Botcon '12 Exclusives

[Onslaught Six]

Maybe the framing story does, but the majority of it is a flashback to Kup's earliest outings.

[138 Scourge]

Hey, dumb question here. Have they said for sure that Magnus is gonna have a new headsculpt? Because I'm just thinking, that mold of Prime has a Matrix in his chest and all, it might make more sense to re-sculpt that thing. Because y'know, why would Ultra Magnus be carrying around one of those?

I mean, if this was a regular mainline Magnus repaint, I'd assume that they wouldn't bother resculpting the little chest detail thing there, but for this kind of thing it doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility.

Now I'm mildly interested in Octopunch. Sort of. As in, he's a character I'd like a new toy of, but I don't think I'm gonna get all excited about this new toy of him.

[Onslaught Six]

I think, if nothing else, Magnus is using the alternate head found in Prime's instructions. As for remoulding the Matrix...you can't even see the thing, I think they'll just ignore it.

[Dominic]

For someone with a well documented love of dick and fart jokes, Dom, you can be awfully humorless sometimes.

I would not want a spot in a convention set wasted on a fart joke though.

(Did people really rave that much about Toxitron? I know Scourge here is a bit of a fan of the original unproduced figure, but I didn't really hear much about the Animated Botcon one.)

The fandom has a significant number of people who get all stupidly excited over "cliche-X, now with Transformer flavour".

What else has Sorenson done, besides get a tiny joke misinterpreted by David Willis and blown up into a destroying-Animated-for-Dom-forever conspiracy? I honestly haven't really kept up with these things (And as someone with a love of having material compiled and on-hand, you at least owe him thanks for 'The Ark' I and II).

Full credit and points for "The Ark". But, Sorenson is one of those guys who coasts on minutia, and is praised to hell and back for it.

And, again, (as much as it pains me to say it), Willis was in the right. Sorenson made a self-indulgent joke in a sourcebook. Willis updated the wiki accordingly. Sorenson put something that did not really count in to a god damned sourcebook. Sorenson is a fucking asshole.

I'll have to ask again what about the 2011 set (and I'm really just talking about the boxed set not all the extra shit they sell at the con) is fannish? And subsequently I'm also curious what you don't like about Animated (again, putting fandom bullshit aside)?

The box set is only part of the full set though.

TFA started out okay, (if a big hard to look at). But, it soon devolved in to a parade of in-house references and little else.

Anyway, I have never seen the appeal of these sets, and surely don't understand the high pricetags they garner.

Limited production runs and all. And, remember, at one time, the convention toys were presented as "part of the current line", rather than as a line un to themselves.



Dom
-still considering a loose set to split up....

[BWprowl]

I would not want a spot in a convention set wasted on a fart joke though.

What do you think convention exclusives should be used for, then? I'm genuinely curious about this, since it seems 'Make things that fans would like' is apparently not a valid use.

Full credit and points for "The Ark". But, Sorenson is one of those guys who coasts on minutia, and is praised to hell and back for it.

And, again, (as much as it pains me to say it), Willis was in the right. Sorenson made a self-indulgent joke in a sourcebook. Willis updated the wiki accordingly. Sorenson put something that did not really count in to a god damned sourcebook. Sorenson is a fucking asshole.

First of all, it’s not a sourcebook, it’s a guidebook, and I’d say there is a meaningful difference. Sorenson wasn’t a writer or any other sort of canonical authority figure on TFA, and this should be remembered. Second, I wouldn’t say it makes him an asshole. Irresponsible at the worst, but it can hardly be called malicious. I sincerely doubt Sorenson was twirling his mustache while lightning flashed outside, gleefully cackling about how now those foolish Transfans would be arguing for DAYS about which Sideways was which! I think he probably just thought to himself “Oh, some people may get a chuckle out of this.”

I mean, the offending informative bit is a footnote of a half-inch instructional square on a bonus-playable board game printed in the middle of the second book. Unlike almost *every other character* outlined in the book, Sideways doesn’t even get a profile, or a picture of his character model larger than a postage stamp. Have you actually read the Allspark Almanacs, Dom? They’re more like amusing-errata-filled-scrapbooks of love letters to people who loved the hell out of Transformers Animated. Wreck-Gar’s story arc is summed up as a fairy-tale on the back of a cereal box next to a word search and a one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-others game. And you hone in on him mentioning Sideways and joking about things that Sidewayses do? The fact is, if you didn’t follow Walky out of the same sort of violent hate-crush that I also have on him, you never would have heard about this weird little confusing corner of minor information, and would’ve remained with a low-end neutral view of Animated.

Again: It is a *footnote* on a square of a *board game* regarding a character who never actually showed up *anywhere* written by a guy who didn’t even write the actual show. There is no way that something that meaningless and inconsequential should be enough to ruin an entire series for you to the point that you display the kind of default hatred you do towards a tangentially related BotCon set. Dom, you know I love you, but you’re positively nuts on this one.

[Shockwave]

God damn, if that's the case then that just makes Walky an even BIGGER asshole. Especially for inciting the kind of fandom reaction over something that damned meaningless. Fuck, the more I hear about this asshole the more I hate him.

As for the purpose of convention sets, I have to agree, the point is to pander to fans. After all it's fans and ONLY fans that are going to be buying them. It is not a reserve outlet for Hasbro to release obscure characters that they don't think will sell well in their main line.

[Dominic]

What do you think convention exclusives should be used for, then? I'm genuinely curious about this, since it seems 'Make things that fans would like' is apparently not a valid use.

Remember when we used to get new characters concepts for BotCon toys that complimented existing collections etc? Yeah, that is right, I am nostalgic for Hallit style exclusives.

Too many recent sets look like the result of drunken conversations between fans or obsessive newsboard threads. That is not what the hobby needs to be.

Again: It is a *footnote* on a square of a *board game* regarding a character who never actually showed up *anywhere* written by a guy who didn’t even write the actual show. There is no way that something that meaningless and inconsequential should be enough to ruin an entire series for you to the point that you display the kind of default hatred you do towards a tangentially related BotCon set. Dom, you know I love you, but you’re positively nuts on this one.

I am not going to quibble over the difference between a source book and a guide book.

Both are marketed as official reference guides to a given franchise. Sorenson was writing professionally for Hasbro when he wrote the Almanac. Thus, he did have canonical authority. He added a stupid throw away joke to the Almanac, which is obnoxious enough. Then, he came out and said "oh not really, derp".

All Willis did was make a legitimate change to a wiki page to reflect what was clearly written in an official source. As much as I cannot stand Willis, he did nothing wrong in that case.


Dom
-well, we have to argue about something until a new toy is revealed.

[BWprowl]

Remember when we used to get new characters concepts for BotCon toys that complimented existing collections etc? Yeah, that is right, I am nostalgic for Hallit style exclusives.

Alright, first I need to say that this definition is *precisely* what the ’11 BotCon set is. It’s a set of new (for Animated) characters designed to compliment a series collection many fans had. That’s all it was. No mirror-universe shenanigans, no versions of characters in older, off-screen bodies, no virtually-context-free G2-color scheme nonsense, just a bunch of extra Animated characters that fans could add to their Animated collections. There even was a truly new character included in the form of Toxitron (which you dismiss because, apparently, he’s not srs bzns enough to count). In your own words, this set was exactly what you want from a convention set.

Anyway, I’d contest whether that alone makes for good exclusives. What, for instance, makes Fractyl more desirable to fans at a convention than, say, Lazerbeak? What makes Vice Grip desirable at all? And stuff like Antagony, Apelinq, and Shockaract are *very* context-heavy characters tied to a story that’s arguably worse than Shattered Glass (hell, Shockaract and his goons now have TWO terrible stories on their shoulders). Most Transfans have a hard time justifying repaints in the first place, if they want us to buy a repaint at 3-5 times its original price, it better be fucking *special*. The AM Thundercracker from last year’s a good example. There’s a toy that a lot of people had said they wanted, but had virtually no chance of being released at retail. A fan convention is the perfect place to put that thing out. As much as I hate Shattered Glass, that’s a thing that a lot of fans had said they wanted, but there’s no way Hasbro would launch what would effectively be a separate line just to appease a niche group of fans. Boom, barely 2000 people could possibly think this idea was good, and they made less than that many SG convention sets. That is an economic use of such things.

Both are marketed as official reference guides to a given franchise. Sorenson was writing professionally for Hasbro when he wrote the Almanac. Thus, he did have canonical authority. He added a stupid throw away joke to the Almanac, which is obnoxious enough. Then, he came out and said "oh not really, derp".

All Willis did was make a legitimate change to a wiki page to reflect what was clearly written in an official source. As much as I cannot stand Willis, he did nothing wrong in that case.

Y’know what the kicker is? Sorenson never even says anywhere that Animated Sideways is either RiD/RM/UT Sideways or ROTF Sideways. He never actually says “This guy came from the Armada universe, and now he’s going to the Movie universe where he’ll turn into a silver Audi.”. No. He mentions that this guy, who *kinda* looks like his alternate-universe counterparts (as do, uh, everyone from Animated ever), *may* come from an alternate universe, and that later, he is heading towards some place called ‘Shanghai’. Never says if it’s Shanghai, Earth, in the Movieverse, or Shanghai, Earth, in the Machine Wars universe, or Shanghai, in the same system as Quintessa, from a Shattered Glass version of the GI Joe vs TF universe. He just says this guy, who may or may not be the same Sideways as other Sidewayses (who, let’s be frank, were never fully confirmed to be the same guy anyway) *might* be going towards some place called Shanghai. That tiny, non-specific blurb is no excuse for a wiki overhaul/flame war, much less accusing Sorenson of being evil, an idiot, or both.

Jesus.

EDIT: And you know what? Fuck the wiki on stuff like this anyway, they don't know what the hell they're talking about. These are the douchebags that decided that Hammerstrike is apparently the same character as Cybershark based on the fact that *their techspecs are kind of similar*. Fuck those guys.

[138 Scourge]

So, now that we've seen the full thing, that Shattered Glass Octopunch sure is underwhelming, huh? Actually, it winds up looking Octopunchier than I'd have thought possible, I'll give it that.

[BWprowl]

So, now that we've seen the full thing, that Shattered Glass Octopunch sure is underwhelming, huh? Actually, it winds up looking Octopunchier than I'd have thought possible, I'll give it that.

I tell you, I almost want it just because of the ducks on his chest. Plus, I just dig that mold in general.