The Energon Pub

megatronus wrote:

carytheone wrote:Subscription figures don't interest me because I like to pick and choose. We're all the figures announced up front before subbing?

Yes.

Well cool. Are/were they worth it?

That's also another thing I had a hard time finding as a non member, cost of the TFCSS.

I'll say it again, the lack of easy info also turned me off the club. Seems seedy and made me think they were hiding something or couldn't be trusted. A man who has nothing to hide, hides nothing.

Holographic Robot Points. Right on the box.

I say that because KOs are a real thing and I don't think they get the hologram symbols on the KO MP boxes right. Although they don't seem to KO much of the Hasbro stuff (boxes/packaging) so it may be an unnecessary precaution, then again scanners/printers are much better than they were back in the day, so, yeah. Robot Points to order stuff and things.

I really liked the old Club Nintendo rewards program, you buy games at retail and enter in a code that came with the game in an insert so I guess Hasbro could do that too, but, you know, ROBOT POINTS!! The codes gave you "stars", after so many stars you could get exclusive Club Nintendo stuff or use it for digital redemption.

They could even use S.T.A.R.S.!!!! What's old is new again.

itscramtastic wrote:Holographic Robot Points. Right on the box.

I say that because KOs are a real thing and I don't think they get the hologram symbols on the KO MP boxes right.

You'd be surprised.

Wolfman Jake wrote:

itscramtastic wrote:Holographic Robot Points. Right on the box.

I say that because KOs are a real thing and I don't think they get the hologram symbols on the KO MP boxes right.

You'd be surprised.

Well then, codes it is I thought in the reviews of the Lambor mold they weren't as good, or just shifted, or missing on some of them altogether!!


I'll have to look at my MP21 Bumble to see if he has one..

I can dig more G1 reissues with new colours - eHobby style.

Another thing I wouldn't mind are redecos of some weapon sets. I was looking for some Arms Micron weapon combiners to give to some of my combiners and ... they all suck! At least the ones you get individually. They're a mishmash of colors. And the exclusives ones look like muticoloured gummies stuck together.

And how about some cool colour schemes overall? I mean, I loved Action Master Thundercracker, G2 Ramjet, Slicer, and Breakdown, but ... a lot of their color schemes for a long time were garish for the sake of garish. Maybe they're referencing a character with garish colours, but still. Maybe a team would be nice. One reason I like the G1 Dinos and Insecticons were a team with a similar, striking colour scheme.

In the same vein, if they want to reuse some old mould as some old character, how about a truly premium paint job? Not like the crappy premium line either, I mean paint on rims, lights, license plates, robot parts - the whole 9 yards! Chrome where it makes sense (like how it's used on Henkei Prime), shiny paint, weathering ... just ... a truly collector grade version of whatever mould they choose. Hell, I'd rebuy a mould if it was done up really, REALLY nicely.

Here's another - consistently good heads! This year's Tigatron and Ravage needed to get redone. What happened to Devcon? The club had some good ideas that got ruined because of a poor head sculpt.

If we're going for pie-in-the-sky? It'd be nice if they finished one unused mould as a release. Like - yeah - G1 Unicron. I'd buy G1 Unicron. Or G1 Arcee. I'm not sure how feasible it is for a limited run of G1 Unicron, but there you have it.

Fiction ... honestly, I don't care about fiction. I collect Classics, so if you give me a nice version of a character in the right size, and it can fit loosely in Classics I don't care about the story so much.

I kinda agree that the Club went too far with Shattered Glass. It seemed more fun when it was a simpler alternate reality. I've read their latest take and their riff off the movie and ... it went too far. On the other hand I was very down for that SG Soundwave and Blaster set.

I have a couple more things to add, one toy related and one that isn't.

First, packaging. I saw Counterpunch mention this and Seibertron put it in the initial post, but yes, as long as the figures get here ok, I don't need a big box with foam inserts. This surely increases the cost of product and I don't need it. Maybe make this an optional, made-to-order thing for those that want it.

Second, I think a fun way to have fan interaction would be to have some official place for fan fiction (like, say, here ), with one or two of the best stories each year given a short comic treatment. That could be an amazing way to accomplish so many things: community interaction, motivation for creative-types, easy as can be way for both Hasbro and IDW to scout out talent, and another way to get a pulse on the types of stories that fans want to see told.

I think a return of something akin to "Robot Points" towards mail-order figures would be great, but with the amount of interconnectivity possible between Hasbro and Transformers fans now, there MUST be great communication between the two. Not just a "brand manager" would be needed as a liaison, but an entire "brand team" that engages with fans, constantly sourcing ideas from us. Think of the Fan Polls over the past couple of years that have brought us new characters and toys, but expand that to something that is going all year round. Perhaps we can pick and choose some fun repaints and minor remolds that would be easy for Hasbro to turn around in a matter of months. I would love to have some more "limbs" to augment the Combiner Wars collection. There are still a number of obvious Autobot car and Decepticon seeker repaints we could get to add to the mix and match "Scramble City" style of fun. The same idea could be expanded into Titans Return to get some more obscure Titan Master ideas or a few "generic" Transtectors with which to create some new characters with all the extra Titan Master heads coming our way. Again, communication is key to all of this.

I like the idea of buy toys, get points, get more toys bring on club points!

I think fan interaction and being transparent with info is important. They've branched out recently and opened instagram and snapchat accounts. Their instagram is passable, but the snapchat account is just bad/sad.

I'm not a big fan of polls. The info gathered is too binary. I feel that you're not going to get full fan participation without making it known as many places as possible and still you may only a small percentage of those to complete it. It's also easy to limit choices on polls. I'd rather see a team dedicated to interacting with fans via several outlets and getting a real pulse on what the people want and don't want.

D-Maximus_Primal wrote:

ScottyP wrote:[*]Less G1 universe. Don't take it out altogether, but for a brand with 30 years worth of history, the first 10 sure get the most attention. Yeah, there's good reason for it, but no need to crowd out other stuff. Think of the appeal the current fan club would have to a super-fan of the Movie universe. You probably can't, because it wouldn't. That's just an example, us Unicron Trilogy fanboys feel left out a lot too (but hey, Armada Starscream repaints without Mini-cons! Oh, well, I guess it works.)[/list]

I wish I could plaster this statement all over our boards. This is something I very much agree with. There are us movie fans, us Prime fans, FoC fans, Animated fans, UT, Beast wars, etc.. I wish those got some more love, cause they sure brought around some awesome and interesting things.

I think the reason some of those don't get much attention is because they just happened. What's the point of a Prime homage figure when the original ones are still at TJ Maxx's and such?

I've just been browsing the thread, but if Hasbro were to reboot the collector's club, why couldn't things just go back to the way they used to be, like pre-2010? How about two or three club exclusive figures that you could buy, like Astrotrain and Airrazor and the Seacons?
This way, we may be able to get an amalgamation of the ideas presented in this thread: there could be a vote amongst a list of candidates: here's ten figure ideas, the top three vote getters will be produced and available for purchase. We can make collector boxes for them, so there's some real nice packaging, and we can have a reasonable variety of obscure characters or fan favorites or even those Prime/FoC/under represented continuities figures, because that's what people are interested in. Maybe the 4th place vote finisher is brought back for the next years' voting.

This could help aliveate the fairly random nature of Funpubs' sub service. A G2 Starscream makes some kind of sense, as it completes the pair with G2 Club Ramjet, as well as fits in with that G2 Botcon set. Carzap, what the hell? Combiner Wars Counterpunch because . . . . .

This way, the fans could theoretically have a vote, there'd be a more fan friendly, or collector oriented, packaging, and a smaller number of figures could hopefully translate into better quality exclusives and a reduction in cost, as well as rein in this wild number per year that FunPub's been doing between the club and the sub service and Botcon.

Dagon wrote:I think the reason some of those don't get much attention is because they just happened. What's the point of a Prime homage figure when the original ones are still at TJ Maxx's and such?

I've just been browsing the thread, but if Hasbro were to reboot the collector's club, why couldn't things just go back to the way they used to be, like pre-2010? How about two or three club exclusive figures that you could buy, like Astrotrain and Airrazor and the Seacons?
This way, we may be able to get an amalgamation of the ideas presented in this thread: there could be a vote amongst a list of candidates: here's ten figure ideas, the top three vote getters will be produced and available for purchase. We can make collector boxes for them, so there's some real nice packaging, and we can have a reasonable variety of obscure characters or fan favorites or even those Prime/FoC/under represented continuities figures, because that's what people are interested in. Maybe the 4th place vote finisher is brought back for the next years' voting.

This could help aliveate the fairly random nature of Funpubs' sub service. A G2 Starscream makes some kind of sense, as it completes the pair with G2 Club Ramjet, as well as fits in with that G2 Botcon set. Carzap, what the hell? Combiner Wars Counterpunch because . . . . .

This way, the fans could theoretically have a vote, there'd be a more fan friendly, or collector oriented, packaging, and a smaller number of figures could hopefully translate into better quality exclusives and a reduction in cost, as well as rein in this wild number per year that FunPub's been doing between the club and the sub service and Botcon.

Quality over quantity

carytheone wrote:

Dagon wrote:I think the reason some of those don't get much attention is because they just happened. What's the point of a Prime homage figure when the original ones are still at TJ Maxx's and such?

I've just been browsing the thread, but if Hasbro were to reboot the collector's club, why couldn't things just go back to the way they used to be, like pre-2010? How about two or three club exclusive figures that you could buy, like Astrotrain and Airrazor and the Seacons?
This way, we may be able to get an amalgamation of the ideas presented in this thread: there could be a vote amongst a list of candidates: here's ten figure ideas, the top three vote getters will be produced and available for purchase. We can make collector boxes for them, so there's some real nice packaging, and we can have a reasonable variety of obscure characters or fan favorites or even those Prime/FoC/under represented continuities figures, because that's what people are interested in. Maybe the 4th place vote finisher is brought back for the next years' voting.

This could help aliveate the fairly random nature of Funpubs' sub service. A G2 Starscream makes some kind of sense, as it completes the pair with G2 Club Ramjet, as well as fits in with that G2 Botcon set. Carzap, what the hell? Combiner Wars Counterpunch because . . . . .

This way, the fans could theoretically have a vote, there'd be a more fan friendly, or collector oriented, packaging, and a smaller number of figures could hopefully translate into better quality exclusives and a reduction in cost, as well as rein in this wild number per year that FunPub's been doing between the club and the sub service and Botcon.

Quality over quantity

I'm not sure why that ever stopped being a thing, honestly. You're going to be paying $60-$80 per exclusive figure anyway, right? Why on earth would you not want the best product for that money? Give me fewer $80 toys, but make them worth the $80.

Dagon wrote:I'm not sure why that ever stopped being a thing, honestly. You're going to be paying $60-$80 per exclusive figure anyway, right? Why on earth would you not want the best product for that money? Give me fewer $80 toys, but make them worth the $80.

Well, it really depends on what you consider "quality" or "best".

I mean, other than poorly sculpted heads which they have NO excuse for.

But even Carzap, who I don't care for, I can see what they wanted to do there. It's for the G2 set and it's trying to bring an old idea into play in a new way. Same with their Double Pretenders.

I have no idea how well their subscription service worked out, but I can see the logic behind it. They're trying to serve as much of the fandom as they can - and the fandom does NOT have the same taste.

It's tough. I mean, I wouldn't mind seeing more G1 moulds in use, buuuuuuuut I wouldn't necessarily buy any of them if they weren't tapes. I'm disappointed that their ehobby relationship only yielded the one set.

So, in defence of quantity - many fans are bound to get something they're looking forward to.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:

Dagon wrote:I'm not sure why that ever stopped being a thing, honestly. You're going to be paying $60-$80 per exclusive figure anyway, right? Why on earth would you not want the best product for that money? Give me fewer $80 toys, but make them worth the $80.

Well, it really depends on what you consider "quality" or "best".

I mean, other than poorly sculpted heads which they have NO excuse for.

But even Carzap, who I don't care for, I can see what they wanted to do there. It's for the G2 set and it's trying to bring an old idea into play in a new way. Same with their Double Pretenders.

I have no idea how well their subscription service worked out, but I can see the logic behind it. They're trying to serve as much of the fandom as they can - and the fandom does NOT have the same taste.

It's tough. I mean, I wouldn't mind seeing more G1 moulds in use, buuuuuuuut I wouldn't necessarily buy any of them if they weren't tapes. I'm disappointed that their ehobby relationship only yielded the one set.

So, in defence of quantity - many fans are bound to get something they're looking forward to.

So why not have a vote, a fan vote, on potential figures, like I'd suggested?

I know what you're saying, and I agree with you about more people getting things they want, and about exploring new angles of old ideas. But with something like a fan vote, then the fans can get things they think are cool, or ideas that interest them, instead of things that a club thinks are cool or interesting.

Dagon wrote:

Gauntlet101010 wrote:

Dagon wrote:I'm not sure why that ever stopped being a thing, honestly. You're going to be paying $60-$80 per exclusive figure anyway, right? Why on earth would you not want the best product for that money? Give me fewer $80 toys, but make them worth the $80.

Well, it really depends on what you consider "quality" or "best".

I mean, other than poorly sculpted heads which they have NO excuse for.

But even Carzap, who I don't care for, I can see what they wanted to do there. It's for the G2 set and it's trying to bring an old idea into play in a new way. Same with their Double Pretenders.

I have no idea how well their subscription service worked out, but I can see the logic behind it. They're trying to serve as much of the fandom as they can - and the fandom does NOT have the same taste.

It's tough. I mean, I wouldn't mind seeing more G1 moulds in use, buuuuuuuut I wouldn't necessarily buy any of them if they weren't tapes. I'm disappointed that their ehobby relationship only yielded the one set.

So, in defence of quantity - many fans are bound to get something they're looking forward to.

So why not have a vote, a fan vote, on potential figures, like I'd suggested?

I know what you're saying, and I agree with you about more people getting things they want, and about exploring new angles of old ideas. But with something like a fan vote, then the fans can get things they think are cool, or ideas that interest them, instead of things that a club thinks are cool or interesting.

A plurality of votes might not serve a majority of the fandom. If something can win on the back of 10% of votes, where does that leave everyone else?

I've been a huge fan of the subscription service, or the fact that there's so much product out there in so many formats. Options are good, but like you all said, it should be done well. My problem with the Club hasn't been in the product execution so much as their lack of operational excellence.

With amount of figures they had going I think they could have pulled off a vote for at least one of their figures if it was done in a similar way to the Hasbro fan votes. For instance, they'd know the moulds they could use and, maybe, a notion of what they could turn it into.

I don't have any experience with their communication, aside from me not getting Nova Prime for free despite making the deadline and getting no communication. So ... I guess I agree on that point!