Kopekemaster

Thanks. I never finished MNOG II (I believe I got a good way into it and got softlocked, and was annoyed by how long it took Hahli to walk across the screen so I didn't want to start over) and have been thinking of starting it over now. At the very least, I'll probably read through the walkthrough (I remember reading the MNOG "narrative walkthrough" a while back and enjoying it). Seems like it could give some good insight into the elemental philosophies.

On 1/13/2023 at 9:35 AM, (-Kopaka Toa of Ice-) said:

like the 2003 Rahkshi who seemed to be like assassins. ...that would mean any other Rahkshi would be have limited thinking/power akin to a foot-soldier.

Oh, so the Rahkshi we see in the Mask of Light arc were uniquely powerful? It would make sense, since they were a pretty major threat while the Rahkshi portrayed through the rest of the story were just like mid-power drones.

Here's another question for you all - do Rahi (or at least the Rahi in 2001) need to wear Kanohi to the same degree as the Matoran species? We see them wearing infected Kanohi, and also them wearing uninfected Kanohi (though I think some of the time they were just used as design elements for the sets, rather than actually being KanohI), but do they need to wear them? Will they go unconscious if their masks are removed? In MNOG, the Tarakava Gali fights seems like it goes unconscious after she removes the mask, but other than that I'm not sure.

Also, what would you all consider the "philosophy" of each (main) element? I replayed MNOG to look for some in-game direct descriptions to the values of each element but there's not a ton - Ko-Koronians are peaceful and value knowledge, Ta-Koronians are the most powerful warriors and more prone to anger, and...? I know Ga-Koro is connected with more naturalistic and healing themes, Po-Koro is quite industrious, but what do you all think the members of each element are good at, what do they value, etc. Just their general philosophy and themes, particularly for how they're portrayed on Mata Nui, but there are obviously there are similarities across the universe for each element. This is for determining the mechanical identity of each element. I think I have a functional concept for each elemental identity, but having a deeper understanding of the ideals for each element would be incredibly helpful.

Thanks for any help you can give! I'm currently waiting on 2000 blank cards to arrive to start prototyping.

Okay, thanks for the clarification.

9 hours ago, Nato G said:

don't think of the Makuta/Rahkshi powers as being Elemental at all

That's actually good news for me, I was planning on the Matoran species being the only ones tied to elements (at least at the start), which lets me just stick with the 6 elements (ignoring the lesser elements, for now at least), then I could tie Rahkshi/etc. to Shadow. However, Shadow complicates things a little bit. I was planning on having generally evil things tied to Shadow (in this set, just Makuta and infected Rahi/Kanohi, and maybe Ahkmou), which I wasn't really considering to be an element, but apparently it actually is. I may just go with some other generally evil thing like "Dark". We'll see, it may just end up working fine to have Shadow and Light as the eighth and seventh elements respectively. Light creates its own problems, but they're not necessarily things I need to deal with at the moment.

Thank you very much for the thorough answers!

1 hour ago, Nato G said:

Rahkshi ... have powers that are limited versions of the main elements

This is something I just noticed today when looking into things. I always thought there were like 50 elements, then I was surprised to see that even including the less common ones, there are only like 15 or something.

Then I saw the Rahkshi page, and realized that's probably what I was thinking of. However, I noticed that some of their abilities are elemental abilities. This made me wonder, what about, say, Poison? There are Poison Rahkshi, could there theoretically be Poison Matoran (that is to say, could Poison be an element, we just haven't seen it outside of the Rahkshi)? What differentiates some of the Rahkshi with non-elemental abilities from Rahkshi with elemental abilities? Sorry if I'm digging in a little too deep here, it's possible I'm asking questions with no answers here. It's also not particularly relevant for the game, I was just curious.

Hello everyone. I've just barely started working on designing the first set (corresponding with 2001 Bionicle) for a Bionicle TCG (I'll post more about it on BZP once I have more details), and have a couple specific questions for determining the way I should make some mechanics work such that they'll be in keeping with the lore, as much as I can without it getting in the way of the gameplay.

What is the fundamental difference between Noble Kanohi and Great Kanohi? I know the Great Kanohi are generally more powerful, but what is the real difference between them? And why can Turaga use the abilities of Noble Kanohi, but not Matoran? Could a Matoran theoretically wear a Great Kanohi, and if so, would they still be unable to use its abilities? Is it possible for a Noble Kanohi to become a Great Kanohi or vice versa (aside from a Toa just becoming a Turaga)? Does their difference have anything to do with energized vs. non-energized protodermis?

Does activating the ability of a Kanohi deplete any form of energy? Like, a Toa can't just use their Kanohi's ability endlessly, right? How taxing is it for a Toa/etc. to use the ability of their Kanohi, if so? It is similar to how their elemental powers work (they can use it, for a limited time, then just have to wait and recover for a little while)?

*I think I know the answer to this one, but did the Toa Mata's Kanohi have their abilities when they first arrived on Mata Nui? I seem to remember them not having their abilities until they met with the Turaga or something but I could be mistaken. In this case, did the Kanohi actually not have any abilities, or did the Toa just not know how to access them?

(*I just looked at the first comic and it seems like they had access to their Kanohi and elemental abilities from the get-go, so I guess I remembered incorrectly. Does someone know what I'm thinking of with them needing to meet with the Turaga first about something? In any case, I think game-wise it the Kanohi will need to start out powerless, but we'll see.)

How do elemental abilities work for non-Toa? I get that Matoran of a given element are more proficient with that element (e.g., Onu-Matoran are good at mining), but do they have any actual powers? Or is that just restricted to the Toa? Do the Turaga retain any elemental powers?

Energized protodermis prompted the growth of nature that became the island of Mata Nui, but are all of the plants and everything made out of protodermis? Both Mata Nui and Voya Nui have jungle-like terrains unlike what most of what we see in the GSR, so I'm guessing that the energized protodermis just prompted the growth of life already existing in the otherwise natural world of Aqua Magna, in combination with the large supply of water surrounding them to help the plants grow.

edit: One more thing, I'm guessing not, but do we know of any characters with connections to multiple elements? The closest thing I can think of is Takua being a "Ta-Matoran" while actually being an Av-Matoran, but have we seen anyone with actual access to multiple elements?

Thank you very much for any help you can give! I'm very excited to be working on this project. I love TCGs and just card games in general, and realized Bionicle is basically the absolute perfect setting for a TCG. The way the world/story/characters/etc. was created was already made in a way such that it's easy to make representations of things in the world (toys), and entails a certain amount of collectability, but in a very natural way. It really just fits perfectly. I'll be sure to share more here once I have the first set done (or at least a lot of work put into it)! Also if any of you have any sort of skill and interest in graphic design stuff, I could really use someone to help me with coming up with the visual design of the cards once I've gotten further into design. I'm extremely non-graphical.

A little late, but thanks a ton B6! Also excited to hear the original BZPowercast, I never got to hear that one.

Hello everyone. Been a while.

I was wondering if anyone had an archive of the BZPowercast. I loved listening through it while BZPower was offline around 2010/2011 before I got a chance to make an account, particularly Hahli Hahli and Janus (Janus)'s dramatic readings of the comics and Smeagol4/Princess Grrr's music. It's still on iTunes, but are unavailable (presumably whatever server that the files were being hosted on got disconnected or something). If anyone could help me find the podcast files, I'd really appreciate it.

Kopekemaster

I definitely wish they had handled the switch to Bara Magna differently. My interest in the story definitely fell off a lot at that point. Since then, I've learned a lot more about the story of Spherus Magna (thanks to Duckbricks' 9-hour story overview) and it's very interesting, but going straight from the rich, incredible world within the GSR to this postapocalyptic Mad Max world we didn't know or care about wasn't great IMO.

One possible route they could have gone with it (assuming they were able to continue Bionicle for a few more years) would be to, after Teridax took over the GSR and ejected the Ignika, flashback to when Spherus Magna was whole, introduce what the world was like at that point, learn about Annona, show how the Great Beings broke off from the rest of the population, the discovery of energized protodermis and how that affected the world, and the development of the prototype GSR and eventually the final GSR. For the story, to keep people who cared about the Matoran universe interested, you could keep cutting away from the Spherus Magna A-plot and showing how things inside the GSR were going after Teridax took over. From what I've seen, there's a lot of stuff going on at that point that we never see in the comics, so it would have allowed them to flesh that out a lot more while also giving us a reason to care about Spherus Magna and want to see it reformed. Then, you could basically keep the Bara Magna story the same from that point.

It's funny, I just pulled up BZP for the first time in years because I was listening to a song I thought was very Bionicle, and what do I see but this thread.

The song in question is "Get Ur Freak On" by Missy Elliot. Especially towards the end when you can hear the instrumental clearly.

There are definitely some other songs I heavily associated with Bionicle when I was younger, mostly as a result of listening to them a lot around that time-

Atmosphere (Remix) by TobyMac was associated with the 2005-6 era of Bionicle, shifting from the return to Metru Nui to Voya Nui. I believe this is around the time Hero came out.

Burn for You (Shortwave Radio Mix) by TobyMac was associated with the 2007 era of Bionicle. Particularly the Barraki.

I also listen to a good bit of Jungle/Breakcore, and the folks at LEGO in the late 90's-early 00's really loved themselves some Jungle/Breakcore. Pro>Tech is a big one for me, but any sort of Jungle or Breakcore will give me heavy Bionicle vibes. A good specific track is 666 MPH by Bong-Ra - track slaps, but furthermore I'm pretty sure it uses a synth used in the Inika Island Assault soundtrack.

I don't remember where I saw it (it was probably here, like five years ago), but I remember someone had come up with a pretty simple, effective mechanism (consisting of LEGO) that could pop them out easily. Based on that (and the fact that many other people have been changing them out for a while), I'd say they're probably fine as long as there isn't, like, a visual defect after disconnecting them.

Oh geez, I forgot to post here for a while. Since my last post, I've read:

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

Skylark by Dezső Kosztolányi

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Candide by Voltaire

Hamlet by Shakespeare

Durarara!! Vol. 2 by Ryohgo Narita

I enjoyed all of them, but some more than others. Candide is absolutely hilarious and twisted, The Left Hand of Darkness is beautiful and closer to a holy text than a simple novel, and the Durarara!! series is fantastic as always. Skylark is an amusing (and surprisingly deep) little semi-comedic, semi-depressing book, which I chose mostly because I have a bit of an obsession with Hungary. Things Fall Apart and Persepolis are both great stories that offer views into worlds that not many people would get, but they rank a bit lower because both of their protagonists are rather intolerable (to varying degrees, Okonkwo is an alcoholic wifebeater, whereas Marjane is just an obnoxious and incredibly egocentric kid) which takes away from the experience. And Shakespeare is, well, Shakespeare. Hilarious, insightful, and poetic.

I also read a bunch of short stories (as part of the World Literature course, which was why I read a number of these). The Lady With the Pet Dog by Anton Chekhov (one of my favorite short story writers), Nice and Mild by Gunnhild Øyehaug, The Sun, the Moon, the Stars by Junot Díaz, After Cowboy Chicken Came to Town by Ha Jin (my favorite of the lot, an absolutely amazing look into the clash between eastern and western business practices, among many other things, I could rave about it for hours), and Interpreter of Maladies and A Real Durwan by Jhumpa Lahiri. Not sure why some of the text is weird here, but I can't fix it so whatever.

It's been a while since I read them, but I would probably say Tales of the Toa. I had been into Bionicle for a while, but didn't have any of the sets from 2001-2002. This was around Metru Nui, maybe Hordika era. I saw Tales of the Toa for sale at a book store, and golly gee but I sure wanted to get Tahu after that. If I remember correctly, I showed it to my mom and said something like "I'd sell my soul for that set", at which she was appropriately horrified. (I was like maybe eight or nine at the time.)

As it happened, I found a huge lot of Bionicle sets for sale at a nearby thrift store for $20 shortly after that, and I think there were two Tahu sets in it. Maybe I did sell my soul that day and just didn't realize it.

To be honest this game kinda looks like a Prince of Persia clone. Due to it being a platformer with heavy parkour elements. However it looks fun and looks a heck of a lot better than EA’s Bionicle tie in game.

In my response, I'm going off the assumption that you're saying that City of Legends seems better than B:TG in terms of gameplay (it being a platformer), not graphics quality ("looks"). If that's incorrect, just let me know.

I've played a lot of Bionicle: The Game. It was one of the very few video games I had access to as a kid (and I was an older kid at that point), so I played the heck out of it. And certain levels seem quite similar to the gameplay of City of Legends. It seems like each "room" is a bit bigger in City of Legends, but I would guess that's just because the newer technology allowed for it. A lot of the levels in B:TG (as in, different Toa) are unique, beyond just being different environments. Pohatu Nuva's level is a minecart ride thing, in Kopaka's you're going down mountains on his shield and fighting Bohrok, and in Tahu Nuva's you're lavasurfing. But Gali Nuva's, Onua Nuva's, and Lewa Nuva's (and *maybe* Tahu's, but to a lesser extent) levels are very platforming-based, in a way that seems quite similar to the gameplay in City of Legends.

I see B:TG get a bad rap a lot of the time (which is somewhat warranted), but wanted to give my two cents as someone who has probably played more of the game than 95% of the people in the Bionicle community. The controls are janky, the graphics are pretty bad (even for the time), and it's a bit more difficult than it probably should have been for its target audience (although that's due, in large part, to the bad controls). But it's a fun game and there are a lot of unique elements in it that I think a lot of people don't recognize, and show a lot of creativity in the team that made it.

(also the soundtrack is 10/10)

 

 

 

The biggest question I have is how on earth did they get their hands on it?

I saw a user on BZpower claim he found the demo on that old Lego Harry Potter PC game from 2002.

Listen, I don't know why everyone has latched onto this Harry Potter thing, but I can guarantee you it isn't real.

I’ve never played that Harry Potter game but I read about it on the Harry Potter wiki. The Wiki lists all the features in the game but it doesn’t list game demos. So yeah I agree this probably isn’t real.

 

Yeah, they didn't get the alpha from the CD. They said they can't say exactly where and how they got it, but it was from a (possibly former) LEGO employee. I've heard the LEGO Harry Potter thing come up a few times (I hadn't actually heard about that game before), and while it's possible that there was a promo video or even possibly a short demo on it, there definitely wouldn't have been the full alpha version of the game on the disk.

So, is the news team going to make an article about this soon? Or have they chosen not to due to the questionable legality surrounding the release?

They just made an article about it today, actually. I was wondering the same.

Sorry, I honestly don't know who any of these guys are. If someone can fill me in on who these guys are, I would appreciate it .

 

-snip-

who is "they"?

 

I'm not familiar with everyone there, but Vahkiti and JrMasterModelBuilder were on the stream. There was also someone, a regular of that channel I think, named Josie. Other than that, I don't really know. They have a YouTube channel of let's plays, though.

They haven't said much about how they got it, since they don't want to incriminate anyone, but it sounds like they got it via email from a LEGO employee.

No, they'll be releasing it (somewhere, probably BMP) after the stream. They'll also be releasing the full soundtrack.

If you haven't heard of it before, Bionicle: The Legend of Mata Nui is a long-sought unreleased Bionicle game from 2001. There have been a few bits found of it here and there, but nothing really "complete" in any way. That has now changed, and The Beaverhouse is streaming it on Twitch right now! You can watch it right here. Watch it!

(It's Twitch, so there's bound to be some profanity in chat/in the stream. But this is just such a momentous event in the Bionicle community that I knew I needed to share it here.)

Oh my word, that was twelve years ago? I remember seeing the teaser for the Inika in back of one of the comics and being so hyped about it for the six months or whatever until they were released.

Anyway, I would probably stick with 2001-era-style music, a mix of electronic (like the "Bionicle Music" 3-track CD) and orchestral-ish stuff (like the MNOG soundtrack). I still do really love the lyrical tracks they did for Bionicle as well (Hero, Face Me, and anything by Cryoshell, specifically), but I sort of feel like they don't fit into the atmosphere of Bionicle as well.

 

 

For a small correction, the guys that made the animated The Hobbit and The Return of the King did not make the animated Lord of the Rings movie. The latter-most was originally envisioned as a two-part movie, but the second part was not able to be made due to bankruptcy, so the folks that made the Hobbit movie took up the reigns and made an animated conclusion (which did not fit the tone of the Fellowship and Towers adaptation, but anything is better than that film's atrocious  Samwise and experimental Enemy).

Oh yeah, I forgot that Return of the King was done by Rankin/Bass as well, my mistake. I think it was overshadowed by the bizarre choice of rotoscoping in the animated LotR.

edit: Just finished Agamemnon, translated by Robert Fagles. Nice, brutal little revenge story.

edit 2: And I finished Beowulf, translated by Seamus Heaney. I had read Beowulf before, a long time ago, and remembered enjoying it a lot. This translation is great.

 

 

-snip-

-snip

I find all others look different mentally

That's actually one major - albeit subjective and personal and pretty minor overall - reason I disliked the movies. I had a specific mental image about how every character looked and acted and spoke and all, and the movies ruined that for me. Especially for Aragorn, the actor for that did a great job with it in the movie but it was completely different from how I imagined him in the books and it kind of ruined his character for me.

Anyway, I just finished (as in, five minutes ago) Exit West by Mohsin Hamid. It was a very good book, not really my kind of book, but a good book regardless. It's about emigration, basically. There's this weird scifi element to it that didn't really seem to fit into it (admittedly, it's debatable whether or not it's literal or just metaphor, but it seems like it's literal), but I think I understand why he used it.

edit: Oh yeah, about the music of LotR: if you haven't seen them before, you might want to check out the animated movies. The Hobbit is amazing visually (except for the character designs for hobbits and dwarves), and it has a lot of music. It was long ago that I read the books, so I can't remember if they're the same songs or not, but they're pretty fun. The second and third animated movies aren't very good (made by a different company and the visuals are way worse), but they still feature a lot of music.

The Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship of the Ring - Book 1, by John RR Tolkien.

 

Love how it starts out with the same atmosphere as The Hobbit, but gradually develops into the epic fantasy that it is known for, and I know it only escalates from here on out. I am so far enjoying this much more than the movie, and i love that one. Now to start Book 2 and see the Fellowship founded.

Have you seen the movies yet? I'd be curious to hear what you think of the movie version of Fellowship compared with the book. I'm not a huge fan of the movies, but especially dislike the Fellowship of the Ring movie because it left out almost all of the best parts of the book. Fellowship is almost entirely just travel, and that's what makes it so good. The Mines of Moria was by far my favorite part of the book (and probably the series as a whole) for how it showed just how long they were in there, how bleak and terrifying and mazelike it was, with the threat of enemies always in the back of their minds. In the movie it was pretty much just reduced to an action sequence, which was a huge letdown. And it didn't include Tom Bombadil!

Re-re-releases it, actually, since there are now three versions of the song.

Anyway, this is awesome. Especially awesome for me, since Budapest is my favorite city.

... then eventually get around to starting the Wheel of Time series.

That's a great series. I'm not really into fantasy as much nowadays, but I read a couple of those (and owned all of them) back when I was. I mean, those books are good enough to have a dictionary at the back of each of them.