Is This Really What The VP/FP Community Has Come To???

[PiN WiZ]

I wish more of the VP community would help Farsight with the emulation. They already have the creator of VPin Mame helping with emulation, but they could probably use some help from VP authors as well.

This would be another good way for VP/FP authors to support FarSight in their efforts. The way I see it, VP/FP authors have over a decade of experience of building and testing tables between them all and if they could help FarSight with beta testing, I think it would greatly help FarSight put out a more stable and polished product which in turn could possibly mean more sales.

 

[Richard B]

Please don't talk to me like I don't know what I'm talking about. On the iOS, the nudging hasn't worked right since the start, black hole is currently unplayable due a glitch (though it's being fixed), MM flippers still aren't correct, there's a game killing multiball bug in Circus Voltaire. On 360, I have had problems with the ball getting stuck on black hole, and having to restart. While it's fixed now, Ripley's was literally unplayable on iPad one due to the ball constantly acting wierd. I still love Pinball Arcade despite the bugs, but I know the difference between games with a couple bugs and buggy games. Just becuase you haven't experienced them all doesn't mean they aren't there.

I don't know how saying the game is unpolished is going too far. There are bugs that have been around since the first version of Pinball Arcade that are still there. New bugs have been introduced after updates that often made games unplayable. Some things that should have been addressed before they came out are only coming out in later updates. I'm aware many of the bugs are minor, but there are many bugs, not just a few, and some of them are major.

I'm sorry if I come off as harsh, but I do like the game quite a bit and want to see it do well. The physics are some of the better ones I have seen and I love how there is a new product supporting real tables.

Sorry, I've only played the 360 version, and it is a pretty polished product. I assumed the other versions were pretty close to it in terms of quality, but apparently I was wrong.

 

[FurVid]

We don't know how the 360 will do with updates, since there haven't been any yet. On iOS, each of the three versions of Black Hole have been less playable than the one it replaced. With some very obvious bugs (evident in 1-2 minutes of play) still present and new ones added. The current 360 Black Hole is pretty much dead for me, since in almost any game in which I start doing well it'll either get confused and not move the camera to the plunger (attendant says nothing's wrong) or it'll get into a state in which starting new multiballs are impossible, but in which the gate never closes. Either way, I turn it off at that point. In the latter case, a good player can play almost indefinitely - if you're good at returning the ball to the lower level when it does drain, you can just rack up bonus, multipliers, and continually light extra balls at the top rollunder. FX2 has a much better and more stable platform, but the tables just don't have much long-term appeal.

 

[Brian Clark]

I ran into a few bugs on 360, especially with Black Hole. On Black Hole, I have gotten extra balls to the point where the ball counter went down. Not to mention the stuck balls I mentioned. On Tales of Arabian Nights, I had a very odd glitch with multiball where I hit a ball in the bazaar hole before all the balls came out and wierd stuff happened afterwards. Balls would take a long time to get out of the hole, get stuck in the hole, and the rewards wouldn't be given until the next ball. At one point it seemed the ball was stuck for good until it finally came out. I have also encountered other bugs on ToTAN, but I don't care as much about some of them becuase they can happen on the real machine. Some of these bugs are listed here on the forum in the topics for the game.

 

[unclewilly]

if farsite contacted me for helpon table development or anything else, id be more than happy to free of charge. i cant speak for other authors.
ive got about 6 years exp. developing tables in vp and fp.

i want nothing but success for this program.
and have high hopes for a kickass pc versionl.
also hopeing for an editor eventually so i can continue to contribute to the pinball community.

 

[PiN WiZ]

if farsite contacted me for helpon table development or anything else, id be more than happy to free of charge. i cant speak for other authors.
ive got about 6 years exp. developing tables in vp and fp.

i want nothing but success for this program.
and have high hopes for a kickass pc versionl.
also hopeing for an editor eventually so i can continue to contribute to the pinball community.

Good to hear UW, I hope other VP/FP authors follow suit and that FarSight will consider having you guys help them out with beta testing or anything else they may need help on.

 

[dtown8532]

Pinball simulation is just that; simulation. It's not the real thing. It could never be the real thing. With that said, The Pinball Arcade is the closest I've yet to see to the real deal. VP/FP are the future of pinball? No way. I used to play VP many years ago and currently have FP running in boot camp on my mac mini connected to a 50" plasma. Now FP is not bad by any means but, no matter what table I choose, it "feels" more artificial than TPA or even the hall of fame collections. And definitely less polished. Although The Pinball Arcade does have its fair share of bugs I can be pretty confident that their TZ simulation will not be feeding a never ending supply of balls out the lower right outhole onto the field. Yes, this did happen on the FP table. On the other hand Farsight could take a lesson from some of the FP tables in the area of mechanical sound recreation. TPA's need some more snap to them.

One other thing. I'm fairly knowledgeable with PC's or Mac and I won't bother with VP due to all the hassle of getting it to work right. FP isn't as bad but it's not "plug and play" like TPA is. My brother is even more knowledgeable than me at PC's and he likes pinball but he'll never touch VP. He plays TPA on his android and Xbox 360 though. My argument is, how can the future of pinball simulation be something that requires you to move files around on your computer to get it to work? It can't. It's got to be simple and easy for people to understand. Remember what Mr. Plinkett said in his redlettermedia review of Star Trek. There's just too much sh1t vying for your attention.

 

[Jeff Strong]

if farsite contacted me for helpon table development or anything else, id be more than happy to free of charge. i cant speak for other authors.
ive got about 6 years exp. developing tables in vp and fp.

i want nothing but success for this program.
and have high hopes for a kickass pc versionl.
also hopeing for an editor eventually so i can continue to contribute to the pinball community.

That would be awesome, unclewilly. Your tables are great.

 

[superballs]

I would have to step in as a VP user and a supporter of TPA. While i don't think that the overall community should be represented by one forum poster there (I haven't read the thread yet and will probably chime in there). Let it be known that the VPForums member Superballs is all about TPA, for hopefully obvious reasons, I can certainly speak for him. I'm also a paying member of VPForums so I do have something vested in it, although it's not a decade of work, but I am a supporter of the community.

TPA is a wonderful product and VP is a wonderful product. Neither are perfect and to say either are well polished is a mis-statement at best. Yes if TPTB crack down on the use of the ROMs available on VPForums (I thought that i read somewhere that VPForums was allowed to distribute those, but then again i read conspiracy theories too).

Personally, I can't stand the amount of infighting that can manifest itself within the community. Like we can't stand that someone might prefer something other than what we prefer (I say WE as a community as a whole and I'm not trying to single out this forum or VPForums or anything like that). I mean if someone prefers PinballFX, fine, not my taste but fine. If someone wants to play Future Pinball then fine, that's fine too.

As far as the future of pinball...I hope the Unity3D project is the future of Visual Pinball based on even the little bit I've seen on what work has been done on it and what I've seen on Youtube regarding what it can do, physics-wise. Since this uses a new (in VP terms) 3D engine, VPMame, and even the FP editor. Talk about bringing two constantly bickering communities together.

I really like how well VP works most of the time (as an ATI user it can be very discouraging). I like the amount of configurability it has, despite how much of a pain it can be to set up. It's actually more tedious than hard, especially in cab configuration.

TPA is worth supporting. Never have I felt that a company wants what I want. Sure they want to make money, in that they are no different from anyone else. The nice thing is that by making a living off of pinball preservation, they can make it a full time job. That is something that VP will never have is that nobody WANTS to take the time to recode it which it really needs, in order to take advantage of the newer windows gfx APIs.

Frankly, while the VP community is wonderful at making tables, they are less than stellar at improving the software.
Not to say that they are no good, there are wonderful people doing wonderful things with VP9, such as the B2S (Scoring reels on backglass) and layback functions, alpha blending for the ramps and all that. The trouble is that it's all being slapped on in a patchlike manner.

My wishlist for VP10 would be that it can natively support all these things and integrate secondary monitors more efficiently.

My wishlist for TPA is to find a way to better sync releases (not same day mind you, but closer than a month away would be nice), an awesome PC version, a table editor for authors, support for additional roms, arcade settings and a completely different way of getting on the leaderboards to make it more meaningful, and of course the typical bugfixes.

Both of our communities have a bit of guilt when it comes to not liking the other products, I'm sure when this forum gets as big as VPforums it will come out more.

I'm still glad to have not only one, but several communities to take part in, however, like said in another thread, if you won't support it, don't support it and if you will, then do it. TPA is not going to crumble or thrive based on a thread over at VPForums. Even I have my own feelings regarding the Kickstart program and see a lot of pros and cons. I really don't think that VP is going to go anywhere just because there is a Kickstarter program. The pitfalls if they present themselves would be there no matter how FS paid for the licenses not whether or not they are obtained from a kickstarter program.