Why do you interact here?

[griffin]

Being almost 15 years since this community was first started, I wanted to share why I started it (for those who don't already know), and in return, hope to see why each of you joined up, to make this one of the longest running toy-collector internet communities in the world.


Okay, so way back in mid 1995, I found the internet, and started interacting with Transformers fans. I was really excited to find that they weren't all in the Northern Hemisphere. I was no longer 'alone' in my 10 year old hobby.
Fellow board-member dirge was one of the first Australians I started to befriend, and slowly over the next 12 months, one by one, I had a list of about 15 Australian Fans who were online at that time. I proposed to each person that we should start up a local 'club' or mailing list, so that we didn't feel so isolated or distant from the American/UK dominated fandom (which was all in the one location at that time - alt.toys.transformers).
And since Beast Wars was just about to hit Australia, I also wanted to set up some sort of system for us Australians to find out what was being released here and alert the others.

Pretty much everyone who was still actively online at that time, was keen on the idea of a local community of fans, and since emails were getting a bit clumsy, I suggested a monthly newsletter. $2 per issue I think, which didn't cover the costs... but I had fun putting it together and enjoyed having others get excited about getting it. Mostly because it was local, and that it was a publication that was exclusively about Transformers.

Starting off with 16 members (if I recall) around September 1996, for our first issue of the newsletter posted out in October... we were given permission to be a Transformers club by Hasbro AUS within a couple months of that. Our name was changed from Austrans to Ozformers, so that we weren't confused with the Transport company of the same name, or 'Aus Trannies'.
Since then, over the almost 15 years, we've had at least two thousand people join up, with about 600 'current' members (active in the last 6 months) from several countries - Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, China/HK, Philipines, Japan. And even some long distant fans have wanted to join us as well over the years.


So what brings you to Ozformers?

[1AZRAEL1]

Pretty much the same reason that you started this forum, to share my passion of Transformers. Over the years there have been ups and downs, but overall met some really good people here sharing that passion, and having an alternative to Ebay to source Transformer toys. And keeping up to date with new and upcoming releases.

But the best part is interacting with others from all over Oz, and overseas members.

[sanbot]

Coz I love transformers!

[kaiden]

growing up, i don't think i had ever met anyone who actually liked Transformers as much as i did. so when i started collecting Transformers i just wanted to find a local community to interact with.

[liegeprime]

It's what everyone has stated before me. It's an active, dynamic local forum about TFs and toys, with active, polite people to interact with. local news are far more relevant than some US based forum....though they do have some breaking news, it still feels so far away...

I originally joined after attending the 2006 Toy con. Dirge mentioned to me to join the forum... which I had no idea existed til I googled it . I used to be semi active at tfw2005 since i didnt know there was a local group. I also was/is a member from Tf Phils... but became more active here since (see statement above)... and yeah it fun getting Tfs from co collectors and meeting up with some as well.

[UltraMagnus]

Being an Aussie and Living in HK, I find it rare to find TF fans that can communicate with me and speak the same language.
Meeting HD has been great cause we can go hunting together, otherwise its relatively a 1 man band.
Ozformers is very community like
I used to use TAAU but unsure what happened there - think its officially dead.

Ozformers is friendly and people happy to provide information. I also managed to buy some toys already which has been great!

[Hursticon]

For me, I joined because I was absolutely nagged to death by another member...
I found his reasoning to be quite sound upon becoming a member and OZformers has since become my first 'port of call' as soon as I fire-up my Browser.

For me as a kid and like many others, I loved Transformers (specifically G1) to death and all my thoughts as a 4 to 8 year old revolved around TFs. High School came around though and Beast Wars ended, my TF addiction went into Stasis Lock until sometime in 2004 when a friend told me he loved TFs too, which was weird because we'd been friends since our first year of High School and weirdly the topic had never come up?

This was amazing to me because throughout my life I only ever had 1 or 2 people I could ever talk about Transformers to and the sad thing was that at any given time - 1 of them was my mother.
Now, I knew somebody who had equal to or possibly greater passion than myself for the franchise and I'd known him for 7 years at that point!?!
Unfortunately, after the Classics line had initially come out, my friend moved up to Sydney and I again was left 'alone' in a way. It was also about this time that I started TAFE and pretty much all my time was devoted to that - Not to mention my funds for collecting, not much to begin with , my mate though had told me about a local fansite he had joined and had suggested that I join too...

Now, in 2007 I was pretty Net savvy but like others had never really interacted with a board or forum, the most experience I had was joining TFW2005 in '06 or '07 and letting them know that the Madman Japanese Headmasters DVD Boxset had just been released at JB-Hifi (Of which made front page news ) and that gave me a good feeling as it felt like I had contributed something.
But it didn't last because on that board I felt incredibly lonely still and I was still unsure on what the hell I was doing - Navigating a forum was still utterly confusing for me.

Fast forward to 2010 and after 3 years of:
"Check this site out dude, you'll like it",
"Dude, have you had a look at the site yet? - There are new Classics figures coming out!",
"Man, I keep mentioning you on the boards - When are you going to look at the site?",
Have you joined yet?, have you joined yet?..."

Finally on March 3rd of that year I joined and man, I am glad that I did! - Thank you 1AZRAEL1.
I have learnt SO much from this Australian Transformers Fan Forum it's incredible!

...

Upon joining, I was welcomed immediately by some thoroughly nice people and all of whom were willing to point me in the right direction - As I still sucked at forum navigation and use.
I used to think I knew quite a bit about TFs, man was I wrong! - Compared to some members, I was a damn novice but the thing was: I could ask a question and it would be answered without me feeling like an idiot, which I found to be quite awesome and made me want to ask more questions!

I was able to contribute sightings and have them actually make a difference but also I was able to see what others were posting which actually had some relevance to me, I was also able to build a picture of waht our local distribution was like - As LordCyrus pointed out, we in the Illawarra are well on the raw end of the stick.

After looking at some of the other members collections and literally falling off my seat at how staggeringly awesome, beautiful and well displayed they were - I was then astounded by some of the figures that existed that I'd never seen before! I then thought that maybe I should post pics of my own collection, of which I was a little reluctant as it was somewhat small and my photography ability wasn't too good either - To my absolute surprise I was greeted with quite a few positive comments and a lot were from members of who's collections completely destroyed mine!

I was able to put forward my opinion or thoughts on various subjects and not be completely derided for having such thoughts but rather have them added to a very often vibrant and in-depth discussion.
This spilled over into real life when I made my first attendance to a Fan Meet, which just happened to be the final meet, for the foreseeable future anyway, of one of the 1st people to welcome me to the forum and a great bloke to converse with - Heroic Decepticon.
Here was a time of celebration for both Transformers and one of it's biggest fans. It was an odd yet welcoming experience as I met many members who were all great blokes but the thing was we all shared the love of Transformers - For the first time in my life I was conversing with a Group of people who loved TFs and this was an awesome feeling.

Following in the footsteps and examples afforded to me by the likes of 1AZRAEL1, Heroic, Liege, Kup, Goki, Verno and many others - I've even been able to help others which is something I never thought I'd have the capacity, knowledge or ability to do.

OTCA/OZformers has been so incredible to me, as this community is thoroughly pleasant, understanding, co-operative, helpful and in many cases insanely creative especially with examples from Rampagesss, Doubledealer, Snaketales and many others, in so many ways it's amazing! - I've been able to completely come Back Online and revel in Transformers again! So much so that I'm not afraid to admit to people IRL as to what my hobby is and hell I'll even wear a shirt to profess it!
That is how much good this Forum and Community has been to me.

I do apologise for yet another wall of text but I felt I needed to get across, from my own perspective, how great this community and forum really is - Sure, there will be ups and downs like anything but the ups are far more frequent and that is the reason I continue to interact here and will continue to interact here for quite a while to come.


P.S. Thank you Griffin for deciding 15 years ago to start a local Fansite, 14 years later you've made quite a difference for my life anyway mate, even if I have only been apart of the community for 1 year - 3, 264 posts later...

[Vector Prime]

So what brings you to Ozformers?

I originally joined up to find out the latest news about TFs so I could feed my plastic crack addiction

[JuzMel]

so I could feed my plastic crack addiction

Plastic crack? LOL I actually do think they have some life in them! One of my TFs fires his missiles suddenly sometimes without anyone touching. And another makes the G1 "transforming sound" right in the middle of us watching telly! I wouldn't be surprised if they had a "war" go on at night when we are sleeping.

But the fact that brings me here is: Transformers, LEGO and the fact that guys are actually easier to talk to sometimes!

And I also like that it's actually a pretty active and useful forum in which fans can interact and help each other out when it comes to getting TFs. Sad to say I can't find a LEGO OZ forum that is this popular!

Favourite threads -> TF Acquisitions, Action Pose, Lego Acquisitions and Victorian Sightings.

[KillinSpoon]

Mainly because I came here from an anonymous board (4chan \toy\)...
Where everyone is a bunch of jerks and constantly call out and abuse everybody else.

Here is so much nicer, it isn't anonymous. It isn't full of jerks. You aren't all americans..

We all share the same passion and are from the same corner of the globe.
It is good to meet up with other TF fans such as myself in the city.
What's even better though is the fact that this isn't a sole TF board, with most of us collecting other toy lines / having interests in other different areas.

In summary, it's really just the whole community that is OTCA which makes the board enjoyable to fun.