DLC Release Date

[Brandon Debes]

pinning it to the wizard goals would probably be a major turn-off for any casual players, and casual players outnumber the hardcore dramatically

While this is normally true by definition, The Pinball Arcade might just be one of the rare exceptions to the rule. Think about what an incredibly niche title we're playing here. How many people are going to casually download recreations of decades old real world pinball tables? Now how many of those people are going to download additional tables from within the platform? I feel pretty comfortable guessing that more TPA owners would've liked to have seen wizard goals achievements than top local score ones. There will always be the entitlement crowd who think that because they paid for the content they should be able to get the achievements in one sitting, but outside of that I can't see it.

Noone will look at your achievements to check if you got it.

This is patently false. For one thing, I manually look at the TPA achievements of all my friends who play it to see who is making what progress on the goals. For another thing, there are sites like TrueAchievements.com that track global completion percentages and then tell you just how rare they are. For instance, I can see that roughly 5% of players are able to complete the wizard goals on Ripley's. I can also see that I was the 13th person to complete all the goals in the base tables. As Rob said, just because you don't do a thing, don't assume that nobody does.

All in all this is just the latest in a now embarrassingly long list of FarSight gaffes with this project. They are pretty fantastic at recreating pinball tables and mediocre to lousy at nearly every other aspect of software development and modern game production from interface design to TCR compliance. I'm still going to continue to give them all my money because they are clearly doing gods' work in preserving these tables, but it's just one bummer after another lately.

 

[bavelb]

I'll reply with my latter edit

Again I can understand the fact people like achievements, but I have real issues understanding people who get lesser enjoyment out of a brilliant game for having the wrong ones, or not enough of them because they need someone else, even if it's a scripted event programmed to release a badge under certain conditions, to pat them on the back and say "well done boy, here's a ribbon".

I also know this is completely me and a flaw in my character obviously, because I have had to deal with you sort of people in WOW for 4 years when raiding "Hey lets do this boss with 4 less people then we can with one arm tied behind your back, spelling the alphabet backward so we can get some "random score for doing unneccassary stuff" added to our "random score for doing unneccassary stuff-total". Sorry if it sounds like I'm projecting all that anger towards you

in short: I don't get you, at all, in the slightest, about achievements and their importance. The fact people think this somehow stains a game is mindboggling for me, beyond my compehension. And thats probably my fault, and Farsights.

 

[Gordon]

@ Mike Reitmeyer

Is the update a new Game or oldgame with automatic update when i make a game start?

 

[Ark Malmeida]

@ Mike Reitmeyer

Is the update a new Game or oldgame with automatic update when i make a game start?

If it follows the conventions of all of the other XBLA games, you'll get prompted that there is an update (which you'll need to accept if you want to stay connected to XBox Live).

 

[George Klepacz]

I never really had a problem with Microsoft until TPA came out and I started seeing some of their policies which I think are ridiculous like a certain number of achievements per quarter. Stupid.

 

[Brandon Debes]

I never really had a problem with Microsoft until TPA came out and I started seeing some of their policies which I think are ridiculous like a certain number of achievements per quarter. Stupid.

Well, I mean, they have to have some of these policies in place to protect the basic integrity of the achievement economy. One achievement per table is perfectly fine given the release frequency that they hope to reach once this all evens out (2 tables per month). I just don't get why they would hitch their one achievement to something that almost every player will accidentally do on their first play rather than something that the game itself presents as an actual "achievement" in the sense of a thing that is difficult to accomplish. That is fairly inexplicable. In fact, I'd love to hear Mike's thoughts on the reasoning behind that decision (not sure if it was his call or not).

 

[lettuce]

MS must be taking this PISS, its been in submission since start of May time

 

[Richard B]

MS must be taking this PISS, its been in submission since start of May time

It was rejected twice, that's why it's taking so long. Mid-July is the best guess, since it takes about a month to make it through the submission process, and they submitted it in early June. The DLC is approved, so once we get the title update, which could happen any day, we'll get the DLC soon afterwards, or at least a solid date for it.

 

[Richard B]

Well, I mean, they have to have some of these policies in place to protect the basic integrity of the achievement economy. One achievement per table is perfectly fine given the release frequency that they hope to reach once this all evens out (2 tables per month). I just don't get why they would hitch their one achievement to something that almost every player will accidentally do on their first play rather than something that the game itself presents as an actual "achievement" in the sense of a thing that is difficult to accomplish. That is fairly inexplicable. In fact, I'd love to hear Mike's thoughts on the reasoning behind that decision (not sure if it was his call or not).

It could be worse. It could be so hard to get almost no one can get it, like the infamous Tiger Woods 06, which required you to get number one on the worldwide leaderboards.

 

[Franky]

don't get me wrong and i don't know how you guys get to this achievement thing but this topic is called "DLC Release Date".

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

Because Mike Reitmeyer was asked directly whether our DLC would have achievements. He answered, and the answer was not what many people wanted to hear.

I personally couldn't care less about achievements, but I seem to be in the minority.

 

[DopedToInfinity]

Personally speaking I don't give a crap about achievements, pinball is about high scores, that's what makes it fun! Even if we didn't have achievements we have leaderboards for bragging rights.

 

[Brandon Debes]

Personally speaking I don't give a crap about achievements, pinball is about high scores, that's what makes it fun! Even if we didn't have achievements we have leaderboards for bragging rights.

That's a solid point.

 

[Franky]

achievements are unnecessary like a snake in a sleeping bag.

 

[Fungi]

Personally speaking I don't give a crap about achievements, pinball is about high scores, that's what makes it fun! Even if we didn't have achievements we have leaderboards for bragging rights.

And that's actually the key difference isn't it. Achievements have become so expected now that people don't even remember why they were added to begin with. They came about because games had stopped using a scoring system. My achievement in Asteroids was 200,000. Not "killed small saucer".

 

[infernogott]

achievements are a motivation for me.

if theres no reward for completing wizard goals, why should i do it? I'd rather concentrate on high scores.

well i guess i unlock no tilt mode, but that doesn't count towards leaderboards.

 

[Richard B]

achievements are a motivation for me.

if theres no reward for completing wizard goals, why should i do it? I'd rather concentrate on high scores.

well i guess i unlock no tilt mode, but that doesn't count towards leaderboards.

I go after Wizard Goals simply because they are there. Most of them are things you would do anyway in a high-scoring game.

 

[bavelb]

I go after Wizard Goals simply because they are there. Most of them are things you would do anyway in a high-scoring game.

This indeed, the standard and wizard goals are there to teach you the table's rules and higher scoring modes and ways to get there. Ignoring them because there is nothing tied to them is harming your ways to get the one and only true achievement (beating the high score on leaderboards/friendslist).

I was flailing around in rbion untill I tried to get the wizard goals and the table "clicked" for me.

 

[aangel]

So to bring this back to the release date topic and clarify: Should it be known that there is no "mid-July" time frame that we are waiting on, we are just waiting on Farsight to hear something back from Microsoft which could be the near or far future, Right?

 

[Richard B]

So to bring this back to the release date topic and clarify: Should it be known that there is no "mid-July" time frame that we are waiting on, we are just waiting on Farsight to hear something back from Microsoft which could be the near or far future, Right?

Yes, FS is waiting to hear from Microsoft, and mid-July is when they expect them to approve it, but it's ultimately up to MS as to when they actually do. I think we'll hear something sooner than later.