Not gonna happen

I am not sure what to think of this. I know one thing for sure, if there is no trust people won't move....in any situation.
And proven already in the real world, your product might be the best invention ever if you cannot market it you are scr%w%d.

The only thing bothering me at this point is the repeated claims of "i keep emailing and get no response", regarding refunds and promised parts.

Some people get helped , others "seem" to be ignored.

They haven't even followed up on collecting my money $$

Update on the Buffalo machine: ( which was almost unplayable after a few weeks - resets) .

New Xeno head and computer were received. Not yet installed.

How long should it take to install those things?

He seems to think it would take at least 6 hours, which i find hard to believe.

It might take ME 6 hours, but i suck at fixing things. This guy is a real tech.

I love the optimism (really), but I think more realistically it is about the margins -- and I have no idea what inventory they have on hand, what their facility costs are, or assembly costs, etc. But, the margins may very well be too small. Sure, a good investor could try to bring them down with optimizations, but might not be enough volume to really make that offset the risk/reward. I suspect they raised prices in July after realizing there was little or no margin.

I agree with you though that it's a great game and getting generally favorable reviews, software seems well developed, etc.

Can’t speak to the Xeno Head, but the computer? Maybe 10 minutes? 3 video cables, 4 USB cables, audio cord, power cord. Hardest part is probably ensuring the video cables are plugged into the correct ports, so the Airlock and backbox screens don’t try to swap places.

Been there...done that...easy fix.

According to this logic, no business would ever fail.

The flaw is the assumption that there is always a "next in line" to bail the previous failures. It's blatantly wrong.

I still think this game will get made, and I'm hoping to buy one someday when they are available to ship.

You could of ended your post at "i have no idea" because neither of you have any info to go off of and are just making shit up! #Falsenews!

I can't help but wonder how many people following this thread are being polite (or fearful) by not responding or voting to comments such as this.
An infinite line of investors? Really? That is some imaginative optimism and terribly flawed logic.

I'm hopeful for all of you guys but red flags remain concerning new management. Ignore those flags if you like but consider getting some balance to your perspective.

Seriously, I'm not trying to come off as a dick. You have no idea of how many times I have not commented and I'm certain I'm not the only one biting his tongue in this thread.

There are some really great Pinsiders that I like and admire but I sometimes read comments in total disbelief.
Best wishes to all.

Well I think this would have to be revised to "no business making a great product would ever fail"...which I would still disagree with. Plenty of great products have failed. Beta was better in every single way over VHS...but the porn industry jumped on VHS; done & done.

All I have left is a bloody stump of where my tounge used to be...

Helmut Fromm Heighway called this morning. Adressed all my minor issues. Is sending some replacement plastics, and other things to me this week. I’ve had zero issues with my Alien ownership thus far. It’s become the favorite game in my little lineup so far.

Helmut has been busy lately. I just received an email regarding my 'pre-production' game. ...stay tuned.

mr68:
are you you telling me that our deal is off? and that we're not going to be the next group of investors for heighway? what ever will I do with that huge pallet of money just sitting in my guest house?

This assumes there is money to be made in selling the result... and you can actually spend enough in time and resources to actually build the thing.

No established company would want to take on a 'one off' product to support... they'd likely re-engineer it to their platform of choice.

Good game does not necessarily equate to 'good business'...

where do you live again?

Hands off. He's MINE.

20 standards delivered to North America and a number to Europe around a month ago and still next to nothing?

if bally/williams couldnt continue as a going concern in the pinball biz selling several thousand copies of multiple titles per year, what makes you think selling a few hundred of a single title every year or so from a foreign location is going to 'make a boatload of cash'?

a real turning point will be when they can produce and sell enough machines to turn a profit. they appear to be far from that. selling several hundred machines a year isnt going to turn things around any time soon.

whatever 'droves' they had sold, they have refunded quite a number of them; many who are so upset that they will not be back to purchase even if the game is made in numbers. and if you are paying attention, another circumstance that appears to be taking place is that a few more LE buyers/depositors are requesting refunds quite recently. whether that is from impatience, lack/omission of extras on the LE model, uncertainty regarding QC/communication/support, alternative choices in the NIB market, or something they read/saw in the gameplay; i dont know why they are changing their minds.

Maybe they were finally convinced about that gameplay issue you discovered plaguing playability potential?

Is that what happened? I thought the story was that B/W was still turning at least some profit on pinball until the end, but read the writing on the wall on the prospects of arcades in the 2000s and saw better returns to be made making gambling machines, so shifted their attentions in that direction.

Not questioning the rest of your argument (I agree that the whole "endless succession of bailouts" thing is a fantasy and ignores the potential for bankruptcy, among other realities), but B/W's experience in the late 1990s may not be the best point for comparison for a boutique pin manufacturer 20 years later.

my statement didnt say they were unprofitable. it said they 'couldnt continue as a going concern in the pinball biz'; which you are confirming.

Umm yeah, I did say I had no idea. Don't claim to have any info. I said I suspect the margins may be too small. It's a discussion, not a press release guy.

do not make light of the lack of feeds to the upper flippers issue. safe to say i am far ahead of the curve on this, and the majority are way behind. i could/can see the future regarding the dysfunctional upper flipper/playfield play while others were in complete denial [confirmation bias], instead choosing to focus on whether a freighter could negotiate the atlantic and whether CT was blowing smoke [ship had already arrived]. the dribs and drabs i presented of my argument were designed to encourage people to 'think' through my points. i didnt work. some people apparently need to be spoon fed. in the end, its not going to be pretty. if you revisit my original quote it was prefaced by the words 'given time' as in:

i didnt expect it to be so soon, but those receiving production games are already commenting on elements of the various issues. most of them do not yet realize how serious they really are. lets take a look at some from the game reviews of alien provided from posters who garner more respect than myself.

from T-800 :
My biggest issue(s) with the game is that the upper right flipper does not have a consistent shot to feed it, and that flipper is critical for the extra ball and super jackpots and other shots during the game. you have to get lucky in getting a shot to feed the flipper properly (even a combo of right lower flipper to the mid left flipper to the upper right flipper is not 100% as the ball often will bounce into the pops and out instead of hitting the target and then coming back down to the upper right flipper).

from Kneissl :
The hardest single shot is the chestburster (up the lane just left of the right flipper) it's doable from the lower left flipper, but we're talking Tron gem shot, I doubt anyone can rely on hitting it this way. Fortunately this is easier (but not easy) to hit from the upper left flipper... Hypersleep multiball is started from shooting the apc drop targets then hitting the upper left ramp 3 times. I've only gotten it started a few times... Save Newt multiball is started by doing 3 lifecycles, which involves shooting all over the playfield including the chestburster. So far this seems very hard to start. I've only really played this once so far.

from jlm33 :
Cons : Odd layout (feeding the upper flipper is not easy)...dark GI.

from Boat :
The layout wasn't really working for me. The extra flippers didn't do much for adding value to the gameplay.

From Yoski :
The upper left flipper is of marginal usage... The game is way too dark which makes it difficult to follow the ball... [the bottom flippers] up angle is very minimal which makes it challenging to cradle the ball.

=============
understand that sprinkled throughout this thread are contrasting comments from the design team implying/indicating that aliens gameplay was not intended to be overly difficult - certainly not so difficult to elicit the type of comments we are, and will be seeing.

and here is a post from one of my detractors describing how he set a personal best score by making all the LOWER pf shots over and over.

on a disappointing note, the lack of gameplay video from the recent shipment of production machines doesnt provide new opportunities to point out how all the points i have already made still/do exist. but here some footage from a month ago posted oct 15, 2017.

every quality attempt at the CB target is a choke short in the lane or a whiff due to the poor lane geometry. he connects once on a ricochet from the pops at 8:34 and goes on to complete ONE lifecycle. zero CB hits from LL or UL3.

shot from the lower left, chokes at 5:58, 6:35, 6:56, 8:39.
whiff by target into pops at 9:35.
and a vicious reject at 6:56.

2 successful HSR shots with no locks at 2:17 and 6:00.

summary: no SNMB, no HS MB, no HS locks, no EB, no direct CB hits, one LC.

and i still cant forget some of you laughing at me when i told you early on the game was too dark, which just about everyone is on board with now. so here is another lighting suggestion.

spotlight07.jpg

I'm one of the earlier buyers who got his deposit refunded from Heighway shortly before Andrew left.

At the time I was disappointed more than upset, and relieved to have gotten my money back.

The game is looking good, but it's that feeling of dodging a bullet that keeps me from jumping back in (especially at the higher price point). I will wait until both the game and the company have shown themselves to be reliable.

Still, I realize the company won't succeed if everyone is "waiting", so I appreciate those who are willing to take the chance now.

I wish everyone the best in getting their games, parts or refunds. I'll see where things are in a couple of years and reevaluate.

greenhornet as an owner of the machine for almost a month I can tell you that there is a shot that is always reliable to get the ball to the left upper flipper (that is the left orbit shot). You then hit that left flipper shot to the right. You can also hit the upper right flipper from the bottom left flipper by hitting the CB target and then it goes back to the upper right flipper. This is a hard shot but very rewarding when it hits.

Just b/c the right flipper can't be a guarantee shot each time doesn't take away from it. In fact it adds to it and feels great. As for the "dark" GI, before I got the game I had the same reaction and almost bought pinstadium lighting. Very happy I didn't change it as it fits the game so well. It really sets the mood well and can be played in the dark although I recommend just a little light - not too much though as it ruins the feeling.

Both points I'm making can't be disputed until you actually own and play the game for some time. I get that you're big into making arguments/attempted points based on videos on youtube but I suggest you hold off until you get some real hands on with the game (and assuming the game works perfectly - I'll be the first to say that's not a given.). Luckily that's the position I'm in now and it's the best pinball I've played in some time.

greenhornet if hypersleep and newt multiball were easy to start like ambush and sentry the game would be much less satisfying to play. You can't get that one more game factor if it doesn't take one more game to get there.

you are wasting your time on him. He has still NEVER played the game, but is so persistent of his claims. He is a troll/broken record at this stage and a waste of everyone's reading effort in this thread.

I think greenhornet means well and isn’t isn’t intending to troll. I guess Pinball is like food, different tastes.

at this point he spent months of build up on a dissertation to claim that the fatal flaw of the game was he cant get the ball to the upper right flipper. He is wrong and at this point just looks silly with continually bringing it up. It was more entertaining when we were talking about ramp gate frankly.

I have started hypersleep mutiball. That alone confirms that the upper ramp is makeable from the upper right flipper which is a feedable shot (even more so from what i have seen on newest code with more diverter action.)

That left ramp up top is such a makeable shot I don't know what to say. I'm not great either. I would change nothing about it.

The one suggestion I would make is for the right orbit shot when not hit well should come back down to right flipper and not hit the sling. Sometimes it does sometimes not....

Give her a little nudge!

IMO, the difficulty of a pinball game is entirely in the code. All shots should be makeable with relative ease.

Ugh. "Relative ease"....really? I hate those games...well maybe not at first but eventually. You can play FOREVER on them (too long for me anyway). I like tough games with tough shots!

Owned LOTR for eight years and it got to the point that I almost never played it. I had one game last two hours...TWO HOURS. I hated that. Now IM I love...never had a game over 20 minutes and most game are under 4.

Alien is great just for this reason...some tough ass shots...and boy o boy does it feel good when you nail them!

that dissertation? im willing to create a thread of its own for everyone to read/address. i feel its too important to get lost/buried in this one. im confident a number of people will look back 6 months/a year from now and have reassessed their opinions on this particular aspect of the game. perhaps they will be saying 'see look at all the software adjustments Ferret had to make to make this game more playable'. perhaps they will be saying 'look how nobody bought the game due to this or that', 'look how many are for sale for this or that reason'. perhaps they will be saying 'look at all the unfavorable comments buyers/owners/players have made over the last year that stem from the assertions greenhornet presented 12 months ago'. im not certain what they will be saying, but they will be saying something.

have it your way Hilton. its a shame you still dont understand all the fallout/ramifications of this design choice. they are many. perhaps you will be hearing from Dave Sanders personally due to your unyielding stubornness.

Been in since 10/21/14..who's still in that's in my timeline?

10/19/14 here, still in.

I've PLAYED the game.....it shoots fine, in fact the upper right flipper to the airlock is a very satisfying shot. This is finally a different, yet quite enjoyable layout. Nothing wrong with the design...quite intriguing, and the code makes it deep.....enhances gameplay, but does not make it shoot better.....good grief...have you played one?

BAMM!!! congrats, pinbro...beat me by 2 days....good Alien times await....

I hope so, been waiting patiently for a while lol.

I’m not sure I can confirm anything since I wasn’t following pinball when B/W bowed out. But I guess your use of “could not” is confusing to me. If my understanding is right they actually could have carried on as a “going concern” (ie as a viable business not facing imminent failure), but found another, more profitable and stable product to make with their existing production facilities and staff, and so switched over to that.

Doesn’t really matter, just wasn’t clear what lesson Heighway would draw from B/W’s history. Other than make the upper right flipper more like Judge Dredd next time, maybe?

Care to make a wager Mr.Hornet? Regardless if Heighway makes a lot more or only a small number, the value will rise over time because it's such a fun game. That's my call.

I was playing the game tonight and just looking at the playfield, monitors, sound quality, cab quality, the little details everywhere like the cool side art and even the ramp covers and I looked over at my WOZ RR - prob the nicest pinball machine I've seen and said damn - this is a great value. I agree that this game will rise in time b/c if it was mass produced by someone like JJP it could easily sell for 9k - EASY. Hell I had it close by my Dialed In and it held it's own.....in fact Alien still remains ; )

The bottom line is can they get these damn things out the door. If you play one that is setup correctly, I'm confident it will be a hit.

10/19/14 for me too
#223
Still in

-Jeff

I'll double down on that bet with you Astropin. This machine is off the charts. I've owned a lot of machines in the last 4 years. Check my collection and history. I buy just about everything because pinball is so fun. But this one is really special. The chestburster shot is a carbon copy of the gem shot in terms of difficulty. But that's one of the things that makes this game so intriguing. The last game that was so immersive to me that I owned before actually was my Tron LE. If there was a game that was worth 10k. This is it.
I don't disagree with Greenhornet about the difficulty of this shot but I wouldn't call it a "flaw". I just played a game and finally reached Save Newt multiball and it was a lot of work but man it was fantastic!
Hell my posts aren't even working right yet but it's still amazing.

Stick in there LE owners. This game is truly worth the wait. Don't let the negative stuff get you down. Or negative people. I have played this game, NOT watched it on YouTube. I would say if it it sucked.. ........You're getting a "Gem".

Man, feel like I was late to the party now...... #212 here...to match my TRONLE....

A very inspiring post.....I felt the same way after playing it....a very special machine...the wait will have saved some $$$, and the LE's will vanish once released......almost there, almost there....

did i make a prediction on future valuation somewhere?

what are you suggesting we bet on?
that price will rise/drop over time?
and i my only option is to take the downside?

here is one of my calls.
if you believe the game is FUN as it sits now,
the game woulda/coulda/shoulda been A LOT FUNNER.

so far none of the reviewers has stepped up and praised the upper flipper play on this machine. if anything, the comments reflect the opposite. what they are raving about are the sound, code, and immersion; the first two i have always agreed with, the third wouldnt matter much to me.

Let me get this straight. Your call is the "game woulda/coulda/shoulda been A LOT funner." Are you serious?
Wow. Amazing call. You're a regular Nostradamus.

Answer this question: Have you played the Fuc!ing Game?