Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is a cruel emotion. It makes a person pull back from what they love. I had been free of anxiety to interact with other people for five years.
Suddenly around Dec 23, the onslaught of SAD hit hard. SAD tricks you to think that you unworthy and worthless person who has nothing to add to the world. It makes one pull away from everything. Even the things I love most, this great fan forum and playing “The Pinball Arcade”
I’m writing this for those who’ve known me for the last year and maybe wonder why I haven’t logged in for so long. I’ve missed you all because you’ve been so nice to me.
I know I’m not worthless or unworthy because this great forum has treated me so well. 2013 was a wonderful year...
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Welcome Back to Digital Pinball Fans - please read this first
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Where to begin? When to begin? How to begin?
I began with one of the only places in the Northeast Ohio that has a decent amount of tables available. Just an ordinary Saturday weekend, and it all started with five bucks. Five bucks might seem much for me to play two games, but at least it will mean much for the charity it was participating.
Before the five bucks, I arrived at Berea, Ohio, home of Kidforce Collectibles. A regular comic book, games shop; just recently relocated to a bigger building, but this also house more than ten pinball machines. Most of the machines are during the 1990's DMD to Modern Stern with the newest being Metallica. These were the following tables:
Main Room
Elviras Scared Stiff
Congo
Bram Strokers Dracula...
Hall of Fame Score: 6,874
Attack From Mars - 40,602,702,570
Big Shot - 93,850
Black Hole - 664,110
Black Knight - 508,750
Black Rose - 426,312,730
Bride of Pinbot - 1,122,984,960
Cactus Canyon - 65,227,130
Centair - 2,089,300
Central Park - 4,986
The Champion Pub - 32,374,300
Circus Voltaire - 38,970,410
Class of 1812 - 25,168,990
Creature From the Black Lagoon - 1,712,019,600
Cue Ball Wizard - 630,987,480
Dr.Dude - 33,788,030
El Dorado: City of Gold - 1,121,890
Elvira - 14,996,390
Firepower - 1,057,520
Fish Tales - 234,407,280
Flight 200 - n/a (will maybe buy eventually, just don't want goin' nuts)
Funhouse - 87,711,440
Genie - 679,630
Goin' Nuts - n/a
Gorgar - 638,440
Harley Davidson - 445,604,500
Haunted House - 1,084,500
Medieval...
Attack from Mars – 24,179,025,740
Big Shot – 325,880
Black Hole – 5,411,290
Cactus Canyon – 161,485,840
Centaur – 11,273,780
Firepower – 1,756,350
Gorgar – 1,712,240
Monster Bash – 788,044,930
Space Shuttle – 5,329,030
Taxi – 15,173,570
Twilight Zone – 1,532,475,730
Whirlwind – 29,244,200
I’d list them all but that’s a lot of typing, and the other scores are pretty weak.
Total HOF points as of 26 of March 2015
34.735
Gamecenter HOF rank as of 26 of March 2015
4
TPA HOF rank as of 26 of March 2015
4
Tables with an * behind them, I have played in real life.
TABLE
SCORE
HOF POINTS
Tales of the Arabian Nights *
272.441.060
778
Ripley's Believe It Or Not! *
903.429.260
1000
Black Hole *
20.575.260
1.000
Theatre of Magic *
9.802.851.090 (16.842.461.530)
754
The Machine: Bride of Pin*Bot *
9.671.550.410
1.000
Medieval Madness *
1.699.923.720
1.000
Cirqus Voltaire *
267.752.420
1000
FunHouse
302.664.120
1000
Monster Bash *
2.058.050.830
1000
Gorgar *
1.861.220
1000
Creature From the Black Lagoon *
7.612.208.610
1.000...
Tales of the Arabian Nights 104,643,700
Scared Stiff 143,817,630
Elvira and the Party Monsters 27,132,170
Funhouse 63,926,440
Genie 883,600
Gorgar 1,073,220 N
Medieval Madness 251,284,900
Monster Bash 839,559,090 N
Ripley's Believe It Or Not 237,615,480 N
Taxi 18,835,640
Theatre of Magic 4,988,831,780
Attack From Mars 25,930,778,290
Big Shot 165,760
Black Hole 3,392,660
Black Knight 1,929,770
Cirqus Voltaire 95,047,910
Cactus Canyon 99,662,330
Central Park...
Attack From Mars : 38,345,567,570 (PC) : 23,536,924,150 (iPad)
Big Shot : 143,350 (PC) : 123,050 (iPad)
Black Hole : 2,099,900 (PC) : 1,808,310 (iPad)
Black Knight : 1,215,770 (PC) : 1,642,130 (iPad)
Black Knight 2000 : 14,312,020 (PC) : 1,642,170 (iPad)
Black Rose : 224,423,470 (PC) : 114,383,510 (iPad)
Bride of Pinbot : 1,026,025,100 (PC) : 2,083,789,300 (iPad)
Cactus Canyon : 132,854,520 (PC) : 155,288,280 (iPad)
Centaur : 1,389,870 (PC) : 3,410,700 (iPad)
Central Park : 4,844 (PC) : 4,283 (iPad)
Champion Pub : 93,549,260 (PC) : 73,561,010 (iPad)
Cirqus Voltaire : 63,594,860 (PC) : 55,951,240 (iPad)
Class Of 1812 : 35,949,740 (PC) : 18,859,510 (iPad)
Creature From The Black Lagoon ...
In many of my previous posts, I've mentioned the Third Rail Bar & Grill in Pacific, MO. The Third Rail hosted the league I've played in for a couple of seasons now, had the most immaculately-maintained collection of new Stern LE machines I've ever seen or heard tell of, and was kind of your unpretentious small-town bar, except it did better food and drinks than most. I've always encouraged anyone in the area or even visiting to stop by.
I'm afraid you'll no longer be able to do that. The Third Rail had a fire on New Year's Day, and while the outside structure is still intact, the inside is completely destroyed. Thankfully the fire occurred when no one was in the building; therefore no one was hurt. Somewhat less importantly but still...
2014 High Score List
Link: My High Score Pics on Pinside
Table Name
Balls
Score
AC/DC (Pro) 3 131.8 M
AC/DC (Premium) 3 348.9 M
Algar 3 476 K
America's Most Haunted* 3 8.1 M
Apollo 13 3 1751.8 M
Atlantis (Bally) 3 1.9 M
Atlantis (Gottlieb) 3 32 K
Attack From Mars 3 6199.8 M
Avengers (Pro) 3 20.4 M
Avengers (LE) 3 32.2 M
Bad Cats 3 29.0 M
Banzai Run 3 1.7 M
Batman (Stern) 3 139.4 M
Baywatch 3 1967.0 M
Black Hole 3 160 K
Black Knight 3 838 K
Black Knight 2000 3 10.0...
It took quite a struggle, and missing 2 weeks of league play (and 3 weeks beforehand when I couldn't practice) didn't help, and it involved some of the ugliest games of pinball I've ever had the misfortune to play...but I have managed to hold on to the last rung of the Division A ladder this season and not fall back into Division B.
Personal league high scores from this season, for those who are interested. Note that most of them aren't all that high:
Third Rail - Fall 2013 League
Table
High Score
AC/DC Let There Be Rock LE (v1.65)
35,523,210*
Avengers Hulk LE
3,560,260
Banzai Run (prototype)
358,570
Iron Man (5 balls)
15,525,970
Mystic
171,580
Ripley's Believe It or Not!
25,380,130*
Silver Slugger
8,899,170...
I seem to have missed a lot of drama in the El Dorado thread today. But for anyone who saw Eternal's final post before it was deleted, you should be aware that I've banned only 5 people from this forum for reasons other than spamming.
Also, at the risk of insulting our members' intelligence, the "banscythe" comment in the latest Barcade interview was a joke. Furthermore, I've never played Dungeons & Dragons, although I did play the original Earthdawn on occasion.
Suffice to say that I think the strength of my grip on reality vastly exceeds that of my accusers. So I'll keep calm and carry on, and hopefully you all will too.
Guys, I'm currently going through a rough time. Even though I have a whole week off, my family is having some big issues. Please pray for my family and me; I really want things to get better here.
Believe me, I really don't deserve this kind of treatment I'm getting.
OK, I realize there was a full moon yesterday and all. But does anyone know what has prompted this mass outbreak of lunacy on the forums lately, especially among our most senior members? In the course of 24 hours, I've had one member more or less call me a liar for making a statement from statistical evidence, another refuse to recognize that the PC version is released and no longer a beta, and a third thread sink into the personal attack swamp over a bunch of Gottliebs.
In the immortal words of Lyman Sheats: "Why can't we all just get along?"
Well, not really - we don't have our radio license. But Lost in the Zone has now expanded beyond the written word and is now part of the larger TPA Barcade Podcast! You should check it out, along with TPA Barcade's excellent hosts, guest personalities and the random heretic.
Topics for the inaugural audio LITZ included table difficulty and why it matters, a look at the thought process of a moderator, and some updates on Sin.
So apparently, Sin has been pitched to FarSight management thanks to Jeff and shutyertrap. For the record, I was completely unaware that they were going to do that, nor did I ask them to. (Although I have hinted in the chat room that it would be cool to see Sin in TPA, it was more of a "wishful thinking" comment than anything conveying serious intent.)
It'd be a long hard trek to get Sin in TPA, and I offer zero predictions on whether it will happen or if it's even possible. But I do have an improved ruleset and most of the operator's menu done, for those interested. See the Google Drive link below.
EDIT 11/22/2013: I never could the PDF attached to this post to work properly, so instead, please visit the following Google Drive link...
Some more mediocre league play this week, much of which was caused by machine screwage. For example, a ball is not supposed to be able to go fully into the scoop on X-Men (to the point where it is no longer visible) and then not only fail to allow me to choose a villain mode to start, but also immediately eject straight down the left outlane. The week was only salvaged by the machines screwing over the rest of my group as well, who fell victim to a malfunctioning Loki lock pin on Avengers and a house ball on Wheel of Fortune. If you've ever played Wheel of Fortune, you are aware of just how much the pinball gods have to despise you to get a house ball on that machine.
However...a little birdie tells me that the operator's long-delayed...
Regular readers of this blog know that the RBION on location at Third Rail Bar & Grill (where I play in league) is particularly evil and often confines even world-class players to seven-digit scores. Part of this is due to its blinding LED package; it's often hard to see what's going on, especially when active lightshows are running like 2X Playfield.
So I was both ecstatic and mystified when, coming off a horrible horrible game of Banzai Run (189K...just terrible...I flipped maybe 3 times), I proceeded to run the table for 25.3 million. Ten million of that was skill shots, and quite a bit of the rest came from hitting the idol a lot and running up the main multiball base jackpot value to 1M. I don't recommend this as a strategy - the...
Got to try my hand at helping run a competitive pinball event (the 2013 Missouri Open at the Third Rail Bar and Grill) instead of playing in one yesterday. A long day, but thankfully I just had to deal with registration and scoring and bracketology (head-to-head matches in a double elimination format - thank God for Brackelope!), and not have to deal with malfunctioning machines!
Fellow league player Andrew Hrdlicka, whom some of you may remember from the Hercules machine photo I posted a while back, had the misfortune of being upset in the first round and had to win eight matches in a row against some very strong competition to reach the top of the loser's bracket to face John Miller, an extremely strong player. Even worse, because...
Regular readers of Lost in the Zone may have wondered what happened to the regularity of its writer, as there have been no updates for over a month. The Table Master Issues Lists have gone similarly neglected.
The reason for this is that I injured my spine - I have no idea how, there was no accident, strenuous activity, unaccustomed sudden movement or anything else that would cause this - in such a way that one of the discs in my spinal column is now pressing on my sciatic nerve, causing extreme pain and near-paralysis of my right leg. While I've been able to continue working through sheer force of will, by the time I get home each day I am exhausted and barely have enough energy to take care of the other necessities of life: making...
