"Talk is cheap."

"Actions speak louder than words."

"Where's the beef?"

All come to mind when I visit this thread. So sorry some of you guys are *still* getting strung along. Good luck with the refunds and game deliveries!

It's disappointing the refunds thing hasn't been dealt with yet. I can only wonder if they hoped to postpone refunds till they started manufacturing hoping that people would stay in if there was a machine on their way, but this seems like a poor strategy because manufacturing always takes longer than hoped and in the meantime they're angering otherwise sincere customers.

What??? This is the worst possible time to send money. If they get produced, buy one then..

BTW, do you have a trust fund?

Received an email from Morgan @ Heighway Pinball today stating they are working to return my outstanding refund request. Their records confirmed return of my second payment and acknowledged my $1,500 deposit. This news was promising as it: 1) was initiated by HP 2) was addressed to me 3) accurately reflected my account status 4) acknowledged my refund request 5) indicated intent is to honor refunds and soon 6) indicates HP has a grasp on their financials and 7) indicates concrete steps are taking place. Are we starting to see results from their new plan? Will be following developments closely, but I feel better about HP today because of their improved communication.

Did anyone else with a deposit in at Cointaker get a call from Melissa today?

She seemed to be really impressed with the new management, and actually had what sounded like relatively firm ship dates.

We'll see, but it sure felt like glad news. I hope so, as I am now all in...

Yes I did

which are when?

Got a email from Melissa, just states shipping soon,first thing I've heard in 4 months,I disn't want to pull out cause LE means just that LE ,so if your not hanging in there don't think you may have the chance later to get one .But completely understand as I thought about bailing many times , I never got 1 update from anybody ,good thing for this forum ,it's the only way I could get any updates

They are still getting all that sorted out, have u emailed Morgan? he handles that I think, I only received one update, the first one while Andrew was still kinda around and emailed Roger and Morgan to get my name on the list, they do have my other info just not on the mailing list, very happy this seems to be coming together,I hope all refunds are sent so we get rid of the negative posts, not saying they aren't justified but man r they mood killers.

There's a thread on refunds here...
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/heighway-refunds

I count only 10 on that thread, some deposits, some paid in full. Some changed their mind, some got partial refunds. Can't really gauge the dollars....thanks for the link...has to be more, I would think....trying to put an actual #$ to this, are there actually suppliers that haven't been paid? Seems odd if new investors have stated they have ordered large supply of parts.

Just trying to understand pure dollars here...obviously ( I believe) more have chosen to ride it out than bail.

She said somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 days until it's in my house.

I'm a bit nervous about typing this, we'll see what happens. I'm just hoping that all the excitement and adrenaline didn't prevent me from hearing her correctly. She also mentioned that they are being shipped to Cointaker 4 at a time, which is, for them, not as good as getting 10 at a time.

Is this for a LE? Did they ask you about trim color/options? (I have a feeling the new owners will just have one LE trim color instead of three options, just seems a lot easier on their end)
While we haven't heard much from the investors if they've been talking to Cointaker and they feel good about things that seems positive. Interesting we're hearing about Cointaker sending new games before Heighway sending new games to direct customers.

I finalized my LE with Melissa last night, she said the choices are black, green, and chrome.
She expects my game to be at Cointaker in the next 2-3 weeks.
She also said she has had more communication with the new owners in the past few weeks than she did with Andrew in the past 2 years for whatever that's worth.

My bet (and I have no personal insight into this) is that there will be silence/no communication for the past month or so, then in a week-2 weeks *BAM* notification that ~100 pins are completed and ready to ship. I'd say there is a 70%-80% chance of this happening.

No change to the pricing on the website as yet.

[att=3844167,991374 caption=.png"]

Looks like an active industrial zone, even if google maps isn't "live".

pasted_image (resized).png

Wonder how the green is going to look with the LE art?
I really was looking forward to the blue

Still, it's great to hear that these are going out in any capacity.

What # LE are you? I am paid in full and had my money held hostage and am in first 10 of their LE orders from day 1, I am going to be pissed if they are selling new ones before I get a refund or my damn game. Sorry no disrespect meant to you but I'm really hoping you are wrong.

Whoa!!! These are coming!!! Excitement building again!!!

Just speculation here, but I wonder if they might proceed like JJP did with WOZ and ship "newer" orders (Cointaker) first to get capital to continue making games, and then move on to the paid in full orders (which in fairness should ship first, but which will net them less/nothing in cash now)?

Wonder how the Alien blue will look next to the Dialed In blue...that's a big credit card statement month.

Yeah, it's an LE. I specified green trim and my preferred LE number when I put my deposit down. I'm actually not terribly surprised that any factory is shipping greater numbers to distributors than to direct customers initially. There are economies of scale at work, as well as the fact that a wholesale customer who orders dozens of games at a time is by definition a "Big Customer".

I can't get a response from the new investors/owners as usual but Melissa was kind enough to call me when I asked for clarification. It makes sense what she was saying in how they have indeed been told games could be shipping within the month and needed to collect money for payments in advance. They were obviously in on some early orders as well. All of this is fine with me as long as I am contacted too in the near future for shipping of mine as I was "suckered" into paying back 6 months ago in full and was one of their first 10 orders received when this was originally sold. I hope it works for all in the end but really hope they don't start pulling BS of screwing people with money in longer to get fresh money in along the way but I don't think that is what this situation is from what I understand in talking with Melissa(who by the way rocks and Cointaker too), not many would go out of their way to call me to discuss out of the blue when I asked on a Friday morning.

Time to enjoy some good things in life this weekend and thru the 4th, life is too short.

... meanwhile back at Heighway Pinball World Headquarters, workers are frantically searching files for someone named bemmet who may or may not be wearing a Packers helmet. Boss says send him to the top! GLWYP (pin)

I would like to think that is happening..............but I doubt it.

And yes I am always representing my Packers, GO PACK GO!

Cool picture I took in Vegas that I just remembered I had. Wish I got a better angle on it, was damn cool looking.
IMG_20170602_110933 (resized).jpg

No disrespect taken at all.
#392, but I specifically requested that number.
I gave cointaker a deposit last October at expo.

Well here is hoping...

Was told my machine ships from the UK on Monday and ships to me the next Monday.

Will take pics......

Is it going to a distributor first and what model?

Probably fantastic, but so would black or green.

Green for me.....I'll be anxious for the email.....things are certainly sounding better around here!!!

Black for me, I'm talking about the trim its nice to come to the thread and there's positive vibes.

I think it's "make your big distributor" happy and a champion and having them be your advocate. Coin taker has a great reputation and they can also grab new orders. Making them happy and filling orders will amplify confidence in the community and open the door for new orders.

Instead of working one by one with individual orders...

My thoughts exactly. As a manufacturer, their wholesalers are by far their biggest customers, and have probably been committed long before most of the individual direct buyers. It also seems like a better way to get the games out in the wild: send them out in quantity in a container to one address.

Of course, the best news is that it sounds like games are getting ready to move for real. It's gotta be frustrating for someone who wrote a check to Heighway for the full amount months or even years ago, but hopefully the wait is almost over, and playing until dawn sure sounds like a good way to ease the pain.

Got my Paypal refund last week. Bought a SWLE today. ETA July!

The Alien threads have been entertaining, but time to play some pinball now.

Can we get a few more reviews of ALIEN pinball on here by those that have spent a good amount of time on it?
I'd like to see where it starts to fall in the top 100 list.

Yes, and for anyone that has played it, please share your ratings here: https://pinside.com/pinball/archive/alien/ratings

It looks like only two more ratings are required before the pin is eligible for the Pinside Pinball Top 100 ranking! I'm looking forward to seeing where it falls.

from a friend and his friend , they saying its one of the best pins ever made . one of em played 90% of dot matrix pins , his friend has in collection more than 50 pins and all top titles. serious collectors and pin fans .
i asked em to tell me opinion after few weeks of playing and they both still saying its in top 10 pin games ever made.
but with pins its all about personal opinion and how u like game.
i know it is on my grail list and had to have him in collection.

a note from the sound free-lancer of Alien:

Let me suggest that it is a little too soon to review Alien. What is there is good and a great indication of where the final product will be.

The biggest challenge for the developers has been the unavailability of games to develop on. Only the rules programmer has had a machine to test and experience the game on and this one is deficient in a number of ways including not having a Xeno mech.

But things are better. I have had a fully functional Alien pin to work on for weeks. In that time I have added over one hundred sound assets and adjusted as many.

There is no substitute for hands-on experience. The former management understood this but failed to do anything about it. The AIG (Active Investor Group) does understand this and is addressing it.

While at this point I will not make any predictions I believe that all the US developers will have access to Alien dev machines.

As it is we are 96% of the way there to feature complete. We are 85% there to the polished, balanced, enhanced and robust package that we want to ship at version 1.1.

We understand your frustration and ask for a little more patience. Give it a little more time then review the hell out of it.

ddt

great news mr Ddt !

this game is gonna be groundbreaker when totally completed/finished !

cheers

One of the best posts in this thread!!!!! thank you...no frustration here, just excitement......

I'm not reviewing a prototype nor would I compare it to other machines at this point beyond saying shots or features remind me of them.

Edit: Might as well put this here: one annoying shot (or maybe better described as an unintended carom) is that from the left flipper I can shoot it up the right inlane and through the "Indiana Jones-style" Narrow Escape gate and have it drain. Should that wire gate be one-way?

... and is shipping in big numbers. Enough so to make it seem like it's rainy Alien(s) everywhere!

Morgan Potter lied to me. Promised if i gave them a deposit that my game would be ready by the end of may. Tried his best to garner a new order by lying. This was just before the new owner announcement too. Don't listen to a word from that guy, hes just another 'yes' man imo.

Wasn't Andrew running the show then though?

Just curious Russo121, did he say to turn up to the factory and pay cash?

Will we ever learn what happened to the money? A push to bring in funds at HP occurred between Oct-Dec 2016, after mission complete signals were indicated by Andrew. Compared against reports of unpaid employees, vendors and suppliers, I wonder if the money was used to payoff legitimate bills and debt, or whether it was jacked by Andrew for hydrofoil related expenses. I know this will be considered private business, but a response will shape my opinion of Andrew. I'd like to know if Andrew's intent was to do what it took to help the project succeed or if it was to run away and abandon the project, taking his golden parachute. Does anybody know anything? If you are speculating or interpretting the tea leaves that's fine, just include a disclaimer to your response.

What is Hydrofoil?

A hydrofoil is a lifting surface, or foil, that operates in water.

Hydrofoil as a company, no clue.

Andrew also has business interests in some company that makes or manages hydrofoils, apparently