Katuko

The actual Maori words do indeed mean "fire" etc.
 

tahu
1. (verb) (-na) to set on fire, light, set alight, burn.

 

Taken from here.

kōpaka
1. (noun) ice, frost, hail, glacier.

pōhatu
1. (noun) stone.

ōnewa
1. (noun) dark grey stone, granite.

kakama
1. (stative) be quick, nimble, alert, active, capable.


Can't find all the names in that online dictionary, but from the ones we do find it's easy to tell that BIONICLE took a lot of words from Maori. Hence the hacking and lawsuit and name changing and all. In-universe, it might be opposite, so that the Toa Mata are named after the village prefixes or similar-sounding words, but I honestly think their names might just be the Matoran words for their elements as well.

Eventually kinda floats in and out. I'm not even sure where this is going anymore, heh.

Let's try to narrow down the issue. Does the changing of the keys happen while in the middle of playing, or only between each startup of the game itself? When you say they don't work, do you mean that they have no effect at all, or that they produce glitches? Does other settings change/revert themselves?

The weapon and attack keys aren't working for me. It also keeps changing from the attack as [ and weapon as F to attack as F and weapon as [. How do I fix this???

Have you unzipped the game?

I don't mind the current genders of each character that we know. I do mind that the numbers were heavily unbalanced in the Matoran Universe at large, which is something I'd personally have changed if I were in charge.

I'm certain that if there was a super-secret meeting where Nuju couldn't afford to have Matoro present, he'd just speak normal Matoran. Otherwise Matoro could possibly know about Metru Nui, the Bohrok, and of Makuta's true form, the Kraata cave in Po-Wahi, and a whole slew of other things.

 

For what it's worth, Nuju speaks Matoran/English when he first meets Kopaka in the comics, despite Matoro being right there. In another comic I believe we see him alone with the rest of the Turaga, though I can't remember if he speaks there.

Any of the Mata. Nui-Jaga. Boxor. Kopaka Nuva. Any of the Rahkshi. Thok. Jaller Mahri.

 

That's pretty much it.

I love it. Most of the time when people humanize BIONICLE characters, it looks a bit strange. In this case you've made the Toa into some kind of power armor suit, and that is awesome. It looks sleek and deadly at the same time, and the somewhat sketchy style brings to mind gritty sci-fi settings. Very nice work.

While the Mask of Night Vision may not be all that useful, I didn't really like having two or even three powers overlap in one mask like that. I'd have preferred the plot to take them into more dark areas rather than the Ruru suddenly gaining limited x-ray vision.

The Kaita looked like silly mashups of the characters they were made from... which they were. Their characterization was next to none, and I've never been a fan of mind-merging/fusions in fiction. The one species I felt it could have worked for - the regular Bohrok, which were fully mechanical and with no individual personalities - never used it.

 

Although they showed up now and again in the story to scale the fights up a notch, Kaita could be completely omitted and I don't think we'd really lose anything that could have been replaced by a Mask of Growth or some form of co-op tactic.

Maybe you could add a teleporter inside Mangaia, like the ones in Karda Nui? Then you could go in via the gravity well, and then teleport out. Or would a one-way teleport be too hard? I've never tried making a game myself before, so I have no idea how complex the coding was for the KN teleporters.

Teleportation is actually much simpler than regular movement, because you don't have to think of all the stuff that happens in-between. No gradual motion, no animation, no slowing down at the end. Just a plain manipulation of the coordinates: x = whatever, y = whatever. Play a sound effect. Done.

 

I was going to add a pillar of light after Makuta is defeated, so that you can warp up to the surface again. Time constraints made me skip it, and I haven't gotten around to uploading a new version yet. I have taken notes of the things you guys have mentioned already, and will be fixing them soon-ish.

 

Discovered something: the teleporter only inhibits flight if you fly crooked.  You can escape if you fly straight up after entering the gravity well.

That is even weirder, considering that code-wise there is no difference between flying straight or at an angle - the vertical speed should be the same.

The gravity well is only set to slow you if you are moving downwards. It also sets your personal gravity to a low level for a few seconds, to prevent people from dying to fall damage. it appears to mess with flight powers (which work by temporarily setting personal gravity to 0) by making gravity have a positive value again. I intended it to take the minimum value - either your current gravity, or the gravity well's - but I've messed up there as well.

Here's a new sprite I made, the Ta-Koro Guard shield:

 

 

I was more satisfied with the Rhotuka Shield I made, but I guess that's because this one is just round and not very complex.

Toa can become Turaga after fulfilling their destiny and giving up their power. Obviously the Toa Metru became Turaga when they spent their power to revive the Matoran, but it might not be so clear-cut with Lhikan. If his destiny was to create new Toa, then perhaps giving up his reserve power would not enough to trigger the transformation? He would have to actually fulfill his destiny before his "system" would trigger the transformation. Thus Tahu (for example) couldn't suddenly decide to vent all his Toa energy into random rocks and then go chill as a Turaga in Ta-Koro. And similarly, he is not forcefully transformed into a Turaga after his destiny is complete, he will have to give up his energy willingly at some point.

 

Didn't the Toa Metru each create a Toa stone, which Takua later used to call the Toa Mata's canisters in from the ocean? They couldn't have created these after they became Turaga, but obviously they did not turn into Turaga before they spent their energy on waking the Matoran. Then again, I guess in this case each of them would only need to spend 1/6 of their power on a stone, whereas Lhikan likely used as good as all of his.

If BIONICLE comes back, I do hope the silly gender restriction is one of the things they will change. Sure, maybe the sets would still be targeted primarily at boys, but there's no reason for the background lore to completely eliminate all options.

 

Teal and turquoise would work as a unique color of plant life, I think, or else they should go with the colors currently used for Air. We saw teal and lime used in the jungle-based Slizer from pre-BIONICLE series, and we've seen dark green and lime re-used in Gresh and other characters. Lewa even used to swing around in the jungle, leading those who didn't follow the story too much to just think of him as the forest guy, not the air guy.

 

So honestly, I think a different color scheme for air would actually be more pressing than one for Plant Life/Jungle/The Green. Of course, they could also both use green, but then have some strong highlight colors or designs on Plant Life. Stick wings on the air set and grappling hook vines on the plant set, for example, even if they have similar color schemes.

Does the new engine work better? What are it's benefefits?

Yes, it will. I haven't spent too much time on it yet, though, so I've got nothing to show you guys.

 

The main benefit will be that it is written by someone who now has a few years of experience with how things should not be done.

16.0? 

On a side topic: what are the minimum system requirements? My computers screen card got trashed and I'm stuck with the spare one it had inside (Intel HD graphics) It doesn't seem to be strong enough for this game.

I estimate it to be at least 1 GB RAM and 1 GHz CPU, but it's hard to say. I haven't really done any benchmarking, and the game is old and badly optimized. In-game it probably drains more resources.

If the boss fights in my game were actually based on skill and not throwing high numbers around, "kill him without dying" would hopefully be the baseline after a few tries. Now it's more luck in some fights (unless you manage to predict when attacks are coming, they are usually on a timer).

The Toa Mata are not at Kini-Nui

Darn it. I swear they were present earlier, I must have accidentally removed the line of code which places their spawner.

 

Makuta seems to ignore bots

He will target players and bots alike, but once he targets someone he will keep targeting them until they die or go too far away. Other bosses instantly lock on to anything that gets close, but Makuta is a bit smarter than that.

 

He takes damage when he fires gravity blasts

 

His chain lightning blasts are aimed a bit too low.

Faulty variables; I'll fix them.

 

He seems to be rather passive in his winged titan form, and rarely moves.

He's currently lacking some moves that would make him appear more dangerous.

 

observation: the rahkshi bosses do not target him at all.

This is because Makuta is set to the same team as them. Transforming yourself into Makuta with the Mahiki fails to change the Makuta object's team to match the player's "no team" setting.

 

Also, the Mahiki is by far the best mask now

For the record, here are the chances for each creature you can turn into:

Nui-Rama 30%

Nui-Jaga 30%

Exo-Toa 20%

Exo-Pyro 10%

Makuta 10%

Most of this update was rushed. Sorry about the plethora of problems.

 

- Nui-Jaga are indeed unable to cross ledges.

- You must use melee attacks to hit the tentacles. I tried adding all th eother powers to the collision check, but for every attack the workload increased. The new engine will fix this, but the old one is too much of a mess.

- Mangaia... well, it was supposed to have a proper exit, then the rushing started. Makuta is maybe half done based on my actual planning document. He's supposed to have more abilities, such as a different attack at close range. Right now close range actually triggers Shadow Hand as a placeholder, it's only supposed to come out on low-HP targets.

- Blargh spellings.

Stupid thing I did forget to mention anywhere:

 

Makuta's first form can be targeted directly if you hit the swirly glowing part (need flight) or with melee attacks from the ground. You will see your target turn red when you deal damage. For the sake of my sanity (and to prevent the game from lagging) every melee attack has the exact same damage and effect. Just keep hitting tentacles and you will win.

 

Makuta's second form does not react to special status effects like fire, ice or poison. These attacks do slight extra direct damage instead. Makuta should react to every offensive power, but I might have missed some. Please report to me if you find one that passes through. Haha, who am I kidding, you'd complain about that even if I didn't say anything.

As others have said, MU inhabitants can consume food via their mouth if they want to, but once there it is still converted to energy. Since they don't usually chew they are not used to seeing intelligent beings crush and rip things apart with their mouth, so they would classify the Skakdi's habits as animal/Rahi-like. The question is very valid, even if the wording makes it sound silly.

 

We used to have a sticky topic about Matoran life processes where this was covered at least partially, but it got lost along with most of the old forum. Maybe we should work on compiling a new one?

 

 

What a great question! I'm glad to see Storyline and Theories is back to being a place of serious Bionicle debate after all this time.

 

It also opens a number of equally provocative questions: can Bionicles blink? Can they sneeze? Do they have belly buttons? If they go deep underwater do their ears start to hurt?

I think they blink, however not in the conventional way you and I do since they have robotic eyes. I believe it was shown in LoMN that some of the characters did appear to blink a few times.

 

I think they can sneeze, as in MNOLG Po Koro was shown to be sick and sneezing. Since viruses do exist and MU inhabitants have respiratory systems I imagine a character can get sick and sneeze.

 

No bellybuttons, as they were never attached to any umbilical cords as far as we know.

 

Now, I don't think their ears might necessarily hurt but characters would definitely feel the large pressure in different ways, being that they're 85% armor and what not.

 

Hope that helped.

 

The Flash animations show Matoran blinking at times, and they close their eyes now and then in the movies too. They don't appear to do so except when they really need to clear their vision or protect their eyes.

 

Sneezing sounds likely as well. In fact, until I understood that it was a fart joke, I thought Kapura had sneezed on the fire in the MNOG scene. There was a lot of ash in the air which could have gotten in his lungs (though he's a Ta-Matoran and should be used to it).

 

Belly buttons would not make sense on MU beings, I agree. A better question would be if Agori have them, as they are born rather than built.

 

We know they can feel pain in their "audio receptors" from loud noises. Real-life microphones are pretty much a metal version of an ear, as they have a membrane which vibrates and converts the vibrations to electromagnetic signals. MU inhabitants probably have tough ears, but water pressure would likely affect them much like it does us. The Kaukau Nuva mentions that it allows the user to withstand extreme water pressure, so it stands to reason that Toa would normally have trouble. I can only speculate whether this extends to ear pain or not, but it seems likely that it would.

Combining two statements of Greg's, it MAY work like this:

 

1) The brain has to be (mostly) intact for the first revival (but not the later ones, etc.).

 

2) There has to be "something to work with" for second+ revivals.

 

So possibly disintegration may still make you unrevivable the second time.

I think #1 was just a further explanation of #2: You usually can't be revived after disintegration because the brain would be destroyed by it. Disintegration itself is just one way to achieve that. You could be revived if only your lower body was disintegrated.

 

It'd be reasonable to suggest that the Red Star needs something to lock onto to even confirm a death, or perhaps something to fuel the revival. Still, the teleportation itself would likely burn more energy than creating new matter anyways. Elemental Iron is a thing, after all, and Toa produce that naturally in their bodies.

 

Is the Red Star solar powered, perhaps? Takes in sunlight and cosmic dust, converts it to some other form of energy, then converts that energy to protodermic metal and organics like a giant 3D-printer?

No, strong no, idea.

 

No because Greg really messed with a lot of stuff in the later years that might have worked well in theory but never seemed to come to fruition, especially with the abrupt halt of the serials. I don't know off the top of my head if the Red Star was one of those things from the '01 story bible or not, but it just seems like a massive deus ex machina-creating machine. Regardless of when the idea came about, Greg's writing style wouldn't have handled it well.

 

Strong no because honestly there would have been so many better ways to make the reveal. The serials would have been ripe for this. Mysterious story about the beings on the Red Star getting it to work again, then sending Mavrah down only to come face-to-face with Whenua? Boy howdy someone get GSR on this concept pronto.

 

On the whole, I'm fundamentally opposed to the idea because it just feels like something that Greg would've used as a cop-out.

Sumiki sums up my feelings very well.

 

The revival aspect could have been good, but it's been squeezed in on a whim at the last second in an unfinished serial. It upsets a heck of a lot of existing story, kind of like the reveal of Mata Nui's true form, just with no build-up and no real pay-off.

Wasn't the whole point of the Unity/Duty/Destiny symbol being a map of sorts that it specifically showed Bara Magna in the center and its two orbiting pieces? You'd need an awfully specific orbit to make that arrangement stay for long if they were orbiting the sun without orbiting the planet.

 

If I remember correctly, it was because the mask couldn't be destroyed within the Matoran Universe or anywhere near it. Teridax needed to get rid of it and Mata Nui, so he just put them together and hurled the problem out into space.

This is correct. The Ignika was likely to trigger the MU kill-switch once Makuta disturbed its workings, and he didn't really need its powers for anything anymore. Presumably it would also be hard for him to target Mata Nui's soul directly in order to destroy it, so trapping it in the mask and sending it off to burn up in a star somewhere was actually a very good plan. What's surprising is that he chose to word his later attack as "crushing it", because that would likely cause a dangerous explosion of life energy, precisely the kind of thing he wanted to move as far away from himself as possible.

 

He wasn't really wrong to assume that the mask would eventually just burn up or something. According to Journey's End, Teridax was surprised to discover that the mask was still intact and safe on Bara Magna after he'd finished crushing any resistance in his body. What were the chances Mata Nui would land on his planet of origin where a prototype robot was available that could fight Teridax?

"A 10% chance is pretty unlikely, but everyone knows that a one-in-a-million chance is a sure thing!"

— Elan, The Order of the Stick