You initiated by saying that they could improve paint budget by cutting back on parts.

 

But it IS your job to support YOUR claims.

That is non sequitur and ad hominem. You are addressing a previous question he asked as though it were a claim in an attempt to distract from his current request for proof.

You could have cut out a lot of bullshit and just said this. Or better yet, actually linked to it.

 

I never claimed to have a definitive answer, I asked a question regarding whether they could've done that.

 

^ Ninja! Although you did prevent me from accidentally double posting.

No, he asked a question. He did not make a claim:

 

Honestly I wouldn't be making a thing out of this, but archon does this in every thread where the subject of Hasbro's design decisions comes up, and always in defense of Hasbro doing less. Shit, Knock Out is my favorite Prime toy so far, and all I'm saying is that there's room for improvement.

 

Okay, I'll concede that point. I'll do what I can to dig up the info, but BotCon transcripts aren't exactly the best indexed of things on the 'net...

It's not that I'm necessarily happy when things don't turn out as well as they possibly could have, but I try to have a realistic understanding of why things are the way they are. I'm certainly not expecting them to go out of their way to produce perfection in the eyes of the fickle fanbase. That's an exercise in futility.

 

@Nefud: You seem to understand debates are about the pursuit of truth, not "winning." I like you.

 

I appreciate that you're willing to look that up. I'm still not clear on how "there's only X dollars for paint apps per wave" translates to "it's ok that they didn't give Knock Out a suitable number of paint apps". Between the missing purple/green on Soundwave, missing detail on Ratchet, missing pink on Arcee, etc., isn't there still a core issue of "the paint app budget needs to be a little bigger"?

I totally hear what you're saying, Archon, about how they only need to be "good enough for kids", but it seems a little sad that we're seeing a backslide from the days when Hasbro seemed strive for show-accuracy. Maybe they could've coordinated with the animation studio a bit better? Just spitballing...

 

My assertion is that Knockout, to be show-accurate, would require a great deal more paint apps than average.

His vehicle mode is pretty much covered in paint as it is. Painting his hubs and his radiator "gills" on top of that all is another 6 paint apps, which is a very significant number.

Personally, I just think you're asking for too much. If you total the number of paint apps per figure, you're not going to see much difference from anything we've seen in the franchise's history.

The division might be more pronounced here because the character designs are far more intricate and layered than they have been in the past, which the show designs manage to highlight with lots of colour detail and whatnot. The toys, meanwhile, don't get a 50% increase in paint apps to match, so we're going to see a lot of "broad strokes" usage of paint in order to at least passably represent the character in question.

Whether or not that was your intent, that came off as kind of hurtful. The only reason I drag myself into these debates in the first place is to set the facts straight. It's especially prevalent recently because of the recent furor over toy cancellations and price increases and whatnot. This place has gotten crazy over the last few months, and I'd like to think that bringing some understanding and logic to the proceedings would help calm things down.

So to be passed over on the notion that I'm "just trying to win" really doesn't sit well with me.

 

Maybe that's really my complaint then-- If doing it "right" (or "righter") isn't economically feasible, then I wish they had forgone all the two-tone red stuff (which isn't done well itself, but that's another issue) in favor of the yellow/gold highlights and white face, which would've made the color scheme pop a little more. As it is, it feels like a great toy doing an impression of a scab.

I think he was complaining about the board as a whole when it comes to discussing issues, not specifically calling you out.

Even if you're not trying to win, you're not accomplishing your stated goal of setting the "facts straight" unless you back it up with actual facts. If we all just repeat stuff we half-remember hearing at Botcon, then it basically turns into an echo chamber of unreliable nonsense. And if you want to stay in the realm of opinion, I think that's a good place to be (as you're obviously not dumb or anything), but tagging it as opinion (not fact) would be a better way to go.

 

I agree with this - I would have rather seen a plain red car with gold rims than what we got. Regardless of show accuracy. What's really funny is the toy actually has gold paint on it...just not on the rims.

That said, I am reminded that I need to buy some gold paint.

 

Perhaps the logic there being that, seeing as how his whole roof/windshield area needed to painted anyways, they prioritized the two-tone look over the wheels.

Especially since the wheels aren't prominent in robot mode, but the two-tone reds are.


Having trouble coming up Hasbro's statement on the paint budget thing. Now I'm having second thoughts on the original source, because last time I was reminded about that statement, it was framed as something that Hasbro had originally learned to do with GIJoe back in the 80's. People like Nevermore, or M Sipher at the Allspark at far better at tracking this sort of information than I am. For the most part, I'm probably parroting something I've learned from them.

So for the time being, I'm just down to the logical part of the argument, that integrating the paint budget with the development doesn't make much sense to me, when the molds are intended to be reused.

 

If it makes you feel any better I had typed up a paragraph about how after 1996's Beast Wars toys didn't look enough like the show, Hasbro put their foot down and made a real effort to ensure that Mainframe and the toy designers were in lock-step on the look of the transmetals. Then I had to delete that paragraph because fuck if I remember where I read that in the last 14 years. Maybe a Dave van Domelen review? Who knows!

 

I don't appreciate the mocking tone.

 

Actually, I was complaining about the human race as a whole and complimenting Nefud for knowing the basics of how debates actually work.

 

None intended! That literally happened, every word of it, during our discussion. I was really irked that I couldn't figure out where I read that....must've spent at least 10 minutes trying to track it down.

 

Ok what do you guys say we re-rail this mother? I really appreciate Knock Off's smirk. Also, while the car mode feels dinky, the bot mode is surprisingly satisfying in terms of size. Lastly, I haven't seen every episode of the show, and I'm not usually big into weapons-- does Knock Out use anything like the staff in the show?

 

My bad. I somehow read that the wrong way, and it made it sound like you wrote a letter to Hasbro, which was the impetus for them to demand greater toy accuracy for Beast Wars, but then you deleted the proof.

Err, yeah...

 

He has a couple times. It's a prod used for electricuting opponents.

 

Hahah whoops.

Any idea which ones by any chance? I'm customizing mine and would love to get it right.