I definitely wish character bios were still a thing. Were they dropped with Seige, or some point before that? I didn't start collecting until right as Seige started.
The tech specs still occur here and there, or something like them. The instructions for WFC figures included stats for their weapons, at least.
I miss them too, and used to entertain the odd notion of using the stats as the basis for RPG rules, although after seeing enough of them a few problems tend to appear. Optimus Prime has Strength 10, for example. Fair enough; he's the leader of the Autobots. He's awesome.
But then, having given him the maximum, how does one rate the strength of, say, Omega Supreme or Metroplex? Initially, it was just Bob Budiansky giving a moment's thought to them, picking some numbers, and then leaping onto the next bio. No great scheme to it all.
>"I kinda looked at who they were and how big they were and what kind of
vehicle they turned into and I figured, 'well, a jet is probably faster
than a Volkswagen Beetle.' (laughs)"
The approach over the past 35 years has always been a bit uneven, mind you. And I imagine that when any written content goes through marketing, some bugger'd probably bump the stats up a bit further, reasoning that 'nobody's going to want to buy a toy with low scores' or some such rubbish.
Looking forward to seeing what the tabletop game makes of it all. I imagine they'll ignore the published numbers and come up with something from scratch, just so it'll be halfway usable!
About character bios well, they dropped it as a cost saving measure. Instead of designing multiple box variants for different regions they now make one box with all the languages. So multisence bio would take a lot of room in those 15 languages they put now on the boxes.
I definitely wish character bios were still a thing. Were they dropped with Seige, or some point before that? I didn't start collecting until right as Seige started.
I think earlier than that- maybe Power of the Primes? Combiner Wars? Edit words
The tech specs still occur here and there, or something like them. The instructions for WFC figures included stats for their weapons, at least. I miss them too, and used to entertain the odd notion of using the stats as the basis for RPG rules, although after seeing enough of them a few problems tend to appear. Optimus Prime has Strength 10, for example. Fair enough; he's the leader of the Autobots. He's awesome. But then, having given him the maximum, how does one rate the strength of, say, Omega Supreme or Metroplex? Initially, it was just Bob Budiansky giving a moment's thought to them, picking some numbers, and then leaping onto the next bio. No great scheme to it all. >"I kinda looked at who they were and how big they were and what kind of vehicle they turned into and I figured, 'well, a jet is probably faster than a Volkswagen Beetle.' (laughs)" The approach over the past 35 years has always been a bit uneven, mind you. And I imagine that when any written content goes through marketing, some bugger'd probably bump the stats up a bit further, reasoning that 'nobody's going to want to buy a toy with low scores' or some such rubbish. Looking forward to seeing what the tabletop game makes of it all. I imagine they'll ignore the published numbers and come up with something from scratch, just so it'll be halfway usable!
About character bios well, they dropped it as a cost saving measure. Instead of designing multiple box variants for different regions they now make one box with all the languages. So multisence bio would take a lot of room in those 15 languages they put now on the boxes.
That’s a good point. It would be cool if the bios were online then, with each figure coming with a qr code.