Hero Factory 2014 Discussion

[VBBN]

Late may/early june is most likely. I think right now is going to be very early to see anything start popping up.

And on a different note, I surely can't be the only one who notices just how silent HF has gotten for this summer wave. It really goes to show what happens when the entire year's story is finished in the winter, with hardly any media, speculation, etc to keep us going. Admittedly things always do die down somewhat until the hype of buying the next round of sets comes out, but it's been especially quiet this year. (Possibly that's partly in blame to a lot of attention being focused on Mixels and the Chima setpocalypse, but still)

[Dorek]

It was basically the same for last year too, and part of why I wish they'd go back to separate waves for each half of the year. Obviously it'll get a bump in the summer (and they're pretty good at maintaining that until the new year) but it is frustrating, for sure.

[Bob C]

And on a different note, I surely can't be the only one who notices just how silent HF has gotten for this summer wave. It really goes to show what happens when the entire year's story is finished in the winter, with hardly any media, speculation, etc to keep us going. Admittedly things always do die down somewhat until the hype of buying the next round of sets comes out, but it's been especially quiet this year. (Possibly that's partly in blame to a lot of attention being focused on Mixels and the Chima setpocalypse, but still)

Yeah, you're right. HF has fallen far from its position in 2010/11 as most popular theme. And it seems like retailers have followed naturally, especially with all the new TLM sets pretty much taking their place.

[Agent Fusion]

@VBBN

I agree. Hero Factory should do a Bionicle and release the Heroes in the first half of the year, then the villains in the second (I'd also like mask packs but whatyougonnado?).

[Leewan]

Hero Factory should do a Bionicle and release the Heroes in the first half of the year, then the villains in the second

Two waves of what, five / six sets ? That doesn't seem much, it would be unlikely. I rather think what VBBN means is something a la 2010 / 2011, with a new story arc per wave, instead of a big story arc running all over the year (at least supposed to run all over the year, since there's nothing really exciting once the episode of the year airs).

[Lyichir]

Yeah, you're right. HF has fallen far from its position in 2010/11 as most popular theme. And it seems like retailers have followed naturally, especially with all the new TLM sets pretty much taking their place.

I don't think HF was the most popular theme even back then. Unless you mean the one you personally liked most?

[Shakar]

Yeah, you're right. HF has fallen far from its position in 2010/11 as most popular theme. And it seems like retailers have followed naturally, especially with all the new TLM sets pretty much taking their place.

I don't think that's what VBBN meant... Simply that, since we got pretty much the whole info on this year's story and sets, we've had little to speculate/discuss about and thus the topic's been pretty dead (still more animated than Brain Attack, I'd say).

I don't think HF has fallen from anything. Sales are going strong enough and so the theme keeps going on.

[Kalhiki]

Speaking of sales, no luck finding the new sets while I was out. Luckily I needed some other stuff, so it wasn't a wasted trip. Maybe next time.

[VBBN]

Two waves of what, five / six sets ? That doesn't seem much, it would be unlikely. I rather think what VBBN means is something a la 2010 / 2011, with a new story arc per wave, instead of a big story arc running all over the year (at least supposed to run all over the year, since there's nothing really exciting once the episode of the year airs).

Yes this is what I inferring. When you take one story and put it into an entire year, it gets very rushed, but also because you can't really drag it out too much. We saw the IFB story wrap up in less than half an hour, because with hero factory, that is what you get. We aren't reading novels, serials, and having constant media, games, etc coming out like Bionicle gave us. In 2011, we got two story arcs, and that kept the momentum of the year going. In Bionicle, you could either have a) Two story arks, such as Piraka and Inika or Barraki and Mahri, or you could have one overall theme but one that is given a lot of media and expanded due to Bionicle's story such as Metru Nui 2004 and 2005.

I feel the "one and done" aspect of HF's story is a poor choice. I don't mind it if they want a more episodic based story, but when you have something so basic you gotta wrap it up and give us something else the next go around. They certainly wrap the story up, but when the story is all done in February and you still got 10 months to go, there's a bit of an issue there.

[Agent Fusion]

@VBBN

Yes, that's what I meant by Heroes and Villains beings separate waves, like the Piraka and Inika (maybe with a titan Villain for the Hero wave).

[VBBN]

@VBBN

Yes, that's what I meant by Heroes and Villains beings separate waves, like the Piraka and Inika (maybe with a titan Villain for the Hero wave).

If this became the case, I would really hope that the story might deepen slightly more. While this is an episodic based story, I would like to see more focus on the development and transformation of our Heroes, similar to superheroes in the likes of Marvel and DC. With a wave dedicated to only Heroes, you could really spend time developing them and giving them more purpose, and then the second wave has a story that arks into the situation they may face.

While this sounds much better than cramming the entire story into the first two months of the year, that would essentially be reverting back to Bionicle's formula and we know how that ended. However this would still have an episodic theme and with so many less characters, locations, etc, I do not think it would escalate into the complexity that Bionicle upheld. There's a fine line between to complex and too simple, and I think right now Lego may be struggling to find that balance.

With the current Hero and Villain release with each wave, you have to develop both sides story right from the start, and unless you do it like 2011 where there were two major story arcs with different heroes and villains both times, that doesn't work well. (and yes I know IFB is technically two arcs, the city and then underground, but compared to 2011 it's a long shot)

[Aanchir]

Personally, I don't think separating the heroes and villains into separate waves would be worth it. I quite liked the decision to put heroes and villains in the same wave back in 2008, and really it no longer makes any sense to me to keep them separate. Why put the central conflict on hold for half a year so you can introduce the factions one at a time, when you could get things up and running right away and still keep things going for a full year? After all, the Phantoka and Mistika demonstrated quite well that releasing heroes and villains simultaneously has nothing to do with the issue the Hero Factory story is facing right now.

Personally, what frustrates me about the Hero Factory story's current release pattern is that there is no supplementary story media to help fill the gaps. I had no problem with the brevity of the TV episodes during the Breakout or Brain Attack series when we had Greg Farshtey's chapter books to look forward to during the downtime between episodes. But now even the online story content (like info on characters and weapons) is fairly sparse compared to during those series.

[DraikNova]

I would just like the tv show to be a little more complicated, rather than having more different sources. I think having three episodes would be ideal for this: two episodes to flesh out the plot, with one to feature the climax (which is where the summer sets would come into play, no pun intended). Really, I like the way this year's sets are structured: the release pattern fits with the story, which is similarly divided into two sub-arcs.

[Bfahome]

Personally, I don't think separating the heroes and villains into separate waves would be worth it. I quite liked the decision to put heroes and villains in the same wave back in 2008, and really it no longer makes any sense to me to keep them separate. Why put the central conflict on hold for half a year so you can introduce the factions one at a time, when you could get things up and running right away and still keep things going for a full year? After all, the Phantoka and Mistika demonstrated quite well that releasing heroes and villains simultaneously has nothing to do with the issue the Hero Factory story is facing right now.

It really depends on how the story is presented. BIONICLE 2001-2003 managed the hero/villain separation by having characters carry over between years, with the Mata from 2001 fighting the Bohrok in 2002 to become the Nuva, which then carried all the way through 2003 (though with the introduction of Takanuva).

I also think 2004 handled it decently, with the first half of the year focusing on the Toa Metru's conflict with the Morbuzakh before turning to the Dume/Vahki/Dark Hunters/Makuta side that came with the second wave.

2006 started as Piraka vs. Matoran, and the first wave of media was used to play up the massive distrust all the villains had for each other.

2008 used the combo-waves well, with connected but distinct stories between the two waves so that the plot progressed throughout the entire year.

Of course, pretty much the entire set breakdown has changed since then. We don't have the 6 hero/6 villain/6 impulse anymore, it's more homogenized.

Edited May 25, 2014 by Bfahome

[Aanchir]

It really depends on how the story is presented. BIONICLE 2001-2003 managed the hero/villain separation by having characters carry over between years, with the Mata from 2001 fighting the Bohrok in 2002 to become the Nuva, which then carried all the way through 2003 (though with the introduction of Takanuva).

I also think 2004 handled it decently, with the first half of the year focusing on the Toa Metru's conflict with the Morbuzakh before turning to the Dume/Vahki/Dark Hunters/Makuta side that came with the second wave.

2006 started as Piraka vs. Matoran, and the first wave of media was used to play up the massive distrust all the villains had for each other.

2008 used the combo-waves well, with connected but distinct stories between the two waves so that the plot progressed throughout the entire year.

Of course, pretty much the entire set breakdown has changed since then. We don't have the 6 hero/6 villain/6 impulse anymore, it's more homogenized.

You have a very good point about how 2001-2003 handled it. I personally don't think it was handled nearly so well in 2004. The Morbuzakh struck me as a boring villain and it was incredibly frustrating that there was no easy way to act out or build the Toa's battles with the Morbuzakh — it was not an enemy designed to be built with LEGO, nor even an enemy with clear motivations. So while it might have been effective from a storytelling perspective, with the first half of 2004 being sort of a "detective story", it was irritating as far as the toys were concerned.

Of course, in 2004 and 2005, the canister set release patterns were reversed in Europe, with the Vahki preceding the Toa Metru and the Visorak preceding the Toa Hordika. And while the former didn't mesh with the story media for the year, in which the Vahki were not a particularly visible threat until the second half of the year, the latter worked slightly better since the small sets could be used as "good guys" to face off against the canister set "bad guys".

This pattern was utilized worldwide in 2006 and 2007, and also reflected in the storyline with the first book each year focusing on the Matoran's battles against the villains. It was still a bit frustrating in terms of storytelling, though, as the Matoran in 2006 and 2007 faded into the background by the time the year came to a close, making their importance to the story year as a whole a lot more tenuous. Who knows what Kazi, Dalu, and the others were up to once the Toa Inika and Piraka started descending towards the Mask of Life? Their story petered out shortly after the "real" heroes entered the scene and gave the villains a newer, more equal foe to fight — which ran directly counter to the message the first book tried to establish that "you don't have to be a Toa to be a hero." The Matoran of 2008 were only really relevant to the first half of the year as well, but it helped that the Phantoka and Mistika arcs overlapped chronologically.

On that note, one other thing I like about post-2011 Hero Factory is that characters are no longer divided up into different sizes according to their story role. It's probably not fair to compare this to BIONICLE, since "small sets" in Hero Factory are not as impulse-priced as many "small sets" in BIONICLE were. But compared to earlier Hero Factory arcs, I'm quite happy that the size (and by extension, price) of a set no longer relates so strictly to a character's moral alignment or their importance in the story. Villain sets and hero sets alike can be small, medium, or large. And the only difference between small and medium hero characters, besides a negligible height difference, tends to be the amount of armor and equipment they carry. Story-wise, the heroes' importance to the current story arc has little to do with the size of the set they come in. Villains, not so much — the largest villains still are presented as posing the most considerable threat, though there is still little story difference between the small and medium-sized villains.

[Gatanui]

Of course, in 2004 and 2005, the canister set release patterns were reversed in Europe, with the Vahki preceding the Toa Metru and the Visorak preceding the Toa Hordika.

The Vahki did not precede the Toa Metru in Europe.

-Gata

[Aanchir]

The Vahki did not precede the Toa Metru in Europe.

-Gata

Really? I thought I had heard that they had. Guess I was mistaken.

[Gatanui]

Really? I thought I had heard that they had. Guess I was mistaken.

Nope, it was just the Visorak and Toa Hordika.

-Gata

[DuckBricks]

I called my local LEGO store and they said that the HF wave 2 sets come out mid-late June in North America...

[DraikNova]

Don't the sets usually come out about a month or so earlier in Germany than in the USA?

[ZORK64]

The summer sets do, yeah, but I haven't seen anything new yet.

I'll let you know if they show up though.

I just got my mind on other things currently, mostly my tabletop miniatures again.

Oh dear god I completely forgot to write a review for Brain Attack Evo. I guess it's a bit late now, isn't it?

[Kalhiki]

Nothing at TRU when I went today. I figure at the end of this month/beginning of next we'll see them. TRU usually gets sets early, so if mid/late June is the estimated release, I'd think we'd see them in a couple weeks at best.

[Mesonak]

^That's quite likely, all things considered.

I'm pretty excited for this wave; I'll be honest when I say that the larger sets aren't really enticing me, but all the "normal" sets are on my radar for sure (especially due to the absence of Chima constraction ;_;).

[BrickBuilder3213]

I'm really not sure whether I'll be buying any of the Summer sets this year. Especially since I'll be getting all of the Ninjago sets...

...Damn you, Lego. Damn you. ;o;

[Aanchir]

^That's quite likely, all things considered.

I'm pretty excited for this wave; I'll be honest when I say that the larger sets aren't really enticing me, but all the "normal" sets are on my radar for sure (especially due to the absence of Chima constraction ;_;).

I'm not super-thrilled with the large summer HF sets either, to be honest. Queen Beast vs. Furno and Evo is pretty original (both the Queen herself and the little machine for Evo), but in spite of that uniqueness the Queen feels lacking in complexity, and I'm not all that excited about Evo getting a third machine. Surge & Rocka Combat machine is also a mixed bag. It's hard for me to judge its construction or functions until I see a review, but it definitely doesn't speak to me the way Evo XL Machine did.

Still, I feel like the summer HF wave as a whole has a lot to be excited about. Tunneler Beast is brilliant for the $10 price point (wish there were more non-humanoid beast designs). Breez Flea Machine and Bulk Drill Machine bring even more variety to the $15 price point with their non-bipedal designs and nifty Technic functions. Crystal Beast doesn't excite me too greatly (since its color scheme is its most unique feature), but I do like that it and the other beast sets for the summer all boast articulated claws.

And as far as designs and piece counts are concerned, the summer Hero Factory sets continue to shine, proving that there is no longer any merit to the claim that Hero Factory sets lack the complexity of the BIONICLE sets that came before them. Both of the $15 machines have higher piece counts than any BIONICLE canister set or even the $15 Mutran & Vican set. Bulk Drill Machine has very nearly as many pieces as the $15 Nocturn. Even the $10 sets are impressive: Tunneler Beast boasts 59 parts, and even if you subtract the 14 parts used for the minifigure and accessories you're left with more than any Piraka, Bohrok, or Toa Nuva, as many as any Rahkshi, and over a dozen more than any Vahki (keep in mind that the Vahki retailed for just $9, which in today's money would make them cost over $11).