That's not how much it is, that's the star wars topper. BKSoR is $430ish.

And for that price, the Star Wars topper better do more than just have R2D2 twist his head, blip and bleep. Odd that Stern hasn't posted them on its website as of this writing. Official announcement days be damned - this is the run up to Xmas: get all the orders (and $$$) you can! Plus we'd all love to have our toppers BEFORE Xmas so we can have them up and running on our games FOR Xmas.

I believe the Star Wars topper is only $750.

But to answer your question, Hell NO! That is nuts.

It looks great but no. I'm not into toppers anyway.

No way!

That's what I read also.

Does anyone have any practical experience using the Quiet Fan Mod?

https://www.pinballlife.com/stern-spike-system-plug-n-play-quiet-fan-kit.html

Just got my BKSOR Premium on Friday and boy, I now see (hear) what you guys are talking about in regards to loud fan noise. Curious to know if the above fan works well and since it's spinning a tad slower (and for longer periods) if there are any backbox temperature issues with it or premature burning out if it has to run longer.

This looks to be the same kit from PinMonk. Well worth the price and effort. So see:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/replacing-stern-spike-noisy-ps-fans/page/7#post-5295307

And as I said over there:
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I have been very remiss in adding my big thanks and appreciation for PinMonk's kit as well which I installed many months ago.

I did the entire switch out on my BKSOR in 20 minutes - 10 minutes of which was just being extra careful clearing enough of the goo holding the original fan connector wire in place.

Don't let the instructions intimidate you at all - they are just very detailed, well-written and clear. Do one "panel" of the instructions at a time; it goes way faster than it reads.

After installing it, my Black Knight has never again sounded like he's periodically blow-drying his hair, vacuuming, and leaving on his private Boeing 747.
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https://www.manualslib.com/manual/1587635/Stern-Pinball-Black-Knight-Sword-Of-Rage.html?page=36#manual

p.36

The quiet fan mod is awesome! I’ve put in 4 machines. Comes with necessary screws, correct connector, length wire, and great instructions. Very well done and totally worth it mod. Beware that I’ve heard it can affect your factory warranty; if they find out. Not sure how that would ever happen.

I did the Pinmonk kit off Pinside BTW.

I found out what was wrong with my upper flipper on my BKSOR Premium. On the right flipper button, the second leaf switch for the upper flipper was only just making contact when the flipper button was pushed absolutely all of the way in. Attacking it with a pair of needle-nosed pliers now has it making contact a good 2mm or so before the flipper button bottoms out, like it should be, and my upper flipper problems have disappeared, hooray!

I've now adjusted the center target twice to get it away from the post to the right that it seems to want to get jammed into. Hopefully this time it'll take.

Maybe the stern of the union will address our concerns. Does it come out today?

Digital Copy is easy to replicate using pinball browser and extracting the audio tracks. They're all there... and even the one from the retro mode which is not part of the tracklist on the vinyl :=)

Aaaand, nothing on Stern of the Union. :/

Every first tuesday my ass

Not a peep about Black Knight on the newsletter. On a positive note i still have something to look forward to

finally someone put at least one black knight song on youtube!!!!!

Where is the new code????? Nothing last week and now nothing this week!!!! Hopefully an adult mode will now be on it.

You guys have to learn to be patient...

Steve Ritchie clearly stated during pinball expo conference that they hope to release the new code along with the topper in time for x-mas (he never said it would be available end of november or early december).
He also confirmed during the same conference that the new code will contain new sound modes in order to customize the way the black knight is nagging the player (harsher way or softer way) and that they were back in the studio to record some new callouts. Nevertheless don't expect an adult mode (per se) with the F*** word as Steve stated a while ago that he didn't see the point to add rude words in order to make the black knight sounds meaner than what he already is.
I had posted it earlier but in case you missed it here is the youtube link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=357&v=jp9YnEoBI3A&feature=emb_logo
Talk about the sound modes is at 4:58 mark

Amen.

Thanks for the update

So my distributor took my order for the Black Knight topper today! It is supposed to be released any day.

I have a brand new Black Knight Sword of Rage Premium right next to my fully restored Black Knight (CPR Silver Knight Edition #19). It looks and plays beautiful. I updated it to v1.0 before I played a single game. It plays so much better than the LE at Pinballz here in Austin. I'm really happy with it. My son said that the original Black Knight feels like such an antique by comparison.

I'll be installing a shaker, upgrading the speakers to either Pinball Pro or Flipper Fidelity and installing either PinBlades or PowerBladez and will likely get a the topper when it comes out.

BK+BKSOR (resized).JPG

Question about installing this fix. How does the 5th post attach to the playfield? Do you have to drill a hole for it? Is it just held in place by the whole on the new plastic piece?

Pricing?

How much?

Just from the new plastic. Try it and you’ll see how it works.

If you got the kit from Stern it should have a 5th hole. I've read that the kits from "other places" were missing the hole.

My distributor asked me for 200$ in advance, but didn't have the final price.

Is that $200 deposit refundable if you don’t like the final price?

I don‘t know US/ Canadian law but here without a final price you can‘t close a final buying contract.
So in my opinion it has to be completely refundable.

That's what I would expect, @DS_Nadine, but it seems odd that a distributor would offer a pre-order and actually take a deposit without stating the final price up front. I've pre-ordered lots of things with a deposit, but I always knew the price before transmitting my deposit payment - including for my BKSOR Premium.

Sterns asleep at the wheel with this one, topper and code.

You mean just not shipping the topper yet? Cuz it looks like the best topper in modern pinball.

As far as code I'll say two things. I don't know if he's in charge as far as these things but Tim hasn't released incremental code updates with this game in the way it happens with most stern titles. We've gotten what, 3 big-ish code updates? 4? Most titles get semi-weekly updates the first few months they're out. So maybe he's saving up for a big one.

Point two: less popular games get less attention. There's plenty of options for animation updates, additions, and code expansions but with the way people just don't seem to be digging this game as much as myself and many of you I am a bit pessimistic as to how much more they're going to put into it. I hope I'm wrong and there's going to be a lot in there along with the topper update. As somebody that loves the classics I think this game is an A-1 top titties marriage of classic brutality and modern smoothness but the rest of the pinball community ignores it and is enamored with generic dinosaurs I just can't seem to get into for some reason.

I really want to love JP3 but it just doesn't click. At all. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills the way people are throwing praise at it.

Amen to all of that.

I think there will be at least a modicum of renewed interest in BKSOR once the topper gets out there. And I bet there will be a number of folks who passed on BKSOR up to this point who will now decide to buy a game to go with this incredible topper as opposed to the usual sequence of buying the topper to go with their game.

IMHO, the package is already an excellent integration of theme, music and play. But adding this topper to it will increase the experience (at least for me) by another level of magnitude.

Got a Premium JP3 coming to join my BK3 LE this week. Let's hope it 'clicks' with me. I tried to get time to play one when I was in Austin in October but didn't get to. I generally hate ordering games on spec but the hype got to me too...

Jurassic park is all the buzz atm. I personally love the shots and code seems great but I think it is one of the ugliest games in the last couple of years and I could give a crap about dinosaurs. Bksor to me is a better overall package but try telling that to the jp crowd... some acknowledge this is a good title but others are blind to it.

Unfortunately the licensed games outsell non-licensed games by a whole lot, so they get more attention after launch =/

I have BK3LE and JP premium. I like them both a lot. My hope is they put the same code effort into BK at some point. It needs more polish. I’m sure Steve isnt finished with it yet.

I had JP3 and enjoyed for few months but yeah the Dinos just didn't do it for me. BK3 still here and I don't see it going anywhere.

I own both a BK Pro and JP Pro, which sit side by side in my line up. Comparing the two, in terms of theme and artwork, BK wins easily. I have no ties to the original games (or other Steve Richie games for that matter) - Black Knight is effectively a fresh IP to me. The artwork, animations, the call outs - I love them (soft ones excluded - looking forward to switching them off). In terms of game play (code) however, JP eats the BK for breakfast. There's so much more to do around the main 'story' progress and more depth within the modes and how you play them. Although the BK code is at 1.0, it feels more like it should be around 0.90, with more expansion needed to give depth around various areas of the game. Being able to spend time at home playing both, it's allowed me to experience the good and bad of them. I enjoy both games and they will be with me for some time to come. Code and rules don't need to be complicated to make a great game - but being too flat doesn't work well either.

I imagine that BK will be available to purchase new from Stern for a couple more years yet and I hope they can/are willing to spend time lifting the content of the code up to get more people in to it and more sales. I'd love to see more original IP's used in future releases - poor sales won't help that I said in an earlier post that I hope Tim (and Steve) get support from Stern to continue improving BK. Maybe we will see some of that in the next week or so with the anticipated code drop. Maybe there will be more next year. Time will tell.

I've seen people mention that code updates are less frequent on slower selling games. I find this interesting. I hope this is due to the team at Stern watching and analysing the feedback from all areas of the community to understand the games faults and lack of appeal. Weeding out the useless stuff to find gems that will augment with their own ideas to lift the code up. Also spending more time with internal game play testing to ensure the next code drop has people talking the game up and new buyers calling up distributors wanting one. Which sounds like better approach than rushing out several quick and poorly planned changes in the hope of turning the tide (which can easily back fire).

I agree but u can't really compare those 2 games. One is meant be a fast and quick playing onslaught of thrash metal delight and the other is an adventure. Like U I had both pro models side by side and its a great combo as a result of their differences. Very glad to have both options and I hope Stern makes a BK3, IM style game every couple years at least. If they were all deep long playing pins it would get boring.

Ok, so to get the topper by Christmas it HAS to drop within the next few days right?

Whenever I go to my nearest location I only play BK and JP, because they are my favorite games there.

JP definately has more to discover and depth, so I think it "objectively" is the game you can get more out of in an home environment.
But, beginning with the slow "main map" music it feels slow paced compared to BK, wich is an adrenaline rush!

The BK package grabs me from top to bottom, even if it might get shallow overtime (wich on location it won't but I nontheless wanna buy one soon)!

Don't ask me how I know, but don't expect the topper by Christmas. The Star Wars topper has taken priority in the production queue.

Fine with me, I'm getting both.

Shucks. Last week, my hopes were lifted for both by Christmas. Must have been a rough week.

How about the new code???

Would have been nice to have it for Xmas but having the ~ $450 worth of extra spending leeway available over these next 2 weeks won’t hurt me either.

But no topper by Xmas likely means no code update by Xmas either since topper integration will be a major component of the next release.

This pisses me off more than it should. I'm having a pinball party two days before Christmas and told everyone it was coming. Also having friends in from across the country that week and it would have been cool for them to see it. They shouldn't announce things they can't deliver.