danny316p

Dangit, we're 9 questions in already! I kind of wish I'd got here earlier so we'd have known it wasn't a character before we asked if was a set, a villain, a protector, or an elemental creature. Yes. (Oh wait, that wasn't a question...)

Is it a LEGO piece/part/element? Yes.

According to BrickLink's inventory of the set ( http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemInv.asp?S=8693-1 ), this set did not come with any extra parts. You can decide how much you want to trust BrickLink, but that's a recent enough kit that I wouldn't doubt it (plenty of people probably bought the set new after it was inventoried and could have corrected it, and that page already says someone else confirmed it with a new set).

Is it a character? No.

Have they opened suit against other counterfeiting outfits from that area? I know it hasn't been done as well (or as quickly) by anyone else, but LEPIN is hardly the only problem. ...then again, this news came through the community team, and this is probably the first brand that AFOLs find "close enough" to take seriously.

The diehards will always be here. I see plenty of good in the future.

I'm leaning against going this year. Last year was rough on me, plus I've got another potential LEGO event that weekend and I've accepted a contingent job offer for a gig originally scheduled to start that Monday. I'm still thinking of myself as a "maybe", but it's pretty likely to fall through. Let me know who you round up, though - I'd like to remove the "(tentative)" next to BrickCon on the BioniLUG site.

I think it's been imagined pretty thoroughly before - it's basically the main premise of a few of the Asperger's message boards I've seen online over the years. Most of this doesn't appear to exist in the format I remember anymore, but you could look up "Wrong Planet" and "Aspergia" for more on the idea. The idea never held much appeal for me, and I've always felt a little weird about getting too involved with strictly Asperger's discussions - I'm at a similar spot on the autism spectrum but don't quite meet the criteria for Asperger's.

I knew I was forgetting something. I have not spoken of the hatpile in months. ALAS, THERE IS STILL TIME! ...provided I can find an appropriate hat. What if the hybrid is part time lord, part human? The prophecy never named the warrior races. Will the livestream be recorded?

You're absolutely right. I'm not too surprised, though, to see that Bionicle fans aren't familiar with how much LEGO has tried to do things for FOLs in the past. About 10 years back, LEGO agreed (as part of their research on train sets) to do an adult fan-oriented set designed by train builders in the AFOL community, and marketed to train fans. The kit flopped and confirmed everything LEGO already knew about the size of the fan community - it doesn't matter how large we think we are, we are absolutely dwarfed by the general market for LEGO sets. Oh, and after it was shown that AFOLs' clout was trivial in getting sets to succeed, LEGO went forward with existing plans to end 9V trains. You might remember how that part ended. LEGO has done a few things since to measure how far their fans can really impact sales. People here probably remember the Ideas Exo-Suit, which was marketed almost exclusively through AFOL channels. The bizarre marketing there was intentionally designed to measure how well a set can be promoted just by the fans. ...and while we don't have the results of LEGO's research into that, I think the heavy clearance-pricing we enjoyed near the end of that kit's run speaks for itself. Similarly, we sort of knew the conclusion of Bionicle was coming - last year's sets are still getting clearanced out, and LEGO store employees haven't kept it a secret that most LBR locations aren't going to carry any of the 2016H2 sets.

I think most of the discussion so far misunderstands what goes into putting a set on the shelves. LEGO plans these things years in advance, and they need months of lead time just to get parts manufactured. These decisions certainly weren't made lightly or even that recently. I figure there are two likely reasons for this: 1. The first few months of sales (or other indicators used for tracking the line's popularity) of the first 2015 Bionicle wave lagged far enough below expectations to immediately put the future of the line in question. It's likely that everything released so far was already designed and in the manufacturing pipeline at that point - this was probably the earliest the line could have been ended. 2. Some other license or product line that they couldn't tell us about now even if they wanted to interferes with further production of Bionicle. Think about, for example, the sudden end of new Space sets when the first Star Wars line came out, or the lack of other Castle sets during the first Lord of the Rings run, or the Pirates wave that ended around when the Pirates of the Caribbean sets came out. LEGO frequently makes decisions based on competing against itself, and license agreements frequently dictate those sorts of things. A combination of the two reasons is also entirely possible - and if 2 is even remotely a factor, we won't get a complete answer as to what happened until after some new line is on store shelves. So chill, everybody. The quality (comparative or otherwise) of the G2 line likely wasn't a factor. The lengthy lead time isn't comparable to a TV or movie series where manufacturing is fast and distribution is nearly instantaneous.

This was driving me crazy, so I stopped unpacking my things and started just opening box after box until I saw bins the right size. I found the Dark Purple [bL] | Medium Lilac [TLG] bricks a little after 4 AM and completed my panel shortly afterward.

Wait - did you do 5 panels yourself? I guess that makes more sense than the-unnamed-other-person-with-a-large-badge mailing you his section. I found my 1x2 medium lavender plates and used them for most of the mosaic. After getting to the parts that required 1x1s, I have precisely one 1x1 medium lavender brick left in my collection. I've also located the blue and dark blue bricks that I was missing, and filled in all of the non-dark-purple parts of my panel. The bulk of my dark purple parts have not surfaced yet. I am absolutely certain that I have a bin full of the stuff around here somewhere, not to mention another stack of Knight Bus sets I can part out...but I don't know where the bin or the sets are right now.

I actually may need some more medium lavender...I think the panel I'm working on has drained my 1x1 supply already and the 1x2s aren't unpacked yet. I'm hoping to get back to this later today. Do we still need someone to do panel 8?

I could probably do a second panel, however, the first is still in-progress. It's also sinking in how much of this will need to be done with new parts instead of used ones...I've got to dig out the right sorting trays for each thing...where did I leave my sorted dark purple bricks that aren't 1x1s? I take it you'll update this if you start another panel, right? I'll make sure to post something here if I try for a second...

I suppose my bulky quantities of dark purple should dictate which panel I should do...which would put me at...panel [04]? Let me know if there's another section you think could use me more (or a second "difficult" section, for that matter). I'm surprised you didn't list the expected difficulty of each section this time.

Nice artwork to start with! Most of my brick is still packed up, but amazingly, I've got my 1x1 bricks and a few other goodies for mosaics already. I'm game for a panel or two. Also, if you want to do a design using the old light yellow or BrickLink's Aqua, I've now got those in my bulk 1x1 supply too (from a lucky purchase during the move).

I'm 29, and usually the oldest person in the room when hanging out with BZPower peeps (I've occasionally met older BZPower members, but these elders tell me not to speak of them). ...and even if BZP skews older than it used to, it's still pretty darn young. Last time I went to an event BZP wasn't exhibiting at, the average age of AFOLs exhibiting was at least 20 years higher, with me being the youngest person in the room (perhaps by a ten year margin). It's also been my experience that the youthfulness of BZPower can intimidate older builders, even if they are already interested in Bionicle or constraction at some level.

I figured I'd start yet another blog here, because I can. BZPower seems to be a central point for a few things I like in the FOL community, so I might as well set up an outlet for myself here while I'm a Premier member after this past year's convention circuit (not that I know what other special things I can do yet while "Premier"). Not that I actually need or have time for another blog. I started (and still "run") one of the longer-running FOL blogs (LMOTD), but that's much more public facing and in a bit of disrepair. I kind of like the idea of having a blog that faces a smaller, more active portion of the FOL community instead of being in front of however many thousand people. Not that I have much to say here at the moment. Erm, "Hello".

Funny, that link doesn't seem to work anymore. I'm disappointed by the lack of connection points, as well as the choice to run Windows. I've been looking for a "purist" computer for some time, though...

Whoa. That was amazing. I can't believe I hadn't seen this before. This is 2015 for me. I would have blogged this, but there's one "sexy" too many in here for my squeaky-clean FOL blog. If you do this again next year, I want to be part of it. I know part of why this worked is that you had just the right song for it and everybody else was already doing parodies of that song's video, but still...

That may be the best justification as to why so many of us do FOL shows and conventions. Especially with something like Bionicle, with a multi-year storyline, I've been surprised by how excited some younger kids get at even just seeing sets from years that they weren't able to enjoy the first time around. I know I've changed the way I build based on the thought of doing more exciting things at events where we get to share the hobby. Interestingly, one of the more memorable discussions I've had over a Technic MOC was with a homeless man who was reminded of happier times when he used to tinker with similar things. It's impossible to predict how you can connect with people by doing LEGO displays, but it's been surprisingly positive for me overall. For what it's worth, The LEGO Group is an enormous corporate bureaucracy - it's more than just a large company, it's a group of companies and the name is licensed out even further than that. For the scope of what they do, I'm impressed that they don't mess up more often - there are so many people across so many countries, that it's a given things will go wrong. As it is, you see different policies in different places (compare LEGO stores operated by LEGO Brand Retail with LEGOLAND stores operated by Merlin Entertainment) and in different countries (consider monobrand stores in countries where Brand Retail doesn't operate or charity partnerships that only happen in certain places). Then again, you can probably expect a biased response when you ask a question like this on a LEGO fan site. We've obviously already decided that we like LEGO at some level...

Will there be bricks for each mosaic, too? I like my little Gali Masters Mosaic swag brick. Surprisingly, some of the non-Bionicle mosaic builders at BrickCon came up to me based on seeing those bricks on my badge...it's a good conversation starter.

I know I'm late, but I'd be game for this. I generally try to keep color charts online showing which colors I have in quantity in various parts for things like this, so my cheese slope palette is easy to check on-the-go. The bottom section of each part's chart (where you see duplicates of the same color) is where I store the parts I only have a few of, but the other colors on there represent quantities. My mosaic parts should be easy to find again on the other side of the move, but I still don't know when that'll actually be.

Going to multiple events definitely kicks it up a notch - in retrospect it feels funny that most of these were only used once after the effort was put in to design and build them. I'd update the convention lists on the travelling ones: Gali Masters appeared at two 2015 BrickFairs (New England and Virginia) as well as at Scouting For Bricks 2015 (not technically a convention but it probably should count for these purposes). Pohatu Masters was also at BrickFair Alabama.