your ideal scale for TF toys

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Rhymus
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your ideal scale for TF toys

Post by Rhymus »

Imagine that every Transformers product currently in existence (plus many similar/related products, including but not limited to knockoffs, 3rd party TFs, Diaclones, Microman/Microchange, Macross/Robotechs, Tonka GoBots, and any prototypes or toys Hasbro/TakaraTomy have produced but not yet released) suddenly evaporated. (Imagine that the owners of any of these evaporated items received adequate financial compensation for their lost property, although not necessarily enough to cover emotional distress.)

Now imagine that Hasbro and TakaraTomy give YOU, and you alone, the following choices regarding ALL Transformers toys from now on:

Would you rather the new TF toys all be to scale with one another in alternate mode (like Alternators are all 1:24 scale), or would you rather have all the TF toys be about the same size regardless of their alternate modes (like Micromasters, where a sports car is about the same size as a stealth bomber, and a motorcycle is about the same size as a space shuttle)?

If the toys were all the same scale in alternate mode, what scale would you want them to be? (Please include an example of a TF toy currently in existence who's about the scale you have in mind.) Are there any characters whose alternate modes you would want to change, solely to keep their robot modes more to scale with their original depictions? (For example, if G1 Optimus Prime and G1 Huffer both kept their G1 alternate modes, the two would wind up being about the same size, so maybe you would make Huffer a pickup truck instead. G1 Starscream and G1 Air Raid would also be the same size as each other if they kept their G1 vehicle modes, and both of them would be bigger than Optimus Prime. Meanwhile, G1 Megatron, G1 Soundwave, G1 Blaster, and G1 Perceptor could all fit side by side in robot mode inside Air Raid's cockpit, or Huffer's, unless you change someone's altmode.) What would you suggest for combiners (consider G1 Bruticus's components Blast Off and Swindle, who are supposedly about the same size so they can be interchangeable with each other as well as other Scramble City TFs like Groove and Afterburner) and characters with multiple alternate modes like the Triple Changers?

If the toys were all about the same size, about how big would you want them to be?

Regardless of size/scale, how complex would you want the toys to be?

(In answering any of the above questions, you may also want to consider your Transformers budget and how the price is likely to increase as the toys get bigger and/or more complex.)
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Post by Time Traveller »

I'm going for everyone being about 1:32nd scale (about the size of a Super Gobot for cars, making them deluxe. Tanks and soforth would be Ultras, big trucks voyagers, etc.)
I think this would force some creative choices of alt modes, personalities, strengths and weaknesses. No more resting on the laurels with rehashes of the same ideas for everything! Megatron, Soundwave, and Perceptor could come up with some useful alt modes, like Perceptor's exploration truck mode in Generations.
Furthermore, let's be honest. There haven't been any really respectable combiners since RiD's Rail Racer. So, if we have to give up Bruticus because Blastoff's shuttle mode is too huge (his last rendition used a helicopter anyway [and super rare and expensive, so most people couldn't get one anyway]).
And finally, this would level the sides a little bit as far as alt mode capability. No more huge masses of jets roaming around the base, unless you build the biggest, most obvious base evar, and supply enough energon to fuel all these huge guys. Therefore, the tradeoff for an armed alt mode would be size (and implicitly, quantity supportable). So, if you stick to cars and trucks, you can have a fairly populous army, and if you want endlessly recolored F-15 Eagles, you better have a bigger-than-USS-Flagg base for them to hang out at.
Let's talk complexity.
I think there is some confusion about complexity lately. Cybertronian Bumblebee from Generations is not complex. He is fidgety and fragile. I feel like I'm going to break the little hooks and tabs every time, and I can't get the pieces to quite line up right. That is not complexity.
HTFD Breacher is complex. Despite being a scout class, he has a more-than-3-step transformation, with a relatively clean, kibble-free robot mode design. And i'm really looking forward to my 1:32 Voyager class Breacher, even if I have to pay $50 for it.
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GPrime2011
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Post by GPrime2011 »

May be going off subject slighlty but.

I would like to see figures scaled to match others of the same alternate modes etc and thus be the same size in robot. Especially when they're rivals and stuff.

ie: Scorpnok the same size as Fortress Maximus.

The Stunticons being scaled up to the size of Optimus Prime and the Autobot Cars. That would make was awesome combined robot.

Imagine them Airelbots being the same size as the Decepticon jets, obviously Silverbolt will be alot larger.....

just a few thoughts. :)
I can swear I was conned as a child....cos no matter how hard I try, I just CAN NOT get my entire Decepticon army into the back of Astrotrain....
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Post by Jose »

I like what Gobots did, scale wise. All the Machine Robo series fit a format regardless of the object they switch into, hence the robot mode is all consistant, like GI Joe figures. For playability, I think it's very comfortable, as it allows for having standard size accesories.

That said, I would like to have a standard size. I'm fine with the Autobot car format, which would be similar to a Super Gobot (as Ben said). I could go smaller, but I think that intermediate size is good enough to have nice detail and not giving trouble to the hands of an adult to work them.

Finally, I don't like the massive robots. They give me a problem with room.
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Rhymus
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Post by Rhymus »

Not off topic at all, GPrime2011--although i wouldn't care to see the pricetag on your Fortress Maximus or Scorponok. (On the other hand, you could store the rest of your TF collection inside them, right?)
Time Traveller wrote:Cybertronian Bumblebee from Generations is not complex. He is fidgety and fragile.
Well, the G1 character Bumblebee was kind of fidgety and fragile, wasn't he? ;-)
Time Traveller wrote:let's be honest. There haven't been any really respectable combiners since RiD's Rail Racer. So, if we have to give up Bruticus because Blastoff's shuttle mode is too huge (his last rendition used a helicopter anyway [and super rare and expensive, so most people couldn't get one anyway]).
Quite coincidentally, i was looking up something unrelated, and look what i found!

TT raised a good point that i hadn't really been thinking about: the influence on fiction. Thank you for bringing that up. (i kind of like Perceptor as either an electron microscope, or permanently small, like Browning or Scalpel. Before the 2007 movie came out, when plans were such that fans could reasonably expect something based on G1, there was much debate over Soundwave; i got the idea that he should be, as in G1, boxy in both modes and with a significantly less military disguise mode than the other Decepticons, only this time around make him an electronics store delivery truck--Best Buy even has almost the right colors--with Frenzy as a TV [since the shape is about the same as in G1, and television is a popular scapegoat for glamorizing and inspiring the kind of random street violence Frenzy loves], Rumble as an amp [since nonfiction amps are capable of using sound waves to cause vibrations in the environment, so Cybertronian technology could "amp" up those effects to seismic proportions], and Laserbeak and Ravage as computers [since so much espionage and sabotage is done via hacking these days].)

But i digress. Even though i am the one who asked the questions at the start of this thread, i find myself surprised by my answers: i think i'd want the fiction to keep everyone's alternate modes to scale with one another, and no radical size-changing (just about as much "parts compression" as the toys), but i'd prefer the toys all be about the same size (except for characters who combine, like the Constructicons or Headmasters or Slamdance, and maybe characters like Soundwave and Blaster being to scale with their minions).

(Oh, shoot--i didn't make room for exceptions in the question, did i? Okay, i guess Laserbeak is the same size as Blaster. However, i am going to insist that, for example, Zarak be to scale with Scorponok, on the grounds that the Zarak toy is an accessory to the Scorponok one, rather than a distinct figure. And i guess combiners are going to have to be more like Tonka GoBots' Puzzler than G1 Menasor.)

As much as i like the idea of the toys being to scale with each other, i think i prefer to have them about the same size so that fans like me can choose which toys to buy based on how much we like the toy and/or the character, instead of having the different price points interfere with the decision-making process.

i also like the idea of the toys being small--not only to save on costs and storage space (like Jose mentioned) but most importantly for portability (thinking back to when i was little, and occasionally my friends and i might bring TFs to school or over to each other's houses)--but i also want them large enough to be... slightly complex. i'm not sure how to describe this, but i don't need my TFs to be really complex, as long as the way they transform is interesting, and varied from one figure to the next. And i want at least decent poseability in robot mode, and integrated "kibble"--visible, recognizable indicators of the alternate mode while in robot mode, not just dangling off of it but as a meaningful part of the robot mode (like G1 Prowl's chest and shins) with perhaps just a few concessions to ornamentation (like G1 Prowl's "wings").

i like the idea of Spy Changers being compatible with Matchbox and Hot Wheels playsets, although the slightly larger Legends figures i've seen do better in terms of proportions, poseability, and varied transformation schemes. Maybe something the size of a Spy Changer, slightly more complex than Legends?
One shall stand; one shall fall; and the one who stands shall help the one who falls to stand once again.
--Rhymus (also known as STARS Commando 539, also known as transit)
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Post by LD2062 »

Cost of course is going to be the determining factor in how toys are made.

Which sadly does rule against my preferences. I really prefer complex figures who don't all transform the same way. But just designing new and complex transformations would have to be terribly expensive. Let alone manufacturing them.

I think deluxe scale is a good size. Big enough for good detailing and complexity. Reasonable cost and small enough to display a lot of them on a shelf.


It drives me crazy when they just magically change the figures size like in the G1 series. It would be interested in seeing someone do a series that paid strict attention to actual figure size. It might be much more original if they actually had to figure out how to work with such radically different size characters. (more likely though they just go simple and pick the same size alternate modes for everyone)
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