Thank you for this fantastic game!

[Razz]

Where do I start? I suppose I'll write it again, THANK YOU!

I'm really enjoying the PC beta of Pinball Arcade. The game feels spot on. The ball physics are great and have a nice feeling of weight to them. Same goes for the paddles, equally important imo.

The most important part, the digitisation of these tables are absolutely top notch! I've seen anything with this level of dedication. It truly is a spectacle to behold. I sat in stunned silence when I first opened Pinbot, my mind was awash of memories as a kid playing it for hours on end. Memories I thought had long been lost. I've again spent hours playing it again, and will do for many years to come thanks to your hard work!

Also, I didn't know there would be so many tables! I was only expecting to get the Star Trek table (as it was what I bought on your kickstarter). After being nickled and dimed by the likes of Zen Pinball et al, it is refreshing to see such generosity from a developer.

I have been up for hours. It's now 4am, a cloudy dawn looms over London and my wife will probably prefer it if I slept on the couch. So erm... more pinball I suppose. Fantastic.

Cheers!

Razz

 

[DaPinballWizard]

I must agree. It really is very nice and will be my platform of choice. Thanks for all the hard work. Too bad Flight 2000 wasn't ready in time for the beta. Would have loved to see that one. Wise to hold out the best table though.

 

[SilverSuper]

Are you sure you're not romanticising TPA out of missing pinball? I liked TPA at first for several months when I hadn't touched a real machine for quite a while, but after traveling to a few places where they had tens and hundreds of real machines and buying my own machine I think that TPA is simply horrible at recreating the experience of real pinball. Sure it's fun to play it as long as you don't have a real machine fresh in mind, you can compete on the scoreboards and it can be used to refresh table rules and play before going to real machine tournaments, but it fails hard at recreating real tables and will continue to do that until it's reworked and properly balanced. TPA is really far off when it comes to difficulty, realism, physics compared to the real tables it tries to recreate. Some tables are dumbed down to the point where you just want to facepalm. TZ is a joke on TPA (although they deserve some credit for the accuracy of some of the shots) and on MM the ball just bounce passes to the left flipper when the ball is coming down the rigtht joust orbit while it just drains rolling over the flipper on a real machine. People are putting 4 hour long recordings of a single game of TPA on YouTube, it's ridiculous.

It felt like the PC-release of TPA would take forever and instead of waiting any further, I drove 1200 kilometres each way to buy myself a Twilight Zone. Now that the PC-release is close I'm not sure if I want to play any virtual pinball simulations or not. Having a single real machine is way better than playing multiple virtual ones.

The work put in on TPA isn't that great either:
-Other people have done better work recreating pinball-tables in their sparetime. http://home.gethome.no/jpsalas/
-It does not try to recreate real pinball because it's not tight like a real table and it's severely dumbed down and inaccurate, probably done to earn a buck on random people while lying about the attempt to recreate pinball
-Quantity over quality, way to many tables before even succeeding to recreate a single table up to a reasonable level of quality
-It makes you facepalm when you have the chance to compare it to a real machine
-Several tables seem to have been released without enough playtesting and polishing, the initial release of Whirlwind was a disaster
-Errors in gameplay on several tables
-Fails at simulating a coil driven flipper and does not have multiple triggers on the buttons so you can activate only the bottom flippers like on a real machine with more than 2 flippers
-Backhand shots are not possible like on a real machine, at least on some platforms.
-Shot difficulty is way off
-Unrealistic ball bouncing off the rubbers, especially on the ones at inlane/outlane

I understand your excitement, but for people who really like pinball it's better to put down $1000-1500 for a modearate wear Funhouse or Whirlwind or any other decent to play cheap to buy machine instead of pretending TPA is fantastic. I'm probably going to give TPA a go when it's released on Steam, but then again the energy seems better spent on getting another pinball machine instead of pretending with virtual ones. I made excauses for 20 years not to buy a pinball machine, it's too large, to heavy, too expensive, too hard to maintain, before I realized it's just to buy one if you're really into pinball. Be a doer, not a don'ter. TPA is for don'ters, just another excause not to buy a real machine. Embrace your life before it's over. They probably won't let you have a machine on your room at the retirement home.

 

[JPelter]

Some of the points you made are valid, but I'd like to note that Farsight didn't lie to anyone. They've stated multiple times that the tables are adjusted to be somewhat easier than real tables to prevent player frustration, and yes to sell more tables. Personally I'd also like if the tables were harder, and we had tournament setting leaderboards with no extra balls etc. However, I'd much rather see Farsight stay afloat by selling more tables since I absolutely love the game.

Another point is that even if you bought the game with every single table released so far you'd be paying less than 5% of the cost of a single medium popularity real table without shipping costs. A high percentage of people can't just drop $1500 on a table on a whim and/or have the space to keep one.

 

[SilverSuper]

They've stated it, but not in their marketing. For a few months I actually thought it was playing somehow accurate until my friend told me to wake up. Real machines are tight and does not cause frustration, they create excitement to put in another quarter. If pinball machines wasn't tight it would not be a point to play them.

A pinball machine takes 1 square metre, it's just another excause. "Even if you have to throw out your bed to fit one you can still sleep on a mattress under the pinball-machine." Perhaps it's out of reach for a kid, but for someone above 15 y.o. able to get a job it's making excauses to say it's not possible to get one. I know it because I did not get a machine until 2 decades after wanting one, making up multiple excauses and continously wasting money on things I didn't need or even want that much in the meantime.

The point about selling more tables because it's tuned down is false and if it had been correct it would fail in the long run as people will stop purchasing tables as they realize they are getting fooled. When people get into TPA they will seek up to play the real machines and they will be severely let down beyond repair that TPA had them played a fools joke for months.

If you absolutely love the game you'd be 10 times better off with a real machine.

I enjoyed playing TPA and I will probably purchase some tables when it hits Steam, but I feel fooled and if they really want people to purchase their tables for years to come they really need to make some changes. Nevertheless how good they could tune it, people who are heavily into pinball should start saving for a real machine istead of settling with TPA for 5 years.

 

[superballs]

Are you sure you're not romanticising TPA out of missing pinball? I liked TPA at first for several months when I hadn't touched a real machine for quite a while, but after traveling to a few places where they had tens and hundreds of real machines and buying my own machine I think that TPA is simply horrible at recreating the experience of real pinball. Sure it's fun to play it as long as you don't have a real machine fresh in mind, you can compete on the scoreboards and it can be used to refresh table rules and play before going to real machine tournaments, but it fails hard at recreating real tables and will continue to do that until it's reworked and properly balanced. TPA is really far off when it comes to difficulty, realism, physics compared to the real tables it tries to recreate. Some tables are dumbed down to the point where you just want to facepalm. TZ is a joke on TPA (although they deserve some credit for the accuracy of some of the shots) and on MM the ball just bounce passes to the left flipper when the ball is coming down the rigtht joust orbit while it just drains rolling over the flipper on a real machine. People are putting 4 hour long recordings of a single game of TPA on YouTube, it's ridiculous.

It felt like the PC-release of TPA would take forever and instead of waiting any further, I drove 1200 kilometres each way to buy myself a Twilight Zone. Now that the PC-release is close I'm not sure if I want to play any virtual pinball simulations or not. Having a single real machine is way better than playing multiple virtual ones.

The work put in on TPA isn't that great either:
-Other people have done better work recreating pinball-tables in their sparetime. http://home.gethome.no/jpsalas/
-It does not try to recreate real pinball because it's not tight like a real table and it's severely dumbed down and inaccurate, probably done to earn a buck on random people while lying about the attempt to recreate pinball
-Quantity over quality, way to many tables before even succeeding to recreate a single table up to a reasonable level of quality
-It makes you facepalm when you have the chance to compare it to a real machine
-Several tables seem to have been released without enough playtesting and polishing, the initial release of Whirlwind was a disaster
-Errors in gameplay on several tables
-Fails at simulating a coil driven flipper and does not have multiple triggers on the buttons so you can activate only the bottom flippers like on a real machine with more than 2 flippers
-Backhand shots are not possible like on a real machine, at least on some platforms.
-Shot difficulty is way off
-Unrealistic ball bouncing off the rubbers, especially on the ones at inlane/outlane

I understand your excitement, but for people who really like pinball it's better to put down $1000-1500 for a modearate wear Funhouse or Whirlwind or any other decent to play cheap to buy machine instead of pretending TPA is fantastic. I'm probably going to give TPA a go when it's released on Steam, but then again the energy seems better spent on getting another pinball machine instead of pretending with virtual ones. I made excauses for 20 years not to buy a pinball machine, it's too large, to heavy, too expensive, too hard to maintain, before I realized it's just to buy one if you're really into pinball. Be a doer, not a don'ter. TPA is for don'ters, just another excause not to buy a real machine. Embrace your life before it's over. They probably won't let you have a machine on your room at the retirement home.

Last I checked, many people who absolutely love the game own several pinball machines, repair them, maintain them and also compare TPA to them favorably. TZ is a bit harder now that they've removed the wall in the bumpers despite it still being a bit easy, STTNG was said to be a lot closer in difficulty. Play Big Shot? That ones a cakewalk isn't it?

Now, let's highlight a few things:

-Other people have done better work recreating pinball-tables in their sparetime. http://home.gethome.no/jpsalas/
JPSalas is one of my favorite table authors, but he's not even played many of the tables he's recreated (I've discussed this with him personall over EBD). His tables look exceptional, but don't play like their real counterparts either.

-It does not try to recreate real pinball because it's not tight like a real table and it's severely dumbed down and inaccurate, probably done to earn a buck on random people while lying about the attempt to recreate pinball
I'm really not sure what you mean by tight here. Yes TZ is a lot easier than the real table, which by the sounds of it is the only table you own. One member here compared STTNG directly to a real machine quite favorably. Some tables are easier than the real thing, others, not so much. I really won't be able to judge until they release a table I know like the back of my hand. BTW, since you brought VP into the mix with your previous argument. HS2 the Getaway by NF/UR is a wonderful recreation but because of a lack or real randomness, I had a 2.5 hour game where all I did was shoot the right loop over and over, and let the ball bounce off of the raised left flipper, into the 123 targets, and then dead-pass from the right flipper back to the left for another shot at the right loop. Easy EB from the freeway, and by the time I was done that, I was pretty close to fifth gear, get redline mania, get that EB, rinse lather repeat...


-Quantity over quality, way to many tables before even succeeding to recreate a single table up to a reasonable level of quality
Out of the 26 or so tables released, I think only 2 could be considered train-wrecks. The rest have minor issues, usually small art issues. BK with it's scripting issues and CV is reported to have some major game-breakers. Most are beyond a "reasonable level of quality", in fact, most are great quality.

-It makes you facepalm when you have the chance to compare it to a real machine
TZ Maybe, I'm getting the impression you are basing your opinion heavily in relation to this table.

-Several tables seem to have been released without enough playtesting and polishing, the initial release of Whirlwind was a disaster
I have no argument here, I've barely played Whirlwind in either TPA or IRL, i think the biggest issues were that the disks had too much effect on the ball and they were too loud. Or are you making a pun? Clever you.

-Errors in gameplay on several tables
Some of the scripted tables yes, most of the emulated tables are fine, aside from the occasion where physics get funny.

-Fails at simulating a coil driven flipper and does not have multiple triggers on the buttons so you can activate only the bottom flippers like on a real machine with more than 2 flippers
PS3 has 2-stage flippers and the 360 would have if not for the Crave bankruptcy fiasco, which is completely out of Farsight's hands legally. I'm not sure about the PC version having it, I've only seen a few of the beta threads, and you've clearly stated that you've not given it a shot yet, leaving iOS as your only platform. Explain, kind sir, how you would implement two-stage flippers on a touch screen tablet. Don't give me external controller crap, give me a universal solution that everyone can use. Also note that some people use shake nudging, personally I hate reaching for other locations on the screen so added buttons are not an option for me, and also defeat the purpose of having fine control over multiple sets of flippers, they did it on a single button on real machines for a reason.

As for flipper physics, well, no game has that perfect. That said, although it can be difficult, it's possible to do nearly any flipper maneuvers in TPA, with i think live catches and cradle separation being the most difficult, but still possible.

-Backhand shots are not possible like on a real machine, at least on some platforms.
Like which platform?
It's possible on every platform I've used...which completely encompasses every platform you've used. In fact, I got Atlantis on RBION mainly by backhanding from the right flipper to the right ramp. Easiest way to make that shot during multiball.

-Shot difficulty is way off
Once you've learned a shot on a real table, the shots get easier and easier.
There are a couple shots that are easier than IRL, but a lot of the time, it's a question of the right momentum and the right time. Once TPA can implement ball spin into the engine, that will change. But "WAY OFF" is a bit of an exaggeration.

-Unrealistic ball bouncing off the rubbers, especially on the ones at inlane/outlane
I've played a lot of machines with similar ball bouncing. Actually, if you had specified "ToM bouncing is insanity in a mechanical box" I would have agreed with you wholeheartedly. Which tables do you actually play on TPA. Yeah Funhouse and BoP kinda suck in TPA, due to the main shots being way too easy. Hopefully they will be retuned, but most tables are great fun.

I understand your excitement, but for people who really like pinball it's better to put down $1000-1500 for a modearate wear Funhouse or Whirlwind or any other decent to play cheap to buy machine instead of pretending TPA is fantastic.

TPA is fantastic, let's just get that out of the way.
And yeah, of course it's just better since you are completely unable to put yourself in anyone else's shoes. So what about the guy who pays 2300$ a month for a small room in NYC split with 2 roommates? If he doesn't go out and buy a pinball table now it's because he doesn't really like pinball.

I'll go buy one right now too...the problem of space will correct itself quickly when my fiance moves all her space consuming stuff to a new place as well.
I mean seriously, the amount of energy that goes into accumulating 1000-1500$ seems to not be a factor here to you, but it is to some others...and having 26 well-recreated tables is more viable an option at approx 100$...a tenth of your low estimate here.

Welcome to the forums by the way.

 

[Bonzo]

But "people who are heavilly into pinball" make up far less than maybe 5 % of their customers. And RL pinball machines were/are "tight" because they have to bring in constant cash flow. I'm certainly not the only one who'd love to be able to play a RL game of MM for more than two to three minutes per ball.

I get where you're coming from, but I think you are in a wee minority.

 

[Kolchak357]

I play real pins at least twice a month. Would I rather have have 40 real pins than TPA? Sure I would. But if you love pinball, I don't see how you can not enjoy this app. It gives me quick access to simulations of some of the greatest and often rarest (& most expensive) pins ever made. Plus on a mobile I can play at work during lunch, so that alone is worth the price to me. It's not perfect but I don't expect it to be.

 

[ND3G]

I don't think anyone expects TPA to fully and exactly recreate the the experience you get playing a real pinball machine but it is the best option available for those of us without access to a real table.

I remember playing pinball on the Vic-20 years and years ago and while it was fun it certainly was nothing like real pinball. We have come a long way since then.

 

[DrainoBraino]

They've stated it, but not in their marketing. For a few months I actually thought it was playing somehow accurate until my friend told me to wake up. Real machines are tight and does not cause frustration, they create excitement to put in another quarter. If pinball machines wasn't tight it would not be a point to play them.

A pinball machine takes 1 square metre, it's just another excause. "Even if you have to throw out your bed to fit one you can still sleep on a mattress under the pinball-machine." Perhaps it's out of reach for a kid, but for someone above 15 y.o. able to get a job it's making excauses to say it's not possible to get one. I know it because I did not get a machine until 2 decades after wanting one, making up multiple excauses and continously wasting money on things I didn't need or even want that much in the meantime.

The point about selling more tables because it's tuned down is false and if it had been correct it would fail in the long run as people will stop purchasing tables as they realize they are getting fooled. When people get into TPA they will seek up to play the real machines and they will be severely let down beyond repair that TPA had them played a fools joke for months.

If you absolutely love the game you'd be 10 times better off with a real machine.

I enjoyed playing TPA and I will probably purchase some tables when it hits Steam, but I feel fooled and if they really want people to purchase their tables for years to come they really need to make some changes. Nevertheless how good they could tune it, people who are heavily into pinball should start saving for a real machine istead of settling with TPA for 5 years.

Stop the presses folks! Newsflash: Real machines are more realistic than TPA.

Video games are NEVER 100% accurate to real world counterparts, and they never will be. Using your logic I should quit playing Madden on PS3, buy a football stadium, suit up, and go sack Tom Brady. What's my excuse for not doing it?!?!

This forum is for fans of TPA, which is a video/virtual pinball simulation. Please be somewhat constructive in your criticism. Instead of just saying it's not good, why don't you suggest a way or an idea to make it better?

 

[Nightwing]

I don't think anyone expects TPA to fully and exactly recreate the the experience you get playing a real pinball machine but it is the best option available for those of us without access to a real table.

I remember playing pinball on the Vic-20 years and years ago and while it was fun it certainly was nothing like real pinball. We have come a long way since then.

Exactly. I'm having fun with TPA for what it is. It won't ever replace playing on a real table,but it is the closest that you can legally get on a video platform.

 

[shimoda]

@SilverSuper

Shoot me a PM when you have a moderately worn Funhouse or Whirlwind for $1000-1500. I will take both for that price. Oh yeah, sorry those are both 2K+ games these days, often in players condition.

 

[brakel]

Are you sure you're not romanticising TPA out of missing pinball? I liked TPA at first for several months when I hadn't touched a real machine for quite a while, but after traveling to a few places where they had tens and hundreds of real machines and buying my own machine I think that TPA is simply horrible at recreating the experience of real pinball. Sure it's fun to play it as long as you don't have a real machine fresh in mind, you can compete on the scoreboards and it can be used to refresh table rules and play before going to real machine tournaments, but it fails hard at recreating real tables and will continue to do that until it's reworked and properly balanced. TPA is really far off when it comes to difficulty, realism, physics compared to the real tables it tries to recreate. Some tables are dumbed down to the point where you just want to facepalm. TZ is a joke on TPA (although they deserve some credit for the accuracy of some of the shots) and on MM the ball just bounce passes to the left flipper when the ball is coming down the rigtht joust orbit while it just drains rolling over the flipper on a real machine. People are putting 4 hour long recordings of a single game of TPA on YouTube, it's ridiculous.

It felt like the PC-release of TPA would take forever and instead of waiting any further, I drove 1200 kilometres each way to buy myself a Twilight Zone. Now that the PC-release is close I'm not sure if I want to play any virtual pinball simulations or not. Having a single real machine is way better than playing multiple virtual ones.

The work put in on TPA isn't that great either:
-Other people have done better work recreating pinball-tables in their sparetime. http://home.gethome.no/jpsalas/
-It does not try to recreate real pinball because it's not tight like a real table and it's severely dumbed down and inaccurate, probably done to earn a buck on random people while lying about the attempt to recreate pinball
-Quantity over quality, way to many tables before even succeeding to recreate a single table up to a reasonable level of quality
-It makes you facepalm when you have the chance to compare it to a real machine
-Several tables seem to have been released without enough playtesting and polishing, the initial release of Whirlwind was a disaster
-Errors in gameplay on several tables
-Fails at simulating a coil driven flipper and does not have multiple triggers on the buttons so you can activate only the bottom flippers like on a real machine with more than 2 flippers
-Backhand shots are not possible like on a real machine, at least on some platforms.
-Shot difficulty is way off
-Unrealistic ball bouncing off the rubbers, especially on the ones at inlane/outlane

I understand your excitement, but for people who really like pinball it's better to put down $1000-1500 for a modearate wear Funhouse or Whirlwind or any other decent to play cheap to buy machine instead of pretending TPA is fantastic. I'm probably going to give TPA a go when it's released on Steam, but then again the energy seems better spent on getting another pinball machine instead of pretending with virtual ones. I made excauses for 20 years not to buy a pinball machine, it's too large, to heavy, too expensive, too hard to maintain, before I realized it's just to buy one if you're really into pinball. Be a doer, not a don'ter. TPA is for don'ters, just another excause not to buy a real machine. Embrace your life before it's over. They probably won't let you have a machine on your room at the retirement home.

I think you have some good points. The difficulty factor has been a discussion point on this forum since TPA was released. FS decided to aim for a difficulty that would allow an average player to have some success with most tables and with a little practice be able to master most tables. The reason real life pinball isn't designed this way is because of money. They need people to pump money into the machines to pay for them, the place where they're played and the staff that works there. If players were able to master the last pack and have some fun with it they're more likely to buy into the next pack. That can leave some people who are very good pinballers a bit disappointed in the difficulty of TPA and wanting some kind of difficulty setting or slider. And I just need to point out that the word is "excuse" not "excause" but that does not mean that I'm not impressed with your English skills!

 

[SilverSuper]

The one who sold me TZ had a decent Whirlwind to sell for for $1500. Unfortunately I couldn't fit both in the car:/ it was quite sad to realize that after play testing it.

I was talking to a guy from Sweden who claimed that some of the post 2000 Stern machines were a little bit like that with crazy long ball times. I like TPA, I just want them to put a little more love into the tables.

My English isn't perfect:/

 

[CycOd3liC]

Pinball machines were designed to take your money. TPA is designed to enjoy pinball. I will take Pinball any way I can get it. Bride of Pinbot is one of my favorite machines ever, but I can never beat the real machine (there's one at a local 'cade). It's satisfying to be able to beat it at home with the thought of perhaps getting good enough at it to one day beat the real version. I too grew up with the Commodore Vic 20/64 and the early days of the PC with such abysmal pinball games until the Pro Pinball series came along. I also remember playing Jack*Bot on VP and got really good at it before playing the real machine and people were shocked on how good I was on the real machine the first few times actually playing it.

TPA is not perfect... Far from it. But like I said, I'll take pinball any way I can get it. I can play it on my XBOX, my PC and my Tablet. TPA has created something that I will play for a very long time and enjoy. I can't say the same for the Zen series.

 

[DaPinballWizard]

Thanks FarSight for all the love you DO put in. It shows!!

 

[SilverSuper]

It's also the same reason why they are great to compete on as well. They even make them harder than standard for serious tournament play.

 

[DaPinballWizard]

I am sure they have a forum for people who love real pinball machines. This isn't it. I am sure everybody here ALSO loves real pinball. This isn't real pinball. Enjoy it for what it is.

 

[SilverSuper]

I'd pay $299 per table or $100 monthly subscription if they made it like real.

 

[DaPinballWizard]

Impossible.