If FS is limited to the number of B/W tables, why waste them?

[SKILL_SHOT]

Why not hook up with Tim Arnold again and work a deal to use the table you need and kick down to his charity plus that table will pick up some historical uniqueness.

 

[brakel]

Surely the manufacturers must have either images, or originals of the Artwork unless it was a one off prototype.
Anything that's manufactured in any quantity by a company, is documented, ip protected where applicable and therefore normally reproducible, unless lost in the passage of take overs and time.

Getting access to it is another matter though I guess.

Most tables are 20 years old or older and are owned by companies that no longer have active pinball divisions. While they probably have some documentation it is unlikely that it is digitized. Artwork might have been pitched years ago. Most likely whatever they have is in storage with no one directly responsible for it anymore. In other words if you called them up and asked for documentation for table "X" there would be no one to transfer you to.

 

[Hinph]

Never seen Centaur at Arnold's museum... not sure if he has more machines in storage or whatnot.

 

[Nik Barbour]

Most tables are 20 years old or older and are owned by companies that no longer have active pinball divisions. While they probably have some documentation it is unlikely that it is digitized. Artwork might have been pitched years ago. Most likely whatever they have is in storage with no one directly responsible for it anymore. In other words if you called them up and asked for documentation for table "X" there would be no one to transfer you to.

A longer shot..... but suppliers to the table assembler might still be in business and still have technical drawings / art. Also I've seen cad drawings and artwork signed by the design team and framed and given away for promo purposes.

Quick bit of googling turned up this supplier...
http://www.classicplayfields.com/people.html

This company reproduces playfields, their Art Director Stuart Wright, a professional graphic artist - to quote from the above site...

"Stuart just finished building the ultimate game room emporium as a new home for his pins, the latest of which is Big Bang Bar. He has already restored his KISS and Centaur pins from ground up and is in the process of restoring Eight Ball Deluxe, Xenon, Sexy Girl and Creature from the Black Lagoon. Stuart is very excited to join the CPR Art Team and give back to the pinball community by combining his two favorite passions — Pinball & Graphics. He is looking forward to working on several ‘complete packages’ of plastics, playfields & backglasses as a means for other collectors to restore their pins from top to bottom."

This guy/company produces reproduction playfields and art, and has just rebuilt (and probably digitized in the process) a Centaur.
He personally owns 46pins. If he doesn't want to help or the company couldn't be pay rolled into selling digital scans/data/artwork then I don't know who could.

Farsight / Mike - is it not worth talking with these guys?

 

[shutyertrap]

I am always amazed when looking at playfields without all the "stuff". I mean, Cyclone is nothing but a big clown and little people everywhere!

 

[Worf]

The problem with obtaining the original files is they've probably been lost to time. Even if you keep meticulous records, things just seem to disappear - you may have every document on a project on the server, but as people archive stuff, the location of the archives gets lost and you lose it all.

Right now, Cenaur is over 30 years old. If there even were CAD files, they'd probably be irretrievable - if the media was readable, there isn't a drive that could. Or it's a format that no one can read today. If you can find the original blueprints, you'll be laughing, but it's probably in the cellarwhere the light has gone (as had the stairs) in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on it that says "Beware of the Leopard".

 

[karl]

Farsight should hire Roger Sharpe full time if he is available. Wishful thinking probably but the gain is huge. Easier access to everything(he knows everyone) and would also be much easier getting hard to get licenses.(he is the master in that department) Did he help them get tz and tng? seem to remember reading that Could be a conflict of interests if he is still part time working with midway but a nice idea nonetheless

 

[Kevlar]

That is a great idea karl.

 

[night]

Pretty large playfield graphics: http://classicplayfields.com/photo74.html

 

[Sumez]

Farsight should hire Roger Sharpe full time if he is available. Wishful thinking probably but the gain is huge. Easier access to everything(he knows everyone) and would also be much easier getting hard to get licenses.(he is the master in that department) Did he help them get tz and tng? seem to remember reading that Could be a conflict of interests if he is still part time working with midway but a nice idea nonetheless

Yeah, according to press, Roger Sharpe pretty much nailed all the contacts and dealings needed to put together a license package for FarSight doing ST:TNG.
I bet they've been dealing with him a lot, beforehand too, he seriously seems to be "the guy" when it comes to the business side of pinball - whenever he opens his mouth, it just reeks of a love for pinball.

 

[Richard B]

Sharpe is also the guy who told FS to intentionally make the tables easier.

 

[Worf]

Sharpe knows what he's talking about. And I can tell you, he's correct because the goal of the tables are different from when they're designed (they're designed to make money. Now TPA is designed to make them fun, and it can be argued die hard pinball fans lead to the death of pinball because newbies couldn't enter).

Though I'd suggest hiring him on. He stayed at Williams for so long because he knew how to tweak tables to get them to "feel right". A few of those tables need their parameters tweaked to "feel right". Even if it feels different, the interaction between the tables and the physics can make the table feel odd.

 

[Kevlar]

Where does this information that FS have delt with Roger Sharp already come from? I seem to have missed this along the way ( or just forgotten ).

 

[Jeff Strong]

Bobby mentioned it in audio interviews (I can't recall which exactly), and there's this:

 

[Kevlar]

Cheers Jeff, I remember that video now. I am pretty old you know!

 

[Jeff Strong]

Sharpe knows what he's talking about. And I can tell you, he's correct because the goal of the tables are different from when they're designed (they're designed to make money. Now TPA is designed to make them fun, and it can be argued die hard pinball fans lead to the death of pinball because newbies couldn't enter).

Though I'd suggest hiring him on. He stayed at Williams for so long because he knew how to tweak tables to get them to "feel right". A few of those tables need their parameters tweaked to "feel right". Even if it feels different, the interaction between the tables and the physics can make the table feel odd.

If pinball machines were only designed to make money, then pinball never would've boomed like it did. Pinball machines had to fun too, otherwise people wouldn't keep coming back.

Also, it's debatable that TPA's recreation makes them more fun. It all depends on your definition of fun. To me, a lot of the fun of pinball is the adrenaline rush I get from trying to keep the ball alive. Quite a bit of that is lost when they make things too easy (such is the case with Scared Stiff and TZ). To me, long marathon sessions just aren't as fun.

And lastly, I don't think you can blame hardcore pinball fans for the "death" of pinball. If you look back at the 60's and 70's, pinball was huge, and by huge I mean HUGE...there were tons of casual players (and also tons of female players, my mom was one of them). The machines were hard in terms of difficulty, but people didn't care because it was fun and because it was cutting edge at the time....that was all before pinball didn't have to compete with video games. As soon as video games started booming, pinball machines became more and more neglected by players (and owners). Arcades that were once filled to the brim with pinball machines were suddenly forced to make room for video games because that was the new rage that all the kids wanted. Sure, pinball pressed on, but it began to steadily dwindle in popularity from that day forward. Through the 80's, it was still quite popular, but it couldn't hold a candle to video games in terms of demand. The 90's saw pinball machines that were more high tech than ever, but most common arcades only had a few pinball machines because kids simply weren't playing them as much as video games.

So I think it's pretty clear that videos games had much more to do to the so-called "death" of pinball...which is why it's kind of ironic (and very cool) that video games such as TPA and Zen are helping to revitalize it.

 

[Sumez]

If pinball machines were only designed to make money, then pinball never would've boomed like it did. Pinball machines had to fun too, otherwise people wouldn't keep coming back.

I think that's a pretty interesting balance.

I think you were one of those people that recently recommended the "TOPcast" podcasts - I just listened through the entirety of the one with Pat Lawlor, which definitely raises some interesting issues on the subject of playability versus moneymaking. From his point of view, he seemed to care a lot more about the amount of money a table could make on site, more than there pure fun quality of the table itself, or the number of tables ordered by distributors.

So for Pat Lawlor (and most other pinball designers, judging from various interviews over time), the two most important factors were exactly making the table fun, while still making each play as short as possible.
A complicated balance, but a pretty simple equation: replayability / average length of a game = income for the operator. Mess up one of the two factors, and you've failed. He personally considers Twilight Zone a big failure, and that anecdote about the kid throwing up his hands going "I hate this game!" is really interesting. For Pat Lawlor it was more important to cater to the broad public, than to make a table that made the pinball geeks happy.


However, it goes deeper than that. Most people who dig arcade games, and I'm especially seeing this on the topics of classic 2D shoot'em ups (another interest of mine) and pinball, really enjoy the "made to make money" tuning that is typically employed in arcade games.
Games are shorter, and more difficult, while the best of them are far from impossible. A really well balanced scoring system can extend a game's replayability into the infinite, while each game session might be as short as a few minutes. A perfect recipe for those of us who lead busy lives, but still want to spend a lot of time to really get into their hobby.

The issue here, that I often see people raise on this forum, is that most of these games were designed to be fun on the premise of the short playing sessions. If you play for an hour every time you pick up a game of Twilight Zone, the game suddenly isn't as fun as it were when you were playing sessions of a few minutes each, which the game was designed for. This really goes for most classic arcade game genres.
So while I agree that pinball games made for home "should" be made easier, because they aren't made to make money, it's still doubtful whether it's a good idea to do that on otherwise faithful recreations of games that were originally designed to do exactly that.

I'm saying "doubtful" here, because, to be honest, I'm personally enjoying some TPA tables a lot more than the real deal because they are easier. I'm at the point where I can reach wizard modes, but it's far from regularly.
If I was better at the game, I would probably feel differently, though.

 

[karl]

Roger Sharpe is probably the only reason they have Williams/Bally at all since they are known for being hard to work with.
To me there is only 3 of the tables that are way too easy. 1. Bride of Pin bot(never played in real life), 2. Scarred Stiff, 3. Twilight Zone.
On those 3 I have Marathon rounds every second or third game and that is to often (It is ok to have a long game if you been trying for it 10 times in a row)
Would be nice to get another video Interview soon to hear from Roger what his role has been in the company
because I do not trust it when I hear stuff like "Sharpe is also the guy who told FS to intentionally make the tables easier"
no matter who says it(no offense Richard). It is just to vague. What did he say to make easier? Randomness from kickouts?, general physics?, operator adjustments etc, etc.
I doubt he talks with them before each table release (that is Josh's job).

To Worf: About your statement as to why Roger Sharpe was with Williams for so long. He was mainly a license guy at Williams not a table tweaker.
I am sure he did some of that also as he is an excellent player and a great designer but it was not his main job. I would guess many designers would come to him for some advice though

One last thing: To me, the important thing is not about who or what was the death of pinball but rather Is anybody trying to kill it now?
My answer: There is no one strong enough to challenge the strong arm of the plunger

To Sumez: I started writing this before you posted. Did I just spend One bleeding hour on this piece of nonsense

 

[Kolchak357]

I always enjoyed pinball. But many of my friends were turned off by how complicated pin rules were getting. This combined with the explosion of video games really killed pinball for most of my friends. Video games at the time were fairly easy to understand what you should be trying to do. Pinball tables made in the 60's, 70's, and early 80's were easy to understand too. Just read the instruction card and off you went. Somewhere along the line this changed and people didn't know what to shoot for, or how to start multiball, or how to get a free game. I played a lot of pinball and I thought I knew the rules on the newest tables (but I've since learned that I did not) but the pins were still tougher to play. My friends started to look at pinball as a waste of their money. There always seemed to be a feeling that if they died in a video game it was their fault for being a bad player, but drains on a pin wasn't their fault, that somehow the table had screwed them. Maybe it wasn't so much that they got harder, but they got harder to understand and enjoy. Am I making any sense here?

 

[night]

I always enjoyed pinball. But many of my friends were turned off by how complicated pin rules were getting. This combined with the explosion of video games really killed pinball for most of my friends. Video games at the time were fairly easy to understand what you should be trying to do. Pinball tables made in the 60's, 70's, and early 80's were easy to understand too. Just read the instruction card and off you went. Somewhere along the line this changed and people didn't know what to shoot for, or how to start multiball, or how to get a free game. I played a lot of pinball and I thought I knew the rules on the newest tables (but I've since learned that I did not) but the pins were still tougher to play. My friends started to look at pinball as a waste of their money. There always seemed to be a feeling that if they died in a video game it was their fault for being a bad player, but drains on a pin wasn't their fault, that somehow the table had screwed them. Maybe it wasn't so much that they got harder, but they got harder to understand and enjoy. Am I making any sense here?

The thing with pinball is, no matter how good you are, you always loose at the end. In a videogame you fight your way through levels to ultimately get to the end where you fight the big bad boss and win the game. Perhaps the feeling of satisfaction is greater for some.