They were asking for final money in April?!

Agreed....I've got you by about a year, but still only in $1500.00....had hoped that owing them $$$ might have made a difference. Just think their plan has nothing to do with old money, sadly....

Starting to think they actually hope the old orders drop, as very little recourse, and the game will be good enough for plenty of new $$$ to collect, hence their focus. No telling what deals have been put in place for distros....... will sting for a long, long time. This sucks heavily...is what it is....

I would say the file is getting corrupted when you are d/ling or copying it to the drive. Right there at the top it says the file isn't in gzip format.. which it appears to be expecting. So make sure you are keeping the file in binary format and not having some tool automatically extract it or something else.

Just speculating based on what the linux script is spitting out to console..

Yeah. Still waiting for our kit. Been paid for, for a long time now.

Do you mean a ft to alien kit if so I believe we will be waiting a very long long time.

Does anyone at this point really think HW plans to make any kits anymore? Seems very unlikely.

Why is that? It is only a playfield and art swap + software USB (and for FT owners possibly a CPU upgrade)

Correct. We have Full Throttle number 2 here on location. Our players are patiently waiting for us to turn it into an alien.

Why wouldn’t they? It’s just a playfield and some plastic art pieces for the cabinet?

I think they will. Price, timeline would be a complete variable, however.

Believe a new order of any version through CT now has a real chance of getting built and shipped before anything from old books, however.

I too paid up for LE in April '17. I am to glad that LEs are getting made and out to customers (non US). Some type of balance will be warranted, similar to what DP has stated. I get the need for influx of new money but they need to clear the books. Has anyone heard if they will have a presence at Texas Pinball in March? I would love opportunity to chat in person with them.

I'll be there, as well, and will be more than anxious to have a chat. Balance is required, and was 100% excited to see the standards go out. Seeing LE's, code updates, w zero firm timelines (very scattered, non committal communication) on the other side is not being received well on my end.

I could give a s**t that the "bugs will be worked out" before I get the machine....more than comfortable going through this process, as well. I've had other, new machines that required major work to get right, and enjoyed the journey.

Being dismissed is something I don't enjoy. I've started refund threads, LE# threads, went to Chicago to play the proto, and bordered on being a fanboy, as I passed on what apparently was useless info.

Pure business....if distro's start having LE's available before those of us that were there prior will be a death blow for my support of the game, I don't care how much I wanted it.

There is a point where enough is enough....it has been passed, and I'm holding on by the slimmest of threads. COMMUNICATE TRUTH!!!! someone of consequence connected needs to hear this, and pass it to the right set of ears.

Wasn't going to rant, but whatever...can barely stand to look at this thread anymore....

I've been in with a deposit since Page 1 of this 392 page thread. See my ridiculous comments then. That def qualifies as "old money".

They have us by the balls, no doubt about it, not a thing "old money" can do about it.

However, if they plan on making another pinball machine in the future then i think they will find out that karma is a bitch.

TPF is right around the corner and at least we get to address them face to face.

I have to be honest. I got my SE and it's a great game, but the way things have gone I wouldn't even dream of getting in on the "next title"... even if it was a dream theme.

Actually I think I would, except I would never pay anything anymore, no matter what the promises or benefits I can get by pre-paying. That goes for all pinball companies by the way. As soon as they have made my game, then they can have the money, not before.

I was tempted to rant as well. But a very easy solution for Heighway would be to start a monthly update email.

They state in their last communication :

"We hope you can understand our choice of ”silence” in this matter. Factory updates will be posted on our Facebook page. We promise to be in direct contact with all of our pre-order customers with good news and bad and, as soon as we have the planned production week for your machine, we will tell you. "

Also they say:

"In order to maximise production of machines for our Distributors and for you, we have adopted a clear strategy and cash flow plan that prioritises production of machines over all aspects of the business. In this regard, we have a production/ cash flow schedule that deliberately spreads the shipping of pre-ordered machines and remaining refunds from the previous CEO's time over a number of months. "

Would it be safe to say they know which orders are getting pushed back in order to realize their plan to spread out the dispersal of games and refunds, as stated above?

As it stands now, you just have to wait and check your email every day, hoping you will be selected to receive a game.

As the first passage suggests, you would expect that, as a customer, you would have heard something about where your order stands.

- just another person in the dark , where no amount of Pinstadium products can help light the way.

I've gotten weekly, worthless updates, then silence for weeks, in regards to updates. Their last Facebook communication is also worthless " how the multiple screens are connected".....rocket science?....without having an update on when I have a machine in front of me are (again) worthless.

Still no communication from Heighway and at about day 120 of the promised 60 day refund.

New software downloaded and it just take seconds to reeboot the game .

Well new sound , super .

A lot of the buggs are gone and the game feels brand new !!!

Fantstick , thanks for a realy good update.

Yeah, this is exactly how i feel. At this point I'd be scared to even ask for a refund of my over $5k even though i kinda want to. Seems like i would likely get it (if at all) well after I'd get my LE, so i feel like I have to stay in at this point in order to get something out of this.

I am still genuinely excited about the game though, but ONLY because of all the work that the David, bcd, ferret and the rest of the design folks have put into it and the enthusiasm they have for it. Heighway should praise them all for preventing even more refund requests.

I really do want Heighway to succeed, but sadly, now it's more for selfish reasons. Namely, i actually want support for the game I'm still (hopefully) going to get. That said, i really don't see myself ever buying NIB from them ever again regardless of how this turns out, purely based on the communication issues. Everything else can be somewhat excused or explained away, but that's one thing that doesn't really cost much to do properly and they've royally f'ed that part up, imo.

Truth. They've shot themselves in the foot by hedging their bets and not having any communication. Who's going to be comfortable buying a new pin from them after all this? They should put ferret or helmut in charge of PR as it seems like they're the only ones who give a damn.

We'll true, and I should have added that if it's in stock at Cointaker and ready to ship that would be a different story.

I would never "pre-order" from Highway again. Probably never pre-order again period.

The above seems wrong, sorry.

I just downloaded hpa11.upd from http://files.heighwaypinball.com/hpa11.upd and unzipped it, and there is a directory structure there, and no hpa11.upd file inside. Here is a list of all of the files contained within it: https://pastebin.com/9eQFCk88

MightyGrave - have you tried redownloading the .upd recently? If you have it could be that whatever browser you're using is mangling the file somehow.

You are correct that once you untar and ungzip it, you get to that dir structure. The naming confusion comes because if you just name it .tar, you only do one of the extractions. If you name it hpa11.tar.gz, your utility will probably do both the untar and gzip extract at the same time (similar to tar -xvzf or whatever).

I was trying to undo some of the confusion earlier about the different file sizes and what they were ending up with, and probably confused it even further .

Hey Wolfmarsh enough talk about Alien, when are we getting the gang together to play it!?

I'll text you. Robert was asking about some arcade time at his place too.

So just to clarify, just download and leave the file as-is to update or do you have to extract something?

download the file as is off the website, put that file on the root of your fat 32, boot up alien go to system update, plug in usb and then follow menu prompts. Takes 4 seconds to update the machine once you say update. Good luck!

The bootup screenshot shown before shows that a process is trying to untar/gunzip the hpd11.upd file. If it can't do that - as in MightyGrave case - then it will just abort. Basically that hpd11.upd file should just be put on a FAT32 formatted USB stick "as is", as said above.

I don't post too much on Pinside, although I follow many of the threads and many of you Pinsiders who I've learned so much from. I'm a fully paid LE owner, number LE18. I paid the balance when Andrew asked for it last April as did some others. Since then we've all learned a lot, a lot which we wished we hadn't had to learn it all. That said, MK6PIN's optimism has been refreshing and has kept me rooting for a win here, along with the amazing updates and improvements to the game from BCD, Daudioguy, and Ferret. I really miss Aurich's contributions to the thred as well, although easy to understand why he visits less often these days. I want to see this pin happen, and happen big as the Alien(s) theme is amazing and engages not only those of us in this hobby but will engage non hobbyists alike and could be a huge success for Heighway. So, I'm remaining optimistic that Heighway will pull this off, especially considering the great reviews owners are giving the game and gameplay (even considering the bugs). It is, as others have said, a grail theme for me too so I'll be stubborn and stay the course and look forward to getting my LE at some point in the not-too-distant future (I hope). For those of you with games, please continue to post your experiences, and pictures of unboxings, and videos, and keep troubleshooting for those of us who will be future owners - your efforts are much appreciated!!!

-Dave

Nice feedback Dave. As an owner right now, and someone who just updated the code I was playing today and just shaking my head while playing as I was having so much fun. The game is so special - it's truly a gem. The drama, communication challenges and fill in the blank about this company and the history and the continued frustration felt by many (including myself when I first bought it) are really putting the heat on what should be a modern classic and I just hope HW can keep their head above water enough to pull this off. From my experience, they will help you out but it won't be overnight like some others (JJP - looking your way!). Know that and I think you will be happy. The game is an absolute blast.

I've had mine since late October now.. ditto on what delt31 says.

Thanks for the mention in your post, Dave. It has been a long journey....much longer than some who went nuts on the first container of Standards ( by miles) that was slightly delayed.

Ive been targeted for being overly optimistic or relentless in my support at times, and admit the last banter of code updates/ LE unboxings just hit hard...a double edged sword, I suppose.

You and I ( and others) can hope this game has been worth the years of grief that came with it.

My Avatar remains intact.....think I'll start an "early adopters club" thread if/ when we get our LE's..the stories that could be shared in that thread...here's to happy endings..

I don't think that means what you think it means.....

Inconceivable!

Owning literally machines from nearly all relevant manufacturers like JJP (WOZ), Stern (GOTG), Spooky (RZ), B/W-DP (BOP 2.0) and HP’s Alien (Blue) I can absolutely affirm that this is by far the most impressive machine in my collection when it comes to immersion and bang for the buck.

Would you be willilng to post some more photoes of your Bleu LE Alien?

Ferret
I noticed that sometimes when I try to hit the chestbuster shot (to get life cycle credit) from the mid left flipper the ball goes so fast and is guided by that metal wall right up and spills out to the left right into pops. It actually will not even go over the switch or hit the target b/c that wall seems to guide it away from both and up left.

My point is if you hit that area with the mid left flipper properly it's not a given that you're going to hit that chestburster switch or target. Was this intentional?

Will do when I am able to possibly by the end of the week.

I'm really burnt out on this situation and Heighway's complete lack of communication. I have a LE order and I know I was one of the first in line(honestly don't even care if I get pushed back in the order I'd probably prefer it to get more bugs worked out). I have been trying for 2 months to get some estimates from them on shipping time frames, production order, really just anything and have gotten zero response in the last 2 months. Trying to re-instill confidence in a company, they get a big fat F, better get their heads out of their respective asses and get communication flowing again to their current and future customers or they can forget about any future in this industry.

Communication from Morgan this morning regarding my LE (ordered Oct 2016).

“Thank you for contacting us today and thank you for the support of our company. We are hard at work here at Heighway Pinball to get machines produced and into the hands of customers across the World as soon as possible. I do not have a specific update on your machine at the moment and can instead say that we are aiming to get machines produced and out asap.

I thank you from all of the team here at Heighway and we hope to be in contact again soon with more substantial information for you.”

Hmmm, maybe greenhornet was right after all?

I will say that majority of the times it does hit chestburster but it's not 100% although I can check the balance and slope of my table again. Wondering if other owners see this too. Again it could be design just wasn't sure.

An unexpected way I'm seeing the ball get fed to that upper right flipper is hitting the right orbit sometimes is blocked into pops and the ball will sometimes be directed to the chestburster target and drop down to the upper right flipper.

This service reminds me a lot of what I went through with OnePlus (phone company). If you got your phone from them, and it worked, it was brilliant and from your perspective the company was awesome simply because you'd never had to experience their customer service from the position of needing something from them.

Furthermore, people having good experiences struggled to understand or sympathise with those that were experiencing difficulties, believing them to be either melodramatic or that "something else is going on that we're not being told about", etc. Not saying that's what is happening here, but it's understandable that people who lucked out with actually getting a pin might tend to minimise the problems others are experiencing.

It seems that those people who have gotten an Alien machine, fully working, are loving it, whilst there are numerous others who for reasons unknown have had next to no communication at all. It is strange that there is such a spectrum of experiences coming from the same company, even post buyout.

Sorry man, wish I had more positive things to say. Hope everyone gets their games and has a good time with them in 2018.

some people were noting issues like this months ago,
just from viewing gameplay videos.
they tried to let you know what to expect,
but nobody seemed to care.

Still don't.
If the shot kills it for you, play something else. Meanwhile, I'll be enjoying this great layout.

I don’t really know if that is intentional or not; EalaDubhSidhe could say for sure. I’ve just considered it to be a characteristic of the shot, similar to, for instance, the Merlin saucer on Medieval, where “perfect” shots sometimes bounce out to the right instead of sticking.

And yes, it is known that the egg bumpers can spot the Chestburster shot with a lucky bounce... especially if the Chestburster Lane Diff adjustment is set to Easy. And it’s definitely intentional that orbit shots get diverted to the bumpers to give a ~50% chance of feeding the UR flipper when the game wants you to hit a UR flipper shot.

Have you checked your stand-up targets? Probably a switch gap adjustment.