Have you got 3 days and 3 nights?  

 

Honestly? Boredom. I had some heart problems that forced me to quit my very physical graveyard shift job and move back in with my parents a couple of years ago, and moved back into a small town of only about 2k people where the median age is...54. There are two bars and seven churches, so the social scene...sucks. Most of the people in their twenties and thirties who still live here are either toothless meth heads or Duck Dynasty loving piece of shit hicks (or both). I've tried being outgoing here, but I...just don't fit, for lack of a better term and a desire to avoid taboo subjects. I went from being incredibly outgoing and basically using my apartment as a home for my computer and clothes while I went out, to spending most of my time indoors when I'm not out doing yard work for rich old people. And, you know, I miss my old life style, but being forced to calm down also forced me to get back in touch with hobbies that had fallen to the wayside, and that included Transformers. To be clear, the first thousand or so of my posts are mostly from when I was a teenager. I still very much miss being able to say, walk to a bookstore and browse and chat, and I'd cut off my own arm if it meant never having to come back to this shithole town again, but even if I'm able to leave, I'd still be back into being a Transformers nerd for sure. Ignore all that complicated reasoning, Transformers are fun!

 

back in 2000 when i started high school there was nothing in the way of transformers, i moved onto pokemon then dragon ball z, it took about 4 years after that for me to start seeing RID amarda and energon stuff at the same time, i picked up a few transformers, then transformers cybertron hit and i went crazy for transformers buying up everything i could see, now im nearing the end of the road of collecting, i will still dabbel in master piece toys, but for me power of the primes will leave me with 3 to 6 characters i want to get for my collection, mostly trottlebots to be honest.

im not going to lie im looking forward to the end of my collecting i have been doing it for so long its not funny, i know if i stoped right now i will be fine with it, but latter down the track i will regret not getting those last few bots, mps will keep me happy as i get no joy out of the main line anymore besides the characters, ive lost the hunt its all imports where i live to get whats needed to finish collecting, there is no longer a challange of any kinda transforming transformers, for me they use to be alt mode, robot, puzzle.

I admit i will possibly track down g2 transformers after the main line is done as thats what i grew up with and have found memories playing with

 

I stopped collecting once G2 stopped. I was 13 years old when Beast Wars aired and little ol' me thought Transformers was dead and gone. Between Beast Wars and 2007 Movie I bought only a handful of things over the years. I didn't start collecting until 2009, after ROTF. It started with me liking Ravage enough int he movie to want his toy. Then it just exploded from there.

 

Interesting.

 

I forgot to mention that the Commemortive G1 reissues brought me back some what.

 

I was in from as soon as they were first released in the UK, but stopped buying them in about 1989/1990 as the newer ones weren't really thrilling me. Lost track for quite a long time but when I did see more recent ones they just didn't interest me at all. Watched part of the first film and figured that was the end of it for me as I loathed the film aesthetic, but I slowly came back into the fold again towards the end of the run of More Than Meets The Eye after a friend kept urging me to read it.
Loved what I read and saw and then once I saw my first third party Megatron I was totally back on board. First one I bought since the late eighties was Apollyon, at the beginning of this year.

 

As a young Brit two things killed G1 for me. Action Masters and the battle with Unicron in the comic books. Action Masters because, ugh, why? Why the hell would anyone want a non transforming Transformer? If this is the way the line is heading, I'm out.
The comics because, ok Unicron has come and gone, both armies have been decimated and there is time for discussions of peace and... Wait, Grimlock is now an action master? Damn you Marvel! Don't try to force these sh*tty action Masters down my throat, pretenders we bad enough but these things are just steaming piles of

Ahem, sorry, young me was a touch more emotional than I. Anyway when I saw beast wars toys I was sightly tempted but by that time my passions had turned to beer and girls. Although at 15 I couldn't really get either.

I finished my education, moved to France and every now and then I'd pick up an old G1 toy I never had as a child. Then the MP line started. I picked up Optimus and starscream, I was blown away. Got into the Armada and Energon shows and would occasionally buy the odd figure. Then the MP reboot occured and I lost interest. I loved the size of MP01 and MP10 seemed again like Hasbro was "losing their way"

In 2012 I moved to America. Shortly afterwards TF Prime started up and that really drew me back in with clever Transformations and lovely sculpts that could strike a pose better than my MP prime could. The Datsun brothers also came out so I picked up KOs of them and they were good. However I couldn't stand having KOs so I bought the real deals later on.

I joined TFW2005 and learned so much, not just about the lastest toys but the history, the lineage, the Japanese series I had vaguely heard about. Made me realize how little I knew. Finding out about Takara (yup, it was that bad!) And Japanese sites that I could order from and get cheaper prices with shipping being pretty cheap if I grouped my purchases increased my spending power.

Now, 5 years in after a 22 year stretch of just picking up the odd figure I feel I will soon be heading back that way. I'll soon be moving, either to a house here in the USA or back home to Europe but in any case a reckoning has to come soon. As I look at the multiple representations of a character and say

One shall stand, one shall fall. Well, most likely go on eBay!

 

I left Transformers at the end of the G1 era. I had been much more attached to the brand than it deserved in it's later years. I looked at all the Micromasters, Pretenders, and Action Masters I had bought and felt extremely dissatisfied and disappointed. I got rid of that late era stuff, but kept my classic pre and post movie toys. I viewed G2 as sub-par reissues of characters I wasn't interested in with the addition of hideous paint jobs.

And I was pretty much out. I bought a few figures now and again when the franchise revived, but I wasn't really following the brand any longer.

Thrilling 30 Jetfire changed that. Around that time was when things started feeling much more about new toys of the classic characters I had an attachment to, and the quality of the toys met my sniff test. Thrilling 30 brought me back to look. Combiner Wars drew me in. Titans Return has me staying for a while. And I'm looking forward to Power of the Primes.

I'm about those classic characters from the pre-movie and immediate post movie era. I'm not interested in Bayformer toys at all. More than just a name on the package, I'm interested in toys that at least homage the classic ones. The current era of toys is a very good one for that kind of interest. When the line drifts to Beast Wars or commemorative versions of Bayformers and such, then I'll probably drift away again.

*Note: Bayformers here is just meant as a shorthand. I get the feeling the term usually has a negative connotation, but I'm not intending it as such here. All I'm saying is that I'm not interested in the modern movie designs. Yes, I dislike the Bay movies, but if you like them or the toys, I have no beef with you.

 

I've been buying out of habit up until Combiner Wars, at which point I realized what I really liked about Transformers in the first place and started selling to make room for all these new combiners and beasts!

PotP can't come soon enough!

 

Nice.

 

I more or less stopped collecting after Cybertron, only picking it back up after the G1 cartoon was put on Netflix, which led to me binge watching the entire series and feeling my love for Transformers rekindled. After I finished the series, I discovered MP10 and it brought me back into collecting.

 

I outgrew it as a kid in '88. No cartoon on the air was probably a big part of it and moved on to Ghostbusters and TMNT as my last toy obsessions as a kid. The first Bay movie was such a great nostalgia trip for me, but I hadn't bought a toy for myself since I was a kid. I just wasn't a toy guy. But then in the spring of '08 when my wife surprised me with a premium deluxe movie BB to cheer me up while I was going through a rough patch and I was hooked. Blown away by the engineering and articulation. I might've dropped out again as the successive movies got worse, but I got into G1 MPs in '13 and that's all she wrote! G1 Shoutfactory DVDs and IDW Classics comic collections keep the G1 flame burning bright.

 

I had transformers from RID 2001 to Cybertron. I started collecting again when the movie came out because some of the toys again. I stopped collecting the first year of college and gave away some figures. as of now I own is Titan masters brainstorm because that toy is really good.

 

Nice.

 

Stopped after G1 micromasters era and Marvel comics ended. Recently started into it again with combiner wars and masterpiece lines.

 

Quick but cool.Welcome to the boards!

 

I took a break when the cheap hollow plastic syndrome spread, KO and 3P companies with better quality than official products made me come back to the hobby.

I try to buy some official products, Titans Returns Deluxes are not bad at all, particularly newer waves but is difficult to buy toys from TLK because of their low quality. Also try to find some old official Transformers before the cheap hollow plastic syndrome era.

Have hope with the new Transformers Tribute line. It started pretty good with the Optimus Prime Evolution Set and the Movie Leader Optimus Prime repaint.

 

I got out because I was getting older and didn't really like the Pretenders / Micromasters (Though for some reason I didn't mind Action Masters)...Then while figuring out what to do with my newly employed self's disposable income I saw the first wave of G2 and it brought me right back.