Wow. Dude it is just a game. If you don't like it rent the game by game at the bowling alley or play it, pinball, on the ipad.

Awesome

When you shell out $6,500 for a pinball thats not finished code wise.
Then the owner of the company that made it says the update is a Christmas present
to the people who bought it. Yea screw stern you suck Gary.

Above... Please change your profile photo, because it just makes sense to after reading your posts. Im not giving you a hard time. sorry

I agree with MMuller. Also bought TFLE, X-Men LE, ACDC Premium, Avatar LE among others. It's not worth paying the money and not getting the updates. X-Men was the last straw. Getting a game that had major features missing, scoring, wolverine didn't do anything, etc. I was hoping they would update the TFLE could to at least all progression of the Multiballs. If they are going to have a collector market they better start updating the games or at least coming close to finishing the code at release. Otherwise, stick to the pro and costco models.

I am personally going to stick to older titles (with the exception of WOZ). At least I know the games are finished and don't have to wait for updates.

All this hate being spewed about never buying another new Stern because of an incomplete game, yet people line up to buy the next one even more blindly than the last - and it sells out!

All in all, Xmen is still a fun game as is, lets give stern a pass till monday afternoon, if there's no update then lets get all frumpy and argue with each other

I didn't buy one, i skipped avengers le and went straight to pinball sales this week and pre-ordered a hobbit and put my name on the list for a WOZ ECLE. They lost me, and they are only sold out to distributers, i can buy any avengers LE in a second if i wanted to NIB or even 10 of them. The hulk is selling well bc they made 250 and made it green, other than that the blue LE wont sell out anytime fast.

Agree, dont buy it until the game meets your expectations. Will you get the early bird price? No, but you won't feel you are out of cash and you might get it cheaper and complete after all of us beta testers are done bitchen on a Friday night with nothing better to do then hit this thread up and the Beer thread

So you're saying you passed on a somewhat unknown and instead opted for a complete unknown?

JJ has yet to complete a single pin.

Lets watch the language, please.
I would say the code is incomplete when:
1) Adjustments in the menu don't work at all.
2) Modes listed in the menu do not exist.

Hey, your avatar combines 2 of my favorite things in life, can you get a pin in there now and make it a trifecta?

From the beginning Gary said "Holiday power pack" ... which means some time between Thanksgiving and New Years...there was never a Christmas promise.

On the 12th day of Christmas, Gary gave to me...

Nah, lets hold him to the christmas eve deadline, he shouldnt be so vague

As far as the WOZ, i have played it extensively with unfinished code and have thoroughly enjoyed it. And after talking with JJ i feel he is doing everything he can to make sure the game is great, whether it is or not we will see, but i rather give my money to someone who i know is doing their best to make a great game (quality construction and gameplay) opposed to a company like stern that keeps screwing me over game after game. If it turns out to be a dud and i lose money, so be it, but giving my money to someone who is trying to create is a risk i am willing to take and fortunately can afford.
By the way if u haven't noticed i don't have a WOZ in my house with unfinished code like i do with my x-men 4 months later and I can always cancel my hobbit order.

I will compare it to my friend who is in a bad marriage and his wife keeps treating him like crap over and over again. Every year she promises to treat him better and never does. I always tell him to try and find someone better but he is content. Thats how i feel with stern, they keep promising me better product and fail to deliver each time, so ill take my chance with JJ

I wouldn't want to spill my beer or Milk all over the pin

Stern does a great job with their pins. No, they don't ship completed....but they never have! There's a lot of new blood in the pinball hobby and here's an eye opener - this is always how pins have been made for the last 10 years. Do you think sterns greatest games were shipped perfect? SM was trashed on for years, LoTR incomplete w design flaws, tspp incomplete, FGY had little to no custom call outs and software design flaws. This is nothing new. So if your disgruntled at stern for working their ass off to build pinball machines for us or you feel they owe us nothing; back off, have some eggnog, relax and enjoy the holiday.

As for myself, my motto has always been wait 6+ mos before buying a pin to see how it levels off completion wise. But then I decided one day to take a chance and go complete nib and preordered TFLE. I was disappointed with their effort in the code but you know what, I still own TFLE and play and enjoy it weekly. It's a great game. I decided to preorder XMLE too; it took those two games to realize that for myself, I need to go back to my old ways and wait for the game to be refined before buying. Live and learn. But this xmen thing is nothing new.

Seems like a bad afternoon on the ol' Xmen code thread, I just want to throw in a little positive:

Played a few games tonight and on my last game I made it to Brotherhood, first time getting there. The Brotherhood multiball was sure cool and the shaker motor was going wild (nice lightshow as well). Collected almost all of the Xmen and had one fast and furious game going. Put up my personal high score of 55 million in the process. I must say, the more I play this machine the more I'm liking it!

Looking forward to when we get the code update!

By all accounts I have every indication xmen and transformers will see new code power packs by Christmas

Official press release was for Christmas power pack updates.
There is 3 days yet.

Here comes Gary Claus Here comes Gary Claus right down Gary Claus Lane!!!!!

We will just have to wait until Christmas Day to open our presents just like the rest of the kids.

MNPINBALL,
I was waiting to hear your heads up... Lets hope for some Deadpool/stackable FUN for Christmas Brother!

258-2.jpg

Christmas means Christmas to me! Dec 25th I will be happy to update my X-Men LE while the rest of the family opens their gifts. It will be much better than the boxers and socks I will get otherwise

My favorite feature of the totally complete X-men is the multipliers. Nothing missing there. Getting hold bonus multiplier as an award is about as rewarding as add more time in the next to worthless mode you are trying to time out. And for the record, I have only played an LE maybe 20 times and I have had the Iceman ramp dump the ball SDTM on me multiple times. I really like the bones of the game, but anyone saying it is complete is kidding themselves.

well Deadpool is in the menu so. . . . . I would think so : )

So how have you been screwed over game after game? You own one sttng and one xmen. And if you don't like xmen sell it and buy something else. Seems like someone would have to be pretty thick to keep a game and bitch non stop about being screwed over. I'm quite confused here.

True. Will be surprised if it does not come before xmas as xmas presents are usually given on xmas day! Holiday season implies time to use it in the holiday season so I think it will happen - major bad PR if it don't!

Dear Ladies & Gentlemen

I am writing to let you into some of our plans. Some of you, our direct
customers, have asked I do this. In the future I will periodically.

We have been asked if we will again this year, like last year, create
holiday season Power Pack code updates for any of our games. Power Pack
code updates add and/or change rules and features. We did such a Power
Pack last year.

Again this year our Christmas present for our game owners will be Power
Pack code updates for X-Men and Transformers, Pro and LE.

We hope everyone will enjoy these Power Pack and that these will rejuvenate
earnings on games that have been in operation for many months.

Best regards,

Gary

Gary Stern
President
Stern Pinball, Inc.

What a wierd angry thread. Take a few days and enjoy the holiday.

Hooray! Who is going to start a xmas rumor that it is time for a new football pin? Only kidding...

Hahaha so true. You know what it reminds me of? When your kid wants something really really bad for Xmas and throws a temper tantrum because they have to wait til Xmas to get it.

Not my take on the situation.

No tantrums but for $6.5 I expect more. The code sucks at the moment and we have been promised a power pack before xmas by the president of Stern. Still expecting the code update in the next few days so chilled for now

actually you weren't promised a power pack before christmas. You were promised one "during the christmas season". So I think it's your expectations that should be corrected. I want an update as well. But the code does not "suck" at the moment. It does lack but it does not suck. The game is fun as it is. It'll just get way better (hopefully).

We were promised an xmas present and those 'in the know' suggested 21st December, hence expectation.

Maybe suck is too strong, but villains are no fun etc. Again, I am sure it will happen soon

Maybe you and everyone else should realise that people "in the know" don't always know and also that things change. As for the code "sucking" it doesn't suck, it just needs a rework to make a fantastic layout an enjoyable (and hopefully) fantastic game. The X Men modes are fine as is it's only the villains that need tweaking (IMO) along with the previously mentioned Ice Man ramp, Wolverine magnet and Magneto spinner that need some attention.

How they do it, we'll see. - if they don't do it, it will be a shame. It took 2 years for Spiderman to be finished and people weren't happy but a lot sold and moved on. People only seem to bitch now because of the price they have paid for the games (I pay $8.5k for LE games due to import duty) and it seems some people only buy the game to "invest". I buy my machines to play, I don't like to lose money when I sell, but if I do, it's just how it goes and I'm fully aware before I buy of that.

If everyone was in that mindset, they'd be patient and quit the bitching/speculation, for now play what you've got. If you don't like it with current code, play something in the collection you do like until the code update.

Sounds like Gary is writing checks with his mouth that his ass can't cash!

Every Stern SAM system game then. There are system adjustments that just don't work (team scoring, setting custom betabrite messages in the menu, there are probably more). I would think you would be hard pressed to call Spider-Man's software unfinished even though some of the system setting don't work.

On the other hand....I can't figure out why they put the setting in there in the first place if they aren't using them?

Gotta love it when people go on and on, bitching about...well, other people bitching. LOL That's basically what the entire last page of this thread is!

Anyway, there are very basic problems in XM which still need to be addressed. Gary promised a power pack as a "Christmas present," and a couple people who claim to be in 'the know' (ie, they pm/harrass Borg on Facebook) said it'd be released yesterday. It wasn't, so everyone was a little disappointed, because it would've been nice to dig into new code over a long cold weekend. No biggie.

But yeah, these aren't $3500 games anymore, and if Stern is marketing them for collectors' homes (which they are) and charging nearly twice what they did four years ago (which they are), then expectations are obviously going to be raised.

Players who are happy with poorly coded features which still need work, as well as a ruleset which encourages you to time out modes, need to realize that it's the right of others to not be. The layout and framework for a great game is there, and what they've done with the mode depth and lighting shouldn't be lost in the complaints, but since this isn't a Lyman game, players are a little antsy. We don't know if these new guys have the personal professionalism to work on their game indefinitely in order to make it right. But we are hopeful, that's why we still own it and haven't sold it like so many others already have.

Please stop the bitching about the bitching! Thanks!

I learned my lesson on the super extended X-Men hype thread that a lot of times "in the know" means little more than "just my guess".

I'm sorry you're plain wrong. I spoke to Borg personally at Expo and he said target was by/before Christmas. First hand no BS here.

As an aside, Borg was awesome to talk to and without relaying the whole conversation he too was looking forward to getting the code update out. I will say this in defense of Stern, the designers understand and are trying to do what they can. GG going to GW to tweak the machine and shooting his own video and Borg who is keeping a very close eye on XMen progress. Now if they miss Xmas delivery of code does it suck - yep. But I'd rather they miss the code drop date of Xmas and get it right than force out a power pack for us whiners that is still missing something we are complaining about. We give the same pass to JJ on launch delays of WOZ because we want it right. While I'd prefer game does not ship until code is complete, let's pass the yuletide spirit and give Stern the same courtesy. I want a great code update and am willing to wait.

Happy holidays or bah humbug whichever you prefer.

This year Gary cost reduced Christmas. There are 20 plastics that look like presents under the tree. He also installed a computer controlled light show in the yard but the software won't be done until Labor Day.

"In the know" means people talk directly to the designers. Yes, Borg said directly that the update would out on the 21st. Maybe they are just tweaking something else or they are waiting to release all of them for a christmas present under your tree.

Stern cannot be held responsible for rumors started by those not working for them.

Some folks "in the know" said the world was going to end yesterday as well. You'd think people would be happier they're not in a fiery burning meteor strike.

Is it ok to bitch about people bitching about the bitching though?

:p

So I'm actually not wrong. We were not promised any thing by Christmas but apparently *you* were . All we have is the letter by Gary Stern. Private conversations are unofficial and don't count - ie: how can I be let down by a promise made to you in private?