Pinball misconceptions that get on your nerves

[Espy]

I am the only pinball fan among my friends, so I often see people with some very wrong opinions about the game, which really get on my nerves.

The first one is that apparently pinball hasn't advanced since the 1960s. The first reaction whenever I show my friends a real pinball machine is "I never knew it was so complex". They assume that playfields are still plunger, two flippers and some bumpers. They don't realise the sophistication behind their design. A friend a few days ago suggested that they all play the same. I corrected him and sent him the LOTR rulesheet to show him exactly how complex they can be. He was quite surprised.

The second, and one that really annoys me, is that trapping the ball is cheating. I was discussing pinball at work, mentioned trapping the ball in passing, and the person who sits beside me suddenly got very opinionated and exclaimed "You should NEVER trap the ball". I asked him what he suggests you do instead, and he said "Just play really well!" Yeah. Needless to say it was an argument he quickly lost when I explained it was an essential part of playing, and I few in a few technical terms like post pass and dead flipper pass to show him to make him realise he shouldn't pursue it further.

Also, when I was playing a two-player with a friend on LOTR, I was trapping the ball as I always do. I stopped playing for a few seconds in a trap to look at the playfield to see which Fellowship shots I needed to light, and my friend exclaimed "JUST PLAY THE GAME!" People think pinball is all about reflexes, and the best players never need to stop the ball. If you don't trap your aiming skill is almost zilch, and the ball will quickly get out of control and drain. Fact. It kind of ties back my first point about thinking they are much simpler than they are.

What gets your goat?

 

[Captain B. Zarre]

My parents at least knew trapping wasn't cheating. I was playing CSI on location when I decided to trap the ball on the flipper, my parent asked me why I did that. I said it was so that I could further aim my shot to avoid draining and my parents actually liked the idea.

Anyway, yeah, I totally hate how people think pinball hasn't advanced since the 60s. I personally think the movie Tommy could have influenced this, as it is still popular today and features lots of pinball machines from that decade. If they had done it with complex, modern machines like TSPP, it just wouldn't have the same charm.

Still, most of my family knows pinball well because of me, maybe we could become an entire pinball-playing family

 

[Shaneus]

Honestly, there aren't that many that do get on my nerves. Most of them originate from people just having not seen any of them around since their respective childhoods. Better still, the vast majority are more than open to have their misconceptions shattered than continue to believe in them. Find these people, shout them a few games and show them a thing or two

Hell, I'm sure there are stacks of things I have misconceptions of that people would think are laughably stupid or just downright ignorant... hopefully not enough to peeve anyone off, though!

 

[vikingerik]

The fundamental misconception from the original post is that pinball flippers are bats or clubs for whacking and slamming the ball around.

They're not. They are your hands inside the game. They can grab, clutch, hold, throw, tip, deflect, and do any number of more sophisticated maneuvers.

 

[DrainoBraino]

JUST PLAY THE GAME! haha good one

Some things I have heard about pinball while playing or hanging around arcades over the years:

-"Where do the tickets come out?"
-"I hate when it makes that loud bang noise, it's scary."
-People that think starting multiball is "beating/finishing the game"
-"The ball got stuck so I broke the glass and and stole the ball." ....yea that happened
-"I play better when I'm drunk."

 

[Bowflex]

The best strategy is to bash the flipper buttons repeatedly. Just because it works on some fighting games doesn't mean it works for everything!

Plunges should always be pulled back to maximum power.

 

[PHDrawde]

It gets on my nerves when people say nudging the table is cheating.

 

[Squid]

They put magnets in the machine to help you lose the ball quicker.

 

[infernogott]

It's a game of luck.

 

[ER777]

It gets on my nerves when people say nudging the table is cheating.

This is exactly what I was going to say too.

 

[Mayuh]

-"I play better when I'm drunk."

Lol! Actually one or two (small) beers does work for me during tournaments

My favorite is (from people who know pinball from 70s and 80s):
The game is too steep. It plays too fast.

Yeah and of course the table's leaning towards the outlane where they just drained three times, because the made the same risky shot over and over

 

[danivempire]

Nice topic!
A guy from work has an old EM pinball. A really old one, just a few bumpers a few targets and that's it
... no music no nothing.
When I say I prefer more complex games with lanes, multiball, dmd, music, and lot of stuff going on, for him it's the same thing... if you played one pinball you played them all they're all the same...

At one time I made a small "tournament" with a friend on addams family. What did I do?
I printed strategies and rulesheet that I "studied"...
When the guys at work saw this they said I was cheating... of course... in pinball you just go berserker on the flippers and both at the same time of course... aiming is for pussies...

By the way, I won the "tournament" ^^

 

[Baramos]

They put magnets in the machine to help you lose the ball quicker.

This is just what we secretly all know in the back of our heads when the ball goes out the outlane.

 

[jaredmorgs]

What really fracks me off is when a TV episode or movie plays the stock "chimes" sound to indicate there are pinball machines somewhere.

Unless the arcade is the bloody Pinball Hall of Fame, and there is an EM or early SS in shot, *don't* use crappy chime sound archive files.

Please, and thank you.

 

[Baron Rubik]

What really fracks me off is when a TV episode or movie plays the stock "chimes" sound to indicate there are pinball machines somewhere.

Unless the arcade is the bloody Pinball Hall of Fame, and there is an EM or early SS in shot, *don't* use crappy chime sound archive files.

Please, and thank you.

Intro sequence for new series of Teenage mutant ninja turtles.

He-he, was just thinking the same thing this morning.

 

[netizen]

What really fracks me off is when a TV episode or movie plays the stock "chimes" sound to indicate there are pinball machines somewhere.

Unless the arcade is the bloody Pinball Hall of Fame, and there is an EM or early SS in shot, *don't* use crappy chime sound archive files.

Please, and thank you.

Tri-Chimes are not copyrighted. KThxBai

 

[Shaneus]

They put magnets in the machine to help you lose the ball quicker.

Have you played X-Men recently (or ever)? Stupid Magneto magnets are stupid.

What really fracks me off is when a TV episode or movie plays the stock "chimes" sound to indicate there are pinball machines somewhere.

Unless the arcade is the bloody Pinball Hall of Fame, and there is an EM or early SS in shot, *don't* use crappy chime sound archive files.

Please, and thank you.

This. It's the pinball equivalent of playing typical Namco 80s game sounds whenever someone enters an arcade... even a recent one.

 

[jaredmorgs]

Tri-Chimes are not copyrighted. KThxBai

This may be the justification, but it isn't a valid excuse. It is, in fact, just laziness.

A 30 second grab from a pinball machine would not cost much to clear.

The annoying thing is that in many scenes containing ambient arcade sounds, most of these scenes you can hear soundtracks from video games playing in the backgroud clearly. But pinball gets Tri-Chimes.

L. A. Z. Y.

 

[Mayuh]

Hehe, yep, they even do it with newspapers
http://m.imgur.com/l7oCv

 

[Espy]

This. It's the pinball equivalent of playing typical Namco 80s game sounds whenever someone enters an arcade... even a recent one.

This is a pet peeve for TV shows. Two people are clearly playing an Xbox 360... beep beep boop boop. No.


Another pet peeve... "Can you win money on this?" Flashing lights = gambling machine, apparently. That said, the US government was fooled for a few decades...