Williams' Collection Volume 4 guesses

[dave950lam]

Question for Mel:

With the 1st four packs being DMD's, can we expect some Bally/Williams SS and A1 soon?

 

[Nomorestalker]

I just confirmed I’ll be interviewing Mel tomorrow morning. If you guys have specific questions, post ‘em and I’ll work them in if I can. I’ve got a laundry list myself that probably duplicates many of yours, but it helps me prioritize.

Any word in general on cab? Most notably the ability to set your own camera would be fantastic.

 

[blindpeser]

We VR guys are pretty much blessed with VPVR, but it still has it flaws. So are there news for wms vr tables?

 

[yespage]

Mixed feelings about the group. Generally Zen has done a good job of putting in at least one table I think I'd really like and then at least one table I have no care for. The wild card is the third table. I'm mixed on WW, not yet a fan of Red and Ted, but can get happy for Hurricane.

 

[Pete]

if they gave us all best stuff in one pack people would avoid the not so good packs... but me i have to obsessively buy them all no matter what. I don't even care if it's got a dmd or not, all the real game is on the table itself. when i play a table with a dmd in real life i'm not even looking at it 95% of the time. takes me out of the game, the only times i look up is to see if i'm beating my opponents score.

 

[wilbers]

Mel , can I catch a Taxi ?

Updated taxi https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48297440

 

[lettuce]

Can you ask it they have plans to release on the Oculus Quest store?

 

[wolfson]

Updated taxi https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48297440

wilbers , good one ,that would be nice fling around the Taxi table !!!

 

[shutyertrap]

You can watch the interview as it premieres on YouTube at 3:45 PDT here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PW_cPKR_JZA

I’ll be live chatting in the comments while it plays. Lots of good info you guys will feast on, trust me! And obviously once the video is up you can watch it whenever, but live chatting opens up the opportunity to pose your own questions or comments that I can try and respond to. See you all then!

 

[Pete]

nice just saw the link clicked it and it says 2 minutes till air time... sweet! hope they say something about psvr or oculus quest happening i will freak right out and buy one

 

[trash80]

You can watch the interview as it premieres on YouTube at 3:45 PDT here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PW_cPKR_JZA

I’ll be live chatting in the comments while it plays. Lots of good info you guys will feast on, trust me! And obviously once the video is up you can watch it whenever, but live chatting opens up the opportunity to pose your own questions or comments that I can try and respond to. See you all then!

Good stuff as always.

So...

New flipper physics across all Williams tables.

Williams physics on Original Zen tables and Lighting options will NOT be coming until FX4 Ultra.

Universal Monsters 2 pack released around Halloween.

The EPIC store deal delayed the original table pack to at least 2020.

They are working with Stern.

Edit - And if I were to speculate... the specialty stuff Mel referred to is obviously Big Bang Bar and Kingpin tables.

 

[shutyertrap]

Good stuff as always.

So...

New flipper physics across all Williams tables.

Williams physics on Original Zen tables and Lighting options will NOT be coming until FX4 Ultra.

Universal Monsters 2 pack released around Halloween.

The EPIC store deal delayed the original table pack to at least 2020.

They are working with Stern.

Edit - And if I were to speculate... the specialty stuff Mel referred to is obviously Big Bang Bar and Kingpin tables.

Wow, took some liberties there with info and sprinkled in some speculation !

 

[trash80]

Wow, took some liberties there with info and sprinkled in some speculation !

Did I?

Maybe the specialty stuff is a Pinball 2000 Star Wars table (oh, they already have one in the studio, hmmm)... I was surprised to hear you not know about the cabinet being out in the wild.

 

[wilbers]

Some of the licensing aspects certainly are easy to overlook. Couldn't think what the Frank Sinatra license was for, but after googling it found out it was needed for Party Zone.

 

[trash80]

Some of the licensing aspects certainly are easy to overlook. Couldn't think what the Frank Sinatra license was for, but after googling it found out it was needed for Party Zone.

I applaud Zen for being as thorough as they are in regard to proper licensing, but this is also why I think there are some tables that may never see the light of a Zen version.

Shutyertrap: You may want to ask Mel next time you speak to him if Zen is in the position to alter 3rd party assets due to not being able to secure proper licensing, or does having any unsecured asset license cause a table to be completely out of the picture.

 

[Citizen]

We already know from Party Zone that not being able to secure 100% of a table's third party licensing doesn't put it completely out of the picture. They're clearly able to remove third party assets they couldn't license. But yeah, altering could be a different story. Music is easier because you just remove a track. Aesthetics are a different story because they'd require alternation. Even simply removing Fester/Lloyd from TAF completely could be seen as an alternation to the overall art package (not to mention it'd be a sucky solution).

 

[shutyertrap]

I applaud Zen for being as thorough as they are in regard to proper licensing, but this is also why I think there are some tables that may never see the light of a Zen version.

Shutyertrap: You may want to ask Mel next time you speak to him if Zen is in the position to alter 3rd party assets due to not being able to secure proper licensing, or does having any unsecured asset license cause a table to be completely out of the picture.

I’ll see what I can about that. I suspect more will become clear once we see that first licensed table, from choice of what it is to if certain aspects are cut. For instance, FarSight chose not to license all the music in some of the tables. It’s not readily apparent, and most people would never even notice unless they were very familiar with the tables. Question is, and I suspect Zen feels this way, does doing that make other 3rd parties less inclined to deal with you?

Then there’s the flip side to that, which is Zen clearly did not use the famous music for Jaws, BttF, ET, Jurassic Park, or Aliens. They got the music for Star Wars, but hired sound alikes for vocal work.

So what do you feel the possible ‘impossible’ tables are? FarSight couldn’t make Rollergames happen, had to severely alter World Cup, made No Fear rather generic, and of course there’s TAF from which we labeled all these alterations as being Festered. I think NBA Fastbreak never sees light of day unfortunately, but I’ll keep pushing till I’m told straight up no. If World Cup comes out unscathed, there’s hope.

I’ve asked Mel privately about licensing before, and he’s very tight lipped. They take it VERY seriously and don’t want anything to ruin a potential deal. That’s why I say we’ll just have to wait for their first public moves and then maybe more info can be brought to light.

 

[Blkthorne]

I’ll see what I can about that. I suspect more will become clear once we see that first licensed table, from choice of what it is to if certain aspects are cut. For instance, FarSight chose not to license all the music in some of the tables. It’s not readily apparent, and most people would never even notice unless they were very familiar with the tables. Question is, and I suspect Zen feels this way, does doing that make other 3rd parties less inclined to deal with you?

Then there’s the flip side to that, which is Zen clearly did not use the famous music for Jaws, BttF, ET, Jurassic Park, or Aliens. They got the music for Star Wars, but hired sound alikes for vocal work.

So what do you feel the possible ‘impossible’ tables are? FarSight couldn’t make Rollergames happen, had to severely alter World Cup, made No Fear rather generic, and of course there’s TAF from which we labeled all these alterations as being Festered. I think NBA Fastbreak never sees light of day unfortunately, but I’ll keep pushing till I’m told straight up no. If World Cup comes out unscathed, there’s hope.

I’ve asked Mel privately about licensing before, and he’s very tight lipped. They take it VERY seriously and don’t want anything to ruin a potential deal. That’s why I say we’ll just have to wait for their first public moves and then maybe more info can be brought to light.

About the only ones I can see them having troubles with are the two you mentioned in NBA Fastbreak and Rollergames and then Playboy really. If Zen and Stern start collaborating together then you will have a bunch of tables that will probably never see the light of digitized day with Sega/Data East/Stern having a ton of big licensed tables.

 

[Dok5555555]

So are the new flipper physics just in arcade mode or do they change in zen mode too?

 

[shutyertrap]

Just arcade mode