darkSpyro

i found this on the official skylanders game facebook page and it looks like a bit of good news for us ...

"Skylanders Game: Giants arrives Fall 2012. And yes, all figures from Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure come to life in Skylanders Giants. They will remember their powers and upgrades. Also, characters from Skylanders Spyro’s adventure can level up to 15 when played in Skylanders Giants!"

... on this basis it looks like the new giants characters and reposes of existing characters will also max out at level 15. new reposed characters do however get new upgrades that existing characters won't be able to unlock.

they say existing characters will remember powers and upgrades so money earned will probably be remembered too.

an interview confirming details on wired http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2...bility-upgrades

... expect more details on giants at the e3 expo june 5-7

Good to hear this finally confirmed. Maybe now all the paranoia about it will die down, and we can start believing Toys for Bob may have actually had a plan for this franchise like rational people. Thanks for the news!

That's actually pretty cool news. Thanks for the update.

edited first post with link to an interview confirming

That sounds great. They'd be foolish to not give the reposes something new else only the obsessive fans or people new to the franchise would buy them... but this is a much more sensible and satisfying way of doing it. I may even pick up a few reposes once we find out what new stuff they have.

The reposes is just a bad idea from a consumer point of view. This game is already far more expensive than any other game out there. Not only do you have the 50-60 bucks for the game and portal, but then you had 37 in game characters to purchase at around 8 dollars a piece. That comes to an astonishing $346 dollars for ONE game. That nearly 7 times as much as any other single game. Even if you just consider having one of each element to access all the areas of the game, you are still spending nearly 100 dollars, the price of 2 games.

Whatever abilities the reposes have should have just been included with the original figures. We've already paid for at least 2 games worth and in a lot of cases far more than that.

Release the giants. Release the new characters, allow original characters to upgrade and add new abilities to them. That's what they should have done. But their greed is apparent.


Domer

Yay! Stump Smash can surpass 600 health now!!

Domer, while I agree with you in theory they wouldn't sell many of the new Skylanders if the old ones worked the same... I'd go as far as saying it would be incredibly stupid from a marketing standpoint to not give the reposes at least one new feature. Once they decided to make reposes the only thing they could do was give them a new ability.

You can object to the existance of the reposes but you can't really object to them having new abilities. They couldn't not do it.

Quote: Deandria

Domer, while I agree with you in theory they wouldn't sell many of the new Skylanders if the old ones worked the same... I'd go as far as saying it would be incredibly stupid from a marketing standpoint to not give the reposes at least one new feature. Once they decided to make reposes the only thing they could do was give them a new ability.

You can object to the existance of the reposes but you can't really object to them having new abilities. They couldn't not do it.

Right.... which is why the reposes were a dumb idea... I suspect, even with the new abilities that Activision will discover the reposes will be terrible sellers.

Domer

They'll sell well enough... not eveyone will want them but you're underestimating "Gotta Buy 'em All" fever... people like stuff... people like NEW stuff... people will buy a new car just because it has a number plate that is 6 months newer than their old one...

Logically, you'd think they'd go both ways.

Make three different "skill paths" for each Skylander. The ones from Series 1 can follow paths A and B, like they currently do. The ones from Series 2 can follow paths B and C. That way people starting fresh to the series would want to get both the original AND the new figures.

Imagine, for example, if the Stealth Elf repose COULDN'T choose the Pook Blade Saint path. Unless the new "Path C" that the repose got instead of that was something absolutely phenomenal, there'd definitely still be a reason to own and use the original pose!

Quote: Peridot Weapon

Logically, you'd think they'd go both ways.

Make three different "skill paths" for each Skylander. The ones from Series 1 can follow paths A and B, like they currently do. The ones from Series 2 can follow paths B and C. That way people starting fresh to the series would want to get both the original AND the new figures.

Imagine, for example, if the Stealth Elf repose COULDN'T choose the Pook Blade Saint path. Unless the new "Path C" that the repose got instead of that was something absolutely phenomenal, there'd definitely still be a reason to own and use the original pose!

That would be genius! From a marketing point-of-view anyway... They'd sell the old ones and the new ones... nobody would be totally happy but fewer people would be annoyed.

Quote: henryszuch

Oh and shouldn't this be in the SKYLANDER GIANTS section?

... only if i didn't want people to read it

Quote: t7gga

Quote: henryszuch

Oh and shouldn't this be in the SKYLANDER GIANTS section?

... only if i didn't want people to read it

Also: though this is about Giants, it is also about how the current generation of Skylanders from Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure will interact with the new game.

^ which was actually the real reason i posted in this section

I figured that but this is the internet so you have to spell it out incase there are idiots reading

Well we were all worried the old skylanders were not going to level past ten which ment that they would be weaker. Now we find out that they can level past ten(5 extra levels only? Kinda pointless) but cant get the new upgrades. So there still weaker. This dosnt solve anything.
I think it all boils down to that most of us dont want to buy every skylander again. We spend all this time and money collecting and we dont want to do it again.

Quote: Hazard335

We spend all this time and money collecting and we dont want to do it again.

This, of course, is countered by the fact that the creators WANT you to do it again, because they happen to like money.

It's a precarious balancing act they'll need to hit. Making it so you can use the old characters, have it feel like it was worth your while to invest in them, but still feel that you'd be able to get more out of the next game if you picked up "just one or two" of the new poses.

And they really hope that "one or two" would turn into another 32 before you realized it.


Really, though, when you get right down to it, unless they change the system, Level 15 just means you get a few more hit points. Even Stump Smash will only gain another 190 HP out of the deal, and Trigger Happy will benefit from a meager +100.

Now...did they think ahead in Spyro's Adventure so that an original figure leveled up to 15 in Giants can go back and play at level 15 in the first game?

So excited!!!! Can't wait for giants and this whole new level thing is really cool!

Quote: matthewgerber

Now...did they think ahead in Spyro's Adventure so that an original figure leveled up to 15 in Giants can go back and play at level 15 in the first game?

I don't think so. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the figures just glorified flash drives? In other words, don't they just store data and tell the game what that data consists of? If that is the case, then in theory the original figures should have no real level cap, as long as the flash drive has enough space to hold the data.

i would have rather had the old skylanders be able to get the new up grades, and not get past level 10. at least then they would have only been short on health. but now that we know what we know, im even more disapointed.

actully the only way i would be able to offord the re-poses is if i sell off all my original skylanders, which dosnt seem like a bad idea, considering the new ones can do everything the old ones can and more.

i just wish that they would do with skylanders what they did with pokemon, when you transfer over a pokemon from an old game it allways is able to get all the new attacks and what not. now if skylanders are a "glorified flash drive" then i dont see why this cant happen with skylanders.

they probably could have allowed existing characters to have the new abilities but as has been pointed out above ... if there was nothing different with the reposes there wouldn't be any incentive to buy the reposes if you already had the current poses ... unfortunately, being a business they still need to make money

Quote: t7gga

they probably could have allowed existing characters to have the new abilities but as has been pointed out above ... if there was nothing different with the reposes there wouldn't be any incentive to buy the reposes if you already had the current poses ... unfortunately, being a business they still need to make money

At somewhere between 100 and 350 per game for the first one... they made money. And they'll make money on the new Giants and new figures plus the new game. What they didn't need to do was make the reposes.

All the reposes are going to do is make it impossible to find figures again. In fact it might be even harder since you'll have the reposes mixed in with the new figures.

I'm not buying a single repose, in fact the way this is going, I'm not even buying the next game.

Domer

Quote: domer

At somewhere between 100 and 350 per game for the first one... they made money. And they'll make money on the new Giants and new figures plus the new game. What they didn't need to do was make the reposes.

All the reposes are going to do is make it impossible to find figures again. In fact it might be even harder since you'll have the reposes mixed in with the new figures.

I'm not buying a single repose, in fact the way this is going, I'm not even buying the next game.

Domer

Too Bad mate! You're going to miss out! And only you will miss out as less than £500/$450/€400 is nothing to Activision and Toys for BoB when they already make thousands per day!

Quote: MaleforSxC

Quote: domer

At somewhere between 100 and 350 per game for the first one... they made money. And they'll make money on the new Giants and new figures plus the new game. What they didn't need to do was make the reposes.

All the reposes are going to do is make it impossible to find figures again. In fact it might be even harder since you'll have the reposes mixed in with the new figures.

I'm not buying a single repose, in fact the way this is going, I'm not even buying the next game.

Domer

Too Bad mate! You're going to miss out! And only you will miss out as less than £500/$450/€400 is nothing to Activision and Toys for BoB when they already make thousands per day!

I really don't care what effect it has on Activision or not... I don't care if they make money or not. What I do know is spending nearly $300 on a game isn't worth it. And I won't be missing out on the extra $300 dollars that I'll have saved.

Domer

This is pretty awesome news. Thanks for sharing!

So even when you've used the old figures on the new game, and levelled them up further, you can go back to the original and play with them and they'll be Level 10 on that game, without losing the extra levels when you go back to Giants?

Quote: Sunny Castanets

So even when you've used the old figures on the new game, and levelled them up further, you can go back to the original and play with them and they'll be Level 10 on that game, without losing the extra levels when you go back to Giants?

That's been implied but we have nothing firm on that yet as far as I can tell.

Different abilities doesn't have to mean extra, definitively more powerful abilities. People have said, and probably correctly so, that these are just different paths or branching abilities that give the reposes (and originals) some uniqueness, but may be less consequential to the figure's overall power.

That's what I thought Tashiji but I had a second look at the article:

Quote:

Series 2 [Skylanders] will have some different abilities and stats and some uber upgrades that the other [Series 1] ones don’t get.

Different (abilities and) stats... doesn't mean better... just different but the thing that makes me think I was wrong is uber upgrades, the uber implies better... it's not definite though, it might just mean uber as in advanced/"not basic"... meaning post-path-choosing upgrades...

*shrugs* who knows yet, it's a lot of speculation at this point.

It might have been interesting if they left the level cap of the older characters at 15 but had the new figure's cap to 20 or higher.

Since the level cap is only 15, they should increase the amount of experience that it takes to level-up and make the enemies give less xp. In my opinion, leveling was too easy and quick in Spyro's Adventure.

While having the reposes and their respective perks makes perfect sense from a business standpoint as people have stated in this thread, it's hell from a customer standpoint, because you've got to remember that they haven't just given us new stuff to buy here, they've given us new stuff to buy which makes our old stuff that we've spent so much money on feel obsolete.

I think it was a bad idea in terms of customer service to make the reposes actually better than the original figures. I'm thinking that instead what they should have done was make the reposes just different in some cool way to the original figures, or just not bother with reposes at all and stick with making new characters altogther. That way they'd be giving their customers loads of new things to buy without making their current purchases feel obsolete.

Lol, I don't see the big deal about the new poses. Do they look any different in the game? No. So why bother? Hardcore collectors I can understand, but for others, you're not gonna be staring at it as much as you will in-game. Just fight the temptation; I'll be finishing up the hunt for the Skylanders I wanted, and I damn sure am not going to go through it all next year for some cooler-looking poses.

As for new Skylanders, how many were there? 8? Yeah, no. Try 22 more of these and NO silly re-releases.

Not a chance I will even THINK about buying a re-posed figure. What a joke.

Quote: PinkWater

Lol, I don't see the big deal about the new poses. Do they look any different in the game? No. So why bother? Hardcore collectors I can understand, but for others, you're not gonna be staring at it as much as you will in-game. Just fight the temptation; I'll be finishing up the hunt for the Skylanders I wanted, and I damn sure am not going to go through it all next year for some cooler-looking poses.

As for new Skylanders, how many were there? 8? Yeah, no. Try 22 more of these and NO silly re-releases.

You don't understand. They've made it so that only the reposed figures can access the new upgrades and gain all ten new levels they are adding to each character. Old-pose figures from the first game will, from what I've read, only be able to gain five extra levels and none of the new upgrades.

Someone please correct me if any of that information is wrong.

Quote: EgoNaut

Quote: PinkWater

Lol, I don't see the big deal about the new poses. Do they look any different in the game? No. So why bother? Hardcore collectors I can understand, but for others, you're not gonna be staring at it as much as you will in-game. Just fight the temptation; I'll be finishing up the hunt for the Skylanders I wanted, and I damn sure am not going to go through it all next year for some cooler-looking poses.

As for new Skylanders, how many were there? 8? Yeah, no. Try 22 more of these and NO silly re-releases.

You don't understand. They've made it so that only the reposed figures can access the new upgrades and gain all ten new levels they are adding to each character. Old-pose figures from the first game will, from what I've read, only be able to gain five extra levels and none of the new upgrades.

Someone please correct me if any of that information is wrong.

So what happens with the next version of the game? Do they create a third pose of the original Skylanders because the first and second poses can't get all of the upgrades available in the third game? No thanks. I'm not gonna play that game.

This is pretty epic news C: Glad to know this, I've been wondering about this

No way im buying any reposes either. Hopfuly if they dont sell good they will make more brand new skylanders for the third game.
Another good idea would have been to let the orignal skylanders get upgrades and stuff that the reposes cant get. At least then it would pay honor to the originals. and also for kids just getting into the game they could just buy the reposes.

Why can I see the starter packs coming with a re-posed figure just to try and tempt people?

Given the shoddy paint-jobs of figures nowadays, I can't see myself biting on reposes. The light-up ones, maybe, but nothing that only has different abilities to its name. I'll have eight new figures for "uber abilities" anyway!

I know that there WILL be starter packs, but since this is an add-on game, we had better have an option to buy all of the figures separately this time (unlike Spyro, Gill Grunt and Trigger Happy). There is no reason not to, since if you have the first game you don't need another portal.

Quote: Himewad

I know that there WILL be starter packs, but since this is an add-on game, we had better have an option to buy all of the figures separately this time (unlike Spyro, Gill Grunt and Trigger Happy). There is no reason not to, since if you have the first game you don't need another portal.

It has been confirmed that they will be selling versions of 'Giants that don't include the portal, for those that already bought the first game. However, I believe the portal-less versions may still include starter figures (one giant, one new character and one reposed old character).

I wonder if Sidekicks will work in Giants?

Quote: SteveW

I wonder if Sidekicks will work in Giants?

the developers have said that all existing characters and magical items will work in giants so by that reasoning the sidekicks should as well

Quote: EgoNaut

Quote: Himewad

I know that there WILL be starter packs, but since this is an add-on game, we had better have an option to buy all of the figures separately this time (unlike Spyro, Gill Grunt and Trigger Happy). There is no reason not to, since if you have the first game you don't need another portal.

It has been confirmed that they will be selling versions of 'Giants that don't include the portal, for those that already bought the first game. However, I believe the portal-less versions may still include starter figures (one giant, one new character and one reposed old character).

If I am forced to buy a re-posed figure in order to get all of the new ones, Himewad will be one angry consumer. There is no reason that Activision should force my hand if I want them all.

^ get ready to bend over Himewad

Quote: t7gga

^ get ready to bend over Himewad

I know. I'm prepared. I'm getting used to grabbing my ankles when it comes to Activision.

We, as consumers, need to flood their Facebook page and customer support e-mails with requests to make every new figure available in single packs. MAYBE they will listen to their customers if there is enough outrage at including a stupid re-posed figure in with new figures.

capitalism = the mighty $ > outraged consumer

the problem is giants looks a lot more polished than ssa and they know that. this will suck people into the "buy them all" syndrome

Quote: t7gga

capitalism = the mighty $ > outraged consumer

the problem is giants looks a lot more polished than ssa and they know that. this will suck people into the "buy them all" syndrome

So, do you think they are REALLY going to mess with the customer and have triple packs consist of a Giant, a new character, and a re-posed character? I can totally see that happening.

I call shenanigans.