If he really doesnt know what he wants to do I for one would appreciate if he were to be more open about it. Maybe actually ask the community what they want. Then again for all I know maybe he has started to run focus groups or something behind closed doors.
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The issue I take with this is that the interview, much like the TEDx Talk, does a not insignificant deal to recontextualise those prior things. It helps give insight into the intent behind them, understand the mind that created them.
To give an example, Faber talks about how he’s asking us to get onto this ship. He doesn’t know where it’s going to be going or what’s going to be there, but he knows it’s amazing because we’ll be there. The issue, right now, is that he’s asked us to join us on this journey but hasn’t told us that it’s leaving from Copenhagen Harbour, berth 12. Personally I’m content to sit back and continue listening, because while he hasn’t told us where to join him on his ship, I’m still building my own. And mine goes to space, wheee. He talks about how Bionicle is about creativity, about how things like Minecraft and Lego in general are us exercising our creative minds, training our brains for the future. He talks about how we shouldn’t obsess over an end destination but instead enjoy the process. At the moment, we can’t see an end destination; the horizon is misty, the sea turbulent with squalls. But that doesn’t erase the in-between.
(I apologise for not using direct quotes, but it’s nearing midnight and I’m not going to search back through it. I think people in this discussion often take things very literally, while I do the opposite with Faber’s metaphors.)
Also uh, stick it on in the background. It doesn’t demand 100% attention. Or completely unbroken flow. I’ve had to pause it at times for 30~ minutes, partially to absorb what’s been discussed but also because I have to focus on something else.
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and like i mentioned earlier, 2x speed is your friend, my friend
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Here’s the actual Faber quote from 46 mins-ish.
YouTube auto-caption, sorry. I bolded some interesting stuff.
Okay now i’m gonna spill a bit of uh… Yeah, okay, I know you’re good at
figuring out riddles so now I’m gonna say something: I wanna make it your choice if you want to relive the story that has been, if you want to see what happens. If that’s actually just myth, and what about reality? Because what we have seen is myth - it’s like reading an old book about something that happened many years ago. What if you went into that action yourself and actually you knew all the myth but you went in there yourself? And so you know, okay, that was what it was about so imagine all the stuff you’ve seen in bionicle is somebody who’s depicted or tried to
sort of envision what actually happened, but they were not there themselves. So now my really big dream is to be able to give you the choice where to start. I don’t… I’m not gonna say so much more
Edit: Tidying
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Oh…
That’s bad.
Haha, but no. I’m going to watch it at the speed it was originally spoken in, whenever I have three hours I know I can dedicate to it. If it’s going to be a background element in any capacity (it likely will be) I’m going to take as long as it needs to to listen to it properly.
I’d like to know if the ship has any leaks or, if what Votuko just said is true, if he’s even finished building it first.
Faber’s asking us to go and journey across the sea in a boat that might not exist. I’m not asking for port, destination, type of vessel, whether or not there will be catering, or if I’m going to have to mop, but I’d like to know if this boat exists and if it’s seaworthy. I know he has ideas, ambitions, end goals, and creativity through the roof, but does he have a plan?
The answer seems to be yes, but is never more than seeming to be because everything he’s ever said can be interpreted multiple ways, and he’s never clarified anything.
Minecraft was created with a specific end goal in mind, that being a video game about reassembling the world in large cubes and interacting in that ever-changing environment.
LEGO was created with the intention of producing and selling children’s toys as a means to provide for the creator’s family during times of financial difficulty.
What we want - what nobody can deny will be beneficial to Faber and to all of the community watching him - is for Faber to answer one, extremely simple question without any sort of cryptic hidden messages, secrets, puzzles, double meanings, or anything intentional or otherwise:
Do you, Faber, have a plan?
Do you know what you’re trying to achieve?
Do you know where we’re going, or are we lost?
One question worded three different ways. Two answers: Yes I Do, or No I Don’t. This will hurt nothing and help everything. This will imply - no, it will directly state - Faber has a definite plan, a direction, and to tailor it to the folk here insisting he not be badgered about his end product doesn’t make him admit a single thing outside of something he should’ve already said. It’s a 100% reasonable question for me to ask and it’s 100% unreasonable for him not to answer.
And I know he reads this topic.
That’s my plan. I just really haven’t had the time, much to the disappointment of several people here. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; as soon as I can I’m watching it.
This seems to say…
Okay actually I’m not going to attempt to give a direct interpretation of this because Faber’s obviously made this some kind of riddle and the ‘you’ he’s referring to is clearly not me, because I don’t understand. The structure of the sentences implies Faber’s trying to provide a radical new perspective akin to actually being present for the events taking place in the story he’s attempting to create, but this is still nothing more than ‘I have a dream, a really big dream.’
Unless the riddle contains something more definite? This is an excellent quote from what he’s said and warrants more discussion over. Obviously this was what Faber wanted as a takeaway from the interview and it’d be an injustice to ourselves not to attempt to unravel it so Faber can see we’re actually horrible at riddles.
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I tend to agree with Votuko in this conversation especially with this statement:
Because Faber didn’t have a product going into the project, development time has been going slow he has stated in his own april 1st stream that april 1st 2020 was the proper starting point and the prior year had been testing the waters and looking for interest. Meaning he would have about a years worth of work some of which was delayed. I personally don’t think its logical that he has a ready made product to reveal tomorrow nor do I think he is trying to hide it from us for dear life, because of the above.
While I don’t agree on everything Kini said I do accept and respect his stance on this matter. Most noteably I want to tackle these specific points.
While yes as your evidence suggests Faber has used references to call to arms in his posts, I also see that you don’t feel entiteled to get a product from him. However let me point you to a critiscm made earlier in this post:
more specifically I want to draw attention to this part:
Now I this isn’t targeted to you Kini but as Ghid has shown here there are people that hold the opinion that Faber owes them something or that he has been swindeling people.
Now I personally don’t agree with this stance for several reasons, one of which has its ground in what faber has actually said, He wants to do vr stuff, he is looking into nfts, he wants to use the global goals, he has used the data from his post to show that their is an intrest for the mystery of bionicle in pitches and he has also stated several times where he has to keep shut about certain things. I personally feel I got a good idea of where he is going from listening to him in this interview. From what I’ve heard faber say.
Faber wants to use bionicles mystery and turn it up by 200%, he wants to show that there is interest in bionicles mystery and that it could be for an older audience. He wants to use vr and the global goals to tell a story of the balancing act between human, nature and technology. Even though that sounds like rebel nature he has also expressed wants to explore other themes with in that balancing act and in so making biovival different from rebel nature. With the only thing connecting them is that they are both Biological chronicles. Faber has also stated that if this ends up bionicle it won’t be a continuation but something new. He has also said that he currently don’t have plans for toys or products in the sense of g1 and g2 but he is not oppose of it and if it happens those products wont be the same as the products of g1.
As you can see Faber has done several connected statements about what he wants to do and his intentions and all of it is taken from the interview. That apparently didn’t yield any new info.
Here is some of the quotes I’ve used in chronological order:
“So when generation 2 came out it was…. yee… it was right point when I stopped at the agency and that was for many, many reasons but… but of course eh yee I don’t want to say anything bad things about Generation 2 but… but I can just say that it was too early when I… In my book it was too commercialized and it lacked all the mystery, I’m using a word that you probably will remember it was lagging the mystery, it was lagging the cryptic part of it.”
“So I was sorta saying I’m outside LEGO now… eh its 20 years anniversary right in a little while, I was sorta how, how, how do I, know stir up something that I can, that I can, that I can you know I’m one man I don’t have the direct contact to LEGO anymore. I was totally outside LEGO, I didn’t work for anything, any counter, anything. I was doing something on my own. So i just wanted as a fan to sorta say I want to start something that can gain so much mystery and so on, that I can actually go to have these meetings that’s while your sorta… it is a really long process to get something like this up and running and I’ve never tried it before to restart something in that way.”
“But I can comment on the output of it of course, I… I can’t comment on the actuall process of it. That would be a bit… since I’m working on new stuff for… Eljay cuts off asking if it has to do with jeopardizing future/current relations… um Yeah.”
“I had contacts at LEGO and I wanted to show them that the mystery, the urge for mystery was still out there and all the fans were now in a different age group. So they were so ready get something that’s much more, you know it’s much more that age it’s not for kids, but I wanted to have the next thing come out be… eh it’s a puzzle you have to dive into, you have to, you have to get a lot of hints in different ways you have to put it together yourself and be part of it in a total different way.”
“And if there was a product it would be something totally different, that took it to the next level. So all these experiments has been aiming towards that.”
“I don’t want to be force fed some marketing story, I want to try and make the puzzle myself and try to add stuff. So its really out of a lot of respect for everyone who is doing Bionicle now, that they need a playground that’s much more… eh… em much more amazing and em… endless and so on.”
“If generation 3 is coming out it has to have amazing potential, in new ways”
“But the story is not lost the past is not lost but its the past and I’m just say, I’m just I’m just saying I don’t want to make like a rerun. I can only say, I want to quote an old song, sorry its a bit taggy but “If you love somebody, set them free””
“It’s really about this has to evolve to not become something that I played, you know I’m a dad now but I played with this as a kid isn’t it cool son, and they are like saying, “Ok, yee does it do anything?”, “No no, you can turn this gear on the back and it swings the arm, turns up and down, isn’t it amazing?”.”
“Ok now I’m going to spill a bit of uh yee. I know you are really good at figuring out riddles so now I’m going to say something, I want to make it your choice if you want to relive the story that has been if you wanna see happens if that’s just myth and what about reality. Because what we have seen is myth its like reading an old book about something that happened many years ago,. What if you went into that action yourself and actually knew all the myth but you went in there and saw that is what it was about…… My big dream is to let you decide where to start, I’m not gonna say so much more.”
“that has to do with a really awkward post edit last week, if you think about those two round… Meso interjects: “The one with the two circles?”… um if you think what that could be you might get a bit of the riddle… Meso again: “I, I think I have a theory”… umhm… Meso: “this is the theory, I’m thinking virtual reality, am I close?”… um yeah, I’m working together with a company called unity.”
“I will learn from the past but not repeat it directly”
“Let’s say that Bionicle is being repurposed.”
“Could you imagine something that was a bit closer to what we are needing, you know the Global goals. I’m not saying this is going to be a political thing. I’m just saying that I think anything creative has to point in a situation, in a direction that looks at the actual facts on the planet and bionicle has been part of saving LEGO. So I’m just saying, I don’t know what this is going to mean directly but repurposing creativity is my manthra from now on. I don’t want to make entertainment, I don’t want to make you know toys, of course. I want to make people acutely aware of how their creativity can affect their own life and reality.”
“I’m not saying exactly how this should work but I just think that people have to learn how to engineer their own reality and I think Bionicle, the building bricks of LEGO and anything you know. If you look at a lot of stuff you know LEGO is trying to do you know bricks out of different materials that can be reused. the most reusable thing about LEGO is that, it is that you know you never throw it out because you know that it has a value in the way it works. You know it’s like a Biological substance that is reused all the time and it’s not thrown out and I’ve heard someone say on a very high level that in 30 years people will ask about you know “Did you throw things out?” you know “Why did you do that?” I think we are moving towards not throwing away anything at all and everything is gonna be repurposed and that’s why I wanna see if i can repurpose a story. so this is really, really a first in the world. I guess and its sorta a way to recycle for a purpose and I have some pretty strong tools at my disposal right now. So prepare yourselves.”
“I think this is a piece of pop culture that can be reignited In new ways.”
I do want to include more qoutes since I know there is still alot more to cover but its getting really late for me and, I do have lectures and meetings and such tomorrow so I’ll have to cut it there. If you want I can always post more quotes tomorrow.
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Ha, classic Ghid
There’s a good divide between what Faber wants to do and what he’s actually been doing. Faber wants to have the end product here by tomorrow; it’d save him a lot of trouble.
So far what we can observe Faber actually doing is instagram and the occasional time his behind-the-scenes shenanigans end up breaking the news. Faber’s not actually doing anything in the interviews and livestreams other than causing them to be.
And so far none of what we can see him doing has indicated what it is he’s doing other than business deals. Maybe it’s a little soon to be determining that based off definable activity, sure, but the only thing backing up the VR statement is a cryptic image on instagram and everything else is hardly definite. Wanting to use global goals is hardly definite, saying he won’t say anymore is hardly definite, and even though it has legitimate connections with his activity recently, saying he is looking into NFTs is hardly definite.
Nothing here says what he’s doing. All we know about what he’s doing is the physical stuff he has done, as cryptic = cryptic. Knowing the general kind of scope he has or how he feels on certain topics doesn’t answer any questions.
Granted, Bionicle attracted an older audience the entire time it was around as well as the audience it was intended for. There’s interest in Bionicle’s mystery and there always has been, but there’s not much interest in Faber’s mystery.
Is this a direct quote or an interpretation of his intent?
Because that’s literally just Rebel Nature except with the word Bionicle. And we know about as much info on Rebel Nature as we do Biovival, except with Rebel Nature we know he has a definable and defined end goal. What form is yet to be seen and can stay perfectly fine nestled in the dark waiting for the opportune time. But Biovival can’t survive without an indication of direction or a more definite inkling as to what we’re getting.
The description thus far leaves the guesswork open by a lot. We’re barely better off.
He also made another statement interpreted as thus:
So who’s right? Is Faber not going to recycle content, or is he open to the idea?
Ah, the one thing people en masse were hoping they’d get. Well, my condolences everyone who completely mistook Faber’s intent, but we already knew this wasn’t happening.
However, this doesn’t tell us what it is.
Aside from saying ‘I’m not making buildable action figures’, no, not really. Just statement that you’ve interpreted one way, and someone else could interpret another way. Here’s some interpretations from the quotes:
I wish the article in question, Generation 2, was far more cryptic in its presentation. Boy Faber you sure love things being cryptic
I’d like to do stuff but I’m not employed by LEGO anymore and not having the connection makes it difficult to get things moving.
I’m bound to some capacity in the information that I reveal due to business relations.
I was trying to convince LEGO my proposal could apply to more ages, specifically adults, and I wanted it to appeal more towards using logical skill than simply being a form of entertainment.
If there was going to be a product, sold, it’d be entirely different. So experiments have been to see if a product is (necessary)(required)(a good idea)(an open concept to the market).
I want to hand-craft the puzzle myself, not let marketing do it for me. Bionicle has to be bigger and better in order to come back.
If I’m going to make Bionicle again it’d better be good!
I don’t want to redo Bionicle a third time. I’d like to open the concept/world up to the reader/viewer.
Bionicle has to evolve from the rudimentary concept of action figures with basic functions meant only to capture attention for a short time.
I’m not going to go on with this because I think I’ve proved my point. Nothing here is 100% always interpreted in only one capacity. More often than not, statements with vagueness as these do are more of the problem already plaguing Faber’s attempts to reach out to the community: With no definite point, they end up vague and uninteresting, and people stop having the patience for them to begin making sense.
I’ll say a couple other things on this, though:
He’s using Unity resources. This is probably the only thing so far that he’s said in this interview you’ve quoted which is an actual, definable point towards an end goal we can discern: In some capacity, he’s making a digital game or format, which I don’t know why he couldn’t have been more specific about. If he couldn’t say so, well… He just did, so, yeah.
However he could also have been mentioning that he’s using unity resources in some capacity, like with Rebel Nature, and it has nothing to do with Biovival. Do we know? We can guess.
This can only mean one thing and one thing only: He wants to do Bionicle again but different.
That’s the first direct statement quoted here.
Overall, I’m still going to watch the interview because I’ll still be crucified for not doing it yesterday if I don’t, but I fully expect there to be nothing new. Would be great to be surprised, though.
Still, though, nothing said here is enough evidence that Faber knows what he’s doing, or if there’s a tangible end, or whether or not Faber will change his plans entirely in the future. My hopes are that he’s simply made some major fumbles in marketing and the progress is actually running smooth, with an end goal in sight.
If he doesn’t have one, though, I think my money still has better places to go than Faber’s Cryptic Crypto Chicanery.
I had to make it rhyme
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Hmm, I think Tarkur and I quoted the same bit.
My interpretation is that Faber doesn’t plan to copy G1, or continue it, as some people might want. He wants to make something new, but is open to using familiar elements, if that’s what the audience wants when he starts gathering opinions.
His analogy is basically that if you imagine G1 is just a story, told to us by a potentially unreliable narrator, then he / you are free to imagine your own story of what “really” happened. (Not that he’s promising to go down that specific route, just that it’s one possible way of justifying a similar but new story.)
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Problem is they aren’t that vague, keep in mind this is a 50 something year old danish guy who tries to communicate in a broken english which is very noticable in the many quotes I shared. Faber is definately trying to be direct with his statements as most of the quotes I used were taken from answers to very direct questions. They certainly reveal more info than 90% of the posts from the last 2 years and you definately don’t have to read into them to much to see this. The fact that we can come to very similar conclusion from the same bit of text proves this.
You claim what I said was interpertaition but alot of what I said he said in those quotes:
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He’s quite plainly working with Unity to try and do VR stuff - he’s working at a new studio he created called Rig21. He actually made a short youtube vlog near the end of 2020 where he explained this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLKjE-hgNIw
And from the description of the same video: “Hey everybody. This is a short greeting from the center of Copenhagen where the RIG21 setup is working on virtual film production and Rebel Nature. We are at Unity and steaming ahead on the showcases for this new technology that will empower storytelling like never before.”
This mostly refers to Rebel Nature, but he also namedrops Bionicle in relation to the project in the video itself.
Rig21 is also referenced on his linkedin: Rig21 pushing for a Virtual Production Hub in Denmark, the time is NOW!
And his facebook: Faber Files
It’s still not much, and it’s not entirely clear how exactly Biovival would factor into it, but this VR thing is a lot more than you’ve made it out to be. It’s definitely a tangible goal that he has, and the fact that Biovival might be in some way related to it is the closest thing that we have to a lead right now.
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The Mandalorian is probably the most publicised example of this technology being used in this style, but, as somebody who can wave credentials about in that field, it’s something that’s been discussed for… at least the better part of four years.
I’m trained in Unreal rather than Unity, but the specifics don’t exactly matter. These engines have potential far beyond “digital game or format” with them seeing use in the film and television industry recently, and that’s the tip of the iceberg.
I know people who are using Unity for scientific simulations, I watched demonstrations of using Unreal for remote conferencing in 2018 in a manner now being advertised by the Microsoft Hololens in 2021, I’ve spoken with someone who uses Unreal to quickly and roughly block out digital environments for purposes of architectural visualisation.
Personally I don’t know what the “product” of Biovival is going to be. From how it was discussed in the interview, my background knowledge of the technologies Faber is working with, and Faber’s combined goal of product and journey, I genuinely believe that this is going to be a revolutionary form of creative media.
“Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future. With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.”
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This doesn’t mean they aren’t vague or easily reinterpreted. I hold almost all of my loose interpretations are just as valid as the information you drew in yours.
Yes, but the issue is it’s all information we already know. Faber oftentimes didn’t bother to tell us (or if he did, he did it in his patented cryptic storytelling fashion that nobody can understand). Most of this information was entirely determined outside of Biovival or straight up outside of Faber’s social media - the fact that he’s working with specific companies on something, the fact that he’s using VR in some capacity for some project, the fact that…
…That he said the most basic info that we didn’t need him to say, i.e. ‘Bionicle is being repurposed’ yes Faber that is true good work.
This is by no means new. More than he’s said in his instagram posts? Without a shadow of a doubt. But that’s hardly a high bar.
FTFY 
That’s another way of interpreting that, yeah. Not as fun* as your older interpretation of more defined community direction, but probably a likelier explanation.
See, I was reluctant to immediately go “It’s a VR Project!!” because Faber had already set up his reputation for not directly saying matters of importance, so it was a bit of a cried wolf reaction.
And you’re probably right, and the tease with the headset and the reflected Hau adds to that heavily. But at the same time it makes me nervous to latch onto something at so extreme an end of possibilities (virtual reality heavily integrated into Faberonicle wasn’t exactly likely of a possibility to begin with) so while you’re most likely right and there’ll most likely be some definite form to this in the future, everything else up till now has pointed in directionless ramblings with the occasional art drop - not very reassuring to the idea of a structured plan for VR integration.
Also it could just be Faber showing off the fact that he has it and could maybe use it with Bionicle-related content. Where we’re going, we don’t need cut-and-dried answers that are easily understood.
Best case scenario, Faber pulls things around and the first real sign of Biovival’s form has some level of VR (or is fully VR because honestly that’s not a bad concept) but even though it may hurt my credibility I’m going to remain the skeptic.
By ‘Find the Power’, they meant literally go find it this is Bionicle Skyrim VR
Wait wasn’t Bionicle Skyrim a thing
Granted, but outside of Faber’s Death Stranding utilizing live-action film to some unknown extent, is there any evidence this is occurring with Biovival or just that it could?
Hopes and dreams, Tiche, hopes and dreams. I don’t there’s a single person here who disagrees with you on that… If you swap out believe with want it to be.
I don’t know it to be exactly what you’ve described. Absolutely 100% for it, though! Just… Not setting false expectations or anything outside of what Faber’s warranted.
*fun is being used here to describe entertaining community madness; this would not be considered fun by a typical person
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Could someone catch me up to date with what’s just happened?
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No, go read this topic over from the very beginning
It’s only maybe 20 minutes of reading to get the gist. Faber had an interview and the rest is up to you.
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In fact, this information has been on his instagram for over a year. Here’s one example that I linked earlier, but it seems some people unfortunately didn’t click on.
As I explained in that recent post, he has a virtual production (like was used for the Mandalorian) company that uses Unity tech. It’s being used to make the Rebel Nature TV show and has also been linked to Biovival in his posts.
Nope, it’s just what Faber said and doesn’t contradict my quoting of other things he said.
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Never said it was new but he is being direct about what he is doing more so than before and that’s my point. You wanted concrete stuff from Faber and he has given you what he can share at the moment. Again from what he himself have said in the past “The journey is gonna start on the first of April 2020 and that was a nice, nice good figure”. He has worked on this for a year and from what he has been able to share seems to amount to the productive time he managed to get out of 2020 considering the circumstances. Faber does have an end goal with this that being to as he said “Recycle a story”.
Guess also that he’s been working with LEGO on somethings:
Edit: Faber is innocent guys I’ve got proof, this is G3:
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what even is that image lmao
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Its from one of Fabers old fathersday posts from before biovival
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wait he made that? i thought some community member might have made that as a meme. thats amazing
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I saw that. Unfortunately it could be entirely Rebel Nature related, and just be vying for Bionicle attention. He used the phrase Gathered Friends, but he also used the Rebel Nature tag, as well as #garyveechallenge. One bit of info is hardly all info and this is by no means isolated to Bionicle or definitely Biovival-related.
Is that obstinate of me? Yes. But I think I’m entitled to be a little unreasonable when Faber can’t answer the question of what he’s doing or where things are headed while also teasing pre-development assets, business deals, and the like. This post could be blatantly stating Faber’s doing exactly what it looks like or it could be aimed in a completely different direction, and we can’t asked for clarification without getting bit.
It’s not that hard to get a simple yes or no and instead have to dig about for an answer.
It contradicts your previous interpretation of the exact same sentence.
Unless we’re looking at two different quotes? But it doesn’t seem like it.
Yes, and all it took was him being cryptic for over two years. Also he was direct about information we were already aware of. It’s not that great of a change to be direct about information that’s already entered the public eye, especially when it’s outside of your control.
What does that mean.
That tells me absolutely nothing about Faber’s end goal. He could have easily said his end goal was to ‘be creative’ and we’d be in the exact same spot.
That’s cool.
But, uh, there’s nothing new there either. Votuko’s screencap was December 10th, talking about Unity projects, and Faber’s post with the LEGO set was December 15th. He’s working with LEGO? Cool.
At this point we are rapidly approaching the circular argument which lead to people name-calling and instigating, and I’d rather not incur the wrath of that one canadian guy and his bolded text. So until something new comes from Faber, I’m going to watch in silence and wait in anticipation.
(@Votuko do reply to me though, I want to hear your counterpoints)
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