Very true. If I had money with HW I would've (tried, since it doesn't seem easy to make happen) got a refund from them a while ago. I feel like our money is safe with Cointaker (no reason to believe it's not, I was offered a refund a while ago if I wanted) and they seem to be doing what they can for us customers in this all around shitty situation.

Daily emails to Heighway finally received a response a few months later. Before it was always about the shipping crate for the kits to be ready. Prototyping, almost ready, blah blah blah. This time it wasn’t very optimistic.

“I regards to your order we will do all that we can to get this out to you as soon as possible but we are still dealing with the back log from the old management and therefore there may be some time until we can fulfil your order.

I am sorry that this is not the best news and I wish I had more exact information to share with you at this point. We will be in contact when we have more details to share about your order.”

Less than thrilled. Paid for a kit in full like 2 years ago.

There goes my genius plan of playing your Alien while i stand at the back of the line waiting for mine.

That shipping crate BS always makes me laugh. When you have nothing to ship , you don't really need a great crate design.

It's a waiting game for a lot of us. Meanwhile Dialed IN is awesome. Just gotta paste a couple of Alien figurines to darken the theme and cover the selfie camera with a XenoMorph pic.

Ah I see now it wasn't updated and couldn't be until the new computer came etc etc. Still waiting one some cables to hook the new parts up so I'm sure it'll be fine. Thanks

To be fair - the situation is what it is, but would you rather have no communication or some communication, even if it's not what you want to hear?

As grim as it is - I'd rather know where I stand than be ignored, and left to speculate.

When you say "kit" are you talking about the swappable playfield or a whole machine?

why would a "kit" refer to a whole machine? Just go ahead and tell us how it's not a feasible option in your opinion and how they should just ditch the whole idea!

Playfield kit to put in our full throttle cabinet at The Sanctum

Didn’t say I was upset for the communication but I believe I asked about this back in December time frame (for the umpteenth time) with no response and kept asking the question every other week until I got a response now. So hardly a level of communication that raises praise.

I did thank Morgan for his response.

Dialed in, is awesome and I’m just a week or two I’ll have a game TNA there. Come play that instead . Crazy how that game wasn’t even thought of yet when I paid in full for a game that “was shipping”

In my opinion they should keep the kits...but the last I heard they were basically going to scrap the whole "kit" concept. Don't think anything was ever completely decided but it sure sounded like it was going to get scrapped.

Must allow ship to become grounded in the shallows, while HP Management debates the merits of kits versus standard cabinet for game #3. Come On Heighway! get the line moving! for the love of everything that's holy. GO!

So games arent on the way? I thought a shipping containers worth was close??

I agree. Keep em.. but just send some ALIEN pins to paid customers 1st..and wouldn't they need to send FullThrottle owners a new computer?!? HP.... this is bonkers!

Did anyone actually say that?

Sorry, I wasn't criticising you. You're right that several months of being ignored before finally getting a response doesn't merit praise.

Yes I paid for a new computer with the kit to upgrade full throttle. Changing the computer takes all of seriously 2 seconds.

Boy I'm glad I refrained from calling Andrew during that time and waited it out. He would have told me he had a kit ready to ship me and collected my money. Sorry to hear this happened to you and anyone else.

I'd still like a kit myself. I don't see why they can't. Alien was built on that platform, even with the new cpu. And maybe they can sell some Full Throttle kits to Alien owners.

IF you have the DVI cables (or vga to dv adapters). I think this is going to be the delay for people changing the computer in their full throttle because they don't include the cables (or adapters) and you have to get them yourself. Not a big deal, but you can't do it unless you have the stuff.

Last I heard there were being packed up this week or next week and then there will be a container on the way to CT. (Should take three weeks I think to get across the ocean?) Again this could change as has everything with HW. As CT said a few days ago in this thread it's mostly new money games and a few old preorders. But I guess that too could change lol

Melissa at cointaker said I believe 45 le machines are coming 10 going to old pre order folks and a few are going up to Canada. It is nice that they are dealing with this for the community. She has had back surgery and still always answers the phone and will be at the show in texas. Also I believe her company is the only way we will be able to get TBL when they are produced.

Thanks, I guess I got ahead of myself, thinking they were already on the way.

Well it would be great to see some pre orders fulfilled finally. Believe it when I see it. Aurich’s should be 1 of the 10, BS if not. My 4 year paid in full order certainly isn’t part of the batch, never asked what color trim I wanted. Hope old pre order folks identify themselves receiving games and sharing with us their out-of-box experience, good or bad.

I think it is for old Cointaker preorders, not old HW preorders. I have no idea when HW will get around to their own ancient preorders, seems to be their last priority.

People were saying that in this thread but I don't know where that rumor started. I contacted CT and was told things are being packed up and shipping soon, but again this is HW so I'll believe it when I see some games start being delivered.

Also some bummer news for old CT LE preorders, there will be no refund or anything for the optic ramps that are no more. HW used the money for a better computer and a better mech for the alien head is what CT told me. I think this is of course on HW and not CT and sucks for sure. I thought they'd hook up a free sheet of nicer glass or something but nope.

I have a beacon mod for Alien for sale.
Made by Libtech 60.00 Can.

I no longer have the Alien games to put it on.

To be totally honest I have no idea what I'd even do with it should it show up. That's one reason I haven't pressed them about it. I'm pretty sure if I made a fuss that they'd take care of it.

Right now I'd be happy for one more pre-order buyer to have the game instead. Like you!

I paid in full for a Full Throttle LE and Alien LE. Still waiting. Never again.

Waaaaaaaa? You sold both your games Dan?

I think that speaks volumes about this game.

QSS

Actually I traded it back to Tommy and the other one was his.
Plus picked up another Alien from me that was at the Pinbar.
Beacons are sold as well.

Make a fuss....

After multiple attempts to dial in the auto shooter - still no luck. Still can't play a single f*ing game without it not making it up the ramp. Guess it's time to try and see if support can help. Now I'm not sure if it is the coil or what...

Is there an Alien on location in Chicago anywhere?

That sucks man. Maybe someone on here with an Alien that does not have that issue would be kind enough to take some detailed pictures of the shooter assembly to make sure that everything is equal to yours.

Here was my fix for the ball launcher:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/heighway-pinball-support-full-throttle-and-alien/page/2#post-4044207

That is what I tried yesterday and today (see pics). I can get it to work testing before I start a game 10/10 times by placing the ball in the shooter lane, but when I play a game it works maybe 50 - 60%.

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I had a similar situation. The ball launcher was not able to shoot the ball out. Finally everything runs smoothly since I had adjusted the protective plate. Hope this helps.
Markus

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Blimey, what a barrel of shit. As an outsider, it seems to me that everyone should cancel their orders, and the company should die. I wish Andrew hadn't bothered setting this company up. Major fail

I've problem too.

From time to time and recently much more often the Xeno is not able to move in the ball during Multiball. A restart didn't help either, because after a strange noise the ball and the mechanism stays outside. Only calibrating in the Xeno-Menue helps (w/o removing the glass).

Today I've got the information it might be a software problem. Do anybody else have a similar situation?

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Imagine what this will be like in 20 years, with the company a long distant memory and no parts available?

Exactly what I finally tried - took off the protector and now it works 98% of the time. I'll realign the protector and re-install. Finally I can play through a few multiballs!

latest software update is causing this (xeno grabs ball and just stays there). Quick fix is to go into settings and press the shoot option which will bring the ball back in) - game should resume normally. Doesn't happy often but time to time. Should be fixed on next code update (from what I was told)

Yes same issue here and it started with this code release. btw - right Up Post works great in this version and you can get the ball rolling around the playfield nicely.

Hmmm... let's imagine....20 years from now...

Maybe all the games will be worth nothing.

Or maybe they'll be rare like Big Bang Bar.

Or maybe somewhere in between.

That pretty much covers it.

As I get older I am realizing that small concerns like if highway will still be around or if Bbb will be remade,ect fade more and more kind if nice if you ask me,I am just going to enjoy my games as long as I can because I can't control. The rest

Indeed.

I don't think people buying pins in the heyday would've necessarily thought that the company making them would still be around in 20 years or not. Williams isn't around anymore - at least not in the pinball business.

All Heighway really need to do is release schematics for their boards, and in a perfect world open source their software once it ceases to be a going concern (ala ID Software with Quake, etc). The community will do the rest.

Imagine what it will be like in 2 years ......

Logan's arcade in Chicago fyi last time I was ther it was not working.

Was having ball hangup issues out of the trough. Came up with this simple fix.

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I would imagine since Heighway was taken over by 4 millionaire investors with experience running companies that two years from now they will finally have their act together, have overcome Andrew's mess and false promises, and be cranking out Alien number 2,000 and starting to put out their next machine. But it's going to be a long painful path to get there.