First post since 2004 or 2005

[kopake600]

Hi everyone,

I just finally made a new account for BZPower. I wanted to take a moment to recount my memories of BZPower from my childhood and share my thanks to this community.

I was born in late 1993, so I came of age just in time to get my first Throwbot at my 5th birthday party. When Bionicles came out, I must have been in 2nd grade, and as a LEGO magazine subscriber I was exposed to the comics from the beginning. It was right around that time that my dad bought my brother and I our own pair of personal computers, so so I had the opportunity to experience MNOG and MNOG2 chapter by chapter as they were originally uploaded.

My daily routine after getting home from school everyday was to check LEGO's website and then check BZPower. I read every news article that was posted, I checked out my favorite sprite comics, I participated in the BZPRPG with my own characters. One of the highlights of my experience was eventually getting my own guest appearance in the Rise and Fall of the Toa (the Chilli God was pretty generous with guest appearances) -- my username had been Kopaka600, so the Chilli God adjusted it to Kopake in order to avoid the thorny problem of two Kopakas in the comic. Hence the name for this new account, Kopake600.

I ended up losing interest in Bionicle around 2005, but ended up rediscovering the fandom two years ago after, on a whim, searching YouTube for Bionicle content to enjoy out of random nostalgia. I stumbled across the 9-hour Duck Bricks lore video and fell back in love with the fandom. Since then, I've mostly been active within the community on Reddit (and Discord to some extent), but I wanted to fully complete my odyssey and finally return to BZPower. It's kind of wild to think about being the first cohort of human beings that grew up truly online, and what a wholesome experience it was compared to a lot of what the internet later evolved into with the advent of Web2. This community really was the first grew of folks I interacted with online, and I have such positive memories of it all.

[kopake600]

Also, really sorry for not posting in the Revolving Door thread -- it's sad how hard I tried to find an "introductions" type thread before posting this, and still I missed it.

[Master Inika]

Welcome back. I was born in 96, bought my first BIONICLE set in 2003, and it was much the same story for me. BZPower is one of the first website I ever really experienced and it's still the "main" Internet site for me.

[That Matoran with a Vahi]

On 5/26/2025 at 8:40 AM, kopake600 said:

One of the highlights of my experience was eventually getting my own guest appearance in the Rise and Fall of the Toa

...you know, I think I remember that comic? I have only a very vague recollection of it and couldn't place what it had been called... but that name is massively ringing a bell so I'm fairly confident that was the one I'm thinking of!

Another early-90s kid here ('91 in my case) who was likewise on board the Bionicle train since it's first feature in Lego World Club magazine ^^ While I didn't discover BZ until 2004, it was similarly my first real online community and I was active here for a good several years; mostly in the comedies forum in my case, though I did check out other boards like comics now and then. I don't know if we'd have ever crossed paths at the time, and I'd have been under a different name back then, but it's always fun to exchange memories about BZ's earlier years  

Edited May 28, 2025 by That Matoran with a Vahi

[DoctorW]

Nice to see you back. 

 

I fall into your generation (born in 1995, so a late millennial I guess). I discovered BZP shortly after watching the Second BIONICLE movie, but never started an account until well into adulthood (the majority of all users are probably lurkers). This is still my main page to this day, and am appreciative you remembered the site enough to come back and leave well wishes. 

 

I was here for the glory days, saw the big parts of the fandom, and tracked the rise and fall of the site itself. Pleasantly surprised to see it is still running, when most of the forum sites I frequented are either dead or radically transformed. 

[Daler99]

Welcome back!  I’m glad you found your way back to BZP after all these years!  I found BZP in ‘05/‘06 but ended up lurking until late 2014 when I joined due to G2.  I didn’t pay too much attention to the forums as I mostly used BZP as a news site back in the day.

 

Of the waves you were around for, which line of sets was your favorite (i.e. Hordika, Rahkshi, Nuva, Bohrok, etc.)?

[kopake600]

Thank you to everyone for the kind wishes! It is really great to see this is still such a welcoming community.

On 5/29/2025 at 7:19 PM, Daler99 said:

Of the waves you were around for, which line of sets was your favorite (i.e. Hordika, Rahkshi, Nuva, Bohrok, etc.)?

That's a fantastic question. I might have to say the Rahkshi -- they just looked so unbelievably cool when I first saw them, and I remember designing my own Rahkshi OC named "Klaw" as a kid (I recently came across a notebook from 2003/2004 with some notes and drawings I made of him, as well as some D&D 3.5e variant rules I wrote for rolling up Bionicle characters). That whole year was amazing; I remember showing up at Legoland and being blown away that they had Toa Nuva, which weren't widely available yet. I was so excited that I ran up to the store, grabbed a canister, and ran back to my Dad to show him, and he had to tell me to stop because it looked like I was trying to steal it (I just got carried away).

My favorite year, lore-wise, might have been 2004, though. It was such a major expansion in the lore, opening up so much possibility for new OC's that fit within the canon beyond just the Matoran of Mata-Nui. I was also a big fan of the Jak & Daxter games as a kid, and it sort of mirrored the transition from Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy to Jak II, when the series took on a much more edgy, urban-centric feel compared to its previous happy-island vibe. The only thing missing was an online game that could rival MNOG or MNOGII.