PS3 (NA) Version 2.08 And 2.09 Feedback And Discussion

[Lord Boron]

I just wish they'd spend more time getting the graphics/lighting right and less time working on getting 3D ready. I couldn't care less about 3D, and I'm guessing relatively few people will actually use it.

Awesome!!!!!!

 

[ParallaxScroll]

So why are they releasing horrid looking tables for PS3? PHOF looked just fine. All the work to recreate a table only to have the colors look funky and lighting that is all over the place either too bright or too dim.


Sure, it doesn't break anything, but it looks bad and it makes me feel like they are just porting stuff without testing or taking advantage of the system.

A big part of pinball to me is the visual experience. When I see an obvious ported low res menu, or a bad coloring, it irritates me and I don't want to play it. PHOF did a great job with the colors of the tables, now TPA is a step backwards in visual appeal for many of the tables. It says to me that they aren't testing much on PS3.

Look, I love pinball, and I'm still a fan of TPA, of course. I just wish it had better showing on the PS3, where the hardware is available to make it shine.

It's so weird because PHOF was such a great product. The same company is making Pinball Arcade, but the quality is nowhere near as good.

 

[smbhax]

3D is more of a programmer thing though, whereas the lighting is an art / level design thing. So those two shouldn't really be fighting for development resources.

I won't be using 3D for the foreseeable future though--I don't have a 3D display at home and in movie theaters it has not failed to be an unpleasant experience. :"/

 

[smbhax]

It's so weird because PHOF was such a great product. The same company is making Pinball Arcade, but the quality is nowhere near as good.

Not that weird when you consider that a) they lost their publisher for Pinball Arcade; traditionally, the publisher has a good deal of say in the direction and presentation of the product, handles the bulk of QA, and has final veto power in terms of what is good enough to release, and b) they are now hammering out two tables per month on what at least five platforms or something.

I think the gravity of losing their publisher is generally not sufficiently appreciated; most small design studios would have gone under in such a situation. Game over. No more updates for Pinball Arcade, ever, because the publisher pays the bills; normally, no publisher = no money = dead company. It's a minor miracle that FarSight have not only survived the loss of their publisher, but have even been working to expand the scope of the game in significant ways. It seems likely to me that at least some of the people at FarSight risked their savings to keep the company afloat, and also likely that a lot of them kept working in spite of not being certain that there would be money to pay them for their efforts. And it is certain that many of them have been working double or triple duty to cover not only their development tasks but also all the tasks that would normally have been handled by the publisher: testing, marketing, publicity, customer support and relations, licensing, etc etc.

 

[Tabe]

Not sure I follow. Direction of the product? As far as I can tell, Farsight is still releasing Pinball tables, two for 5 dollars, every month, or as close to it as possible. Nothing has really changed regarding direction... adding new platforms into the mix, like PC, Xbox 720, or PS4 doesn't really change a thing.

Direction of the product = bugs that continue to be carried forward on new tables, tables with wrong/inaccurate colors, flipper lag that's unfixed, a UI that's gotten worse, and so on. In other words, the product doesn't seem to be getting better. THAT is what I meant by "direction of the product".

 

[Mark W**a]

Direction of the product = bugs that continue to be carried forward on new tables, tables with wrong/inaccurate colors, flipper lag that's unfixed, a UI that's gotten worse, and so on. In other words, the product doesn't seem to be getting better. THAT is what I meant by "direction of the product".

I agree with you on that and Jeff is correct, why Farsight is so amped to get 3D support when stuff like this exists, I agree.

I am all for 3D support btw, even though I don't have a 3DTV yet... but bugs/polish/quality comes first, sorry Farsight.

 

[Dont Troll Me]

I just wish they'd spend more time getting the graphics/lighting right and less time working on getting 3D ready. I couldn't care less about 3D, and I'm guessing relatively few people will actually use it.

yes that's painfully true i had a friend play genie without saying anything and first thing he said was ahh i'm blind why is it so bright . 3D new menus other simple changes should be last in the list . i still hope to see these new flipper and ball physics work out that's coming soon as well as tables like black knight getting a make over genie seems to suffer the same contrast and bloom problems as black knight sigh.

 

[smbhax]

Direction of the product = bugs that continue to be carried forward on new tables, tables with wrong/inaccurate colors, flipper lag that's unfixed, a UI that's gotten worse, and so on. In other words, the product doesn't seem to be getting better. THAT is what I meant by "direction of the product".

They did have a flipper lag fix um I guess somewhere around three months ago that removed the delay at 720p and reduced it to just one frame at 1080p--not a complete fix but it did make a big difference. If not for that I'd still be playing in 480. Plus they have steadily been improving the flipper physics--ball through the flippers has largely been corrected, for instance--and the per-table physics. Aside from stuck camera issues on recent tables---which I think maybe got through because they haven't been testing with multiball camera OFF---and the blown-out lighting on Genie, the tables have been getting better and better--starting with table pack 7, I would say.

 

[grashopper]

Not that weird when you consider that a) they lost their publisher for Pinball Arcade; traditionally, the publisher has a good deal of say in the direction and presentation of the product, handles the bulk of QA, and has final veto power in terms of what is good enough to release, and b) they are now hammering out two tables per month on what at least five platforms or something.

I think the gravity of losing their publisher is generally not sufficiently appreciated; most small design studios would have gone under in such a situation. Game over. No more updates for Pinball Arcade, ever, because the publisher pays the bills; normally, no publisher = no money = dead company. It's a minor miracle that FarSight have not only survived the loss of their publisher, but have even been working to expand the scope of the game in significant ways. It seems likely to me that at least some of the people at FarSight risked their savings to keep the company afloat, and also likely that a lot of them kept working in spite of not being certain that there would be money to pay them for their efforts. And it is certain that many of them have been working double or triple duty to cover not only their development tasks but also all the tasks that would normally have been handled by the publisher: testing, marketing, publicity, customer support and relations, licensing, etc etc.

If Crave had anything to do with the product on PS3 and mobile wouldn't they have their name on it somewhere?

 

[smbhax]

It might have been in the PS3 version originally, I don't remember. I don't think the mobile versions came along until after Crave went under.

EDIT: Whoops nope I guess the mobile versions released first? Huh. But anyway they'd have taken Crave out of all versions with later updates. Which makes me wonder if it's still there in the Xbox version.

EDIT 2: Hm and (I'm trying to figure this out from the beginning of the "Official Latest NEWS" thread) it sounds like Crave was gone before the game made it to consoles. So they'd have taken everything "Crave" out before it was ever available on PS3 and Xbox.

 

[Mark W**a]

Genie seems to have some magical lightsources going on lol. I would have to see it in person or a better screen grab to make a call. On the one hand, it's very unrealistic. On the other, at least it's bright and colorful, which that pre-release screen is very "drab" (although more realistic). I don't know. They still seem to be experimenting with lighting which kinda has me scratching my head this late in the game, they should have it "perfected". It's a 7 year old hardware and the product is coming up on the year aniversary...

 

[PiN WiZ]

FarSight has self published The Pinball Arcade on all platorms and devices from the beginning with the exception of the Xbox 360 since Microsoft still requires developers to have a publisher to release content on XBLA.

 

[Billy Fishtale]

Comments like these (kind of) upset me. There is nothing wrong with the menu in terms of how it makes or breaks anything. While it may not look as good, it is much easier to navigate and find the table you want to play. Going so far to say you won't buy the product for something as trivial as this is just plain selfish.

I agree. I figure people who say this must not like pinball very much because I play TPA for the pinball. The menu doesn't have anything to do with pinball.

You seem to get me wrong here. Yes the menu puts me off, but more to the point the port of the menu shows the aptitude of the developer making the game.

 

[smbhax]

FarSight has self published The Pinball Arcade on all platorms and devices from the beginning with the exception of the Xbox 360 since Microsoft still requires developers to have a publisher to release content on XBLA.

Oh right, so I guess Crave must have been still involved at least on paper or something for the 360, initially?

 

[PiN WiZ]

Oh right, so I guess Crave must have been still involved at least on paper or something for the 360, initially?

Crave was involved with all content submissions to Microsoft up to the day they filed for bankruptcy. The contract FarSight signed with Crave is also the reason why the rights to publish any and all content for The Pinball Arcade on XBLA is currently awaiting the court's approval for transfer since these publishing rights are considered an asset of Crave.

 

[ER777]

Also, I do think Genie is way too bright and this is coming from someone who loves the tables bright. I couldn't even see the upper playfield flippers on Genie at first...

Agreed. I have a hard time distinguishing the different parts of the table on Genie without straining my eyes. Gameplay-wise it seems pretty solid though.

 

[smbhax]

What I'm wondering is how Twilight Zone looks. The Promo movie looked way too, pink/weird. Kinda like how Harley/Taxi looked on PS3. I wasn't a fan.

Boop!

 

[brakel]

I just wish they'd spend more time getting the graphics/lighting right and less time working on getting 3D ready. I couldn't care less about 3D, and I'm guessing relatively few people will actually use it.

I think 3D is cool and I'll buy another TPA and some of my favorite tables again (my third PS3 is on the TV with 3D so I can't load it again for free) but if I had the choice between 3D and fixing lighting or other issues, I'll take fixing other issues. But they didn't give me a choice. However adding 3D to the game is probably easier and faster than fixing lighting on one table. When you have a game that has been built with 3D models and has the ability for moving the camera, adding 3D is pretty much already done. There will be some people that buy the game just because its in 3D and there will be people who will get it on their gaming radar because its in 3D.

 

[brakel]

It's so weird because PHOF was such a great product. The same company is making Pinball Arcade, but the quality is nowhere near as good.

PHoF was not a perfect product either. Before they started buying tables and emulating tables they would script tables based on hours of video of game play that they would take at the Pinball Hall of Fame in Vegas. Some of those scripts were wildly incorrect. The tables were often much slower than their real counterparts, the physics were really floaty, you couldn't read anything on the play field and there was a terrible controller issue on the PS3 version that caused the flippers to flip wildly unless you plugged in the controllers. And they never patched any of those issues.

However, those games were great on all of the systems they were on because they were pinball! TPA is miles ahead of PHoF for the PS3 and if they can work out a way to patch the DLC on the PS3 it will get even better. They do need to work on consistency.

Changing my TV from its calibrated custom settings to the stock Cinema mode has made Genie very playable for me.

 

[smbhax]

Changing my TV from its calibrated custom settings to the stock Cinema mode has made Genie very playable for me.

Oh say that's a good idea, I'll have to try that too.

On the 3D topic, it happens that FarSight just posted a tiny clarification in a Facebook reply regarding release scheduling:

https://www.facebook.com/pinballarc...?comment_id=6291523&offset=0&total_comments=8

The stereoscopic functionality will be included in an update after we have had a chance to perfect and balance it. What we displayed at the shows was us being excited, but it wasn't 100% working on some tables.