Farsight's missed opportunities and possible explosion going forward

[superdan]

Since I discovered TPA about two years ago it has rekindled my love and nastalgia for these playable works of art. So much so I started my own podcast called the pin-bar cavern (now defunct) to talk about it in an entertaining variety-show type format. So much so I am currently saving to buy my first pinball machine...something that I never would of even thought of previously. But alas...Unfortunately farsight is still unable or unwilling to awaken the giant that they possess right in front of them.
My point of contention is they should take a page from the growth and boom of online poker with the online pinball arcade. Not that they can currently legally offer online play for money in the U.S. (except perhaps New Jersey/Nevada currently), but certainly for prizes, trophies, gifts, league play, multi-player tables, and so on...farsight's sight has been blind. Whether subscription based or fee based or buy-in or what-have-you...farsight has really missed a diamond here.
How fun would it be to open up TPA with a tab list of pinball games and jump into a 4-player game with people from all over the world, have a chat window, have a play timer so people don't lag the game too long, watch them play and applaud when they do something great, or laugh when they don't. How fun to have software for league play, tourney software so people like you, me, or whoever can start and run their own tournaments with structures we want. How about playing for prizes? Trophies? It's all possible, but out of the box thinking is required. Possibilities abound.
Why not a Kickstarter to expand farsight's company into software development and research and target development? Why not bring the league experience, the real arcade experience, the tournament experience right on our devices? And not just a 20 min, unlimited attempts, one week; one trick pony they have had all along?
The reason I bring this all up again is they are currently developing a new phase with stern pinball. With a new app and new software and graphical interface... They can head in this direction if they so choose. If they do, I for one will be shouting for the hilltops how frickin awesome TPA is and have a smile as I watch it go mainstream and huge.
As things stand now, it makes those in the "know" excited but the masses are still in the dark with no clue. It limits its growth and it does not tap into its enormous potential. This argument is not new, I've been saying it since the beginning but will continue saying it...they need to grow.
TPA is good, I want them to be great. Do they want to be, sort of speak, a small Indian run online poker room with 3 tables going, or be the poker stars of online pinball play? It's up to them.
Cheers,
~D

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

Because, to put it bluntly, they don't have the staff to do that, and attracting the level and quality of staff to go live up a mountain in a small town is extremely difficult. Given Jay's political ties to the local community, they're not going to move either.

 

[invitro]

Online gambling is big because gambling is addictive, not because it's particularly fun.

I think TPA is great, beyond great even, and that the current tourney is fine as it is. I don't see value in your proposal.

 

[BStarfire]

Yeah, I don't see much value in this, either. Unless I had unlimited time and nothing else to do, that added utility I would get from such features is negligible. As long as my friends can see the leaderships and notifications and know what we're all scoring on different machines when we play - that's the most important, and that aspect already serves me well. Speaking of Vegas, I remember when some thought they were blind and really missing the boat by not appealing to families as a full fun destination for the kids and adults. Build some amusement parks, kiddie lands, etc. Didn't work out too well. In any event, combining successful aspects of different industries or implementations is not necessarily a formula for success. The key is to build on strengths.

 

[Voof]

I can see it right now! They implement 4 player games and start getting hateful feedback because some player just lasted 2 hours on ball 1.... I do believe leagues would be a nice addition but not simultaneously due to obvious issues.

 

[Jeff Strong]

Not so sure about the playing for money part, but let's be honest:

If done properly, online multiplayer would be huge, just like it is in practically every other modern video game known to man, including pinball games such as Zen. As good as TPA may be as a single player game, the fact that it's taken Farsight this long to implement a true multiplayer component is very unfortunate and a huge mistake on their part, in my opinion. Yes, there are people who aren't interested in multiplayer and wouldn't use it, but there's no denying that most gamers today play multiplayer games the majority of the time and many don't even bother with games that don't offer multiplayer. Folks that are accustomed to TPA as it is may not be as interested in it, but it they're looking to attract new players to the game and perhaps the genre itself, I can't think of another feature that would be more enticing than head-to-head multiplayer.

 

[Mark Miwurdz]

Worked great when Pinball FX/Zen came out. We had a great online community.

 

[soundwave106]

Poker stars of pinball, no (gambiling's going down a very bad area considering pinball's past). Freemium would also be an awful direction to head in as well (well, at least from my perspective, I dislike freemium games).

Turn based head to head of some sort should be technically be possible. Many emulators support some form of head to head (eg via Kaillera).

I think it is probably would be somewhat of a challenge to get head to head code working lag free (Kaillera reportedly isn't, and the physics involved in pinball probably are a bit heavier than a platformer).

I'm not sure how practical it is to develop head to head for all platforms. Particularly mobile, where bandwidth is limited. Should be fine on Steam / PC or the consoles.

Developer resources and priorities are probably the big reason why you don't see it. I honestly haven't seen a *lot* of people ask for head to head in the forums etc. More people ask for table X or Y to be emulated. So that's what Farsight developers probably concentrate on.

 

[invitro]

Let's remember that Farsight is currently working on head to head.

And TPA is already multiplayer. Tournaments are multiplayer, and chasing all-time high scores is multiplayer.

We don't want an online multiplayer where one player plays a ball, and the other three sit around and wait for their turn. That would suck tremendously, and it would be silly to implement such a feature on TPA.

I would like to see an official implementation of the speed run competitions that people here are doing. And greatly expanded wizard goals, like an all-time leaderboard for highest score on one regular multiball in AFM, for instance. I don't know if enough players would be interested in those things to make it worth the effort, though.

I don't know if enough people appreciate that good things don't last forever. I've seen enough good things die in my life, with the death of WMS being at the top, to know that just sustaining a good thing is something to celebrate, and usually or always better than starting some other new thing that just has a little bit of potential. TPA has three amazing things going now: the monthly release of new tables, the all-time leaderboards, and the monthly tournaments. The loss of any of those three would be catastrophic, and far beyond the addition of any new feature I've seen mentioned. This is why I'm more than satisfied with current TPA, and why I'm getting paranoid about efforts to push Farsight in different directions, as I'm worried that something that is great now will disappear.

 

[canuck]

Online gambling is big because gambling is addictive, not because it's particularly fun.

I think TPA is great, beyond great even, and that the current tourney is fine as it is. I don't see value in your proposal.

Tables are also buggy enough that any such gambling system would be quickly compromised.

 

[HotHamBoy]

Considering the amount of work and polish that would need to go into such a project, it's pretty clear that FS is completely unequipped. TPA is also a very niche product, which is why it's ported to so many platforms. So they would need to make all of this work on all their current platforms, in accordance to each platform's policies, per region. And cross-platform play would not be in the cards, for the most part. Besides, they have plenty to address as it is to achieve platform parity. A Kickstarter would fail. I mean, come on. The licensed tables barely clear their goals, you think people will be giving them money just to expand their company or implement a pay-to-play service? It's doubtful they even want to expand, that's a ton of work with a lot of people at stake. High risk, low control.