DLC Release Date

[Carl Spiby]

Great to know, but we're learning that it's unplayable due to a bug that goes back to May. And who knows when it'll be fixed?

So...

Oh, well. Is the patch for the older tables available now? I'm not buying anything until it's all patched and working properly. Not complaining, I appreciate the feedback from Mike, and understand it's work in progress and refinement, but it's just a personal policy now: I don't buy anything not working properly.

Unplayable? That's a bit harsh.

 

[Emmanuel Papillon]

Unplayable? That's a bit harsh.

I'm going from what people say.
In any case, it's frankly surprising the problem is even there. On day one people notice it and it's acknowledged. How could it be missed in the first place? How hard was it to, you know, test it before the original release? It's really is the sort of in-your-face issue. And now we'll have to wait again for God knows how long to play it properly.

I don't mind too much, personally, I can play that table on the old Williams Collection. What I really want is just the update for the old tables. I'll wait for the rest, as usual, playing something else.

 

[Daniel Osborne]

Deleting profile had no effect on unlocking achievements. Medieval madness is hilarious and fantastic, not sure why people are saying it's unplayable.

 

[Nik Barbour]

Deleting profile had no effect on unlocking achievements. Medieval madness is hilarious and fantastic, not sure why people are saying it's unplayable.

I was having a great time with it last night. But never played in real life.

 

[Kevlar]

Deleting profile had no effect on unlocking achievements. Medieval madness is hilarious and fantastic, not sure why people are saying it's unplayable.

Agreed. On my first go I nearly defeated the king of payne. Anyone not playing it is missing out on one of the best tables in TPA, my 2nd favourite behind Monster Bash.

 

[Brandon Debes]

Deleting profile had no effect on unlocking achievements.

That's because the achievements still aren't on xbox.com, as I've probably posted ten times by now.

 

[Ark Malmeida]

Great to know, but we're learning that it's unplayable due to a bug that goes back to May. And who knows when it'll be fixed?

Might be something you want to check out yourself before you believe things you read in posts? The table looks and plays incredibly. And do you REALLY think they didn't test the table before it was released? Honestly? I doubt I would have noticed the gap was off if I hadn't read about it constantly here or unless I played the real table consistently (played it a few weeks back but obviously didn't study the flipper gap). Developing bug free software isn't a piece of cake like people seem to think it is. You can test things for weeks and still not come across certain bugs.

All four DLC tables look amazing and play really great IMO so you're missing out if you are waiting for things to 'work properly'.

 

[Carl Spiby]

Even more of a feat as MM is scripted as far as I know.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

At least on iOS, the flipper gap is not as big as it appears. You can flip at balls that look like they're going to just miss the flipper and they'll bounce off air as if they were struck. I think the collision mesh is either in or very close to the correct position and it's just the artwork that is misplaced. I don't know if it'll work on 360, I haven't had an opportunity to play the new tables yet.

Even more of a feat as MM is scripted as far as I know.

It's not. The only scripted tables so far are Black Knight, Gorgar and Black Hole.

 

[Carl Spiby]

Oh ok, I thought it was because of a bug I encountered where the ball actually teleported on the table.

 

[Richard B]

Oh ok, I thought it was because of a bug I encountered where the ball actually teleported on the table.

The roms are emulated, which controls what happens under specific conditions. Ball movement has nothing to do with this.

 

[Richard B]

I'm going from what people say.
In any case, it's frankly surprising the problem is even there. On day one people notice it and it's acknowledged. How could it be missed in the first place? How hard was it to, you know, test it before the original release? It's really is the sort of in-your-face issue. And now we'll have to wait again for God knows how long to play it properly.

I don't mind too much, personally, I can play that table on the old Williams Collection. What I really want is just the update for the old tables. I'll wait for the rest, as usual, playing something else.

This was the number one question for Bobby. I too would like to know how this got through, as, unlike many bugs, which don't become apparent until after a few days, weeks, or even months of play time, this is obvious from the moment you begin playing. What makes it even worse is that the PHOF version didn't suffer from this. Still, even as is, it's still better than the PHOF version, and I tend to do much better than that version. It's very playable, just be prepared for way more SDTMs than would normally occur.

 

[Carl Spiby]

The roms are emulated, which controls what happens under specific conditions. Ball movement has nothing to do with this.

The ROM presumably operates the table though, because not only did the ball teleport but the castle and troll went weird too.

It doesn't shake the castle as part of it's ball-search does it?

 

[Richard B]

It seems each new pack has better physics than the last. MM and BOP have the awful core table physics. MM suffers especially, as I have repeatedly had balls strike the upraised flipper from even a short distance (like the castle kicker) and bounce up and over the divider, down the outlane. The Super Skill Shot (holding the left flipper) is completely broken, as by the time the ball stops it's bouncing and is under control, the shots have timed out. CV and FH are much better, but CFTBL (played on Android) is by far the best.
It seems they are gradually making improvements each time. The core packs are supposed to have their physics tweaked with the optional update. I hope they continue to do so, and not say "well, we've probably got as many people owning those other tables as we'll ever see, so we don't need to sink any more development money into them". Unlike many games, most of us don't just play a table until we've mastered it or get tired of it, we will always go back to the older tables and continue to play them.

 

[Richard B]

The ROM presumably operates the table though, because not only did the ball teleport but the castle and troll went weird too.

It doesn't shake the castle as part of it's ball-search does it?

It might; that would certainly create enough vibration to dislodge a potentially stuck ball, but I've never even seen a real MM, let alone played one, so we need an MM owner (or someone who has access to one) to give the definitive answer.

 

[Matt McIrvin]

It seems each new pack has better physics than the last. MM and BOP have the awful core table physics. MM suffers especially, as I have repeatedly had balls strike the upraised flipper from even a short distance (like the castle kicker) and bounce up and over the divider, down the outlane. The Super Skill Shot (holding the left flipper) is completely broken, as by the time the ball stops it's bouncing and is under control, the shots have timed out. CV and FH are much better, but CFTBL (played on Android) is by far the best.

I'm not sure it's that simple; to me, BoP seems to have better physics than MM, and Funhouse is better than CV. CftBL is good but may actually be not bouncy enough; somebody else opined that the level of bounce in Monster Bash, which is harder to manage than CftBL, is actually pretty realistic. With Creature they've clearly been working on enabling some advanced flipper techniques, though.

 

[Richard B]

I'm not sure it's that simple; to me, BoP seems to have better physics than MM, and Funhouse is better than CV. CftBL is good but may actually be not bouncy enough; somebody else opined that the level of bounce in Monster Bash, which is harder to manage than CftBL, is actually pretty realistic. With Creature they've clearly been working on enabling some advanced flipper techniques, though.

There is definitely progression from table to table, if not pack to pack. Even though they release them two at a time, they probably don't develop them that way. MM was probably the first DLC, so that's likely why it's the worst. Haven't played MB on TPA yet, but hopefully will in the next few weeks. Still got 400 msp ready and waiting.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

It might; that would certainly create enough vibration to dislodge a potentially stuck ball, but I've never even seen a real MM, let alone played one, so we need an MM owner (or someone who has access to one) to give the definitive answer.

The ball search on the real Medieval Madness will indeed shake the castle towers. It also temporarily raises the gate and operates the drawbridge for one cycle in case a ball somehow got wedged between drawbridge and gate.

 

[Carl Spiby]

The ball search on the real Medieval Madness will indeed shake the castle towers. It also temporarily raises the gate and operates the drawbridge for one cycle in case a ball somehow got wedged between drawbridge and gate.

That explains that then.

 

[Mike Reitmeyer]

Great to know, but we're learning that it's unplayable due to a bug that goes back to May. And who knows when it'll be fixed?

So...

Oh, well. Is the patch for the older tables available now? I'm not buying anything until it's all patched and working properly. Not complaining, I appreciate the feedback from Mike, and understand it's work in progress and refinement, but it's just a personal policy now: I don't buy anything not working properly.

CV is fully playable. The bug mentioned was one where on a new game sometimes you had more than one ball in the plunger. This happened if you had a ball locked in the juggler and quit the table or the game ended. The solution is to quit to the main menu and go back into CV if that still happens.

I've since fixed it, I just can't remember the timing of when it was fixed and when we submitted.