Put Your Initial Thoughts Here

[BBIAJ]

I don't understand how anyone can complain about the price. I used to wait and eagerly pay for two tables at a time. Now I can get a whole pack of tables for $30. All I can say is spend on the platform you intend to play on.

Pretty easily really, there are what, 21/22 tables in season one, and just 10 in season three, yet they both cost £31.99.

That's just greedy, surely?

 

[MichRX7]

Seriously, when I compare the price of my High Speed and other pinball machines to the cost of a season no matter the # of pins I just laugh at all of you balking at prices. I quickly add in the money to get them serviced, and I also think of how many quarters I dropped in High Speed before I purchased it. Man would I rather spend the money on Xbox1 tables over all of that any day. I also think of how much I enjoy TPA compared to what I spend on other games in both $ (season passes) and time (overall time played) and I'm still on the plus side even though I bought all the pro versions of all three seasons.

 

[uwsublime]

Seriously, when I compare the price of my High Speed and other pinball machines to the cost of a season no matter the # of pins I just laugh at all of you balking at prices. I quickly add in the money to get them serviced, and I also think of how many quarters I dropped in High Speed before I purchased it. Man would I rather spend the money on Xbox1 tables over all of that any day. I also think of how much I enjoy TPA compared to what I spend on other games in both $ (season passes) and time (overall time played) and I'm still on the plus side even though I bought all the pro versions of all three seasons.

I'm not one of the ones complaining about price, but this is a silly argument. By this logic, spending $1000 on a Ferrari in Forza5 would be a great deal because your real Ferrari cost you 500x that. Oh, and to get a real Ferrari serviced!

 

[BORiS THE FRoG]

I don't understand how anyone can complain about the price. I used to wait and eagerly pay for two tables at a time. Now I can get a whole pack of tables for $30. All I can say is spend on the platform you intend to play on.

I'm sorry but I kinda disagree with you on this one because i'm a firm believer that day one DLC should be part of the launch package and not used as a separate saleable item.
It doesn't matter if it's EA, Ubisoft, Microsoft or Fred Bloggs the bedroom programmer - the fact remains that if it's available on day one it could (and therefore should) be part and parcel of the entire product.
To further question the ethics of Farsight I simply cannot believe that the 'pro pack' (the operator's menu?) can be seen as a justifiable sale because surely it's part of the game anyway. What next?
Perhaps for £2,99 you can enter your name on the challenge leaderboards, or maybe for 99p you can configure vibration on your controller!

Retro pinball is a very niche product that will never appeal to mainstream gamers and therefore will never move mountains in the unit sales department. To entwine it in today's DLC money train culture at Farsight's pre set pricing system only seeks to make it less appealing and therefore further alienate it from a potential greater audience. The end product being that those who actually enjoy playing pinball have to continually pay a premium price in order to continue playing. It's almost like the whole project no longer has anything to do with the soul searching words written in the game's disclaimer, it's simply about the pounds, shillings and pennies that can be exploited from the more obsessive pinball audience amongst us.
Farsight perhaps also need reminding that Zen with it's suave front end and high profile licence tie-ins of FX2 pretty much have a monopoly on the xbox pinball money-go-round and good as it may well be, £3.99 for a 1980 'plinky plonky' pinball table (Genie) will most definitely not swing the balance of favour over (example) two South Park tables @£2.39 irrespective of how lovingly created and pixel perfect it is!

Just one final thought. People need to be reminded that it wasn't so long ago that when you bought a game you paid a set price and bought it in it's entirety - no hidden extras, no season passes - just an RRP and a shiny disc in a pretty box. A year later you got a sequel in another pretty box and everyone was happy. You know, the bad old days of complete (and working!) games...

I don't know how we ever got by!

 

[Kratos3]

Farsight has sales once in awhile. I bought season one for $14.99 on iOS. I got the core pack for free on PS4 and iOS. Wait for a sale.

 

[BBIAJ]

We've already waited a year for TPA to arrive on Xbox One, and for many, this will be their only option after the failure of TPA on Xbox 360, so being told to "Wait for a sale" is of little comfort. Still, it may well end up being what I do all the same, as I already have all the tables on PS3 and PS Vita, but I really want to play with the new lighting setup in a dark room!

#FirstWorldProblems

 

[KingNeptune]

BUGS: Scared Stiff

-*individual emulator sound effects or dialog occasionally gets truncated by flipper or other mech sounds
-The Crate is full of holes - when the crate is unlocked balls frequently pass through into either the deadhead or skill shot areas
-The Crate door often deflects balls as if its locked when it should be unlocked
-Camera often gets confused by multiball, jumping between views or jumping to plunger view with no way out until the next ball is ready to be launched
-If the occasionally ball bounces off something when passing through the curved passage to the right of the Crate into DeadHeads area, kicking it back out into the main playfield.
-Balls that make it up into the DeadHead area often pass through without triggering any actions until they hit the Skill Shot hole.
-*Seem to be unable to get any consistent ball velocity from the plunger, making it very difficult to achieve Skill Shot (could be me)

*Not specific to the game - seen on other tables

QUESTION: Does TPA take into account incandescent light warm up/cool down, not instant on/off, unlike LED/neon lighting. Its a quick fade effect, but changes how light chase effects, etc blend together. - Just curious...

 

[uwsublime]

Sigh. I wasn't going to buy anymore packs after all of the bugs I found in Season 2, but I gave in and picked up Season 3. Just put up 149m on Junkyard and the damn score didn't post to the leaderboards. I was signed in with no network disruptions. Yet another bug to add to the list... Having fun with the tables but kind of regretting giving them another $30.

 

[uwsublime]

Sigh. I wasn't going to buy anymore packs after all of the bugs I found in Season 2, but I gave in and picked up Season 3. Just put up 149m on Junkyard and the damn score didn't post to the leaderboards. I was signed in with no network disruptions. Yet another bug to add to the list... Having fun with the tables but kind of regretting giving them another $30.

This is the weirdest crap. I login today and my 149m is now showing up on the leaderboards, but ALL of my local highscores (on every table) have been reset. What is going on here?

 

[uwsublime]

This is the weirdest crap. I login today and my 149m is now showing up on the leaderboards, but ALL of my local highscores (on every table) have been reset. What is going on here?

OK, now I'm super pissed off. I just realized all of my table goals are gone as well. I was nearly done with Season 2. There are some goals that nobody should ever have to do twice like the 1000 point ball on Central Park and pretty much anything that involves playing the utter crap that is El Dorado. Who else has had this happen? How can this be recovered?

 

[ely]

I lost my best ever score on Black Hole 860K because it had decreed I wasn't logged in with the right user and thus didn't save to the Leader boards or even the local high score table. And it lost the 4 Standard Goals I'd picked up in the same game. I wasn't impressed in the least!

Also playing a challenge series doesn't save your scores for the table. So last night I put up 236M on Harley Davidson (never played it before) but none of that counts towards the table goals, leader boards or highs cores. That seems wrong to me. Does that happen on other platforms?

 

[Mark Miwurdz]

I lost my best ever score on Black Hole 860K because it had decreed I wasn't logged in with the right user and thus didn't save to the Leader boards or even the local high score table. And it lost the 4 Standard Goals I'd picked up in the same game. I wasn't impressed in the least!

Also playing a challenge series doesn't save your scores for the table. So last night I put up 236M on Harley Davidson (never played it before) but none of that counts towards the table goals, leader boards or highs cores. That seems wrong to me. Does that happen on other platforms?

Yes. Any score outside of a straight, one off, default game will not register.

 

[ely]

That seems a bit mad to me. I guess it's like if you get Wizard Goals before you've completed the Standard ones and thus they don't count.

 

[MichRX7]

I'm not one of the ones complaining about price, but this is a silly argument. By this logic, spending $1000 on a Ferrari in Forza5 would be a great deal because your real Ferrari cost you 500x that. Oh, and to get a real Ferrari serviced!

Actually, mine is not a silly argument when you break it down. I own some of the real pinball machines that Farsight has pain-stakingly recreated and I can tell you that outside of a glitch here and there, which all software has, they have done a fantastic job re-creating the experience. I also have an extensive background in computer programming so I can appreciate what they have done on that end as well. I play my pins exactly the same way I play them on the Xbox 1. There are pins on The Pinball Arcade I'll never own, and now I know there are one's that I don't want to own and never would have paid for than $5 to play. And think of it this way... $500 for a launch day Xbox 1, $60+ for Forza 5, and $25 for the season pass. You almost did pay $1k to test out that Ferrari. And after I have now spent way too much time thinking about your comment, I realized your pricing is flawed. This morning I saw a fully refurbished ToM pin for sale asking $7,200. Farsight sells it with what, three other tables for $5? Let's say the table cost us $2. We'll estimate that at .03% of the cost of that table new (which would be a Ferrari in the pinball world). I would pay $150 for the Ferrari on Xb1 if it gave me the same thrill playing pinball for $2 does on my XB1. Now add in the cost of fixing said Ferrari after I smash into a few walls and other cars and I feel really good about that price. I take it back, I guess the comparison does work. Even if you look at the money I put into my real-world RX-7. I have about $45k into it to get it around 410 rwhp. I could have bought that same car in a racing game for $2 or about .005% of the price. With all the work I did on that car there are many days I wish I would have just drove around in a video game and pocketed the $44,998, and so does my wife!

 

[superballs]

I'm sorry but I kinda disagree with you on this one because i'm a firm believer that day one DLC should be part of the launch package and not used as a separate saleable item.
It doesn't matter if it's EA, Ubisoft, Microsoft or Fred Bloggs the bedroom programmer - the fact remains that if it's available on day one it could (and therefore should) be part and parcel of the entire product.
To further question the ethics of Farsight I simply cannot believe that the 'pro pack' (the operator's menu?) can be seen as a justifiable sale because surely it's part of the game anyway. What next?
Perhaps for £2,99 you can enter your name on the challenge leaderboards, or maybe for 99p you can configure vibration on your controller!

Retro pinball is a very niche product that will never appeal to mainstream gamers and therefore will never move mountains in the unit sales department. To entwine it in today's DLC money train culture at Farsight's pre set pricing system only seeks to make it less appealing and therefore further alienate it from a potential greater audience. The end product being that those who actually enjoy playing pinball have to continually pay a premium price in order to continue playing. It's almost like the whole project no longer has anything to do with the soul searching words written in the game's disclaimer, it's simply about the pounds, shillings and pennies that can be exploited from the more obsessive pinball audience amongst us.
Farsight perhaps also need reminding that Zen with it's suave front end and high profile licence tie-ins of FX2 pretty much have a monopoly on the xbox pinball money-go-round and good as it may well be, £3.99 for a 1980 'plinky plonky' pinball table (Genie) will most definitely not swing the balance of favour over (example) two South Park tables @£2.39 irrespective of how lovingly created and pixel perfect it is!

Just one final thought. People need to be reminded that it wasn't so long ago that when you bought a game you paid a set price and bought it in it's entirety - no hidden extras, no season passes - just an RRP and a shiny disc in a pretty box. A year later you got a sequel in another pretty box and everyone was happy. You know, the bad old days of complete (and working!) games...

I don't know how we ever got by!

Pro mode wasn't day one dlc. It was released 5 months later at the request of the fan base who said they would gladly pay extra for it. You get the same pricing as everyone else on every other platform. As of season 3 it's 5$ per table. Take it or leave it. Of the table is not worth it to you then don't buy it. It's not greedy they are offering their work for their set price and that price gets them sales and allows them to be profitable. What you are doing is essentially no different than if you go to work and tour boss tells you you are greedy and should work for 2$ less an hour. How would you react to that? This stuff isn't day one dlc. This product is in its third year regardless of how new it is to your console.

 

[uwsublime]

Actually, mine is not a silly argument when you break it down. I own some of the real pinball machines that Farsight has pain-stakingly recreated and I can tell you that outside of a glitch here and there, which all software has, they have done a fantastic job re-creating the experience. I also have an extensive background in computer programming so I can appreciate what they have done on that end as well. I play my pins exactly the same way I play them on the Xbox 1. There are pins on The Pinball Arcade I'll never own, and now I know there are one's that I don't want to own and never would have paid for than $5 to play. And think of it this way... $500 for a launch day Xbox 1, $60+ for Forza 5, and $25 for the season pass. You almost did pay $1k to test out that Ferrari. And after I have now spent way too much time thinking about your comment, I realized your pricing is flawed. This morning I saw a fully refurbished ToM pin for sale asking $7,200. Farsight sells it with what, three other tables for $5? Let's say the table cost us $2. We'll estimate that at .03% of the cost of that table new (which would be a Ferrari in the pinball world). I would pay $150 for the Ferrari on Xb1 if it gave me the same thrill playing pinball for $2 does on my XB1. Now add in the cost of fixing said Ferrari after I smash into a few walls and other cars and I feel really good about that price. I take it back, I guess the comparison does work. Even if you look at the money I put into my real-world RX-7. I have about $45k into it to get it around 410 rwhp. I could have bought that same car in a racing game for $2 or about .005% of the price. With all the work I did on that car there are many days I wish I would have just drove around in a video game and pocketed the $44,998, and so does my wife!

You are missing my point which is that comparing the real world pin or car to the digital one when it comes to value is silly. The real car and pin cost a LOT more because there are limited numbers of them, they are made out of real materials, and they can be resold. There are many more reasons for this, I just named a few. There are many reasons I would prefer to own the digital versions of both, but that does NOT mean they are worth the same amount of money. Far from it. I agree with you that these tables look at feel great and farsight did a great job in that regard. They did NOT do a great job in play testing and bug fixing though. I also have an extensive background in computer programming, as well as an extensive background in playing computer and console games. It is rare to find a game released with so many obvious bugs that would have been detected in even 30 minutes of play testing. I hope they get around to fixing it because I really want to spend MANY hours playing this game, but at this point I can't even fire it up. All of the goals and high scores I've achieved thus far have been wiped out. I only played some of these utter crap tables because of the goals, and I do not want to have to get them again. Anyway, $60 might not be a lot to someone who can afford several real tables, but it's a significant amount of MY gaming budget, and at this point despite how fun these tables are (when they work), I am regretting the expenditure.

 

[MichRX7]

We can agree to disagree then I guess. I believe it does have value to me when there are tables I know I can enjoy without having to purchase the real table or dropping quarters/dollars into it in the real world. I've also noticed after playing pins on my system (X360) I have gone into arcades and been more adept at playing the real pin for the first time because of this game.

I'm sorry you have had issues with the goals/scores, I have yet to experience that (knock on wood). As for play testing / bug fixing I can think of a lot of games I have been more frustrated with that never received fix #1 over my many years of computer/console gaming. I really don't want to go back that far and show how old I am, but I've had buggy games on every system I've ever owned, the most frustrating have been the cartridge systems because they weren't patchable like the Atari 2600, Intellivision, Colecovision, Sega Master System, Genesis / Sega CD, Sega Saturn. Then came the discs with no way to patch, Sega Dreamcast, Nintendo Gamecube, original Xbox. And older PC and Apple games were no better with some game ending bugs that couldn't be patched. At least systems now offer the ability to patch over the internet. I know Farsight released at least one patch on the X360, and I expect once their life calms a bit trying to get more seasons pushed out to Xb1 and PS4 along with the total revamp on the 360 we will see more patches. Patching is the new industry standard. Hell, every play Two Worlds on x360? That was basically unplayable period until the first patch. Now some games I'm redownloading the entire game when I put the disc into the system, now that's a serious patch.

 

[MichRX7]

I should say I have yet to experience any game destroying bugs on Xbox 1. I did run across a few on the 360 especially on Funhouse.

 

[Kratos3]

The season 1 and 2 "extra" tables had already been done for the Pinball Hall of Fame games. That includes Funhouse, Taxi, Medieval Madness, Genie, Gorgar, Space Shuttle, Big Shot, Pin*Bot, Whirlwind, Victory, El Dorado, Goin Nuts, No Good Gophers, Tee'd Off, Firepower, Black Knight, Tales of the Arabian Nights, Central Park, and Black Hole. Season 1 and 2 were great values, but it's because a lot of the work had already been done on many tables. It also explains some of Farsight's table choices that people lament so often.

As for bugs, I guess they don't bother me as much as some people. I have yet to experience any of the so-called "game breaking" bugs.

 

[BORiS THE FRoG]

Pro mode wasn't day one dlc. It was released 5 months later at the request of the fan base who said they would gladly pay extra for it. You get the same pricing as everyone else on every other platform. As of season 3 it's 5$ per table. Take it or leave it. Of the table is not worth it to you then don't buy it. It's not greedy they are offering their work for their set price and that price gets them sales and allows them to be profitable. What you are doing is essentially no different than if you go to work and tour boss tells you you are greedy and should work for 2$ less an hour. How would you react to that? This stuff isn't day one dlc. This product is in its third year regardless of how new it is to your console.

First and foremost I do stand corrected over cross-format pricing. Apologies, I was unaware that the bundles were the same price.
But with all due respects I never once mentioned the word "greedy" so let's try and keep things in the context of my comments.

To further your comparison:
If your boss told you that, in order to become a more competitive force - which would in turn create a viable and profitable product that offered long term security - you had to take a $2 an hour pay cut, would you do it? Of course you would.