I post here a lot. Too much. Way, way, way too much. But I've still got nothing on the voices that are currently shaping the game (for better or) for worse (for worse).
And since this is my last post I'm not going to hold back. I'm going to speak my full mind and not give a ****.
First off to you Farsight. I love the game, I loved it on Xbox so much that I started posting here, but ever since I started gaming primarily on my Phone (iPhone 4S) I've felt like an unpaid game tester. Seriously. My most anticipated release, Scared Stiff, has end of game bugs that still haven't been resolved, and that was a late October release. We're not talking about some obscure *X then Y then Z* chain of events triggering bug, we're talking a bug that just makes the game not work after you've entered a high score. How the HELL does stuff like that make it past testing? Do you test? Serious question. I don't believe you do.
I understand you are a small developer. So may I make a simple suggestion? Take a month off. All of January, CLEAR IT. WE DONT NEED A TABLE PACK, we will survive. Take the entire month and do NOTHING BUT BUG FIXES. There are bugs throughout all the games including RELEASE tables. This stuff has to be sorted. Now I take into account that you guys are small, and have bitten off more than you could chew with deciding to release on every platform in existance. It's too late to back out now (I guess), but if I was your boss my first order of business would be to simply cut out platforms that aren't paying the bills. Primarily PSVita. I'd say Mac, but since it's just an upscaled iOS port, it's free money. PSVita on the other hand, the quality is so damn low, and the userbase so small (the handheld is a failure and will be discontinued soon enough, a shame as it's a great piece of tech but was never going to survive in a post-smart phone world, even 3DS is struggling) I can't imagine it's made any money for them, and furthermore, development resources are development resources if cutting out a platform allows you more time to work on the others, than so be it.
I know that might even mean cutting off my platform of choice, Xbox 360 (GASPS!). What's shameful about that platform isn't the 40k per patch fees, which means packing in multiple updates to keep profit, but rather the fact that you haven't made any kind of dent in Pinball FX's marketshare, despite having the VASTLY superior game. 10k base pack sales is pathetic, that's like obscure Japanese XBLA game bad (I should know, I own most, if not all of them. Reminds me to buy Trouble Witches...). For a userbase as large and as online-connected as the 360 you should have, minimum, 100k sales of the base pack. Then the 40k fees would no longer be such an issue.
How can you achieve this? Well I have a marketing background and I have some ideas, I could do a big powerpoint on it (maybe I will), some of my ideas would cost you, but here's one that wouldn't cost you a dime (ok well 2.50$ but well worth it): give away Arabian Nights for free. That would give you huge downloads, getting you easily into XBLA top ten, giving you tons of free advertising and sales, without spending a dime on dashboard ads. Then you just break up the other 3 tables into the same pricing structure as iOS. This is how Pinball FX got so damn huge. I know, I watched it happen I've been gaming on Xbox 360 since 2005 and checking the XBLA marketplace is a habit I do just about every time I turn on the console. Most people wouldn't know or give a damn about PinFX if it wasn't in the top 10, and it's there because they give away a free table, while charging for every other table individually. There has never, to my knowledge, ever, been on dash advertising for PinFX, barring the Marvel tables and that was post MS aquisition and well after they were already a million seller. 10$ base price is scaring potential buyers away. The per-table PinFX model (as well as your mobile model) is superior in every way. To my knowledge, something like this is being tried with PS+? Except you're giving away the ENTIRE base pack for free, that's a huge mistake. You don't do that. You give away 1, that makes them salivate for more, better tables. I know that sounds like shady marketing speak, that's because it is! MARKETING IS SHADY! (hence why I got out of it), but it works I know what I'm talking about here! Base pack with 4 tables is enough to keep them very busy, and many potential buyers will pass on DLC who wouldn't have otherwise. Still, with that being said, it's a step in the right direction and I feel the PS+ promotion will be successful, just not as successful as it could potentially be. Anyways, moving on.
Next up. The new menu. It's an alpha build. An alpha build with too many scripting bugs and quirks to make it to Besta form. Oh I'm sorry this is the release. Ok let me laugh harder. Again, there is no way this was tested in any fashion. If it was, please fire your game testers.
I mean when I saw it I was like, please tell me those are placeholder graphics and sounds? How can you honestly release that to the public. Guys when people see your game for the first time, the UI is the first thing they see. A classy, well made, functional UI gives the impression this is a polished, well made game. The menu you have now, that might have worked or looked OK for a shovelware PlayStation 1 game in the mid 90's, but it's just flat out shameful for such an otherwise amazing pinball sim for 2012. After you just got game of the year, and other accolades people now more than ever are going to be seeing the game for the first time, and first impressions are a big deal. It's important. And that music. You cannot be serious with that. That's something the folks over at Snuggie would have been ashamed to put in one of their infomercials. Seriously public access shows would probably consider those tracks too crappy to use. I think you guys stole it from the opening to the Sports Collectibles show from Shop at Home circa 1998. I'm calling Don West...
Look my Sister is a graphic designer. She could slap something together OVERNIGHT, that BLOWS AWAY what you have now. Do you want her number? I am dead serious. On this board alone are plenty of people who would probably do this for you FOR FREE. Many of us, in the back of our minds, are all thinking the same thing. God, can't ****ing wait until the Steam release so modders can come in and really get to work on doing/fixing what Farsigh-don't (can't?).
If it seems like I care too much you're right. I got this as a gift for 3 family members this year, and 4 other family members I've gotten to buy over the last year. 2 of whom bought Xboxes JUST FOR THE GAME (50 year old pinball players, my Dad and Uncle). So I really care about the quality and I'm telling you this isn't hard, there are a million graphics design majors all across the damn country who could do a nicer job in their sleep. This is being talked about on another message forum as well, who likens the UI to that of a cheap chinese DVD player or car GPS.
Balanced difficulty: The release of Twilight Zone was soiled for me, not because it was too easy, but because people were complaining it was too easy. Here I was happier than a kitten in a field of flowers on a spring morning, Twilight Zone was here! Finally! It's amazing! Yet there was a huge vocal outcry day 1 (zero) about the tables "super easy" difficulty, and by huge I mean a very small, but rather loud, vocal few spearheaded by two incredibly outspoken individuals, who even in my heated meltdown, I still have too much class to call out by name. I will admit that it was definitely one of the easier releases, but I knew that no good would come out of such heated verbal discourse, and I was right. And instead of just maybe slightly tweaking the next release, you flat out made it brutally difficult. If you are going to take a small handful of people so seriously then why don't you just hire them? There's a video, I wish I had the damn link, but it's basically a fan video talking about why developers should NEVER LISTEN TO THEIR FANS. Of course that's a misnomer, it's good to listen to fans, but the point is fans are always going to ***** no matter what you do, sometimes it's simply best to ignore them. The most outspoken fans don't necessarily represent a large number of people and often times, they have no clue what the hell they are talking about. It's good to take fans into consideration but at the end of the day difficulty hasn't been an issue on any table until TZ, so it was never really a problem, and you need to know when to stick to your guns and ignore people and when to listen to them (like with BUGS!! etc.), which brings me to my next point:
Fix Pro Mode. It's a rip off. Not much I need to say that hasn't already been said. Charging 3.99 which is the price of a licensed, non-kickstarted table for what amounts to little more than OPTIONS (which should be free), a free camera mode, and two other features nobody asked for, is outrageous. Either lower the price or add some kind of actual value to it. You got me on Scared Stiff and Medieval Madness just because I'm a sucker for their over the top, unrated glory but now you've also got me on Star Trek because the difficult is unbalanced.
Serenity now, serenity now! Ok. I'm calm. I don't read big posts either (unless they are well written, and I'm bored), so :
TL;DR
Classy UI: Pay some college student 100$ and boom 3000% improvement.
Balanced difficulty
Better or Cheaper Pro Mode
FIX THE MOTHER ****ING BUGS
Xbox release; see you in February (March?...April?...2014?)
I bolded the entire paragraph that I feel is the most important. IF Farsight listens to me, one damn time, on one damn issue, this is the one, that could make the game the runaway success it deserves to be.
Love you guys take care now, tis been fun I'm out.
And since this is my last post I'm not going to hold back. I'm going to speak my full mind and not give a ****.
First off to you Farsight. I love the game, I loved it on Xbox so much that I started posting here, but ever since I started gaming primarily on my Phone (iPhone 4S) I've felt like an unpaid game tester. Seriously. My most anticipated release, Scared Stiff, has end of game bugs that still haven't been resolved, and that was a late October release. We're not talking about some obscure *X then Y then Z* chain of events triggering bug, we're talking a bug that just makes the game not work after you've entered a high score. How the HELL does stuff like that make it past testing? Do you test? Serious question. I don't believe you do.
I understand you are a small developer. So may I make a simple suggestion? Take a month off. All of January, CLEAR IT. WE DONT NEED A TABLE PACK, we will survive. Take the entire month and do NOTHING BUT BUG FIXES. There are bugs throughout all the games including RELEASE tables. This stuff has to be sorted. Now I take into account that you guys are small, and have bitten off more than you could chew with deciding to release on every platform in existance. It's too late to back out now (I guess), but if I was your boss my first order of business would be to simply cut out platforms that aren't paying the bills. Primarily PSVita. I'd say Mac, but since it's just an upscaled iOS port, it's free money. PSVita on the other hand, the quality is so damn low, and the userbase so small (the handheld is a failure and will be discontinued soon enough, a shame as it's a great piece of tech but was never going to survive in a post-smart phone world, even 3DS is struggling) I can't imagine it's made any money for them, and furthermore, development resources are development resources if cutting out a platform allows you more time to work on the others, than so be it.
I know that might even mean cutting off my platform of choice, Xbox 360 (GASPS!). What's shameful about that platform isn't the 40k per patch fees, which means packing in multiple updates to keep profit, but rather the fact that you haven't made any kind of dent in Pinball FX's marketshare, despite having the VASTLY superior game. 10k base pack sales is pathetic, that's like obscure Japanese XBLA game bad (I should know, I own most, if not all of them. Reminds me to buy Trouble Witches...). For a userbase as large and as online-connected as the 360 you should have, minimum, 100k sales of the base pack. Then the 40k fees would no longer be such an issue.
How can you achieve this? Well I have a marketing background and I have some ideas, I could do a big powerpoint on it (maybe I will), some of my ideas would cost you, but here's one that wouldn't cost you a dime (ok well 2.50$ but well worth it): give away Arabian Nights for free. That would give you huge downloads, getting you easily into XBLA top ten, giving you tons of free advertising and sales, without spending a dime on dashboard ads. Then you just break up the other 3 tables into the same pricing structure as iOS. This is how Pinball FX got so damn huge. I know, I watched it happen I've been gaming on Xbox 360 since 2005 and checking the XBLA marketplace is a habit I do just about every time I turn on the console. Most people wouldn't know or give a damn about PinFX if it wasn't in the top 10, and it's there because they give away a free table, while charging for every other table individually. There has never, to my knowledge, ever, been on dash advertising for PinFX, barring the Marvel tables and that was post MS aquisition and well after they were already a million seller. 10$ base price is scaring potential buyers away. The per-table PinFX model (as well as your mobile model) is superior in every way. To my knowledge, something like this is being tried with PS+? Except you're giving away the ENTIRE base pack for free, that's a huge mistake. You don't do that. You give away 1, that makes them salivate for more, better tables. I know that sounds like shady marketing speak, that's because it is! MARKETING IS SHADY! (hence why I got out of it), but it works I know what I'm talking about here! Base pack with 4 tables is enough to keep them very busy, and many potential buyers will pass on DLC who wouldn't have otherwise. Still, with that being said, it's a step in the right direction and I feel the PS+ promotion will be successful, just not as successful as it could potentially be. Anyways, moving on.
Next up. The new menu. It's an alpha build. An alpha build with too many scripting bugs and quirks to make it to Besta form. Oh I'm sorry this is the release. Ok let me laugh harder. Again, there is no way this was tested in any fashion. If it was, please fire your game testers.
I mean when I saw it I was like, please tell me those are placeholder graphics and sounds? How can you honestly release that to the public. Guys when people see your game for the first time, the UI is the first thing they see. A classy, well made, functional UI gives the impression this is a polished, well made game. The menu you have now, that might have worked or looked OK for a shovelware PlayStation 1 game in the mid 90's, but it's just flat out shameful for such an otherwise amazing pinball sim for 2012. After you just got game of the year, and other accolades people now more than ever are going to be seeing the game for the first time, and first impressions are a big deal. It's important. And that music. You cannot be serious with that. That's something the folks over at Snuggie would have been ashamed to put in one of their infomercials. Seriously public access shows would probably consider those tracks too crappy to use. I think you guys stole it from the opening to the Sports Collectibles show from Shop at Home circa 1998. I'm calling Don West...
Look my Sister is a graphic designer. She could slap something together OVERNIGHT, that BLOWS AWAY what you have now. Do you want her number? I am dead serious. On this board alone are plenty of people who would probably do this for you FOR FREE. Many of us, in the back of our minds, are all thinking the same thing. God, can't ****ing wait until the Steam release so modders can come in and really get to work on doing/fixing what Farsigh-don't (can't?).
If it seems like I care too much you're right. I got this as a gift for 3 family members this year, and 4 other family members I've gotten to buy over the last year. 2 of whom bought Xboxes JUST FOR THE GAME (50 year old pinball players, my Dad and Uncle). So I really care about the quality and I'm telling you this isn't hard, there are a million graphics design majors all across the damn country who could do a nicer job in their sleep. This is being talked about on another message forum as well, who likens the UI to that of a cheap chinese DVD player or car GPS.
Balanced difficulty: The release of Twilight Zone was soiled for me, not because it was too easy, but because people were complaining it was too easy. Here I was happier than a kitten in a field of flowers on a spring morning, Twilight Zone was here! Finally! It's amazing! Yet there was a huge vocal outcry day 1 (zero) about the tables "super easy" difficulty, and by huge I mean a very small, but rather loud, vocal few spearheaded by two incredibly outspoken individuals, who even in my heated meltdown, I still have too much class to call out by name. I will admit that it was definitely one of the easier releases, but I knew that no good would come out of such heated verbal discourse, and I was right. And instead of just maybe slightly tweaking the next release, you flat out made it brutally difficult. If you are going to take a small handful of people so seriously then why don't you just hire them? There's a video, I wish I had the damn link, but it's basically a fan video talking about why developers should NEVER LISTEN TO THEIR FANS. Of course that's a misnomer, it's good to listen to fans, but the point is fans are always going to ***** no matter what you do, sometimes it's simply best to ignore them. The most outspoken fans don't necessarily represent a large number of people and often times, they have no clue what the hell they are talking about. It's good to take fans into consideration but at the end of the day difficulty hasn't been an issue on any table until TZ, so it was never really a problem, and you need to know when to stick to your guns and ignore people and when to listen to them (like with BUGS!! etc.), which brings me to my next point:
Fix Pro Mode. It's a rip off. Not much I need to say that hasn't already been said. Charging 3.99 which is the price of a licensed, non-kickstarted table for what amounts to little more than OPTIONS (which should be free), a free camera mode, and two other features nobody asked for, is outrageous. Either lower the price or add some kind of actual value to it. You got me on Scared Stiff and Medieval Madness just because I'm a sucker for their over the top, unrated glory but now you've also got me on Star Trek because the difficult is unbalanced.
Serenity now, serenity now! Ok. I'm calm. I don't read big posts either (unless they are well written, and I'm bored), so :
TL;DR
Classy UI: Pay some college student 100$ and boom 3000% improvement.
Balanced difficulty
Better or Cheaper Pro Mode
FIX THE MOTHER ****ING BUGS
Xbox release; see you in February (March?...April?...2014?)
I bolded the entire paragraph that I feel is the most important. IF Farsight listens to me, one damn time, on one damn issue, this is the one, that could make the game the runaway success it deserves to be.
Love you guys take care now, tis been fun I'm out.
Last edited:
