FarSight should announce something...

[HotHamBoy]

I'll happily eat crow but I am extremely confident that we will never get the LCD games.

I'm 50/50 that we'll even see more SPIKE tables.

Hell, at the current release rate it could be another year before we see more SPA tables after Big Buck Hunter and Woah Nellie, and we don't even know when they're coming. It's been 6 months since Ghostbusters. SPA launched with 3 new tables in November 2016 and here it is the middle of April 2018 and only ONE new table has been released in all that time.

 

[PeacemakerPIN]

I think all of the tables are possible, I mean consoles and PCs have alot more video memory compared to before.

Also with breakthroughs in ray tracing, we can also have more realistic reflections on tables.

However... This JJ Table seems impossible to port...

It's like it was made to be TPA unfriendly. lol

 

[karl]

I am not too worried about the lcd games.

There are plenty of sam/white star games to choose from. If we get 2-3 pr year, I'd say we are covered for 10 years (and that's not counting the heavy licenses)

 

[Michael]

I don't get why so many here seem to want new tables recreated. Since the days of the Williams & Gottlieb Hall of Fame games, Farsight's mission to me has always been about recreating the classics and making them more widely available to both new generations who have never had a chance to play them for real, and to those who want to relive their old arcade days. When there are still literally thousands of old tables from the 60's-90's waiting to get digital iterations, why should Farsight recreate the present? Especially since most new tables I have had the misfortune of trying seem to suffer from the same disease of cramming as many bells and whistles and clutter into them as possible, to mask the fact that on a basic level, they suffer from uninspired or unoriginal design and are just not fun to play. "More" does not necessarily mean "better". Modern tables have no soul compared to a 70's Gottlieb or 80's Williams. Ghostbosters has nothing on Eight Ball Deluxe, for example, even though the latter doesn't have a single ramp, multiball, or video mode. If there are any new tables worthwhile being made today, then let consensus sort that out over the coming decades, and release the best of them 30 years from now - and I'm only half kidding.

As someone who has bought both HoF games and every table for TPA (even those I don't like) and intend to continue to do so (except for the Stern PA game, for obvious reasons), I feel I have to balance the scales a little bit here and express my absolute support for and craving for more older tables. Yes, forget about LCD screens obviously, but go one step further and forget about DMD's! There are literally hundreds of Gottliebs and Williamses alone just from the 1970's still to recreate. And of the 10 top rated EM games on ipdb.org literally just one (Fireball) is in TPA. That makes even less sense since I read on this very forum that Norman had stated that the #1 most played table in TPA is Big Shot! So, obviously there's a demand for these tables. How many EM's could have been made in the time it took to finish Ghostbusters, for example? I bought it, but it's a table I can hardly be bothered to play. Now that there is no longer a regular release schedule, I wish Farsight would just put out a new EM every now and then between bug fixes. Here, start at the top of the IPDB ratings list and work your way down!

#1 Abra Ca Dabra (Gottlieb,1975)
#2 Sweet Hearts (Gottlieb,1963)
#3 2001 (Gottlieb,1971)
#4 Pop-A-Card (Gottlieb,1972)
#5 Top Card (Gottlieb,1974)
#6 Cross Town (Gottlieb,1966)
#7 Target Pool (Gottlieb,1969)
-
#9 Wizard! (Bally,1975)
#10 Four Million B.C. (Bally,1971)

 

[Silverball67]

Well, tastes are different.

I agree to the outstanding quality of tables like eight ball deluxe, Fathom etc.. Pins from early eighties belong to my all time favorites. But Gottlieb tables? I.m.o. most of them are boring, kind of childish with nerving sounds. 60´s and early 70´s are as well not my cub of tea, too simple, too repetitive, too much random-based. But thats just my opinion. I know that in the 60´s/70´s Gottliebs were state of the art, and a table like Abra Ca Dabra was maybe the king of this area. But times have changed. They have their charm, but they can´t keep me busy for a longer time.

On the other side, I partly agree with your point, that modern tables are sometimes overloaded with bells, lanes, gimmicks and offer a too complex rulesets. But if I had to decide between the old tables and modern tables like Metallica, Lord of the rings, Simpsons...my decision is clear. By the way, Ghostbusters is one of my favorite modern tables.

So, I`m waiting for more modern tables and as well for classics like Seawitch, Embryon or Medusa or missing 90´s tables like Indiana Jones.
But, to be honest, I´m concerned about the future of Farsight.

 

[Michael]

Well, tastes are different.

Of course they are; which is why I added my differing opinion to the mix. I don't want to see a focus solely on new tables, which many seem to ask for in this thread. That doesn't even make business sense if an EM table like Big Shot is really the most played. But I trust that Farsight looks at sales figures for previous tables and not just posts on this forum. I hope there will be many more older tables added to TPA, while SPA get the new Sterns to please that particular crowd.

 

[vfpcoder]

Just to be clear, I would purchase all of those Top Ten IMDB EM tables in a heartbeat, along with the personal favorite “Spirit of ‘76” which I have been clamoring for for *years*.

And, for the record, I play “Big Shot” at least twice a week!

 

[Kolchak357]

Wild Card has been my go to EM lately. I really like that pin.

 

[Teamski]

I personally cannot stand the LCD tables. Digital does not mix well with analog and the LCD's are simply a big distraction from the table itself. DMD's are the best of both worlds IMHO. The only way LCD tables could go to PC is to offer table support and create a backglass for them. I hope that we hear something from Farsight at some point about new tables. I would love to see Laser War in all of its glory.

-Ski

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

I personally cannot stand the LCD tables. Digital does not mix well with analog and the LCD's are simply a big distraction from the table itself. DMD's are the best of both worlds IMHO. The only way LCD tables could go to PC is to offer table support and create a backglass for them.

I don't mind the LED screens themselves so much as I mind the fact that there has to be a small computer in the machine to run them and all the animations/video, and therefore the pinball machine's lifetime is now tied to that of the computer.

 

[Zaphod77]

all solid state pinball games have a cpu. newer ones just have more parts.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

all solid state pinball games have a cpu. newer ones just have more parts.

A slow yet reliable controller IC will generally last 30+ years. The consumer-grade PC that sits in the bottom of every Wizard of Oz cabinet is not going to last half that long.

 

[Byte]

It's also about how easy you can obtain NEW replacement parts, just curious: an IC that has been sitting on a shelf for 30 years, would that last another 30 once it's being put to use?

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

It's also about how easy you can obtain NEW replacement parts, just curious: an IC that has been sitting on a shelf for 30 years, would that last another 30 once it's being put to use?

Assuming it's never been energized and that it's been in a reasonably controlled environment while in storage, it should. Heat is the great enemy of processors, but the old ICs had much thicker components and ran much slower, so they degrade very slowly compared to modern chips. (As an example, as late as the 80286 and 80386, CPUs did not even need fans, much less the elaborate cooling technology required to prevent modern processors from cooking themselves.)

Also of note: The Intel 8080, which was introduced in 1974, is still produced in 2018 by Lansdale Semiconductors for use in small embedded systems, 44 years later.

 

[WhiteChocolate]

Assuming it's never been energized and that it's been in a reasonably controlled environment while in storage, it should. Heat is the great enemy of processors, but the old ICs had much thicker components and ran much slower, so they degrade very slowly compared to modern chips. (As an example, as late as the 80286 and 80386, CPUs did not even need fans, much less the elaborate cooling technology required to prevent modern processors from cooking themselves.)

Also of note: The Intel 8080, which was introduced in 1974, is still produced in 2018 by Lansdale Semiconductors for use in small embedded systems, 44 years later.

haven't been able to stop wondering about this since the question was raised earlier... how full-featured could new pb machines be made, if they were instead based off of raspberries, and/or even arduinos?? :0 even if not robust enough for say a spooky/stern (let alone a jj), i wonder if an awesome homebrew market could take off with some kinda open-source project based upon them.

 

[rehtroboi40]

Or maybe keep putting out the monthly newsletter, but with actual news of upcoming plans/activity.

They seem to have disappeared along with the monthly table releases.

But I think we've seen all the good tables we're going to see in TPA. And we've more quickly seen the limit of what we'll get in SPMA. (Stern Pinball Mini Arcade-my new name for it). There's our 100 tables FarSight wanted to bring us. I have every one they've put out.

I have all the pinball simulations I could ever want, and can still play. Thus I believe now is the right time to leave the forums for good.

FarSight,
With warts and all, you have done an overall honorable job in bringing these tables to multiple platforms so that we can support the legal simulation of classic pinball machines. I've have purchased every table you've put out and I regret none of them. I will probably still enjoy these tables for years to come.
Thanks for this fine gaming experience. I understand it's time for FarSight to move on. As a matter of fact, it's my time too.

Peace to all at FarSight and all at The Pinball Arcade Fans forum!

-Rehtroboi40

 

[Pete]

Such a great run these last bunch of years, they really did an exellent job zooming through all those releases. Really excited they now have time to clean up all the glitches and horrible low resolution art like on monster bash. Also hoping for real vr support soon, and not that head stuck in one spot crap like on gear vr for stern, we need to be able to lean forward and look all over. Thats not farsights fault though, samsung gear vr just does not have any sensor to handle leaning forward. I havnt bought a real pc vr headset yet but as soon as they hopfully add support I am getting one right away. Hopfully they support vive becouse that pro model with the much better resolution has me way more sold than oculus. Im sure oculus will have a higher resolution competitor pretty soon though... but anyways im droning on and need to shut up. They seem to definitly be alluding to more tables happening at some point so lets not freak out like its all over just yet. I wonder how bad those Disney licenses really are to get, we all feel like they are so unabtainable but meanwhile every Kmart Target and figgin dollar store has shelves lined with cheap 2 buck star wars merch, its like they are giving the licence away to anyone who can slap the logo on anything. Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Tron... figgin hell why cant we get those, its so sad.

 

[Russell Bergman]

The individual retailer(s) are taking the financial hit on putting clearance prices on Star Wars, Indiana Jones, etc... merchandise.

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

That's strange, as when I had the Gear VR devkit on the Note 4 some of those early apps seemed to handle a certain degree of leaning forward even with just the positional tracking.