Farsight, we're breaking up - It's not me, it's you...

[IGoFirstIndy]

Just curious. Is it ok to stop supporting older hardware for people who have paid for an app? So someone purchased something, gets an update and can no longer play?

Yes. If my PS3 dies, i don't call Sony and demand a PS4. you should announce the specs needed to run the update or buy a new table on mobile. you're trying to keep everyone happy and really just not serving anyone. Technology changes and you guys should be keeping pace. right now all pinball apps are in the same ballpark as far as physics and Farsight is way behind on graphics. just my 2 cents.

Also please-please-please re-examine the Season pass issue on IOS.

 

[kinggo]

can you make it uninstallable/unupdateable at the end of the season for certain OSes? After all, microsoft stopped with XP support. The same goes for andriod. That way they would still have what they paid for.
As stated many times before, I understand the reasons behind your support of everything. But on the other hand, mobile HW has evolved A LOT in a last few years. How would you explain your customer in 2016 why does the game look like it is from 2006? I really hope that we will see a lot more tables but I also hope that they will look better.
Of course, it is not so simple but it has to start somewhere. We probably won't ever get existing tables in higher quality but that shouldn't be the reason for not getting new tables in higher quality. Maybe even in new TPA, version 2.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

FYI, I didn't know that if you stop supporting a version on android the user can still keep what they have, they just can't upgrade. On Steam if someone would upgrade the app would no longer run.

Is there no way to get Steam's installer/patch manager/whatever to test the client's OS and not perform the upgrade if the OS version number does not meet a certain minimum value? (In Windows, such a test is easy, but I have no idea how things are on Steam.)

 

[xAzatothx]

key is communication, telling the user base ahead of time so they can prepare.

MS told my customers that they need to upgrade from XP to Windows 7. Customer was warned in advance and are having to upgrade to stay compliant. We can't all stay on IE6 forever (thank god).

 

[tripleplonq]

I can still play Zaccaria Pinball (latest version) on my iPad 1. Some of the FX are obviously not available but it's still playable and fun and it looks great. And I keep buying new tables on a regular basis. (Bronze membership / buying tables individually to support ASK)

 

[Indy99]

Just curious. Is it ok to stop supporting older hardware for people who have paid for an app? So someone purchased something, gets an update and can no longer play?

I've been prepping a DX11 release on Steam, and in doing so I accidentally broke the build on Windows XP. According to Steam, as of January 2014, Windows XP only makes up 6% of users. But I had over a dozen people say the game stopped working for them. Would it be fair to tell them, we no longer support XP so your game you purchased will no longer run?

Of course its not responsible to stop supporting an OS / hardware device that used to be able to run the product. However, adding new features and such should not be expected to run on older hardware. I know this get tricky as TPA is a platform. That is why I mentioned maybe starting at Season 5 to change the system requirements. As for the logistics to do this, I don't have the answers. I know you mentioned that Android does allow updates to occur for certain OS versions, and older OS's are locked on the old update. I think that would work quite nicely. Maybe its an entire new product download, that still uses the older resources for the existing tables. I know many, many other apps have faced this same problem. As you know, things in the mobile world move very fast. While it is very honorable on Farsight's part to want to support older devices, you can't hold back the future for that.

I have recently migrated from Windows XP myself in the last year, and would definitely not be happy if TPA stopped working. But to I expect DX11 lighting in XP? Obviously not. And if I was still on XP and was told I could not get Season 5 tables? I'd be a little upset, but would totally understand. This would have been a reason for me to get off XP actually had it happened earlier.

You guys at Farsight do an amazing job. I totally love the product, love the licenses you are able to acquire (which I know is not a simple thing). I wasn't able to quite describe my feelings in words until someone mentioned pinball fatigue. That hit the nail on the head. You guys have over 50 tables now in TPA. I play Zen from time to time, but that's not really my thing. I was never much into EM's, but just the eye candy that Zaccaria has, along with how customizable their app is, really has got me more into those tables. And I had never played, let alone seen one IRL. But its now 2015, and there are certain things that customers expect in games. And Zacc has really broken through the fatigue with gorgeous lighting and sliders.

I only bring this up to explain how I (and from what it appears a lot of others) have been thinking lately. I was lucky as a kid growing up in the 80s/90s to have a dad that operated a video game / pinball business, so I got a lot of play time with a lot of different pinball machines. And these are the ones that TPA recreates. I just want the best for the future of TPA, which to me means bringing the game up to par with the things gamers expect today - better lighting, better UI, and more customizable. I am very glad to hear new difficultly levels / scoreboards are coming. That's great, but I personally feel its time to address core gameplay.

And I want to thank Mike and Scott for giving their opinions on this topic. When it was created, I doubted any from FS would comment. That is one great thing you guys have going for you. You do communicate with the fans. And I know the things I mentioned are totally out of your control. I am just hoping management gets the message.

 

[shutyertrap]

Is there no way to get Steam's installer/patch manager/whatever to test the client's OS and not perform the upgrade if the OS version number does not meet a certain minimum value? (In Windows, such a test is easy, but I have no idea how things are on Steam.)

This. That way if someone purchased season 4, they would still be able to play it, but they would not be able to purchase season 5 because it would need the update. The other option is to do what Zen did, which was come out with Zen 2 / PinballFX 2. You set the new baseline, let anyone with previous purchase migrate over for free, and update the whole shebang.

I just think especially with mobile, where it is leaps and bounds ahead of where it was in 2012, there has to exist a hard cut-off. I migrated from PS3 to Steam because I figured the life cycle of the PS3 was going to expire before FS is done making TPA tables. I would think the one things any video game studio would want to avoid is becoming stagnant.

 

[jaredmorgs]

This. That way if someone purchased season 4, they would still be able to play it, but they would not be able to purchase season 5 because it would need the update. The other option is to do what Zen did, which was come out with Zen 2 / PinballFX 2. You set the new baseline, let anyone with previous purchase migrate over for free, and update the whole shebang.

I just think especially with mobile, where it is leaps and bounds ahead of where it was in 2012, there has to exist a hard cut-off. I migrated from PS3 to Steam because I figured the life cycle of the PS3 was going to expire before FS is done making TPA tables. I would think the one things any video game studio would want to avoid is becoming stagnant.

The key (I'll stress: THE KEY) here is to enable clearly defined settings in the app to allow devices not running capable GPUs to throttle or turn off features. This is basically what Zacc does, and it seems to be giving everyone the best of both device compatibility and features.

And yes, Android does this now with the Mipmap, Detail, and Textures settings. This could be taken a step further to Control "Dark Mode", and other Next Gen lighting features.

This way the user could select what items they activate. They could still play all the tables they are entitled to play, but at the sacrifice of graphics shininess/detail/lighting. The builds could contain all assets (yes, this will bump the RES filesize, but something's gotta give), and users would then be able to turn the features on or off.

As a long-term strategy in the fast-paced mobile hardware landscape, Farsight could "certify" the game to run on certain next gen platforms like the Nexus 9, NVidia Shield Tablet, Latest Samsung range, Latest HTC range (you get the picture). And review this each year and cut devices (or more specifically processor architectures that are no longer performant).

Each Season, Farsight reviews the devices on hand to see if they are still up to grade with the planned graphics enhancements for the year, then recertify or cut them from the supported list.

It's a bit like a "minimum specifications" declaration on PC games: you can run it on this under-performing mobile device, but don't expect a great experience unless you meet a few GPU minimum specs.

The Seasons need to be regarded as a "new" version of the game. Not just a DLC entitlement bundle. Look at this example for where I'm going with this:

Season Two Highlights Alpha Panes on Tables (list supported devices)

Season Three Highlights High Level of Detail and High Poly Counts enabled on tables (list supported devices and cut underperforming ones by supporting "High" and "Normal" options.

Season Four Highlights ??? (list supported devices and cut underperforming)

Season Five Highlights Dark Room Mode (re-certify or cut devices and advertise this at the beginning of the Season in Release Notes)

Do you see where I'm going with this? Seasons = Ability to re-align expectations about device support.

 

[Snorzel]

The key (I'll stress: THE KEY) here is to enable clearly defined settings in the app to allow devices not running capable GPUs to throttle or turn off features. This is basically what Zacc does, and it seems to be giving everyone the best of both device compatibility and features.

And yes, Android does this now with the Mipmap, Detail, and Textures settings. This could be taken a step further to Control "Dark Mode", and other Next Gen lighting features.

This way the user could select what items they activate. They could still play all the tables they are entitled to play, but at the sacrifice of graphics shininess/detail/lighting. The builds could contain all assets (yes, this will bump the RES filesize, but something's gotta give), and users would then be able to turn the features on or off.

As a long-term strategy in the fast-paced mobile hardware landscape, Farsight could "certify" the game to run on certain next gen platforms like the Nexus 9, NVidia Shield Tablet, Latest Samsung range, Latest HTC range (you get the picture). And review this each year and cut devices (or more specifically processor architectures that are no longer performant).

Each Season, Farsight reviews the devices on hand to see if they are still up to grade with the planned graphics enhancements for the year, then recertify or cut them from the supported list.

It's a bit like a "minimum specifications" declaration on PC games: you can run it on this under-performing mobile device, but don't expect a great experience unless you meet a few GPU minimum specs.

The Seasons need to be regarded as a "new" version of the game. Not just a DLC entitlement bundle. Look at this example for where I'm going with this:

Season Two Highlights Alpha Panes on Tables (list supported devices)

Season Three Highlights High Level of Detail and High Poly Counts enabled on tables (list supported devices and cut underperforming ones by supporting "High" and "Normal" options.

Season Four Highlights ??? (list supported devices and cut underperforming)

Season Five Highlights Dark Room Mode (re-certify or cut devices and advertise this at the beginning of the Season in Release Notes)

Do you see where I'm going with this? Seasons = Ability to re-align expectations about device support.

Great post. Hope [MENTION=132]Mike Reitmeyer[/MENTION] takes this to farsight for serious consideration.

 

[night]

If you keep supporting older hardware then there will be no progress, everything will stay as is. Make a new app, users who bought tables on their older device (like me) will still be able to play with the tables they bought. People with more cpu-power can d/l the newer app-version and continue with a new engine. No one will get hurt, you have to move forward.

 

[Spud]

@ some posts, if they were to start updating things as asked it would be unacceptable to start from a new season. There are too many great tables already released in previous seasons that would have to be updated to suit or they would rarely be played or disappointing to go back to! Has to be a full re work or nothing (my opinion)

 

[Jeff Strong]

Hey everyone! I've been following this thread and can see lots of valid complaints. The main thing that sticks out for me is the comparison to Zaccaria Pinball. The first thing that needs to be said, is that there is plenty of room for more pinball and we are very impressed with the quality they are able to produce. Currently, the emulation is a very taxing process for mobile devices and does not leave much room for improved graphics. Especially when supporting older devices is necessary. That doesn't mean we won't be able to do it in the future.

I've also been glancing over the thread and I'm glad you said this Mike. We already have people complaining about performance being sub-optimal on their device (mostly because there device is old or cluttered). Trying to match the graphical fidelity of Zaccaria Pinball in our game, which has 50+ tables and uses emulation, AND has to run on devices that are still using Android 2.3 isn't feasible. A lot of android games now-a-days are limiting which devices their game runs on to Android 4.x.x, however, this isn't a luxury that we have with a game that's been on the marketplace for years. Don't get me wrong, all of your concerns are valid, but we are limited to what we can do while still having to support older devices.

[MENTION=3213]Mike Lindsey[/MENTION] [MENTION=4573]Scumble373[/MENTION]

Thanks for chiming in fellas. Supporting older devices is great, but one way to do that which the Zacc guys have implemented so nicely is that they offer options to adjust graphic settings within the app so that the user can tweak according to their device. I know the Android version of TPA has a bit of this, but these options are something that could hopefully be expanded if you were to add more eye candy. TPA is going to start looking rather dated otherwise.

However, as others have pointed out, it's not only the graphics that Zacc is getting right; it's also the physics as well...Farsight could learn a lot from Zacc here...maybe the new tournament difficulty options will bring some improvements in this department.

I guess the coolest thing about Zacc is they're adding new features and options each month, other than just a new table. That's quite refreshing. Then we have TPA on the other hand and so often it seems that a new month comes along and all we see from Farsight is DLC and nothing else...:/ If Farsight were to start regularly adding new features/options/enhancments then you could really boost your fanbase back up a bit. Hopefully the new tournament mode and DX11 on PC will be the start of a more regular flow of new stuff and better things to come from Farsight.

EDIT: hadn't read the last page before posting. +1 to what others said above about graphics options, etc.

 

[Spud]

P.S. I would be happy to pay possibly at least what I have already for an updated product. After all, we paid for what it was in the beginning and to re work it would be a reasonable job in itself. I don't expect an older pc game to be fully re worked and updated graphically or in playability years later and then have handed to me for free! It would be like receiving a new product and I understand the work involved.

 

[kinggo]

@ some posts, if they were to start updating things as asked it would be unacceptable to start from a new season. There are too many great tables already released in previous seasons that would have to be updated to suit or they would rarely be played or disappointing to go back to! Has to be a full re work or nothing (my opinion)

well, yes. Probably and unfortunately the best tables wouldn't get the refresh.
But still, that's not the reason that the upcoming ones also look dated.

 

[Spud]

Agree, Cyclone is quite horrible IMO.

 

[Terminator]

Apple is an example who encourage its app developers to support newer hardware and "cut off" older hardware. Hell they even do this with their own OS to encourage older users to upgrade by deliberately slowing down the performance in ageing tech.

I've always wanted next-gen support in TPA running on iOS/android simply because I'm paying for a product that CAN be so much better, but chooses not to simply because of a small base of old users.

People who take TBA seriously on mobile... Wouldn't want to play it on a ****ty lagging device, and they would do something about it like uograding the OS or purchasing a new smartphone, once their two year contract has ended.

We have technology like Unreal Engine 4 and API that can get direct access to the hardware like "Metal" for ios8 and Project Vulkan for android. These will enhance graphics and engine by miles, it is time to get more serious on mobile FS if you want me to part with my money. Right now I'm waiting for zacc 3.4 to launch so i can sink my time and money in that masterpiece. Good luck.

 

[IGoFirstIndy]

P.S. I would be happy to pay possibly at least what I have already for an updated product. After all, we paid for what it was in the beginning and to re work it would be a reasonable job in itself. I don't expect an older pc game to be fully re worked and updated graphically or in playability years later and then have handed to me for free! It would be like receiving a new product and I understand the work involved.

I don't think we should have to repay for tables so Farsight can catch up graphically. It was their call to go down this path and now their competition has caught up and or surpassed them and done it at a quarter of their asking price. I don't mind if I have to pay a premium for a stern licensed table, but I'm not repaying for a table that has better lightening and graphics implemented on other platforms already.

its a good decision to update their product to attract new mobile customers and reinvigorate their loyal fan base on mobile. Especially considering most of the marquee tables are done. Paying 5-8 bucks for cyclone whenever it's finally released on IOS would be a lot easier to stomach if it looked like pinball eye candy and not just a flat recreation of the playfield.

 

[shutyertrap]

I don't think we should have to repay for tables so Farsight can catch up graphically. It was their call to go down this path and now their competition has caught up and or surpassed them and done it at a quarter of their asking price.

Completely agree. You don't let them off the hook for this kind of decision. Just because you think it's worth it, doesn't mean you have to pay it.

I keep reading stories about Tesla. Here is a small upstart of a car company, making huge waves, even with a very small customer base. These customers paid very premium prices for their cars. Time and time again, Tesla has served their customers right by retroactively including things that they are offering to new buyers to their old. These people can afford this stuff themselves, but Tesla realizes that it's the right thing to do.

Oh, our new cars have lifetime drive train warranties? Sure, we'll pass those out to the older cars too. Massive firmware update to the cars computers? Come on in and get some of that! This has built up a loyalty to the company that increases stock prices despite the company losing money. It's them saying, "don't worry, we got you. Trust us." You can't go back and keep nickel and diming people because you didn't have the forethought to make something future proof. You are essentially asking people to pay for your poor decisions or mistakes.

So no. We should not allow FarSight to charge for graphical fixes, engine upgrades, etc. And FarSight should not expect us to pay for those either. That is the cost of getting new customers, not keeping your current ones.

 

[Indy99]

Completely agree. You don't let them off the hook for this kind of decision. Just because you think it's worth it, doesn't mean you have to pay it.

I have to disagree a bit here. While I would welcome Farsight going back and giving us the existing tables all prettied up with a new engine with improved lighting and physics (in particular, flipper physics), in no way would I expect or think that would happen. We are talking over 50 tables. I would be willing to pay a small upgrade fee to get existing tables on a new engine with graphical updates. If the new engine was on par or better than Zacc, I would be throwing my money at Farsight.

 

[IGoFirstIndy]

I have to disagree a bit here. While I would welcome Farsight going back and giving us the existing tables all prettied up with a new engine with improved lighting and physics (in particular, flipper physics), in no way would I expect or think that would happen. We are talking over 50 tables. I would be willing to pay a small upgrade fee to get existing tables on a new engine with graphical updates.

we should not have to pay extra for what is the norm, and included in their own game on other platforms.