Where was the "factory" in Hero Factory?

[Logan McOwen]

No, this isn't a question about geography.

I loved Hero Factory, and still do. One thing I really liked about it was the rather open-ended premise. While it was story driven with the Alpha Team and their missions, the concept of there being a literal factory producing hundreds of Heroes akin to those in the Alpha Team, and that said other Heroes were each in their own teams going on their own missions against their own villains, meant practically any original character you came up with was as good as canon. This mix of a basic premise for creative play and a storyline for more linear play was really interesting, and certainly inspired myself and many others to create their own adventures within the Hero Factory universe.

 

That said, I think Lego really did themselves rotten by not actively pursuing this dichotomy more than they did. While we got Hero Recon Team in 2011 and the ability to play as custom heroes in the Brain Attack game, the potential creativity of the Hero Factory franchise was never really fully explored. When I first heard about Hero Factory in 2010, I was assuming that it would a more Creator-esque approach to constraction, and actually found myself quite excited about it. While I wasn't disappointed, I was still expecting a much bigger focus on creative play, rather than character-based story.

 

I think this dichotomy could've been better followed if Hero Factory had both canon-oriented sets, portraying the year's main protagonists and antagonists, alongside more creative sets. For example, there could've been a "Build a Hero" series of sets, with a box for each season featuring enough parts to build up to two or more unique Heroes, with each instalment in the series containing new pieces introduced during its season in special colours. Alternatively, even more open-ended sets like the Bionicle 500 piece tub from 2005 could've been done, featuring tons of duplicates of both new and old pieces for truly custom building. 

 

What do you guys think? Do you think Hero Factory could've used a bit more "factory"?

Edited August 11, 2016 by Logan McOwen

[Disciple]

You hit the nail on the head. I had the same impression back in 2010 before HF got off the ground-- less character-driven and more focus on building and creative problem solving. Almost drawing from MINDSTORMS, with how each robot is designed to accomplish a specific task. For example, "Oh, bad guys are starting fires in the city? Well, we're gonna send in this giant firetruck Hero with water cannons strapped to his back!"

 

You may remember they had a little "villain creator" game on the 2010 website that let you design a silhouette of a villain and add tentacles, treads, claws, etc. The design of those things always made me hope we were gonna get some big, non-humanoid villain sets at some point. The villains we got were usually pretty cool, but with the exception of the "Invasion from Below" beasts, we never got any truly alien-looking monsters for the heroes to fight. I would have loved to see more sets with the heroes going up against monsters a la Brickshelf member icemonster's MOCs. (For example, the mantis and the molebeast.)

 

So yes, to put it simply, I think Hero Factory should have had a little more emphasis on the "factory" part.

Edited August 11, 2016 by Disciple

[Sumiki]

I wholeheartedly agree, but there's a part of me that still wonders ...
 
What if the real Hero Factory were the friends we made along the way?

[Lenny7092]

Well, if I recall correctly, I remembered looking at the Hero Factory sets in the Toy Fair 2010 pictures. Bionicle was cancelled during the time, so when I looked at the HF sets closely, I thought they are pretty cool, so I became interested in buying the sets. That cheered me up from the loss of Bionicle.

 

Anyway, among these new HF topics, I can see why we are talking again, because Bionicle G2's has been cancelled, so we are theoretically thinking about Hero Factory's possible return in 2017. I get it. I feel you guys. Let's give hugs. Sorry for being off-topic, but that's how I am analyzing what is happening new after Bionicle got cancelled again this year.

[Dark_Stranger]

I would gladly have accepted fewer sets per year in exchange for an annual 200-300 piece "Factory kit". Something with all the year's new helmet/weapon/armor molds in multiple recolors (none in the same colors as the "canon" sets, so as not to cut into their sales), plus a healthy selection of standard skeleton and armor pieces. Given the premise, I think those would have sold very well.

[Rahkshi Lalonde]

i gotta agree with ya about the wishing for more open building, but i was at a glance of the title assuming you had missed the fact that the factory was the big fin shaped thing, which would have been a herculean task to do.

[Ta-metru_defender]

I never got any of the Hero Factory sets, but I really did enjoy screwing around with the CCBS parts at a friend's place. This sorta thing just might have gotten me to buy some.

[ShadowBionics]

That's not a bad idea. I loved those Bionicle tubs of parts (I still own one and use it to store extra parts) and as someone who was casually following the HF line, I thought there was more potential to the whole Hero Recon Team and the ability to design your own hero. If they did something like that for Hero Factory, I would've totally gone for it. That way I wouldn't have to had bought duplicates of various 2011 sets to create my own MOCs... I mean, to fully explore the options of actually creating and expanding on the idea of building your own hero. Or the villain.

 

I think one thing that could have been played into more with Hero Factory is the whole idea of how there's many heroes in this universe that you don't see. And while the A-Team is the one the story centers around on, it still leaves the door open to someone to make their own stories with their own characters and allow imagination and creativity to take place. But alas, a missed opportunity. Hopefully it'll be one Lego thinks of exploring again. Given, they think of another line in the same vane as HF and Bionicle. I've listened to so many "Bionicle is Cancelled" videos with so many theories and what not that part of me still wants to be hopeful yet all the NEIGH-sayers are making me feel otherwise.

[Aanchir]

I think the reason the series drifted away from the more creative and user-generated aspects of Hero Factory as it went on is that sadly, those aspects were not all that successful. Hero Recon Team is the obvious example — like the Design byME program it sprung from, it tended to confuse users, thus discouraging them from actually using it to make purchases. Likewise, the "call center" which encouraged people to pitch their own emergency scenarios which would be evaluated on the "Hero Factory FM" podcast also evidently wasn't a successful enough initiative to continue for more than one year.

 

LEGO definitely opted for a hugely experimental strategy in those first two years, but when many of those initiatives failed, they went back to what they'd had more positive experiences with: episodic, character-driven storytelling.

 

As for things like those old Bionicle bulk tubs, as amazing as a CCBS set like those would be, I don't know how profitable those were in the first place. And I think that would play a big role in whether we ever see a modern counterpart to those.