not happy with TF of late

[BWprowl]

Well, folded-down pegs on the chests have always been part of the *look* of the classic Combiners. Slingshot is, I think, the only one with a plate like that, and he’s notably the one Aerialbot not getting a new toy. I don’t see how they’re so offensive, TFs always have folded-around bits and kibble and parts on them, it’s a key part of the ‘look’ of those robots, and when they’re folded down like that, they just look like techy transform-y details anyway. A plastic plate folded up would look just as incongruous as a plastic peg folded down.

Precedent for bad design is not an excuse. There is an easy fix. Hasbro did not take it.

But what about the design is ‘bad’? It just a folded-down greebly tech detail on the chest, no more offensive than wheels on the shoulders or somesuch.

I guess my thing is I just don’t fully comprehend *why* the pegs need to even be covered in the first place.

That is kind of the point of the main characters though. They are the thing that is important, (or they represent the thing that is important).

They are important, yes, in that the story revolves around them and happens because of them, but much in the way the building a sitcom takes place in isn’t the most interesting part, the main character a story revolves around is almost never the most interesting one. The side characters, the supporting cast, they’re the interesting, unique ones who give it flavor and actually catch interest.

Like, they already half-assed the Huffer for the line, so now people’ll be whining for a ‘proper’ Huffer (why, I dunno. Who actually gives a fuck about Huffer?),

This from the guy who wants more obscure characters to get a push?

I like seeing more obscure characters specifically *because* they are more obscure and get used less, and are therefore more interesting by way of not being as played out. I love Venom and Chop Shop because seeing them get new toys is actually *new* and exciting when it happens. If we start getting a new Chop Shop every six months, I’m likely to get bored and tired of the little brown bugger.

Also Huffer is just super-boring and has nothing going for him (maybe I just hate Mini-Bots? I dunno.)

Because those are all piss-poor options for somebody who just wants a good toy of a character they like.

Except we already *have* a good toy of Warpath, released very recently! I mean:

Think of it this way. The Marvel "Hero Mashers" line includes Iron Man wearing the armour from "Believe" (one of my favourite parts of one of my favourite runs of comics in decades). I cannot bring myself to be terribly excited by it because it is not a very good toy.

What’s happening here is more like if they already HAD made a perfectly good Marvel Legends figure of IM in his black/gold armor, and then the Hero Masher came out, and you were all “No! They need to make ANOTHER Marvel Legends version!”

He probably understands that Hasbro wants to make another toy of a popular character and gets on with his life, possibly designing a new figure of another popular character.

And we wonder why some of these guys quit and form their own companies.

And, even so, getting every piece of content stopped appealing about a decade ago. After IDW got the license, and there was consistent content available, there was less incentive to track down international content. Japanese stuff does not much appeal to begin with. (I have seen/read enough of it to know that the execution is going to annoy me, particularly with the comics.) But, by '05, there were three US vectors for content (IDW, the cartoon and Fun Publications, along with the packaging). That was more than enough.

That’s my point. As a media focused guy, it’s a lot easier for you to ‘run out’ of content and ‘retire’ from that franchise just because there’s nothing to ‘do’ anymore. With me, as a toy-focused guy, even if Hasbro was releasing nothing but PVC figures of G1 Optimus Prime and Bumblebee as the sole entries in the toyline for the next two years, I could just go “Whelp, time to buy all of Machine Wars on eBay!”

"Man of Iron" is not good TF comics. It is good *comics*.

That doesn’t change the fact that…

In terms of buying it.... Lessee....,

-once as a kid (maybe once or twice more to replace damaged copies and/or to ensure I had a back-up).
-an original British copy (albeit in terrible condition).
-one of the themed Titan reprint volumes has it (I think?).
-IDW G1 reprint.
-IDW UK G1.

Most of those are compilations where I had to get it to get other content. (Which hardly bothered me, as I try to get consistent and/or best formats.)

…you have paid money for and re-read it multiple times on account of how much you like it. People watching old episodes of stuff is the *exact* same thing. I don’t go back and re-watch Beast Machines out of some misguided sense of obligation that I’ve got to put it in front of my eyeballs because it’s a ‘Transformers’ show, I go back and re-watch it because *I enjoy watching Beast Machines*.

Fans of Star Trek and the like aren’t re-watching episodes just because that’s all they have ‘to do’ with the franchise or whatever, they are re-watching the episodes because they *genuinely enjoy those episodes*, the same way you genuinely enjoy reading “Man of Iron”.

God, ROTF Leader Prime, one of the most intricately-engineered TFs of all time, doesn’t have wrist joints. He’s no lesser because of it.

The fuck you talking about? He absolutely does. I literally just got up and checked, too, and I am shocked that no one else has called you on that shit yet.

Does he? Shit, I must’ve brain farted. I’ve got the toy all set up in wingy-chaingunny-super-mode on one of my display shelves, but it’s been a bit since I fiddled with it (and I was at work when I typed that). My mistake. There are still plenty of examples of great TFs unencumbered by lack of wrist joints. Like Generations Warpath.

Hey, did you get my package yet?

Yeah, sorry for not confirming anywhere (I’m trying to contain my idiocy by mostly sticking to this thread). Crosscut is actually a pretty cool mold! Though I’m thrown off owning him after I got the very similarly-shaped/colored GT Megatron barely a week before. It’s weird.

I MUST reiterate the issue of scale, especially in Warpath's case. The new Warpath is a Legends dude, he's gonna be so small that I think it might be impossible to get wrists on him properly. This isn't, "Here's a new Warpath to replace your other one!" it's "Here's a tiny Warpath if you didn't like the big one!" Which, I can see! The only reason I even own Warpath in the first place is because I bought the entire fucking revision case at the time because it also had Thundercracker and Wheeljack, and it was only slightly more expensive than buying each individually from BBTS. If I had found all three on a peg somewhere, I would likely have just bought Thundy and Wheeljack, because if you asked me in 2011 if I wanted a Legends or a Deluxe Warpath, I would have said Legends. (All that being said, I love Generations Warpath and will likely not be buying the new one, even if I understand its usefulness, mostly because I already have a variety of Minibots in different scales and thus, trying to make them uniform is an exercise in futility.)

So my question then is, do you think we can just be *done* with Warpath after this version comes out? Or will Hasbro find some excuse to foist another new version on us in a couple more years? There isn’t *that* much difference between the current Legends scale and the old Basic scale, and yet here comes a new Windcharger already.

Boom. Throughout the several recent Spiderman toylines in the last couple years (and there have been many) there have been a LOT of Ben Reily Spiderman outfit toys. Not the red suit/blue hoodie version, but the actual Spiderman outfit one, with the external webshooters and the half-and-half legs and shit. The problem with these toys is that they are almost exclusively in the shitty Spiderman lines which charge $7-10 for 5 POA figures. I am not buying a 5 POA Spiderman toy for $10, Ben Reily be damned.

This is why I just went ahead and grabbed the old Marvel Legends version of eBay. He’s great, I’ve got him hanging out with the recent ML Kaine Scarlet Spider above my desk right now.

Now, someone like me or you or Prowl for example, we are perfectly content to literally ignore whatever is happening "over there" and remain blissfully unaware of it. We read the comics we read and that's about it. I have a friend who every few weeks, we call and talk about stuff and he ends up bringing up whatever is happening in the mainstream comics; my response is 90% of the time "That's fucking stupid and I'm glad I'm not paying money for it." (His response is, "Oh, I'm not either, I pirated it." Which gleefully solves most of that problem, but Dom can't into digital comics and doesn't like reading at a computer or tablet, so it is what it is.)

This can bite me in the ass though. I was loving ‘Inhuman’, it was pretty much everything I wanted from a general ‘superpowered heroes’ comic. Then just this latest issue all of a sudden Medusa apparently gets back from being involved in that ‘Sixis’ event and she’s all edgy and evil now for some reason and the story’s taking kind of a left turn because of it and I’m not real crazy about it. I thought I’d been content to just ignore that event, but then it had to go and stick its dick into comics I actually enjoyed!

(I can also recognize that, on some level, Dom enjoys watching a trainwreck. I just wonder how long you can watch a trainwreck before it stops being fun and starts being horrific.)

I’m doing exactly that with Cross Ange this anime season. Every time I think that series has settled from being a train wreck into just general un-fun shittiness territory, it stupids up its plot in a new way and gets idiotically entertaining for all the wrong reasons again!

[Shockwave]

I guess my thing is I just don’t fully comprehend *why* the pegs need to even be covered in the first place.

Me neither. They were so prominent on the original figures that even the cartoon couldn't bullshit their way out of having them as part of the bot modes. I really don't know what people were expecting.

So my question then is, do you think we can just be *done* with Warpath after this version comes out?

Yes. In fact, I was happy to be done with Warpath after the Generations one. At most, I'd be calling for better distribution of the legends figure from a few years earlier, only because it was so hard to find to begin with.

And that's really my main gripe about all this. I don't mind getting a new version of a character that was hard to find to begin with, if I wasn't sure that the new one won't be equally hard to find.

[Shockwave]

I have read IDW's Beast Wars comics more than once and will probably read them again at some point. And most of us here almost unanimously agree that they are the worst IDW has offered in their TF comics. I will buy other comics if it's a property that I know I will enjoy on the same level as Transformers.

I never understood this. Those BW comics sucked. I read them once and flipped through them to make sure they were that bad. Then, I purged 'em about 5 years back. (That said, "Beast Wars" beats anything Scioli has ever done.)

But, being a "Transformers" comic does not mitigate it being bad.

It does to me to a certain extent. My love of the franchise as a whole puts my tolerance for bad a lot higher than it would be for other properties. Even in the case of comics that suck, I can usually get good artwork of characters I like doing stuff. That doesn't make it good, but it still has some aspects that I can appreciate and enjoy in spite of the bad. Now, Scioli has taken bad to a level that is so bad that I can't even enjoy it on ANY level and, bear in mind, my threshold for this with TF related material is so high that I am willing to keep and reread the BW comics.

Having said that, this same level of bad is not something I will generally tolerate in other properties. This was why I purged any and all non TF related comics a couple years ago. I lost interest in the industry in general and by extension most of the properties associated with it.

Why does new stuff have more wheight?

Because it is the stuff I would be buying/reading now. Why keep buying something just because it was good?

Not necessarily. If new stuff is bad, that just gives you the opportunity to go back and spend money on old good content that you missed out on the first time around (Prowl made a good example of this regarding revisiting the UT).

As for the second question, assuming you actually meant "Why keep spending money on something new just because it was good but no longer is?" The short answer is you wouldn't. No one in their right mind would. I stopped buying new Star Wars figures when they stopped being good figures. Now that they're good again, I'm back in. But, even if they weren't, I would still have the opportunity to go back and buy figures that are good that I missed the first time around (I would love to get a few Imperial Royal Guards). The value of something to me is wheighted primarily on how much enjoyment I will get out of it. Especially if there is a continued enjoyment. Age doesn't factor into this. If I see something that I know I will not enjoy, I will not spend money on it. Subsequently, if I buy something and continue to get hours upon hours of enjoyment from it, I consider that money well spent. This is ultimately going to be true of both new and old content. And, when reviewing a franchise as a whole, I'm generally looking at the whole thing collectively.

I think the other difference here is that I don't feel a need to be either "all in" or "all out". I don't need to enjoy 100% of everything a property has to offer in order for me to enjoy the parts I do like. There's a lot of Star Wars out there that I don't enjoy. I don't spend money on that part of the franchise. But, there is also a lot of it that I do like. Overall, I would rate my enjoyment of Star Wars at about 50%. TF is much higher at roughly 95%. It varies from franchise to franchise, but at no point am I going to just throw out things I enjoy because of other parts that I don't like.

[Mako Crab]

I'm still at the same point that I was at in the "Done Collecting" thread. I've never been a big collector, prefering to only get the scant few characters that I really like. My collection is extremely focused in scope to only the cast members of Beast Wars and TF:Prime. Since that other thread, I've managed to pick up Generations Rhinox, Waspy, and Rattrap and love them all. They're far superior to the original BW toys from 1996. My selective method of collecting has prevented me from feeling burned by buyer's remorse, I guess.

As for the current state of things, I think the Generations line is great, and is the only thing really grabbing my interest in the toy dept. There's a chance that they might get me to buy Generations figures other than the BW cast, but it'd have to be someone really special, and I don't know who that would be.

I liked the first 2 High Moon TF games.

I like what I've read of MTMTE (only the first 4 volumes so far. Trying to catch up still).

I actually like what I've seen of Rid '15 so far. I'm okay with that style of animation, though not too big on the way the humans look. The animation style reminds me of the Megaman X games on the PS2, which I liked (MMX7, MMX8, and Command Mission). I don't have any plans on collecting the Rid'15 toys though. I think I got the collecting bug out of me with TFP. Unless somehow the show completely blows me away and I MUST have plastic representations of those characters, I don't see it happening. And even then. . . nah, I just don't feel the need to buy them.

The movies are good for chomping popcorn for a couple hours. Beyond that, I don't give them another thought.

Sooo . . . yeah. I'm still into Transformers, but it's a mild thing. It's really weird too- I don't really do the whole discussion forum thing with any other interest of mine. Somehow Transformers is the only thing to get its hooks into me like that. Whenever I have participated on another forum, like a Metroid forum or something, it's always a fleeting thing and I tend to pop in very seldom.

[JediTricks]

Well, it's been about a month and I find myself caring less and less about this property every day. Transformers RID comic book (now "The Transformers") has fallen off a cliff in terms of writing. The toys haven't showed any more promise and certainly aren't any easier to find. The new cartoon and its toyline continue to look unappealing to me. It's starting to feel like a waste of effort.

Here's a question: why purge older figures when presumably you enjoyed them at the time you bought them? I can see not buying current figures/comics if they're not bringing enjoyment, but I don't get disposing of older stuff. Unless it's just a case of wanting the cash for other hobbies.

Some figures I bought to round out a series, I wasn't sure if I'd like them or not but I figured I'd give them a try. Over time, more of the figures I bought from a particular series fall into a range of "just ok, not thrilling".

They’re nice, but you can’t consistently expect luxury articulation points at a basic retail price. These aren’t Marvel Legends, they have better things to do than just be super-posable toys of dudes.

No, I can and I will. Hasbro delivered on that for nearly a decade before cutting back. They set the standard, they need to live up to it.

Yeah, this is the sort of shit that happened before, where Hasbro kept shrinking and simplifying the product until they shot past the minimums that the market would bear and had to rebound, only so far there's no sign of rebounding at all. Yesterday I went into Target for the first time since xmas and the Hasbro TF and Star Wars aisles were packed rather than depleted, there was minimal demand for these lines. (Also there was a mom explaining to her son why the only Optimus Prime in the store - Robot Heroes - didn't transform, he was crushed.)

No, see, you got that wrong. People didn't write in to NBC after it was cancelled. People wrote in to KEEP it from getting cancelled. They were basically saying "Don't stop making that thing we like." There's nothing backwards about that. NBC decided to cancel it anyway, but it was kept on air in reruns through syndication because there was obviously still money to be made.

That's wrong, Trek was canceled after season 2 from NBC botching its scheduling so badly that it was hard to find, and people wrote in which got NBC to renew it and keep it on the air for season 3 which got it to enough episodes for syndication. NBC then canceled it again (because they had moved it to a death slot) and that time the write-in campaign didn't save the original series but did keep momentum going strong enough for conventions and the animated series until the movies came along.

To the point that, when literally no networks wanted to pick up the first season of TNG, Paramount went straight to syndication and said, "The only way you can get TOS reruns is to buy the new TNG show, too, and fuck you if you don't like it." And that worked! Imagine the fucking balls on them to say that; imagine ANYBODY doing that kind of thing in today's TV environment. It's unthinkable.

Actually, at that time syndicated programming blocks were on the rise, and Paramount had been looking to roll a new Trek series into their own broadcast network since the late '70s, but couldn't get their shit together so they took that funding and focused it on syndication. All the networks wanted a piece of Trek, a now-proven property with a string of successful movies, but didn't want to commit to enough episodes. TOS syndicated sales were handled by other stations in almost every market at that time, and TNG was pushed to independent stations for free so that Paramount could control ad revenues during first-air. TNG became the top-rated syndicated show of all time (trumped later by Baywatch) and the syndication wars began, until Paramount had enough syndicated success to launch another Trek series, Voyager, that could also launch their new broadcast network, UPN.

[Shockwave]

certainly aren't any easier to find.

Actually, I've been finding the opposite lately. Cosmos and Windcharger are both figures that were nigh impossible to find the last time they were released and I've found both recently. And Windcharger just came out! I also saw the Combiner Wars Thundercracker already and also recently found Jhiaxus and Waspinator, neither of which I thought I'd ever see at retail. So at least here in Sacramento things are getting easier to find. As for the quality of the toys, it is hit and miss but what line isn't?

[BWprowl]

The toys haven't showed any more promise and certainly aren't any easier to find.

The few reviews I've perused for Combiner Wars stuff have been rather positive, actually. Thew in particular was elated with Silverbolt, and made that toy look really appealing to me.

Yesterday I went into Target for the first time since xmas and the Hasbro TF and Star Wars aisles were packed rather than depleted, there was minimal demand for these lines.

It could vary. The TF area in my Targets got pretty cleaned out over Christmas (interestingly, a lot of the AOE Power Battlers seemed to get wiped out) to the point that they were throwing out brand-new RID15 and Combiner Wars stuff onto the pegs just after the 25th.

[Dominic]

Yeah, this is the sort of shit that happened before, where Hasbro kept shrinking and simplifying the product until they shot past the minimums that the market would bear and had to rebound, only so far there's no sign of rebounding at all. Yesterday I went into Target for the first time since xmas and the Hasbro TF and Star Wars aisles were packed rather than depleted, there was minimal demand for these lines. (Also there was a mom explaining to her son why the only Optimus Prime in the store - Robot Heroes - didn't transform, he was crushed.)

I am just waiting for 3D printers to get cheaper. At that point, garage kits and custom figures (which are generally better than Hasbro product now) will become viable alternatives for people who want good toys of specific characters.

Of course, with the decline in the comics, not sure how much call there will be for that.


The only figures I am looking forward to now are the Legends. I almost talked myself in to Whirl and Roadbuster before Christmas, but could not justify spending $30 a piece on them.

Yesterday I went into Target for the first time since xmas and the Hasbro TF and Star Wars aisles were packed rather than depleted, there was minimal demand for these lines. (Also there was a mom explaining to her son why the only Optimus Prime in the store - Robot Heroes - didn't transform, he was crushed.)

The good news is that SW figures are unlikely to tempt me even if I jump back in for the Gillen written "Darth Vader" series.

[Onslaught Six]

Dom: There are about a dozen each of Roadbuster and Whirl cluttering my store's shelves at $20 each. Let me know, dude.

[Dominic]

Thanks for the offer. But, shipping would likely cancel any savings.

(And, I am the guy who ended up with multiple copes of Giant Planet guys in '06 because I was running multiple trades to ensure I got copies.)