Masterpiece Convoy 3.0 Revealed

[MEEEGGGAAATTTRRROOONNN!!!]

You people are ready to burn MP-44 at the stake because a poll, located in the 3rd party sub forum with 600 votes has only half going to MP-44?:

Look from page 40 backwards -- people have been critical of MP-44 long before the poll was posted.

[bowspearer]

Oh look! Generalisations, jumping to conclusions and arguing with people that have different collecting preferences.

I must be on TFW.

So you're attacking a generalisation by making generalisations? How's that working out for you?

How is anyone jumping to conclusions here? MS-01 is out, the pricing difference is known and the differences in features are known. The "you're jumping to conclusions" argument is a good month out of date at this point - unless you're claiming that people are definitely saying that the material and QC on MP-44 are going to be utterly crappy - and I've seen no one make that call.

Also where exactly has anyone here abused anyone for having different collecting preferences?

And speaking of, I love that TFW poll. You people are ready to burn MP-44 at the stake because a poll, located in the 3rd party sub forum with 600 votes has only half going to MP-44?

I wont speak for others, but speaking for myself, what in my arguments about price, quality control and materials even directly referenced the TFW poll? Truth be told, when I couldn't see it without logging on, I decided to ignore it as far as my stance on this goes.

And when you use language like "You people are ready to burn MP-44 at the stake" it really does come across as you being so heavily invested in it that you're practically accusing anyone who sees an issue here and a bad decision that will probably bite TT in the rear in the long term, as practically engaging in secular heresy (of the kind committed by someone wearing an "I support 2 teams: _______ and whoever's playing Manly" when walking up the steps into the Manly Warringah Leagues club - oh and Sea Eagles fans, offence intended as someone who was a Norths supporter as a kid :P ).

Did it occur to you that at least some of the critical commentary is rooted in the flow-on effects this decision might have on the future of the entire Masterpiece line?

You guys are hilarious. You could do polling predictions for the Liberal Party

Weren't partisan party politics off limits according to the board rules?

[bowspearer]

One thing about both the 3rd party offerings is they are not unique transformations like MP44. They just use MP10 as a base and improve on it, they didn't design a new Optimus from the ground up like MP44.

Even if you take that argument, you're still talking about massive changes, such as completely re-engineered legs on MS-01, which were arguably the biggest thing which needed updating from MP-10 and MP-01.

As everyone has said yes MP44 is expensive and that is a valid concern but price aside MP44 is superior in every other aspect to both 3rd party primes.

Given what's happened, I don't think you can ignore it. I've never seen a situation like this in the entirety of the Masterpiece line. Ordinarily it's a "shut up and take my money" situation and cost isn't a factor. Ordinarily, the transformation is kept under wraps so as not to give anything away - this time Takara have spoilered the hell out of this. Ordinarily retailers aren't nervous about preorders; this time HLJ was making people confirm they would honour preorders when people ordered them.

This whole situation has been bad PR for Takara and at best, the reaction has been far more lukewarm than usual.

Honestly, I wonder how much of the price is the cost of MP-44 and how much of this is them trying to make up for the losses in projected earnings due to the loss of Pokémon to Bandai.

[MEEEGGGAAATTTRRROOONNN!!!]

One thing about both the 3rd party offerings is they are not unique transformations like MP44. They just use MP10 as a base and improve on it, they didn't design a new Optimus from the ground up like MP44.

Takara already put the work in to make MP10 years ago and these are just minor upgrades to Takara's own efforts. I feel praising their efforts on copying something Takara already did is a huge dis-service to Takara.

As everyone has said yes MP44 is expensive and that is a valid concern but price aside MP44 is superior in every other aspect to both 3rd party primes.

Magic square prime also has larger legs which translate to a large trailer hitch to the point where mounting MP10's trailer makes it sit askew..

While MS-01 does borrow from MP-10, TE-01 is a unique design.

Here's the transformation:

https://youtu.be/GNgPvlhR4RA?t=6m53s

It looks nothing like the transformation of MP-10, and is a lot more complex.

TE-01 is also compatible with MP-10's trailer:

https://youtu.be/GNgPvlhR4RA?t=20m59s

Until MP-44 is in-hand, no one can say that it is superior. But if you think it's superior for your needs, then fine.

[DaptoDog]

Points have been made, I really don't see the need to continue discussing 3P figures in this thread. Not trying to shoot down the discussion of these alternative Optimus Prime figures, just feel it would be best discussed in the unauthorised area.

[bowspearer]

While MS-01 does borrow from MP-10, TE-01, is a unique design.

Here's the transformation:

https://youtu.be/GNgPvlhR4RA?t=6m53s

It looks nothing like the transformation of MP-10, and is a lot more complex

I think you just obliterated that complexity difference argument so much that it's worse off than Starscream's body after Galvatron was done with it in the 1986 movie .

There are certainly some looseness issues I can see here, but the plastic looks sturdy. Like I said, I think Takara is going to find they've massively miscalculated. I just hope that there's some massive course correction with MP-45 or there could be dark clouds on the horizon for the future of the MP line.

[MEEEGGGAAATTTRRROOONNN!!!]

There are certainly some looseness issues I can see here, but the plastic looks sturdy.

It's a pre-production sample that's been doing the rounds with the Chinese reviewers, so that's probably contributed to the looseness.

[bowspearer]

It's a pre-production sample that's been doing the rounds with the Chinese reviewers, so that's probably contributed to the looseness.

Honestly, this all just makes me really sad. I was watching that TE-01 video and I'm having reactions of "that's so awesome" and "shut up and take my money" and a second later, I'm mindful that I'm not getting the same reactions from MP-44 - not because the complexity isn't there, but because the price is such a turn off.

It deeply troubles me in terms of the future of the Masterpiece line. If the trend is increasingly going to be more expensive figures with more limited runs, then how long is it before a run becomes so high priced and so limited that they can't justify it?

Heck for that matter, does it mean that our chances of seeing the rest of the minicars is somewhere between a snowball's change in hell and sweet bugger all?

What happens then? Do we end up with Third Party companies essentially tying up the entire market share of the Masterpiece market?

And for those who say this is over-reacting, just look at the exponential jumps in pricing.

Seriously, what's next, a $300 MP-45 hound?

And from there, where does it stop?

[Tha_Phantom]

Points have been made, I really don't see the need to continue discussing 3P figures in this thread. Not trying to shoot down the discussion of these alternative Optimus Prime figures, just feel it would be best discussed in the unauthorised area.

Agreed. It would be nice if the thread about MP-44 could stay being about MP-44.
I thought promotion of 3P toys outside their dedicated section was a violation of the rules, or am I interpreting them wrong?

18 - Unauthorised "third party" items and Knock Off item restrictions
Posting about (or selling) Unauthorised toys and accessories that specifically target the Transformers Brand and/or established Characters, is only permitted in the Unauthorised Products section. Sale of Counterfeit (Knock Off) Transformers toys or merchandise is prohibited here. Limited awareness of Counterfeit Transformers is allowed, to help other fans identify a fake when trying to purchase a legit figure, and should be contained within the Knock Off ID section.

[MEEEGGGAAATTTRRROOONNN!!!]

Agreed. It would be nice if the thread about MP-44 could stay being about MP-44.
I thought promotion of 3P toys outside their dedicated section was a violation of the rules, or am I interpreting them wrong?

18 - Unauthorised "third party" items and Knock Off item restrictions
Posting about (or selling) Unauthorised toys and accessories that specifically target the Transformers Brand and/or established Characters, is only permitted in the Unauthorised Products section. Sale of Counterfeit (Knock Off) Transformers toys or merchandise is prohibited here. Limited awareness of Counterfeit Transformers is allowed, to help other fans identify a fake when trying to purchase a legit figure, and should be contained within the Knock Off ID section.

A similar issue has already come up earlier in the thread, and the site owner responded in post #157:

http://www.otca.com.au/boards/showpo...&postcount=157

Since this matter was reported by one of the members (which was the right thing to do for the staff to review the matter), I wanted to respond to it in regards to the board's rules.

The individual isn't telling people to buy KOs (which is against the rules here), so, the posts were not a promotion of them.
It was a very small comment about KOs that was actually using them as a way to highlight a negative element of the legit toys (over-pricing for poor QC). There is no other objective way to do that, as any other toy or toyline would be apples to oranges. The point raised here was that IF an exact version of a toy can be done cheaper (setting aside development costs) and yet sometimes have better QC, why can't the legit version have better QC.

Also, if we don't have moderate, constructive discussions or comments on how they relate/compare/differ from the legal toys (that doesn't advocate fans to buy them), we would be oblivious to why they appeal to some people, and it would be difficult to debate/contest their pros from a position of being in the dark about them.

It's just unfortunate that we've had such a bad run of quality issues with Masterpiece toys, that we are expecting future toys to have something wrong with them... and distract ourselves from the actual news in these topics by debating it before it even exists.
As such... back to talking about what we do know about this toy.

No one in this thread has told anyone to buy any of the 3P figures, it's just the same old issue about price being rehashed, with the added discussion over desirability and design; and given that 3P companies are in the midst of releasing their figures, it was only natural that comparisons would arise. When the inevitable KOs appear, it will also be inevitable that comparisons will arise.

If you think a post has contravened the rules, then you are within your rights to report the post.