Bfahome

Ok... so your Takanuva and Rahkshi staffs simply mean you have been here since February 2008 and have over 6700 posts? 

 

Toa Han

It only has to do with the number of posts listed on your (or my) profile, so my current post image indeed reflects my 6,700+ posts.  The exact post count numbers for particular ranks aren't shared publicly, though, in order for it to be somewhat of a surprise.

The spinning mask by the proto bar, on the other hand, is what shows how long a member has been on the site.  That is also described in the post I linked to above.  You currently have a Vahi, which means you've been a member of the site for a full year, and I have an Ackar hear, meaning I've been a member for a full eight years.  Each year of membership will get you a new spinny.  So while you're able to get new rank images for posting more, the only way to get a new spinny is to wait a while.

(The Q&A Compendium post I linked to above has basically a full breakdown of what the things next to your post represent, just scroll down a bit.)

Sooo.... when you have premier membership, you can basically customize those images? Huh....

 

Toa Han

Not exactly.  As it says, the image corresponds with how many posts you've made (in forums where posts add to your post count) so you can't just switch them out to whichever you'd like.  Over time as you make posts it'll change to different images alongside your listed "rank" (yours is currently "Tohunga") but for non-Premier members they'll vanish after the week of perks ends.

From this post in the Q&A Compendium (scroll down a bit):
 

8. Rank Image: This image corresponds to a member's post rank and will be displayed for Premier Members only. The post rank and rank image correspond to how many counted posts a member has made. Forum Administrators get a special rank image of four golden gears; BZPower Administrators get six.

Normally they are only displayed for Premier Members, but as is usual for BZPower's anniversary all members have been given access to Premier Member benefits, including the post rank images.

And that wraps up a year of Racers.  I can finally stop making bad time-related jokes in the title, yay!

As the episode says, I'll be switching to BIONICLE Heroes only (meaning two episodes of it per a month) until I complete it or until I get another LEGO game to add in.

 

 

About the spinny, I was almost positive they were gonna do Ekimu's mask, being gold and all, so it's a friendly surprise.

Mask of Creation is so last year.

 

But...so is the mask of control, right? Or did it still have some role in the 2016 story? I didn't pay much attention to it at all, so I don't know =P

 

Or was this just sarcasm that I missed...

The Mask of Control was released as a physical mask at the beginning of this year.

About the spinny, I was almost positive they were gonna do Ekimu's mask, being gold and all, so it's a friendly surprise.

Mask of Creation is so last year.

I don't know the exact process (obviously having no involvement with making it) but I do know that the head is roughly the value-inverse of a white Mata head.  Add a couple of colorized gears and some black borders, and after a few color touch-ups you have a Tohu.

The entirety of Time Cruisers.

Two minor things that bothered me in sets were Tarix's silver shoulder spikes, as the rest of his armor was gold and they just don't fit very well, and Vamprah's use of both silver-to-dark-blue and silver-to-gunmetal wing pieces, because I'm bothered by the fact that the set has two non-matching pairs rather than four of the same color (plus both colors were only used on Vamprah, and no set besides Icarax contained more than two of the same color wing piece).

Seems like there's a Bohrok trend going on here.

And I like it.

The problem is that this is basically just taking Pokémon and putting BIONICLE names on it.  The idea of "starter Rahi" has no real canon basis, Matoran tribes or villages don't battle over who controls a Kini, and most Matoran aren't normally nomadic in the same way that a Pokémon trainer might be

The entire reason Pokémon GO works as a concept is because Pokémon is a story about kids going out and exploring the world to catch and train Pokémon.  Pokémon GO is essentially allowing people to do in "real life" what they've been doing though video games for years, which is to be that trainer to go out and find Pokémon and battle gyms and essentially take a step into that world for a moment.

That's not what BIONICLE is, though.  BIONICLE is about staving off a dark threat to save your homeland and the world.  I can see something sort of similar working, where everyone is essentially on the same team and you have to go around defeating and freeing Rahi, but there are some big flaws in that because it wouldn't be PvP-focused, which I think is what keeps Pokémon GO balanced.  Low population centers are still likely to have a decent team division, so even a rural group of one member per team can keep up the same kind of rivalry as a metropolitan area where there are hundreds or thousands of people playing.  The fictional BIONICLE game, however, would need some way to automatically balance against player density so there aren't massive dark areas across the map where one or two people play while the population centers are completely purified.  If that could be done, and of course pretending this would ever happen at all, it might be fun.  You and some buddies could get together and try to take out that nest that a big group of Nui Rama are building near you, or search for Kraata to keep them from infecting any more Rahi in the first place.

So… maybe.  Maybe a G1 BIONICLE social game would work, assuming that there would be the interest and resources for such a thing.  But I don't see it working as another Pokémon GO as far as gameplay.  It would have to be its own thing based on elements of the BIONICLE plot rather than a reskinned Pokémon game.

So, you actually like the G2 story?

Surprise!

This isn't a question I could answer overall.  Year by year, maybe.  I probably wouldn't have been so interested in the sets had there been no story or setting, and I certainly wouldn't have followed the story without the sets to play with.

I can't say accurately with regards to G1, but I can say that for G2 so far I prioritized the 2015 sets over the 2015 story, and I'm prioritizing the 2016 story over the 2016 sets.  And I can definitely say that I enjoyed many of the Hero Factory sets, which had an entirely separate story but occupied my "BIONICLE" interest slot.

Grievous is putting a strain on my decision not to enter raffles for things I already have.  So much delicious CCBS ripe for use, but I also don't want to take apart the one I already have.

I remember seeing these cars around and being reminded of Tahu or Lhikan's masks.

BIONICLE has at least one more year.  No matter what local anecdotes you can bring up, there are places where BIONICLE is doing well, and despite all the doom-and-gloom I see nothing suggesting it'll end before the initial three-year run is up.  After that, we have no way of guessing.
 

Last year, the toa had just arrived on Okoto to search for their golden masks with the protectors, and then this year they for some reason have to collect MORE golden masks? That's where they lose me. There should have been mask packs, and actual mask powers to have been interesting. Sure they did it originally, but you know what? It was successful. I would have loved collectible masks in other colors, especially for MOCing. But instead they were not creative, and the first golden masks for the masters are pretty much useless now.

Mask packs aren't coming back until "collect them all" becomes a big trend in the market again.

And even if they did it would only magnify the problem of the previous year's masks becoming "useless".

You said it yourself, new masks every year is something they did originally.  So what makes it different and bad this time?  That it's not "successful"?  That it's not "creative"?  Or just the fact that you don't like it as much?

The story should be widely available for everyone to learn about, but I'm constantly told that because I don't read the books, I'm not getting the full story. This is wrong because I know the ending of the story years without even having to read a single page.

Which is it; are people unwilling and unable to follow the story due to it being restricted to "elusive" books, or are the books superfluous and anyone can get the full story without reading them?  I've seen you argue both.

(BTW, it's the same deal as G1.  You can follow the story arcs fine without getting any of the books or graphic novels, but they have additional details and plot threads you wouldn't get otherwise.  Knowing the start and end of a story isn't knowing the full story any more than putting two pieces of bread together is a sandwich.)

The real question is whether BIONICLE will come back after being cancelled after coming back if it's cancelled.  Why has nobody addressed this yet??

Heroes 14:

Not as interesting as I remember the later Zaktan levels being, oh well.

I wonder how well this and this can connect. If only my bins weren't 40 miles away 

They work in a few configurations.  The through-axle connector can only attach to the socket-end hole because of the way those "arms" that hold the ball stick out.  It can also be attached to either the ball-end hole or the socket-end hole with one of these pieces via the "outside" holes on the bottom of the armor.

No larger cup-to-cup pieces exist in the CCBS, but in this case you can add a friction extender or two to quickly add some length to the piece.

On the one hand, I can understand why a dedicated ball-to-ball piece doesn't exist; it's easy enough to make your own with two single ball pieces and your chosen axle length.

On the other hand, custom constructions like that can come apart easily (whereas a solid piece hopefully wouldn't) and you're more limited with what connection points it would have available.  So sometimes a dedicated piece would be nice.

Though I was still able to follow and understand the story through the website and comics, as it should be.

You can still do that.

I shouldn't have to go out of my way to find an elusive set of novels.

Finding the new books takes as close to zero effort as the internet can currently achieve.

That's because children today can't get into bionicle. Anyone who's viewing bionicle as a fresh story has almost no interest in trying to follow it.

Based on the continued release of books, graphic novels, and animated series, I'm going to conclude that this is objectively false.

 

 

It's worth noting how we got like five new pieces and several recolors, so it seems that they had enough of a budget to make better sets had they focused their resources there, but that's not known for certain at all.

Budget doesn't equate to set size. If LEGO tells you "OK, you can make a lineup of six sets at a $8 price point, here's a budget, go crazy," you still can't make 6 $13 sets, even if you can somehow stretch the money that way, because LEGO only wants $8 sets on the market and $13 BIONICLE sets are going to cannibalize the Ben 10 set sales.

 

But creating new parts does take up a lot of money and I would think reduces the amount of money you have left to develop the rest of the set with.

 

You do have a point, but I think that it's possible more money could have been put towards building up the set and giving it more pieces that are more readily available but make it a better built set overall.

I think the big cost comes from creating new molds more than it does recolors.  Five new molds isn't much compared to the, what, 45 new molds of 2009?

The only reason the Stars existed is because some people within LEGO were pulling for one final wave of sets before the end.  I think BZP's own Binkmeister was one of them.  Otherwise the final wave of sets would've been the second half of the Glatorian.

So if the Stars were "bad" it's because they weren't originally planned, not because LEGO was trying to undermine its products.

(Also I don't know what this is about "getting less and less cool" with "less Titans", the vehicles were awesome.)

"Out of stock, expected ship date Jul 11 2016"

It might as well be all a conspiracy.

No.

 

This totally doesn't have to do with the fact that the forums are understaffed at the moment. Nope, not one bit. 

Is it that terribly difficult to interview and hire staff?

Well, not all of us make it through the combat trial on the first try.