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The Future of BZPower after Bionicle


Irrie

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Yes 200 posts a day is definitely dropped and very much a bad sign of activity and definitely not like a million times more than what we get at another website I frequent hahaha help

 

Okay but more on topic, we've definitely dropped in numbers a lot. Honestly, I think we're at the point where the people still here are hardcore enough to stick around for a while after. If anything, G2 proved that there's hope for the Bionicle brand to be revived in the future, so that'll at least help me stick around.

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"Whether that is right or not...I also...as a Rider...have a wish that I want to fulfill."

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  • 3 weeks later...

Keep in mind, there's lots of older members like me that pop in every now and again just to check out the front page and most recent topics. I'm not as active in the community as I used to be, but I'm still here...

 

....watching.... waiting.  :P

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It will become better with age, like a fine wine.

 

...

 

Seriously though, the activity will slowly but steadily diminish over time. Bzpower will never be the king of the Bionicle community it once was, but it won't just die all of a sudden. The die-hard fans will keep it alive, if nothing else.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Yes 200 posts a day is definitely dropped and very much a bad sign of activity and definitely not like a million times more than what we get at another website I frequent hahaha help

 

If you were replying to me, I wasn't saying 200 posts a day was terrible in itself, I just used it to show that activity could and did drop even when the board was active and not simply because it went offline for a while.

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Currently, the list at the bottom says there are ten times as many guests as active users, that seems awfully low. Granted, it's 9:30 at night where I'm at, so that might be part of it.

 

I also haven't made many posts lately just do to being more interested in things that aren't Lego. I usually stay in the blogs just due to the community. 

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Seeing activity outside of BZP, I can say that, though BZP will not die, it may change ownership in the next ten years if it lasts that long as it is now, and in the near future, a certain other BIONICLE community will implode, and there will be a flock of new folks to BZP and other sites too, akin to me finally joining after nearly thirteen years of knowing of BZP due to unseen uncivil circumstances at said other community. In fact, I've seen quite a few members from said sight that were big there come here too, the reasons of which I know not.

 

If a G3 occurs sometime in the near future, and it is successful, then we will see a major spike in new members and returning members. But of course that will call for a few new staff members in light of such an oncoming amount of people. In fact, I may just have to take up the reigns as a moderator eventually.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Honestly? I think my case is a bit unusual xD I've been a Bionicle fan since 2003... but at some point I fell behind.  I was still a fan, but it was back before a lot of stuff was revealed, so frankly I find it confusing sometimes xD I've been trying to get back into it, but unfortunately I don't know anyone in the fandom, and I haven't had much luck with my usual outlets... Really, it wasn't until it was canceled that I really wanted to get involved! I sometimes worry about what will happen... But I think it's important to remember that a lot of fandoms keep strong long after their active days.  We can keep going as long as we want.  It simply takes you - all of us - to make it happen.  That's how a fandom works.  ;D

 

Or maybe I just want that to be true, haha.

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"a b c d e f g, Rahkshi are my enemy.


Some are black, some are blue.


That one's chewing on my shoe.


Now I'm running for my life,


One of the Rahkshi has a knife!"


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Are we really just a "fandom"? I've figured that it's the creative aspect of building something new out of the stock elements that lends us more credibility and longevity. Not that there's anything wrong with pop culture fandom or toy collecting, but we do have a distinct advantage over those two categories...

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I've always thought of a fandom being the widespread community created by fans of a certain subject - in the same sense that Pokémon or Harry Potter has a fan base.  It's the sense of community when a large group of people share a common passion.  A fandom is built by that passion, and they build off each other as we're inspired by each other's work... but I would agree that we might go behind the boundaries of a fandom.  The fans HAVE influenced Bionicle occasionally, and that's not something you see every day.  So yes, I think we are much more than that...

 

...is that what you were trying to say? I think I understand but yeah.

 

My point was that we can keep Bionicle alive ourselves, and long as we have the drive.  I believe Greg himself said something along those lines.

 

But of course, people ARE going to lose interest, and find other things... it's always going to happen, but it doesn't worry me.  Because lots of long-discontinued, cancelled things still have a strong fanbase.  It's in our power to keep it alive.

"a b c d e f g, Rahkshi are my enemy.


Some are black, some are blue.


That one's chewing on my shoe.


Now I'm running for my life,


One of the Rahkshi has a knife!"


~ My 8 year old sister


 


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Bionicle fans build MOCs. I can't think of something equivalent in most "fandoms". Sure, "fan art" is a thing, but that's still fundamentally different from something being made out of pieces that are designed to be used to build a variety of things.

That may be true, however, I don't honestly know whether that leads to more creative expression in the grand scheme of things, or just encourages people to express themselves creatively in one particular form. It's something that's bothered me about both the recent state of the Bionicle community and the perennial state of the wider LEGO community — you don't see nearly as many people expressing themselves through fan art, fan music, fan games, cosplay, etc. as with a lot of the more pop-culture-driven fandoms like My Little Pony or Steven Universe. Creative expression in the LEGO community consists mostly of MOCs, Brickfilms, and toy customization. There's some non-brick-based drawing, painting, and sculpture, but not nearly as much as I see for other fandoms.

 

My experiences in the brony community since around fall 2012 have thrown into sharp relief just how much more constrained creative expression in the LEGO and Bionicle communities can often feel. When I attend BronyCon I know I'm in for an immersive weekend of art, music, cosplay, animation, and role-play. No LEGO convention I've been to has really managed to deliver so many different forms of creative appeal.

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Actually, there are quite a few drawings, fanfictions, comics, what have you on the web... I'm not sure about BZP, but there are several Bionicle groups on dA that I get notifications from all the time.  And sure, there may not be as many as others, but we each can change that...  And in a sense, MOC's are fanart too - you've made something, with your own creativity, inspired by something you like.  In a way, it's even more difficult, because you need to make something out of what you have, and it takes thinking and figuring out how everything comes together.  MOC's are cool for me cause I can easily pose them for drawing xD How many characters have their own 3D adjustable reference object?

 

Of course, I'm not trying to argue what counts as fanart and what doesn't.  Because that would be pointless.

 

Bionicle does have certain rules to it, though, that can make it difficult or even intimidating to do a story of your own, or even set up a roleplay, so I can certainly understand that boundary.  It's a reason I've kinda dropped in and out of the fandom here and there.  But Bionicle is unique and interesting enough to keep me going.  And there are less artists and writers than I'm used to.  But there's still enough to keep me going.  My biggest boundary has been a social one.

 

If I ever had a good plot and found the right people, yeah, I'd probably set up a roleplay group or something.  Like I said, my connections are lacking so that would take time.  xD

"a b c d e f g, Rahkshi are my enemy.


Some are black, some are blue.


That one's chewing on my shoe.


Now I'm running for my life,


One of the Rahkshi has a knife!"


~ My 8 year old sister


 


BZPRPG PROFILES


Tukeli [+Kiru]


 


CORPUS RAHKSHI


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My point was that we can keep Bionicle alive ourselves, and long as we have the drive.  I believe Greg himself said something along those lines.

 

Only Lego can because it belongs to them, not us.

 

 

 

It's something that's bothered me about both the recent state of the Bionicle community and the perennial state of the wider LEGO community — you don't see nearly as many people expressing themselves through fan art, fan music, fan games, cosplay, etc. as with a lot of the more pop-culture-driven fandoms like My Little Pony or Steven Universe. Creative expression in the LEGO community consists mostly of MOCs, Brickfilms, and toy customization. There's some non-brick-based drawing, painting, and sculpture, but not nearly as much as I see for other fandoms.

 

I think that's because Bionicle's most popular phase happened somewhat before the quite advanced technology and internet needed to make the sort of things you mention was around, whereas the Pony phenomenon has happened right in the middle of it. Also, interest in most Lego themes other than maybe Star Wars is perhaps a little too mild.

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I think that's because Bionicle's most popular phase happened somewhat before the quite advanced technology and internet needed to make the sort of things you mention was around, whereas the Pony phenomenon has happened right in the middle of it. Also, interest in most Lego themes other than maybe Star Wars is perhaps a little too mild.

Fair point about Bionicle's peak popularity being before things like YouTube and social media. Chances are Bionicle could've had much more of a fan music scene, for instance, if sites like YouTube, Soundcloud, and Bandcamp had been around in 2001 or 2002.

 

I'm not entirely sure that applies to the wider online LEGO community, though. LEGO fans may have only really gotten organized in the 90s, but I think it's fair to say that LEGO is more popular with all ages than it was back then. And the multifaceted fandom culture seen in the My Little Pony and Steven Universe fan communities isn't strictly a product of the last decade — it has parallels in much older fandoms like Trekkies and Whovians, which have a rich history of fan fiction, fan art, fan music, and cosplay.

 

The LEGO community has changed in many ways since the early days of Brickshelf and Lugnet, but it still hasn't really embraced this kind of fandom culture. In fact, many LEGO fan gatherings like BrickFair have more in common with specialty hobbyist gatherings like model train shows and quilt shows than with more pop-culture-based fan conventions.

 

I also wouldn't say that Star Wars is the only LEGO theme to generate intense fan interest. So far, LEGO Ninjago's popularity seems to be every bit as strong and enduring as Bionicle G1's. It's hard to quantify that, of course, given that the avenues by which fan communities gather and express themselves has changed so much over the years, but Google Trends paints a fairly vivid picture of the respective search interest for these two brands from 2004 to today.

 

Less story-driven themes like City, Space, Castle, and Pirates are also pretty popular in their own right, but the further you drift from story-driven themes, the further you drift from the kind of multifaceted fan engagement (fanfic, fan art, fan music, cosplay, etc) that I'm talking about. Fans of these themes are prolific MOCists and minifigure customizers, but not nearly as involved in forms of creative expression that don't feature the brick or minifigure as their medium.

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Yes 200 posts a day is definitely dropped and very much a bad sign of activity and definitely not like a million times more than what we get at another website I frequent hahaha help

 

If you were replying to me, I wasn't saying 200 posts a day was terrible in itself, I just used it to show that activity could and did drop even when the board was active and not simply because it went offline for a while.

 

 

The board often struggles to get 100 (counted) posts a day now, judging by the "Today's Top Posters" percentages.

 

I did all I could, ever since it hit me in June 2013 that things were dying down. I guess I could have done more.

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The LEGO community has changed in many ways since the early days of Brickshelf and Lugnet, but it still hasn't really embraced this kind of fandom culture. In fact, many LEGO fan gatherings like BrickFair have more in common with specialty hobbyist gatherings like model train shows and quilt shows than with more pop-culture-based fan conventions.

You're hitting on my earlier point - LEGO has more of a hobbyist community than a fandom. There's some overlap, but calling us a fandom misses the point in many ways. Heck, it's trivial to find AFOLs who call themselves "brick artists" and have little or no admiration for the LEGO company. The very term "AFOL" is a misnomer, since many builders aren't "fans" in any traditional sense.

 

 

 

Yes 200 posts a day is definitely dropped and very much a bad sign of activity and definitely not like a million times more than what we get at another website I frequent hahaha help

 

If you were replying to me, I wasn't saying 200 posts a day was terrible in itself, I just used it to show that activity could and did drop even when the board was active and not simply because it went offline for a while.

 

 

The board often struggles to get 100 (counted) posts a day now, judging by the "Today's Top Posters" percentages.

 

I did all I could, ever since it hit me in June 2013 that things were dying down. I guess I could have done more.

 

Forums in general seem to be doing less well these days. People with short attention spans flock to "social media" instead. Those websites (that care little for any community) are cannibalizing many websites that are actually useful.

 

It's bad enough that BZP's had downtimes and data loss over the years, but Facebook is basically a black hole and most "social" websites don't hesitate to completely delete things that people spent years putting online (MySpace being the worst example, but it's not like LEGO ReBrick did much better at respecting users' time and effort).

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You're hitting on my earlier point - LEGO has more of a hobbyist community than a fandom. There's some overlap, but calling us a fandom misses the point in many ways. Heck, it's trivial to find AFOLs who call themselves "brick artists" and have little or no admiration for the LEGO company. The very term "AFOL" is a misnomer, since many builders aren't "fans" in any traditional sense.

I'm not sure a lack of affection for a brand's parent company makes somebody any less of a fan. There are plenty of Star Wars fans who are not fans of Disney, or My Little Pony fans who are not fans of Hasbro. A fan can like a brand's actual creative output (or even just certain parts of it) without liking the whole corporate structure behind it. In many cases fans' admiration will be strictly for the artists, writers, and designers who generate their favorite content, while the company that employs them might be seen as a necessary evil — a faceless, unfeeling entity that is tolerated as long as it helps pay the bills, but also blamed for any perceived faults in the end product.

 

Truly, I think the amount of loyalty many LEGO fans have to the LEGO Group as an organization is greater than the amount of loyalty many other fandoms have to the companies that publish their favorite IPs. LEGO, of course, has played a big role in nurturing that loyalty by reaching out to adult fan communities in ways I've never really seen other toy companies like Hasbro explore. Some people seem to think that LEGO is ridiculously secretive, but they are open to their fans in a lot of ways, from sending actual toy designers to conventions (and permitting them to discuss their work online), to offering special perks for brick artists, LUGs, and fan conventions, to routinely seeking feedback from LEGO fan communities in the form of surveys. We may sometimes take these things for granted, but I do think that they result in a stronger relationship between the LEGO Group and LEGO fans than many other companies can boast.

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Not to freak anyone out, but anybody else concerned with donations running out and the site shutting down? I would go premier, but I'm working on minimum wage atm.

 

I'm just kind of... scared... Should I be?

Well, we're still here aren't we?

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Not to freak anyone out, but anybody else concerned with donations running out and the site shutting down? I would go premier, but I'm working on minimum wage atm.

 

I'm just kind of... scared... Should I be?

Well, we're still here aren't we?

 

Yeah, right now, but in like, two or three years. It's just something to point out.

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Not to freak anyone out, but anybody else concerned with donations running out and the site shutting down? I would go premier, but I'm working on minimum wage atm.

 

I'm just kind of... scared... Should I be?

 

Well, we're still here aren't we?

Yeah, right now, but in like, two or three years. It's just something to point out.
Yeah, it does sound kind of scary. I was also concered about this some time ago...but, hey...we're all gonna go someday, right?
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Not to freak anyone out, but anybody else concerned with donations running out and the site shutting down? I would go premier, but I'm working on minimum wage atm.

 

I'm just kind of... scared... Should I be?

Well, we're still here aren't we?
Yeah, right now, but in like, two or three years. It's just something to point out.
Yeah, it does sound kind of scary. I was also concered about this some time ago...but, hey...we're all gonna go someday, right?

 

Well this took an existential turn

 

:kakama:

:kakama: Stone rocks :kakama:

Model Designer at The LEGO Group. Former contributor at New Elementary. My MOCs can be found on Flickr and Instagram

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Not to freak anyone out, but anybody else concerned with donations running out and the site shutting down? I would go premier, but I'm working on minimum wage atm.

 

I'm just kind of... scared... Should I be?

Well, we're still here aren't we?
Yeah, right now, but in like, two or three years. It's just something to point out.
Yeah, it does sound kind of scary. I was also concered about this some time ago...but, hey...we're all gonna go someday, right?

 

Yea and this site has been active for what I consider pretty long time I mean man I'm 16 and when this forum was founded I was 2 years old.

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Yes 200 posts a day is definitely dropped and very much a bad sign of activity and definitely not like a million times more than what we get at another website I frequent hahaha help

 

If you were replying to me, I wasn't saying 200 posts a day was terrible in itself, I just used it to show that activity could and did drop even when the board was active and not simply because it went offline for a while.

 

 

The board often struggles to get 100 (counted) posts a day now, judging by the "Today's Top Posters" percentages.

 

I did all I could, ever since it hit me in June 2013 that things were dying down. I guess I could have done more.

 

I respect all you did, and I don't think you could've done much more because the site is up against bigger problems than one person can take on alone. I think this post does a good job of summing up a lot of them.

 

 

 

Forums in general seem to be doing less well these days. People with short attention spans flock to "social media" instead.

 

It's not just people with short attention spans; people in general are spending far more time on social networking than they did ten years ago and forum communities have inevitably suffered as a result.

 

It's surely not hard to see why - on a forum you have to spend months or years making friends and building up an identity, on a social network you can have that pretty much instantly through your offline 'real' identity.

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BZPower is like lightning in a bottle fused with Schrodinger's cat, a seemingly impossible, beautiful happenstance that stays alive only by those who remember to keep looking at it.

 

I'm not going to pretend I know what BZP's fate will be, but as someone who was there at the very beginning, I can certainly see that its role has more or less run its course. BZP without a doubt was a pioneer in what most hobbyist/fandom groups were able to attain much later through the now common forms of social media. Back in 2001, the idea of having a safe place for like-minded fans to not only share dialogue with each other on such a scale, but directly communicate with actual creators and staff of the things they admired as well was almost unheard of outside of realms like Star Wars/Trek and Anime. Even then, the symbiotic relationship BZP had with LEGO and the Bionicle franchise was special, not to mention most other web-communities comprised of mostly middle-aged men. The internet wasn't as hard-wired into culture then, and was synonymous with stranger danger to boot. It still is now of course, except now there are many other avenues such as the social media giants (Facebook, Instagram, etc) that give everybody and their pet goldfish a bubble for them to play in. I'm not saying that message board culture as a whole is dead of course, just that BZP was exactly what was needed at the time for its audience. Content creators and their consumers have hundreds, thousands of different platforms to communicate with each other now, so BZP itself, being a LEGO focused board, is certainly not the niche it used to be.

 

BZPower worked because it was exactly the website that was needed at the time, and it flourished because it was comprised mostly of kids and teens, who therefore grew up with the community and kept it alive. Times have changed, and while I know I'm being a tad cliche, BZPower is a monument to simpler times. I'm visiting here again to revisit those times, and it's nice to see new faces, and some old familiar ones. I'd like to think maybe there are more like me that'll keep finding something to come back to.

 

For the record, I was 11 when I joined, I'm 26 now. I'm still letting that sink in.

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BZPower is like lightning in a bottle fused with Schrodinger's cat, a seemingly impossible, beautiful happenstance that stays alive only by those who remember to keep looking at it.

BZPower is brought to you by [long product placement]... and by Members Like You

 

And like me, who spontaneously remembered I spent a significant amount of my youth on this site. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, I wasn't a very active member of the BZP Community even when G1 BIONICLE still existed, so perhaps I'm not the best person to make a comparison between then and now. Still, I pop back on the forums from time to time, though I usually check out only the sections I used to browse through back when I visited the forums every day, that is Storyline & Theories and Epics. From what I've seen, it seems to me that the former has suffered a significant decline, not just in the number of posts but also in the topics that are covered; the theories that are posted today mostly focus on expanding the exisiting BIONICLE universe in directions that are not always needed (such as adding new elements) or concentrate on very, very specific details that don't appear particularly significant; on the contrary, there is no longer the attention that there used to be on trying to figure out and explain the numerous plot holes in the storyline (back then, the theories that were sometimes conceived to fix those problems were truly formidable).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining or criticizing. For a start, I may be mistaken, since I don't visit the forums as much as I used to. Secondly, all this was kind of inevitable. Without an active story, a storyline topic is bound to become less lively, especially as far as G1 BIONICLE, which ended almost six years ago now, is concerned.

 

The epics forum is a different story. There may be less activity there too, but it still seems a relatively vibrant part of the forums. In fact, as some people have already pointed out, the forums are now mostly centered on the Creative Outlet, which in a way is heartening, for it shows that, although BIONICLE is gone, it still has the power to stimulate people. It makes me regret that I really bothered to explore those sections in detail, merely adding my own epics without taking the trouble to look through the works of others and review them, especially since some of the few epics I've read recently appear to be quite good. However, there is one signal of decline: over the last few years, there have been several great projects organized by BZP members, aimed at creating, for instance, fan universes, online games or storyline sequels; in essence, they were attempts to keep BIONICLE alive not merely through personal initiatives, but by making a concerted and community-wide effort. Now, I may be wrong, but most of those projects were never completed, since the participants never fully dedicated themselves to them or lost interest (again, I'm not criticizing; I contributed little or nothing at all, so I'm probably more guilty than most). I can't help but see it as a sign of the community losing its integrity.

 

I suppose it's inevitable and frankly I don't even regret it that much. I had been a dedicated fan of G1 BIONICLE, but I knew even back then that it would end... I even wanted it to end: back then, I reasoned that when eventually I reached adulthood, I would not have time to follow a toy line anymore and so I was kind of relieved when BIONICLE ended (though I hated the fact that the last serials were never completed, never giving the story the closure it deserved). It didn't quite work out the way I had thought it would: I'm still interested in BIONICLE today and I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. However, I've never developed an interest for the other toy lines BZPower began to follow and I wasn't particularly attracted to G2 either (as far as I see it, it was ill-conceived, done very poorly and with little dedication and didn't get even close to emulating the original BIONICLE). On one hand, I know that this was a way for BZP to remain active and survive, but I can't help but feel it has lost its purpose. To be honest, the main reason I'm still here is that I been writing a BIONICLE epic for a long time now and after years of work (and months of pauses, due to exams, other interests and generalized laziness), it's almost finished and ready to be posted. Once I've done that, I'm not sure what I'll do.

 

And what of BZPower itself? I cannot predict the future, but I can't help but think back to the way the old forums disappeared. If I remember correctly, it was after a sequence of downtimes, though I can't recall right now whether they were due to software problems or actual hacking attempts. Regardless, it was decided that keeping the old forums online was too complicated and so they were deleted. I wonder whether the main site faces a similar future. If so, it could happen pretty quickly and unexpectedly. I know it's selfish, but the main reason I'm hoping for BZP to last a bit longer is for me to post my epic. After that, I can't honestly predict whether I'll still be interested in coming here. Perhaps some closure is necessary here as well.

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My collection of epics: The Sanctum of Writing

 

 

 

 

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Every time I look at this topic I feel more and more depressed about my favorite website.

From it becoming inactive

To now dying in 2 years?

 

I will visit this website tell it's last day.

 

 

G3 will come at BZPower's darkest hour.

It will breath new life into the site keeping it alive.

Hey I got a Flickr because I like making LEGO stuff.

https://www.flickr.com/people/toatimelord/
 

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Whatever happens, I like to think I do my part. I try to be pretty active, and support the site as well. Honestly, I haven't seen much of a decline post-G2 compared to the activity during G2. It's less active than it was during G1's active years, but it's not like the cancellation of G2 was the apocalypse all the naysayers swore it would be.

 

Let's keep things going, folks! I mean, in the end it's on us whether BZP stays afloat.

 

:kakama:

:kakama: Stone rocks :kakama:

Model Designer at The LEGO Group. Former contributor at New Elementary. My MOCs can be found on Flickr and Instagram

:smilepohatunu: :smilehuki:

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Whatever happens, I like to think I do my part. I try to be pretty active, and support the site as well. Honestly, I haven't seen much of a decline post-G2 compared to the activity during G2. It's less active than it was during G1's active years, but it's not like the cancellation of G2 was the apocalypse all the naysayers swore it would be.

 

Let's keep things going, folks! I mean, in the end it's on us whether BZP stays afloat.

 

:kakama:

Thank you!

Finally something positive.

Hey I got a Flickr because I like making LEGO stuff.

https://www.flickr.com/people/toatimelord/
 

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However, there is one signal of decline: over the last few years, there have been several great projects organized by BZP members, aimed at creating, for instance, fan universes, online games or storyline sequels; in essence, they were attempts to keep BIONICLE alive not merely through personal initiatives, but by making a concerted and community-wide effort. Now, I may be wrong, but most of those projects were never completed, since the participants never fully dedicated themselves to them or lost interest (again, I'm not criticizing; I contributed little or nothing at all, so I'm probably more guilty than most). I can't help but see it as a sign of the community losing its integrity.

 

Such projects usually fall apart because most of the participants don't have enough technical skills to make them happen, and people tend to drift away if there's not a lot happening. Sadly, most projects don't get much beyond the concept/planning stage.

 

 

 

I was kind of relieved when BIONICLE ended (though I hated the fact that the last serials were never completed, never giving the story the closure it deserved).

 

The ending in early 2010 was meant to give the story closure; the serials after that were just a kind of separate bonus that didn't quite work out for practical reasons.

 

 

 

I cannot predict the future, but I can't help but think back to the way the old forums disappeared. If I remember correctly, it was after a sequence of downtimes, though I can't recall right now whether they were due to software problems or actual hacking attempts. Regardless, it was decided that keeping the old forums online was too complicated and so they were deleted. I wonder whether the main site faces a similar future. If so, it could happen pretty quickly and unexpectedly.

 

I believe there were some technical problems with the old forum and the staff decided to start afresh with this board. The hackings happened a bit after that; around 2013 IIRC. I don't know much about the site's current condition, but I feel this version is doing well enough that it probably won't be closed due to anything technical.

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