Williams Pinball Android Beta

[Gord Lacey]

Well, they're allowing you to play for free to earn and unlock your tables, or...

Just buy the Zen coins and buy the table outright. If you do that then you can skip buying parts, tickets, challenges... you can just open it up and play the tables whenever you want.

 

[HOW]

Okay, the download link was there just now. I got the beta installed and everything seems to be working.

Now, I know people have already been discussing WP for weeks and weeks. Discussions that I stayed out of purely because I had no new Android app in front of me to discuss. So, forgive me if I raise a (now) old complaint that's already been hashed out to death, but...

This whole thing is needlessly complicated with the promoting, tickets, tokens, parts, levels, etc etc. It's *pinball*! It's just bloody *pinball*! Let me log on and play some games that I've paid for. Simple. Easy. All these endless little in-app purchases and steps are micro-managing all the fun out of what should be a basic pleasure.

I'll go back to the app again soon, but that's my initial reaction. This chaotic bureaucracy of options is going to scare off gamers. TPA has a simple model. So does Zen. Why not here?

Well said.

I have come from TPA, I've never played a Zen game before.

I was thinking all this 'nonsense' was a regular Zen thing.
Are you saying it's not? And freshly implemented for their Williams game?

WHY?

 

[HOW]

Well, they're allowing you to play for free to earn and unlock your tables, or...

Just buy the Zen coins and buy the table outright. If you do that then you can skip buying parts, tickets, challenges... you can just open it up and play the tables whenever you want.

So the business model is frustrate users into buying.

Rather than a nice initial experience that suckers you in and you're happy to pay for extras (like Head 2 Head, Advanced Physics, Leaderboards, etc)

I I agree with Quick.... that it's a little bewildering and alienating (especially for a new digital pinball player. But hey... I'm ANCIENT so kidz maybe down with this BS )

 

[HOW]

That guest ID as a logged in user is very ugly. Why is it not either pulling my details from Google Play games or allowing me to edit that value?

I did notice that I was getting in-game server errors in Google Play games before which may be related to the problem.

Yeah, the Guest1234567890 thing is odd.
I'm seeing other users who appear to have edited-Though unsure how...

 

[shutyertrap]

This is standard mobile gaming practices, so don't confuse it with console and PC games. If you want mobility with a console experience, get yourself a Switch.

The user interface is a bit confusing, and the terms used are not even the same as used in FX3 (which I wish they would have unified behind). You'll get used to it quicker than you think though.

You can buy the tables outright, or you can grind. I personally like that I can grind to get it all for free, as that's how I game on my phone.

I was able to unlock and max out all the tables in the beta over the course of 3 weeks. Certain measures have been put in place that will now make that a longer process, but it's doable. Play those daily challenges!

Have you all tried the multiplayer side of things? It kicks you over to Skillz, where you can play free tournaments or money tournaments. All winning carry over from one Skillz game to another, so go ahead and download Zen's eSports edition and FarSight's Pinball Tournament app and get to earning! I started with FarSight's app a year ago, never put one dime into the game. By earning achievements, you sometimes get money. I got $3 from that, and have since turned it into $55.

 

[shutyertrap]

Yeah, the Guest1234567890 thing is odd.
I'm seeing other users who appear to have edited-Though unsure how...

It's either by pushing the VIP tab or setting up your account with the gear icon, can't remember which. It then uses your Game Center info.

 

[TFHFony]

Installed it, played it for a few minutes, got frustrated with all the popus and the weird "upgrade" systems, so removed it within 5 minutes after installing it.
I'll keep on playing on my PS4.

 

[HOW]

Installed it, played it for a few minutes, got frustrated with all the popus and the weird "upgrade" systems, so removed it within 5 minutes after installing it.
I'll keep on playing on my PS4.

That says alot.

I'll continue playing - on the minus side that's because I have no other platform for this.
But on the plus it's because it appears superior to TPA.

One thing TPA has over ZenW (as far as I'm aware) is the Table Exploration mode.
Given the work that's obvs been put in to these recreations it's a shame we can't examine in more detail.
This is something that people unfamiliar with the RL tables would surely appreciate?

 

[shutyertrap]

Installed it, played it for a few minutes, got frustrated with all the popus and the weird "upgrade" systems, so removed it within 5 minutes after installing it.
I'll keep on playing on my PS4.

What pop ups? The ones that amount to a tutorial of what to do next? That’s like turning off a movie because you didn’t like the opening credits.

 

[TFHFony]

What pop ups? The ones that amount to a tutorial of what to do next? That’s like turning off a movie because you didn’t like the opening credits.

Sorry, I wasn't very clear indeed. I mean the menu / options/ buy pop ups. I am not talking about external commercial pop-ups.
When I play a pinball game, I just want to select a mode & table and go... And not pressing various options after the first ball-loss.

 

[GAH1068]

Game is unplayable on my Galaxy S8+ I installed/uninstalled the beta a few times now but always the same problem. I start the app and get the Williams Pinball loading screen, the progress bar fully goes through the loading and then the organge bar disappears and I hear background music but the loading message remains.

 

[Xanija]

With today's update I got a new menu item "League game", but neither my level, my tickets, my Zen coins are loaded. When trying to do the daily challenge, I get an interal error, trying to play Arcade I get the message I need to go online, league game just give a message box "please wait". Seems like the connection to Zen Servers doesn't work.

That's a beta, how it should be - not like the PC beta, where everything was already running way too smooth for a beta

 

[Fungi]

...That's a beta, how it should be - not like the PC beta, where everything was already running way too smooth for a beta

That reminds me of the time someone whined and *****ed that they felt they got an Alpha build because it was so broken, instead of being grateful that they got to test out the product before others. Apparently it was just TOO broken. WHAAAH!

 

[PiN WiZ]

Galaxy Note 8 / Android version 8.0.0

• After watching a video, I'm getting a server connection issue about 90% of the time which sometimes causes the game to crash.

• On all tables, I occasionally get a dead flipper (both left and right) when the ball rolls towards the flipper at a high speed...this includes the ball rolling down the flipper from the inlane as well.

 

[jaredmorgs]

Yeah, the Guest1234567890 thing is odd.
I'm seeing other users who appear to have edited-Though unsure how...

This was a problem with the initial installation of the app. Once I deleted everything including the data and the cache, and re-downloaded all table files and re linked my Google Play games account everything started working again.

I am now playing the game.

 

[jaredmorgs]

It's either by pushing the VIP tab or setting up your account with the gear icon, can't remember which. It then uses your Game Center info.

It doesn't on Android. Game Centre is Apple only.

The VIP Tab is only to register your email address. You can't set an alias.

The info is getting pulled from your Google Play Games profile, and because my first couple of installs didn't work right, that value was the unmasked user id of my GPG account.

 

[jaredmorgs]

That reminds me of the time someone whined and *****ed that they felt they got an Alpha build because it was so broken, instead of being grateful that they got to test out the product before others. Apparently it was just TOO broken. WHAAAH!

Read his comment again. He's not complaining. He's accepting that things won't be right at this point.

He's also making the point that the steam beta spoilt us multi-platform testers with it's initial beta quality.

It's all good in the hood.

 

[shutyertrap]

I should really quit posting in the Android thread

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

This was a problem with the initial installation of the app. Once I deleted everything including the data and the cache, and re-downloaded all table files and re linked my Google Play games account everything started working again.

I am now playing the game.

So the more here is, keep deleting data and uninstalling/re-installing until it works? Because it's working nice and peachy on my 'phone, not on my tablet. I'm assuming it should be okay with syncing profiles and progress between two devices.

These problems aside, it runs great and looks great on both my devices.

My only gripe is the complexity of the unlocking mechanisms for the newbie. Yes, there's a tutorial, but no, it's very brief and all of a sudden you're in a land of confusion with 3 different "currencies" (tickets, tokens, parts), overall level (similar to your level in FX3?), table levels.... and so on. Yikes.

[Edit] Got the floaty menu thing on my Pixel 3 XL now as well. Didn't have it before. Definitely have the graphical glitches mentioned before.

 

[Fungi]

Read his comment again. He's not complaining. He's accepting that things won't be right at this point.

He's also making the point that the steam beta spoilt us multi-platform testers with it's initial beta quality.

It's all good in the hood.

Oh, I'm not talking about Xanija. Nor was I saying he was complaining. I just meant it reminded me of a time when someone thought they weren't getting a "beta".