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> I can assure you that you *can* collect a full set of these cards. It just
> requires patience, and a lot of money and/or hard trading.
Eric,
I also love collecting all these things. I enjoyed when I saw LEGO coming
out with disks, then wheels and now masks. I spent a *lot* of money on the
disks, then I had them complete one day. A little later, even more special
disks came out in new colours (along with new Slizers) and sonn after that,
I picked up my first pack of wheels. Then I became crazy of the wheels and
so I tried to get all of these too: I failed! It's *impossible* to have all
of these wheels as LEGO never produced all. Believe me, they didn't! Let me
explain: There are 128 'usual' wheels and I'm nearly complete on these (I'm
sure the ones I am missing are available, I just didn't get them yet).
However, TLC also decided to release a limited number of golden wheels
exclusively for Germany and within Germany exclusive to ToysRus and within
ToysRus exclusively available when purchasing TWO RoboRider Sets (per
wheel!). That makes you ending up with 32 (!!!) Roborider Sets although
there are only six different ones! *But* it's even more confusing: The
golden wheels made available at each ToysRus store were not even randomly
assorted! That's why each unique shop only had a short number of different
wheels in stock (~4 different ones). You think that's it? Read on...
BTW, these sets are:
http://guide.lugnet.com/set/?q=xxxx1x&v=a
I contacted TLC about the golden wheels and they told me that they *never*
produced all 16 wheel shapes in golden, instead only 10 of these ran into
the production!!! However, they were *not able* to send me all these 10
different wheels. SO, in fact, although I am willing to spend US$20 (or
heck, I don't know how much!) and I also tried trading hard, I still don't
have all the 10 golden wheels that (according to LEGO consumer service) were
ever produced. That's not simply strange, that's ridiculous!
Anyway, I was able to get all the disks and nearly all the wheels, but for
the masks it's too crazy! It's obvious that TLC has only produced 48
different masks and has not shipped all the other combinations! That's
extremely annoying as you'll *never* be complete and I hate that feeling. It
feels like having been really really leg-pulled!!!
And what makes me even more upset is that fact that NOONE at TLC is willing
to answer the questions I do have regarding the masks! I tried contacting
the consumer service via Phone and Email but didn't get any answers either
way and I don'T think anyone reading the .lego.direct newsgroup will reply
to that subject - *although* TLC makes such a huge "tohuwabohu" about the
Bionicles, the Bionicle music, software, upcoming sets etc... . Can it
really be that besides all that marketing blowing nobody is able to simply
explain me what has been packed inside the masks #8530 ? If I knew that the
so far unseen masks have certainly been produced but only at around 1:100
[fictitious number] accoring to the others I would keep spending money as
I'd be willing to pay more for the extremely rare masks. However, obviously,
not one single person on earth is knowing what's going on with these masks.
And to make it even more confusing, TLC has announced at various places that
there will be even more new shapes and colours and special masks later in
2001 but yet there is no complete list or anything that showes you what's
the goal!
Looking at the pokémon collection stuff, you know that there are ~150 (a lot
more by now) monsters to collect and so you can find out what's missing.
However, TLC is not able to give you detailed answers about these masks and
I don't think any person within the Company has a plan how many masks will
actually make it to the production. That's shameful!
> There's nothing uneducated about it. If you enjoy it, you enjoy it. If you
> don't, you don't.
Again, I enjoy collecting and I know that it means spending lots of money
and trading hard. I enjoy that too (I kinda enjoy wasting money for double
masks meanwhile), but as LEGO has decided to enter this collecting area,
they should also adopt some of the rules that are custom for these trading
things:
- correctly announcing what's going to be released and when.
- giving the consumer at least a chance (maybe a tiny if they want to) to
get all the stuff that is shown on the package.
- having someone at their consumer hotline being informed about these products!
@ TLC: Once again, I ask you to *compare* what you are showing on your website:
http://www.lego.com/eng/bionicle/kanohi.asp
what you do show on the bag of each mask bag:
http://www.brickmaster.de/images/bio_masks2_temp.jpg
and what I was able to pick up with 70+ bags of masks:
http://www.brickmaster.de/images/bio_masks_list.jpg
I am really badly dissapointed about that! What's that for a marketing
strategy that shows you plenty of things and later it turns out that these
things were not even produced and you've been ripped off and spent all your
money for that non-existing stuff!
I remember in 1999 when I recieved my first batch of disks and was a little
sad to find out that they were not randomly assorted at all (as mentioned
before, the 7pip ones are extremely rare). However, spending more and more
money on these disks allowed you to get all the rare stuff as well, you had
to be a little lucky though. Looking at the mask statistic for so far, I
seriously doubt that anyone will ever be able to own all the masks there
are, no matter how much money you are willing to spend on them.
And last but not least [shit!] - let's release that info too:
I have been to the Toy Fair and although there was a large slab showing the
'complete' [accoring to the promoters] list of all masks, they had to leave
a few blanks on that slab too were masks were missing! Of course none of the
'real' retailers has noticed the missing masks, but me [as a fan] noticed
the blanks and wrong colour replacements! And even more interesting was the
reaction of the promoter when I confroted him with rumors of upcoming golden
masks: He started to stutter and showed me the trans-yellow Kanohi-Kaukau
(the only trans yellow mask btw) and said: "ah - it must be that one here,
of course we only have prototypes of the masks so far as they are not yet
released". Funny though, the fair was in february and I picked up my first
mask bag a few days before tha fair started. So, how can they sell a product
of which only prototypes were produced so far? Anyway, I simply said: "Oh, I
thought there would be six golden masks, one for each TOA. Why has TLC
decided to release only that one as golden version?" - "Oh, I don't think
the kids will ever notice that detail!"
I better stop this posting here now. The more I write, the more I feel rotten!
If you want to, you may keep checking my regular updated *.jpg formatted
trade lists:
http://www.brickmaster.de/images/bio_disks_list.jpg
http://www.brickmaster.de/images/bio_wheels_list.jpg
http://www.brickmaster.de/images/bio_masks_list.jpg
... maybe one day I will be able to add a tan mask or maybe even a golden
one (just dreaming...)
Bye (for now), Christian --- xTIAN.
--------------------------------------------------
Lugnet Member #479 -- The World is full of AFOLs !
mail: xtian@brickmaster.de web: www.brickmaster.de
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