Yes, RID was great. The figures were awesome. The Predacons weren't my favorite, but the Autobots were awesome!!! I also have thought that RID had a lot of influence on the Bayverse formers. For instance, RID Megatron reminds me a lot of the NBE 1 Megatron from the first film. And RID gave us some of the first "humanoid" looking bots that transformed into vehicles. While I liked Armada, it seemed a step down from RID and their realistic looking vehicle modes. Plus, we got a Scourge!!!

 

 

RiD had some of the best figures out of any line, and most still can not be touched. Optimus Prime, Megatron, Sky-Byte, are at the top of my list of best figures.

 

And Hasbro was not pressured to make the Transformation to be easier after RiD, it was Hasbro thinking they knew what people wanted and failed miserably again. Hence why the minicons have since mainly disappeared and we are not forced to buy them with a larger bot.

 

 

Sky byte was a re designed release of transmetal cyershark, lke a lot of the RID line he was just a figure reused from an older series.

 

And the car trio to this day still annoy the hell outta me with their uber non symetrical looks. Prowl was OK, but X Brawn and Sideburn just looked ghey IMO

 

out of the 13 Car robots new molds. I'll rate fireconvoy,godmagnus,Gigatron & JRX were all awesome toy molds. I honestly didn't care for nor like the 4 construction bots nor the three deluxe car bros molds.

 

As far as repaints went in the CR/Rid line. both hasbro & takara did awesome jobs.

 

Takara gets major points for their high glossy fire convoy toy. Hasbro gets points for their awesome Cosco repaints of Rid ultra magnus in those dark grey & dark blue colors. and that rid optimus that was red but replaced the yellow high lights with black.

RiD had some of the best figures out of any line, and most still can not be touched. Optimus Prime, Megatron, Sky-Byte, are at the top of my list of best figures.

 

And Hasbro was not pressured to make the Transformation to be easier after RiD, it was Hasbro thinking they knew what people wanted and failed miserably again. Hence why the minicons have since mainly disappeared and we are not forced to buy them with a larger bot.

 

you say that but if you were into PCC, you were still buying mini-cons. And if you're into Arms Microns, guess what, you get to BUILD mini-cons. They're not as dead as you'd like them to be.

 

Microns are different from the minicons, as the minicon from Armada took away from the larger figure if you didn't use them. Also they got in the way. There are no minicons with the PCC's either That Hasbro being stupid and retroing every small bot into a minicon, Which I disagree with. Headmasters, Targetmasters, Cassettes, are not minicons. The Microns from the Arms Micron line are not minicons but Targetmasters. So yes the minicon is dead and just a back of the room side note

 

The only thing i agree with you are how Headmasters, Targetmasters, and Cassettes are not minicons. Not all the Microns turn into guns. Some of them turn into melee weapons. Would you also consider these guys Targetmasters even though they don't shoot at all?? i wouldn't. There were Minicons that turned into projectile weapons and melee weapons back in the Armada day.... The Minicons packed with PCC figures had the wonderful Minicon port just like all of the Minicons back from Armada. So if wanted to use them with my Armada toys, i could. How about all those TM BW figures that had Minicons/ports added to them and thrown into the Armada line? This Minicons didn't add anything to those figures. Last i checked, Micron was the Takara equivalent for Minicon so i'm going to have to disagree with you that minicons are still around. They do work as targetmasters but since, they're not humans in suits, i'm not going to called them Targetmasters with a capital T.

 

The only thing i agree with you are how Headmasters, Targetmasters, and Cassettes are not minicons. Not all the Microns turn into guns. Some of them turn into melee weapons. Would you also consider these guys Targetmasters even though they don't shoot at all?? i wouldn't. There were Minicons that turned into projectile weapons and melee weapons back in the Armada day.... The Minicons packed with PCC figures had the wonderful Minicon port just like all of the Minicons back from Armada. So if wanted to use them with my Armada toys, i could. How about all those TM BW figures that had Minicons/ports added to them and thrown into the Armada line? This Minicons didn't add anything to those figures. Last i checked, Micron was the Takara equivalent for Minicon so i'm going to have to disagree with you that minicons are still around. They do work as targetmasters but since, they're not humans in suits, i'm not going to called them Targetmasters with a capital T.

 

Minicons that turn into vehicles or animals that connect to a larger bot is a minicon. Melee weapons can be considered as Weaponmasters :P

The combiners that would turn into sabers are minicons. because of the vehicle mode. The PCC are not minicons because their main form is a weapon except for Unidertow, his can be considered a minicon because he also transforms into a vehicle. What happened to the BW figures were stupid and took away from the Beast Wars figures. Micron may be the equivalent od minicon, but Micron sounds way better then minicon, and is a better generalized word. Plus Arms Micron is not the same as Micron Legends. and none of the microns for Prime take away from the figures themselves. And I have no problem with you not calling these new Targetmasters, Targetmasters because they are not like the old human or Nebulan in a suit. To each their own on this, that is how I see it.

RiD had some of the best figures out of any line, and most still can not be touched. Optimus Prime, Megatron, Sky-Byte, are at the top of my list of best figures.

 

And Hasbro was not pressured to make the Transformation to be easier after RiD, it was Hasbro thinking they knew what people wanted and failed miserably again. Hence why the minicons have since mainly disappeared and we are not forced to buy them with a larger bot.

 

you say that but if you were into PCC, you were still buying mini-cons. And if you're into Arms Microns, guess what, you get to BUILD mini-cons. They're not as dead as you'd like them to be.

 

Microns are different from the minicons, as the minicon from Armada took away from the larger figure if you didn't use them. Also they got in the way. There are no minicons with the PCC's either That Hasbro being stupid and retroing every small bot into a minicon, Which I disagree with. Headmasters, Targetmasters, Cassettes, are not minicons. The Microns from the Arms Micron line are not minicons but Targetmasters. So yes the minicon is dead and just a back of the room side note

 

The only thing i agree with you are how Headmasters, Targetmasters, and Cassettes are not minicons. Not all the Microns turn into guns. Some of them turn into melee weapons. Would you also consider these guys Targetmasters even though they don't shoot at all?? i wouldn't. There were Minicons that turned into projectile weapons and melee weapons back in the Armada day.... The Minicons packed with PCC figures had the wonderful Minicon port just like all of the Minicons back from Armada. So if wanted to use them with my Armada toys, i could. How about all those TM BW figures that had Minicons/ports added to them and thrown into the Armada line? This Minicons didn't add anything to those figures. Last i checked, Micron was the Takara equivalent for Minicon so i'm going to have to disagree with you that minicons are still around. They do work as targetmasters but since, they're not humans in suits, i'm not going to called them Targetmasters with a capital T.

 

 

 

The only thing i agree with you are how Headmasters, Targetmasters, and Cassettes are not minicons. Not all the Microns turn into guns. Some of them turn into melee weapons. Would you also consider these guys Targetmasters even though they don't shoot at all?? i wouldn't. There were Minicons that turned into projectile weapons and melee weapons back in the Armada day.... The Minicons packed with PCC figures had the wonderful Minicon port just like all of the Minicons back from Armada. So if wanted to use them with my Armada toys, i could. How about all those TM BW figures that had Minicons/ports added to them and thrown into the Armada line? This Minicons didn't add anything to those figures. Last i checked, Micron was the Takara equivalent for Minicon so i'm going to have to disagree with you that minicons are still around. They do work as targetmasters but since, they're not humans in suits, i'm not going to called them Targetmasters with a capital T.

 

Minicons that turn into vehicles or animals that connect to a larger bot is a minicon. Melee weapons can be considered as Weaponmasters :P

The combiners that would turn into sabers are minicons. because of the vehicle mode. The PCC are not minicons because their main form is a weapon except for Unidertow, his can be considered a minicon because he also transforms into a vehicle. What happened to the BW figures were stupid and took away from the Beast Wars figures. Micron may be the equivalent od minicon, but Micron sounds way better then minicon, and is a better generalized word. Plus Arms Micron is not the same as Micron Legends. and none of the microns for Prime take away from the figures themselves. And I have no problem with you not calling these new Targetmasters, Targetmasters because they are not like the old human or Nebulan in a suit. To each their own on this, that is how I see it.

 

my fan opinion below on this matter:

 

Takara's headmasters,targetmasters,brainmasters & breastforce were not humans/nebulans in suits,they were tiny robotic beings.

 

I view the 1980's Masters,cassette bots,AEC minicons,PCC Minicons & Takara Prime Microns as all the same thing. with the Transformers their constantly evolving their technology. every TF toy line is in a different alternate universe.

I've almost quit TF forums a few times.

 

It seems to happen like clock work. Things are really cool, then al of a sudden a certain style of member joins and just SPAMS the threads with what is often really unimportant crap that you then have to sift through to find threads you actually want to read.

 

There used to be some computer game orientated thing on here called CVG, that spammed the shit outta the site every week or so and you'd have 3 PAGES of crap to get through to look at stuff you actually wanted to see.But there's also members that just generally dont have a turn of button when it comes to posting topics too, and they annoy me like hell too

I hear that dude. It sometimes seems with some folks that they've never had a stray thought that they didn't start a thread about.

I think with Armada it was a failed attempt from Hasbro to try and combine more g1 design characteristics but without the severe lack of articulation that g1 had. Obviously the minicons were a bit of a mess with some figures and did hinder things, but they integrated really well with others. All in all though, it wasn't really that different from most other lines. Had some good, some bad, and some ugly.

IMO the thing that made Armada different from previous lines was the over-dominance of gimmicks that hampered with engineering. Energon suffered from this too, and it got better with Cybertron (but some toys still suffered from being too gimmicky). Yes, there were plenty of examples of too gimmicky TF toys before Armada, such as the G1 Battlechargers, Firecons, G2 Power Masters, Retrax and so on - but on the whole, these toys were the exception, not the rule. In Armada we had a LOT of Transformers being loaded with gimmicks to the point where it just got silly -- and soon engineering took a back seat to these gimmicks. A good toy should have a gimmick that _compliments_ the engineering without compromising it. That's what they managed to do with some of the Cybertron toys, like Downshift. If you absolutely cannot stand the Cyber Planet Key gimmick on that toy, you can throw the key away and never play with it... but Downshift is still an excellent Transformers action figure without it.

 

But look at say Armada Hot Shot -- the robot mode, particularly the upper part, is compromised because of the Mini-Con gimmick. This gave rise to the infamous "WhY mY ShOuLdErS hUrT?" derisive fan term that soon became the unofficial catchphrase for toys that had engineering compromised by gimmicks.

 

The ultimate problem with Armada -- and many post-Armada toys continue to suffer from this -- is when they try to base a toy around a gimmick, rather than designing a gimmick to suit a toy. Electronic sound gimmicks are notoriously bad as they leave this chunky block that cannot be separated... the toy has to be designed around it. There are a few toys that manage to succeed as good toys despite having sound gimmicks, such as Animated Leader Megatron, but many many others that suffer because of it, such as TF1 and ROTF Leader Megatrons. <shudder> And even with the better sound gimmicked toys, I can tell you they could've been better if they didn't have the sound gimmick holding them back. People just prefer GOOD toys, regardless of fancy gimmicks. Good toys don't need fancy gimmicks. Look at a lot of the Car Robot figures (new moulds), except for Fire Convoy and God Magnus, they didn't have sound gimmicks. Look at Classicsverse (CHUGUR) - most of them are great toys... no fancy gimmicks. And those that do tend to cop more criticism than those which don't (e.g. Universe Silverbolt and Boobglide).

 

The Armada toys would've been significantly better if they weren't so gimmicky. Look at Universe Hot Shot and compare him with Armada Hot Shot -- the former is what the latter would have been if they didn't bother with the gimmick. I'm not putting gimmicks down per se, but they work better when used/designed cleverly instead of just bunging them into almost every toy.

 

Every line is a little too this, or too much of that and always not g1 enough. But hey, that's just how it's always been and it's not going to change. The fact when some people don't like a particular line, or lines, and has to take it personally and make sure everyone and their neighbors know it every single chance they get to vent it. That's another one of the things that might not have made me quit collecting, but it has almost made me quit all message boards. Simply put, I'm referring to the times where people simply keep flaming everything in sight with nothing but a bunch of petty gripes.

People are passionate - and that's a good thing. :) Public criticism is a mixed bag. You do get a lot of nonsensical rubbish, but you do occasionally get valid criticisms which warrant paying attention to. You look at newspaper editors; they receive tonnes of letters, a lot of which would be crap. But if they occasionally find one that's good, they'll print it to promote discussion/thought about news issues; and good editors will select letters presenting valid arguments from different POVs to give readers a balance of different opinions if they can. So in a way, the editorial team acts as a filter, removing all the rubbish comments that people wouldn't want to read.

 

The problem with the internet is that there is _NO_ such filter! You read _everything_ that people post! And back in the really early days of online Transfandom (1990s), things weren't so bad because it was mostly the more dedicated fans who never gave up on Transformers who were online. The worst we got was the vocal "Trukk Not Munky!" minority, but they soon died off as they either came to accept Beast Wars, or left the fandom. Yes, there were a few annoying discussions that got posted... but ATT soon compiled a list of "disallowed discussion topics", like "FIRRIB." Simply because everybody was sick to death about it and there was nothing to gain from newbies coming along and trying to start another debate over FIRRIB or whether or not Brawn died in TFTM or whether or not Unicron could beat the Death Star and other pointless crap that nobody gave a hoot about. But back then, such posts were few and far between. Nowadays they're becoming more commonplace with people starting discussions like, "Let's make a list of all predominantly purple Autobot toys!" (-_-) So I understand your frustration and having to sift through all the noise in search of the occasional post that you actually find worth reading (and then wondering if that was worth all the time/effort you spent searching :P)

 

Yes, RID was great. The figures were awesome. The Predacons weren't my favorite, but the Autobots were awesome!!! I also have thought that RID had a lot of influence on the Bayverse formers. For instance, RID Megatron reminds me a lot of the NBE 1 Megatron from the first film. And RID gave us some of the first "humanoid" looking bots that transformed into vehicles. While I liked Armada, it seemed a step down from RID and their realistic looking vehicle modes. Plus, we got a Scourge!!!

The Autobots had more new moulds. The only new moulded Pred was Gigatron (Megatron), but he suffered from being a 6-changer, then 10-changer. Jack of all trades, master of none. I don't think CR/RiD had much influence on Bayverse. Remember that the movie franchise is unlike most other TF franchises -- normally Transformers are engineered as toys first, then media designs are created later; but with the movies, the screen characters were created first by Dreamworks/Paramount - Hasbro had some input - but it was mostly Bay's babies. Then it was up to HasTak to design product based on those designs. And designing Transformers as screen characters is complete counter-intuitive to designing them as toys, because animators design Transformers as robots first, and then work out how to make them transform into the vehicles, whereas toy designers take vehicles and work out how to transform them into robots.

 

Transformers have had humanoid robot modes since the very beginning of G1. Unless you're referring to more anthropomorphic looking and fully articulated robot modes that transform into vehicles. In that case, they weren't really the first -- the first came from late G2 with toys like the Laser Rods, Combat Heroes and definitely the Cyber Jets. Then later Machine Wars with their Basic figures (which were abandoned G2 concepts/designs). But the engineering was improved over the course of Beast Wars, and Takara did take that engineering and incorporate it with licensed vehicle modes for Car Robot, and that was damn cool. :)

 

They probably didn't influence Bayverse, but you know what they did inspire? Binaltech (and thus Alternators). :) The Takara engineers have admitted this. :D

 

The only thing i agree with you are how Headmasters, Targetmasters, and Cassettes are not minicons. Not all the Microns turn into guns. Some of them turn into melee weapons. Would you also consider these guys Targetmasters even though they don't shoot at all?? i wouldn't. There were Minicons that turned into projectile weapons and melee weapons back in the Armada day.... The Minicons packed with PCC figures had the wonderful Minicon port just like all of the Minicons back from Armada. So if wanted to use them with my Armada toys, i could. How about all those TM BW figures that had Minicons/ports added to them and thrown into the Armada line? This Minicons didn't add anything to those figures. Last i checked, Micron was the Takara equivalent for Minicon so i'm going to have to disagree with you that minicons are still around. They do work as targetmasters but since, they're not humans in suits, i'm not going to called them Targetmasters with a capital T.

The original toy concept of Mini-Cons is effectively dead.

 

The Mini-Cons were my favourite part of Armada. These were small Micromaster-sized Transformers; most were jolly good TF toys in their own right, but who could plug onto larger Transformers and interact with the gimmicks. Many of the gimmicks were sucky, but the concept itself was kinda cool. But the Mini-Cons themselves are fully autonomously playable little action figures; and most Mini-Cons were sold separately without larger Autobots or Decepticons to interact with. You were encouraged to buy an Autobot or Decepticon for the Mini-Con to interact with, but it wasn't absolutely essential. They could all transform into little vehicles and do their thing. Even Over-Run who was Optimus Prime's Mini-Con could still be a jet and fly about without Optimus Prime. He wasn't only a gun.

 

The PCC Mini-Cons are NOTHING of the sort. They are, as you pointed out, more like Nebulans -- who are really, from a toy POV, transformable accessories for Transformers. For example, if you have Pointblank but you lost Peacemaker... you can still play with Pointblank as a Transformer action figure. If you lost Pointblank but kept Peacemaker. Umm... you have a little dude who transforms into a gun but without its owner to wield it! TEH SUCK!! In this regard the PCC Mini-Cons and Arms Microns are a far cry from preceding Mini-Cons/Microns. They're NOT independent action figures, they're transformable accessories.

 

So Mini-Cons, as independent action figures that could link with larger toys, that original Mini-Con concept is no more. So in that regard I would agree with the statement that "Mini-Cons are dead." They survive in name only (and are but a shadow of their original namesakes).

 

my fan opinion below on this matter:

 

Takara's headmasters,targetmasters,brainmasters & breastforce were not humans/nebulans in suits,they were tiny robotic beings.

Erm... we're talking about the toys rather than the canon. (<_<) Doesn't matter if these little things are humans, nebulans, robots or fungi... they're still basically transformable accessories, whereas the original Mini-Cons actually had autonomous play value.

 

I view the 1980's Masters,cassette bots,AEC minicons,PCC Minicons & Takara Prime Microns as all the same thing. with the Transformers their constantly evolving their technology. every TF toy line is in a different alternate universe.

Evolution implies improvement or progress as one moves toward the future. i.e. things should be getting better and more awesome. I don't know about you, but I see PCC Mini-Cons and Arms Microns as an evolutionary step backward. (-_-)

 

^Arms Micron Fracas. A complete piece of crap if you don't have Scourge -- which nobody had when the toy first came out!! Just as well it was a store freebie.

The ultimate problem with Armada -- and many post-Armada toys continue to suffer from this -- is when they try to base a toy around a gimmick, rather than designing a gimmick to suit a toy.

 

Exactly

The ultimate problem with Armada -- and many post-Armada toys continue to suffer from this -- is when they try to base a toy around a gimmick, rather than designing a gimmick to suit a toy.

 

Exactly

 

Nope,

there are plenty of lines that are based around gimmicks, the problem with transformers is the stupid gimmicks. Armada and Energon had two of the most stupid gimmicks. Minicons and 2 robot combining where the problems. Armada Cyclonus and Burr were horrible until the Cybertron Line where the minicon was replaced with the Planet ket. Again a stupid gimmick but it never interfered with the actual robot. Mech tech was fine until DOTM where Hasbro just had to give the figures over sized weapons, and Prime with their stupid ass weapons that do not even lock into place are all gimmicks that were bad choices. Look at Overload for Armada he works just fine with his headmaster.Red Alert works better without a minicon. Blurr and Cyclonus just looked stupid with theirs along with the rest of them. Energon's 2 into 1 combining could have worked if they had done it like Landcross, or the Duocons. But But Hasbro decided to make them block and funny looking probably as a joke. Cause they knew people would still gobble them up. So the problem is not making a toy around a gimmick. it is the gimmick that is the problem, and Hasbro should just stop with them.

Wherein your arguement supports that the toy should be made first, then a gimmick should work around it. Having a gimmick you want for all figures, then trying to design the toy to work with said gimmick, compromises the overall design. The Armada Cyclonus design in and of itself was great, but the Minicon link looked dumb in robot mode. Don't get me started on Armada Sideswipe. His gimmick completely ruined him.

Wherein your arguement supports that the toy should be made first, then a gimmick should work around it. Having a gimmick you want for all figures, then trying to design the toy to work with said gimmick, compromises the overall design. The Armada Cyclonus design in and of itself was great, but the Minicon link looked dumb in robot mode. Don't get me started on Armada Sideswipe. His gimmick completely ruined him.

 

Mech Tech was the gimmick for the first movie line and the toys were all designed around it. and it worked. plain and simple

Cyclonus sucked until Cybertron were they remolded Buzzsaw so you can use a Cyberplanet key which is not as stupid as the minicon.

Sideswipe was ruined from before the first one was even made in plastic, because of his design.

 

Again it is not having a gimmick and designing the toys around it. it is the actual design of the toys. Energon forgot about Landcross and RiD, Armada was just stupid and actually had nothing to do with its original premise. Armada was the step back after the greatness of RiD, and it was not until Cybertron that Transformers were more decent then crap, where in Armada and Energon, the vast majority were crap because of their design.

G1 Sky Lynx proves that two robots can combine and look good, so does RiD Optimus with Ultra Magnus. So where the fat dumbass looking no point Armada and Energon combining came from. Is anyones guess