moving RiD out of AEC

[Dominic]

I was going to make this a poll. But....it seems I cannot.

Anyway, the question is if we should move the "Robots in Disguise" forums out of the "Unictron Trilogy" section, and possibly to the "Beast" secton. (I personally see no need to keep it in the UT section, as there is nothing to link RiD to UT.)

General options:

-move RiD out of "Unicron Trilogy" to the "Beast" secton.

-move RiD out of the UT to its own section.

-move RiD out of UT to a composite section shared with "Machine Wars" and/or "Universe".

-leave RiD where it is.


Dom
-so much for the poll.

[andersonh1]

Judging strictly by the American fiction, G1 through Beast Machines are one continuity (which G1 is up in the air of course) and RID is the first genuine stab at a new continuity, albeit one with plenty of in jokes and references to all the shows that came before. I vote to keep it seperate from the Beast Era.

[Gomess]

As RiD is essentially a line of repaints (loophole win!), I'm with Sparky's idea to throw it in a forum with TFU / Classics / Generations and other such ancillary lines.

[Onslaught Six]

If we must move it, I vote to move it with the ancillary lines. As it is, though, it can stay where it is.

Also, how ironic is it that the biggest discussion we've ever had about RID is in the Beast section?

[Gomess]

the biggest discussion we've ever had about RID is in the Beast section

The Ironworks is delicious.

[BWprowl]

Repostan from the "Synjo flames Dom then everyone argues over what continuity RiD is in" thread:

Seriously though, I'm actually with Sparky on this one, RiD mainly belongs in a Misc. forum or something of the like. It's the quintessential filler/transitional line. Japan got it while Takara waited for BM to get dubbed, and America got it while Hasbro scrapped TransTech and came up with something else. And while RiD's success may have inspired Hasbro to go the route they did with Armada, it really has nothing else to do with that series.

S'yeah, I say chuck it in with Universe and Classics. RiD eventually morphed into a prototype of the Universe line, and then Universe came back from the dead and merged with Classics to become Universe 2.0. And now that whole thing's making a comeback as Generations. As far as Hasbro's Marketing department is concerned, these series all belong together!

[JediTricks]

As RiD is essentially a line of repaints (loophole win!), I'm with Sparky's idea to throw it in a forum with TFU / Classics / Generations and other such ancillary lines.

The problem there is that's an active line, while RID is a doornail. Also, I think of RID as all the new molds, the car brothers, new prime & magnus, Rail Racer, a few new Spychangers, and Gigatron more than I do the repaints.

Seriously though, I'm actually with Sparky on this one, RiD mainly belongs in a Misc. forum or something of the like. It's the quintessential filler/transitional line. Japan got it while Takara waited for BM to get dubbed, and America got it while Hasbro scrapped TransTech and came up with something else. And while RiD's success may have inspired Hasbro to go the route they did with Armada, it really has nothing else to do with that series.

If you look at how I created the forum, it's basically by eras of toy lines rather than by storyline. G1/G2 are an era, folks think of those toys as 1 lump. Beast era is 2 lines, but 1 grouping as well. The movies are obviously 1 era, and the Classics is a different line despite crossing that era boundary. So that leaves RID and the AEC series. When you look at RID, it was the first return of the "trukk not munky" folks, it was the first Japanese-inspired show in the US, it was the first to be outside the G1 dynamic. Then you get to Armada and it's also Japanese-inspired (or was that insipid?) and it's more trukk product, and when you get to Energon, is there really a continuity between them? Only half-assedly. It's Cybertron that really tries to rectify that situation in a bigger way, plus Archer's insistence on it being the Unicron Trilogy (aka that thing that makes Dom so mad ).

So in my book, RID and AEC are both somewhat TF orphans, there's not much chance of seeing anything from them again, they came out around the same timeframe, they tried to do the same thing, and they had Japanese shows that were really odd at times. Hell, RID and Armada both had mini figure TFs (spychangers, minicons ), RID and Cybertron both had animal TFs, and RID and Energon both had duos combining into bigger figures.

Anyway, that's my argument for it. What are the strong arguments against? All I'm really seeing here so far is "it's not part of the Unicron Trilogy storyline" that stands out in a major way, the other stuff I think I argue pretty well. If we put it in a MISC section, it'll be the only one in there. I just am not getting any connection to the Beast Era at all in toy or story, that makes no sense to me. It's not remotely important enough to warrant its own section.


This leads to a larger question of what to do with the forums. We're stagnating, not enough participation and the movies have driven the passion out of pushing it to new heights on its own. So, what do you want to see?

[Onslaught Six]

How about something like a review section?

[Gomess]

Repost the RiD2 RPG from back in the day so we can all riff on it. =p

[andersonh1]

This leads to a larger question of what to do with the forums. We're stagnating, not enough participation and the movies have driven the passion out of pushing it to new heights on its own. So, what do you want to see?

Hard to say. Are we promoting the forums in other places, or inviting others to come and post here? I wonder if visibility isn't the issue here? The small number of us posting here surely means that discussion is going to be somewhat slow.

I know my distinct lack of enthusiasm for ROTF has cut down on a lot of my figure purchases, and so my hobby interests run in other directions these days. I wonder if that's the case all around? It may be that it will just take some enthusiasm over a new line to increase discussion and participation.