This is a story of remarkable individuals, the events that led to the creation of this site, a decade of the BIONICLE community, and what has transpired since then.

 

 

 

In 2002, Auron comes across a site named BZPower, and lurks on the site for more than a year before finally joining in 2003.  The people that he meets and the events that occur in the next few years become an influential part of the BIONICLE community’s history.

In 2004, BIONICLE.com undergoes a huge overhaul, removing much of the 2001-2003 content in order to make room for the new content.  By removing this chunk of our collective childhood, LEGO itself sets events in motion.  The BIONICLE storyline is rocked by the departure from following the adventures of the Toa Nuva and inhabitants of Mata Nui for the first time, switching suddenly to a new tale of the history of the Turaga, as told by Vakama.  The BIONICLE community wonders whether the story will return to the heroes they know, and when.

A BZPower member named Crystal Matrix starts to offer the removed website content for download on BZPower.  His efforts lead his site, initially a small GeoCities page, to flower into a home for this content, first at www.bioniclesector01.com and later www.biosector01.com after LEGO informed him he could not use the word BIONICLE in the URL.

Due to his efforts, Crystal Matrix becomes well known in the BIONICLE community on BZPower.  His website becomes known colloquially as BS01 after a relaunch, with the new site promising to be everything the old one was and more.

Crystal Matrix eventually stops his work due to becoming busier with life, and his website fades away.  Swert, a friend of Crystal Matrix, takes the BS01 name and creates a Wiki, the BS01 Wiki.  This becomes the largest BIONICLE wiki on the internet.  Auron watches on hopefully to see if anyone else continues Crystal Matrix’s web content preservation.

Meanwhile, BZPower software forum regular jetslandingboard discovers how to add the subtitles back to the 2002-2003 BIONICLE.com flash episodes, something that had previously been puzzling due to the multi-file nature of the 2002-2003 episodes (as compared to the single file SWF videos of the MNOLG).  Later, the BMP team would learn that these episodes acted more like “games” than “videos”, and as a result were tricky to deal with, being difficult to convert or stream through a conventional streaming player.  BMP is able to offer the 2002-2003 streaming flash episodes with the text subtitles working properly due to his discovery.

With nobody showing up as Crystal Matrix’s successor, Auron rises to the challenge and starts to offer archives of music, games (BIONICLE and LEGO), toyspins, and eventually videos.  Work progresses to include his entire collection of Bionicle web content, offered on BZPower under the name of “Auron’s Downloads”.

 

 

 

BMP1.0: Auron’s work expands to a Google Pages site, with a Google-supplied theme.  The site is incredibly small, both in appearance and in content, and offers only a few sparse download links.  Auron uploads files to free file hosting sites like Filefront.

Back in the BZPower software forum, an enterprising user named Biomaniac makes himself known with his releases of MNOLGII, known by his RC(Release Candidate) labeling, with the goal of both providing the game to be played offline and to fix the numerous bugs that plagued the game and prevented it from being played all the way through.  Auron follows his efforts, releasing a VNOLG that could be played offline.  Memorably, upon opening the launcher, the release also retained all of the LEGO website’s UI elements around the game window due to Auron’s lack of CSS knowledge(which continues to this day).

Takua_Me takes Biomaniac’s MNOLGII work and improves upon it.  A BZPower member known as JrMasterModelBuilder takes interest in Biomaniac and Takua_Me’s releases, and improves upon them, releasing builds to the BZPower community.

 

 

 

BMP2.0: Auron meets JrMasterModelBuilder and Tronec, who have similar interests of bringing back old BIONICLE content.  The three of them eventually become good friends with a shared passion.  The three begin on Google Sites, the relaunch of Google Pages.  Auron stops working on game content entirely, leaving game content to JMMB, and instead works on media, which is regrettably easier.  Auron decides to employ heavy use of MNOLG imagery on the site, using large images from the MNOLG to bring color to the otherwise excruciatingly white homepage.  This results in a site that looks simple but very colorful, with Auron’s goal being to inspire nostalgia straight from the viewing of the site.  The three continue to use Filefront to host files.

While this is happening, Biomaniac releases an alpha build of an ambitious flash-based project that brings together BIONICLE content through the years into one viewable interface, the Bio-encyclopedia Episode 1.  It never gets finished.

In his final project before his departure from BZPower, Biomaniac releases a teaser screenshot of MNOLG-styled Nui-Rama in a never before seen MNOLG-inspired landscape with buildings in it, looking like a city enclosed in a canyon.  This project is also abandoned and the public never sees what Biomaniac had in mind for it.

Later on, files on Filefront start to be deleted due to inactivity, not having been downloaded often enough to meet the site’s requirements.  The team considers whether they are willing to pay for a dedicated server.  Auron and JMMB say they are fine with Filefront, but Tronec disagrees.  Tronec proves his belief in the cause and pays for a server himself.

BMP3.0: Hosted on Tronec’s own server, we are extremely grateful to receive our own dedicated space to work thanks to Tronec’s generous donation.  We use a simple, narrow layout and the old Lewa banner.  Our layout is basic, with quick updates to content made possible with lists of links to downloads.

JMMB and Auron work together to maintain the site.  Work is hard and incredibly slow going.  Auron constantly states his belief that he could work on the project full-time and still have work to do.  The site occasionally goes for long periods without updates, and the two of them get the closest they have ever been to giving up on the project.

Unbeknownst to the early BMP team, jetslandingboard also starts work on a BIONICLE archive website in 2008.  Screenshots can be seen here, but the project is eventually dropped.

Staff member Nat joins the team.  A competition is held between Tronec and Nat for the future of the site’s layout, with Tronec offering to create a beautiful custom theme and Nat offering to install and support Drupal.  Both options appear to be appealing, but in the end Tronec bows out of the race due to becoming busy, and decides to retire from the staff.  Nat wins by default and installs and configures Drupal, signifying the first major change in the site’s appearance for two years.  There is much to explore and learn, but ultimately the site becomes easier to manage than the old one due to Nat’s efforts.

BMP4.0: Still on Tronec’s server. With Nat’s support, we move to using Drupal for content management and more user-friendly features like accounts, quick messages via the shoutbox, comments on news stories, a new banner and favicon, and affiliation with KanohiJournal.

Early on, Mints97 joins us and starts to work on games, and over time learns to work closely with JMMB.  The two form an effective team, compiling a massive archive of BIONICLE and LEGO site game content.  Mints learns much about how online games can be saved locally, so much so that he is interviewed in a Russian computer enthusiast magazine to describe the process.  During this time, Mints97 signs on to the staff googledoc daily, and becomes the most active staff member.

At this time when we start becoming more well known in the community, and we are pleased to add Leynok, James, Vice753, MagnumVSRockford, Marcel Camaret, and TheSkeletonMan939 to the staff.  We appreciate their help, but in time they disappear.

One staff member who did not disappear was Captain Tayz, who joins us to work on media.  After Auron worked on his own on the media for so many years, it is nice to have someone to help him out with it.  Captain Tayz’s first significant contribution to the site is in the form of updating Auron’s MNOLG wallpaper archive, which was screenshotted at only 1280×800.  Captain Tayz takes his screenshots at a resolution of 1600×900, making the screenshots usable as wallpaper for all but the most high end laptops as of 2012.  More recently, Captain Tayz completes on his own the transition of streaming serials from PDF to HTML pages, a time consuming, repetitive task, allowing mobile devices like smartphones and tablets to read the story serials on the site without requiring the use of a browser PDF plugin.

Nat retires from the staff.  Auron, observing the web design of other high-profile BIONICLE fansites like BZPower, the BS01 Wiki, and KanohiJournal, becomes unhappy with how the BMP site looks so far behind and outdated, and brainstorms ways of improving the web design and layout of the site.  The team realizes that something must be done to improve the look of the site in order to become credible in what’s left of the BIONICLE community.  Without Tronec, Nat, or an experienced web designer, and with Drupal’s limitations, we realized that we could only do so much.

Auron pleads with Nat to return briefly to help with a major Drupal update which the team has no idea how to do properly, and Nat agrees to help.  When all the files are deleted, Synan saves the day by restoring the site’s 50GB of content from a backup made days before.  The site gains a new default theme, Corolla, a favicon from JMMB, and a new banner from Lunekk.  Synan leaves the team.

Under Auron’s impetus, JMMB’s CSS expertise, and the staffs’ voting, we successfully transition all the site’s pages from lists of links to grids of tiles, which is a huge achievement and milestone for the team.  The Metro UI tiles bring forth a new paradigm to the site, with much improved readability, color, and organization.  The site still doesn’t look anything like the more high profile BIONICLE fansites, but it is a huge improvement and gives the site a unique appearance.

Staff members Hakann, Pirok the Va-Matoran, and Guurahk204 all join us in late 2011.

Eventually we start working on streaming content, and with some difficulty we manage to set up streaming games, videos, and music.  Streaming allows users to view content without having to download it first, and being able to view old content on the web again can be extremely nostalgic when the last time the content was viewed online in this way was almost a decade ago.

 

 

 

Staff member Hakann goes on hiatus in early 2012.

In March 2012, we add a background image of mud cracks, a picture that was intended to be reminiscent of the dry landscape of Bara Magna.

BMP4.5: On April 13, 2012, we reach BMP4.5, realizing our dreams of making all types of streaming content a reality.  Synan later goes on hiatus once more, and ArthurB joins us to work on the media archives.

In September 2012, Mints and TheSkeletonMan start collaborating on a Flash Wrapper system for the archives, for easier browsing of archive files.

On September 4, 2012, we complete our installation of WordPress and JMMB’s custom WordPress theme.

We launch our forum on September 19, 2012, providing a place for users to interact with BMP staff, as well as a place for extended discussion of BIONICLE Media.  Synan also returns as a full staff member.

 

 

 

On January 12, 2013, we complete our domain transfer from Tronec.org to Biomediaproject.com. By the end of the year we mark BMP 5.0 finished with the completion of our transition from Drupal to WordPress. The timing is good – earlier that year, in June, the official BIONICLE sites were finally retired for good.

Several staff members come and go this year, including Fastcar800, Fastcar900, Meiko, and XONAR. XONAR makes the first effort to build a restoration of the 2001 BIONICLE.com site.

After some 8 years and an incredible amount of work and dedication, Auron makes the decision to retire, remaining only in a supportive advisory role. This leaves BMP uncertain in its direction for the future. Initially Xefey takes up the role of manager in Auron’s place, but this is only temporary. There is some uncertainty as to whether the site will continue to exist, or whether the archive will be moved to a Google Drive and active work ended.

In order to prevent this fate, Vahkiti steps into the manager position despite some trepidation. He is eventually joined by JrMasterModelBuilder, and through the two’s combined efforts the site continues along.

BMP makes contact with the longest-running BIONICLE fansite, Mask of Destiny, and the two merge into a collaborative force, while still maintaining independent sites for the time being. Work begins in the background on a new site that will merge BMP and MOD into one.

With the return of BIONICLE in 2015, BMP adds some content like the web animations to the archive.

emily joins and begins adding G2 content and generally updates the archives with additional and improved quality media, starting with videos. Eventually, she moves on to build the Story section and complete XONAR’s 2001 BIONICLE.com restoration.

In 2018, the unimaginable happens and the long-lost cancelled Legend of Mata Nui PC game is discovered. Vahkiti and JrMasterModelBuilder are joined by others to form Litestone Studios, which works to repair the game and even make a remastered version with new content, The Legend of Mata Nui REBUILT.

More staff continue to join in this period as well. Hexadecimal Mantis and ShadowDraikana contribute to The Legend of Mata Nui, and Hex also researches Bionicle: The Game and its cancelled sequel, City of Legends, finding lots of behind the scenes content and test builds. joint-dogg arrives and contributes their knack for finding many a unique and rare BIONICLE oddity. Foulowe59 adds their expertise in locating uploads of TV ads, commercials, and promos.

In the background, the new site continues to take shape. Several new faces join to contribute to this effort, including PlanetPerson, Encry, and Piruk.

MOD and BMP welcome the Wall of History, run by JSLBrowning, into the group of sites now living under the MOD umbrella.

After much work, the new MOD site finally launches. Work continues to fully integrate BMP and Wall of History!