Round 6: Vote on your questions for Bobby King

[fenderbendr]

I'd like to add to my original question: Would it ever be possible to adjust physical table settings such as tilt bob sensitivity, kickout strength, slope, and outlane post position?

 

[Sinistar]

Here are just few ideas for some of the questions that might be able to be bounced off the answers Bobby gives....

For the 'improved mechanical sounds'. Some sounds that could be enhanced or added are the mechanical scores resetting in EMs at the start of a game, the flipper hum, better synchronised ball rolling sounds, plus would they consider adding an option to separately control the volume of mechanical sounds vs ROM sounds?

.

Not even close to what I want , flippers sounds are fine , the table does not have the correct ambience , the sound you hear of a steel ball rolling on a hardwood surface , which is encased in glass , the sound does not capture the illusion, it IS NOT convincing and it detracts from the game's illusion.

 

[jkonami]

Hoping to hear some more PC news, and good news hopefully! I haven't played TPA in months although I want to and am waiting patiently for the PC version.

 

[night]

Jeff, I like to add some comment to my question (in bold what is new) When will the graphics be finished for the Twilight Zone? (My english is not 100% but I do know about graphics, please ask this question to Bobby, I would love to hear about the graphic inconsistencies across the tables in TPA.)

Dear Bobby. FarSight raised $55,000+ to release the Twilight Zone for TPA. For such a legendary and expensive table, how come the table-art looks so unappealing flat, without any shadows and poor chromework? The use of shadows is essential for graphic differentiation, lack of shadows will blend elements together and the table becomes a visual clutter. Why is the use of shadows in TPA so inconsistent? In Taxi and FunHouse there has been put much care and attention to shadow and lighting effects in the table art, why not in TZ? The clock looks very poor in the mobile version of TZ, the illusion of transparent plastic completely fails here. The chromework is nothing more than grey-color, no love and care has been put in chrome-texturing. The blue color of the table is completely over-saturated on the mobile platform, I almost need sunglasses when playing it on the iPad!

For the money and for the sake of pinball legend, this table should have been a true graphic masterpiece, TPA's eyecandy, yet it looks like rush-work made without any love for graphics art..

My question is: when will the graphics be finish for the Twilight Zone?

 

[karl]

Night. You know very well the money brought in from kick starter was purely for license cost. I find your question a bit rude. If you said something like is it possible to upgrade the graphics for TZ mobiles then fine, but using words like "not finished" and "kick starter" sounds disrespectful to me. Like they did a sloppy job and they did not. I am all for constructive critic and suggestions to make things better and You have some valid points in your post. Lets hope Jeff focuses on those when he ask Bobby

 

[Crush3d_Turtle]

Night. You know very well the money brought in from kick starter was purely for license cost. I find your question a bit rude. If you said something like is it possible to upgrade the graphics for TZ mobiles then fine, but using words like "not finished" and "kick starter" sounds disrespectful to me. Like they did a sloppy job and they did not. I am all for constructive critic and suggestions to make things better and You have some valid points in your post. Lets hope Jeff focuses on those when he ask Bobby

The TZ question also applies to the other systems like the PS Vita, where the word sloppy perfectly describes what we got. I don't want to clutter the forums with images so here are some links to screen shots from the game.

TZ Screenshot - PS Vita
TZ Screenshot - PS Vita
RBION - PS Vita
RBION - PS Vita

Judging by what we got with TZ and what the PS Vita is capable of I think the term not finished also applies to TZ, which as a premium table (from a pricing standpoint) should be of utmost quality.

 

[night]

Night. You know very well the money brought in from kick starter was purely for license cost. I find your question a bit rude. If you said something like is it possible to upgrade the graphics for TZ mobiles then fine, but using words like "not finished" and "kick starter" sounds disrespectful to me. Like they did a sloppy job and they did not. I am all for constructive critic and suggestions to make things better and You have some valid points in your post. Lets hope Jeff focuses on those when he ask Bobby

In my opinion, they certainly did a sloppy job on TZ graphics.
It is perfectly ok to think my post is 'rude', but it is not my intention. We where asked by Jeff to post out questions, so I post 'my' question. Feel free to post yours, but as a graphic artist I know what I am seeing, I know a little something about a little something, and it is certainly rush-work that is not Kickstarter worth. Of course the $50.000 was for the license cost, you mean they didn't have any money left to do a proper graphics job? C'mon Karl.

 

[Jeff Strong]

I'm going to keep the questions to a sentence or two at the most. This is an interview, not a lecture.

 

[Dutch Pinball ball]

So sad mobile controller support is so far away to be asked.

I had mayor ipad cabinet plans. And its going nowhere.

 

[kimkom]

I'm going to keep the questions to a sentence or two at the most. This is an interview, not a lecture.

Best of luck with the interview, Jeff. Thanks for giving us the opportunity to present our questions to Bobby.

Looking forward to the outcome

 

[Jeff Strong]

The interview is set to take place next Tuesday (March 12th). I should have the MP3 uploaded that day. I just sent the questions off to Bobby so he has time to look them over.

BTW, Bobby wanted to wait to do the interview next week because he's "very hopeful for a good 360 or PC update by then ", so that's encouraging.

 

[SilverBalls]

The interview is set to take place next Tuesday (March 12th). I should have the MP3 uploaded that day. I just sent the questions off to Bobby so he has time to look them over.

BTW, Bobby wanted to wait to do the interview next week because he's "very hopeful for a good 360 or PC update by then ", so that's encouraging.

Sounds promising. Good luck Jeff!

 

[smooverr]

Voted, thanks again Jeff!

 

[Bass Mummy]

The interview is set to take place next Tuesday (March 12th). I should have the MP3 uploaded that day. I just sent the questions off to Bobby so he has time to look them over.

BTW, Bobby wanted to wait to do the interview next week because he's "very hopeful for a good 360 or PC update by then ", so that's encouraging.

This really makes me think that the publisher they're getting for the 360 might also be publishing the game for the PC as well. Here's hoping.

 

[SpiffyRob]

This really makes me think that the publisher they're getting for the 360 might also be publishing the game for the PC as well. Here's hoping.

Definitely gives some support to the theory that Microsoft is the new publisher. A man can dream...

 

[Pinballwiz45b]

Original question from me:

Why are you doing nothing more to get more voters for TPA (on Greenlight), such as updating your page, getting major video game sites on the scene (IGN, Gamespot, etc.)? Doing things like this would help EVERYONE; without it, release would get nowhere for us.

 

[Butterkins]

Definitely gives some support to the theory that Microsoft is the new publisher. A man can dream...

The thing about that is that MS is also Zen's "publisher".

And I use the term "publisher" loosely, because it's obvious that Microsoft's "publishing" arrangements on XBLA are little more than a scam designed to enrich MS by enforcing artificial and costly barriers to entry. Barriers that MS erect, and that they use to enforce exclusivity, market timing, pricing and promotion.

If MS "publishes" both, they effectively have two pinball products which they are supposed to promote. We've seen so far that Zen Pinball gets a lot of promotion, at least relative to TPA, which gets almost nothing.

I think it'd be better for FS to get a strong publisher behind them that has at least some publishing muscle and experience.

 

[Kian]

"PC Version: release issues, plans, etc." definitely !!

 

[Richard B]

The thing about that is that MS is also Zen's "publisher".

And I use the term "publisher" loosely, because it's obvious that Microsoft's "publishing" arrangements on XBLA are little more than a scam designed to enrich MS by enforcing artificial and costly barriers to entry. Barriers that MS erect, and that they use to enforce exclusivity, market timing, pricing and promotion.

If MS "publishes" both, they effectively have two pinball products which they are supposed to promote. We've seen so far that Zen Pinball gets a lot of promotion, at least relative to TPA, which gets almost nothing.

I think it'd be better for FS to get a strong publisher behind them that has at least some publishing muscle and experience.

TPA and Zen aren't necessarily competitors. They both attract different audiences.

 

[George Klepacz]

If it isn't too late for a last minute question, why can't this be done: digitalpinballfans.com/showthread.php/747-FarSight-Please-Remove-The-Sound-Overlapping-The-ROM-Sound-When-Entering-Initials