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Re: BotCon 2015 theme revealed

Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2015 9:47 am
by JediTricks
Fractyl could easily be AOE Strafe. You'll all be sad if that happens.

Re: BotCon 2015 theme revealed

Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2015 10:00 am
by BWprowl
Dominic wrote:In other words, maybe it is better to look at this as a Packrat for the people who did not get one 15+ years ago? And, it is not like the character shows up often. So, if Packrat shows up in this year's comics, might it not make sense to release a new toy of Packrat? (That comic being good or not is another topic entirely.)
The only reason Packrat would even *show up* in this year's comic is because he was already made up to be part of this year's toy set (you don't actually think they conceive/write the comics first, do you?). He could literally be replaced with any other (potentially new) character to fit the role of "Funny Rocket Raccoon Rip-Off" and it wouldn't matter. If they weren't making a new toy of Packrat, then Packrat wouldn't show up in this year's comics.

I mean, I understand *why* they went with this particular toy. We got a new Rattrap mold last year, so it follows that they could repaint it into an homage of an earlier convention toy for a new convention (similar to the G2 Breakdown they did a while back). It could be considered a cute homage, and is a pretty obvious thing to do.

But there's still that specter of "Why does this need to exist?" that haunts all toys like this (including Rattrap himself). Rattrap at least had the excuse of "Here's your ultra-show-accurate Rattrap twenty years after the fact", but Packrat was always drawn to look like the toy anyway, and said toy was perfectly functional. Were people who even remember BotCon from the BW days really jonesing that hard to get their own toy of Packrat? And if so, how hard is Transmetal Wal-Rat to get on eBay? (EDIT: Because I'm nothing if not petty, I just found a sealed one on eBay for twenty bucks and bought it. I bought a MW Megaplex after the disappointing reveal of the BotCon one last year. Apparently, FunPub's really good at selling me older toys.)

And just...it's a convention-exclusive toy that's just an upgrade of an earlier convention-exclusive toy. If that doesn't speak to how insular and incestuous the line and franchise has become, I don't know what does.
JediTricks wrote:Fractyl could easily be AOE Strafe. You'll all be sad if that happens.
I considered it, and would not put it past FunPub to do it. And hey, at least Fractyl would look 'new' in that case, rather than just a slightly bumped-up version of his original toy.

Re: BotCon 2015 theme revealed

Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2015 4:59 pm
by BWprowl
So a BotCon video may have accidentally revealed the whole box set. It's blurry as balls, and we still don't know the characters' identities for most of them, but:

Generations Rattrap in blue (Packrat)
Classics Bumblebee in blue (almost certainly Glyph)
Generations Springer in blue/grey
RTS Jazz in red/white
Arms Micron Breakdown in olive/tan/something

So, there's that.

Re: BotCon 2015 theme revealed

Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2015 2:20 am
by Onslaught Six
Breakdown's mould finally getting a US release is great, even if it's only in a Botcon set.

Re: BotCon 2015 theme revealed

Posted: Tue May 12, 2015 10:56 am
by Dominic
That Ricochet (the Jazz recolour) is a good example of SG. It is a terrible idea made in to a good toy.