is very mysterious and includes some serious foreshadowing for future adventures.
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Thanks! That could certainly be interesting! And that was definitely sort of the idea I was going for, although this was envisioned as more of a single $20–$25 set. It'd be hard to include more than one fully-articulated figure at a $10–$12 price point — the Protectors alone are already at the $10 mark. But I could see a model like this being released as a "starter set" and individual villager figures being released with more specific (and potentially single-player) challenges, much like the Speedorz or some of the old LEGO Sports sets. They weren't totally specific about price point. If they had been, it might have confused people, since there were people from so many different countries in attendance, and price points can vary wildly from country to country even among countries that share a common currency, like the euro. But they had a bunch of sets out as examples including Cloud Cuckoo Palace, Fire Emergency, Snowspeeder, and Avengers Hydra Showdown, so I can only assume they wanted us to shoot for a price point somewhere between 20 and 40 dollars/euros. The designers were more concerned about builders pushing the price too high than too low — stick a huge supply of pieces in front of a bunch of LEGO builders and it's easy for them want to pile more and more pieces and features onto their model. Some of the models that were awarded "honorable mention" did overshoot the desired price point a bit, like one builder's subway and street scene or another builder's playground.
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All pics link to Flickr! Description: The villagers of Okoto play this ancient sport to bring pride to their villages. The first villager to shoot a gem through the hoop three times wins the ceremonial mask. They are armed with weapons to knock away the opponent's gems and shooters to fire their gems through the hoop. Two score counters are also included. Background: This year I was able to attend the LEGO Inside Tour for the first time. The 34-person group I was in, which toured from the 19th of May to the 22nd, was the second tour group for 2015 and the 28th since the LEGO Inside Tour began. The most thrilling part of the LEGO Inside Tour, for me, was getting to meet and spend time with so many LEGO designers and others who help to make the LEGO Group the company that it is. However, the biggest surprise for me was connected with the building competition at the end of the first day. All tour participants were invited to think like a LEGO designer and design a potential set to meet certain constraints. The designers would judge them the next day before announcing the winners at an awards ceremony that evening. The parts provided for us included many BIONICLE pieces, but I was one of the only builders to create a primarily BIONICLE-based creation, since that is the style of building that comes most naturally to me. When I finished my model at around 10:20pm, a lot of other builders were still working on their own creations, so I didn't get to see what my model was up against until the awards ceremony. To my amazement, the model I created won first prize! It was the first BIONICLE creation to win first prize in the history of the LEGO Inside Tour. The designers liked that it had a clear play scenario and hit the desired price point almost exactly. I was awarded a LEGO set and a brick-built trophy printed with the Inside Tour logo. And yes, they let me keep my creation! Bonus pics:
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Ninjago: Masters Of Spinjitsu TV Show Thread
Aanchir replied to Lance's topic in LEGO Media and Gaming
I might be misremembering, but I thought there was a line at some point about how they'd returned them to the Temple of Light after the Overlord had been defeated. -
You mean the mixel with the ableist bio that's already been corrected? Discontinuing a set over it being described in an insensitive way would be overkill by any reasonable measure. Especially because Mixels are sold by the box, so there really doesn't exist any way to discontinue just one of 27, any more than there would exist a way to discontinue one collectible minifigure in a set of 16 after they've already been released.
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Had we gotten descriptions of the Series 6 tribes? The new Australian catalog has them. No individualized descriptions, though.
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How is it that sites like Brickset and FBTB haven't yet reported on the first appearance of the LEGO BB-8 minifigure? *ahem* With that said, not much new info as far as BIONICLE is concerned — in fact, few of the themes really seem to have a lot of story blurbs for the actual summer sets like many of them have for the winter sets. But high-detail pictures are still cool!
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I haven't seen them online anywhere yet. LEGO.com doesn't even have the pictures in their cache. With them appearing in LEGO stores I'm sure some resellers on Amazon might be selling them by now, but Amazon resellers often have inflated prices, so it might be better to wait until they're either actually being sold by LEGO, whether through Amazon or shop.LEGO.com.
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The pegs on the Hero Core (and on some of the larger armor pieces) are the same 3.2mm width as the handles of minifigure accessories like swords, megaphones, and lightsaber blades, meaning they can fit perfectly into clips or hollow studs. There are even some sets that use this, like 76026, which uses a Hero Factory/CCBS chest plate for the front panel of the Bat-Mech.