Are You A Completist? (And If So, Don't You Ever Get Disappointed?)

I don't think I could ever justify spending my money on figures just to have a "complete" set! What's the point? There has to be some level of desire/yearning/interest there... I can't complete a line just so that I can say, "Hey! Look at me - I've got the complete set!"

I'm finding more and more, with Transformers figures, that as the years go by the quality seems to be diminishing in one aspect or another. I really REALLY love the Classics/Universe line... but I will happily pass on a figure if I think it looks crappy, or is a repaint of a figure from a previous line!

About the only TF line I ever intend to "complete" is G1... but even then, I won't go after any figures that I don't really want!

Happily non-completist.

Before I was buying lots of Transformers toys (like 5-10 a year rather than my current levels) I was buying lots of Transformers comics. I would still like to get a copy of each issue (despite having some issues and stories in collected or reprinted form areadyl).

But there's no way I'd be completist in this collecting to the point of getting each variant cover for each comic with the way IDW spits those out. Some of the comics are disappointing, for instance I don't like most of the movieverse stuff, but I feel I need to have them all.

In the toys, I'm not acompletist because there's always some toys I'm just not interested in or repaints that aren't worth it IMO. This can lead to disappointment too though: I almost have one of each of the first Movie deluxes but I just can't bring myself to spend any money on Camshaft.

"Six little Maximals. Hahaha, well, I've almost collected the whole set!" - Megatron (Beast Wars)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nsKj...eature=related (7:25)

:)

I would consider myself foolish to be a completist unless the company of whom I am basing my hopes, holds perfection (in design, production, and storyline) as its highest value.

Really fond of TFA, and am a proud and foolish selective completist (around 95% of deluxes, voyagers, leaders). No unecessary repaints like Elite Guard Bumblebee, but Stealth Lockdown is awesomeness, and the seekers and Cliffjumper are must-haves. Love the consistency in toy designs and storyline, with its forgivable production restraints (like Lugnut's size compared to the other Decepticons; then again those differences are subtle if you look at Universe Cyclonus:cool: and Universe Powerglide:exclamation:), and its almost forgivable production flaws (but then popping-out parts is more bearable compared to breaking parts or chrome-paint aps).

But then again look at the botched up job that marketing and Bay-deadlines did on the ROTF fembot motorcycles. The designs are compromised by cost minimalisation and a bogan idealist (Bay). We now have a trio of would-be combiners, where the best chance of closure is to pray until you bleed for some awesome guys like FansProject to come alone and make sense of it.

Also, how many Movie Blackouts (awesome) are you willing to collect if Hasbro releases one or two repaints in both Autobot (as Evac and as Whirl) and Decepticon (as Grindor) factions for each movie?! Its not the same as collecting Seekers. Unfortunately, it gives me the bleak view of Bay having the great financial power to father a lot of grandchildren in this world.

Would've been able to completely withold myself from the ROTF line, until those first photos of ROTF Bludgeon came out with ROTF Mindwipe (too bad no ROTF Bugly).

Looks like I'll always be a selective completist...

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Originally Posted by SuspectimusPrime

with its forgivable production restraints (like Lugnut's size compared to the other Decepticons; then again those differences are subtle if you look at Universe Cyclonus and Universe Powerglide:exclamation,

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Yeah, but I think Cyclonus is well worth $30, whereas at $45 I felt ripped off with Lugnut.

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Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime

Yeah, but I think Cyclonus is well worth $30, whereas at $45 I felt ripped off with Lugnut.

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Cyclonus rocks!! :eek: too bad they won't be making a TFA Cyclonus!

I managed to get Lugnut for $25 at the beginning of the line from one of those China sellers on eBay selling them apparently as "new without packaging".

The figure was new without packaging, as it retained those little translucent rubber bands, but it was missing its front landing gear. I think it either failed the final phase of quality control or was smuggled out of the factory. When I contacted the guy about it, he actually sent me a second set of Lugnut's back landing gear free of charge. At that stage I just left it as it is :p

The TFA line as its perks and faults, but one thing for sure, whether the figs produced were pieces of engineering art or miscarriages, because of their specific cartoony designs you won't find them popping up repackaged as themselves or any other characters in TF Universe/TF Movies or any other lines down the track.

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Originally Posted by SuspectimusPrime

I managed to get Lugnut for $25 at the beginning of the line from one of those China sellers on eBay selling them apparently as "new without packaging".

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Okay, but I was responding to your comment of, "Love the consistency in toy designs and storyline, with its forgivable production restraints (like Lugnut's size compared to the other Decepticons" -- I'm saying that I don't find Lugnut's lack of size terribly forgivable due to the fact that he retails at $45 RRP. The fact that you acquired one at a discounted price doesn't change this, and thus the toy may not be quite worthwhile for most other people who would be paying the RRP.

It might be more accurate to say something like it's a nice toy and worth getting if you can find it on sale. For example, I think most Leader Classes are NOT worth their full RRP of $100, but they are nice toys and certainly worth it if you can get them on sale, like the Animated Leaders currently selling for $35 each atm.

Non-Completist for the most part. Whatever my interests, the collecting aspect needs to be anchored to something - for example I might buy every toy released with the names Starscream, Megatron and Soundwave and the Combaticons because they were my favourite G1 characters. Unless the toys seem really "cool" or interesting to me on their own (I bought a lot of the Japanese Beast Wars toys for this reason) or at its worst, I like the paint job and tech specs. If I was rich beyond my wildest dreams I might become a completist, but that is unlikely to ever happen for any number of reasons.

The only time I continued collecting something despite intensley disliking the current quality of the product was Spider-Man comics during the Clone saga to the Byrne/Mackie run. And that is because at the time I could not imagine my life without Spider-man in it (now lets not interpret that the wrong way!).

I am a completist at the individual figure level. I need to have it complete and in decent condition or it drives me mad. As you can gather, Roadbuster is a nightmare for me.