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On 3/10/2018 at 12:33 AM, arnim zola said:

I don't, and doubt most anyone here expects any sort of incredible revelations about anything. Your job is separate from other departments, you've said you aren't even in the same office right? OK, so at the very least I expect that you might do what you often do which is provide interesting and useful insight into what you do know behind the scenes, neutrally, and without being 100% a dick.

I am only 50% Dick, on my mother's side. My dad's family is Jerkish, and came over from Jerky in the 1930s. 

Although we showed some Disney movie and FF characters at Toy Fair LAST year, we are currently only allowed to make game-specific characters and Disney characters with-game-specific looks. And Tron. That is looking like it MIGHT change, for AF and Minimates, but we'll see. Final Fantasy characters may be a tougher row to hoe, but again, we'll have to see. Square has their own toy line. 

Series 2 has three new characters, Sark, Soldier and Pete. Series 3 also has three new characters. So I would not say each wave has the same characters in it. And while there is some benefit to releasing multiple Mickeys, Soras, Goofys (Goofies?) and Donalds up front, tooling-wise (this is a tooling-intensive wave, so a few extra parts can double the number of tools needed, a significant investment) they are also the stars and the most famous characters.

The B&W variant 2-pack at Toys"R"Us and Space Paranoids 2-pack at comic shops are of course optional to collectors, being a very specific subsets, but they are all potentially strong sellers with fans of the classic Tron movie AND octogenarians who loved "Steambot WIllie" (or just traditional Disney fans, since those are cartoon-accurate).

Two Donalds and Mickeys at TRU and two Donalds at comic shops in Series 1 are perfectly manageable given our history of Marvel variants, and two Soras at TRU in Series 2 are not bad either. The three Goofuses are split up pretty evenly over the two waves and two locations. (Space Paranoids Sora will now come with the light cycle, replaced with Sark.)

I know eight characters across two waves does not seem like a lot, but I think the distinctive alt looks for the repeated characters will make for a nice grouped display, and I don't think this is a Mattel He-Man situation. 

But I do not know what the TRU situation is, so this may all be moot. Or half-moot.

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I think I get it. DST would have to get the license for each of those individual Disney properties if they wanted to produce stuff for them, which would probably be a hefty undertaking. The Timeless River packs are a way of having classic versions of a few characters. I am curious as to why Tron is good to go. Maybe DST had to pay for them, or maybe Disney let them have access to one movie at the start. 

I won't complain, Space Paranoids is the best world in KH2 by far. :D

Do we have a release ETA on these yet?

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Zach refresh my memory please, you say you showed off movie characters and FF characters but are currently limited to in game characters. Did the pics of the movie characters get shown? Which movies were mates shown for?

Also I would have figured you were only allowed to make KH mates with that license. What kind if situation allowed for you guys to make and show Disney movie mates without being allowed to make them? This isn't a situation I've ever heard of.

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10 hours ago, arnim zola said:

Zach refresh my memory please, you say you showed off movie characters and FF characters but are currently limited to in game characters. Did the pics of the movie characters get shown? Which movies were mates shown for?

Also I would have figured you were only allowed to make KH mates with that license. What kind if situation allowed for you guys to make and show Disney movie mates without being allowed to make them? This isn't a situation I've ever heard of.

Pretty sure I remember a Jafar being shown off, but I could be wrong. 

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I dont remember that at all, and I religiously follow the different cons for new toy reveals. I'm going to look for that, but from what I understand Jafar is in the games, the first one even so he shouldn't count towards Zach's comment.

Edit: 

After some research, I did find a pic of the Select prototypes for Jafar and Maleficent, as well as some characters mentioned that we havent seen yet. The lineup for the first wave of selects was supposed to be:

Maleficent/Mickey, Sora/Roxas, and Axel/Jafar

Swapping some out for army building characters is neat and there have been a lot of reviews where that was an exciting selling point, but eliminating two disney big bads is curious. ZAch, are these two at t he mercy of the ever changing list of characters that are flipping back and forth between available for use and not? And how does such an agreement work, in general terms. I would think the license entitles you to the characters falling under that license, if its a split license and Square is being themselves like usual I can understand a limited set of their characters, but with SO many disney characters in game one I dont understand why they would hold/withhold again and again.

It also makes it hard to fully get behind a line with such uncertainties. It's obvious from our discussions that I like variety of characters, and less costume variants at the expense of other characters (leaving tooling out of the equation for a minute). I support every line that has the possibility of longevity so we get the most out of it. Nightmare was concerning at first but swung around in a big way. I'm excited for all the characters shown here so far but with no antagonists really talked about except grunts I'm having Mass Effect deja vu. Whole first wave with one bad guy who never fights anyone. Little help?

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Anything more concrete on these? Luke still has them listed for April.

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May 30.

A character's presence in the game does not mean they are currently possible. That may change, but for now film accurate looks are not possible. Jafar, Maleficent.

This rule was a late revelation, and concepts were approved and prototypes made. Which is one reason we'd like to reverse it.

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DST did a really good job translating the KH2 version of the Light Cycle. Does he truly not come with any accessories? At least having a neon-colored Kingdom Key would go a long way, since any Keyblade equipped while in that world changes color to match the aesthetic. Sora looks good, though.

Still blown away that the first wave really drops in a week. I've been dying to have these in my hands for a year now. Any update on if the TRU set found a home?

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I posted a gallery of issues on our Facebook group. What am I supposed to do? Email customer service who didn't respond to my last inquiry going on since early April? And what would they do replace the whole wave? I bought 2 waves and had to Frankenstein the best pieces from each together.

The paint jobs were just like the TRU turtles where they couldn't stay on the sculpted lines to save their lives. It's like this was the stock made in bulk for Tru and the factory just tried to rush through it. If anyone finds a better painted wave out their I'll buy them but I need someone's eyes on them I can't buy anymore of these without seeing them.

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We keep getting told that sculpting is less expensive than printing. However, if painting those tiny sculpted pieces is going to be that challenging, DST is probably better off simplifying the sculpts and printing the details. If this is what passes QC I can only imagine what the reject pile looks like.

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On 6/6/2018 at 9:26 AM, arnim zola said:

I posted a gallery of issues on our Facebook group. What am I supposed to do? Email customer service who didn't respond to my last inquiry going on since early April? And what would they do replace the whole wave? I bought 2 waves and had to Frankenstein the best pieces from each together.

The paint jobs were just like the TRU turtles where they couldn't stay on the sculpted lines to save their lives. It's like this was the stock made in bulk for Tru and the factory just tried to rush through it. If anyone finds a better painted wave out their I'll buy them but I need someone's eyes on them I can't buy anymore of these without seeing them.

MEssage me with your e-mail address and I will find your APril request and push it through, or fill it myself. 

THen contact customer service about Kingdom HEarts. 

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