Pohaturon

Awesome, can't wait! It's been a while since the last stream.

Leave G2 as was, but give us the third year at least, maybe even more following. Toss in some collectibles, and release masks in more colors. That's all I'd want. 2016 was really coming into its own, and I was really stoked for how 2017 would have turned out. I really think any possible continuation of G1 at this point would be doomed to fail unless it was set in the far-far-far-far-far future after the events of 2010. Seeing as G1 never properly ended and half a dozen plotlines were left open, picking up the threads directly would make absolutely zero sense. And if you're so far in the future that those unfinished stories don't matter anymore, you might as well hard reboot.

Taweth and his team, consisting of two other Toa, were called to a small outlying village by the local Turaga. A number of Matoran had disappeared, and shortly after, strange, sickly green creatures emerged from the forest by night to attack the village... --- "Thank the Great Spirit you're here!" - The Turaga exclaimed as the guard led Taweth and his two companions into his hut. "Tell us about these attacks and disappearances, everything you can." - Taweth went straight to business. His name was known to all Matoran, Turaga and fellow Toa, and he was famous for his valor, honor and efficacy. " Of those who disappeared, all were foresters. Hunters, foragers, the like. At first we thought some dangerous Rahi had moved into the forest, but then the attacks began. Strange creatures, grotesque beyond description and glowing a sickly green, would shamble out of the forest after nightfall. We pushed them back every time so far, but each evening, more of our guard are dragged away. We hear their screams till dawn. "The forest seems to be the common link between the two problems, and I'm sure they're linked somehow." - Concluded one of Taweth's companions. "Indeed. The two of us will go into the forest to investigate, while you stay here to protect the village should another attack come." - He said, and headed off with one of his brothers. --- Taweth and the other Toa had been scouring the forest for some hours. The ground bore a jumble of strange footprints, but after delving deep enough into the forest, they noted a distinct, significantly larger set of prints, and decided to follow it. The prints led them to a secret entrance to a tunnel. They agreed to investigate right away rather than return to the village for their remaining brother. The tunnel was winding and dark, but after a few minutes of descent, they caught glimpse of a foreboding green glimmer. Turning a corner, they entered a large hall of horrors. In large vats, unconscious Matoran were floating in a green liquid. Some seemed perfectly normal, others already began to deform, while some were beyond recognition. "Antidermis?" - Taweth's companion asked. "Yes, but the Makuta took on gaseous forms eons ago. What kind of sick experiment is this?" - Taweth replied. They heard metallic clangs in the distance, as if something was knocked over. They proceeded with weapons drawn. "Remember, no matter what they may look like now, these are still Matoran and we are not to harm them." - Taweth said. A mocking laughter reverberated from the walls around them. Shadows stirred, but the curved glass of the many vats scattered what little light there was, so the two Toa couldn't located the source of the movement. "You Toa are so predictable... what better weapon could there be against you, than the one thing you're unwilling to harm?" - Said the voice. Finally, a tall spindly being stepped out from behind an unoccupied vat. He wore bluish-black armor, and his Kanohi Crast identified him as a Makuta. Taweth lunged forward, blades poised to strike, but the Makuta dodged in the last moment. His swords shattered the vat, splashing some of the liquid onto his left arm and mask. The Makuta turned tail, and Taweth, disregarding the pain in his arm, gave chase. He felt anger rise in him like never before. It was several minutes later that his companion, who lost track of Taweth and the Makuta, finally caught up to him in a different room of the laboratory. Taweth was standing above the badly mangled corpse of the Makuta. "Taweth... you... you know we cannot kill our opponents!" - The other Toa said, and only then did he realise the unnatural growths covering Taweth's arm. "Taweth, are you..." - He couldn't finish, because Taweth spun around and cut his head clean off. The Toa guarding the village was pacing up and down the wall, frustrated, scanning the treeline. Finally, he saw the red and silver of Taweth's armor. "Alone...?" - He thought to himself. As Taweth got closer, he saw the green tint of his arm and mask. "Something is wrong, I'm going to him." - The Toa said to the Matoran guard, and leapt over the wall. Running up to Taweth, he now saw the slight sickly glow around the mask of his leader, the grotesquely malformed arm. Even his heartlight no longer glowed its usual blazing flame red. "Taweth, are you hurt?" - He asked. "No..." - Replied Taweth. "... But you will be." This build started out as a kind of self-experiment with the goal of broadening my tastes in MOCs and MOCing by purposefully working on a concept I wouldn't like or do otherwise, so I picked a few criteria which I generally disliked: - Predominantly CCBS - Roughly within the limits of a set that would actually be released - Extensive use of silver on a build that isn't otherwise black/white/grey - Relatively high transparent part usage While the build itself may not be much, the experiment itself was a "success" in that I'm pretty sure I'll be appreciative of a wider range of MOCs in the future. More pictures here: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmf1Nz8V I'm happy to hear any comments or criticisms.

Few legends told on Okoto have prompted as many young and brash adventurers into scouring the island in the face of danger as the Legend of Eora. Generations before the time of Ekimu, another Mask Maker worked the great forge, whose daughter was known across the island for her beauty. The already overprotective father was driven to madness by the never-ending flow of suitors, leading him to forge a mask for Eora which would send her into a deep sleep while preserving her life and youth. He hid her away and a secret cavern, and decreed that any suitor can prove their worth by finding her and waking her up.Unfortunately, the father was too cautious, and Eora wasn't found within his lifetime, or even since. Legend has it she's still sleeping somewhere on Okoto, waiting for an adventurer to awaken her... --- This MOC is less about the build, which is your standard Protector, and more about colors and posing. I also toyed around a tad with editing to get some decent effects. More pics: https://flic.kr/s/aHsksLswYa

Swole dwarf all the way. In my mind, Onua is always hugely buff, but the smallest Toa of the six in terms of height.

Bah, I wish there were some way to restore everything lost in the datapocalypse... edit: I don't mean this to seem ungrateful for all above, I actually really appreciate the effort you all put into this

To the pit with you. ... I jest, of course. There's always the chance that they're still somewhere around, you just haven't found them yet, and hey, even if you did toss 'em, we all made mistakes as kids!

Press preview of Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire. Embargo was lifted yesterday, so this comment shouldn't get me blacklisted The game is huge amounts of fun. The combat is a tad challenging, but then you can always level up a few times and return to encounters that got the best of you - unavoidable progression encounters are decently balanced. Challenging, but fair. The new setting, the Deadfire Archipelago reminds me of Bionicle so much. Despite every locale being a tropical island, there are multiple separate biomes. From a lush jungle island I went over to a desert island no unlike Po-Wahi. Interestingly enough, Maori culture and language was used as inspiration and basis in POE2 as well. Tribe chieftains are, for example, called Ranga Nui, which is basically " great leader". It's mostly a prettied up POE with a bunch of refinements, but I'm okay with that since POE was near perfect. Then there is the whole ship thing, the biggest addition to the game which really is game changing. Ship combat is unlike something I've encountered in a game before, and I love sailing around the map. Can't wait for the game's full release (which I'll be reviewing )

I remember a time in BZPower's past during the mid-ish years of G1 when the site had a fairly active fan game scene. Since basically all that was lost with the datapocalypse and the erosion of members caused by the same event and subsequent cancellation(s) of Bionicle means this is most likely a futile attempt, but I wonder if anyone knows some alternate place where these were kept, knows some of the creators in person or off-site, or maybe even has the game downloaded and can share. One I specifically remember was called "Visorak Adventures" I think, it was a cutesy take on the thing with pixel art and upbeat music. It was a top-down game where the player controlled a visorak - the rest is hazy. Anyone know any leads I could track down?

This is great news! I've never managed to get a response from him in the past, but good to see others are luckier in this regard. Getting anything "new" related to Bionicle these days is newsworthy pretty much. I wonder where these will be distributed when released. I hope they'll be added on Spotify, since I have a playlist of all three of the soundtracks there and wouldn't mind enriching it with two new tracks, but since we're only talking about two tracks here Soundcloud may also be a possible carrier. Bless Furst for doing this all these years later.

Is it though? Didn't you hear? BZPower is dead, apparently. Though, maybe it was just jettisoned from its body trapped into a mask. Who knows?

Hey, Lego, where is my golden mask, eh?

My two favorite fictional characters in one image. So much win.

Jolkien Rolkien Rolkien Tolkien

Yet another pair of Matoran. Tarn is a brash and hot-headed lava surfer even by Ta-Matoran standards. He has an insatiable need to perform, achieve and be the absolute best. At everything. Lava surfing is his passion, and he has become obsessed with the myth and legend of Lhii that Turaga Vakama occasionally tells the villagers. His fixation has grown to such a level that his goal is to surpass the fabled skill of Lhii, and to scour the lava falls of Ta-Wahi to find any remnant of the legendary all-yellow surfer, such as his mask. The Turaga has tried time and again to dissuade him, however Tarn often disregards the "ramblings of that old coot". Hoi is a much less rebellious Matoran. In fact, she is a completely everyday Ga-Matoran fisherwoman who shares most of her kin's traits in calmness and wisdom. She'd be mostly of no interest, save for her intense (and mutual) dislike of Macku. Such rivalries are rare among the Matoran of Water, but when the affections of a particularly handsome Po-Matoran Kohlii champion are at stake... well, we've all seen what the sea is like during a storm. --- Having built this pair just a day after my Onu-Matoran due, Whetu and Onupi, a bunch of similarities have arisen in their bodies. Hoi is, again, a Slizer-based build, using a lot of parts from Scuba, Her body is less gappy and better proportioned than Whetu's, the previous Slizer-based Matoran. I'm quite happy with her functional (!) fishing rod. Tarn's body is custom, based primarily on orange Bohrok inner-head pieces (found in the Boxor set). His proportions are a tad off, but I really wanted to incorporate the mata red Pahrak-Kal shield into his torso. His lava surfboard is mainly based on the MNOG appearance, with color changes and some creative liberty. Flickr Album for more images: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmeA5gRt I welcome all comments and criticism!

I'm not sure that's how this topic works. Did you mispost?

Well, you went through a minimalist rebranding I see

I think it's a wave early. Summer would have wrapped up the new story and sets in this arc I assumed. It's getting cut off early, no?

Someone forgot to lock up the Tryna again

Brickset just reported from the Nuremberg Toy Fair that Nexo Knights is getting axed. The current wave is the last, with no new sets coming this Summer. A disappointing amount of schadenfreude could be seen from AFOLs in the comments... I'm sad to see Nexo go, I loved the mashup of fantasy and sci-fi, and the theme had fantastic sets. I really wish they'd at least let it live through the year... What are your thoughts on the cancellation of Nexo? Sad, or "glad" to see it go like some others?

During the run of both generations of Bionicle, whenever a new wave of sets were released, they all had some kind of unifying theme. Either they were clone sets, or shared some kind of overarching design motif, parts and themes. The Bohrok were all, well, Bohrok, the Toa Mahri all had tubes and Cordak Blasters, and all the beasts and Umarak the Destroyer had those large jaw pieces (Ekimu is kind of an odd-one-out here). We all have our opinions on all the existing waves of Bionicle. Love some, dislike others, and so on. However, if you were given the opportunity to design a single wave of Bionicle sets, including the sets themselves and the story around them, what would it be like? Which gen would they be in? What unifying themes, motifs or gimmicks would they use? I always had this idea that, had G1 omitted the shift to Bara Magna and 2008 would end on a positive note with the success of the Toa Nuva's mission, the story could shift to an entirely new team of rookie Toa, down on the southern isles, dealing with a smaller scale problem - a group of dark hunters traipsing around their homes. Since the Southern Isles were a lot less organised and smaller than other areas, each Toa could be from a different island among a small archipelago, and this would be highlighted in their marketing/ character bios. One of the unifying character gimmicks would be a launcher piece that shot nets, similar to the new piece used by City sets this year, in order to "catch" the Dark Hunters. Gear functions would make a return. To signal a shift from the main storyline, none of the six Toa would be of the primary elements that comprised teams before. This wave of sets would have Plasma, Gravity, Psionics, Iron, Plantlife and Sonics. Masks would be two-toned, and would provide set forms of masks previously mentioned in-universe but never seen. In keeping with realism, I'd limit new parts to weapons, masks, the launcher piece, a small number of armor elements, and the required structural elements to incorporate the return of gear functions, similar to the 2015 gearbox piece. Due to the shift of the typical color palette, a large part of the budget would be consumed by recolors. While yet another wave of humanoid Toa characters isn't hugely deviant or original in light of the theme, the sets would seek to be more varied than in the past by not all using the same framework (like the inika build) but would strive for different body shapes, sizes and overall construction, similar to what G2 attempted. Small sets for this wave would be, surprise surprise, a group of Matoran for the Toa. The Matoran sets would draw from the same pool of new elements as the Toa except for their Masks, but would differentiate themselves from the Av-Matoran by focusing on more, smaller parts rather than fewer, bigger parts. They too wouldn't share a body shape, as seen with the Voyatoran and G2 protectors/creatures. Packaged with each Matoran would be an additional mask-like element that can be fitted over the existing masks of the Toa. Think of the windshield element for the Mahri/Phantoka masks, but the other way around - on the outside. In-story, these would 'power up' the masks. The wave would feature two titan sets, both enemies for the Toa (presumably the canister wave of dark hunters would be the next wave, but this thread is about just one wave). One would be a true titan character, while the other would be a small character riding an animal. They would incorporate play features linked to the net-shooters of the Toa. The large titan character would have a unique mask with a unique power up, with which it would be packaged by default. Box-art and promotional images would have a unifying tropical island motif. All previous waves/years set on such islands still didn't focus exclusively on the island element (looking at Tahu Mata or Kopaka Mata's canister wouldn't tell you it's an island). So, this wave would up-play the tropical island thing with a more reserved touch of elemental identity on the images. I'm interested to hear the ideas of other BZP members regarding their "dream" wave of sets. Be as detailed or as vague/concise as you wish.

That was a fun read, nice to see stuff like this pop up in the news stream

I now have every Soundwave minion released in the Prime Wars Trilogy (so Overboard, Lazerbeak, Rumble, Ravage and Buzzsaw), and Soundwave himself is on his way. I'm a tad miffed that Overkill got his name changed and isn't a cassette anymore, but his little Titan Master form is pretty cool. I can't wait to get Titans Return Soundwave. This will be my first Soundwave figure, which is strange since he's been my favorite character ever since I've been exposed to Transformers. Finally, I'll have a picture with my two favorite fictional characters - Pohatu and Soundwave - on it!

I really loved basically all music related to Bionicle pre-2006. Save for that one actual song during the Web of Shadows credits, they didn't really do traditional music w/ lyrics, and I feel that fit the theme better than the latter direction. 2006 and the All-American Rejects was really... odd. The music wasn't bad, but the two just really really didn't fit. As for Cryoshell, I like their music and am nostalgically attached as most Bionicle fans, but it's still not on the level of the 2001 commercial music, the 2004 Vahki animation music (which is a re-edit of Bionicle music from 2001 I believe), the soundtracks from The Game or Nathan Furst's work from the films. Incidentally, I really liked what little music G2 got. The JtO soundtrack is pretty great, as is the music running under the Mask of Creation phone game (though it gets really repetitive). So basically, that's the direction I'd go in. No lyrics, more soundtrack-sounding music than music-sounding music. Tribal elements mixed with epic style for some cases, more of a MNOG soundtrack direction in others. HOWEVER, if I were to pick an existing performer, and go the way of actual songs with lyrics and so on, I'd go with one that I always felt fit Bionicle - Iron Savior. They're a power metal band whose songs and albums tell an on-going story, which happens to have many similarities with Bionicle. The whole story itself - which is about a living spaceship, the lost civilisation of atlantis and a space war - doesn't share many aspects, however the way the lyrics are worded a bunch of parallels arise. Me associating them with Bionicle might stem from listening to their stuff a lot while reading Bionicle books, building MOCs and playing Bionicle games, but I really feel a thematic compatibility between them. Also, Bionicle with an epic power metal soundtrack? That sounds like all the awesome.