What are you excited to see at Expo?

[frolic]

Whether or not you are going, what are you excited about? I'm not going but will be glued to the news and updates.

This year seems to be a watershed year with all the new pinball projects nearing completion. I hope we see some near final machines and learn of shipping dates.

 

[Vengeance]

I need to start planning to attend this as Expo Flipout has turned into one of the major tournament events of the year with all the major players attending, but the 10 hour drive is always the part I can't get over.

And yes flying is an option, but vacation time is my issue right now, next year hopefully.

 

[Chris Bardon]

Looking forward to finding out about:

-What the hell has JPop been up to? I remember hearing that Magic Girl was going to be done last year for expo, but nothing since then. Will this be when the public finally gets to see what these games are? It sounds really intriguing, but will it work?
-New info on the Hobbit-this one I've preordered, so I'm excited to see what develops. I don't expect much, but it'd be nice to see an update on the progress.
-All the other "custom" games-will Predator be any closer to done? Is America's Most Haunted going to be any good (looks promising)? What have the multimorphic guys been up to.

 

[mwong168]

If I was going to expo one of the things I would be excited to see is the display of P-ROC based games in the Multimorphic booth. You can read all about it here on pinballnews.com

http://www.pinballnews.com/learn/p3roc/index.html

My good friend Scott Gullicks has been working pretty hard on building his pin mostly from scratch called Wrath of Olympus. I'm going to try and get him post here on a regular basis and know he has had his hand full the past few months and finally becoming a daddy too!

You can read more about his build here on the Pinball Controllers forums

http://www.pinballcontrollers.com/forum ... &topic=805

 

[WARLOCK]

Drano and I (and hopefully a couple of other members here) will gather info. at expo when we are there. Should be a great time down there.
JPOP visit and Predator discussions with Kevin and Aaron are top of the list priorities. Stern tour and meet Gary somewhere in there as well.
After that is parts, pieces and whatever pinball play we can fit in, as well as bring back a very cool tricked out pin for another member here.

 

[Vengeance]

Don't waste you time with Gary, he is just a talking puppet head and I'm sure his favorite game is Star Trek.

You want to actually get an honest opinion on things, introduce yourself to Lyman.

 

[movingpictures]

Metallica Code

 

[Vengeance]

Metallica Code

Stern never talks about that stuff at any show

 

[WARLOCK]

Don't waste you time with Gary, he is just a talking puppet head and I'm sure his favorite game is Star Trek.

You want to actually get an honest opinion on things, introduce yourself to Lyman.

When travelling with Drano, the itinerary will be awesome. The Stern tour and possibly
meeting Gary, is to see the big picture for modern pinball production. I have lots of
clients like that in my business, and the experiece is to look at Stern the company to
see what they do and why from a business perspective in person.

Talking to Lyman will be awesome of course if that happens.

Meeting Scott and seeing Wrath of Olympus as well as seeing all the other pinball projects
on the go and now being built are on the agenda too. It is all a learning trip for me.

Actually playing pinball will be a fun break but not my main focus this trip.

 

[DRANO]

I just wanna play my ass off, hang with JPOP and see predator prototype V2.0

 

[REVOLUTION]

Let me save you some time if you were planning on going to Gary's seminar:

(Gary's talk in summary)

- He's been in the pinball business for 6X years (whatever his age is now)
- He can remember running around his Dad's factory when he was a kid
- His dad was friends with Harry Williams
- Chicago Coin was sold to Stern, Stern to Seeburg, Seeburg went under, Gary formed PinStar, which was bought by Data East, which was bought by Sega, Sega pulled out, Gary bought the company back and it became the Stern company we all know and love (or hate) today.
- Gary loves pinball, but they're a manufacturing company FIRST AND FOREMOST. As such, they need to take measures sometimes to stay afloat (ie. cost cutting)
- Gary loves music, movies and superheroes. That is the ONLY type of games you'll see from them.
- 40% sales to NA operators, 40% sales over-seas (which is why Family Guy flopped, they don't get that show there), 20% to home users (these numbers always change depending on when you ask him)
- Star Trek is the greatest thing to happen to pinball (and his favourite game, like Adam said)
- Question period starts, but he makes a point of saying EVERY TIME that he will not answer anything about upcoming titles or tech (ie. displays). So ask about past and present games only, to which we already know all the answers anyway.

This is pretty much the routine, and does this so often that he's actually starting to sound like a robot.

The end.

Actually, here's a quick one for Steve Ritchie while I'm at it:

- Quick story about the release of Black Knight, and how a horse shat on the stage during the presentation.
- A history of how High Speed came to be (spoiler: he got a speeding ticket driving a porsche)
- He loves working at Stern, the future holds plenty of great things, yadda yadda
- Question period -- this ALWAYS always always devolves into "What was it like working for B/W" .. until Gary gives him the evil eye, and then it turns into "What was your favourite game by XXXXX designer" for another 20 mins.

PS, speak up.. he's going deaf (for reals)

Your welcome.

 

[mwong168]

I was a bit sad I can't make it to Expo but after reading Brock's post above I feel much better now :lol:

 

[DRANO]

Damn those non-refundable hotel rooms :FP:

Oh well, at least I can play more pinball Brock. Thanks!

 

[spiroagnew]

Can't wait for the weekend to go by without mention of the MM/AFM/MB re-run news...Pinside and the majority of the pinball podcasts have been buzzing about this for the past few weeks...and its not the first time rumors like this have sprung up.

One can HOPE a re-run announcement will come this Expo, but I'm pretty sure it ain't gonna happen. As my dad used to say, hope in one hand and sh*t in the other...see which one fills up first.

 

[REVOLUTION]

Those are only the Stern seminar, guys.. there are plenty of others! Actually I recommend the LTG Show, that one's a blast and you can win free stuff.

Also take the Stern tour if you've never done it. It's pretty awesome.

24 hour pinball on Friday night / Sat morning is a blast, especially if you're walking around with beer (tip: use the in-room coffee cups).

The food at The Ram is fantastic, I highly recommend it

Also don't leave without trying some famous Chi-town pie.

ALSO, don't miss out on the PBL Open House. It's busy as shit but for good reason.. some great deals there.

Spiro, Rick from PPB is rumoured to have a surprise announcement regarding... something. People are speculating it's the MM re-runs, but I doubt it. Maybe a re-release of Nucore? Or some new products. He's been working hard on a lot of repro parts too (I know, I've been doing some for him myself)

- B

 

[SquidVicious]

Drano and I (and hopefully a couple of other members here) will gather info. at expo when we are there. Should be a great time down there.
JPOP visit and Predator discussions with Kevin and Aaron are top of the list priorities. Stern tour and meet Gary somewhere in there as well.
After that is parts, pieces and whatever pinball play we can fit in, as well as bring back a very cool tricked out pin for another member here.

I know you'll have a great time ... just see what you want to see regarding seminars (The brothers Ritchie were one of the hi-lights last year ... Steve is speaking with the Spooky pinball gang this year) ... The Xenon seminar will be very good, the P3 seminar plus all the proto types at this years show will be interesting as well .. if you want to hear the dirt on the coin-op industry history go to LTG's .. head over to the RAM in between seminars and playing ... WARLOCK I haven't met you before but I know Adraino a bit so if you see me around say hi.

Gary's presentations are generally what Brock and Adam mentioned .. last years was very different (just dealt with history only a little of the yada yada stuff ... but he did do the same seminar at PPE and EXPO last year)

Imerse yourself into the whole show

 

[movingpictures]

Metallica Code

Stern never talks about that stuff at any show

Yea, but word on the street is new code will drop just in time for expo.
Either this Friday or next is what people are saying.
It would make sense from a sales standpoint, to show off the new goods at expo and move more games.

Crossing my fingers and toes, it's rumored to be a big update with crank it up and wizard modes ....

 

[movingpictures]

MM Re-Release?

 

[Budfan]

Re-Release of MM...wouldn't that be epic!

 

[Luckydogg420]

So... It's Saturday night, has anyone seen anything memorable yet?