Holy Chr!st. Can't even get the ball out of the shooter lane

QSS

Or they will no longer be millionaires, whichever comes first.

You know the old saying....You know how to become a millionaire in pinball? ....start out as a billionaire....

I've been there multiple times to play this game, and it's been a variable shit-show each time. Different levels of problems each time, ranging from playable but really tired feeling, to completely unplayable. Different issues each time I've been there. I went there to convince myself to possibly get an Alien, since I've always wanted a Full Throttle as well. To the contrary, it convinced me I should stay a mile away from all Heighway games.

Boy is that familiar....

Officially out of the Alien Club. It will always be a grail theme to me and one of my favorite pins that I have ever owned/played, but with all the continued QC and reliability issues, i had to say adios and replace it with a game that is more reliable day to day and that relieves me of the stress of knowing that when something breaks I am gonna have a 8k toy that is useless for months.

Take it easy guys. I wish you all the best with your preorders and current games. May your proprietary boards never cease to function.

Sorry to say this will probably happen more and more for the Average Knowledge pinball guy who can't be constantly fixing these prototype machines.

Just for the record - I had all kinds of problems, but once they were fixed they are fixed. It just took a bunch of my time to creatively fix problems that shouldn't have been there in the first place. So far I haven't had any new problems crop up.

I'm talking about the person who doesn't have the time or knowledge to do this. (like me)

Ringing endorsement after 57 days of ownership

that is ALL pinball Ted. You constantly bash on certain new games but honestly you are ignorant to even work on them at all.

I have said it and numerous other people have said it... If your aliens is working, it just works... It is a very robust built game and in fact a similar system to what is being used in P-Roc, Spike, etc... They are all of similar risk as afar as board set technology goes.

Mechanically, heighway games are extremely well built. Make the adjustments out fo the box and they play solid for thousands of plays on route.

We had FullT and Aliens out for months with no issue. Aliens only issue was light boards and that appears to have been settled.
New games going out the door appear complete with only need for minor adjustment.

if you cant work on Aliens then you probably should not be working on the mechs of any game... they are just coils, switches, and lights...

Hey-o!

So I'm guessing you sold it then? You still show it in your current collection and I don't see where you had it listed here.

there is nothing wrong with not working on them. I just get tired of people that dont work on them and have never even been inside a Heighway game, commenting like they know what the production games are like.

...getting excited for TPF...

I had some led's fail, and HP sent me some new led's. Still didn't work, so HP sent me a new pc board, and they prepaid DHL for the return shipment of the old board.

No complaints on the support. Everything is now fine.

In hindsight, I think the problem may have just been a bad connection. HP could benefit from better phone tech support, and save on sending parts unnecessarily.

My issues have really not been any different than other NIB games I've purchased, including JJP and Stern.

Maybe I'm lucky, or maybe there are a lot of others who don't post because they don't have problems.

Time will tell, but other than the fixed led's, the game has been fine. I understand there is risk with a new company, but I don't think things are quite as dire as this thread may sometimes indicate.

I thought they said that about racing!

Hey! Do I have to give you a stern talking to at Allentown?

Yes, but it better involve some good sipping tequila...

Oh, it does! Can't wait...

Anything at the convention?

No machines. I talked to David Theil and he said that now that he has shaker motor and lights that they are fine tuning those assets

Day 1 (10/20/14) order direct through HP and this is the first good news I've directly received since the game was announced.

"I am contacting you today with potentially good news. We have had a customer drop out from the production schedule of the Alien Pinball LE. This means that we will be able to get a machine to you sooner rather than later. If you would like to take advantage of this situation that would be great as we can fulfil your order sooner rather than later.

If you could please contact me promptly if you would like to take advantage of this situation. The trim colour that we will be able to offer you is green as this is the colour that the machine has been produced in. We can certainly add your unique LE number to the machine. To fully take advantage of this opportunity we would require that the remaining balance be settled for the machine plus the shipping.

Thank you for your time and I hope to hear from you promptly and your decision on this opportunity."

Tricky one. Escrow ? Ship first pay later ?

Got the same BS email. How many ugly green trim LEs did new, line-jumping buyers drop out of?

Mmmmm my first thought was I wonder how many people got this one off unique opportunity email

Will someone just stick a fork in it

Oh boy. There was likely a better way for Heighway to handle this, than to further reinforce the negative perceptions about what is going on over there.

I'm sure one of them was "my" ugly green LE... but I liked the color. now if they are going to sell it to you, think they could send my deposit refund promptly.... hell no... f-ers... and I have been VERY quiet in all of these ALIEN threads, just sucks that I'm still waiting...

I am glad for those of you that got your machines, and if they did have issues, that they got resolved promptly. I did play an Alien a few times at the CLE show last year or the year before, and it was fun. I just didn't want to deal with any of the drama any longer. I work too hard for my money...

I wouldn't fall for that trick.

More than likely its on the ship that should be making port next week. My guess is that several weeks ago when it was time to pay up, the buyer of the green trim (fxdwg I'm guessing) decided he wasn't up for the risk any longer. He obviously already made his trim choice and that's what's loaded up, so the new buyer has to agree to green trim. Difficult choice if your a deposit holder. You could stonewall long enough now to wait until its at Cointaker and pay with better assurance that there is 100% a game to be had or pass and keep your deposit on the line for an unknown sum of time.

Did Heighway 2.0 hire a Nigerian Prince to write their emails?

Someone take advantage of this opportunity!

Make sure your machine is on that shipment before sending money....

That was literally the first thing that came to my mind too.

You mean the SAME ship that was supposed to be in port in May of 2017..wait..no, no sorry, I mean July of '17-Hold on..I meant to say August..definitely August of '17...Dammit--I REALLY meant to say last week of November '17. I don't know what's wrong with me...what I meant to say was "Q1" of '18.....
Seriously guys, this is pathetic.

The language used deliberately avoids to make any kind of clear commitment to an actual delivery date. Scary.

If you still have an deposit down on one of these & got that email, I think you would seriously need to speak with a priest before taking that leap of faith.

With everything we know (and basically still don't), I don't know how anyone today could send them their final payment. I know I couldn't. No way in hell. That's a huge problem for them.

I would be shocked if the doors are still open in 2019.

I'd ask if you could send money to CT, with them forwarding funds to HP upon delivery and inspection of game by them. Then you'd be covered. Maybe they'll need to pay CT a handling fee behind the scenes but then everyone is protected. Give Melissa @ CT a call and see if she is receptive to idea. Good Luck. My oh my, only green ones, too bad black was out.

Agree. There cannot be many orders being placed with how things are right now !?! They can't announce a new game yet , and who would put money down on that anyway.... so unless someone is happily throwing money at this whole debacle surely its only a matter of time.

I hate to be so down on a UK based pinball company but this is in a tailspin now surely

If so, they only have themselves to blame. People were DYING to support this company. But terrible communication, crappy Quality Control, spotty tech help, lack of refunds, or even a CLEAR plan on when people would get a refund or their machine is not helping...

Soo.....what you're all saying is that I shouldn't purchase one of these next week when they're in CT's hands? Let's say the stars align, the LE's are in Melissa's hands, everything is in working order, do those that have played it, like it?

Well, if you know how to work on machines and like the theme...go for it!

Yes!! ...and look what showed up today!!!

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Let's have an Alien unboxing party!!!

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Ohhhhh yeah!

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Let's open it up!

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SO glad to see the glass isn't broken - that's a good sign in my book.

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The goodie bag ...if you can call it that.

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Stripping off all the protective films - playfieled LCD, side art, backbox, etc...

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More pics!!!

Of course!!

...and for those keeping score - this is a true 'production' ready machine that replaces my pre-production machine I purchased at TPF last year. It was so pre-production that I could not update code. This new machine came with version 1.04 (I think?) pre-loaded. I updated to the most recent 1.1 version before playing a single game. The update process was very quick and simple.

I immediately noticed a few differences between this new machine and the one I purchased last year. For one, the cutouts at the end of the ramps are circular - not tear shaped as they were. This helps the ball drop directly in the in-lane. Also noticed the wiring harness under the playfield is much neater. The Xeno mech is slightly different as well.

Before playing, I installed the Cliffy protector at the airlock scoop. I also had to adjust the pop bumper switches - as they hardly worked at all out of the box. After tweaking the switches, they work pretty damn good!! Also had a scare out of the box when both the playfield and backbox LCD;s didn't work. Neither were connected to the PC - so that was a quick easy fix.

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Did you return that machine to Cointaker?

The games are shipping and the newer ones work pretty well out of the box whether the nay sayers like it or not.

1. Some refunds have happened
2. Early adopters are being made right
3. Games are shipping including actual containers that went to cointaker.

It's still moving In the right direction all be it slowly and communication is still shitty. If people cant see that it's either because they have an axe to grind or are purposely blind

-Jeff

Yep - that's it. Went straight from my SUV to Cointaker's truck. It wasn't even worthy of being on the floor for TPF...not a good representation of the game.

Now that I've put a few games into the new production machine on the latest code - it is much more polished - and damn near everything works! I've got a couple lights out, and my magnet is not as 'flingy' as I'd like despite making the menu adjustments. It works, but not as violently as I'd like. Oh - it was cool to see the Xeno actually grab and eat the ball~!

..gotta run for now..

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Magnet flinginess should be improved in v1.2, coming sometime soon.

(As daudioguy says: "Now with more FLING!")

Excellent! You've been through a lot! I hope you enjoy the game. I'm looking forward to playing it again in the future after things are worked out.

@partyking post some pics of the cabinet wiring when you get a chance.