Xalen: Shadowed Spirit of

Well this is obviously your own design, but I've seen Bohrok limbs as a chest for female MOCs as a not uncommon design after Nuva shoulders went out of style.

Sorry to shatter your dreams, but lime/blue is a pretty common color scheme. Note Nocturn, Hahli Mahri, and every Toa of The Green. =P However, it's common because it works, and this is no exception. your color layering here with the lime base and blue accents is beautiful, with the exception of the unavoidable black scars on an otherwise pastel MOC. The slizer head gun is beautiful, and the bohrok arm torso is, if slightly unoriginal, pulled off in a unique and appealing manner. The highlight, one ever, of the MOC is the transblue tubing on the back. It just WORKS, y'know? So pretty! <3

Hey Xin, haven't seen you in a while. Iro said you guys have moved to a Skype group, for which I of course have neither an account nor a webcam. =P I really like this, and the hea is so ridiculously amazing dude. However, the other two have said the white stands out too much - which is true, to an extent. White looks great with dark blue, great with orange and keetorange. However, I think that it would look better here if to switched keetorange from the tertiary color to secondary and used white as a highlight color rather than a secondary - the vibrancy really stands out from the others, but as an accent (like the rubber bands on the neck, a stroke of genius) it works amazingly. If you would like to keep white as a more prominent color, I would at least incorporate more keetorange into the neck, which would sort of,ruin the whole "underbelly" vibe you've got going on with the orange, but would help with color balance. All in all, a fantastic MOC with only a couple minor coloration issues, but a heck of a lot of creativity and awesome techniques. ; )

So I was posting in "Hero Factory or Zero Factory" over in Lego Discussion, where I mentioned that I felt Breakout parts 1 and 2 were my favorite HF episodes, due to the pacing in OoF, corny puns in SP, and plot holes and flat characters in RotR. I was honestly surprised when not one but two posters said they felt Breakout was the worst of the HF television specials, so I decided to make this topic. What's your favorite Hero Factory episode/special/series out of Rise of the Rookies, Ordeal of Fire, Savage Planet, and Breakout? Mine is Breakout, because it had more developed characterization and plot lines than RotR, and dodn't have the pacing issues or horrid jokes as the later two. My least favorite would have to be RotR because of how flat all the characters other than Stormer and Furno were and the weird plot stuff going on with Von Nebula.

You're very welcome! I hope I wasn't too blunt, it's just that you didn't seem to know quite what you were arguing in the first post. Remember, even the smallest bit of research on your topic is always good for a decent argument!Well, I thought it quite obvious from my post that I did like Hero Factory to some degree, but if you would like me to say it again: I do like the idea of Hero Factory, but I feel that it was presented in a way that wasn't as good as Bionicle was, it was made for a younger audience rather than the larger target audience Bionicle had, and the timing of it was terrible. I mean, of course some people are going to hate it without even knowing what it is when it's been thrown out there right after Bionicle ended; it seems exactly like a 'replacement' of sorts. I am also a fan of Bionicle, and I am more fond of Bionicle than I am of Hero Factory.A lot of people suggest that Hero Factory is aimed at a younger audience than BIONICLE was, but I don't really believe that myself. A lot of BIONICLE fans became fans when they were very young, after all, and the age range for the Hero Factory toys tends to be about the same as for BIONICLE. I think it's more a matter of not driving off younger fans with a lot of mythology to learn each year. Even though the Hero Factory universe expands in small ways each year (for instance, in late 2011 we learned where Quaza comes from), the new knowledge is usually most relevant to the year it's introduced, and not essential knowledge for future years' stories.It should also be considered that kids in different years grow up in different contexts. In BIONICLE's early days, some of the big intellectual properties included the Star Wars prequels, the Harry Potter series, and the Lord of the Rings film franchise. Just a couple years earlier, Pokemon had dominated the marketing scene. All of these are franchises with a lot of facts to learn if you wanted to consider yourself a devoted fan. BIONICLE was shaped around this trend, with the story information deliberately spread across lots of media so fans had to invest themselves deeply in various sources to get the whole story.Today if you look at what franchises are moving the most merchandise, one strong contender is Transformers. While it has always (to my knowledge) been a strongly-selling product line, it has in recent years gained a successful theatrical film franchise. And what does this have in common with the brands that were successful back then? Wide-ranging appeal. The Transformers films are seen as something a lot of age groups can enjoy-- customers aren't too worried about them being too childish or too edgy. And Transformers has never been ashamed to have names with obvious derivations like "Starscream". The same applies for some of the other merchandising phenomena of recent years, like various successful superhero movies.Is the Avengers film inherently more childish than Harry Potter just because it has character names like Hulk, Black Widow, and Hawkeye instead of names like Albus Dumbledore and Lucius Malfoy? No, of course not. So in that case why would Hero Factory be more childish than BIONICLE because of character names like Jawblade or Splitface instead of foreign-sounding character names like Hydraxon, Antroz, and Gelu? Some people might consider such straightforward names "cheesy", but that's just a matter of opinion.One reason I like Hero Factory's story is because it aims at a principle software designers call WYSIWYG-- "What You See is What You Get". If the characters look robotic, it's because they're robots. Good guys look like good guys, and bad guys look like bad guys. The heroes of the story are simply called "heroes", not some in-universe term that a non-fan needs a lexicon to define. The villains have names that describe them (well, except the inexplicable "Thornraxx"). And it's easy to explain to an outside observer, no matter what their age, in just a few sentences, unlike the long, stumbling monologues I'd have to deliver when trying to explain BIONICLE to a non-fan.This doesn't make Hero Factory better than BIONICLE, but it's a lot more accessible for new fans as well as outsiders like parents who want to understand the toys their kids are interested in. And I think the LEGO Group made that decision consciously knowing what they wanted to do differently than BIONICLE and why. Just like how TLG removed gear functions from many later BIONICLE sets after learning that their audience was more interested in role-play than action-based play, TLG constantly learns about their audience as they release new products. And they have to, because that audience-- even within the a single age range-- is always morphing in response to prevailing cultural trends.Erm, Thornraxx isn't inexplicable. It's a pun on thorn and thorax, a term in insectoid anatomy.

Well, Ordeal of Fire had major pacing issues and Savage Planet, while much better, was so full of corny one liners it was either heaven or Tartarus for you to watch (depends on if you like bad puns! ), but Breakout is actually pretty good. Better than any of the four BIONICLE movies, I dare say.

I personally loved BIONICLE, but I prefer HF because of its lighter and sillier story, better building system, and LEGO-y-er feel.

Alright, the first thin I want to say here is that I am not and never will be criticizing your ultimate decision on whether or not to close this topic, as it apparently remains a very sore subject that I thought had calmed down. As topic starter I accept full responsibility for this topic and understand that all blame if there is any will go towards me, and I'm fine with that. However, I would like to call attention to the fact that not only have all three primary members in this debate (Myself, KlakWest, and UndyingUmbrage) have remained relatively mature throughout, as well as the fact that the thread of discussion perhaps most likely to lead to flaming has already been resolved. KlakWest's first post, here, was mature and rational, giving me, as the poster props for my research, but also comparing the totes of BIONICLE violence with HF's relatively minimalistic and played-for-laughs violence. Here UU enters the conversation, and while it was slightly sarcastic, after expressing his disagreement with KW's point he went on to maturely discuss the topic at hand. Here I addressed the issue at hand before it became a problem by establishing my perspective to dispel any ideas I was a BIONICLE hater, then continued with the primary discussion. No signs of flaming yet. Here is where the first possibilities of flaming start to show up, and where I realized what a sore spot I'd accidentally touched on. As more people posted in agreement with KlakWest, I decided to take preemptive action and actually address the issue: OK, this is going to devolve into a flame war pretty soon, so let me clarify. OBVIOUSLY robot violence=/=organic violence, OBVIOUSLY every character is a robot, OBVIOUSLY everything in the OP was greatly reduced on screen because it's for little kids, OBVIOUSLY if you wanted a horror story you would go watch a horror film. And yes, I was being slightly sarcastic and hyperbolic in the OP. I'm absolutely sick, however, of how BIONICLE fanboys get all butthurt over how the new LEGO constraction theme is too 'kiddy' compared to BIONICLE when it frigging isn't. No, we don't have a bot get bisected by a portal. But guess what? Even that, one of if not the most graphic scenes in BIONICLE canon (btw, it was on an obscure freaking podcast that very few actual little kids were going to find, so this was them being extravagant) was described solely as "The portal closed, Takanuva looked back, and was horrified by what he saw. Mercifully, death came quickly." So yeah, guys, very intense. So horrific. Talk about gore. I'd say watching Splitface writhe in agony with two disjointed screams coming from his mouth is way more graphic, even if it's not as actually painful as being cut in half. Also, that was shown in mainstream media, not a side podcast for AFOL nerds like us. My point is, other than the fact that we had deaths in BIONICLE and not yet in HF (and they may be coming up soon - I wouldn't be surprised if Thresher is killed or scrapped or whatever in the books), all the violence beyond kid friendly is left to the I agitation in both series, so if you want to write fanfiction, go nuts with the robo violence. Have bots tear each other lmb from limb. If you think official stuff is too light, read between the li ex like I did. Think, "If I was crushed under a poopload of steel girders and my lifesource is rapidly being drained hile a vicious and literally heartless killer is attepting to melt me, how would I feel?". And if no matter what you can't enjoy HF, whether forit's humor, refreshing episodic story after the multimedia monstrosity that BIONICLE became, or it's light to moderate undercurrents of violence, please please PLEASE don't come online and on plain about it. The vast majority of the fan base has gotten over it, including pretty much the entirety of BZP, and yet wherever I go there's a small bot vocal minority of Hate Dumb whining about how much HF sucks. I guess this was just a shock move on my part, so if the mods want to lock this they can, or. We can keep it open as a "Discuss the more Mature Parts of HF's story topic". I apologize for my slightly immature behavior and I hope we can all agree to have fun with HF and LEGO no matter how we do so. :)P.S. Sentient robots would totally have pain sensors in a robot dominated society. Otherwise they'd just be emotionless killing machines and wouldn't have a society. My theory is that pain programs are like that little battery symbol on your electronic that turns red when it's almost out of power, it's like a warning for bots to get themselves repaired o they don't keep fighting and get destroyed.P.P.S. Michael Bay's (cruddy) Transformers was totally about sentient robots beating each other and nobody seemed to think that wans't violent enough. Here is where I addressed the issue. The first half of the post was me venting my frustration on the fact that people seemed to have missed the point of the topic, but I feel I kept myself under control throughout, and even apologized for my immaturity and said that if the mods tout this had too much potential to create bad feelings, they should by all means lock it. After this you stepped in for the first time, and I'm not sure whether because of my Wall of Text or the threat of administrative interference (probably the latter ) we all calmed down a good deal and continued to discuss the actual topic, as demonstrated by my next post, a lighthearted silly thing with a "colon P" emoticon to denote the silliness: I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I think the OP wants to point this out to compare both lines (because he seems to have a strange grudge against Bionicle fans), and HF is the successor to Bionicle. Those who compared both lines in response are only following in suit.Here, it was perceived from an active poster in the topic that I had a grudge against BIONICLE, reopening the possibilities of hostility. This was also entirely my fault, as I was the one who originally used a couple minor comparisons between the two lines in the OP, which were mostly for humor value. (I didn't think anyone would take 'Did we have machine guns in BIONICLE' seriously, but in retrospect that obviously needed a laugh emoticon to go along with it to remove chances of mistaking it for an actual point) This is my resignation post, where I felt the topic was going to be locked for sure. Again. This was me venting my frustration, this time at the fact that I had thought we'd gotten over the BIONICLE vs. HF debate. However, I also referred KW to my post where I explained my points so he could read them and hopefully reconsider his opinion on my 'grudge' against BIONICLE fans, without insulting him. I was slightly passive aggressive, though, and for that I apologize. This is by far the best post in the entire topic. An impartial third party stepped in and concisely explained my point to KW using the facts from my posts, and he did it perfectly and without letting his personal opinion, which he had expressed as different from both mine and KW's earlier, get involved. I would like to request that no matter what happens here fishers64 gets a proto boost, please. Awesome, and you impressed me. 1. Liking Bionicle more than HF=/=Bionicle worship. 2. Just because someone disagrees with you on HF doesn't mean they think it's juvenile crud. And comparing it to Power Rangers isn't necessarily a bad thing considering the latter's popularity and fame. You angrily posted a negative reaction to Bionicle fans, saying that some worshipped the line. That seems like a grudge to me. Again, the key word is "seems", which you can see in my post above. I clearly appreciated your topic, that's not the point here, you are misunderstanding me. And it really wouldn't have descended into a flame war had dotcom and everyone else refused to get angry over a silly comparison that I made. Indeed. It is, which is my whole point. OP compared them, and I pointed out how while HF might have had a speck of grittiness, it still hadn't reached Bionicle level grittiness. I don't know why people, specifically the OP, get so upset over that mere disagreement. And yet we're the melancholic ones?Bionicle didn't reach "Bionicle level grittiness" for a long time, though. That's something you persistently decide to ignore. The OP ignored it, so I ignored it. Like I said, I was following suit. That is a fact that you persistently decide to ignore. I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I think the OP wants to point this out to compare both lines (because he seems to have a strange grudge against Bionicle fans), and HF is the successor to Bionicle. Those who compared both lines in response are only following in suit.The OP does not have a grudge against Bionicle fans, he just would like to point out that Hero Factory isn't completely cheesy lines and watered-down action, like some Bionicle fans could believe, but do not necessarily. He is adressing a misconception that may or may not exist among us, but has the possibility to exist.Edit: @Xalen: Yes, I've seen a few posts about here knocking HF slightly for a shallow story...It seemed like he did, that's why I said the word "seems". If he didn't, then no worries. Like I said earlier, his topic was surprising in pointing out these things.And KW responded to fishers64 PERFECTLY. He explained his stance, why he thought I had a grudge, addressed all points made towards him in a concise, cal , and mature manner, and apologized and attempted to make amends with me at the end. (Just for the record, I think you've handled yourself admirably in this situation, KW, and I have zero hard feelings towards you. ) So in conclusion, I believe that if this topic needs to be closed it will be an unfortunate necessity, but I personally believe we have an excellent opportunity for debate and discussion here now that our issues with each other have been resolved, and would like to see this opportunity taken. Either way. However, is perfectly understandable and I will respect your decision no matter what and will take full responsibility for this argument, including proto loss if needs be. Thank you very much for your time and I apologize for creating the need for you to step in not once, but twice.

Did you even read my second to latest post, KlakWest? You know, the one where I admitted hat I personally prefer HF just the way it is and I only posted this topic where I purposefully exaggerated the fridge horror solely for a shock move because I was tired of people complaining about HF, not because I think it needs to be dark? It honestly took me quite a while to find all the examples in the OP and I blew them way out of proportion. And I have also said that by far the majority of BZP has gotten over BIONICLE worship, but there are always people everywhere I go online that say Oh, HF =Power Rangers when it DOESN'T. Just because it's funny and about good guys fighting bad guys doesn't mean it's juvenile crud. The reason I posted this here is not because I have a grudge against BIONICLE fans, (which was rude of you to assume seeing as I explained all this in my post if you scroll up) in fact I AM a big BIONICLE fan, this was posted here for the benefit of the guys who go around posting stuff about how horrid HF is as a shock move, not because of my personal beliefs. Why did I post it here, on BZP, if I think it's one of the more mature communities? Because not only is it the largest BIONICLE site on the web, meaning some of those people will actually see this, but because I was hoping nobody her would allow it to devolve into a flame war of BIONICLE vs. HF. Which it has. Next time I'll post elsewhere. :/

You mean Jaller glowed red for a couple seconds and fell to the floor.

If you two aren't HF fans, I'd recommend you at least give it a try, as what you miss about BIONICLE is present there: Simplicity in both sets and story (Although complexity can easily be found in either of you look for it), and the pieces don't break. Period. No strings attached.

OK, this is going to devolve into a flame war pretty soon, so let me clarify. OBVIOUSLY robot violence=/=organic violence, OBVIOUSLY every character is a robot, OBVIOUSLY everything in the OP was greatly reduced on screen because it's for little kids, OBVIOUSLY if you wanted a horror story you would go watch a horror film. And yes, I was being slightly sarcastic and hyperbolic in the OP. I'm absolutely sick, however, of how BIONICLE fanboys get all butthurt over how the new LEGO constraction theme is too 'kiddy' compared to BIONICLE when it frigging isn't. No, we don't have a bot get bisected by a portal. But guess what? Even that, one of if not the most graphic scenes in BIONICLE canon (btw, it was on an obscure freaking podcast that very few actual little kids were going to find, so this was them being extravagant) was described solely as "The portal closed, Takanuva looked back, and was horrified by what he saw. Mercifully, death came quickly." So yeah, guys, very intense. So horrific. Talk about gore. I'd say watching Splitface writhe in agony with two disjointed screams coming from his mouth is way more graphic, even if it's not as actually painful as being cut in half. Also, that was shown in mainstream media, not a side podcast for AFOL nerds like us. My point is, other than the fact that we had deaths in BIONICLE and not yet in HF (and they may be coming up soon - I wouldn't be surprised if Thresher is killed or scrapped or whatever in the books), all the violence beyond kid friendly is left to the I agitation in both series, so if you want to write fanfiction, go nuts with the robo violence. Have bots tear each other lmb from limb. If you think official stuff is too light, read between the li ex like I did. Think, "If I was crushed under a poopload of steel girders and my lifesource is rapidly being drained hile a vicious and literally heartless killer is attepting to melt me, how would I feel?". And if no matter what you can't enjoy HF, whether forit's humor, refreshing episodic story after the multimedia monstrosity that BIONICLE became, or it's light to moderate undercurrents of violence, please please PLEASE don't come online and on plain about it. The vast majority of the fan base has gotten over it, including pretty much the entirety of BZP, and yet wherever I go there's a small bot vocal minority of Hate Dumb whining about how much HF sucks. I guess this was just a shock move on my part, so if the mods want to lock this they can, or. We can keep it open as a "Discuss the more Mature Parts of HF's story topic". I apologize for my slightly immature behavior and I hope we can all agree to have fun with HF and LEGO no matter how we do so. :)P.S. Sentient robots would totally have pain sensors in a robot dominated society. Otherwise they'd just be emotionless killing machines and wouldn't have a society. My theory is that pain programs are like that little battery symbol on your electronic that turns red when it's almost out of power, it's like a warning for bots to get themselves repaired o they don't keep fighting and get destroyed.P.P.S. Michael Bay's (cruddy) Transformers was totally about sentient robots beating each other and nobody seemed to think that wans't violent enough.

Yes, let's discuss the ten years of Bionicle's story, including the obscure parts, against three years of Hero Factory. That makes sense.Most of the things you mentioned aren't even dark at all. Fridge Horror =/= actually horror. (Bionicle was also a kids series.)I like this way of looking at HF, but it's much too apologetic. HF doesn't need to be "dark and gritty," it's perfectly okay as a silly thing. Its tone is fine, the writing is what needs work.(And you forgot how Evo wanted to kill the little Reapas before they were even born in Breakout. And how Stormer made SD intentionally crash his ultra hispeedz nitron cycle or What Ever into a glacier.) Thanks, I also love the fun style of the main story and what not, but I just hear way, way to much complaining about how it's too light or whatever when if you actually think about it and not just look at the surface, you can make Hero Factory to be just as intense or dark as you want it to be! Another thing I forgot to mention is that if you read the array of missiles Dunkan Bulk has on the Hero Factory website, Atomic is listed. That's right, we have a hero running around shooting nukes at people.

No, yes, and yes. Hero Factory has a majority of humanoid figures, yes. But look at any other action figure line (even BIONICLE) and you'll see that Hero Factoryoutpaces them by far. Even some of their humanoids are animalistic (3.0 Heroes, Corroder), or sport extra appendages or unusual anatomy. (XT4's chicken legs and extra arms, Speeda Demon's spare arms, Black Phantom's Saber Strikers, Jetbug's jet wings, claws, and mandibles, Meltdown's tentacle, Witch Doctor's legs, etc.) LEGO has proved HF easily capable of creating cleaner, better looking, and simpler non humanoids than BIONICLE with fewer parts, meaning more non humanoid sets, as well as easily being capable of creating extremely complex non humanoids and humanoids alike using just it's building system. (Erland from Hero Factory's part design, known as Front on the web, did a awesome MoC of a dragon using only bones and shells, but it was posted on a different forum.) And yes, because more interesting builds are always good.

When Hero Factory was announced, every hardcore BIONICLE fanboy threw up in their mouths a little. Gaudily colored heroes pre ordered from a factory to fight the villain of the week? No thank you! What happened to the dark, multidimensional, epic sagas of days gone by? The suspense and intrigue? All we have now are flat, boring characters, dialogue that sounds like it comes from a script, and a Power Ramgers style storyline with little to no improvement on the actual sets. And then Ordeal of Fire happened. Not only do we have a vastly superior building system to BIONICLE in every way shape or for, that is still 120% compatible with BIONICLE, System, and Technic pieces alike, but the story started taking steps in the right direction, too. And now we've built up from Power Rangers to the two words any BIONICLE fan has been fangirl shrieking about: Core Hunter. Let's start at the beginning, shall we?Rise of The Rookies: While series 1 was very childish, it built a very strong foundation for what was to come. It also introduced the light hearted, action packed, and humor oriented episodic style that now defines the HF story. But beyond that, it introduced Dunkan Bulk and his Rapid Fire Metal Sphere Shooter. Why is this significant, you may ask? Does a projectile that fires densely packed metal spheres at high velocity in rapid succession sound familiar to you? Did BIONICLE have frigging machine guns? The answers to those questions should be yes and no, respectively.Ordeal of Fire: Here's where it gets good. We have a gang of druggies who are heavily armed and hopped up on Hero Pod Fuel that brutally smashes Alpha 1, as well as a blood reference ("Ugh, now I have Hero oil on my hands. Nitroblast, get me a washcloth."). Did BIONICLE have their characters leak oil when injured? I didn't think so. And any police officer can tell you that if a gangster is on spthe right stuff, they can get scary, especially if their toting giant freaking uranium tipped drills. But the real gem in this saga is when Mark Surge, dip urging our climactic battle, takes a mother beeping cargo ship and flies it at full speed into a dude's face, smashing him so frigging hard he's entire body is ripped from its limb, leaving a mangled and sparking hand still firmly plugged into the wall. Hero Factory isn't dark enough my left foot. But wait, it gets better.Savage Planet: Here, we have a bat guano insane professor dressed in a skeleton suit run around with someone's skull, driving spikes of energy crystal into the backs of random sentient animals, forcing them to do his bidding while they're still fully conscious of what their doing (see: Raw Jaw). Mind ####, much?And then in the first minute of the show we have a plucky young hero voiced by Spongebob Squarepants of all people get brutally mauled by wolves right on camera in a relatively graphic display. Yep. Real light, guys.Finally,Breakout: Whoo boy, this ones a doozy. We have a homicidal psychopath create a black hole in the middle of the Hero Factory, releasing swarms of criminal scum across the universe to wreak untold havoc while the psychopath himself locks down the galaxy's greatest beacon of justice, stealing their top secret files, and then tries to blow the whole place up while it's still full of civilians. Then we have a schizophrenic murderer try to slam a giant space rock into a space station (also full of civilians), who ends up being impaled by a lightning sword and short circuiting (read: having every one of your blood vessels supercharged with hundreds or possibly even thousands of volts while you're made of METAL, one of the best conductors of electricity out there.) Next up we have a dude who shoots corrosive acid at you attempt to unleash swarms of angry poisonous minions on the world, whose favorite tactic as stated by his online bio is to create a small incision with a laser and pump you full of acid so you melt from the inside out. Then we have Jawblade, a massive shark who not only takes a bite out of Furno and mauls him Fangz style but who also uses Oxidium to rust robots. Imagine having your whole body slowly age and crust over before your eyes until you can't move without causing yourself extreme, excruciating pain. It's like aging and getting arthritis but ten times worse and it happens in undera minute. Voltix pumps Stringer full of lightning ala Surge and Splitface, but instead of impaling and short circuiting him he overloads his Hero Core, so that's basically like having a defibrillator hooked up to a nuclear power plant used on you when your heart is working just fine. The books give us the Doom Box, aka the claustrophobic's worst nightmare, a box that expands to encompass an entire galaxy, then crushes everything inside it slowly and brutally and did I mention it can't be turned off? And finally, Core Hunter. A serial killer that doesn't just kill you, but takes a giant pincer and rips your very heart and soul out of your body and wears it as a trophy.Good luck sleeping at night, kiddos.