As I see it, the long term issue with this feature will be the obsolescence of the phone platforms themselves. Is JJP going to keep the app updated for all future versions of Android or iOS? Will the version of the BT protocol implemented in the game be compatible with the phones being sold over the next 10 - 15 years? It wouldn't stop me from buying the game, but it will be interesting to see how this feature survives in this title over the long haul.

Already has this i believe, lasers shoot your flippers and they disable momentarily. That's what the wizard blocks inserts are for.

If they're smart they'll make the app a general JJP app, with more features than just Dialed In integration. I didn't download the app, does it have anything else?

After taking this all in for a few days here's my take:

I agree the name should have been Quantum City. At the end of the day, that won't affect how the game plays.
The game is classic Lawlor through and through. Love it or hate it -- this game is Pat's DNA. IMHO - I love it.
The $9k price point is up there. Hopefully the Standard Edition will be a little more price-competitive, but I can understand JJPs desire to grab the money they can get now from those who are willing to pay for it. That's why they're in business. Market conditions dictate pricing and I have no issues with what they are doing. If people are willing to pay it -- then so be it.

Most importantly to me -- the game was at Expo. Several of them were there. They were playable and the code looked pretty good. For the people bitching about being let down by theme or whatever else -- it is s very easy to be critical of a game that you can actually see, hear and play and form an opinion about.

Compare that to other games "revealed" behind ropes with blinking attract mode lights. I give Pat, Ted and everyone at JJP credit for bringing multiple copies of their creation to the show floor and letting the public have at it. No matter what you think of the game, they delivered.

You just made me realize that on top of the other things that had to be developed for this game, JJP also had mobile app development costs on top of everything else.

Aliens all the way, kiddie theme vs Sci Fi horror is a no brainer but Dialed In does look like a fun game, I wouldn't want in my home, or near my bedroom where my wife sleeps, where my children come and play with their toys.

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I disagree. Get creative! Just cause you're flipping with your phone doesn't mean you need to play it like a cell phone video game (i.e. Stationary and motionless). Use your hips! Your knees! Heck, use your elbows. Playing reverse flipper mode games means changing your stance; and so should playing cell phone multiball. I admit, I was turned off by the feature when I first heard about it; but the more I think about it, and seeing that video, the more I like it. Especially if you get scoring bonuses playing it that way and can choose whether to do it or not.

I can see a lot of non pinhead friends getting a kick out of that feature, and I can see myself (above average player) having fun with it trying to maximize scoring and getting very involved and intimate with the game

From reading all the Dialled In threads, all the way from Australia, I’ve come to the following conclusions:

• Almost everyone who has actually played the game (with the code only 20 percent complete) loves it
• People would rather pay less for it, and there’s a lot that people don’t understand yet about gameplay, pricing, timelines, etc
• The name, theme and much of the artwork and sound impress very few

My thoughts:

• Having pre-ordered both WOZLE and THLE sight unseen, I remain blown away by how well they play. Gameplay is astonishing, and that’s with significant code still to come on TH
• JJP is still to come up with a “must have” theme for me. Then again, of my other three machines, I’ve never seen the Addams Family or Bram Stoker’s Dracula movies, and I’ve never been white water rafting (WH20). It’s all about gameplay, and those machines have it in spades.
• I do have Ghostbusters premium on order and I DO love the theme, but the rule about gameplay still stands.
• In both previous games, JJP has significantly refined what was originally shown to the public. I’ve played a WOZ mule and it was pretty to look at but not 1/1000th of what the game eventually became. I hate to say “trust Jack and his team”, but “trust Jack and his team” ...
• Pricing is a difficult one. I won’t be putting money on DI just yet, and that’s because I’ve bought three NIB machines over the past few years. But those purchases tell me something – new pinball machines are worth buying again.
• With more than one manufacturer, we have real and healthy competition out there; so much so that people can be complaining about the prices they are being asked to pay in a booming market rather than how to offload a dog of a game in a contracting or even dying market.

You know what else could be really cool? If the machine could also act as a Bluetooth controller. Then you could hook it up to a VR device and play VR pinball using an actual machine to control. When I was trying out The Pinball Arcade on GearVR, I tried standing in fron of my Stargate and it felt pretty cool when I did that and had my hands on the machine. I even instinctively pressed the flipper buttons while playing, even though they weren't connected!

Interesting idea. I don't know if I would like VR pinball but I could imagine that opening a world of interactive mods

Donnie suggested if you tilt, it snaps your picture, and has a wall of shame rotate on display

Ahaha this would be great.

The wall of shame could be ranked by how much bonus you lost.

Unfortunately I can quickly see the photo feature being abused by trolls and forcing many operators to turn it off. Somebody is going to end up putting dick pix and racist slogans up just to be a jerk.

The game only takes photos of you while you're playing, and it specifically uses face-recognition to do that, right? I'd imagine it to be kind of hard to do either while playing. I'm sure some jerk will find a way, though even then I'd assume that hopefully operators would have a way to delete photos.

Also if the tech is good enough for facial recognition I'm sure it could also filter out anything obsecene. Of course nothing's perfect.... but you would probably also have a photo of the offender.

I never imagined the day would come that a pinball machine might have to be programmed to visually recognize swastikas.

What are the 11 disasters?

Anyone have and pictures or seen the underside of this pin?

I built this for my Oculus Rift to use with Pinball FX. It plugs in via USB 2.0. It has a working plunger and mercury switches to simulate nudging. I even threw in some arcade controls on top to use with the retro video games. It works fantastically. Not quite real pinball but the closest thing you'll get currently in VR.

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It's not publicly available yet.

One thing I noticed on the game is that the quadcopters are those small ones you can find on ebay:
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ebay.com link: Cheerson CX 10A Mini Headless 2 4G 4CH 6 Axis RC Quadcopter RTF Drone Gift lot

Good on them to re-use a toy that has motion, not putting stationary hallmark toys on the playfield just to have them

According to Jack, the update that was supposed to be up Thursday night is the "final" Hobbit code. It's likely there'll be bugfixes and maybe small improvements, but it doesn't sound like we're getting revisions up to 6.0+ like WoZ. Seems like 2.0 is what they're calling complete for TH.

While I did enjoy the games I put on it at expo and I would play this game on location assuming it was working 100%, I won't be a buyer.
Cell phone is annoying and after all the sim city games over the years I've been totally disinterested in and never played, the game falls flat for me theme-wise.
I overheard Lawlor in a conversation with someone saying the game name "Quantum City" was kicked around awhile. I think that would have been a lot better than Dialed In, but what do I know.
I like the advancements they've made by moving hardware to the head with the telescoping monitor. They are headed in the right direction for sure.
Maybe the next one might make me open my wallet.

do those ebay drones really fly for $2? they do look the exact same as in the game. do they fly around under the glass, controlled by your phone?
I wonder if they're going to remove the drones for the standard version and take $500 off the msrp.

No, they are permanently mounted, and randomly turn on during the game. I assume they are feeding the same voltage the battery gives them. I didn't notice that they generated enough wind to change the ball path.

Doubt it. If they want to save money for a pro version later on, they'll use standard playfield glass, take out the shaker motor, maybe the headphone jack too.

The standard will most likely be no shaker no invisglass and stainless steel armor for minus 500 or so. Give or take. It's a guess, but since almost nobody ordered the Hobbit standards, I think Jack figured just announce the Collectors and Limited editions up front because when Hobbit Smaug and LE were announced they immediately started selling.

Gotcha, thanks.

Photobombing was a blast!

Holy crap those are cheap. I'd stick three on a game too for that price, you couldn't develop your own toy for that money.

So it's the return of the Demo Man handles then? Interesting, I hadn't heard the higher scoring part before.

Takes my picture? Facial recognition? Cell phone accessible? Wall of shame with a photo if you break the rules?
Are you kidding? Quantum Furby. I won't comment on the price,and all the cool machines I could have for one shipped.

The possibilities are fascinating. I think some people are judging the value of the new gadgets, like phone integration, based on what is known. But JJP has shown tremendous support for code updates, so what is announced today may have little resemblance to the final code. Pat Lawler and Keith Johnson just got some new toys, and I'm betting we haven't seen the half of it.

I guess I'm a JJP fan.

If the name was "Dialed In Enterprises" and the "D.I.E." acronym I'd imagine that would solve the whole naming issue. Simple translite swap.

One observation about the camera.. beyond it being integrated in the game, I'm willing to bet there will be an option to view live video feed. If you listen to east side pinball's podcast, they have a camera system to monitor their games off site. If suddenly your machine is sending you a text that it's being excessively tilted, you could turn the camera on and take a snapshot of the asshat that is abusing your machine.

Tilting happens but this idea could be really valuable for example with an unauthorized coin door entry.

Great to hear, I'm glad it's being enjoyed by the masses.

I don't know it there are more points but - (From the Rule-sheet linked to on IPBD)

There are a few secret awards from the triggers ...

All combos made by using the triggers as flipper buttons award an additional 1 million at fun with bonus.

Pressing both thumb buttons on the handles during a multiball awards the next Jackpot as a "Secret Jackpot" (not including super jackpots).

Pressing both thumb buttons when you get "Big Points/1million" from the top lock yields an "Eat at Joe's" graphic and 5 million points.

Pressing both thumb buttons *and* both triggers when you get "Big points/1million" from the top lock yields "WAG" for 10 million points.

Pressing both thumb buttons right after the third Capture Simon shot (when you've captured him) yields a 10 million capture bonus.

Pressing both thumb buttons right after hitting the second Retina Scan yields a great graphic of the prison warden getting his eye poked out and used for the retina scan ... plus 10 million. This is called the "Smithers" bonus after the character in the movie.

Pressing both thumb buttons right after getting the U-Look-Gr8-2Day gives you a 10 million "Feel Great" bonus

I'm sure Jack will be reading these threads for feedback. So Jack, do you mind if someone scans in the comic book for public distribution? I would like to read it and it can only help if as many people as possible understand the setup.

How many pages is this and I am hoping someone gets me a physical copy first but electronic at least.

Thanks.

Well done! That is awesome. I really want to do something like this for my Rift. Was it tough configuring the controls to be recognized in Windows?

With this new price structure, Oculus Rift may be my only hope.

Hopefully you can zoom in to read it.

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Perfect, a few fuzzy words but nothing I could not interpret. Nothing too deep where people "need" to read this. But okay, I get the setup.

Thank you.

Forgot to mention the weak flipper mode......
Very different then WOZ.
More of a stutter, and weak. It's inconsistent,
But very playable.
Short and infrequent enough to keep it' exciting!

That was you getting attacked during MB. Need to shoot the appropriate targets to ward off the attack.

Would be cool to see it animated in some way during attract mode.

Cute comic, sorta reminds me of Calvin and Hobbes. Still not sure what the phone does, though, I think that aspect could use some clarifying. IDK what I'd do with the power if I don't know what the power is!

Steve Bowden and the Buffalo Pinball guys are doing a piece on it so hopefully that will show it off better anyway.

Yes, this would be great!

My only comment is this...

When cars moved from mechanical to rolling computers, working on fixes at home became more or less impossible. A car can become inoperable because a computer sensor that nobody really needs...fails.

Owning a pin like this at home scares me because it strikes me as following the car model above.

??????

You do realize that EMs have been long gone and we have been doing just fine keeping games with solidstate technology running just fine for decades now???

I'm sure you will be able to purchase an in-home service plan for no more than 1K per year.

No worries.

Like I said...it's just an observation based on what I'm reading is packed into this pin, and I'm happy to be proven wrong.