Pinball Expo

[brakel]

I think the best part of the pinball expo is just getting some good time in on real machines. Hours and hours of time logged on machines that I'm both familiar with and have never seen before. My daughter was making a lot of comparisons between the real tables and TPA. I forget which table she was playing but I happened to be walking by and she called me over. She shot the ball over and over again into a kickout and then trap the ball. Repeat. She knows how I hate the things in TPA that are random just to be random. She smiled before continuing her game. Later she asked me what makes some things on a real table really predictable while other things seem more random. I didn't really have an answer for her and this isn't the right thread for it but it's enough to appreciate what FarSight has done. Playing real tables for four days reminded me how great TPA has done.

It's like guys who sell high end stereos go to live concerts as often as possible. I don't sell TPA but playing the real thing reminds me what the real thing is like. As a player that's important to me. To remember what the real thing is like.

 

[smbhax]

I think I may have counted 30 tables on the PS4 version they had at expo. I noticed there was no Haunted House pack.

They've said the PS4 version will launch with the Season One tables, which would be 22 or so.

 

[LanceBoyle]

They've said the PS4 version will launch with the Season One tables, which would be 22 or so.

Same with the European retail version, if System 3's description is right.

 

[Crawley]

I know all tables of Season 1 were in the Expo demo. If anything was from Season 2 it was just the first table pack (Dr Dude/Firepower) but I'm not 100% sure they were even in there. I may be confusing the list of tables I saw on the VirtuaPin, from the manufacturer not the Farsight table, where Dr Dude was one of the tables in the list I cycled through. In any case the updated tables I tried looked and played great. So even if there is a wait for Season 2 tables there will be plenty of good times re-playing the updated Season 1.

 

[SilverBalls]

Audio from Farsight's presentation from the Expo is now uploaded on Pinball News.
Very enjoyable. Would be nice to get the PowerPoint of the slides as well.

http://www.pinballnews.com/shows/expo2013/farsight.mp3

 

[dtown8532]

STERN Meet in a Nutshell:

1) Pinball has been around a long time.
2) 3 kinds of buyers are operators, enthusiasts and 45-50 year old guys who want a game in their man cave.
3) In Holland, people pour $800 a week into the average game at "coffeehouses" (AKA: Bars.)
4) Pinball should be easy for casual players and difficult enough for enthusiasts.
5) Biggest competition to pinball is the smart phone.
6) There is more wire in a pinball machine than in a car.
7) We need more games that are easy to play, but hard to master.

The end. Questions and answers and no one asked about Star Trek LE. Sheesh. That
was boring!...

It's boring, boring, very very boring... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVF77-FEr9Q

If you're talking about the Gary Stern seminar, I actually liked it. I enjoyed listening to him talk about booze like it's his true love. I respect a man who can publicly discuss alcoholic beverages with such reverence.

 

[goforthewall]

Audio from Farsight's presentation from the Expo is now uploaded on Pinball News.
Very enjoyable. Would be nice to get the PowerPoint of the slides as well.

http://www.pinballnews.com/shows/expo2013/farsight.mp3

Listening to Norman Stepansky was really interesting, but it made me realize that the sound is *not emulated* directly off the roms. Why is this? Doesn't Visual Pinball (VpinMame) have the ability to play the sounds directly? Why go through the "bother" of re-recording every sound and scripting them to match up with the rom?

 

[smbhax]

Listening to Norman Stepansky was really interesting, but it made me realize that the sound is *not emulated* directly off the roms. Why is this? Doesn't Visual Pinball (VpinMame) have the ability to play the sounds directly? Why go through the "bother" of re-recording every sound and scripting them to match up with the rom?

I *think* what they said before was that sound emulation is too CPU-intensive for some mobile devices.

Certainly was an interesting listen, I don't know if we've heard a lot of that stuff in this much detail before--and how Williams Collection sold a lot *worse* than Gottlieb. : o Also Bobby gives the forum users a big shout out around the 50 minute mark.

Did anyone get to see the slide that Bobby was teasing as maybe showing the first Season Three table?

 

[Crawley]

Yeah. It was a shot of their conference room. It showed one end of the conference table with pinball machines that are already released to the left-right of the table. Dead center was the S3 table which was completely blacked out except for the coin doors. So you couldn't tell what it was other than it was not a wide-body machine.

If the rumors in the other Table Pack thread has any truth to it then it may be Fish Tales, which would make a nice start to S3.

 

[smbhax]

Ah okay that explains why Bobby sounded so shifty/amused when he was talking about it. ; )

 

[Jeff Strong]

Here's the full write up for those who missed it:

http://www.pinballnews.com/shows/expo2013/index.html