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WARNING: OPINIONS INCOMING I just posted this on another forum, and since i took the time to write it up I figured I might as well share it here as well. Here goes. When you were a child, what were you afraid of? The dark? The boogie man? Monsters under your bed? Of course you were, all children are. While your specific fear may have been different, you still feared something. It could be specific, it could be abstract, but it was there. It lurked in shadowy corners, behind shower curtains and under beds. Something was out there, something was after you. Why? What did it want? We didn't know, and it didn't matter. It wanted to "get" us, and that alone was enough to scare us all. Now, what does this have to do with the Slender Man, you may be wondering? EVERYTHING. First of all, what is the Slender Man? I'm sure you all know, but I'll go over the basics anyway. He is depicted as an unnaturally tall, unnaturally thin man in a jet-black suit. His arms are not normal arms, usually replaced by waving tendrils. And he doesn't have a face. This last detailed has become his most defining trait but is also one of his most overlooked, because there is a reason behind it that most people miss- but that's not really important now. He stalks children and kidnaps them, and has been known to prey on lost travellers in remote areas. The character first appeared in a series of photoshopped images made for a 'paranormal photoshops' thread. There were other impressive shops in the thread but the Slender Man quickly eclipsed them in popularity. What did these photographs depict him doing, that could be so shocking? Nothing. Nothing at all. He merely stood in the background while other things were happening in the foreground. Which is how it should be. See, this is what made the character so great originally- he didn't do anything, but he was always there. Always waiting, always watching. He was, through and through, the very embodiment of a child's fear. He was the boogieman, he was the monster under your bed. He was the thing that went bump in the night, the creature in the shadows waiting to 'get' you. His generic, nondescript appearance, utter lack of motivation, and general vagueness of the character made him essentially a blank slate onto which we could project our own fears and insecurities- and it was terrifying. Unfortunately, what was is not longer what is. So after the original 'shops, a few other people got in on the action making their own images with the character, and each one was better than the last. Unfortunately, as the library of images grew larger, more people started to notice, and a terrible thing happened- he grew a fandom. And nothing ruins a great story like a terrible fandom... You ever read fanfiction? It's usually terrible. There are some good fanfics out there, but in general fanfiction is poorly-written and fails to capture the spirit of the franchise on which it is based. Now imagine an entire franchise that consists of nothing but fanfiction... yeah, that's what we're dealing with here. The issue is, most people don't understand why the Slender Man is scary, so they try to make him scary, which actually works in reverse. They stick him in with insane cults and supernatural phenomena and other 'scary' stuff, and it only hinders him. Someone made a GAME about the character, which features him actively chasing you. Which is not how it's supposed to be. He's supposed to follow without chasing, staying in the background. If you're running from him, that's a problem, because you know were his is (behind you) and what his is doing (chasing you). Suddenly, it's not as scary. You know what the issue is and what to do to solve it (run). Not knowing where, when, what and how is much, much more frightening than anything any writer can come up with, because we will fill in those gaps with whatever we fear the most. The best part of the character was his vagueness, and that is slowly withering as his 'fans' continue to try to define his traits, motivation, abilities etc. We've now got a split between two extremes, those who take him way, way, way too seriously, and those who can't take him seriously at all anymore. The latter group has reduced what was once one of the scariest things on the internet to a laughingstock, a punchline at the end of an overused joke. Granted, some of the stuff is pretty hilarious, but it still makes me sad that this is what the Slender Man has become... though it's not as bad as the other group, who goes around stabbing their friends because they worship the character as some sort of god. There's nothing I or any of us can do except hope that the fandom dies and the character either is forgotten or returns to his previous state... Fandoms. Will they ever learn? Leave the storytelling to people who actually know what they are doing.

This is already being discussed on status updates, Skype, etc, but just to make it a bit more solid: http://www.bzpower.com/story.php?ID=6939 http://cache.lego.com/r/www/-/media/portal%20v2010/franchiseportal/bionicle/bionicle_210x227_portalfranchisecard_still.png

Ah yes... the competition demolishers. No really you guys stole everyone's motivation by setting the bar so high near the start. Anyway, decent Lilac time you got there Shadowblaze.

Hey all. So I finally got around to working on the Nebulon-B Frigate again that I started building in MLCad quite a while ago however I've decided to build it in LDD (Lego Digital Designer) instead. This way it will be a bit easier for me to make it in LDD. I imported the old model so all that progress is still there so I'll use that as a base to carry on with it. I've done a bit of work on it already but there's still quite a bit left to do. here's my progress so far.

I decided to put up my album soon enough*, but I am lacking of two important things for it to be uploaded: a graphic for the album, and a decent logo for my channel. I mean, just look at that c24 thing. It's horrifying. So, I am asking you to give me a hand with that, as my digital drawing skills are indescribably bad. If you are going to help me with this, you have to know a couple things: The album is most likely going to be called "The Grand Finale", as this whole album is an homage to LR2. I was thinking that the graphics should be technologic and abstract, but even a futuristic panorama could go, I guess. I am going to (finally!) change my artist name to Shadowblaze. I have always been known by that name, and I don't know why I shouldn't be called with that name even as an artist. For the logo, I don't believe that writing the name is a good idea, but an abstract and geometric drawing could work. Also, it should be in two formats: a detailed one (optional), and one in greyscale with white background. Take a look at the EDM District logos to better understand how that should be made. Everyone's efforts will be considered and appreciated, I just expect a bit of experience and professionality at drawing. If more than one people accept to do this, I will choose the pics that I think will be more fitting, or that I like better. And again, I apologize for the title. *: It's going to be for free. The stupid laws in this country make selling music on the internet next to impossible.

That's... Not the Mask of Light. We honestly have NO idea what this mask and the mask on the early displays are. I said a couple things on /r/bioniclelego (Yes, I frequent Reddit. Deal with it) concerning this new mask. While everyone basically agrees that the display mask was/is the Mask of Creation, I'm more convinced that this one is the Mask. The mask we saw in the displays was either a prototype mask depicting an early Mask of Creation, a fake all along (which I highly doubt t this point), or something to do with the Lord of the Skull Spiders. The latter point is the one I'm most convinced of now. ...Or this could all be LEGO trolling us. That mask does look like Vultraz with a crown that looks like Kini Nui.

The LEGO is strong with this one.... http://youtu.be/4qsWFFuYZYI

I've got some more progress done over the past few days so here is an update on what I've done. I've done the other side of the front section as well as started work on the very bottom part of the from section, I've also added more detail to the rear section. I'll probably do a bit more work on the rear section as well as the bottom of the front section next.

This is why games have artistic directors. They have a mindset for the game and artists pass things by the director to get their approval before anything is added to the game. Unfortunately this doesn't work so well for a community project unless the potential director is highly respected by the community and everyone involved is willing to take criticism and prepared to change their works to fit the vision of the final product. A bunch of that was mentioned in the first post. We'll have to decide if that's the best way to approach this.

There, have my definitive times. I'm too bad to beat either Aiden or Latias, so I don't think these times require any more updates. http://youtu.be/oBRufWOtbA0

I guess I'm a little late to this, but I'll lend my two cents. I'm in the "I'd like a LR mod, but modding is too tedious/restricted for a decent overhaul, hence RR" boat (the guy who named that vessel was subsequently crushed by landslides). While a LEGO Racers overhaul would be nice, changing the AI paths - which is perhaps the most integral part of the game, being as it is a racing game - at the moment is just too laborious for people to stay interested, I think. Whereas I can see much more interest and freedom in a Rock Raiders mod. Going with my vote for RR, I very much like the idea of the RRU Tower* and featuring RRU members as characters in it. To further this, I think it would be great if each level had a small team of RRU members to start with, and then generic workers can be teleported down later. This way we could both enhance the RRU members to be much better skilled than generic workers, and also the potential loss of a member would be much more impacting to the game. As for actual modding though, going from memory I think we have a few model editors, a few musicians, several coders and several texture modders. Whereas with LR there aren't many people who have done/are willing invest time in path modding, the main aspect of it. So... Yes, I'm up for this, let's draw up a design document, kick everyone up the plastic backside and get this done right! *On that subject, with regards to the level selection screen... Can we flip it by changing all the positions, so that you actually start with levels at the bottom and work your way up? EDIT: It just occurred to me that, regardless of what game we choose, there will always be a problem with texture modding in a community project: How do we deal with different texture artists coming along with their own styles and working together? I can see three solutions: 1) Mish-Mash: Just let everyone work on their own textures and slap it all together. 2) Grouped: Each texture artists works on a specific element - environment, buildings, entities, user interface, etc. 3) Combined: In the original Star Wars films, the star destroyers were physical models painted by artists. However, with so many ships a team was required, which meant that each individual would be painting slightly differently. To deal with this they each worked on a specific part, then moved somewhere else while someone else added to that part, etc. So for texture modding, perhaps one person adds the background of the texture, next someone adds basic shape, then details, and so on.

Another online toy shop has listed a ton of 2015 sets, including Bionicle sets consistent with previous info. http://shop.swisstoy.ch/index.php?cPath=75_255&&page=all http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=98215&st=2225#entry1983586

Aww screw it, i'm jumping on the hype train I still like 2001-2006 better, but it'll be fun to see where this goes, and what the new sets look like. (if the Hype train doesn't crash and burn of corse)