Aanchir

I guess my put-off-ness of the set is because I plain don't like BBT and find it insulting and am bummed that my favorite toy would endorse it. Especially since they just did a set focusing on women in science, it's sad to go back to stereotypes.

Evidently there are plenty of people who feel differently, because one of the builders of the Big Bang Theory project is the exact same person who created the project that became the Research Institute set. And that builder, Alatariel, is herself a scientist, specifically a geochemist. I have also seen a lot of other people excited about this project because they are themselves scientists or science fans.

 

In my opinion, the teasing of intellectuals in the show is not meant to be taken personally, and it's clear that a lot of people appreciate the show because it focuses on jokes and characters they can relate to in terms of their OWN interests, not because it helps them to feel better than anybody else. It's sort of the same reason why many people enjoy parodies that take irreverent jabs at the flawed or ridiculous aspects of the franchise they're based on. Parodies offer a chance for people to laugh at their own interests, just as the nerdy cast of the The Big Bang Theory offer a chance for like-minded viewers to laugh at those interests and at themselves.

 

I think there's something incredibly ironic that some people insist the show is hurtful to nerds and intellectuals. Taken to its logical conclusion, this kind of thinking insinuates that the nerds and intellectuals who DO enjoy it are too socially and culturally oblivious to recognize when they're the butt of a joke. Is that not the same kind of stereotype people accuse The Big Bang Theory of perpetuating?

 

Now, as for comparing it to Firefly, I have to say I've never seen Firefly (I really need to fix that soon; at this point I really have no excuse), but I think you have to bear in mind that different cultures respond differently to different taboos. So the LEGO Group's Danish corporate culture might have somehow influenced those two decisions. Or it might not have. I'm just pointing out the possibility.

Need more shells in more colors. Forget about the silvers and blacks, want more bright colors!

Next year's BIONICLE sets are definitely giving us some nice shells in bright colors. I could list them here but it's easier to link to my recent post on The New Elementary. Bright Green, Flame Yellowish Orange, and Medium Lilac are all colors that have been used rarely in CCBS, while Dark Orange and Dark Azur are both brand new to the system. Granted, I still really love the neutral colors because they go with pretty much anything. Many of my MOCs start out in neutral colors and then I test out different color schemes for them — something that professional LEGO designers also sometimes do.

 

Also, when did everybody start using CCBS?

You mean the term itself? I forget when it really started to catch on, probably sometime this year or last. For a while in 2011 and 2012, people were still calling it the Hero Factory building system, but there are a couple problems with that. For starters, the first wave of Hero Factory sets didn't use it at all, and besides that, it's now been used for every constraction theme since 2011, not just Hero Factory.

I don't do a lot of working out, but what I do enjoy is going for walks outside. It's a very easy way of staying fit, though it won't give you the muscle you need to be, say, an athlete or a firefighter. For me, going on walks is its own motivation — you get to enjoy the outdoors and watch the seasons change, you feel a little bit less closed off from the rest of the world, and unless you live in a busy city, it can be a good way to be alone with your thoughts. If you do live in the city, perhaps go to a park or some other place that is a bit more peaceful than the usual streets.

 

I know a lot of people feel like listening to music can make workouts or exercise of any kind much more enjoyable. When I go for walks I love listening to music, and sometimes even singing along.

Eh, I found it frustrating and, when I finally finished it in a downloaded verson years ago, thought the ending was underwelming. It was a nice island exploring game, but it totally cut out any real story elements, didn't feature the Toa at all, and that's also igoring the hard-to-win Kohlii games. I never managed to win it without using the cheat to auto-win games. MNOLG 1 was better.

 

To its credit, Mata Nui Online Game II did a great job establishing the Matoran culture and how it varied between the different villages. It also was one of the only times when the Matoran value system had a lot of depth, since not only were there the three generic virtues but also more unique principles specific to each village (and skills derived in turn from those principles). The principles tied in quite elegantly with the Rahkshi and made their powers a lot more poetic — they weren't just generic scary superpowers, they were the antithesis of everything the Matoran villages stood for.

 

As far as gameplay and plot were concerned, I do think Mata Nui Online Game was the stronger of the two. And obviously the broken-ness of MNOGII detracts a lot from it as well. But MNOGII was a valiant attempt at world-building, and it was a shame that a lot of what it achieved was basically ignored by other story media.

Glad your experience has been good! Personally, I kind of like the reuse of parts. It's nice that the parts don't start to feel obsolete or out-of-place after a few years the way, say, parts from the Toa Mata would seem obsolete and out-of-place among parts from the Toa Metru. Even if they were ostensibly still compatible, the style of the parts had changed so much in four years that the older parts didn't entirely feel like they belonged. The old BIONICLE got a bit better about this as the years went on, of course — sets between 2007 and 2009 continued to use a lot of older parts.

 

I do think we're likely to see more new parts as the BIONICLE theme continues, just as we saw several new pieces in this year's Legends of Chima constraction sets. Certainly there will be more of a budget for it if the 2016 BIONICLE sets continue to use things like the head and gearbox introduced in 2015. And by reusing the current masks for the Toa (perhaps freshening them up with a two-color blend), they could free up even more money for new building elements like shells, armor plates, etc.

Ooh! I'll put the kettle on.

 

Is chamomile OK?

Hey it's a cool person. Hi cool person! Please stay so we might share in your coolness!

I thought I might have had Scuba's final disk, but after looking at it on Bricklink I'm pretty sure I'm just remembering it from the poster/checklist. After all, it only came in the random disk packs and I never got any of those (or even saw them in stores, for that matter). The regular sets had non-randomized disks, so you probably have all the same ones I have and then some.

 

Bit of a shame you're not getting the 2000 ones. My brothers and I have all seven of those, and they do form a sequence even though the colors don't match.

Well, I'm glad you've had an opportunity to learn and grow, and to overcome some of the prejudices of your upbringing. The fact that BZPower has helped with this does not surprise me. I've always considered BZPower an extremely safe place to grow up. The moderators are both vigilant and considerate. They work very hard to prevent hatred and flame wars without stifling discussion.

 

I'd be kidding myself if I said I was done learning. There are still times when discussions here throw my own ignorance and misconceptions into sharp relief.

One tip is to look at how other big models (whether they're sets or MOCs) are built and try to reverse-engineer parts of them that you like. You can learn a lot of useful techniques that way, and that can give you a starting point so you can then start mixing in techniques of your own. I spent several months reverse-engineering a MOC Christoffer Raundahl had on display at LEGO World CPH 2013, and then spent many more months changing and refining things until I had come up with an original MOC.

 

I also find LEGO Digital Designer useful, because sometimes when you are building big, you won't have all the parts you need on hand right away. Building ONLY on LDD can be limiting, but I find it can sometimes be useful to alternate between building part of a model physically, then using LDD to record what you've built. Then you can borrow parts from what you've already built without worrying that you won't be able to put it back together again.

 

Sometimes a good way to come up with ideas for big models is to experiment with larger parts. For instance, you can take a few big armor pieces and try to find a way that they fit together nicely. Then, try and find the simplest structure you can come up with to get them to attach together in that position.

 

It's never a bad idea to approach a larger model in sections. Sometimes it might take a long time to find a way to connect those sections together into a cohesive whole. Sometimes they won't end up going together at all, and the foot and leg you come up with will end up going on different models entirely. But each time you come up with something that you're proud of, or see a technique in a set or MOC that you admire, you can add that to your repertoire for the future, and then it's simply a matter of finding which builds or techniques from that repertoire go best together.

Ohes noes! I missed the Homsar easter egg! Guess I'll have to watch it all over again...

Well, talking to a professional therapist or counselor can sometimes help with any kind of psychological trouble. I know from experience that it's hard to talk about personal issues with anybody like friends or family who's emotionally invested in your personal life, since the last thing you want is for those concerns to cast a dark cloud over all of your interactions. But with a professional therapist, there's not that concern, and chances are they have experience with other people who have faced the same issues. If you're still in school, a school counselor might be able to help you, or at least direct you towards other resources. Talking with a school counselor is usually free, and it's often very easy for you to book future appointments after trying out some of the strategies they recommend.

I've never paid too much attention to post count, but mine is probably pretty high anyway just because most of my posts ARE in subforums that influence it.

 

*checks* 4,341. I guess that's pretty high. Even though to be honest I wouldn't know for sure, because I don't pay a lot of attention to other people's post counts either.

 

Considering Mata Nui's status as a thinking, feeling robot, you have to wonder why so many BIONICLE fans were unable to understand the simple concept that Hero Factory characters were also thinking, feeling robots. I can't even count how many times I've seen idiotic claims that it's impossible to relate to or care about a robot character because they don't have real feelings or don't have to be afraid of dying or other such nonsense.

I don't remember any Bionicle fans on here thinking this TBH. Maybe it's just me, but it felt like this concept was obvious.

 

Not so much on here as on other sites. Though there are exceptions, like this topic. A couple gems:

 

"When you think about hero factorys are just vahki with personalitys. How ever even before Makuta took them over matoran still hated them. why should hero factory be different."

 

"In Hero factory they are NOT alive DON'T have friends or alive and are PROGRAMED to catch villons and not feel fear. Therfore they are not brave."

 

What's confusing is that they have enough flaws to bash in HF that are legit, so their desire to HF bash can be granted in other ways that have nothing to do with denying the truth. They don't have to deny the truth to complain, so they don't care about the truth in the first place, they just want to bash for the lulz.

Well, I also think sometimes it's because people are uncomfortable with the idea that other people might not feel the same as them. For all of BIONICLE's advantages, it's still possible that somebody might prefer Hero Factory for any number of reasons, and to some people that possibility is anathema. They then set out to prove that only a stupid person would like Hero Factory by treating anything they don't like about it as an incontrovertible flaw.

 

This isn't just a BIONICLE vs. Hero Factory thing, either. You see this kind of "my fandom is the one true fandom" thinking in a lot of geek subcultures. Star Wars vs. Star Trek used to be a really big one, but thankfully it's mostly died down. Still, back in the day you'd surely have had people insisting that one franchise's technology and aliens are "more realistic" than the other's, despite both franchises being pretty light on realism.

 

More recently, fantasy franchises such as Eragon and Twilight have been blasted for not being as good as others that came before like The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, as if every popular fantasy franchise has outshine everything that came before it in order to be legitimately enjoyable. Too often this kind of thinking also gets wrapped up in a cynical, "grumpy old man" outlook as well — "since kids today enjoy these things, that means kids today are dumb and tasteless and society as we know it is on a precipitous decline".

Considering Mata Nui's status as a thinking, feeling robot, you have to wonder why so many BIONICLE fans were unable to understand the simple concept that Hero Factory characters were also thinking, feeling robots. I can't even count how many times I've seen idiotic claims that it's impossible to relate to or care about a robot character because they don't have real feelings or don't have to be afraid of dying or other such nonsense.

 

There are plenty of real reasons to prefer BIONICLE to Hero Factory, of course. But that's why I'm always so baffled that people felt the need to make new ones up just to justify their own preferences.

I have never even kept track of how many followers or favorites I get on my Flickr. I just checked and found I have 247 followers. What the... O_O

 

Also noticed that I wasn't following you yet, so I went ahead and fixed that.

Thanks, everyone!

Why not get an avatar of one of the new BIONICLE characters? Or of Primal Groudon, if you're planning on getting Omega Ruby? Anything you're really excited about at the moment could do.

This is why you need to pay more attention in class! If you had been paying attention from the start, you'd have noticed the problematic font much sooner.

I'm assuming those are all the same shades of green? The #6 armor and the chest armor seem to be slighly different in color, but it could have something to do with the angle and lighting of the pieces...

There is no #6 armor in this picture. Do you mean #4? In that case, yes, they're both Bright Green.

I have no idea how I'd ever use that many of those giant chest plates from Onua, but if anybody can come up with a use, it's you.

As Lyi mentioned, he and I have been working on concepts for Akamai and Wairuha. Wairuha is only slightly shorter than Akamai, but has a more effeminate design in accordance with the Toa Nuva Kaita models. Each stands about two inches taller than the largest Toa used in their construction (Tahu and Kopaka, respectively). So while they don't tower over regular Toa the way the original Toa Kaita would, they're more than tall enough for it to be clear that they're not just regular Toa.

Some spices I really like include curry powder, paprika, cayenne pepper, garlic, and ginger. Might want to make sure your kitchen is well-ventilated if you're cooking with a lot of spices, though. The smell can get pretty overpowering.

 

Curry powder is a spice that can work with rice, meat, and veggies alike. Look for recipes!

Random question: how many BIONICLE posters did you end up getting? And which did they give out each day? I know on Thursday it was Gali and Onua, but seeing as it was a four-day event and there were only six Toa I'm curious whether any got repeated or whether there were posters for, say, the Lord of Skull Spiders and the six Protectors.