December Hauls

A general discussion forum, plus hauls and silly games.
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Shockwave
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Re: December Hauls

Post by Shockwave »

JediTricks wrote:
Shockwave wrote:Well I guess if they actually got feedback from parents and kids about it, I can't really fault them for listening to their customers. So now I'm going to fault parents and kids for actually wanting shittier toys. Anyway, when it comes to Star Wars, I don't really trip out too much because I have confidence that at some point there will be better versions of the figures I want. They're certainly not going to want to leave Force Awakens characters off the SW Black list for very long.
Little kids are confounded by too much articulation, it's too many parts to move to get the toy to look the way they want for play and they don't understand the dynamics of movement too well yet. If it's not fun and it's too expensive, obviously those are problems for the target consumer. Do I think they swung too far in the opposite way? Absolutely. But ultimately collectors fade away and new consumers need to be had.
Well maybe I was a weird kid then because I remember a lot of times wishing that my toys had more articulation and could actually take the poses I wanted them to take. This was true of just about every line I had as a kid: Star Wars, Star Trek, He-Man, Transformers... I dunno, I just can't imagine a kid getting a SW Black figure and then wishing they instead had one of the 5POA figures. I have a hard time believing that anyone anywhere ever said "You know that this figure needs? LESS movement." Especially considering that the price difference isn't enough to warrant the difference in quality.

EDIT: I just noticed you said "Little" kids. I should probably point out that I was around 4-5 when I started thinking about this.

Also, some of the first toys I had were the Mego Star Trek figures and those had great articulation. So maybe I was comparing everything else to them.
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Dominic
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Re: December Hauls

Post by Dominic »

I was also an apparently weird kid, because I wanted more moving parts as a kid.

(Hasbro actually researched how many kids were confounded by too much articulation?)
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andersonh1
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Re: December Hauls

Post by andersonh1 »

I always wanted my Star Wars figures to have more articulation. They had very little other than shoulders, neck and legs when I was a kid. And I sure wanted my G1 Transformers to have more joints. Poor Hot Rod had nothing but elbow hinges for robot mode.
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Re: December Hauls

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andersonh1 wrote:I always wanted my Star Wars figures to have more articulation. They had very little other than shoulders, neck and legs when I was a kid. And I sure wanted my G1 Transformers to have more joints. Poor Hot Rod had nothing but elbow hinges for robot mode.
Yeah, him and the seekers. I'm pretty sure that when people refer to the "G1 Brickformers" the Seekers are what they're referring to, with only shoulder articulation and literally nothing else.
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JediTricks
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Re: December Hauls

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Shockwave wrote:Well maybe I was a weird kid then because I remember a lot of times wishing that my toys had more articulation and could actually take the poses I wanted them to take. This was true of just about every line I had as a kid: Star Wars, Star Trek, He-Man, Transformers... I dunno, I just can't imagine a kid getting a SW Black figure and then wishing they instead had one of the 5POA figures. I have a hard time believing that anyone anywhere ever said "You know that this figure needs? LESS movement." Especially considering that the price difference isn't enough to warrant the difference in quality.

EDIT: I just noticed you said "Little" kids. I should probably point out that I was around 4-5 when I started thinking about this.

Also, some of the first toys I had were the Mego Star Trek figures and those had great articulation. So maybe I was comparing everything else to them.
When I was about 9, GI Joe ARAH was my thing, I loved it over Star Wars figures because they could do more poses and fit in more complicated vehicles. But not every kid develops those spacial skills and fine motor skills at the same time, so some of the younger kids I knew at the time - like 5 to 7 years old - were still a little confounded. And not every kid wants cool poses, they just want to put out an arm and make pew pew or whoosh whoosh noises, or they even want the figures to hit each other a la MOTU's spring-loaded waists.

Even GI Joe ARAH didn't have articulated ankles and rotation knees, they knew that kids wanted figures to stand upright - the figures even came with stands for just that reason. All that lower body articulation is complicated even today on some figures to keep them upright, I'm constantly standing my TBS 6" figures back up after they fall.

MEGO doesn't entirely count as articulation because the joints spring back to their original state.
Dominic wrote:I was also an apparently weird kid, because I wanted more moving parts as a kid.

(Hasbro actually researched how many kids were confounded by too much articulation?)
We all assumed you were a weird kid, Dom. ;)

Yeah, Hasbro has done extensive research on these things, lots of market testing, play studies, even getting unsolicited feedback from parents.
andersonh1 wrote:I always wanted my Star Wars figures to have more articulation. They had very little other than shoulders, neck and legs when I was a kid. And I sure wanted my G1 Transformers to have more joints. Poor Hot Rod had nothing but elbow hinges for robot mode.
Ugh, TF was the worst about that! I actually preferred Go-Bots back then because they had better detailing in vehicle mode and they usually had more articulation in robot mode. (That and they came first.) Oddly, Hot Rod and Astrotrain are some of the only G1 figures I still own, speaking of brickformers.
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Onslaught Six
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Re: December Hauls

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Money good. Download a Moog app for your tablet and keep the cash. ;)
I have plenty of software VST shit that can probably do almost everything the keyboard I have in mind can do, but there's a problem of workflow and tactile feel or something going on, I'm spending more time tweaking imaginary knobs and not getting as much result as I feel like I should, you know? Want something more immediate and real. Besides, the keyboard is only going between $150-200 right now, and we already have $125 in the band fund. I was going to buy the damn thing before the Christmas money anyway.
Even GI Joe ARAH didn't have articulated ankles and rotation knees, they knew that kids wanted figures to stand upright - the figures even came with stands for just that reason. All that lower body articulation is complicated even today on some figures to keep them upright, I'm constantly standing my TBS 6" figures back up after they fall.
I'm gonna be honest, fuck leg articulation. Everything from the waist up is essential, everything else, give me a hip and a knee and some ankles and I'll be fine. On these 5POA Star Wars--and I've got more than a few now so I think I can judge--I would much rather have more arm points than legs. I don't mind the legs very much because they are, generally, pretty easy to stand up--which is all most of these guys will be doing--but their arms are almost entirely useless, I found Finn to be doing much of nothing on my shelf, which will be pretty fine since he'll be behind Rey and Poe Dameron and Han Solo and ROTJ Luke the whole time, so...
Yeah, Hasbro has done extensive research on these things, lots of market testing, play studies, even getting unsolicited feedback from parents.
I mean, we all know that the simpler transformations of the last few years--starting partially in 2011 with DOTM--was explicitly from parent feedback regarding ROTF, right? Hell, a lot of us STILL can't transform Leader Prime right.

I think sometimes we romanticize things from our past a little more than we'd like to admit. I bought a handful of BW stuff recently and broke out my old BW to compliment it, and good God, not only did I only have a fraction of what I thought I had (I only had like a dozen figures?! What?!) but I also forgot how downright simple many of them were. These things, no wonder they could charge $10 in 1996 and keep the price point the same for two decades, the damn things were nothing, they were making HUGE bank on this price point until at LEAST Cybertron, easily.
BWprowl wrote:The internet having this many different words to describe nerdy folks is akin to the whole eskimos/ice situation, I would presume.
People spend so much time worrying about whether a figure is "mint" or not that they never stop to consider other flavours.
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JediTricks
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Re: December Hauls

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Hasbro SW Rebels AT-DP with Pilot figure - got this off Amazon, I hear it's at Ross but I didn't mind spending what I would have anyway, someone made a whopping $8 before fees off my laziness. The driver is the same as the single carded, nicer paint than my single carded. The vehicle is heavy on assembly, snap in the feet at the correct orientation, snap on the chin gun, snap on the hips using plugs that require specific orientation - the design won't let you snap them in wrong, but I can see kids being stymied by it as it's not been the norm for 30 years. Then put on 6 stickers and you're good to go. The AT-DP stands pretty tall and has a cockpit that seats 1 with a rear area letting a second figure stand halfway out the hatch. It's pretty hollow, but the sculpt has detail everywhere and plugs on the false-ankles which is a nice touch. It stands quite nicely and securely; the top hatch opens and a larger panel it's sitting on opens to allow egress; the head rotates; the hips rotate but on large ratchets that makes the legs not useful for walking poses, only tilting the cockpit straight or way down or way up; the chin gun elevates down a few clicks to maybe 60 degrees, and is on a rotation ratchet which is stupid as it doesn't need a ratchet, and the gun fires a missile. Overall, it has nice paint and the sculpt of a Joe Johnston ESB design, so it's nice to have.
Onslaught Six wrote:I have plenty of software VST shit that can probably do almost everything the keyboard I have in mind can do, but there's a problem of workflow and tactile feel or something going on, I'm spending more time tweaking imaginary knobs and not getting as much result as I feel like I should, you know? Want something more immediate and real. Besides, the keyboard is only going between $150-200 right now, and we already have $125 in the band fund. I was going to buy the damn thing before the Christmas money anyway.
Having watched my mom go through bass guitars, pedals, amps, electronic drum pieces, electric guitars, MIDI controller, and every other tactile piece of equipment known to man over the last 20 years, I can tell you that once you start down that path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will. That said, if the keyboard you get has a MIDI interface or even USB, then at least you get the best of both worlds. For xmas this year my mom got the B1Xon and it's pretty cool, interesting effects right out of the box, but man, it never ends.
I'm gonna be honest, fuck leg articulation. Everything from the waist up is essential, everything else, give me a hip and a knee and some ankles and I'll be fine. On these 5POA Star Wars--and I've got more than a few now so I think I can judge--I would much rather have more arm points than legs. I don't mind the legs very much because they are, generally, pretty easy to stand up--which is all most of these guys will be doing--but their arms are almost entirely useless, I found Finn to be doing much of nothing on my shelf, which will be pretty fine since he'll be behind Rey and Poe Dameron and Han Solo and ROTJ Luke the whole time, so...
"Fuck leg articulation... give me a hip and knee and ankles" uhhhh. :p

Anyway, I like ankle articulation more than I like knees, knee articulation is essentially worthless without ankles unless you have a sitting pose in mind, but otherwise it's dependent on the pose of the feet. As for arms, more is better and they are just being cheapskates there, especially not having more range on the shoulders via a ball-hinge.
I mean, we all know that the simpler transformations of the last few years--starting partially in 2011 with DOTM--was explicitly from parent feedback regarding ROTF, right? Hell, a lot of us STILL can't transform Leader Prime right.

I think sometimes we romanticize things from our past a little more than we'd like to admit. I bought a handful of BW stuff recently and broke out my old BW to compliment it, and good God, not only did I only have a fraction of what I thought I had (I only had like a dozen figures?! What?!) but I also forgot how downright simple many of them were. These things, no wonder they could charge $10 in 1996 and keep the price point the same for two decades, the damn things were nothing, they were making HUGE bank on this price point until at LEAST Cybertron, easily.
Yeah, they had been getting a lot of feedback on the TF'07 figures and ROTF from parents, kids, and even fans who returned to the brand only to feel they were out of their element with the complex transformations on even deluxes, much less that insane Prime.(Which I still have an affinity for, it looks like it's supposed to do what it's supposed to do. At the same time, I also like the TF'07 version for getting the soul of the figure out of a simpler transformation.)

Beast Wars had a lot of parts and paint, but was never really meant to be complicated, it was Kenner learning how to do Transformers in Cincinnati while Hasbro in Rhode Island was concentrating on lines they thought would be more successful (I couldn't tell you what that would be though, nearly every single line I can remember from '97 under Hasbro was actually a Kenner line - BW, Star Wars, DC/Batman, Jurassic Park, Vortech, Tonka, and Nerf - except for GI Joe which was in a tailspin, Action Man which never really broke out, maybe Starting Lineup although I am not sure, and Playskool.
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Re: December Hauls

Post by Dominic »

But not every kid develops those spacial skills and fine motor skills at the same time, so some of the younger kids I knew at the time - like 5 to 7 years old - were still a little confounded. And not every kid wants cool poses, they just want to put out an arm and make pew pew or whoosh whoosh noises, or they even want the figures to hit each other a la MOTU's spring-loaded waists.
I was a clumsy and disorganized kid.

But, I knew that my Luke Skywalker (or whatever) figure did not look right when I tried to pose it like a given scene from the movies. "Why can't I make look stand like the movie? Oh, the toy does not have moving parts here."

Similarly, my cousin pointed out a problem with the 1984 "GI Joe" Duke figure. "Why is he always smiling?"

As long as the parts were not loose, it was fine. (Just do not use the joints you are not comfortable with.)

I'm gonna be honest, fuck leg articulation. Everything from the waist up is essential, everything else, give me a hip and a knee and some ankles and I'll be fine
It depends on the character and even the default sculpt. Ankle and knee articulation is vital for certain stances and postures to look good. (Try to pose a trooper running forward with no ankle articulation.) Similarly, when posing characters in/on/around vehicles, knees and ankles are vital.
I think sometimes we romanticize things from our past a little more than we'd like to admit. I bought a handful of BW stuff recently and broke out my old BW to compliment it, and good God, not only did I only have a fraction of what I thought I had (I only had like a dozen figures?! What?!) but I also forgot how downright simple many of them were. These things, no wonder they could charge $10 in 1996 and keep the price point the same for two decades, the damn things were nothing, they were making HUGE bank on this price point until at LEAST Cybertron, easily.
Compared to G1 and G2, BW figures were amazing.
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Re: December Hauls

Post by Shockwave »

And I just found out that there are in fact 3.75" black figures for Episode VII. So.. gotta pick those up at some point. Seems they're Walmart exclusive which is why I didn't know this. Of course the downside is that I now have to go to Walmart.
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Re: December Hauls

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Having watched my mom go through bass guitars, pedals, amps, electronic drum pieces, electric guitars, MIDI controller, and every other tactile piece of equipment known to man over the last 20 years, I can tell you that once you start down that path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will. That said, if the keyboard you get has a MIDI interface or even USB, then at least you get the best of both worlds. For xmas this year my mom got the B1Xon and it's pretty cool, interesting effects right out of the box, but man, it never ends.
You've never seen my studio, have you? I already have three keyboards; I bought myself a guitar stand 3 months ago and I already need another one because it's full, and I have too many pedals as it is. There is an entire rack of vocal processing shit next to me as I type. I'm already in the hole, man. It's probably worth it.
Beast Wars had a lot of parts and paint, but was never really meant to be complicated, it was Kenner learning how to do Transformers in Cincinnati while Hasbro in Rhode Island was concentrating on lines they thought would be more successful (I couldn't tell you what that would be though, nearly every single line I can remember from '97 under Hasbro was actually a Kenner line - BW, Star Wars, DC/Batman, Jurassic Park, Vortech, Tonka, and Nerf - except for GI Joe which was in a tailspin, Action Man which never really broke out, maybe Starting Lineup although I am not sure, and Playskool.
Yeah, what the hell was up with Hasbro then?
Dom wrote:As long as the parts were not loose, it was fine. (Just do not use the joints you are not comfortable with.)
Every single one of my first season Power Rangers figures ended up with loose knees and shoulders and couldn't stand by the time I was done with them, and this was inside of the original run of the show. Maybe lacking those knees could've helped that out. I was 5-6.
Shocktrek wrote:And I just found out that there are in fact 3.75" black figures for Episode VII. So.. gotta pick those up at some point. Seems they're Walmart exclusive which is why I didn't know this. Of course the downside is that I now have to go to Walmart.
Yeah, we've been discussing them, my Kylo Ren example was the whole reason I bought the TIE Pilot as a comparison toy. So far though, the line is not that great--the first wave is all repacks or repaints/retools of original trilogy characters and the second is Kylo Ren, Stormtrooper and ROTJ Han Solo. The third wave is starting to trickle out, and that one is Rey, Finn and Pilot Poe Dameron, but it's harder to find because the first wave obviously sold like shit, so most places still have it. Even then, Rey has gloves because she's specifically on Jakku, so she'll always have gloves for some reason. Probably so they can sell you one later without gloves--if the line survives that goddamn long.

Side note: BB-8 is only in a two pack with two jobber-level characters. I bought the stupid thing for $14 because I'm an idiot.

And hey, Walmart isn't that bad! I work there!
BWprowl wrote:The internet having this many different words to describe nerdy folks is akin to the whole eskimos/ice situation, I would presume.
People spend so much time worrying about whether a figure is "mint" or not that they never stop to consider other flavours.
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