A VERY dangerous thread!

[xAzatothx]

Seriously? The flipper gap again?

By this point, haven't we all gotten used to the gap on MM? If the gap was tightened that ever so slight bit, are scores going to exponentially increase? Fixing that gap isn't just simply moving the flippers in closer. The entire table would have to be re-tuned for all the new trajectory angles that would cause. I don't know about the rest of you, but MM plays pretty damn good as is, and that took a few times of tweaking to get it like that. The gain of closing the gap doesn't seem to be worth the potential of ruining how well it plays now.

Whether it is accurately modeled or not in the flipper, MM is perfectly playable and challenging. By no means is the gap a 'game breaker' or something that makes it less playable, as can be witnessed by the top scores in the leaderboard.

completely agree

 

[Gordon]

man.... given the current glut of issues, that flipper gap issue has to be way down the list of priority. Majority of my drains on MM are via outlanes.

YES !!!

Fairsight work you on it?

Please answer me.

I hope when xbox back the gap on MM is original and repair.

 

[kimkom]

Are you sure? I thought that too, but I think it might be an optical illusion caused by the scroll artwork on the playfield. But I haven't measured it pixel-for-pixel.

Absolutely sure.

 

[Tony C]

Absolutely sure.

How does that compare to an actual machine? Is it possible that the flippers are designed independently based on the shots that they need to make and the angles of their respective inlanes? They might not be a mirror image on the real machine either.

Thinking about that, wouldn't it make things easier for FS to just find the original drawings for the machines they are working on rather than reverse engineering them? I would think that whoever has the license would have all of that info.

 

[kimkom]

How does that compare to an actual machine? Is it possible that the flippers are designed independently based on the shots that they need to make and the angles of their respective inlanes? They might not be a mirror image on the real machine either.

Thinking about that, wouldn't it make things easier for FS to just find the original drawings for the machines they are working on rather than reverse engineering them? I would think that whoever has the license would have all of that info.

Check post #247

Apologies, the thread is becoming de-railed...

Mods, may be better moving the flipper angle stuff to Artwork?

 

[jaredmorgs]

What this thread needs is Rob to come in and start contributing back. Its one thing to lurk and read responses, but this thread is starting to get beyond scope.

 

[Sinistar]

What this thread needs is Rob to come in and start contributing back. Its one thing to lurk and read responses, but this thread is starting to get beyond scope.

Again, with FarSight staff in public forums the comment they are allowed to give regarding flaws, is "no commment" , until they have a fix to announce , or a new release , we get nothing in writing , as they hate to break their word when things don't come out as planned . The fact that Rob made this thread himself should tell
you it's being monitored .

 

[Advalle]

How does that compare to an actual machine? Is it possible that the flippers are designed independently based on the shots that they need to make and the angles of their respective inlanes? They might not be a mirror image on the real machine either.

Thinking about that, wouldn't it make things easier for FS to just find the original drawings for the machines they are working on rather than reverse engineering them? I would think that whoever has the license would have all of that info.

It feels like the same thing happened in AFM. They are designed by the same person, so that maybe something happening in the actual machines

 

[Carl Spiby]

Message Brian Eddy or Lyman Sheets and find out.

 

[jaredmorgs]

Again, with FarSight staff in public forums the comment they are allowed to give regarding flaws, is "no commment" , until they have a fix to announce , or a new release , we get nothing in writing , as they hate to break their word when things don't come out as planned . The fact that Rob made this thread himself should tell
you it's being monitored .

Acknowledged.

 

[netizen]

Perhaps really far out & wild idea is sort of expanding off of a suggestion jaredmorgs made a while back. He had made that social media suggestion re: twitter/facebook integration and having a blog to post the updates on then have the social media updates merely point to the blog etc.

Anyway. What could be very useful for the community, as we tend to be the QA and beta testing to some extent would be to have a bug tracker. Something more than the search feature on this forum. I am not denigrating the forum in anyway, but with the number of tables and platforms there needs to be a way to sort the bugs by platform, table, specific type of issue, priority, when it was introduced, and if it was fixed. This would help the devs. know what was done at what stage to introduce a previously fixed bug, or to show the community the priority of things beyond the generation of new tables. Admittedly there would have to be a new method for reporting things to cut down of redundancy to some extent; like only reproducible things etc. Or to limit access to reporting things after confirmation from multiple sources, IDK; there are numerous means to this end.

But! This would need to go hand in hand with a change log for each update, bug fix, patch etc. These change logs don't have to be verbose, but there does need to be more communication as to what is happening behind the scenes. Begin with when the application is updated on the app stores, for iOS/Android in particular, then the description should be updated as well to reflect why there is a new version. Even is it is as simple as

UPDATE: New Tables <insert table names>, <fixes, if any>, <news blurb of tweet size + link to blog>.

Again I have to emphasize the use of the blog as the centre point of the social network. It is where everything happens, and all the social media is merely to "flirt" with people in order to draw them to the blog where "All their FAQ will belong to us," LOL.

</ramble>

 

[Sean]

But this forum is just a fan site and not something run by Farsight. The fact that they use it so heavily is a bit unusual (and a coup for Mr. Lacey, cheers Gordon).

I would expect they do have a means of tracking bugs; I can't see why it should be publicly accessible.

Regarding the "flipper gap" given they model off an actual machine I'd assume any issues are down to the machine they're using. I doubt pinball machines are as strictly engineered as aircraft so there's likely subtle differences between them. I don't see why in Medieval Madness people regard these centre drains as game-breaking as opposed to similar drains in Firepower, Gorgar or Big Shot. The machine is very playable, it's possible to get very high scores on it. I don't regard this issue as any more serious than which way the Klingon Bird of Prey is facing on the TNG table.

I'll add another change I'd like to see: display wizard and standard goals and count either when achieved. I find it slightly irksome to complete standard goals on a table only to find that I actually did a number of wizard goals in an unusually good play session, only I now need to recreate a perfect storm and do it again. Like I say, minor, but something I'd like to see change.

 

[Bazzy]

On mac - better navigation in the menu screen - for example, two finger scroll doesn't work.

 

[Frostyglitch]

These are more of requests then they are a priority of issues I'd like to see resolved. I've been hoping for customizable mapping support since launch, please make it a priority.

1. Customizable controls for every platform.

2. Controller support for OS X & when it's available Windows. (this ties in win 1. of course)

 

[brakel]

Rob, can we get some feedback on this topic? Can you tell us if these issues have been prioritized? Can you tell us what issues are being worked on? Can you tell us what issues have been resolved? Can you tell us once issues are resolved?

 

[shutyertrap]

Rob, can we get some feedback on this topic? Can you tell us if these issues have been prioritized? Can you tell us what issues are being worked on? Can you tell us what issues have been resolved? Can you tell us once issues are resolved?

"Bueller? Bueller?"

 

[Robert Hunt]

I had a nice chat with him in Dallas. He was very friendly, but then I wasn't trying to interrogate him. I just told him TPA should keep the faith with the older stuff and especially mid to late seventies games, and when I went on to tell him I thought many of the Bally tables from that period looked better than they played, he suddenly wanted to know what I thought about Lost World (a perfectly GOOD game from 1978. I was thinking about weaker playing games such as Bon Voyage.) Lost world and Paragon especially would be GREAT choices for TPA, but my impression was Lost World is either in the pipeline or is in strong consideration. And then I asked him about folk dancing, and he busted out a little jig!

 

[sharkbear]

my impression was Lost World is either in the pipeline or is in strong consideration.

Well, I suppose you could say a table about dinosaurs would be "the opposite of a space theme"...

 

[night]

Someone is touching his private parts in the second pic.

 

[Robert Hunt]

Well I'm not suggesting that Lost World will be next, just that I think it's a title they're at least considering. (Of course if they do, it would prolly keep us from getting Paragon, a Bally widebody from the following year with art that is very similar (but superior) to Lost World and with more interesting gameplay.)

But if you want to know of a TPA sure thing to take to your bookie, two words:

"Haunted" and "House"