darkSpyro

Quote: gentjacob

I stopped by my local best buy to pick up my online reserved copy of Heavy Duty Sprocket and I was less than impressed. The store had mixed stock of half empty pegs of wave 1 and 2, and sitting all by itself on a shelf was 1 Aryan crossbow pack. They had no exclusive sprockets on pegs and after I waited in line to pick up my reserved copy I thought to myself "this is the big deal? this is the elusive variant everyone seems to want?"

My son loves skylanders, and I am really addicted to the phone apps, so I'll probably continue to shop for skylanders I like, sales, and new releases, but after this experiance I can say for certain that I will not be chasing any rare variants in the future. I didn't have any other version of Sprocket so this one worked out just fine, and it is nice to have one "special snowflake" skylander.

..Um, this isn't elusive, nor is it a chase variant. It's an exclusive.

Quote: gentjacob

I stopped by my local best buy to pick up my online reserved copy of Heavy Duty Sprocket and I was less than impressed. The store had mixed stock of half empty pegs of wave 1 and 2, and sitting all by itself on a shelf was 1 Aryan crossbow pack. They had no exclusive sprockets on pegs and after I waited in line to pick up my reserved copy I thought to myself "this is the big deal? this is the elusive variant everyone seems to want?"

My son loves skylanders, and I am really addicted to the phone apps, so I'll probably continue to shop for skylanders I like, sales, and new releases, but after this experiance I can say for certain that I will not be chasing any rare variants in the future. I didn't have any other version of Sprocket so this one worked out just fine, and it is nice to have one "special snowflake" skylander.

You should also shop for skylanders your son likes.
While skylanders could be a cool hobby for adults, its target audience is kids. So don't forget about them

Went to mine to go pick up muh Sprocket.

I waited in line for 10 minutes behind 2 people who were trying to buy some MS Office or something and they had to refund their card or something dumb like that. Not impressed at all because they had one person doing Site to Store pickup and one separate person doing customer service stuff. Eventually the Customer Service lady asked me to come over because she could help me. Im like oh ok i could have been in and out about 9 minutes ago...

That giant sticker is awful. I can't understand why they'd have that on there but it was easy to get off. Mine also had a bent blister top but thankfully it wasn't creased so it's just a matter of straightening it back out. (which I'm doing now)

They had about 6-7 more on the shelves and mine didn't have a ton on the pegs, but on a tall shelf next to it. All of the figures were lined up according to character and I spotted a few regular Countdowns who I haven't seen in a while.

Overall it could have been a much better experience, but I'm satisfied for now. Hopefully anyone going out Sunday to get it will be able to get it; seems like it was supposed to be for Sunday's ad but they changed the date to yesterday...

No sign of the Arkeyan Crossbow pack at my local Best Buy.

Didn't see any Sprocket's either but I have no interest in her.

I thought I read someone said that she comes up with the level 5 and 2100 gold, but when I just put mine on the portal, she's level 1 with 0 gold. Is mine messed with or did someone just report it wrong... or do I just remember something that never happened?

Went today, mine had none. Did see two of whamshells

Got mine today. My son was with me when I went to pick it up (We stopped by GS to get the free poster). He did not know what we were there (BestBuy) for until I was talking to the Service Desk Employee about picking up our Skylanders. While she went to the back to get it, my son was trying to guess what figure we were getting. We had a fun time doing this guessing game but he was not close from guessing. When she brought it out his face expression was priceless. Along with the free poster at GS, pretty good day.

It starts out level 1 with zero gold. Someone did make the post that you were referring to, however. I really do not want to speculate as to why that post was written.

Quote: Eggers

I thought I read someone said that she comes up with the level 5 and 2100 gold, but when I just put mine on the portal, she's level 1 with 0 gold. Is mine messed with or did someone just report it wrong... or do I just remember something that never happened?

Regular ole sprocket with a new paint job...but really guys...it takes 2 minutes to get to level 5 and with the diamond you can fully upgrade her in under 3 minutes of putting her on the portal.

Quote: spyroflame0487

I waited in line for 10 minutes behind 2 people. Eventually the Customer Service lady asked me to come over because she could help me. Im like oh ok i could have been in and out about 9 minutes ago...

Gosh, that sounds positively dreadful. How awful for you to wait a whole ten minutes. If only you had gotten there before those two inconsiderate jerks got in line before you. I'm glad you survived the experience.

#sarcasm

Ah, ok cool. I'm ok with it not having a preset level and gold since tomorrow is Sunday and the sky diamond works wonders (or I can still exploit the treasure at the top of the dread yacht in Giants). I just wanted to make sure mine wasn't somehow reset on me with someone trying to quick use it in the back or something odd like that. Now that it would have mattered anyway I suppose.

Quote: spyroflame0487

Went to mine to go pick up muh Sprocket.

I waited in line for 10 minutes behind 2 people who were trying to buy some MS Office or something and they had to refund their card or something dumb like that. Not impressed at all because they had one person doing Site to Store pickup and one separate person doing customer service stuff. Eventually the Customer Service lady asked me to come over because she could help me. Im like oh ok i could have been in and out about 9 minutes ago...

That giant sticker is awful. I can't understand why they'd have that on there but it was easy to get off. Mine also had a bent blister top but thankfully it wasn't creased so it's just a matter of straightening it back out. (which I'm doing now)

They had about 6-7 more on the shelves and mine didn't have a ton on the pegs, but on a tall shelf next to it. All of the figures were lined up according to character and I spotted a few regular Countdowns who I haven't seen in a while.

Overall it could have been a much better experience, but I'm satisfied for now. Hopefully anyone going out Sunday to get it will be able to get it; seems like it was supposed to be for Sunday's ad but they changed the date to yesterday...

#firstworldproblems

Quote: Trexroarr

Can anyone confirm if this figure shows up as "Special" in game or not?

She shows up as "Sprocket Special" but not as "Heavy Duty Sprocket Special" as she should be.

Stopped in today - aside from the giant sticker on it (which came off pretty easily), everything went okay. They had plenty of them on the shelf, but no other new Wave 3 stuff.

Quote: Himewad

Gosh, that sounds positively dreadful. How awful for you to wait a whole ten minutes. If only you had gotten there before those two inconsiderate jerks got in line before you. I'm glad you survived the experience.
#sarcasm

Quote: j32bass

#firstworldproblems

To be fair, I've never had a problem with Best Buy. It wasn't just that line either, they seemed to have no help at all for Geek Squad or the regular checkout lines.

Quote: Rom713

Quote: Trexroarr

Can anyone confirm if this figure shows up as "Special" in game or not?

She shows up as "Sprocket Special" but not as "Heavy Duty Sprocket Special" as she should be.

She still has the new Wow Pow.

Quote: Matteomax

Quote: Rom713

Quote: Trexroarr

Can anyone confirm if this figure shows up as "Special" in game or not?

She shows up as "Sprocket Special" but not as "Heavy Duty Sprocket Special" as she should be.

She still has the new Wow Pow.

But she cannot change paths as a Series 2 figure should.

So I do store p/u, wait in stupid line for 15 minutes and they bring me regular sprocket. Of course none left on the shelf. BB just pisses me off, always 20 employees walking around the store but one register open.......

Quote: Mellified_Man

Quote: Matteomax

Quote: Rom713

She shows up as "Sprocket Special" but not as "Heavy Duty Sprocket Special" as she should be.

She still has the new Wow Pow.

But she cannot change paths as a Series 2 figure should.

Oh really? She doesn't show up as a Series 2 Special so we can switch paths? They registered her as the equivalent of a Series 1 character? I'm calling foul on this one. I think that's an actual defect. They never did this with Giants. Looks like they messed up the chip ID to me. I'm beginning to wonder if they started to mark Specials a bit differently and this is the "new" standard behavior. I'm not impressed if it is.


Quote: SlickP

So I do store p/u, wait in stupid line for 15 minutes and they bring me regular sprocket. Of course none left on the shelf. BB just pisses me off, always 20 employees walking around the store but one register open.......

It drives me nuts too.

Well I have a Metallic Green Gill Grunt. It should, of course, appear as Series 2 in SF but does not. However, it appears properly in Giants: Series 2 Special, has Wow Pow, can switch paths. In SWAP Force it can use the Wow Pow but cannot switch paths and just shows as Special, not Series 2.

I think we can test this using any S2 rare variant... I they're all like that then we know it was just a general coding messup with the game. I don't think all of the people in this thread are getting defective ones.

However this news sucks cause I only ordered one expecting it to be able to switch paths :/ at the same time I can't say I'm shocked since I experienced this issue with my Gill Grunt.

Quote: SlickP

So I do store p/u, wait in stupid line for 15 minutes and they bring me regular sprocket. Of course none left on the shelf. BB just pisses me off, always 20 employees walking around the store but one register open.......

That shouldn't happen. I believe the special Sprocket has its own SKU. Therefore they pulled the wrong item for your order. I would have complained until they made it right.

maybe it is a new way to do store exclusives so they will go toward skylander count in the collection since she is new maybe by programming it that way so it just does not pick up as the same sprocket, like my frito lay fright rider picks up as a blue base for the game.

did any of you guys order it shipped to you? cause i did and its still not even shipped yet.

Got mine. However it was the last on. Also it does not have path switch.

Quote: exosquad

did any of you guys order it shipped to you? cause i did and its still not even shipped yet.

I did and got an email Friday night saying it had been shipped with tracking nunber.

Quote: exosquad

did any of you guys order it shipped to you? cause i did and its still not even shipped yet.

I ordered two on Friday - one for pickup (done) and one for shipping. The second one still says "Preparing for shipment".

Had no idea the date changed but I went in Sunday with hopes of finding them in store and my Best Buy had 8 on the pegs with no wave 3.

I got an update saying it was shipped and provided a tracking number.

This was obviously thrown together last minute to try and keep the hype up.

I expect the next Wave to be held back for some time, maybe until late February.

i think they had to many heavy duty sprockets in the factory and seen she was not selling well and said lets make this real quick since it would be easy paint scheme and give best buy the exclusive

Quote: artican

i think they had to many heavy duty sprockets in the factory and seen she was not selling well and said lets make this real quick since it would be easy paint scheme and give best buy the exclusive

That's probably not far from the truth. All of a sudden their entire Sprocket backlog was cleared up with some paint and figure ID editing. If 8 months from now they are running an exclusive Zoo Lou then I think we will know why haha.

easier that way

And when the next game comes out, Sprocket = Boomer. That would stink.

Quote: artican

i think they had to many heavy duty sprockets in the factory and seen she was not selling well and said lets make this real quick since it would be easy paint scheme and give best buy the exclusive

If that were true, then it would register as Heavy Duty Sprocket. They would have to re-purpose the figure, replace the chip, re-paint then ship.

Now, I do think this was a last minute deal and not planned very far in advance. The Best Buy exclusive label is a sticker and it sort of came out of the blue. They probably had this one as a fall back and Best Buy wanted in on the exclusive action but weren't willing to part with as much for it.

I got mine shipped from them today. I had gone to the store and seen a few, paint job were so-so, particularly around the face. Fortunately the one they sent looks great. The main problem I have with this Sprocket is the same I have with the Series 2 Sprocket, they molded the figure so the tank has a very visible seam down the middle. They should have molded it with the seam on the side and partially hidden by the detailing. It is very glaring as it is on ALL figures.

Agreed on the seam. Also VERY irritated it's sold as a Series 2 character, but has NONE of the character path switching abilities. I won't buy any more if this is the "new norm" for this stuff. I see no reason for this as well as not registering as what was advertised "Heavy Duty Sprocket".

Quote: defpally

Quote: artican

i think they had to many heavy duty sprockets in the factory and seen she was not selling well and said lets make this real quick since it would be easy paint scheme and give best buy the exclusive

If that were true, then it would register as Heavy Duty Sprocket. They would have to re-purpose the figure, replace the chip, re-paint then ship.

Honest question here -> Why? I haven't used it in game yet, but isn't it just a variant for looks anyway? It's exactly the same in-game as S2 Sprocket, so why would the chip (and code?) need replacing? So that an app like Collection Vault could tell the difference? If that's true, then maybe this variant will never come to Collection Vault.

Quote: AzureStarline

Honest question here -> Why? I haven't used it in game yet, but isn't it just a variant for looks anyway? It's exactly the same in-game as S2 Sprocket, so why would the chip (and code?) need replacing? So that an app like Collection Vault could tell the difference? If that's true, then maybe this variant will never come to Collection Vault.

The chip would have to be replaced because it shows up differently from a Heavy Duty Sprocket. The question was asked that was wondering if they just didn't take a bunch of Heavy Duty Sprockets and just repaint them to this. The answer is it probably didn't happen because it would involve not just re-painting, but also a change in the chip. Given that the painting process almost certainly occurs prior to assembly, and the chips aren't in a place that can be accessed without pulling the base off it is unlikely these were just figures that were originally Heavy Duty Sprockets. These were made to be exactly what they are at the factory.

Also, like I said, I fairly certain they didn't have a retailer in mind when they made them given the addition of the Best Buy label as a sticker (screams "last minute deal" since almost every recent variant has the "exclusive" label as part of artwork on the the card itself.

They probably made these figuring they could make a deal with various smaller or less committed retailers that hadn't made other exclusive deals with them.

All that said, I personally like her. The theme actually works well for her. Kinda puzzled on the "not really a Series 2" thing, but I never use path switching anyways and even if I worried about it between her and Heavy Duty I have both paths covered. She is more of a collector thing for me, my sons enjoy the variants for a little while, but always fall back on the normal painted ones if they aren't in game.

Quote: SparCrux1101

Quote: gentjacob

I stopped by my local best buy to pick up my online reserved copy of Heavy Duty Sprocket and I was less than impressed. The store had mixed stock of half empty pegs of wave 1 and 2, and sitting all by itself on a shelf was 1 Aryan crossbow pack. They had no exclusive sprockets on pegs and after I waited in line to pick up my reserved copy I thought to myself "this is the big deal? this is the elusive variant everyone seems to want?"

My son loves skylanders, and I am really addicted to the phone apps, so I'll probably continue to shop for skylanders I like, sales, and new releases, but after this experiance I can say for certain that I will not be chasing any rare variants in the future. I didn't have any other version of Sprocket so this one worked out just fine, and it is nice to have one "special snowflake" skylander.

You should also shop for skylanders your son likes.
While skylanders could be a cool hobby for adults, its target audience is kids. So don't forget about them

I know there are a lot of police on the forum, but do we really need people telling other people how to enjoy/collect the game? I hope their kid gets to enjoy the stuff too, if they're interested, but Jesus. It's none of my business.

I don't think she was even suppose to be a best buy exclusive. the label that say exclusive is a sticker. I know with the legendary and a couple other ones the packaging has the exclusive part on it and isn't just a sticker. You guys are probably right. They repainted the stock they had and then started asking who would want the exclusive to her. Best Buy was the winner of getting it. Through there own sticker on it and called it a day.

Quote: thunder1648

I don't think she was even suppose to be a best buy exclusive. the label that say exclusive is a sticker. I know with the legendary and a couple other ones the packaging has the exclusive part on it and isn't just a sticker. You guys are probably right. They repainted the stock they had and then started asking who would want the exclusive to her. Best Buy was the winner of getting it. Through there own sticker on it and called it a day.

No, look at my posts above. They did not ship these back to factory to repaint, nor did they take ones they had there and repaint. It's a different chip (getting a chip out of a figure is no easy task), and putting paint on top of other paint take more than a little effort, ask some of the custom guys around here. You have to prepare the surface to get good results. All in all, way more effort than they could do and these remain profitable. These were made like that.

Also: She's probably not just "painted over" and was probably made from scratch. Most of the variants are made from a different material than the regular version(Pearl Hex is semi-clear, Metallic Cynder is made from some material which looks... Metallic), which you can see if you look from under the base at the outer rims. I haven't got my Sprocket yet (it was sent today) so I can't "identify" her and see if she's the same, but she probably is.
Also, if they just painted over her... I really doubt that all the bases would be so perfectly unpainted. >.>

And what defpally said is correct as well.

They could have of course removed the base, then repainted etc... Still possible... But would that be profitable, and also I haven't seen any "I can see this bit of paint overlap with the green!" complaints yet. Plus then I'm sure we'd see some people saying that they can see the regular paint underneath.

Also, did everyone ignore my Series 2 Gill Grunt post?! You guys, test your GITD Cynders or something, any S2 rare variants. And if this is an issue with those too, then we know it's probably a coding messup on VV's part where the game won't let any S2 Specials switch paths, and NOT defective figure coding.

The thing is, Heavy Duty Sprocket isn't even all that common that they would need to recall and re-purpose. She is only one per box, and only in Wave 2 so far. It isn't like they had a ton of these anyways. It would take 12 Wave 2 single cases to make one case of Metal Sprockets. Last year's, sure, after a while - but very few of the reposes come more than one per case.

At this point I haven't seen too many "shelf warmers", there isn't one figure that is always seen in large quantities. The only things I have seen which don't seem to be moving at all are the Wave 1 triple packs, I guess people got wise to the two old and one new, and retailers got wise after the first Wave because the newer triples have shipped in MUCH reduced quantities.

I'm thinking that Best Buy asked for an exclusive and they picked the character that was probably cheapest to create and just changed the paint line and chip and slapped a sticker on it in the end.

FWIW, a lot of Best Buys have these in stock again. I was able to get one in NE Philly today, but several stores within a short drive had them.

My Best Buy ALWAYS have these in stock. I don't think they're moving much.

It's a lose-lose situation. If stores don't order enough (Jade Flashwing, Granite Crusher) people get mad that they run out so soon. If stores order too much (GitD Sonic Boom, Metallic Sprocket), then they warm the pegs and people get mad that the store is always overloaded with them and never gets anything new in.

Add to that Sprocket has NEVER been a popular figure. Even when she was just released for Giants. Pre-teen boys (the target audience) don't really go for the girl figures, even the once uncommon Ninjini literally fills the shelves these days.

People are also growing tired of rebuying the same character over and over. I hope Activision are paying attention to this for the next game, Toys R Us is filled to the brim with reposes and triple packs (2 to 1 ratio was a terrible idea).