The Pinball Diaries (what did you do today?)

[spiroagnew]

I finally got around to screen-printing a custom White Water t-shirt that I had made the template for a few weeks ago (based on some Youssi playfield art). If anyone is interested in getting one, and helping our pinball community along the way, please see the thread I started in "EVERYTHING ELSE" for sale section. Sorry for the shameless plug, but that EVERYTHING ELSE section is kind of like the Siberia of this site...needed to get some traffic there somehow...

 

[Monkeybug]

I went to the Cineplex at Yonge/Eglington today and was disappointed there was not one pinball there. Just shooters, drivers and kiddie gambling machines.

 

[mwong168]

Put another name to a face and had Jooky over tonight for the first time. Too bad he had a birthday party to attend tomorrow otherwise the night was still young at 1am Nice meeting you and welcome to come over again anytime.

 

[thewebexpert]

I found 3 pins at the halifax airport, one of them being AC/DC

 

[Luckydogg420]

I just had a shake-up in the collection. Traded two of my games for one nicer game.

I had to say goodbye to fair lady and spring break, they were fun while they were here. I really enjoyed spring break, but it was my least favorite game in my line up. The '56 fair lady would have been a great project machine, but with other projects on the go right now, I thought it was best to let it go. The other guy had 3 other games, old Chicago, old playboy, and a ss gottlieb devils something... I didn't pay much attention to them.

I was there for Dungeons & Dragons. It looks great, I'm very happy, so is the other guy. A really great trade. I just got it home. Gotta set it up yet, I'll post pics later.

 

[tkaye]

Cool. Never played a d&d. Good luck with it. Looking forward to your pics.

 

[Luckydogg420]

A couple quick pics.

 

[jooky]

Got to meet Mike the enabler friday night and play his killer lineup! Had a lot of fun on his pimped out tron and unforgiving new IJ. He has already seeded all sorts of ideas for lineup changes in my own small collection! Well have to do this again soon!

 

[brewmanager]

Was over at f14 Dave's for a little pool party yesterday, and later in the evening when I was sobering up I decided to take a look at his f14 and see if I could help with the voice issues. All sounds work, but no speech. In test mode you can very faintly hear it. There was speech when it was first here, and there was occasionally speech when it got to Dave's, but now none.

I reseated the ribbon cable, wiggled around the sound chips and roms, but was able to effect no change. Plus I've already set this machine on fire once, so I'm not exactly willing to take too many chances.

Anyone ever seen similar behavior from a system 11?

 

[Vengeance]

Did you check the volume o the board?

Not sure about sys11 but as an example my centaur has a volume control for voice and sounds on the board and a master volume control on the coin door

Ciuld just be that the voice volume control has been turned down.

 

[Luckydogg420]

Don't think there's a speech volume, didn't notice one when I put the rottendog MPU in my f-14.

I have spare speech chips if you want to try them. that might help

 

[spiroagnew]

Going to start accepting dollars for the White Water t-shirts over in the Buy/Sell "Everything Else" category...have a look! All profits will be donated back into the pinball community! Thanks, guys!

 

[WARLOCK]

I had a revelation tonight for pinball play. I will elaborate more at a later date once my thoughts are all in order.

Long story stort, thanks to Monkeybug for the reminder that pinball is supposed to be fun to play for yourself.
I could elaboate more, but I really don't have the verbage tonight. Thank you Chris.

Thanks to Drano for indicating to me that he has played for years on making modes and accomplishment based
pinball superfun, long before we both knew each other.

Thanks to Brock for reminding me there is "magic" in pinball, even if no one else believes you at the time of.

This information has come to me over the last week or so since the CPC. Thank you everyone.
My scores are 3-4 times better since, and I am not even thinking about my score anymore.

Thank you gentlemen.

 

[DRANO]

I rarely play a game for points. The real challenge for me is playing "through" the game and seeing everything it has to offer.
Essentially, playing it the way the designer intended, and not just trying to manipulate it for a better score. Modes and achievements are where it's at.

I'm not playing for rankings or money... just for good old fun!

 

[Menace]

I'm not playing for rankings or money... just for good old fun!

Nailed it. +1

D

 

[superjackpot]

I totally agree. You play the game for yourself.

Set your own goal. That may be to get a good final score, or an achievement within the game. Perhaps you want to complete a mode that always seems to elude you, or reach a stage in the game for the first time, explore certain facets of the game and do well at them... or just to play multiball. I will play the same machine differently depending on how I feel like playing that day. Often all I long for is a symphony of multiball!

playing it the way the designer intended, and not just trying to manipulate it for a better score.

This is far from a universal truth as some pinball games are only about getting a good score. The modes are few or non existent and your game IS about maximum points. Many EMs are like this.

I wouldn't knock the concept of striving to get a good score. Sometimes modes are not difficult to achieve and are a blast to play. Repeating ramp shots at will... crushing drop targets over and over - it's euphoric. And FUN! That's what matters. However, there's more than one reason to keep score. When you drop those targets, the order in which you complete the modes, how you stack them, with or without advancing multipliers, or having multiball running... even your tolerance for risk vs reward... all these things are very meaningful. One could say the designer rewards you with a higher score when you play the way he intended (or challenges you to).

 

[DRANO]

I agree that EMs are certainly more focused on score, but even they usually have a goal to shoot for. Some achievement the designers built in as a challenge beyond mere points.
Looking at some of mine for example. In Centigrade 37 the goal is to advance the theometer in order to light up the special. In Spin Out you are trying to avoid lighting the #4 position on the roto target before lighting the other 6... awarding you a rare and difficult multi special.

True that not all games have modes, but most do have achievement ladders or some other goal to reach aside from points.

Obviously I understand the value of points and the thrill of collecting huge jackpots. But, I just have an issue when people seek to bypass some games' features because they are not as valuable as others. Or people who entirely dismiss a game because it has some sort of scoring loophole; ignoring all of its fun features and deeming the game as "no good"... as if score was the only measure of a great game. I would have traded away my Addams Family years ago, or missed the immersive experience of TOTAN if I listened to these people.

I know a lot of guys here play competitively, and that's cool. Competitive play is something else altogether.
At home, I just prefer not to lose sight of the fact these games are meant to be fun and I try to avoid playing them with a formula in mind and just try to have fun while still understanding the rule set and goals.
That's all I'm saying. This outlook has kept the hobby fresh for me and allowed me to indulge in titles that others might ignore or dismiss too quickly.

 

[Luckydogg420]

Obviously I understand the value of points and the thrill of collecting huge jackpots. But, I just have an issue when people seek to bypass some games' features because they are not as valuable as others. Or people who entirely dismiss a game because it has some sort of scoring loophole; ignoring all of its fun features and deeming the game as "no good"... as if score was the only measure of a great game.

Amen.

T'eed off is always considered a crappy game because there is very random scoring. On the first ball it is totally possible to get a "mystery reward" that starts a 3 ball multiball; with each jackpot scoring 50 mil and a super jackpot of 250 million if you hit all of the jackpot targets. Or. You could score 5million.

I don't care about that, it's nice to see your name on the high score list, but for me, I'm just happy reliving a game from my youth.

Maybe when I get good enough to consistently hit the same shot over and over again, I'll be concerned about stuff like that and trade up for a no good gophers

 

[superjackpot]

I intentionally avoided mentioning competitive play and that seems to be an underlying tone here. That is an entirely different animal.

I really could care less about games being exploitive, formulaic or unbalanced like TAF or DW or JM. These three, as an example, got a lot of play from me back in the early 90s. TAF still ranks as one of my all time favourites, period. "SHOWTIME!", "So it can kill you.", "The Mamuska"... that game is so immersive and creates one of the best atmospheres in pinball play. What I was trying to say is that after playing so much of a particular game (I surely played over 100 games of TAF on location) that a game will get repetitive and all that's left is upping your score. Maybe I just played too much ?!... But I can honestly say I totally loved playing Dr Dude, Hook, LW3 - games you rarely see in competition.

Early last year I realized my collection of pins sat for weeks at a time, unplayed, untouched. All I did was clean the dust off the glass once in a while. So, after some convincing I made a decision to get into regular league play and rekindle the spark. It worked. I started playing every Monday, made new friends, viewed a variety of collections, and saw games that took me back to when I was a teen. Pinball was back baby!!

But that lead me to discover something about competitive play. It happened in league play on occasion, but was more apparent in the Papa tutorial videos and tournament gameplay footage fellow pinheads told me about: players would consistently cradle balls during multiball, hold two balls on one flipper, and play only with the third.
:shock: I cried foul. "Blasphemy!", I yelled. "That's not playing pinball". I didn't think it was. In the spirit of pinball, I still don't think it is. No doubt it's part of the purely strategic, points oriented, you've got one game to make it count approach. I totally understand it, and I see why modes that don't score much are not pursued, and unbalanced scoring would be exploited. In competition you rarely get a second chance and gameplay has to be adjusted for this. After all, major pinball tournaments track points; the most points wins, and takes home the cash.

To each his own.

You can play for fun, or play for high scores. I say you can do both, esp. at home. To be competitive at qualifying tournaments and play towards achieving IFPA rankings, I suppose in order to qualify for world championships... this I don't see as the same thing I used to do in the pinball arcades.

I didn't mean to hijack the purpose of this thread. I'm pretty sure Warlock will expand on his recent revelation (and this subject) in another.

 

[WARLOCK]

So, I went to TOPL tonight. I did not participate, but came to visit, relax for a bit and enjoy.
Thank you to Luch for hosting and inviting me. As always, a great friend and a gracious host.
Much appreciated.

I played a couple of his pins later on. (that I know well) I certainly had my moments of being in the zone.
I had fun.

I got to see old friends like Luch and Adam, and I saw several people I have met a few times before again.
Chris and Robin Frolic as well as Tim Sanderson were there, and were the most notably active on this forum,
besides Adam (Vengeance) and Mike (Luch).

Topl crew like Big Pete and his wife Anne attended, Jack and Leanne, (Congrats to Jack on the CPC A Division win)
as well as John, Zeus and John.

12 people plus a (non-participant) Warlock present. Good times, good company, good people and good games to play.
Luch has done a great job over the last 18 months making his collection what he has wanted it to be. Nicely done!

I realized when I was talking to Chris Frolic and Tim Sanderson tonight, that a lot of pinball history isn't
known to them like it is to me, even though I have only been around for 16 months or so.

So, in response to what Barry (Superjackpot) and others like Drano have said recently initiated by my recent "Revelation"
in pinball play post, I will create a new thead here sometime very soon that gives some context to what I am talking about
when I post on this thread and others about my rambling thoughts on this hobby, and what I am up to and the path I am on
for this journey.

I had forgotten how much I have learned from friends in this hobby in such a short time, and perhaps it is time to share some
of that with the newer members here now, just like a lot of veterans here did with me in the past.

(I will make it more of a brief summary format here rather than my longer winded "Tales of Pinball Adventures" on maaca.)

I will think on it for a while and come up with something appropriate quite soon.

Keep the ball alive and in play!