Big thanks for taking the time to give us a good view on how Bond feels and works shot wise. Great job!

Played about 10 games - total between the pro and premium.

I really like the game, and it shoots very well. Only thing that bothers me is the ball times - they were way to long across the board.

Looks fun Can’t wait to play.

I feel like Gomez recent games tend to have longer ball times. Deadpool, BM66, this it seems. My main complaint from watching streams is how long the ball gets stuck in pops.

That was my primary concern as well but people who have been playing it seem to suggest that it's not been an issue. Also, you can reduce the sensitivity on the pops by widening the switches so I think if it's a problem, there's a pretty simple solution.

I played a pro and premium at expo and it is fine. Not great and no Zilla by any means. Deadpool is better.

Ball times are ridiculously long...like boring long. I played a pro, then a premium and scored 209,000,000 in my first game.

I think with some programming and some adjustments it could get there.

Three words...

Add-A-Ball

I was confused on this as well. So the answer is no but why did they design the ramp like it does? I wonder if this was scrapped at some point.

Just an FYI, Gomez said pros on the line November and LEs early December.
I think we were thinking mid to late November on the LEs but sounds like that’s pushed back a bit.
I’m actually not complaining, even after 50 (probably) games on it, I think folks would be bummed not to have more modes coded at delivery.
I’m excited for everyone who is excited. I think this game is going to be a hit and although it may take a year, you can already tell the sound/video clips are going to transport you to 60s Bond.

Played the premium at the Denver show today - only got one game in because the line was long and games took FOREVER. Was a bit disappointed… but I enjoyed the one game I played.

I have a R911 and have only ever had the coupler on the copter break once. And once I had to replace the friction wheel.
Have had it for 20+ years. People just don't take care of them. When they are maintained they work fine.

Put about 6 games on the Premium at the Denver show this weekend...... Was hoping I would like it the more I played, but it fell really short for me.
The only action was the MI6 top lanes, pop bumpers. Rocket section was meh(just hit some drops and lock shot). Whole game just felt one sided, plain, and boring

Thanks for posting.

I love that Gomez is right there in his machines making sure they are running well.

I will never understand why people spend this kind of money on a game with crappy early code. The game you actually want may be years away, and yet you'll buy this machine, look at it, occasionally play it, but will always feel unsatisfied that it's not finished.

So ultimately, you're paying 12 grand for something which is ok now but promises to be awesome later. Bizarre.

In 2 more years it will cost you $2k more with all the price increases. Ha ha.

and lets not even talk about what the price of an LE may be....

We would all prefer that games shipped with their final (or very close to final) code in them already. That's not what is happening right now (at least for Stern). If you want an LE, you have to buy it at announcement (or likely pay more on the secondary market later). If you want a Premium or Pro, you can wait and see. If you love the theme and are going to get it no matter what, why wait?

As far as always feeling unsatisfied, there are obviously software updates that are coming so you can play and enjoy the game now, then play it more later when new features are added. It doesn't necessarily mean that the game is not enjoyable now. I think Bond, at code version 0.54(?), is probably an extreme example because of the compressed game development cycle due to Ritchie leaving.

Excited to see this code grow. Looks fun to me already! I don't get the "long ball" complaint.

Man, love the idea of this. But honestly, hate the artwork for the cabinets.

I am a lover of the older movies, but having the artwork be specific for a movie title, while the game itself covers all bonds... Just seems very strange to me.

This game covers 6 movies, all with Sean Connery.

oh, I must have gotten that wrong then. I saw the Spectre lights and thought it was based on that movie.

I still dont like the single movie theme per model of machine.

I'm often puzzled by long ball time comments-not just here but on other modern games as well.

If players want a game with deep code, how can it can simultaneously have short ball times? How would one ever get to experience the code?

If players want short ball times, why not just buy an EM with 2" flippers and save some money?

I think the better way to say it is, a long time where the ball isn't on the flippers. I have not played this game, but from watching the stream one of them (I think Mike) has a ball last 2 minutes and never once did he hit the flippers. It went into pops and drained down the left outlane, ball save served up again and drained down the left outlane after going through the pops for FOREVER.

"long ball times" bothers people waiting to play a game at a show but in reality it's what they want in their home environments.

If not, they'd be turning off ballsaves and extra balls, they'd stop setting their "replay award" to extra ball, and they wouldn't be whining constantly for "more code!!!," which as you say, makes zero sense if you want "short ball times."

The "long ball time" thing comes out EVERY single new release. They see guys on streams playing it and it's "long ball times!" They have to wait 20 minutes to play it at expo so it's "Long ball times!!!"

It's just another standard-issue, every-single-release complaint that doesn't really mean anything. it's basically comfort food around here. I mean, what's the last Stern game to be released that had "short ball times?" Iron Man? Remember how much everybody hated that game for the first few years? Operators still hate it; nobody wants to put money into it due to "short ball times."

I'm all about short and brutal games, but I'm a weirdo. I won't act like that's what most people want. They want somewhat easy fan layouts that play long due to multiple ball saves, multiballs, special modes where you can't lose the ball, etc... They want a super duper ultra wizard mode that maybe 1% of people ever legitimately get to (Stern is about to find out how many people actually see those modes with all this IC data they're collecting)

And I get it too. There is a Beatles I'm looking at nearby that I want to buy, but Idk if I really want to own one in the house...even though I do really enjoy playing that game.

We do that too.

See Ghostbusters or TWD. Great examples of games with short ball times.

Nothing worse than having long ball times and realizing that you arent close to beating any scores.

Id prefer a short game and if I happen to do well, that game goes long vs. all of them being long.

If that makes sense to you.

TWD is great. It's generally a short and brutal game that requires shooting a lot of dangerous targets, but it has a lot of ways to quickly rack up a score. It makes it a really fun game

Whereas I find something like Stranger Things a snooze... That game feels like a chore

If ball times are long because you’re playing well, that’s one thing. If they are long because the layout is too forgiving, or hangs up the ball, that’s a problem.

Anyhoo, looking forward to trying this one out either way.

tnmt too time ball fast, and people not like! i like time ball short, but too like time long, for this stern have that make one short and one long!!! ejejej. i have 2 and 2, and i play one and one, iron maiden and munster, or godzilla a tnmt.

Does anyone know how the music licensing for a pinball machine works? Gomez said the music license holder wanted more money for the Goldfinger song than the entire Bond license costs (so they did not get that song). If I buy the song for personal use I can get the MP3 on Amazon for only 89 cents (and that includes Amazon's cut) so why should it be more to put it on a pinball machine (per game)?

Alternatively, why can't Stern just make a feature on new games where we can load our own songs and can swap out the default music?

Because you're buying it for personal use vs putting it on commercial coin operated equipment where a large number will end up in public

Didn't Stern let people change the music some in Mustang?

And I assume you can't add music because of licensing agreements. It's probably their demand, not Stern's unilateral decision, to disallow and discourage that sort of modification. If people can just add licensed music, then why would Stern pay to license stuff? So the licensor is against it

Actually it is not: I have several games I enjoy BECAUSE they have short ball times. There are days I want to do nothing more than rack off a fast game or two and call it good.

Anything over 15 minutes and some boredom starts kicking in.

I'm talking about your average modern NIB home buyer.

They want long playing, high scoring games.

Good points.. there’s no excuse, really. it’s all software and can be developed the same way a Jukebox option is inserted into code.. at the very least they could just be sure all new code improvements can still be opened in Pinball Browser.. it would just take a minute for the programmer to check that and especially if now Gomez admitted the song licenses are too expensive even though the game is costing us a fortune. They could just design it, leave the music out of that mode and make no assertion that Goldfinger should be inserted there, for example, let us do it. Easier to code too. Fact: There’s no music for the mode in the code already! So note to Gomez, just leave it as it is and please just make sure we can add it if desired.

I'll take your word for it, most "normies" I know have the attention span of a squirrel though.

That being said, most normies think spending over $500 for a pin is insanity so there is that. I can usually give them palpitations by rattling off pricing on various titles for entertainment.

I'd agree for sure. I like classics and system 11s for my short games. For modern games I'm generally looking for something I can spend some time on and won't see all of without putting in some good time. My buddy just got a Halloween and I've been playing it a bit at his place. The games go a bit long but I've enjoyed seeing the different modes and getting a feel for the rules.

I don't have the timestamp, but Gomez on the reveal stream about this topic said (paraphrase) It doesn't have this song, but I am sure you all will figure it out. So he's all but said he thinks we should hijack the code to add it, even though its explicitly against the EULA. So I have to imagine there are some licensors that want things locked down more than Stern cares about having them locked down.

I took it as less about encouraging it vs acknowledging people are going to figure out how regardless

FYI, Amazon Prime customers: The James Bond movies now say "Leaving Prime on November 4." Watch/stream them while you can!

Yes.. and legally if they can ship the game out with code unfinished? With no songs required for the different movie modes? I don't see any way that it can violate any EULA. If this is the case and they insisted that Stern use the soundtrack songs, imagine how much the 60th version would cost with many more movies. They are paying for some of the songs from the movies, but with the songs they have secured so far, some movie modes would not have the corresponding theme song for it so everything else as of now is just the James Bond theme mixed over. I'm hoping if they won't leave it open, that they'll have and Orchestrated version for Goldfinger & Thunderball as those are the 2 songs that Gomez said they couldn't secure the rights for as they were too expensive.

Yes, I think someone will.. just lately with the new code releases written for Insider connected, it hasn't been as easy to play with the software as before. We don't know if this is intentional or not but I don't think it's intentional, I just think it's because Pinball Browser hasn't been updated in a while, so it's not recognizing a new format from Stern. Which is why I mentioned that if not intentional then Stern could easily check this as well.

When you beat Last Man Standing in TWD the ball times can be a marathon, unlike any mode I’ve ever played before.

You gotta kill a ton of zombies, the way it should be, and it wears your ass out!

Except for Star Wars, "Flash Drains Gone in a Blink!" but it kills on location and once its flow is controlled its long ball times but before that...Flash! haha

You are wrong good sir, Stranger Things is fantastic. And therefore very hard to find these days.

It’s cool if you like it. Enjoy it

I’m thinking the Distros have had enough time now to collect the LE $$$.

Time to show off the 60th anniversary game!

Gomez said last Tuesday “about a week”

Thought just crossed my mind as well....would make for an interesting Tuesday...