Zen Pinball FX3 Williams Pinball Volume One

[Trackball]

This news just turned me into a Zen customer.

I just finished the Fish Tales beta, and...whoa. Holy...Farsight, what the hell were you doing all this time? I feel so let down now that I know what I was missing.

Now if only Zen would let us adjust analog nudge sensitivity. On ALL their tables, not just these. Farsight's nudging is too easy, Zen's nudging is too HARD!

 

[Nomorestalker]

If you're using an Xbox controller or similar for playing the games, you can use that to navigate the menus just fine. I didn't have to use my mouse or keyboard once.

It's a genetic joystick with arcade buttons mapped to keyboard. So for example in tpa left is left shift, right is right shift camera is back etc.

 

[Nomorestalker]

Random Suggestion time! : since these are being run off of roms (unless I heard that wrong?) Let us swap out the censored rom with an uncensored version like a VP cab.

If/ when you do cactus canyon try to get cactus canyon continued as a variant or alternate gameplay mode (similar to tournament mode)

Go help Dutch pinball with their legal nightmare in exchange for digital big lebowski - okay that one is just genuine wishful thinking haha.

Release revenge from Mars and episode one pinball 2000 tables. It's the perfect olive branch from the tables they were making to the tables they will be making.

It's nice to see how excited this forum is again as it's been a ghost town for a while.

 

[Locksley]

Now I wonder how Farsight will treat our William/Bally tables, will there be any worthwhile update to TPA now? Ballspinn? Harder tables with complementing 'less-hackable' leaderboard?

And TPA as well as Zen need to give a good hard think about nudging.

I'm looking forward to Star Trek NG on Zen because I think graphicswise it is not as well as it should be in TPA being Kickstartered an all...

 

[Silverball67]

Excellent News. Can't wait for iOS.

Yeah! This saves my day. Can´t wait getting Williams/Bally in Zen-Versions on my PS4!!! Will buy them again.

 

[Robert Misner]

This is simply fantastic news. I really didn't see this coming.
Zen has been really slow to add tables to PinballFX VR but at least they are adding some. If these end up being added at some point it would be a dream come true.

About nudging Zen's analog nudging is fantastic i wonder if theres a utility that will map keypresses as analog stick motion so you could set the strength lower for digital nudging.
using 360xce you can set your analog nudge for pincabs to a nice realistic light nudge.

 

[Gorgar]

The way I say it is that Farsight stopped releasing regular seasons anyway. Even if they still had the WMS license, they would probably still focus primarily on modern sterns as the first few seasons of Williams tables continue to sell. I don’t think we are missing much as far as TPA is concerned.

I am really curious to play a demo for the Zen tables, but I can’t until it hits PS4 because my PC can’t even play TPA on DX9 without serious slowdown. If it is as good as everyone says, I can get on board, although I wish Zen wouldn’t focus primarily on the 90s.

 

[Kolchak357]

I find it very odd that the initial release won't contain at least one pin that TPA didn't have. That would have made this even more interesting/exciting in my opinion.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

If it is as good as everyone says, I can get on board, although I wish Zen wouldn’t focus primarily on the 90s.

Zen are focusing on the '90s for the same reason FS did initially: those are still the best-known, and best-remembered, pins out there. It's the ultimate sweet spot for generating interest and sales. Bait the hook and reel 'em in (heh, see what I did there?) - then whack 'em over the head.

 

[Zaphod77]

I really want to like these tables, but the flippers are NOT my friends.

I am more inconsistent on them than with real pinball, most likely due to the lack of helpful and totally not obvious tweaked railroads.

Post passes are horrendously inconsistent.

i feel like i'm spraying and praying. completely impossible to dial myself in.

okay a good hour later i'm getting a BIT more of a feel. but the flippers still seem wrong to me, and feel like stern flippers instead of williams ones.

But i've still noticed these.

1) Fastcast does not always register, at times it very clearly should. i believe its' tied to the spinnner, which sometimes doesn't spin enough on a plunge.
2) shots to the left orbit sneak out the right one way too often.
3) ball tends to come off the wall when it trickles out of the right orbit. I don't remember real games doing this, but it's very rare the situation even comes up.

 

[Palmer Eldritch]

For those who were able to play the Beta, what is the nudge like, is it like zen or more forgiving like TPA?

It's exactly like regular Zen, with the same strenght giving you a tilt warning every time, which compared to PA's nudging I don't enjoy very much. I really hope they change this, because it's totally unlike real tables.

Like Zen. You're going to have to be quite gentle on the stick unless you want to tilt. That might be adjustable though.

This is by far my biggest complaint with Zen pinball, even the non-WMS tables.. I could forgive arcadey physics in an original video pinball game from zen, but the nudging just absolutely kills it for me.. I tried Fish Tales and I think the new physics are actually pretty damn good (they could use a bit of tweaking with flipper strength, it's hard to do tricks) but overall I was satisfied... The nudging absolutely kills it for me, I was honestly really excited upon hitting the start button but when I tried to save a ball from going out the left outlane, and it gave me a warning.. very frustrating..

is it using the actual analog of the stick? if so they need to allow you to change how sensitive it is, but I am curious as to how the nudging functions on keyboard if it's tuned to an analog stick. I'll probably pass on the zen tables unless they address the nudging, I find it really frustrating.

 

[SilverBalls]

Tried the beta. A good effort but a few really nice to haves:

- Lighting is disappointing but it might be due to the room being too light to my tastes. They must add a lighting slider otherwise I wouldn't buy tables. VPX looks better ATM when lights are turned down.

- Physics are Much better than standard Zen but flippers are too powerful. Some settings would be great. At least a set of simulation physics. VPX still is more realistic but am sure Zen can tweak.

- Cab mode needed!

 

[Nomorestalker]

Cab mode needed!

Go all out, offer plunger and analog nudge support. Better cab camera views.

 

[Zaphod77]

Keyboard nudging is always full tilt, and always gives a warning. that does NOT regenerate like zen warnings.

 

[strells]

I haven't read the whole thread yet, but every time I start one of these tables, it crashes immediately. I haven't been able to play any of them. I'm on an HP Zbook with plenty of RAM. Even reducing quality settings down causes these tables to crash. It is a beta, but people here have gotten them to work, right?

 

[Spork98765]

I haven't read the whole thread yet, but every time I start one of these tables, it crashes immediately. I haven't been able to play any of them. I'm on an HP Zbook with plenty of RAM. Even reducing quality settings down causes these tables to crash. It is a beta, but people here have gotten them to work, right?

OTOH i'd suggest that you check your graphics manager thing for the discreet GPU and make sure that FX3 is being opened with the discrete GPU and not the integrated. Not sure which model you have, but all of them appear to have discrete graphics.

 

[Jeff Strong]

I haven't read the whole thread yet, but every time I start one of these tables, it crashes immediately. I haven't been able to play any of them. I'm on an HP Zbook with plenty of RAM. Even reducing quality settings down causes these tables to crash. It is a beta, but people here have gotten them to work, right?

[MENTION=4793]strells[/MENTION] check here, this should solve your issue 100%:

http://www.digitalpinballfans.com/showthread.php/13630-FIX-FX3-Laggy-or-Choppy-on-Your-Laptop

EDIT: yep, what sport said.

 

[strells]

That worked! I can actually play now. But now, it seems like the game is playing too fast (or maybe it just seemed slower in TPA).

 

[shutyertrap]

That worked! I can actually play now. But now, it seems like the game is playing too fast (or maybe it just seemed slower in TPA).

It's not that it's really faster, it's that the ball is way less floaty in comparison. This is a lot tougher setup than FarSight had.

 

[Citizen]

I'd love to take a crack at JM in FX3. I always felt it probably wouldn't feel right if it had made it in TPA. But the less floaty the better for a table like that that's supposed to be lightning fast.