Aanchir

There's already a Hero Factory 2013 topic where people have been discussing these and other Toy Fair pictures for days now. This doesn't really demand its own topic. But I agree, the sets look pretty neat.

I've never had much of a problem with them myself. I'm quite fond of them for the most part. The hard plastic treads from Technic are nice, but they don't work for all things and don't always have the same performance on smooth surfaces.

With a lot of proposals, you're right. But with licensed proposals they have to get the approval of the rightsholder for the license, which often means they have to be very faithful to how that company wants the character portrayed. A lot of TV shows, when they're produced, have to have complete style guides produced to show exactly how the characters should be portrayed in toys and merchandise, because if a character looks off-model the product can end up looking sleazy and reflecting badly on the company. First of all, the Jack Sparrow and Angelica hat/hair pieces are single-mold painted parts, like the heads of the skeleton generals Nuckal and Kruncha in LEGO Ninjago. Second, gluing a bunch of pieces together like this so they fit perfectly isn't something TLG has either machines or labor to support for a set like this, would drive up costs to an absurd degree, and would make quality control a nightmare. How perfectly do the parts have to be aligned to meet TLG's standard of quality? Even the pre-assembled parts TLG already puts in several sets (like horses, minifigure torsos, and "Ultrabuild" head pieces) are expensive to produce compared to the average piece that can be just popped out of a mold, and those are parts designed to fit together securely and seamlessly. Making a new mold, as costly as it is, would at least be a reliable method of producing standardized pieces in the necessary volume. This, on the other hand, would be a tremendously risky endeavor. Overall, LEGO Cuusoo is already designed to handle projects that might be risky to take on, but expecting TLG to go to come up with completely new production structures like this for a single Cuusoo project with a small planned production run is outrageous. It baffles me how some people think fan demand is enough to make a company make unprecedented sacrifices when there are better, more reliable ways they can keep the fans happy. If LEGO Cuusoo does in fact fail to satisfy the public, it's not because TLG isn't trying hard enough to make it work, but rather because some fans' expectations of the sacrifices TLG should make for the platform are excessive and downright irrational.

Icarax's feet were sturdy Technic constructions, not ball-joint-based Hero Factory constructions that could pivot along two different rotation points in between the toe and the heel. But the stability issue I was seeing was more regarding the legs than the feet. The way those digitigrade legs were constructed doesn't have the same amount of friction as a traditional knee joint; that's the reason knee joints exist as they do in most sets. I think Eris looks quite nice myself; better than I was afraid she might look at any rate. As for "when was the last time a prototype was better than the actual set", there are certain people who would happily tell you that MOST prototypes are better than the actual sets. Invariably, there's someone to whom the mentality of "the grass is greener on the other side" applies. Examples of prototypes that were inexplicably celebrated included the 2005 playset prototypes, the Toa Inika prototypes, the Phantoka prototypes (including that melted-looking monstrosity that became Chirox), the Mistika prototypes, etc. I typically don't buy it-- most of the prototypes that people tend to prefer to the final sets are very visibly unfinished. The preference comes from the assumption that if the designs WERE finished, they would be very different from the final sets-- never mind that the process of finishing the prototype designs is invariably how the final designs are created. While the designs on the front page are obviously much more finished than the prototypes so many people inexplicably fawn over, there are still instances here where it seems clear the process of finishing the sets involved necessary sacrifices. The models on the front page do not appear as though they were designed to meet price points, using a number of recolors where existing parts (whether the same parts in different colors or different parts in the same colors) would suffice. It's true that Laval has a lot in common with Rocka now, but in general I don't judge sets strictly based on their uniqueness. If a set can be visually appealing when judged on its own, then I think it's more or less irrelevant if past series have used similar color schemes or building techniques to great effect. In Laval's case here, ignoring the fact that he shares several parts with various designs of Rocka, he's still a very good-looking model-- in some ways, better than the prototype, on which the legs feel a bit overloaded with gold, not to mention armored in a way that makes them appear spindly. While the uniqueness of his parts selection did not improve in the final version, I think the model as a whole did, and I think the average buyer is going to be buying a set based on the visual appeal of the model, not its MOCing potential.

Again, I don't think cost-cutting is the only factor in the simplified build of Laval. Stability could be a motivation as well. While cost-cutting is almost certainly the reason for the sets having fewer recolors, that's not to say that TLG had much of a choice in that regard. The cost-cutting could have easily been an unavoidable measure to keep the sets at a certain price point. And instead of looking at the ways costs were cut, sometimes it's worth noting how they weren't. There are dozens of recolors in this wave that TLG probably could have done without but chose not to. If the choice to use black feet was to offset the cost of giving Worriz new dark red shells or give Laval a gold torso shell, then I think it's more than forgivable. It's not like black is a tremendously difficult color to use anyway.

Keep in mind that despite working for another villain, Black Phantom had his own motives for participating in the breakout-- specifically, using the Assembly Tower to make himself more powerful. And furthermore, the Breakout got him out of Hero Factory prison (if not for as long as he had hoped). Overall, I think he had more than enough motivation to participate in the Breakout no matter who his employer was-- and it's not even clear if he had any way of knowing just who was employing him, since keeping one's identity secret even to one's underlings is a powerful tool in any shadowy villain's arsenal. In a certain sense, it would make sense for Von Nebula to be popular among villains, even if he's known to be a former Hero. The fact that a hero would be willing to turn against the Hero Factory and go to extreme measures to burn that bridge behind him could be seen as validation for many villains who see the Hero Factory as enemies or even merely as an annoyance. I don't think the brains are native to any place. I'm fairly certain that they are a created species, not least because their drive to destroy the Hero Factory seems to be ingrained in their consciousness. I don't think the books will reveal the mastermind behind the Breakout. They might drop heavy hints, but the ultimate reveal will almost certainly take place in the TV episodes. It wouldn't make sense to open a major plot thread in the TV episodes and then conclude it in an entirely different (and probably less accessible) story medium. Unless there is no intent by the show's writers to ever revisit that plot thread, then it will almost certainly be wrapped up in the show itself.

No, but something looking physical rather than looking smoky (we, the viewers, didn't get to touch the hand) doesn't make it real, especially when the whole scene was trippy, confusing, and misleading. Even if Von Nebula is the mastermind, it wouldn't make any sense for him to burst out of Voltix and destroy the very artifact in which he's being held captive-- and if we were meant to get a clear impression that this somehow was the case, then the writers and animators did a piss-poor job conveying that message clearly.

That's not a real set. It's a MOC.

Well, there are differences in the prototypes and final models, chief among them being the build of Laval's legs and feet, Cragger having olive green feet, and Cragger's weapon being blended (or at least, painted to suggest that the final version would be blended). So I can see how someone might have preference for the prototypes. What I'm having trouble understanding is how any of these changes (or even all of them together) is enough to make or break the whole series.

Because the only things we have to tell us it's Von Nebula are Voltix's bizarre decision to make an energy construct shaped like Von Nebula, his claw at the end of "Breakout", and the mastermind's laugh at the end of "Breakout" being voiced by Mark Hamill (as far as I know; I could be wrong about that last point). And if this character design is a placeholder, what reason do we have to think Von Nebula's claw wasn't a placeholder for a different character as well? Again, it being Von Nebula still seems like the most likely possibility, but at this point we're seeing more and more evidence that the show's animators have a knack for confusing and misleading people with their decisions to reuse/repurpose old character models. There are examples going back to Von Ness's appearance in the crowd in "Ordeal of Fire". And as a result it's becoming harder and harder to judge their actual intent from what we see in the show. I believe one of the Hero Factory readers confirmed that making electrical energy construct... things... is just one of Voltix's powers. Why it was made to look like Von Nebula is anyone's guess-- after all, all it accomplished in the episode from a storytelling perspective was confuse people and make them think Voltix had somehow summoned the ACTUAL Von Nebula.

It should not be ignored that not all new molds are created equal. Making a new mold for a one-off LEGO Cuusoo set doesn't make much sense if it can't be used in other themes, like many of the specialized molds seen in some licensed theme proposals. However, alongside some of its more specialized new molds, the Portal project has an example I'll use for the sake of argument: a 1x2 tile with rounded corners. If this were the only new mold required for the project, then it would be easy for TLG to spread its use-- and thus, the cost of production-- across other, non-Cuusoo-related themes. This is part of the reason LEGO Cuusoo can't necessarily just state "no new molds" (don't forget that some of their rules explicitly state what they owe the creators of new part projects, which can hardly exist without the possibility of new molds-- of course, they may make a broader statement to the effect of "no new molds whatsoever" and revise their terms of service, but that hasn't happened yet). It's possible for some projects that new molds could be substituted with existing molds the project creator might not have thought of using, or that LEGO designers have a new mold in the pipeline that hasn't appeared in any sets yet but just might do the trick, or even that a designer might be given the Cuusoo project to work on and realize they can incorporate one of its new molds into another theme and offset the cost of production with that non-Cuusoo theme's higher production numbers and larger budget for new parts. So all in all, just because a Cuusoo project includes a new mold doesn't mean that project cannot be produced. It depends on a number of factors that will inevitably fall on the LEGO designers responsible for gauging the viability of a project. And what this means is that projects including new molds cannot be flat-out rejected until they have made it to the review stage and the designers have been able to determine whether the new molds are essential or overly specific.

What xxlrocka meant is that there are other minor characters in the show who are just minor modifications of other characters-- for instance, Daniela Capricorn is a call center operator with a different color scheme and hairstyle, but no other changes. Likewise most background characters are palette swaps of other characters. This guy could potentially be the same deal-- a minor character not meant to stand in for any more important characters, such as whoever the "true" mastermind behind the breakout and brain attack was. Now, I think the decision to sort of keep this character to the shadows and (as far as I know) not show the Heroes taking him down suggests that he will be a character with ongoing importance, which makes the possibility of him being a placeholder for a more major villain slightly more likely (since a character with multi-year importance is a definite contender to become a set when his story arc comes to a climax, and this current character can't be given a set form without some kind of transformation). But the other possibility-- him being a minor character with little lasting relevance to the story-- can't be completely ruled out.

OK, I understand now that we're just thinking of these things differently. For me, the sides of a castle that should be most protected aren't those that will be visible from the front when the set is displayed, but the ones that face outward from the center of the castle. A tower that is open towards the center of the castle makes a lot more sense to me than one open towards the outer walls, but I can see how if you were buying the set chiefly for display you'd want the front-facing walls to have the most design attention. Pictures like this one bring to light another flaw with all the attention being placed on front-facing walls, though-- when a key feature of a castle set is its modularity, front-facing walls are not in any way guaranteed to remain facing the same direction. Here, the perfectly open walls of the treasure room and throne room face the outside. By making sure the most solid walls of the towers are always those facing the outer perimeter of the castle, this problem becomes more or less a non-issue, unless you reverse the corner towers as in this picture. Regarding the throne room in particular, I don't see how the tiny amount of space in front of the throne of the new castle is a change from 7946 at all. That set similarly had exactly a one stud buffer between the throne and a precipice of certain doom, which, it might be noted, similarly lacked any ladders, stairs, or walkways from which to enter the throne room. There would have been just as much "tip-toeing" in 7946 as in 70404, not helped by the fact that the king has farther to fall and would inevitably end up OUTSIDE the castle any way he exited unless he were to jump out one of the windows beside his throne. It's also true that the treasure room and catapult tower from 7946 had doors. However, each of these had two entrances, and only one entrance of either room was doored. This doesn't make much sense at all, especially considering that the openings for the non-doored entrances were no bigger than they would have been if they had doors of their own, and there was already a completely open side to both of these rooms for playability's sake. I agree the towers of the new castle are somewhat underwhelming visually, besides the throne room/treasure room tower and gatehouse, both of which I quite like. However, I do again appreciate them only being open towards the inside of the castle, which makes far more sense to me than being open towards the back, which is only the actual back of the castle when the towers are in a particular configuration. On a side note, I was just wondering something, looking at the box art of the new castle: do you think its coins will be the classic coins, or the type introduced in Pirates of the Caribbean? I wouldn't be opposed to either variety myself, but I'm sure a lot of people might have preference for one or the other (especially as the PotC coin prepack typically also includes gold bars).

I wouldn't call it trolling. As I figure it, this is not meant as an indication that this villain is coming out as a set, any more than other things in the show like Makuro or the FEDs from Rise of the Rookies, the guard robots from this episode, etc. And furthermore (though I haven't seen the episode so can't be certain) do we even know that this guy is the main villain? Even if he initiated the attack, he still could be a mere underling (of course, if so, he'd probably insist on the term "chief scientist" or whatnot). Overall, if this guy IS the mastermind behind the whole conspiracy connected with the Breakout and Brain Attack story arcs, and the design is a placeholder, then I'd say my disappointment isn't that he isn't shown in a buildable form but that the cinematography is astoundingly sloppy, since a placeholder design for a central character who's supposed to appear mysterious should be hidden from view more effectively, not shown clearly enough to be picked apart. As it is, if this character is supposed to keep to the shadows, he's doing a remarkably poor job of it.

Overall, I was a supporter of this project and I'm glad to see some of the more flamboyant set concepts have been removed and replaced with something that could actually make a feasible set. The real question for this model, I think, comes down to Link's hat and hair, as well as the number of parts in new colors or printed parts that might be needed if the set is to evoke the same very specific Twilight Princess aesthetic in this concept. It also calls into question whether changes to the design might be necessitated by a licensing agreement: for instance, would Nintendo want a set like this, or would they want a more colorful and iconic treatment of the Zelda series? And if the latter, how many changes would TLG make to a project's original presentation to secure a license? Naturally, though, this all comes down to whether TLG thinks this project is a feasible business case and after that whether Nintendo agrees to a licensing agreement whether or not they demand changes. I wish it the best of luck, and if it doesn't work out, that will at least offer precedent for designing future Cuusoo proposals.

Well, chalk me down for not having too much of a problem with the new Leaning Tower of Pisa design. It's true, the Cuusoo one is quite innovative, but it is also very basic in its build, with very little use of studs (could be something TLG quite rightly wants to avoid since non-FOLs buying LEGO Architecture sets for the novelty will naturally anticipate a great deal of stud-based building) and very little detail. As a smaller souvenir-type set or Monthly Mini Model Build it could certainly be successful, but despite its surprising accuracy for its scale it just doesn't have the same display quality as the official set, which regardless of any inaccuracies is something visitors to a house will surely "ooh" and "aah" at for its level of detail and complexity. Note one of the quite clever building techniques of the new Leaning Tower design. It is five-sided, an unusual geometry for a LEGO model. It achieves this by wrapping a central column in hinge plates. The Cuusoo model, while an obvious example of NPU, is NOT terribly advanced in its construction. Clever though it may be, it would be tremendously boring design for the average buyer, both in terms of the process of construction and the finished model's shelf presence.

I agree on this note-- I much prefer the new logo graphic, which has a little more emotion to it. The girls to me don't look "unsure of themselves" so much as "confident in each other", which in a theme called Friends is very important. The rigidity of the previous pose made it feel somewhat artificial to me. In this, Mia's clingy pose is a bit over-the-top, but the characters don't have that same sense of detachment. However, if we really want to know about why the logo was changed, it might be worthwhile to ask Ewa Delgado, a senior designer for LEGO Friends who has been heavily involved in its art direction. Previously she had some involvement in the art direction of Exo-Force, Duplo, and Ninjago.

While I agree they're great parts packs, I think they're also just as well-designed as the average Hero Factory figure. I can't for the life of me understand why you think they're so undesirable for the figures themselves. Despite being somewhat plain in construction compared to the preliminary models, all the figures still manage to look pretty good; better than most of the Super Heroes ultrabuild sets certainly. The preliminary Laval's legs could have been simplified as a means of cost-cutting, or it could be that they didn't meet TLG's strict rules for the sturdiness of a model. That's the same reason most sets have somewhat oversized feet-- a model should be able to stand on its own two legs in the long term (or in some cases, on one leg in the short term), not like, say, Roodaka, whose clever foot construction had flimsy ankles that struggled to support the set's weight, and that had a fairly small footprint to boot. Regardless I don't think that's a huge sacrifice by a longshot, since the model still has a decent color scheme, a unified visual language, and some very nice claws and weapons.

Well, I didn't have much against "Inika clones", at least compared to the alternative we had been presented previously (that is to say, a new, specialized torso piece every wave). Truly the Inika TORSO itself was not the problem with most sets to use that build, being one of the most versatile prefab torso designs in BIONICLE due to its copious connection points, and I thoroughly enjoyed designs like Ackar, Tarix, Malum, Gresh, etc, not to mention making my own MOCs based on that standard. And sadly, a lot of people who criticized Inika clones over the years criticize Hero Factory for the same reason. To many, the problem with this design was that parts and building techniques being used over and over was a bad thing, and Hero Factory has its own share of that with its standardized torso beams and its tendency to revisit certain armor styles. But IMO, I'd much rather have a versatile standard maintained than witness the incessant introduction of new, specialized, soon-to-be-obsolete torso designs that some BIONICLE fans tended to crave. I see no reason for something DIFFERENT to replace the current Hero Factory figure design unless it is something genuinely BETTER (for instance, the introduction of waist articulation in a way that doesn't significantly reduce the skeleton's connection points, or at least the introduction of separate armor pieces for the upper and lower body).

Ummm, excuse me, are we looking at the same castles? The Kingdoms castle's throne room was WAY more open than the new castle's-- open on three sides, two of which are facing out in any configuration. In contrast, the new throne room is open on one side, facing in. In that respect this castle's throne room is superior to either 7946 or 7094. For that matter, looking at that image of 7946 again, it seems that ALL of the towers are open towards the rear of the castle. As far as I can tell, this new castle is much more logical-- the towers are only open towards the inside of the castle walls. Also, are you sure the room above the throne room in the new castle is a prison? I was interpreting it as a treasure room (the one the bad guy in the set seems to have stolen the key for), and I can't find any pics that give a really good look inside. On a side note, looking at that pic I linked above as well as some of GRogall's pictures of 7946, I can't help but notice that its prison had a wall that broke away in a way that is even more egregiously unrealistic than the pop-out panel on the new castle. I had been a huge fan of 7946 despite not owning any Kingdoms sets, but I'm starting to understand why some people's best defense of the new castle is that it's "not much worse" than 7946. Many of the oddities of that set are the same as or worse than the ones in the new King's Castle. Which isn't to say I think either one is a bad set.

I haven't been lucky enough to find Breez or Bulk anywhere. I found a retailer's catalog online that suggests they're only being made available to retailers as a pack with several of each set, and I'm not sure whether the stores I've checked just chose not to stock those two sets at all or whether they've sold like hotcakes. Personally, I'd recommend one of the larger sets. Ogrum was a fantastic buy in my opinion. But failing that, either Breez or Bulk would be a good buy since they have some great parts in great colors. I'm gonna recommend Breez out of personal preference.

The printing for Stormer, Furno, and Surge has nothing to do with the story, as far as I can tell. The only reason the others don't have printing is that none of the small ($9.99) Hero sets have printed visors. There are no Power Functions or Mindstorms components in Dragon Bolt or Jet Rocka — the real sets are not in fact motorized. The motorized functions are a part of the display, with the motors and power supply hidden beneath the display area. It's a common feature of LEGO displays at Nuremberg Toy Fair; some of the Ninjago and Chima sets on display also have simple animatronic functions to show off their features. See starting at 3:14 for several examples. At 3:31 you can see an example of a motorized arm rising through a hole in the display table underneath Laval's Royal Fighter.And to be honest, no, I didn't expect Surge to turn evil, because frankly the point of that attribute of his personality was to make him question himself, not to suggest that he actually had evil impulses. His principal character trait is his self-doubt, and it has been addressed in both Ordeal of Fire and The Doom Box. This may be meant as another phase in his development, in that he might end up having to find the willpower within himself to overcome the brain's mind-control, but it's far from an inevitable one, since any chances of him going bad by his own volition have been thoroughly dispelled by his previous character development and growing self-confidence.

No, they actually do motorize certain sets for Toy Fair in Nuremberg. While New York Toy Fair gets the most thorough press coverage, the LEGO displays in Nuremberg are full of excellent displays-- one of the Chima displays, for instance, has an actual waterfall behind the sets. The motorized sets usually have a stiff wire or something similar attached from underneath, kind of like the displays you sometimes see at Target and Toys 'R' Us. A motor causes the wire to move up and down which in turn operates the sets' functions. Love the printing on Stormer and Surge's visors, but it's looking a little bit misaligned to the masks underneath. Hopefully the final sets are better about that. Stormer and Surge also both have back armor, though there's still a significant gap between the back armor and the rest of the torso (at least on Stormer).

Atamaii.com has a video of the Chima figures, with some nice close-ups. Worriz's face looks gorgeous. In fact, all the faces are very nice designs.