Aanchir

So are you planning to replace any of these with the official ones once they come out? Or just stick with your customs?

Also I get a feeling you could really use another minifigure display case! It's getting a little bit cramped inside that one!

The BIONICLE set reviews that become front-page news are all done by BZPower staff. I don't know what the rules are about posting reviews in the forums (you might be supposed to put it as a post in the main BIONICLE 2015 topic, or maybe you're allowed to make your own topic in the BIONICLE discussion forum), but I actually think the best place to put a review of this set is probably your blog, since you do in fact have one.

It's even worse when I go to Amazon so I can give somebody a link to a product I already have (for reference's sake, usually), and then the ads continue to recommend me said product.

With that said, I do like targeted ads. It's nice every now and then to not be bludgeoned with ads for products I would never even care about. It's especially nice when I see targeted ads on Facebook for local businesses.

The 2002 character bios on Archive.org are useful, I feel.

Not sure if a strait or an isthmus.

I really need to organize my own bookshelves sometime. I did manage to reorganize my LEGO+MLP shelf slightly by stacking the BIONICLE chapter books instead of having them upright, which helps reduce wasted space considerably.

So if I've counted right, that's 79 minifigures so far. That's definitely a lot! Are you also going to be aiming to get all the different costumes for the main characters?

Ninjago (one of my favorite themes) is also pretty high up there when it comes to sheer number of minifigures. There have been 85 Ninjago minifigures from 2011 through 2014, and from what we've seen in finalized pics of next year's sets, there are at least 26 new ones coming out in the next wave.

However, Legends of Chima might still come out ahead on number of unique characters, since nearly half of the Ninjago minifigures to date have been new versions/costumes of characters from the first two waves. Counting just figs from 2011–2014, there have been just 44 different Ninjago characters as figs, and the upcoming wave of sets will add about 12 more.

My Ninjago minifigure collection is not entirely complete. I'm missing three Serpentine figs from 2012 and seven assorted figs from this year, though I know that by the end of this year I'll have filled some of the gaps from this year's lineup.

I'm only really allergic to one thing: an ear infection drug called Ceclor that the doctor tried to give me when I was like two years old. So, nothing that I am ever likely to come into contact with in my day-to-day life.

I think a lot of people undersell the complexity of today's constraction sets, especially Hero Factory sets. I don't have Rocka Stealth Machine, but Furno Jet Machine still impresses me with the creativity of its torso build, and Breez Flea Machine is amazing both in terms of structure and functionality. Since we're getting awfully close to the release of the new BIONICLE sets, I'd actually recommend saving your money for those if you can. By the time they're out, it might be easier to find this year's Hero Factory sets marked down, either in stores or online. But if you do want a recommendation for a next Hero Factory set, I can definitely vouch for the two aforementioned machines. Great designs, great parts, great figures.

The most common "disadvantage" old-school fans continue to bring up about the 2015 BIONICLE sets is that there is less elaborate, specialized detail in the part designs. And I think as far as building is concerned, that's more of an advantage than a disadvantage: instead of creating visual difference by swapping a piece for a functionally near-identical piece like, say, the arms and legs of the Visorak, the designers have been forced to create variety by changing the builds themselves. Since products like BIONICLE and Hero Factory have always ostensibly been building toys, I think that emphasizing creative building over creative part design is definitely a step in the right direction.

Oh jeez, Bonesiii's post has reached critical mass! It's gonna blow!

I guess I can say thanks for making my own posts feel less long and tedious.

Yeah, I hear it a lot.

A LEGO history expert on Brickset was able to identify the source of this leaflet! And it seems like my guess was right on the money. It's from a "Homemaker" catalog from 1974: http://www.bricksetforum.com/discussion/comment/318722/#Comment_318722

The message ("Little Girls Think Big") is definitely still a strong and progressive one, but it's certainly not the epitome of non-gendered marketing some people might have hoped it would be.

While it personally annoys me that you stick so closely with the official colors names (I'm too used to the fan ones) I've found your reviews of the parts and colors to be very insightful, and really give us an idea of how they look and go together. Thanks a lot for putting all the effort into them! Also, congratulations on all your fame and fortune, don't let it go to your head!

 

On The New Elementary I use both the official names from the LEGO Group and the unofficial names from Bricklink, in that order. Most New Elementary posts do use both naming systems, but in the opposite order. The reason I prefer the official names is mainly because they tend to be the most authoritative. Too often, unofficial names tend to lump similar or even dissimilar colors together — so for instance, 315 Silver Metallic is a color that came out between 2010 and 2011, but its Bricklink counterpart — Flat Silver — can also refer to multiple older, discontinued colors which are often visibly lighter.

And fan names that aren't a part of a consistent naming system like Bricklink's can be even worse. For instance, some BIONICLE fans use "Trans-Ice Blue" to refer to Tr. Light Blue (a color that's been in use since the 1980s, and is used extensively in some of the new BIONICLE sets), while some people use it to refer to Tr. Fluorescent Blue (a color introduced in 2001, which has been used for parts like the original Kopaka's eyes, Glatorian heads, and the joints from Toa Inika Matoro). And I've seen "Trans-Lime" used to refer to both Tr. Fluorescent Green (Trans-Neon Green) and Tr. Bright Green. Using an established naming system, whether an official one like TLG's or an unofficial one like Bricklink's, means that people who don't know what you mean have a place where they can look it up (Brick Colorstream is a good reference source for official color names).

Look at that, you got me rambling about color names. Doesn't take much, I suppose. Glad you've enjoyed my articles!

I met Tufi for the first time at NYCC and she looks a LOT different than she did when her staff page photo was taken!

Hey look it's the original Kaukau Nuva.

I think that review seemed a bit fair, to be honest. Maybe not the score (the score seems a bit dumb and arbitrary, and doesn't seem to match the body of the review), but the actual content, because the review was generally very fair, but when water is not just a backdrop but an integral game mechanic in both battle and the overworld, too much of it CAN get a bit annoying.

Having played Pokémon games in the past, I know full well what it's like to get tired of facing the same Pokémon in the same environments with the same moves. And for people who have gotten used to the more recent game regions which tried to balance and vary things better, I can see how it might be frustrating to go back to a game region that predated that kind of balancing.

It's the same way people got a bit sick of single-biome story years in the later years of BIONICLE. It's true, it usually made sense for the settings of those particular story years! But "making sense" doesn't mean it's enjoyable for people who have come to expect more variety.

I like Hero Factory, but never really got into online role-playing. To be honest, I don't know if I have the kind of improvisational skills and imagination they would require. Writing stories is hard enough; being a PART of an ongoing story seems like more pressure than I could really handle! And probably emotionally exhausting for me as well, if my experience with improv exercises in my drama classes is any indication.

"Vahki Nui" ("Great Vahki") would work if not for the fact that a lot of fans would expect it to mean a fusion like the Toa Nui, rather than thinking of it like the Tarakava Nui.

"Vahki-Ko" (like "Mana-Ko") would be an alternative, but it sounds awful and again you'd have an issue with people not understanding the etymology.

And if you wanted to just make something up without referencing established terms, you've got all kinds of options. But I think a prefix or suffix might be best. "Kuravahki" maybe. Or whatever you think rolls off the tongue and sounds scary.

Pet Shop is a great set that (IMO) you don't want to miss. Get that one. Palace Cinema and Parisian Restaurant can wait.

It looks amazing! But more than anything else, I'm glad you're happy with it.

I guess I get what you guys are saying. But I've never really played any of those kinds of triple-A games, so I wouldn't know much about that. I hardly play any video games anymore, to be perfectly honest.

It's an apples-to-oranges comparison. Video games != movies.

 

Takuma Nuva

 

Obviously that doesn't mean letting go of the unique benefits of the video game medium, but I don't have a slightest problem with, say, the voice acting and anime cutscenes in Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, or scripted flight segments and synchronized dialogue from Kid Icarus: Uprising. If people used "video games aren't movies" as an excuse to never even try those kinds of things it would be unreasonably close-minded of them.

Can it be pushed too far? Of course it can! But you'll never know just how far is too far if nobody's even willing to push in that direction. And it doesn't take the whole industry shifting in that direction, just a few game developers who are willing to take a risk and challenge preconceived notions of what a gaming experience should or shouldn't be like.

Very excited! And as I said on deviantART, I'd be happy to proofread for you.

I can definitely see how Mata Nui being a robot might not work for a human AU. Back when I was doing a lot of BIONICLE sketches that sort of puzzled me as well — "how might I address this?" It'd be a bit weird, in a fantasy world of human characters, to make such a central character actually a crazy-huge sci-fi robot.

 

I belive everyone calls it CCBS because LEGO officially calls it that in this picture which explains it.

Technically, we had known that the official term was CCBS around the time it was first introduced, courtesy of a Lego part designer on Eurobricks. That's why it's sort of interesting that it's only recently caught on as the generally accepted term recently. I've been using CCBS as the primary term for the system since I learned it, but now I'm starting to see others use the term as well.

 

Besides that, the original video series on the Hero Factory website after it was introduced was titled "Explaining the Character and Creature Building System". So the name's been around, it just took people a little while to realize that it WAS a proper name. Or to NEED a proper name, because back in 2011 you could just call it "the new system" or "the Hero Factory system" and most people would know what you were talking about. As time went on, and it became both less new and less specific to Hero Factory, its proper name became more useful for discussions.

It's not like it's the first time an official term has taken time to gain ground. I remember a few years back when people first started seeing widespread use and understanding of the term "constraction", even though the term was coined way back in 2004!

I imagine it might be confusing at first for some fans, but as other people have pointed out, it's nothing successful toy franchises haven't dealt with before.