Botcon TFCC Panel Coverage

Sorry it is late, here is what was brought up at the two TFCC panels yesterday.

- Transtech comic is not building up to a big payoff, but not a Crisis on Infinite Cybertrons.
- The theme of the story is a political conflict rather than a military one - Optimus and Megatron on that world are like leaders of political parties.
- Prose stories - Two more are planned for the Transtech Universe - Withered Hope, featuring the E Hobby Gobots, who are Bugbite's crew, and I Lowtech, a story with Nick Roche providing the illustrations.
- They will then be moving on to Shattered Glass Prose, and where possible, we are getting some elements of the AFD jokes. The first is Dungeons and Dinobots, a sample picture was shown with Grimlock saying "Quite the precarious predicament, wot?". There will be two more strips in addition to this one and a Club Exclusive Shatteredverse toy.
- Speaking of Shattered Glass, you too can own a Shattered Glass Nemesis Prime! Brian joked that the Classics Ultra Magnus would fit the bill, and also be the happiest buy you know.
- The Nightbeat comic is currently in limbo, it is planned as a pack in with the club toy. A Nightbeat profile like the Cyrotek one is also coming soon.
- There is also some sort of fiction planned for the Seacons, but they are currently uncertain on what.

- It is highly unlikely that the staff will combine the cons, simply because A) we're Transformers fans not Joe fans, and there are Joe fans who are not Transformers fans, so it would be counterproductive because then for most people it would not feel like "their" con. B) It would be twice the work for the staff.
- The possibility of adding souvenir figures to the pre-reg forms to cut down on the time queueing was raised - Fun Publications will consider it, contact them to voice your support if you like this idea.
- Once again the question of online registration was raised, the staff explained that hand-written faxed forms means a person looks at it and can interpret, unlike on an electronic form where there is no such leeway. Also, the costs of setup were raised, especially since the structure changes for every convention that they do.
- Energon packages (entry to all events like a Primus package but without toys) may be kept. Again, contact Fun Publications to voice your opinion on if they should stay or not.
- About this year's figures - it was a gamble, they did not expect it to sell like it did. They tried to get the number of sets raised, but it was too late. In future they are working to take registration before they have to give final numbers, to better gauge the numbers. However, it is a good thing when the sets sell out, because it means they have done their job and will be able to make more sets in future. In particular, if demand reached the 4-5000 range, it would help with Takara Tomy, who are reluctant to do the runs. They will also not limit sales of sets to individuals because it hurts their ability to sell out, they don't want sets over. However at the same time, they want everyone to be able to buy the sets at the original price not Ebay prices.
- The reason that non-attendee sets got cut first is that the majority of sales were for attending sets - hence catering to the demand.
- On the subject of Takara Tomy, they apparently hiked the price on the production of the exclusives.
- Next year's set may be another new idea for Transformers - the idea of Zombie Transformers was batted around by the staff.
- Blurr got a remolded head, because Brian Savage did not like the original head. In retrospect he noted that if he was redoing the head, he should really have looked for a different toy for the body.
- Nightbeat was chosen for the club exclusive over Elita-1 because it was thought that he would sell better, and also because Airazor did not sell as well as they had hoped.
- Talking about Piranacon, the team suggested that if people were in favour of it they might go back and redo other older unreleased toys, for example, the Generation 2 Stuntacons.

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Originally Posted by Lance Halberd Sol Fury can be likened to a German clock. A very exact, complex, and tightly-wound precision instrument that occasionally goes cuckoo.

I will kill for the G2 stunticons as exclusives!

gen 2 stunticons could be fun...but probably not something i'd be diehard over...

and i'm excited for more exclusives set in universes we already have...i appreciate the figures that fit in well with other botcon sets alot...

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You know, it's nice to know that there are so many people on the fans' side in Hasbro. I don't care what some people say, but I think that Hasbro does one hell of a lot of catering to its Transformers fans.

But I digress. Good news all-around, and big LOL's at Shattered Glass Nemesis Prime.

The G2 Stunticons seeing mass release would be a bit unfair to the collectors who shelled out tens of thousands of dollars for them.

Some of the schemes aren't well-suited for release today- notably Breakdown's, and to a lesser extent, Motormaster's.

A modified G2 Stunticon set that was not identical to the unreleased G2 would be an intriguing idea, however.

Well, hopefully they release Elita-One at some point...

As far as potentially releasing G2 Stunticons or something similar... please don't. Frankly, those colors were worse than the Seacons they're releasing.

Shattered Glass Nemesis prime? But hen he will be a good Prime clone from a bad Prime clone that is clone to a good Prime that has a bad guy clone that is bad...

GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!*brain explodes*

I've heard some people argue that the Stunticon molds no longer exist. Is this evidence to the contrary, or is it more likely that FP hasn't investigated the possibility yet, and is just "thinking out loud," so to speak?

Much as I'd love to see the G2 Stunticons released, I agree that it would really be unfair to the collectors like Transfan2 who spent huge sums on them and spent years hunting for all the pieces. I'd rather see Predaking.

Other than that, everything else is awesome news. I look forward to "Dungeons and Dinobots," and can't wait to see what the Shatteredverse Club Exclusive figure is going to be. Some good info on Botcon set stuff, too, hopefully next year's set will be as cool as this years'.

I want the G2 Stunticons! I hope this happens.

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