Jeffery Mewtamer

Illiteracy is a far more common disability than blindness especially among Lego's target audience, so I can't really blame them for catering to that group. Besides, with pictorial-only instructions, you don't have to worry about translation, and most people won't even notice that you're catering to a disabled population(Lego might not even be aware of the fact), but it's still annoying when you find yourself in a group that is disadvantaged by such catering to a different group. Doubly a shame when you consider that Lego itself is an extremely tactile toy. Granted, this is a problem with many construction toys, not just Lego. As for part names, yeah, Lego has some pretty sorry naming conventions. I can actually find plain-text(or at least text with pictures) part lists for a number of Lego sets, but even for small sets I have in hand, I often find myself scratching my head trying to connect name to shape. Granted, if Lego made text versions of their instructions, it would force them to use more mneumonic names as opposed to the overly technical names they currently favor. More on topic: I wish Lego would make some sets that combine modern CCBS parts with parts that featured heavily in Throwbots/Slizers and G1 Bionicle that haven't seen use in a new set in years.

1. Lego publishes plain-text building instructions for all official sets on their website, discontinued sets included. 2. All Bionicle media is adapted to audio novel or audio drama format and released on Audio CD. 3. Lego starts selling CCBS/Constraction counterparts to the system's bucket of bricks, including common recolors of parts from discontinued sets. 1 is so I can actually build official sets and learn how parts were intended to be used sinstead of experimenting from scratch. 2 is so I can actually consume the storyline that accompanies these toys. 3 is so there's a relatively easy way of stocking up constraction pieces in bulk without paying collector prices for discontinued sets.

The skull spiders didn't impress me. Can't really comment on the shadow traps since about all I've figured out about how to build one is that I'm pretty sure these paired pieces that remind me of a venus flytrap form their jaws. If anyone could describe in plain text how to build a shadow trap, I could give a better informed opinion of them.

Pretty much what the title says. I've been using the storage bin that came with the Mindstorms resource kit I bought to jump start my collection of technic parts, but it didn't really seem adequate to begin with and as I've gained more spare parts from adding various Bionicle sets, I find myself with storage too small to hold everything and so disorganized that I spend more time searching for a particular part than actually building when I'm in the mood for building with Lego. I've used Plano brand tackle boxes to great effect storing some of my other construction toys, but some fo the CCBS parts are rather buly and awkwardly shaped that I don't think they'd work well for storing/organizing lego pieces.

Blind guy has a couple of questions about the hip swivel torso from the 2016 Toa and a few other sets: 1. I'm assuming there's a buildable mechanism that attaches to the hip gear. If this is correct, how do I build said mechanism? 2. What is the canonical means of attaching arms to this torso? Also, among the sets I own, I've identified 4 torso types: -A standard torso with head, shoulder, gut, hip, and tail ball connectors, found in most 2015 Toa. -A large torso that is somewhat hard to distinguish from the standard torso but adds ball connectors for shoulder pads. Found in the larger 2015 Toa. -A small torso that lacks the tail connector. found in most of the creature sets. -The hip swivel torso. My question is: are there any other CCBS torso types available?

Someone needs to make Bionicle AMVs of Elvis songs or a stop motion music video using the sets and Elvis songs.

I'm going to go super old school and say I'd like a Bionicle text-adventure in the vein of Zork. No scratch that, keep it in the genre of interactive fiction, but have all the flavor text for each 'room' be fully narrated and available at several levels of detail(the simplest level just gives the location name while the most detailed is the literary equivalent of scenery porn). No longer restricted by the technical limits of 1980s personal computers, the command interpreter can handle a wider variety of actions and has some capacity for processing full sentences and can accept commands either as typed text or spoken commands. Gameplay consists of exploring the Bionicle world, solving puzzles, and engaging in battle, all output presented as on-screen text or spoken over speakers/earphones and all input via typed or spoken commands. No actual graphics, encouraging the player to use their imagination to interpret the scenes the game paints with words. To suggest something that might actually sell in today's market: A strategy RPG that uses a menu for getting between stages and services instead of a free-roaming hub world and has fully voiced menus. Don't really care about the graphics as long as it's blind playable.

On the subject of space, a Star Trek line would be awesome. Not sure whoever owns the Trek license would license it out to someone with a Star Wars license though. , it'd be a nerdy dream come true to have a Lego Trek Wars crossover line. Surely, I'm not the only one who would love to have a Diorama featuring one or more Enterprises, Voyager, the Millennium Falcon, and a squadron of X-wings and Delta Flyers going up against an Armada of Borg Cubes with the Death Star at it's heart. And just imagine the potential Constractions: Federation Officers in Jedi Robes wielding Lightsabers, Borgified Storm Troopers lead by Borgified Sith Lords.

^Due to vision loss, I'm unable to read printed texts, and graphic novels are inaccessible even in eBook format. Sadly, despite it being probably the most widely used format for paid eBooks, Kindle is the one common text format my talking eReader doesn't support, and I've had no luck finding an easy to use Linux solution for converting Kindle eBooks to other formats.

Excuse my ignorance, but are these actual novels are just graphic novels? If actual novels, is there a legal source for non-Kindle format?

I'm thinking of Ordering some sets off of Amazon. I'm tempted to get all of the Creatures since they sound like they're all unique rather than variations on a theme, but between being underwhelmed by how similar the 2015 Toa are, not being able to distinguish colors or follow the building diagrams, and being more interested in MOC anyways, I was wondering which sets would be best for increasing my collections part diversity. So, if I was to buy only one Skull villain and only 1 2016 Toa, which would give me the most new parts to work with? If I bought a second of each, which is most distinct from the first? Do keep in mind that I can't distinguish colors and that all parts might as well be black from my perspective and I only care about part shape.

^Thanks for the info. Finding Lego-related sites that present their information in a way I can access has proven difficult. A shame many of the parts only barely outlived the Slizers themselves and I imagine even 2010 sets are already prohibitively expensive for part sourcing. I definitely saw the names Robotops and Ultrarex in print once upon a time, but I can't remember if it was in a brochure that came with the individual sets or if it was in a Lego catalog. Do remember the blurb on Ultrarex calling it evil, which might be the source for his components being the "Evil" Throwbots. On a related note, I don't think Dynamo ever got a mention outside the instruction booklets.

While on the subject of Slizers, anyone know of any modern sets from which the following pieces can be sourced?: The two styles of Slizer torso The slizer throwing arm The shoulder joint and hip/ankle joint. The slizer leg The slizer head piece. That piece that was used for Ski's skies, Judge's Wings, etc. Amazon is about the only online retailer in the intersection of "Sells Lego" and "Accessible enough for me to use with my screen reader", but paying collector prices in the Marketplace is more expensive than I can justify for purchasing spare parts, and while I recently purchased a set of the original 8 for Nostalgia's sake, some of the MOCs I want to build would require more than doubling my Slizer collection if I don't find alternative sources for some pieces. Also, help building Turbo would be appreciated. The other 7 I could build from memory, but Turbo's construction is a bit more complicated. More to the existing threads of discussion, I generally prefer the American names but prefer Slizer to Throwbot and like to combine the names as if the European ones are suffixed titles(i.e. Torch the Flame Slizer). Also, while I remember the original Super Throwbots being described as good and evil in a brochure or catalog, Jet/Judge being part of the evil combination never set right with me, leading to a head canon of Jet, as the Judge being a neutral party and the creation of Ultra Rex coming about from the Evil Slizers forcing Judge to fuse with them.

^If Lego ever did Digimon sets, Toy Agumon needs to be among the first wave. Afterall, he's already made of Lego-style building blocks. Still, CCBS versions of WarGreymon, MetalGarurumon, Omegamon, Imperialdramon, Dukemon Crimson Mode or Susanoomon? I think the expression I'm looking for is All my Yes.

@xbox Travis: And if Nexo Knights has the whole swords and sorcery thing going on, a Spell being used to turn the minifigs into CCBS Giants to fight said Dragon mono e mono could give an in-verse reason for CCBS versions of the characters. As for Slizers, as much as i would love a reboot of that line, I'm not sure they could be translated to CCBS without being too different from the original. I recently picked up a full set of the original 8, and nostalgia aside, what I've enjoyed most about playing with them is how different they are from the 2015 Toa(which where my first and so far only sets for both Bionicle and CCBS). Still, wouldn't mind seeing some sets that combine pieces from the original Constractions with modern CCBS. Actually, there's an idea: A series of models that illustrate the evolution of constraction, with models resembling a slizer and an early G1 bionicle set at one end and CCBS models ala HF and Bionicle G2 at the opposite end and a combination model that unites elements accross the concept's 15+ year history. And now I want to experiment with using free ball joints to marry Slizer-style torsos with CCBS-style limbs and wish for a short bone-piece that has ball sockets on both ends because an elegant means of combining CCBS-style torsos with Slizer-style limbs isn't coming to me. *Imagines using exposed CCBS bones to give Torch knees and an elbow on his Flame Arm.*

^And now, I'm imagining a System model of Tokyo inhabited by minifigs being decimated by CCBS Daikaiju... But yeah, using CCBS to represent giant characters in a theme dominated by minifigs sounds like a no brainer.

Meh, if Lego ever made a line based on a license for a video game with a sci-fi theme and a super soldier PC, I'd be more interested in Metroid. Zero Suit or Casual Samus might be a bit too organic to work well, but how cool would a CCBS model of Samus in her power suit be? With part sets corresponding to things such as the Fusion suit, Varia Suit, Dark and Light suits from Prime Trilogy, etc. But that would be another Japanese License. In fact, the only video game license I can think of that I'd both be interested in and isn't Japanese(or produced by the American branch of a Japanese company) is Mortal Kombat, and that certainly doesn't fit with Lego's family friendly reputation. Okay, there's Tetris, but what could Lego do with such a license that an amateur MOCer couldn't? Oh, and I'm working on a CCBS MOC with a centaur body style, and while I've managed to combine two torsos in a way that allows the waist to swivel, it's only making me want an actual centaur torso that much more. The connection scheme I've come with doesn't seem vary stable and is bulky to the point that it leves little room for covering the back, and the way the neck ball of the torso used for the horse part works well for attaching a crotch plate where human and horse torsos meet, it prtrudes a bit too much, especially when the human part is turned to the side.

Speaking of Pokemon, anyone else find it weird there aren't any Japanese licenses among Lego's offerings? , Harry Potter is the only non-American license I can think of. Still, I'd buy a Lego Mew on principle alone.

Probably the most significant difference between second hand and digital piracy is that second hand is a scarcity market while digital piracy is post-scarcity, or in other words, finite supply versus infinite supply. A second hand market can only exist where there is a significant number of people willing to part with the product at some point after purchase, and I'd argue that a second hand market with supply sufficient to negatively impact first hand sales is a strong indicator that the product is of sub-par quality. Also, I'd argue scalpers aren't part of the second hand market, but rather an artificial extension to the first hand market's supply chain. In any case, unless you're buying directly from the manufacturer, they got their money long before you decided to purchase it, be it from a retailer, a scalper, or a second hand dealer. Whether the supply chain is directly manufacturer > consumer or something longer like manufacturer > distributor> retailer> scalper > consumer or anything in-between, the manufacturer only gets paid once for each unit of product no matter how many times it changes hands and gets marked-up.

If Legos made for the Chinese market are of lower quality, I suspect it was a choice between cutting costs or not being able to sell in that market at a price that was both affordable and profitable. As for cheap labor, there is no shortage of people capable of doing menial tasks, and most such tasks can be done by a machine. As such, it just common sense that such tasks will gravitate towards those willing to do it for the least pay, and if enough cheap cog-in-the-machine workers can't be found, they'll likely be replaced with less metaphorical cogs. The Chinese factory workers might have small paychecks, but how many would lose those paychecks if they ever grew large enough that it would be cheaper to replace them with a machine?

Some metallic purple armor and some transparent purple energy blades sound awesome.

I'd be happy if I could see anything from CCBS. Self-deprecating blindman humor aside, some alternative torsos would be nice. Say, a version of the torso that in addition to the shoulder and hip cross bars had one or two additional crossbars between them. Such could be useful for building insectoid or arachnoid creatures. Or instead of spine and hip cross bars, a torso that terminates below the shoulders, but instead of just two shoulders, had 8 shoulders evenly spaced around the neck for building Octopus body types. Perhaps a centaur torso. Some bone beams that went ball-to-ball or socket-to-socket instead of them all being socket-to-ball would be nice as well. Basically, anything that makes building something other than a humanoid or quadrupedal beast body shape easier would be nice. And if anything resembling the pieces I describe above already exists, feel free to hit me over the head with knowledge of sets that include such pieces.

I never got into Bionicle G1 on either front(Younger me was bitter over the discontinuation of Throwbots, then my love of building toys took a backseat to other interests, and by the time interest in Lego products resurfaced, Bionicle had been discontinued), but it seems a long standing problem with western media: If the story is good, the toys are usually an afterthought to cash-in on the story's success, and if the toys are good, the story serves mainly as extended ads. Most of the franchises I can think of that display quality on both fronts are Japanese, and even then, the good stuff is often import only. Also, just because the target audience is children, that doesn't mean you have to alienate everyone outside the target audience. Again, this seems to be something few American producers(I know Lego is based in Europe, but I don't have as much experience with European media) understand even if their creative teams do. I do have to agree the "elemental pie" strategy to world design sounds quite uninspired, especially since the one-planet version of the Throwbots/Slizer story line utilized it as well. Also, even if most of it ends up only as background information posted on a website or in a pulp-quality paperback, its not like it costs that much to give the writers a blank check for fleshing out lore, writing sidestories, or expanding events that were glossed over in the more visual media. After all, the written word doesn't have the constraints most other mediums have. As for the collectible aspects, as described above, G1 mask collecting gives me a Trading Card vibe and G2 Mask collecting gives me a Happy Meal Toys vibe. Neither give me a Pokemon vibe, and I say that as someone whose played at least two versions of every mean seris title from Red to Platinum plus SoulSilver and White with Vision loss being the only reason I haven't played newer Pokemon titles.

Okay, so I'm interested in producing Technic-heavy MOC, and since Technic is quite a bit more complicated than other construction toys I've worked with, trying to go from randomly slotting axles and pins into the appropriate holes to building original creations worth showing off via trial-and-error doesn't seem like a reasonable approach to learning this construction system. Sadly, being blind means I can't use Lego's own instructions as a learning tool even when they can be found in digital format online, and best I can tell, most of the books designed for teaching advanced construction techniques seem to be physical only. So, anyone here know any good eText or audio resources for learning to build with Technic? Something suited to teaching an inductory course on rebotics or mechanical engineering would be nice, and the higher the text-to-diagram ratio and the higher the percentage of diagram that only serve as illustration of what's being explained in the text rather than severing as the primary explanation, the better. Format-wise, plain text, html, or Audio CD would be preferred, but I can work with most widely used formats aside from Kindle eBooks and Audible.com audiobooks.

So far, my collection is limited to the 2015 Toa. If I was still among the sighted, I might be interested in a more completionist mindset, but since blindness is a bigger hindrance to fully building official models and what I've built so far seems to have little tactile distinction between models, I'm limiting myself to sets that add variety to the parts I have to work with for MOC. Presently, The creatures are at the top of my list due to their diversity. I'll probably pick up a few 2016 Toa, but probably not a full set. Would also like to pick up some of the villain sets as well, but not sure which ones have the highest counts for pieces I don't have. Might skip the protectors altogether as a response in the 2016 general discussion implied they're even closer to being palette swaps than the Toa(through, if there's a purple one, I might have to get one just because favorite color).