Pro has the flow.

The full install with a different USB drive seems to have fixed the reset issue on BKSoR.

The pro for sure has a vacant feel and the upper is cool. For me it's just how its used since you can basically stay up there the whole game. The other portion you spend trying to get up there. I know you don't have to, but its hard to un-see it.

This is why the bump mod ruins the upper for me. Not sure if it's just that or the pitch or what.. But I played a prem with the mod and I felt like my 6 ball multiball was able to be kept in the safe upper. Haha

I don't have any bump on mine.. You have to nudge just like bk2k to get it to the flipper... Very difficult to keep balls up there while focusing on the lower shots... Just need to set the tilt right so it's not abused as well.

yeah, I never installed.... didn't seem like it needed it. Good game to practice stage flipping though.

I found a bug when playing 4 player ransom challenge mode, but I don't exactly know how to re-create it. It just happens sometimes. After player 4's bonus is awarded, sometimes player 3 will receive an additional bonus.

Wow.. nice job catching it on video.

I've also noted some little odd blurts of audio and so forth which are new.

hopefully these can get addressed with Jesder issue with regard to Lich Lords, or a reason on why Lich lords scores as it does.. That would be amazing... I guess because as players we are hyper aware of things going on.. these blurts of audio and poor video transitions can be very jarring from an otherwise smooth experience. Just so nice if everything were working fully as intended.

I'm wondering if player 3 had bonus held awarded at any point?

Still doesn't look right, but a bug in the bonus held feature might cause something like that. Perhaps it might not be a bug, but the bonus held sequence being poorly presented during a multiplayer game on the challenge mode.

I came across another small bug with the retro challenge mode. During the RANSOM challenge mode intro, you can spam the action button and it won't trigger magna save. However during the retro mode challenge intro, a press to the action button will trigger magna save while the intro plays (before the ball is served). I often press the action button to select the mode and if not careful, the press to start the retro challenge mode will also trigger magna save before the ball is ever served into the shooter lane.

I've joined the club! Picked up a pro and couldn't be happier. It's the closest I have to a music pin and I'm really glad I have it hooked up to my sub; this soundtrack is awesome!

You can choose the alternate soundtrack as an option too - to mix it up a little.

rd

Welcome to the club.

Yeah, this one fills my music pin need as well. Soundtrack is amazing. Powered sub brings out nuances of the voice in particular I find..

Congratulations!

I need the tiny screw that holds the plastic into the ball lock in the upper play field , I’m using that huge screw to hold it into place .. can anyone tell me where to get that part? Please pm me

image (resized).jpg

<blockquote

ace, or true value?

Nope

I am, on the pro. Big problem for me on location here. This is with connected installed / running.

Anyone ever had an issue with the flail hitting the ramp. I've noticed some marks on the ramp and dismissed it as the flail interacting with the ball against the ramp, but today I could audibly hear the flail smacking the ramp while spinning in high speed??? is there an adjustment for this? Game has under 300 plays so still pretty new.

Check the screws attaching the ramp to the playfield. They may be loose and lifting the ramp up towards the flail.

The LE shows a limited number of 600 units. Does anyone know if 600 LE versions were ever made?

Mines No. 553 so probably?

I have never seen anyone with LE # 1 on any machine.

I like the update. The added play options are a welcome addition and easily understandable for everyone without any rules knowledge.
(Wife loves it!)

Thx Tim!

Number 569 checking in! Who’s got higher?

10AC15E5-1A6D-4F5C-8DCC-251C370369B3 (resized).jpeg

New code

V1.12 - December 16, 2021
==========================
Fixed:

- Fixed an issue that could cause the bonus effect to play again for an
earlier player in a multi-player challenge mode if a later player had left
drop targets down before their challenge mode timed out.

- Fixed occassional crash in attract mode on connected games.

- Moved to System 3.01

- Moved to OS v2.6.0

-----------------

Downloading now and will install later tonight.

A bit disappointed those are the only two fixes given several other things were reported from 1.11.

Still nothing on the Deep Freeze scoring either, which continues to puzzle me.

Where is the added multiball for the pro?

I wonder if they skip numbers along the way.

Almost 600

20201128_151804 (resized).jpg

What makes you think they will add a multiball for the pro? Very unlikely imho.

lame update! Was at LEAST hoping for a visual cleanup of the awful PLAYERPLAYERPLAYERPLAYER graphic taking the whole bottom of the screen

Thats not going to go away. That’s what you will see on all Spike 2 games that are Insider Connected ready. So when it’s four player and all four are signed in to IC, you see their respective IC names instead of ‘Player’.

Apparently you can change a setting "max number of players" to 1 and get a single score that is centered.

Very cool to hear it this way

I was originally thinking this might be related to a current limitation of the IC framework integration. Perhaps it wasn't currently possible to clean that up until the IC team opened up more options to the game devs. But I did a comparison this morning of my JP Pro and BK Pro which both have had their code updated to support IC and was surprised to see the difference.

On ball 1, both have "Press Start" spread across the screen, inviting players to join. However JP is polished so much nicer. It's in a more suitably sized font and it also toggles between "Add Player" and "Press Start", which removes the obnoxious nature of the large static text. On top of that, the borders around the text blend in so nicely with the HUD that it looks natural. BK however looks like minimal effort with some red boxes overlayed and not natural to the rest of the HUD at all. Why can't the nice studded gold borders from the rest of the UI be used here?

player_up_compare_bk_1 (resized).jpg

player_up_compare_jp_1 (resized).jpg

On ball 2, JP stands out even more polished. On BK, we get 3 empty boxes across the screen (Why!?). On JP, we get just the player 1 score without empty boxes spread across the screen. The HUD looks so much better.

player_up_compare_bk_2 (resized).jpg

player_up_compare_jp_2 (resized).jpg

Being curious, I switched to a two player game on JP to see if it would then put empty boxes across the screen - we are again treated to not seeing large empty HUD elements overlayed and instead the wall filling out with the player scores. If I had to be completely picky, the perfectionist in me would like to see the left border on P1 and the right border on P2 finished nicer with a small stone wall texture. But it's way better than the overlay that BK has.

player_up_compare_jp_3 (resized).jpg

I really hope the BK player elements can be cleaned up to have it fit more naturally with the rest of HUD.

Wow.. thanks for the information there.

I just got around to updating mine. Now noticing a audio stutter after end of the game over sequence and the theme plays again .

Such a toss up.. Connected play, and Challenge modes, and modified black knight rule (which my son hates.. lol).
-or-
A more polished game on the older non-connected code.

I wish we could know if_ we can expect any more code updates.. but I kind of have this sense that this is it. If so, that would make me quite sad.. but who knows.. I still try to be optimistic.

Please send Stern all of these errors you keep encountering. There are way too many for Tim not to fix.

I believe Insider Connected will continue to evolve over the coming 12 - 24 months (and probably beyond). So I'm sure we'll see future code updates to BK (along with all the other Spike 2 games) as the IC feature set grows and our games need to support them.

However after the last few updates, I now have little faith in Tim delivering anything of value those future updates. Especially the state 1.10 was served up in.

The issue you mention of the audio stutter - I emailed this through to Stern on December 5th (along with various other bugs from 1.10 and 1.11). None of them were fixed in 1.12, which was released 11 days later on the 16th.

Considering the bugs I've been reporting over the last 12 - 18 months have been left untouched, I guess I shouldn't be surprised?

I do hope I'm wrong. I've put a lot of details in the bug report emails I've sent through and offered multiple times to provide more information, screen shots, video, or any other help. I want this game to be bug free and polished - even if it doesn't have all the features I'd love it to have. But there is only so many times I can send through bug reports and see the issues ignored before it feels pointless.

I do mate, I keep trying The last bug report I sent was on December 5th which included a list of things from the 1.11 update, along with again asking about the scoring issue in Deep Freeze. I also emailed Tim directly at Stern a few days earlier (December 1st). No reply and none of the issues addressed in 1.12.

At this point I'm left wondering if the bug reports I've emailed to the Stern bug report address get passed along to the developer. Or if the developer just ignores them.

Has Tim ever taken the time to reply to any of your bug reports??? With the amount of details I have seen you write on them it must make his job much easier. What Tim gets paid to do and what he actually does at Stern are the opposite. Not pleased with his lack of performance or dedication to his job. Unless Tim fixes this mess, I will never buy another game code by Tim after this. At this point Tim has said F$%& You to all of us!

What the hell is wrong with you? Dude does his job. Blame Stern not him. Sorry your toy has caused you to shed tears and lash out like this.

Right, that is why the new code is in complete shambles. Not sure what occupation you undertake but if put out a product like this you would not last long in most any industry. You want to buy his half ass product go for it.

I love this game. It’s the underdog. Art is fantastic. Scott Ian (anthrax fan here) rocks the audio! Stever Ritchie flow. Code is *close*, but not quite where it should be. Let’s enjoy what we have as it will likely never be updated.

Well.. none of it is a deal breaker for me. It's definitely not code in shambles.. it is a fine playing game. For owners, we would love to see a few key identified items addressed, and the cosmetic polish put back after the connected updates...

The Challenge modes are quite great and good to have.

You bring up a good point tho.. in this current environment of collector and home buyers, the development team for these machines are really like rock stars. I know many who will purchase a game unseen, just by the fact that Lyman Sheats is the lead on software.

Likewise, many will avoid games where other software people are involved, where they have had a poor experience.

In that way, it really is a bit more personal than just blaming Stern. But is what it is.. as Wmsfan-GAP has stated, I'm just going to enjoy my game.

Code is very much not “close to where it should be.” There’re too many bad code spots in this game. For example the Ransom mode where it seems like there’s a lot to shoot for, but the reality is the easy flail up the middle is a million+ and blows everything else away making that a very boring mode. Or the fact that a super jackpot in the main multiball is a small fraction of a single mode shot.

The machine was a flop. People don't like unlicensed themes. They just don't sell well. I'm surprised Stern even updated the code to support the insider connected. I think it's unreasonable to attack the coder like he's saying F you by not spending his own time on a machine that his employer gave up on.

Not every game is going to be a masterpiece. Sell the machine, move on, get something you love. It isn't worth being angry about. Pinball should be fun.
I personally love my bk pro and think the code is fine. It isn't Wonka or Jurassic Park but I'm fine with that.

A quick question for you on this - which code version did you upgrade to?

I'm doing some bug hunting on BK today to tidy my notes up and noticed that audio stutter only happens now after your first game ends. After completing subsequent games, I don't hear it. But it's always there after the first game from start up. I'm running 1.12.

I'm pretty sure under 1.11 it was happening after each game.

The latest 1.12. I didn't notice it like this before on previous updates... I played two games and it happened in each one. I'll. Try to play some more tonight and verify.

I think you're playing on LE aren't you?

I'm on PRO, so it's possible the issue is slightly different between the models.

I really like the latest code only not the user interface they used. The comparison with JP in earlier posts shows what BKSoR is missing there. I would expect that just to be reusable code so maybe that can be included later. Next to that the machine plays great, the soundtrack is great, and you can choose an alternative version which is also very nice. The fights are awesome, again also there the roar on the start could be a bit more harder, like the t-Rex in JP. The challenge modes are welcome and just fun for casual players. I like knight multiball in the game, I like last chance, I like the Catapult mulitball stacking it with Triple Knight, it still has the best topper ever. I really like that the call outs can be set hard or that he goes soft on you. So much in this machine. I understand if this is the only game this will be hard but in any collection this game is great. It has a high one more play appeal. So any bug change is nice to have at this time. When you played the black knight you know you had a fight.