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GregF

Outstanding BZPower Citizens
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Everything posted by GregF

  1. Jeez, does it really have to be perfect? Annoying grammar errors aside, I just want to apologize to the staff if this is causing any upset. Getting everyone all wound up about the announcement wasn't my intention at all, I guess I should have waited.
  2. Greg can I ask that if this is true, would you make a return to the forums? Certainly I will, as much as I am able. Remember, I have other commitments, but I will make a post now and then, and of course answer PMs. After all, it is partly this community that gave the line a chance at coming back. Coming here and keeping in touch with the community is something I will always try to do. Keep coming here, and I will try to do the same.
  3. I thought that people might immediately suspect it was a joke. Should I have posted today saying Bionicle wouldn't come back, so everyone would suspect the opposite? I guess I'll just post an update tomorrow, so you guys can know for sure.
  4. Hello everyone, I have an announcement to make. Although it is sort of unfortunate that it is April fools, I just recieved authorization from LEGO to talk about this today, so I didn't want to wait. (Hopefully it isn't their April fool's joke on me!) Over the last few weeks, I've been in talks with LEGO about the fate of Bionicle. More specifically, we've been discussing the possiblity of it making a return in some shape or form. The intrest in the line has keep going strong, which is one of the reasons this came up. Although I went into the discussion not knowing where it would lead, I'm happy to say that its good news! Although the revival wouldn't mean having a full line of sets again, there would at least a few small sets, and at the very least, a continuation of the story again. I'm not going to talk about where that's going, but I'm sure you have a few guesses. I'm really grateful to you guys for sticking with this community through thick and thin, and helping to show that Bionicle really does deserve another chance. I'll be posting more information on what's going to be happening as soon as I can, and hopefully allowing you guys to be involved in the process. Untill then, carry on! I still really enjoy this community, and I am looking forward to becoming a more active part of it again. Best wishes to everyone, -Greg Farshtey
  5. Average time between finishing and publishing is really up to Binkmeister and how busy he is. I send it to him and he posts it on the site.
  6. LOL, I am delirious with joy that I actually got a next serial chapter done while you guys are still young enough to care ...
  7. Decided to flip the order of the serials, so just finished part 3 of PTB (yes, you actually don't have to wait six weeks for the next chapter -- I know you're shocked ) In this episode: * We meet the "Who Am I?" winner * We answer the age-old question, "What happens when Nynrah Ghosts have too much time on their hands?" * We go inside the red star for the first time, and while we don't come out knowing just what the heck is going on there yet, it sure SOUNDS disturbing * We get the return of some folks that neither you nor I EVER thought we would see EVER again (and special thanks to Biosector01.com for refreshing my memory about them) (and no, it's not the Makuta, relax ) And in chapter 4: More red star, somebody hits the right switch and regrets it ... or is the wrong switch?, and there are some people who get very frustrated by long lines ... murderously frustrated, in fact. Oh, and what does all this have to do with the murders of Karzahni and Tren Krom? And will Kopaka and Pohatu get the chance to find out?
  8. GregF

    It's A Girl :)

    Alexandria Marie Farshtey, 8 lbs 2 ozs, born September 4th, 2010.
  9. GregF

    Yesterday Quest

    Just to update you on the new serial -- the first chapter is done, and Bink will be posting it as soon as he can (he is traveling for work, so it may be later this week). This chapter features three new Toa -- Psionics, Lightning, and Iron -- and a new villain.
  10. GregF

    Stasis Toa Name

    The name of the Toa in stasis is Varian.
  11. GregF

    Name List

    Just so everyone knows, I have the approved name list now and will be releasing the name of the stasis Toa (which people have been asking for) by end of the day on Monday.
  12. GregF

    Gn #8

    Got my copy of Papercutz GN #8 in the mail today. I must say, the art is gorgeous, especially on the first story -- really captures that creepy, claustrophobic feel I was going for. At first, I thought they might have overdone the snowstorm, as it makes things kind of hard to see at times .. then I realized that worked, because it IS hard to see in a snowstorm and that is part of what makes the baterra's sudden appearances and disappearances so effective. Overall, a great job by Christian Zanier.
  13. Prisoner still managed to be a 50-50 thing ... half the fans loved it because nothing was ever explained, and half hated it. So, as with any story, you still lose a big chunk of your readership.
  14. Thought this was an interesting to my earlier blog entry regarding the inevitable revelation of plot secrets and what it does to the sense of "mystery and wonder" -- it's from a NY Times review of a new TV show: "... “The Prisoner,” shown on CBS from 1968 to 1969, is one of the most legendary television thrillers, partly because it wrapped after one 17-episode season. Most recently “Lost” on ABC kept core fans going for an improbable six seasons, but it also shed most of its intrigue long before it ended. ...The “Twin Peaks” axiom applies here as well: a show can ride only so far by suggesting, however cleverly, that things are not as they seem. Soon the creators must start revealing what really is going on."
  15. In response to about a zillion PMs: GRAND PRIZE Elizabeth Schroeder FIRST PRIZES Alexander King Zachary Benson Robert Ryser, Jr. David Ozawa
  16. GregF

    Sizzle And Steak

    See, I was just as hooked by 2001 as you guys were. But I found writing on Mata Nui to be very confining, because none of the answers to any of the mysteries were there. So if we had stayed there, we would still be telling the "Toa fight something, go underground, defeat it, and basically learn nothing. Rinse and repeat" story in 2009. What I probably would have changed is 2005. In retrospect, I would have had 2004 be maybe half a year, dropped '05, and then gone right to the '06 story. We stayed on Metru Nui in 2005 largely because a lot of time and expense had gone into designing Metru Nui and it seemed wasteful to abandon it after just one year. But the '04 story was designed to leave it after one year, which is why '05 was so confusing in terms of continuity. Could the transition from 2003 to 2004 been handled differently/better? Sure, if this were JUST a story. But I had Metru Nui sets coming out in January that I had to promote. I didn't have time to do, "Ongoing tension between the Toa Nuva and Turaga and the truth comes out in dribs and drabs" -- I had to promote the new sets, and the new sets were from the flashback story, so it had to start abruptly in January, 2004. A LOT of the criticisms I see on here of the story are dead on the money -- but they miss the point that the story had to promote toy sales. So the option to do a lot of the things you guys suggest simply did not exist. It wasn't a case of the story team saying, "Should we approach it this way or that way? How can we build up to this slowly?" We had toys to sell in January and July, and story had to mold itself to fit that. If you are looking at it as story and nothing else, it is easy to find fault. But it was never story by itself, guys, it was part of the overall marketing plan. So if you want to rip current story for some of these things, go right ahead, because now it is a story on its own -- but it never was before, and so some criticisms of it are just off-base without taking the context of the work into account.
  17. GregF

    Sizzle And Steak

    ToM - I see your point, but this was never a story about mysticism. It was science-fantasy, yes, but always planned to be about nanotech inside of a giant robot ... the explanations were never going to be mystical in nature. The whole point of 2001-2003 was that the Matoran were misremembering their origins. It is sort of ironic because a lot of the comments about people not liking what BIONICLE "turned into" are really complaints about what BIONICLE always was and was always meant to be. As for the explanations being too detailed ... well, one man's meat is another man's poison. For every fan, like you, who didn't want all the detail there was another fan who did -- otherwise, my PM box would not have been filled these last seven years. So if we do it your way, we upset them, if we do it the other way, we upset you. It's a no-win situation.
  18. GregF

    Sizzle And Steak

    I was looking through a topic on 2001-2003 vs. later years, and Lewathetoa made an excellent point about the appeal of the early years being the spectacle of advanced beings on a primitive island, and how much of that was lost in 2004 when we got to Metru Nui. I felt it worth reprinting my response to him here, as it is a very interesting topic from a literary point of view: "What made 2001 work was the incongruity of advanced technological beings living on a tropical island with no tech at all, because that made no sense. The problem for us was, at some point you had to make it make sense, and once you did, you had to go high tech and the incongruity was lost. What you are saying completely makes sense -- I simply don't see a way around it beyond simply never explaining anything. And I wonder how many years BZP would have tolerated that before they started to think we didn't know how the Toa and Matoran got there. I have probably brought this up before, but it comes back to Stephen King's 12-foot cockroach theory. King says you can write an entire story about something scratching at a door, and terrify your reader as they imagine what it might be. Once you open the door and reveal it's a 12-foot cockroach, everybody screams ... and then ten seconds later, they're saying, "Well, at least it's not a 20-foot cockroach." Once you open the door, you inevitably lose the audience's sense of wonder. But you HAVE to do it or the story is a cheat. Even films where they purposely leave ambiguity -- was it a ghost or was the woman just crazy? -- leave a lot of unsatisfied viewers because people expect the story to explain itself. This is why King's endings are uniformly lousy, because he knows it really doesn't matter what's behind the door, it will never be as scary as what the reader imagined. To put it another way, there's sizzle and there's steak -- the sizzle will hook the reader (see 2001), but at some point, you have to produce the steak (2004 and onward) or you have no story ... you just have a story hook."
  19. GregF

    Legends Of Mata Nui

    The Maori objected to the use of some of their native terms in BIONICLE. It did not have to do with MNOG, specifically, because it was terms like Tohunga which were also appearing in other places. They never filed a lawsuit to my knowledge -- I believe LEGO met with their representatives and a compromise was reached in which we were allowed to keep using some names, like Turaga, Tahu, etc. and changed other ones, like Jala, Tohunga, etc.
  20. GregF

    Legends Of Mata Nui

    Keep in mind that would have been made during the very stringent anti-violence era of LEGO, which is probably why you didn't have Tahu shooting fire at someone, etc. In those days, our action games were not known for a lot of action.
  21. GregF

    Legends Of Mata Nui

    GT - The legal dept. already made their decision, so I am not sure what it is you are waiting on. They aren't required to provide justification for their decisions.
  22. GregF

    Legends Of Mata Nui

    I can't speak to BIONICLE: The Game, never played it. At any rate, point is moot because LOMN is not being released.
  23. GregF

    Legends Of Mata Nui

    Actually, GT, you pretty much did. These were your words: "Most Bionicle fans were unhappy about the cancellation of the toyline, and the die-hards are boycotting the new Hero Factory. I just think this would be kind of a "we're sorry, but here's something else to cheer you up" thing." So you basically positioned the release of the game as us having to somehow apologize to you. And to an earlier point -- I never heard that the game was cancelled because of bugs. What I have always heard (and I was good friends with the LEGO producer working on the game here at the time) was that the game's quality was not up to LEGO's standards.
  24. GregF

    Legends Of Mata Nui

    GoldenTahu -- I have said what I have to say on this subject. Like I said, I am not in the legal dept. and cannot speak for them. If you choose to just keep asking questions about this, I will pretty much have to ignore them because I can't help you anymore than I have. As for somehow owing you guys something -- I believe doing comics in 2010, keeping the serials going through 2011, and my being here still pretty much all constitutes things LEGO does not need to do for a cancelled line. If you dislike Hero Factory, I can't see how releasing what has accurately been called a 10 year old, bug-ridden, unfinished game is somehow going to make you like it more. While we would love it if you guys were jumping for joy about Hero Factory, we also knew going in that some of the things you loved about BIONICLE were not going to be present in this line. Our assumption was this would remain a fan community for BIONICLE and not become a fan community for HF -- HF will no doubt spawn its own community, just as BIONICLE did in 2001. Frankly, I have actually been pleasantly surprised by the number of people on here saying they will buy HF sets so they can get the new pieces ... that does not sound like a "boycott" of the line to me. BIONICLE is what it is ... HF is what it is ... people who like to MOC will find things to like in both, no doubt. People who loved an epic, 10-year long, in-depth storyline probably won't find that with HF, as that is not what HF is intended to be. You've certainly got every right to say HF is not your thing, but that does not obligate LEGO to do all sorts of extra things for you to somehow make up for your not liking it.
  25. GregF

    Legends Of Mata Nui

    Probably my fault for not making it clear I wasn't looking to open debate on this -- I was just conveying information. The situation is what it is and I doubt will change, so no point in wasting energy arguing about it.
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