Does anyone else just not care anymore?

[5FDP]

All I can say is - I look forward to seeing more sale threads on the forum

[GoktimusPrime]

heh.

And just what exactly do you expect in today's standard of toy engineering Gok?

Beast Wars set the standard of giving us highly detailed and articulated Transformer toys, and standards have improved since then. Car Robot/RiD took the engineering developed during BW and applied it with licensed vehicles. Armada/Energon kinda went wonky because they were so heavily gimmick-laden, but then Cybertron showed great improvement - even with the Cyber Planet Key gimmick, it didn't overwhelmingly compromise the toy - we still had a lot of great figures even with the gimmick (e.g. Downshift).

Then HasTak further developed the engineering with G1-inspiration giving us Classicsverse which ran parallel with the movieverse toys, so I tend to look at the standard in Classicsverse in terms of which can be achieved in TF toys by current standards - hence the movieverse/Classicsverse comparison in my previous post.

[SkyWarp91]

I actually think that the movie toys did considerably well for today's standards because you had real life vehicles that transformed into such alien like robots. Sure the classics verse toys had vehicles as well but they were generic vehicles and the robot modes were blocky as - nothing wrong with that but admittedly it does not require the complex engineering as needed for the movie toys. Despite my name being of decepticon cause i am in this situation the optimus

[GoktimusPrime]

Yes, hence my comment:

and to be fair to some movie toys, they have the additional challenge of being based on screen models (highly complex ones at that) which are difficult to translate into toys - whereas the majority of G1 toys were designed as toys first (thus HasTak had more creative freedom)... but even then that only covers the toys that appear in the film. We have had some movieverse toys which didn't appear in the film and were designed as toys first which are still sub-par by contemporary standards, e.g. Breakaway (I like this toy cos I got it for free as a bday gift, but I probably wouldn't be so fond of it if I'd paid money for it - esp. full retail). And I'll give credit to HasTak that they are - in general - getting gooderer at designing movie toys.

But on the whole, I don't think movieverse toys are generally as well designed by today's standards compared to early G1 toys by the standards of their day. There are exceptions on either end, but generally speaking when examining both lines on the whole, that's how I feel.

[jimoinj]

I agree with Gok on this, but I am biased as I absolutely loathe the Bay movies. Particularly the last 2. The standard for today's Transformers has been set I think by the Binaltech line and of course the Masterpieces. Whereas back in the 1980s G1 was the standard! There was nothing else. Well, Machine Men. Little more than glorified minibots!

[GoktimusPrime]

I wouldn't use Masterpiece as a standard... I like the MP Convoy mould, but some people criticise the truck mode for not looking very realistic -- although I like it and I think it's a marvel of engineering. Other MPs on the other hand...

+ Megatron: far too fiddly for its own good. I've only transformed it _once_ (and a small tab snapped off)... and that's it. Then there's the issue of rust. The shoulder panels pop out way too easily too. Craphouse action figure to play with.
+ Seekers: maybe nice display pieces but craphouse action figures. The original Takara Starscream was especially bad, although HasTak did improve the plastic quality with subsequent uses of that mould.
+ Grimlock: A nice toy, but way overpriced for what is essentially a "quasi" Masterpiece toy; i.e. half the toy features fairly MP-esque complex engineering, but the other half is too much like the G1 toy (too simple). This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but not worth the asking price IMO. I find Grimlock offers the best play value alongside Optimus Prime... but just doesn't justify the price.
+ Rodimus: The original Japanese version is plagued with various flaws -- it can't slot into the trailer without scratching the spoiler and forget about getting it to hold its own guns. The trailer is essentially just an oversized version of the G1 trailer/deck - nice, but not worth the price tag. The Hasbro version improved some of the issues, but there are still some problems with it -- some of the tabs on mine has stress marks on it, indicative of poor quality plastic. Offshoot's pretty neat though. I find Rodimus has the 3rd best play value other than Optimus and Grimlock... but let's face it, there's not much competition here. (-_-)

Masterpiece TFs seem more like articulated statues rather than playable action figures. Binaltechs are better in this regard, but I still don't find them as fun to pay with as regular TF figures... mostly because they're kinda clunky, and let's face it, who wants to play with a toy that takes half an hour to transform?? Kinda kills the thrill of an intense battle... Some movieverse toys are guilty of this too (e.g. Leader Class Optimus Prime).

So I find Classicsverse to be an arguably more suitable comparison because:
+ Similar price points
+ Both designed with similar play patterns (and not as overglorified display pieces)

[UltraMarginal]

I always thought of Masterpiece as articulated statues, squarely aimed at the display collector market.

[Hursticon]

I always thought of Masterpiece as articulated statues, squarely aimed at the display collector market.

As did I, playing with them is the very last thing I've considered - They're too bloody expensive!

[heroic_decepticon]

Hmmm... I just read this. So will go back and answer the original question / issue.

On the issue of Bay-formers - I've had enough since after the first wave of Movie toys in 2007.

Classics, MPs, BTs are great and I am a big G1 fan.

Like liegeprime said earlier, there are other ways deals with the lull and best of all give your wallet a rest.

Maybe set yourself a new aim like collect all the BTs MIB or better yet, collect G1 MIB/MOC. That'd keep one entertained for years I'd imagine.

[Prowl]

Maybe set yourself a new aim like collect all the BTs MIB or better yet, collect G1 MIB/MOC. That'd keep one broke for years I'd imagine.

Fixed.