1womanarmy

Yep, it's on its last legs. We've been waiting for its demise since 2011, though. This place is more undead than bonesiii, and it's a crying shame. How, though? Do we like, go to Andrew's, put the computer(s) hosting BZP on a boat and burn the whole thing? Yes. @BlackSix, expect visitors soon. This sounds interesting. Will a video be provided on YouTube? I'M IN. I have a video camera. Let's DO IT.

I would hazard an disagreement here - the only active RPG here seems to be Six Kingdoms: Escapement. The BZPRPG is now currently dead. As for why I'm here, it's to convince people to leave. Bionicle is dead, constraction is dead, and everyone's sitting around licking their wounds. Time to bail. Unless Faber can revive it with his far-fetched pet project. That's why I'm still here, to answer the question for myself: Is Bionicle truly dead? Is there truly no hope? I have my suspicions that the answer to that question is yes and that we are all sitting around in denial, but if there is any life left in this lumbering giant robot, I'm here to know.

Yeah, sorry about that man. I just noticed that this planning topic existed after I had made my post. Whoops. Noob facepalm. But here it is.

I'm not an approval overlord, but I have to say that this RPG looks good. I would play it. I think that it needs a second profile form, though, because some people might wish to play as Rahi. And it needs some player objectives: why are we hunting the Rahi, exactly? To free them from Makuta's control like in 2001? I feel that this needs clarified. Perhaps if we manage to complete a quest or hunt a Rahi, we get to a higher level. Also, what are the Guild's objectives? If they aren't to be revealed immediately, how do I as a player work toward unraveling the mystery? Why does the Guild exist? What am I doing as a player? These are concerns that I would like to see addressed in a revised draft. Thanks.

I'm slightly confused as to how these qualify as comedy shows. I mean, they have jokes in them - I seriously dug President Business' reaction to the double-decker couch - but there's like action and actual storytelling in there. And the Lego Batman Movie is comedy? The film that has "One is the loneliest number" played in it and a super-grief-tear-jerky lesson about family? You would call that a comedy movie? Besides, I think we might be able to agree that TLM/TLBM blow Ninjago out of the water far and away - I mean, we can actually compare apples to apples since Ninjago actually has its own movie (cringe). The Ninjago movie's plot was terrible because it was a rehash of the Lloyd vs. Garmadon plot that no one wanted and was actually worse than the original TV show version of those events. The comedy thing there managed to swallow the theme, so idk if it was a comedy movie or not. It just sucked. Regardless, I would not consider "inclusion of comedic lines or scenes" suitable to render the entire work a comedy, because Bionicle has some jokes in it, and we just agreed that Bionicle is not a comedy. So to label something a comedy, I would have to judge that the purpose of the work is to make people laugh, or it would have to meet the formal professional definition of satire (like the Onion, for example). I tend not to understand the sense of humor of the general population. It escapes me. Sometimes I get some of the Lego-fandom "in-jokes" like the couch reaction about impracticability. I also got some of the Lego Batman references to TV Tropes story deconstruction in the beginning of movie with the helicopter.

With that in mind, if Makuta got control of the Empire, I suspect he would build a giant Mata Nui-esque robot and crush Rebel Ships with his bare hands.

I have never watched a kid’s comedy series that didn’t suck, so this is supposed to make me like Ninjago? How? Actually, to be honest, I hate all comedy TV and theatrical films. And you’re not winning any points on that by referring to bonesiii. The parts of Ninjago I like are the not-comedy stuff, like the training course montage from the first season. The jokes are universally horrible. At least when Bionicle made a joke, it was dark-humor enough to be funny. The Ninjago jokes aren’t funny. What is TLM and TLBM? I don’t know what you’re referring to. Hopefully it’s not something involving minions. Blargh. But if there actually is a good kid’s comedy film in existence, I’d like to know about it. (All of my favorite kid’s comedies are books, not film...)

Out of curiosity, have you seen this? That’s where I got my assessment of IFB being all about art. He doesn’t talk much about story other than to say that they had to fit all of the products in. This topic is talking about Faber bringing Bionicle back, though. I think it’s important to understand what we can and can’t expect from him. If anyone wanted to do it, you have to have writing and art, at least. There’s a visual component to Bionicle which is important, even without the sets. The counterpoint to this would be the Mata Nui Rising video, which does have some really complex story elements in there involving the Mask of Life and Makuta taking over, but without Greg’s story to explain, it may not have worked as well as it did or have been such an epic moment. That’s why I’m using IFB as an example of “Faber without Greg”, as opposed to the Mata Nui Rising Video, which is what Advance is capable of with the Bionicle story team behind them. I’m with you on this - the story updates could work as DLC. But all of that is being incredibly optimistic. They probably will do some weird digital building thing in Lego development with story update videos produced by Advance, with ads for other sets thrown in to annoy us all. But like, it could be totally awesome as a game: build the hero, then put them into action for story stuff and have glorious cutscenes...it would be like the HF Breakout game, only it would have a story and be much better. Maybe more MNOG-like... I mean, if Advance and Ghost can produce a well-written Bionicle theatrical film, I’d be first in line to see it on opening night. I’m pretty sure film franchises are what operate on the model you’ve described. In that case Lego would be really stupid to not make sets to accompany the film’s release, though.

Keep in mind the context here; Faber might be a jaw-droppingly amazing concept artist, but an actual writer he is not. Faber and the team at Advance made the “Invasion From Below” TV episode that had no storytelling depth and crashed Hero Factory. So if making a setless Bionicle is beyond the storytelling skills of Greg Farshtey, Faber and Advance are hopelessly underwater. Further, starting with art and not focusing on story is what crashed Bionicle G2. I still have so much beautiful art from G2 still on my hard drive, but the story limped, and we all know what happened. I did see Faber’s “Evolution of Storytelling diagram” in his stream, so maybe he’s learned his lesson. The problem is, the Rebel Nature thing hasn’t produced a story either: all art, no story. Writing a story is a skill - I’m in college for creative writing, so I would know - and there are parts to it, like characters and theme and plot and conflict, and how all of those parts work together with the person’s writing voice and character voices. You can’t just skip over an entire area of expertise, and if you don’t want to learn it, you have to hire it. I’m not sure Faber is ready to swallow his pride enough to do either. Greg had some problems with not making his characters all sound the same, but he kept the Bionicle storyline alive for ten years. I’d breathe much easier if I knew he was writing the story here. At least he is an actual writer. Faber + Greg = Bionicle G1. I was thinking they would go on the subscription model for a MMORPG, like Lego Universe or Chima Online. Check out the price table for Lego Universe: https://brickset.com/article/656/lego-universe-subscription-costs Chima online had premium bricks that made gameplay easier/much faster. Purchases of them could run up to $60 for a pack.

I can't tell if this is a joke or not. This is a fair point, but that doesn't mean he is functionally incapable of being concise. He could say "I have a proposal for something going on with Lego that could be a Bionicle thing but I'm not sure how this will turn out and I can't say anything but it's all very exciting! Also the coronavirus got in the way and delayed the meeting." We don't know that this is not the case. Besides, even if they are not, I suspect that there will be instructions for sets built into the thing that we can build using existing parts. Or like if it's a game, many people will take out existing parts and make MoCs for it. So I think sets will be involved, even if there aren't any new ones. The obvious problem with that model is if you don't have any old Bionicle sets left or you never got the chance to buy them in the first place. For example, I have tons of G2 parts but not nearly as many G1 parts, which could prove annoying if the instructions have spaces for, say, Titan Mata Nui's shoulders or something. I'm hoping for a Bionicle MMORPG out of this one to be honest, or at least something in league with Glatorian Arena 3. I hope Lego licenses it out to Advance so we don't get like severe chat restrictions and the asking price to buy it isn't sky-high. If this is a game like I think it is, I mean, games ain't free either. Faber and his creative team have to eat somehow. I can't remember what it cost for premium Chima online and Lego Universe, but it was high enough to make me pass on it. Over time, a game subscription can easily add up to more money than the $150-$200 it was to buy the entire 2015 Bionicle wave. And if this is full VR, VR equipment represents a monetary investment as well.

I thought that was Bob Thompson. I agree with you though - we don't need a rush job here. That could give us another G2-style disaster. Let's take it easy and sip some tea.

Basically the entire CCBS system blew my mind when it first came out. The 2015 Toa deserve an honorable mention for combining CCBS with gears, which really was a mind-blowing thing.

No offense to Faber, but his stream is too long and he's talking around the information. How hard is it to say "I have a proposal to Lego to Bring Back Bionicle as a VR thing, but it got postponed because of corona, so the big day is a flop?" On the positive side, maybe Faber bringing us along for the journey will tell people how to get ideas approved by Lego and how hard the process is and what really goes into it, so people stop making irrational assumptions about it.

What I remember from Bionicle 2015 was that they kept it a big secret until a few months before they were ready to release the line. The NYC comic-con reveal was late 2014 and the 2015 thing was a Spring 2015 launch. If Lego was planning to release a new Bionicle, and involve Faber, they would put him under a non-disclosure agreement, and these images would be leaks.