Black Six

With the end of Premier Memberships, there's still a hope that the community will help support BZPower and keep the site running. We have to pay monthly for our hosting, keep the BZPower domain names, install an SSL certificate to secure the connection between our site and our users, and have an active license for our forum software so we can stay updated. And that's just at a bare minimum. Other things like shipping raffle and contest prizes add more expenses, and none of that even considers the time the staff donates behind the scenes. To hopefully help with all that, we are opening the site up to donations, with a goal you can see here that tracks our expenses for the year to date, plus the fees and taxes that will be removed from any payments. There's no perks for donating, just a sincere thank you from myself and everyone else who still uses and enjoys BZPower. We appreciate any and all support! Even if we don't meet our target, we will still continue to keep the site running for as long as we are able. BZPower means a lot to us all, and we'd love to see it stick around for a long, long time. If you can help, we truly appreciate it!

Stream Archives Set Builds LEGO Architecture 21026 Venice - March 20, 2024 LEGO Star Wars Death Star Trench Run - March 27, 2024 LEGO Ideas Tales of the Space Age - April 11, 2024 Videogames LEGO Indiana Jones - April 2, 2024 LEGO Indiana Jones - April 3, 2024 LEGO Indiana Jones - April 8, 2024 LEGO Indiana Jones - April 16, 2024

Yes, that's the best name I could come up with - names are hard! Coming back from a couple months of soul-searching, I am ready to return to streaming - come join the block party! After almost a decade of doing different types of streams with different names and schedules, I am merging everything into one generic LEGO-themed stream not tied to building sets, playing videogames, days of the week, or a specific platform. That stream is B6's Block Party! Our first stream will be tomorrow, March 20th, at 7 PM Eastern, where we're going to build a LEGO set. What set? You'll have to come and find out! We haven't changed locations, so we'll still be over on the BZPower Twitch channel, with archives posted on our YouTube channel. Moving forward, the plan will be to announce a schedule every Sunday or Monday, with at least a day's notice so people can plan accordingly. We'll be building sets, playing videogames, and maybe other things? I have a lot of bricks that need to be sorted and some sets that need to be taken apart eventually, so maybe you'll see that too at some point (or you won't because it sounds boring and you won't watch). There won't be anymore giveaways like we did with our set builds - believe it or not after almost a decade since we received the first pallets from The LEGO Group, we are actually starting to run low and want to focus our remaining supplies on things like contests and the convention circuit. So yeah, something new and hopefully fresh and fun! At some point I'll probably need to come up with a new logo and maybe some overlays and other graphics - if you want to help, please let me know! Thanks everyone who has ever watched one of our streams and to all our future viewers - we do this for the fun of it and hope you have fun too!

Okay, I think this has gone on long enough, and the disruption is no longer needed. I wish PortalPuppy all the best, but clearly they need to step away from BZPower and the rest of the community.

I think that about wraps it up for this topic. Thread closed.

See my post here: Thread closed.

See my post here: Thread closed.

BZPower is not the place to air private disputes. Vahkiti has made it very clear he does not want to talk to you, so I encourage you to stop. If you continue to bring this up in topics on BZPower, we will consider restricting your posting privileges. If you want to stay here and talk about Bionicle, you're welcome to do so, but please keep it at that. Thread closed.

The Future of Twitch Tuesday Digging back through pages and pages of YouTube videos, it looks like we first started doing our Twitch Tuesday streams in July of 2015, about seven months after our first live build in December 2014. While that's not quite a decade, it's still a long time! Our streams of videogames and set builds have changed a bit over those years, especially the latter, and 2023 found my personal life making it difficult to stream on the weekends building LEGO sets. And I miss that. While I love playing videogames, over eight years of Twitch Tuesdays means I've played just about every TT Games title and quite a few of the more recent additions like LEGO Brawls. I enjoy striving for completion and finding every widget and collectible, but there is a point where the tediousness sets in a bit. So while I want to keep playing games, I want to bring back the set builds as well, and I don't want to be tied down to Tuesdays every week. Ergo, Twitch Tuesday as we know it is coming to an end. My goal is still to stream at least once a week, and maybe even more than once a week, switching between LEGO sets and LEGO games depending on my mood and what's captured my interest. There are still some details to be worked out. I'd like to come up with a catchy name for this new venture, and names are always hard. I also need to determine what my schedule is going to be and how far in advance I can share it. It would be great to be able to post it at the beginning of the week, but real life doesn't always accomodate things like that. Also, when I decided to take February off from streaming, I did not plan far enough in advance to realize that BrickFair Fredericksburg is at the beginning of March, meaning no streams will resume until March 18th at the earliest. So there's still some work to be done, but I'm looking forward to building and playing live for you all over on our Twitch Channel soon. Your feedback and input is always welcome!

Retiring Premier Membership BZPower has had the Premier Membership program for a long time, providing a way for people to help support the site financially while receiving some perks in return. Over the years, with changes to the forum software and the decrease in activity on the site, the allure of those perks has understandably been reduced, making the program much less appealing than it was in the past. Invision, the company that makes BZPower's forum software, announced that in their next major update they will be removing the store aspect of the forums, which is how Premier Memberships are managed. Keeping everything above in mind, this seems like the right time to cease the Premier Membership program. Of course, anyone who purchased a Lifetime membership will retain that title and the remaining perks, but memberships will no longer be for sale as of February 29th, 2024. The forum software does have new ways of doing subscriptions and accepting donations, so we may look into doing a new program in the future. If we do, it will be something that fits with the current activity level of the site and capabilities of the software. We appreciate everyone who has donated to support BZPower over the years! Every little bit has been helpful in keeping us running, and we thank you all!

I would certainly like to play more LEGO Brawls. It may just be something that goes on the back burner for a bit while I build LEGO sets or go back to some of the TT Games. To be determined!

Weird - True Achievements usually does a pretty good job with syncing. Looking at my Xbox profile, it says I'm 69% of the way there, which I think is only 14/20. Not sure where the disconnect happened.

The process for joining BioniLUG has changed, as have some of the details. Please refer to this page on the BioniLUG website for current and future information.

That's definitely good info to have! I'll make a note somewhere to reference in the future. I'm still feeling Monkie Kid is next though. Yep, I'm 60% of the way there!

That's your signature. You can edit it here.

I agree that things went well this week! (Except for Free For Brawl, which I don't think I'll ever come around to.) Hopefully I'll be able to get the 20 top brawlers by the end of January - I definitely feel like I am getting better as I learn the maps and their intricacies (thanks to your tips).

The numbers don't lie, unfortunately. I'll try out your strategy next time.

Looks like I'm at 5/20 for this one, so by that math, still six more streams to go before I get it, in all likelihood. We'll see if I stick with the game that long.

It was definitely a fun experience, except for those couple of maps where it zooms out your perspective. I'm looking forward to playing more next week. Thanks for all the tips!

Yeah, I definitely think I want to reduce my driving time after this one. Don't expect to see Dimensions again anytime soon. I like the game, but streaming it is very frustrating with my current setup. I think I would have to completely rearrange things in my room to really dive back into it. I haven't picked it up yet, and $30 seems steep for two days' worth of playing. Maybe if it drops to $10 or so. Looks like it's on sale for $5 on Xbox, which is easier for me to stream than PC, so I picked it up. I think we have a winner for our next game! Overall, I've been doing some thinking about what my streaming is going to look like in 2024, so there may be some change-ups come January.