Official New Terraria Toy Line - Your Feedback Needed!

How should the new line of Terraria-based toys be made?

  • Detailed, Static "Statues" that work best as collectibles for display

    Votes: 157 66.2%
  • Action figures with some level of articulation (limb movement) that would work better for "play"

    Votes: 48 20.3%
  • No real preference

    Votes: 32 13.5%

  • Total voters
    237
  • Poll closed .

Loki

Consigliere
Staff member
Re-Logic
Administrator
Greetings, Terrarians!

We know you are all eagerly awaiting 1.3.1 and/or various other game-related updates - and we plan to have more for you on that soon(tm), so stay tuned. In the mean time, we would like to share a bit of news on the merchandise end and then ask you all for your preference/opinion on what direction we should take things. So, without further ado, let's launch right into things!

As you all know, we have had Terraria toys from Jazwares on the market since the Fall/Winter of 2014. These have had mixed reactions from the community, with them being popular with our younger fanbase and substantially less so with our older customers. This is something we have definitely taken note of at Re-Logic, and we have advocated for a second line that would be more tied to the tastes of that second group. The great news is that this is now something that is underway! We have attached some preliminary concept art below of a player in Shadow Armor. Don't get too wrapped up in all of the details of the artwork here - the goal is more just to give a sense for what this is (a more "realistic" figure contrasted with the blockier designs that we currently have).

Shadow Armor Concept modified.png



Besides just showing this off to you guys and letting you know that we are working on something that may be of interest to portions of our fanbase that are not interested in the current toys, we would like your take on one facet of this toy line: level of articulation. Essentially, should we make these into cool, detailed, static collectible "statues" that you can proudly display on your desk, mantle, dashboard, and wherever else you show off awesome things OR should we make these in more of an "action figure" style akin to old school Star Wars figures (as just one example)? Those may be less detailed, but would be more easily played with.

We have debated it internally and we can honestly see the appeal of both - and so we really want to hear from you to help us decide! So, please participate in our poll above and leave any other thoughts that you may have in this thread. We will keep the poll open for a couple of weeks, read over your comments, and then give Jazwares a direction to take this that will hopefully meet the needs of everyone.

The poll will remain open for a couple of weeks.

Thanks as always for your amazing support - we look forward to bringing you some pretty amazing things this year and beyond, so stay tuned!
 
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This is a really interesting way to approach merchandise, this looks great to me!

(in my non professional, uneducated opinion though, some merchandise that actually looked liked 2D Terraria would be really great)
I agree, i honsetly love the 2-d style that terraria is so known for.
And with using this 2-d style would make it so your merch would be more distinguishable. (Sorry it may have seemed like i was complaining.)
 
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this is an awesome concept for future merch that from my point of view will be very received and hopely worth the cost that would have (hopely!)
but just a little aesthetic opinion, the player models could have a slightly more young looking (atleast it's face) an example would be how the platinum armor guy looks on the DC comic. :p
 
Huge action figure/memorabilia collector here.... I own the majority of your figures + all playsets....All figures so far are repaints of the minecraft figures that Jazwares also makes. I am not bashing them, I love the style and it does suit the game.

I would just prefer proper articulated figures over statues any day of the week! Some statues are nice.... but they can get boring very fast.

NECA produce some amazing action figures, which are very articulate/detailed and most of the time great paint apps. Check out their Team fortress 2 figures! They are a lot more collectible, give us fans a lot more freedom in posing, lots of scope to make diorama's/scenes. I'd love for us to pose our figures flying with action stands, bendable knees, elbows, wrists/ankles etc.

I personally do not think you should go for the retro style figure, I know Funko are taking off with 'POPS' and the 'ReAction' series, which for some old 70s/80s stuff really works... But comparing them with your current action figure line I would say it would be a step down.... There is next to none articulation... If I had to choose between retro style figures VS statues, I'd take the statues.
 
I've always been a fan of figures, especially if you guys are aimin' to make several static figures based off the in-game armors.

I'd assume older fanbases would be more gears towards a static figure, as the younger ones are more geared to playing with the toys. BUT in the same token, I've got a model of Shining Gundam posed on my desk, so it's hard to say!
 
Honestly, I don't think I really care what it is as long as it's as accurate to the game as possible. The Shadow-Armored figure in the first post is dual-wielding a spear and a sword. I shook my head a little bit. I know that I couldn't take a show-inaccurate toy seriously if I saw it.
 
As a kid I used to have *ejem* "action figures" of cowboys and soldiers, and all that. Those figures had some items, which could be changed, hats, weapons, I believe something like that would be cool, a basic figure (the default char) with various sets of armor and weapons, that way the figure would be used as a collectible versión of the in-game character, and a playable toy, imagine in your shelf a figure dressed with the turtle armor and swinging a solar flare against your figure of arthas. Then your brother comes and can play with them. Everybody wins.
 
Personally, I feel that the main problem with the current line is that they are heavily stylised, yet look very little like the Terraria style. Of course when you make merchandise of 2D sprites you have to make heavy modifications (because real life's engine only supports 3D as of v. 2016), but since Terraria's style is so heavily dominated by the nature of its 2D being (just look at console trailer, which no, doesn't lend itself well for merchandise purposes, but yes, clearly has the Terraria style because although it utilises 3D, it still stays very close to being 2D while doing so), it becomes very difficult to properly make this conversion.

The way I see it, taking a figurine as example, the representation of the original product (e.g the Dryad) can (broadly speaking) be split into two aspects: representation of the visual style (as in the blockiness of the figurine and the paintjob) or representation of the IP (as in the figurine being the Dryad). The current toys do both strongly, and like I just said I feel that the former (and I feel that visual style dominated IP in this case) doesn't work very well with the 2D feel of Terraria, while the latter is independent of the amount of dimensions it's displayed in (and I'll gladly direct anyone sceptical of that claim here or here).

Now if we look at the Shadow Armour concept above, it's clear it doesn't focus on said representation of visual style (which, I presume, wasn't the artist's intention either), yet still very heavily represents the IP (we can clearly recognise it as Shadow Armour, even at the current level of detail that it never had in the game). So what we have now is something that might look generic in the grand scheme of things, but still clearly has the Terraria signature, as opposed to what we used to have, which I would describe as something that is heavily, but not, in my opinion, successfully stylised towards Terraria, with the IP representation hanging loosely off it. Or in other words, I think the proposed direction would be a huge improvement.

All this drivel is of course just my personal opinion, and I'm hardly representative for the entire community. But hey, you wanted feedback. :)
 
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That looks so neat!

Personally, I think I'd enjoy having something closer to "action figures." Maybe a sort of "in between" with limited movement so they could be properly pose-able. I can see the community making a lot of neat stuff with that style of figure.

I also like esizio's idea of accessories, but only do what's possible.

Will probably get toys like this no matter which style they are, it looks really cool!
 
To be honest a lot of people and me was disapointed at current toys we have and had. When I look at some replies to this thread I think some people do think these toys we currently have look like from terraria, but they don't. Terraria characters are more detailed fot its size of character and same goes to shape of character.

I really anjoy these news, they hade me really happy. These figures or statues will for sure increase crativity of your community, not like these strange toys looking from like minecraft.

I hope we will able to buy nice or beautiful female character, it does not matter if they are in armor or robes, dresees, but not armor bikiny or sorf of, it could show skin but only limited.

I and other think Terraria characters look realistic, they aren't square object or people like from MineCraft, female character from mineCraft still look like male character which is something wrong with it. I mean Terraria don't match cubism, cubism is (more) art style for object not people/characters. terraria style doesn't even fit between cubism and realism (realistic looking people). Let's say what does match them is anime, chibi or realistic style.

NOTE: bad grammar is bad.
 
Do whatever you want with these. I think both action-figure and static styles would work. Just don't make i like the last toys. I REALLY did not like those.

On a side note, if you were to make toys of things other than the player, some cool things would be a bouncy slime, a plush Snow Flinx, and maybe one or two more bosses (a large articulate Eater of Worlds comes to mind).
 
I would be interested in some artwork, like static statues or even posters/paintings of epic battles or classic scenes. I'm imagining a statue of a large, scary Destroyer coiling up menacingly around a comparatively tiny hero brandishing a Terra Blade and wings.

Price may be an issue with such complexity, but it's just a thought. I'm certainty more on the 'collectables' side though.
 
First get the updates out then let's talk about making money.

Merchandise doesn't have any impact on the productivity of our development team (who by the way ROCKS at pumping out new stuff) :) I know everyone is SUPER excited for the next update (and the next update and the next update) but we have a lot to offer in addition to that.
 
First get the updates out then let's talk about making money.
The developers themselves would not be making the toys, and it's ok for community-oriented staff members to gather community feedback

Ninja'd by Cenx lol

======================================================

@Loki @Cenx @Redigit

I think a "realistic" or a "blocky/pixely" product would actually do a disservice to fans and collectors both young and old. Either distinction tends to alienate either group. The pixel style rendered for toys only really appeals to younger audiences, while realism (I feel) doesn't do the game any sort of justice; it just doesn't fit.

I don't think there should be a decision between static collectibles and articulated action figures; I feel both will do very well IF... if you get the look right.

Honestly, I'm surprised you guys aren't going in the "Disney Infinity" direction:


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I'm not saying "Use THIS style". But as an example; Disney Infinity is both played with by younger audiences, and collected by older audiences. The style of "toy" allows them to fill a multitude of roles. I feel Terraria product development can benefit a great deal by looking to DI as an influence.
 
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