If they make that Cybertron into Beast Wars set I'll buy two!

 

They could put Golden Age of Cybertron Primus in a box, charge the same price as last year, and probably sell the set out. I'm sure they'd like to see that for a change.

 

I'd like to see some Mini-bots and Cassettes made from the last two series of basics. Such as...

- Warpath out of Scattorshot
- Beachcomber out of Hardtop
- Brawn out of Strongarm (like the proposed OTFCC one)
- Steeljaw out of Battle Ravage
- Ramhorn out of Backstop
- Raindance out of Sky Blast
- Grand Slam out of Kickback
- Huffer (or similar name) out of Armorhide
- Wheelie out of Ransack
- Seaspray out of Short Round (too new but there's next year)

- Ravage (in G1 colors) out of Battle Ravage
- Laserbeak out of Divebomb
- Buzzsaw out of Divebomb
- Overkill out of Cruellock
- Slugfest out of Undermine
- Ratbat out of BW (bat) Optimus Primal
- Beastbox out of BW TM2 Optimus Minor
- Squawktalk out of Divebomb (or Airazor)

Obviously not all of these could be used, but a few would be nice.

I'd also like to see the Cyb Downshift made where his green was yellow and the rest of the black was the same. Don't care too much about the name, just would like it cause I had a '71 Roadrunner in those colors once.

 

Things that would be cool (of various degrees of likely-ness):

Beachcomber (repaint Hardtop)
Thundercracker/Skywarp/Sunstorm/Generi-con (repaint Voyager Starscream, or Energon Starscream)
BW Megatron (remold Cyb. Scourge)
BW Silverbolt (repaint Cyb. Snarl)
Repaints/Remolds of some of the Energon limb-bots would be cool, especially the jets.

 

The fact that most of the $9 attendees were treated like dirt last year, and had no access to several parts of the convention or the dinner, etc? There were quite a number of complaints about it at the time, and I don't think any one who paid the $9 admission fee was very happy with the way they were treated.

If that's the case, then the answer is surely to charge a more reasonable price for entry to the convention without the toys, not to charge non-attendees for a convention that they're not going to. I'd also point out that even in your example, the $23 difference is about equivalent to the meal. So yeah, make that open to people who didn't buy the toys for an additional $23, and you've got a much fairer system for everyone that doesn't make people buy things they don't want.

Why should non-attendees be forced to suppliment your convention experience?

Phazer

 

I freakin' LOVE this idea.

 

I'm not going to the convention, and I hate not being able to get awesome TF toys, but even with that I think Convention Exclusive toys should not be available AT ANY PRICE to people who don't go.

It doesn't matter if there's money to be made. The idea is that these toys are something neat and special for those who go to the show. That is the whole reason they exist and that's who the Con folks should focus on. Period.

If you can't go and want them badly enough then you buy them second hand and pay what it costs.


Getting slightly more back on topic, I too would LOVE Cybertronian forms for some of the classic BW cast. That would rock.  

 

I'd like to see Cybertron Starscream (Voyager size) repainted into:

Sunstorm
Thundercracker
Skywarp

And R.I.D. X-Brawn repainted and retooled into:

Firestar

 

To be frank, I don't think there should be convention toys period - exclusivity is a bad thing, and a fan club should be all about trying to help it's members get every single damned thing they want, not trying to hide it away from them in a form of heavily-geographically-biased fanboy elitism.

I'm willing to accept however, that the convention needs the toys to make money. And that is the sole purpose of the toys, not mementos as you claim (lets face it, if it wasn’t Hasbro are a sufficiently large pain in the ass to deal with the whole concept of exclusive toys would have been abandoned long ago). And if they're there to make money, they need to be easily available to anyone who wants to buy them at prices those people are going to want to pay. That is how you make money - money that can be reinvested in making a better convention experience for those who go, rather than pandering to those who can in a way derisory to those who can't.

So I still have them, and not people who went to the convention, but ebay scalpers have made the profit instead of the convention (leading to poorer conventions in future)? That's Glen Hallit style business sense (like the OTFCC non-attendee package being more expensive than just buying the things from BBTS).

Phazer

 

Oooh we came full circle almost a year to the day  

Non-attendee prices suck, thats the long and short of it. And if you don't live in the USA, they suck even more, which amounts to a lot of suck. Phazer sums up everything else I have to say on the matter very succinctly so I will leave it at that  

 

There I totally disagree with you. Convention toys are FUN. Heck they're one of the most really fun things about anticipating and going to the Con. Not that the Con itself isn't a lot of fun, but we're a toy based fandom, so getting a new cool toy is an inherently exciting and exillerating thing and totally belongs as part of the convention experience.

You sound like you're being a stick in the mud, just because you can't go. Because you can't be a part of that fun then no one else should be able to either?

That's just silly. A fan club exists to get together and celebrate and discuss something we all love, not simply to facilitate fans being uber-competists.

And "heavily-geographically biased fanboy elitism"? lol Please. I'm sorry you live in the UK, but it's not discrimination OR elitism that the bulk of the fandom and the convention organizers happen to live in the US. Outside of Japan Transformers is a Hasbro US based line. It's a bummer, but it's not "hiding" anything from you, nor are you "entitled" in any way to easy access to everything Transformers based. It's a bummer, but it's not elitism or hiding things from you. And again just because you don't have access to a toy that means no one should?

That's untrue on a number of fronts. 1) The convention hasn't "made money" for the vast majority of its existance. If they made money last year it'd be one of the first times. 2) The practice of the convention exclusives started way back before the con was anywhere near the size it is now, when it was little more than a modest fan gathering in a hotel and the purpose of the exclusives then as now was primarily as, yes, momentos. Certainly the con has grown much and become much more comercial since those days, but that still remains IMO a momento of the con, which is the whole justification to limiting access as much as possible to those who cannot go. They're something special meant for those who DO go.

 

I dissagree with you, but only slightly. The exclusives aren't just a memento...they are intended to entice people, that were otherwise too far away to even consider it, to make the trip to the convention. There's no way I would have gone to as many Botcon's as I have if it wasn't for the exclusives. Heck, this was one of the few years I went to more than 1 panel (Of course the fact that many were going on before the dealer room openned helped with that.). If not for the exclusives I would have continued to get my toys online and not travelled cross country every year (much less internationally for the overseas fans).

I do think the convention exclusives should be exactly that....exclusives for people who went to the convention (Hence the name   ). But I also think we should have a good selection of CLUB STORE exclusives (Leftover convention figures don't count IMHO, nor do extras of the bonus toy) for the club members.

 

Didn't know that. It sucks.

I couldn't agree more, but last year FP made such a big deal about walk-in price being so low that I don't think we'll see a change to it in the near future.

A-la-carte pricing?! Blasphemy!  

(Just in case it's not clear to you by now: I agree with you. I prefer a-la-carte pricing as well, in fact I had decided not to go to another convention dinner after OTFCC'04. I also want a cheaper non-attendee package because I want the toys but I'm not sure I'll be able to attend this year)

Because it's MY CONVENTION and it's MINE ONLY and EVERYBODY has to do and say as I order! THIS I COMMAND!  

Seriously: where did I say or imply that? If anything, I've only said that I do not agree with FP's pricing, but that given their current pricing structure I don't think it's a good idea, IMHO, to have a non-attendee package that's more than $27 cheaper.

-airfox

 

Man, this thread has been

 

So people bitch, as usual, about con prices and exclusives as if it's somehow unfair and lets a few lord it over everyone else who can't go.

Sorry if this offends upfront here, but Boo freakin Hoo. This is just about how EVERY con goes all over the world. From San Diego Comic Con to Super Festival in Tokyo. They all are expensive to attend and most have incentives for attending cause if they didn't, most wouldn't go. How many of you cried that you weren't able to go to one of the Japanese Botcons? And on the flipside of that same coin, how many were happy that a few dealers got some extra exclusives to sell to those who wanted them over here.

Let me expand on that last point as it irks me as a dealer to hear some of the complaints I've been reading as of late. To anyone who cannot, but would like to attend a show, the offer of the exclusives in a non-atendee package is a very nice offer that most cons do not do. To complain about it the price of it when it doesn't have to be offered is just silly. Why should they offer it cheap? And if they did, what would be the incentive to attend the show to those who go for the toys? Talk about killing a show. To those who live over seas, I truly am sorry to hear that Hasbro just doesn't want your money. But it's hardly fair to slap the hand of generosity that offers you the exclusives without having to spend the money for airfare and hotel. (like those who do go to the shows.)

And to give grief to those who sell the exclusives of any show online is just uncalled for. You don't have to like having to pay an inflated price for a toy just cause you couldn't go to the show, but there is no good reason to bitch about those who do pay and pick up a few extras and offer them to those who couldn't go. Again, you don't have to buy them.

I missed San Diego last year and was more than happy to pay $15.00 to another dealer who picked up extras of the FREE Skywarps and offered them to the rest of us. That dealer preformed a community service and made more than a few fans happy. It's the same with the Toys from Botcon. And ya wanna know something, you can disagree and not buy them from E-bay if you don't want to, but to call someone a scalper and bitch about someone you think is taking advantage of fans who couldn't go is just dispicable to me. It's not their fault you couldn't go and they are doing you a favor by giving you another chance to pick up something that missed out on by not going.

I, personally, would love for things to be a simple as they were back durring the first two Botcons, however, the problem with that is those shows wouldn't be able to handel the amount of people who attend them today. So the show continues to change and grow.

Again, I'm sorry if this offends some of you, and I'm not calling anyone out specificly, but this is how I feel about the whole deal and wanted to toss my point of view out with everyone else's.

 

 

Anywho, on topic...for what I'd like to see, I'm operating on the following assumptions:
(a) No toys from lines that are currently running (Energon, Alternators, Star Wars TFs).
(b) Limited remolding.
(c) Only one toy above a Mega.

So, since we had a largely Autobot-centric set last year, this year I'd focus more on the Decepticons...

Main Package

Decepticons ->
Galvatron - Smaller, TRU, Energon Megatron repainted with the unreleased colours (green, black, etc). No remolding. 'Tank' accessory is left out in exchange for a silver and gold version of E-Starscream's sword (and also to save money for remolding other toys).
Cyclonus - E-Slugslinger repaint. Remolded slightly to improve stability and an altered head.
Scourge - E-Sharkticon repaint. No remolding, but comes with a pair of silver and gold Cruellock pistols.
Alpha Sweep - E-Skyblast repaint using some colours from the 'Scourge' colour scheme. No remolding and the Energon spear will be left out.

Autobots ->
Grimlock - Transmetal Megatron repaint with remolded head to match G1 Grimlock and fists converted to standard peg size. Includes a translucent red Cruellock blade.
Swoop - Transmetal Terrorsaur repaint. Slight remolding to the head and wingtips.
Snarl - BWII Thrustol repaint. No remolding.

Attendee Exclusive
Omega Sweep - E-Skyblast repaint with inverted colour scheme from Alpha Sweep.

 

Decent idea Scantron  

*Edit*

Was gonna correct you on the statement "since we had a largely Autobot-centric set last year" But after some thought you are right.The Decepticon count of the set counting Flamewar is 4.While the Autobot count counting Ratchet is 5