MRG = MR G. duh -- not enough sleep.
Quoted from Manimal:I can deal with a lot in pinball, but the one thing I dislike the most is a mushy flipper,
I agree with the flippers, they need to snap and you should not feel like you need to fight with them to make a shot. Thing I need to remember to do at shows, is to play the machine every once and while to monitor the flipper strength. Funny thing is, just powered up the game in my office that was at the show, and flippers are way too strong, just shows the difference in power at the hotel.
I'd rather be proactive on issues versus having false and inaccurate information spread, much harder to then get it corrected.
Anyone who has been paying attention knows that all pinball companies, even those that have been around for years have issues. I hope that we have learned from others mistakes so we don't repeat them, but naturally we will make some of our own. You will find I will be quick to acknowledge my mistakes or things that are not right. As we all know the cover-up is worse than the crime, not admitting issues is sort of the same thing. I will try to be as transparent as possible, obviously at times ownership my not agree with my approach on that. Naturally at times I will respectfully disagree with someone else is thinking or view (heck I do that to the folks here as well), and it was most of us do here on pinside (just some are not respectful or don't really try to understand the other persons viewpoint). Sometimes I won't say something when I think it is not going to result in a fruitful conversation.
I know a lot about pinball, having been playing since I was 9, but I certainly don't know it all and don't claim to be an expert on rules, history of games, etc. (I can be quite opinionated regardless). I know enough to be dangerous. I learn a lot at the shows from watching you guys play and talking to you. I learn at lot talking to others in the industry who are willing to share their knowledge and experience, even though they work for other companies. To be honest, I also learn a lot on pinside, if I stick to the right threads . Reading threads on likes an dislikes or 'best XYZ', helps me identify opportunities or come up with new ideas or, lets be honest, things I can 'borrow'. Hopefully I can then apply these things effectively to our theme and to make Houdini a great game to play and own. While pinside only represents a small portion of the pinball world, and can be overly negative at time, it is a snapshot of at least part of the pinball universe and there is some good stuff to be gleaned from it.
Quoted from taz:Also, lower scoring is in fad. Not only JJP but also DP. My TBL is also low scoring, which seems to be the new trend amongst the new folks.
Scoring got out of control in the mid 90s (I've had Billion point end of ball bonuses on Roadshow) and started to go back down a little bit late in the wpc 95 era, when scores were back down to the millions. Of course it started when they put a fake zero on the end to make scoring 10 times higher. I guess that made sense when scoring was the primary and only 'measure' and 'objective', and big scores is what folks were focused on, and it probably helped draw players to a machine with higher scoring. But the numbers got so big they started to lose relevance, when you cant' remember if your scores was in the millions or billions that is a problem. If you score 500K on Houdini you know it was good game, break a million that is great game. I'm looking forward to seeing someone 'roll over' the main seven digit flip score display (the player display will go a few more digits, don't worry). Reminds me, I have not tested that in a long time.
Joe told me they did Woz scoring lower, given the time frame of the the WoZ theme, and we followed suit given the era Houdini lived. Does seem JJP has stuck with that, at least on some titles, so maybe it is fad. I do have to laugh when the skill shot on some games are higher scoring than a great score on Houdini. Ultimately what is important in scoring is proper balance in areas of the game, factoring in difficulty, risk/reward and limiting exploits (we will talk about 'Sharpe proofing it') . While I am not a top player by any means, nor do I really compete, I do spend time regularly revisiting scoring to get a good balance between modes and different objective areas. Risk and reward being a factor as well -- the starting the stage with the 2X shot is a good eample. Tougher/riskier shot to start a mode, but, doubles the value. My goals is that for most modes 'completing it successfully' should have similar total values, adjusted for risk (Milkcan escape, most valuable mode, really hard/risky to score). You won't find a STTNG style video mode, that with zero risk, and a known pattern, can give you more points than what you can typically get on any other mode in the game. Along those lines I tried to make sure our video mode would not be easy to master, can you learn to get good at it, absolutely, but you can't just memorize a pattern of flips or something like that.
Quoted from Yelobird:Are we Really asking them to change their shirts, flyers, cards, art, stickers, Huge company sign marque on the building because we don't like their business logo?
As far as the logo. Can't say I totally love the logo, but I certainly don't hate it. Regardless, in my book that is not where I want us to put a lot of time and energy, at least not now. But you guys can feel free to draw new ones and I'll certainly share them with the team here. Joe just showed me a modified version of the white logo on the speaker panel, where it will now be cut tighter to the shape of the logo, which will reduce the amount of white material, and I think it will work better on the machine.