Hero Factory 2012

[Zwen]

Aanchir, I was drawing some concepts of Splitface, if you pay attention to the red part in his chest armor you will see blood or a kind of fluid over his muscles. The red part is armored as the metal part, but the muscles and "bones" are in the skelleton pieces, the red is only armor. In another way of design, maybe my way. You will be able to see the muscles and bones under the red armor. I'm thinking about the metal parts inside his organic side as bones, just like a Bionicle...

[Play With Fire]

Did they remove the Hero Factory FM...?

Well, now I'm sad. Those podcasts were my favorite part of the website D:

[Aanchir]

Aanchir, I was drawing some concepts of Splitface, if you pay attention to the red part in his chest armor you will see blood or a kind of fluid over his muscles. The red part is armored as the metal part, but the muscles and "bones" are in the skelleton pieces, the red is only armor. In another way of design, maybe my way. You will be able to see the muscles and bones under the red armor. I'm thinking about the metal parts inside his organic side as bones, just like a Bionicle...

Yes, but I was referring to how there's a clearly rigid mechanical texture even in the organic-shaped spherical shell detail pieces. It bothers me when the story says something like this is purely organic and you're expected to imagine that the character looks vastly different than he or she actually does in the set. In BIONICLE, it was quite different for the most part, with most of the body covered by armor so you wouldn't necessarily be able to see the organic portions anyway. So what I'm saying is that for me, it's easiest to imagine Splitface as not a half-and-half organic vs. mechanical split, but rather as one half purely mechanical and the other half organic with mechanical bones and a bit of mechanical armor.

The red 6M shells can easily be organic or mechanical because of their smooth, plain texture. It's only the spherical shell detail pieces that I can't bring myself to visualize as 100% organic. Perhaps organic with mechanical "implants" to explain the vents and so forth, but not completely devoid of mechanical surface details.

EDIT:

Did they remove the Hero Factory FM...?

Well, now I'm sad. Those podcasts were my favorite part of the website D:

No, Hero Factory FM is still up and functioning; there simply aren't any links to it from the main part of the site. It can be found here.

I'd like to point out that this is the case with most "removed" content-- it can still be found with a simple Google search, but is no longer linked from the main site. The exceptions are the removed bios and the removed gadgets and weapons; those are gone for good except on cached versions of the site.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Aanchir

[Mesonak]

Did they remove the Hero Factory FM...?

Well, now I'm sad. Those podcasts were my favorite part of the website D:

Well, never mind. Cheers to Aanchir for saving the day.

Liking the new website less and less even still, however, now that it's apparent that they removed several unique features such as the Call Ticker. =/

Edited January 4, 2012 by Mesonak

[Iceman792]

I am quite sure those system pieces will stay and are even intended.

Note how ever since HF 2.0, the system bricks have increased. 2.0 Seemed to me like an attempt to move from technic towards system in Hero Factory. One of the ways that can be seen is by replacing cross sockets with rod sockets. In fact, ever since the beginning of HF, they tried to use more smooth pieces which are more compatible with system in look.

I think it only makes sense to further replace things like the technic canisters with system cyclinders. And these pieces clearly do not crash the design but complement it.

Also, although Reapa could have used the 2.0 fire pieces, they prefered to use standard system large fire. Which tells me that there is an active intention towards this.

Does Hero Factory fall under the jurisdiction of the "modesty" standards lego enforces?

[Dorek]

Haven't tried the game yet, but I will soon.

The rest of the website update is pretty damn cool. All those weapons updates are soooo great.

[TheDesuComplex]

Well, the new website updates are pretty cool. I'm happy that the Gadgets & Weapons page is back to highlighting most of the characters' weapons, as opposed to summer 2011 when the only new "gadget" mentioned was the Skull Staff. As always, some of the descriptions are a bit tongue-in-cheek, although few seem as laughable as the description given for Von Nebula's Black Hole Orb Staff.

Reading through them, I can swear that the writers got inspiration from Cave Johnson.

[Vinyl Scratch]

Reading through them, I can swear that the writers got inspiration from Cave Johnson.

Zib Johnson, we're done here.

Teehee.

The new update is sexy as ever, but that Breakout game seriously needs a patch or something.

[Aethersprite]

I know this has been brought up before - but do we have official, canonical confirmation that Rocka's first name is Daniel?

[Vinyl Scratch]

I know this has been brought up before - but do we have official, canonical confirmation that Rocka's first name is Daniel?

Some copies of Savage Planet have Daniel Rocka in the credits, but the first one I got didn't have the Daniel on the credits :I

[Aanchir]

Some copies of Savage Planet have Daniel Rocka in the credits, but the first one I got didn't have the Daniel on the credits :I

Additionally, Kelly McKiernan has confirmed that Rocka had not, in fact, been given an official first name at the time that the name "Daniel Rocka" appeared on the DVD, so it looks like it was a mistake by the DVD manufacturers rather than a legitimately assigned name.

My DVD has Daniel Rocka in the credits. It's a real shame that they would do something like that and get people's hopes up. Before, Daniel Rocka was just an unauthenticated rumor-- they could presumably have given the character any first name they wanted, and there would only be a bit of backlash from people who had gotten used to the name Daniel. Now that the name Daniel Rocka's appeared on the DVD, they might have difficulty giving Rocka any first name other than Daniel, seeing as so many people will now have reason to believe the name is official.

Anyway, I'll try the Breakout game again soon. I hope that even with the bugs that are still present it remains enjoyable.

[ZORK64]

It almost seems the game could deserve it's very own thread...

I just looked at the prelim pics of the summer wave again and I got the feeling they seem to don't have much variation when it comes to colours. Black and metallic colours are very popular among the sets, and other common colours are white, yellow and a bit blue. I hope Speeda Demon will feature also some brighter colours, like bright green or maybe even azure.

[Shakar]

Honestly, I haven't played the game yet but I kind of agree it should have its own thread.

How funny I keep imagining Speed Demon in a sort of blue hue-maybe because we haven't had a blue villain since Vapour..Azure, combined with a darker colour like titanium metallic, would be great.

Since we pretty much know about Stringer's, I wonder how the other Hero's chest printings will look like. And I wonder if Voltix will have torso printing like Splitface, since he uses the Hero torso armour plate like his schizophrenic friend.

[Aanchir]

I was just looking at a prelim pic of Stringer and trying to figure out how his weapon works. It's not entirely clear how it's built, and he's holding it very oddly in that pic. It almost looks like an electric guitar...

Wait a sec...

Yes.

Yes it does.

If this is in fact by design rather just a coincidental resemblance or a misleading preliminary image, every doubt I might have had about the quality of the Stringer set will be banished from my mind. Because giving Stringer an electric guitar would be the BEST. POSSIBLE. THING.

[Perry the Platypus]

Should I create a separate thread for the game?

If Stringer does have a guitar... LEGO, TAKE MY MONEY!

[vexorian]

Was it a new stringer picture? (Got deleted) or is it the same as the one from the youtube video?

[Brickthing]

Should I create a separate thread for the game?

Nope, it's done.

Stringer is certainly holding his weapon like a Guitar, but it but the way he is holding it he will either be able to strum, change chords or do nothing, but not both. If only he had a chain-link strap or the cuffs could double up for that function.

[Mesonak]

Hah, apologies. I was moving some of the pictures in my gallery around, creating a seperate folder for the summer line called "Breakout Part 2". Didn't realize you had linked to the picture while that was going on.

It was just the same one we've already seen, however. They'll be back up momentarily.

EDIT: Gallery's back up over here. Much more concise this way.

Edited January 6, 2012 by Mesonak

[Aanchir]

Hah, apologies. I was moving some of the pictures in my gallery around, creating a seperate folder for the summer line called "Breakout Part 2". Didn't realize you had linked to the picture while that was going on.

It was just the same one we've already seen, however. They'll be back up momentarily.

Well, that's good to hear! I was worried that LEGO's legal team was becoming quicker at taking down pics than I thought humanly possible!

I wish we had a non-canister pic of Nex so that we could see what his weapon is like. His Plasma Gun seems to be pretty generic, but he's got another weapon on his other arm that uses a System antenna. I can't make out any of the details of the weapon itself, though!

I wonder when better pics (i.e. more detailed catalog scans) tend to start showing up.

[Mesonak]

Well, I recall with Savage Planet, it took several days, but we eventually got the preliminary poster shot from the catalogue which showed off the sets in better quality. Doesn't appear we're getting that this time, however, though we still may.

I'm making the rounds on the online shopping sites like always this time of year (mainly looking for any trace of Speeda Demon), so if we DO get any new pictures I'll let everybody know.

Only a little over a month till Toy Fair now, though it seems like much more.

Also regarding your comment on the electric guitar; I never even thought of it like that. I just assumed he had a massive, two-handed gun. That's awesome. One more reason to like the Stringer set for this year.

Edited January 6, 2012 by Mesonak

[Kalhiki]

Stringer with an Electric Guitar would be awesome.

Kinda would remind me of TFA Soundwave, but that's alright since he was awesome as well.

Kalhiki

[Vinyl Scratch]

Stringer really seems to have a guitar-esque weapon.

That would be great.

And I had the strange idea of Speeda Demon being a blue turtle with jets.

[Studs Not On Top]

Thanks for the pictures, Mesonak. It looks like they downsized Stormer for the movie, but he still looks great. Impatiently waiting for Toyfair!

[Mesonak]

Yeah, my theory is they had to make a version of Stormer that would work with the other heroes in the movie, but they'll have him upgrade to "XL" edition ala Rocka at one point or another. Interesting, considering Rocka had both an XL version and a regular version, whereas Stormer did not.

[Aethersprite]

Hmm, I can't see Mesonak's pictures - did Lego remove them?