Yes! I own the extended blu-rays. It's certainly a must to watch them indeed! All 3 movies have extended scenes that are worth watching, from the market scene where Bilbo buys his dinner trout, to the Goblin Town King song, to the rolling chariots with automatic crossbows! The extended dialog with Beorn is also great, as it explains why he ends up participating in the final battle.

Edit: Oh, and let's not forget the actual fight between the Elves and the dwarves from the iron hills. The dwarves have clever machines that stop arrows in mid-flight. Fantastic.

Question for all you Hobbit owners: has any of you ever removed the head from the machine (and how difficult is it)? How much of a difference does it make (how much does the head weigh)?

Thanks in advance. I'm looking to possibly buy one and can take a regular pinball machine with my appliance dolly on my own. However, taking a Hobbit upstairs on my own does scare me. Usually my wife spots me when pulling them upstairs, but not looking forward to killing her with this one.

Its easy, just label the connectors with a sharpie.

The head doesnt weigh much, but it helps to remove it.

Pulling the playfield does wonders!
But its a real pain.

This game is heavy. If you are doing it alone, video it so you can show the emergency dept. They could do with the laugh about now.

That's why I'm asking about the backbox. If it sheds 50-60 pounds and gets this machine to around 300lbs or less, then we have a chance.

Call a few friends over. Provide Pizza and Beer, and make a mini party out of it.

About the playfield dimpling..
I also have normal dimpling. It's fine. It's the new Stern cratering that is not good. I have seen it. I think it's a combination of too powerful of flippers (which in the case of my Deadpool, you can't adjust the power), and uncured clear coat that Stern's fast production allows. Also, some games just have worse air balls. Also, there is the rare occurrence of softer plywood. I have noticed that the playfield in my DP is thinner than my Hobbit and ACNC as well. Hobbit was not know for clear coat issues like POTC and Wonka however, so I wouldn't worry about purchasing a Hobbit. It's the best value in pinball right now IMO!

Agreed. I would grab a friend or two to help out. It is very heavy, and it is nice to have an extra set of hands on it just in case.

Question,
I have a medieval madness remake and was wondering if this plays similar or not. Mainly because of the popping up “trolls”. Was wondering about trading my MMR one day for a hobbit. Both have great fantasy themes to me. I have never even seen one of these games in person. It looks great on youtube, for some reason my friend who has 90 pins doesn’t like this game at all. He thinks it is beautiful, but not a shooter. His opinion. I have heard with the latest code, it is great.

Any honest opinion would be appreciated in helping me to decide to keep MMR or trade one day for this pin.

Thank you

I just recently bought a MMR Royal which is really nice. Hobbit is much more "fun" in my opinion with the extensive amount of modes, super good code, and the theatrical genuine themed content. You need to give it about 20 pkays to see how good it is with a vast variety of modes and the 3 wizard modes. MMR Royal is really cool and we like it, but Hobbit is such a different kind of game. If you're in pinball primarily for competition and tournaments and that is your primary fun, then you might not like it because you are thinking down a different street. It can be a long physical workout battle that isn't repetitive (for the most part) and if that sounds like fun, this might be more down your alley. This is a good game for a home environment. Maybe not so at a public location. Just my 2 cents.

I agree. Very different games altogether. MMR is a less “serious” game imo. You can just play on location and have a good game. Hobbit is an adventure game and will take you on a long journey. Hobbit is a perfect home environment challenge but terrible on location.

I really recommend you get a few games on it before you buy it. Opinions range from "It sucks" to "It's amazing!" and everything in between. If you haven't played a JJP you certainly are missing out. All of them are perfect for home use.

Yeah Hobbit and Houdini are out of our Sunday comps because the other groups have to wait too long for good games to end. still much loved round here, but not suited to competition play.

Just tore down Hobbit. Vacuumed, cleaned, waxed, and put all GITD Titans on. Also installed all the Cliffys. Took about 8 hours. Out of all 5 of my games. This one was the longest and most difficult to dissasemble/reassemble. Shooting like a dream now.

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The GiTD rubbers work well with the side blades. Pretty tempted on the blades. Really looks great in photos.

Well that sounds like the kind of game I like. My friend is all about tournaments, I just want to play and have fun. Still miss my former Taxi pinball that my friend hated it. And I enjoy my Stern JP for the , at times, long games.

If I can find one, definitely will be trying one out. Maybe there will be one at the Winston Salem game auction this fall, if that still goes on. So far, I’ve only bought 2 games without trying them first, Sterns Black Knight and JP. Love JP, liked BK.

If I find out I love it, maybe MMR will go up on the block for the funds and space or sell my Evel Knievel and put the Hobbit and MMR next to each other!!

I joined the club this Morning. Picked up locally. Just have to go through it and clean it up and fix a few minor things.

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What games would you say are similar to Hobbit in terms of immersion/scope/adventure feel? I'm thinking WoZ and maybe Pirates? Probably not a lot out there like this.

Houdini is the closest i own so far. But in saying that, i've never played a game with the level of immersion that The Hobbit has.

Nothing. It's on a whole other level.

Kinda sounds pretentious, but I think it's true also. The more I play other games, the more I agree with this statement.

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This question almost feels limited to other JJP games because of the video and sound integrations? Not sure if the still remains true or not but TSPP and LOTR were (are?) still considered two of the hardest machines ever produced. I feel both of those do a fantastic job of what you feel the Hobbit offers but in their own special way of course.

Sort of off topic but I feel with pinsound being available, if a person did a conversion kit for LOTR like that one dude was doing for TRON (LCD and movie integration) it would absolutely bring LOTR up to the HOBBIT level in all aspects.

And if i had some ham i could have some ham and eggs if i had some eggs.

Guys... please help. I've combed over this whole thread looking for binding help on the pop ups, and all I can see over and over is Pinballinreno suggest over and over to bend a black metal piece towards the back of the playfield. I've looked this thing over for half an hour and have zero effing clue that that even means. Can someone PLEASE tell me what parts must be binding? I'm super mechanically inclined, and I'll be damned if I know where the issues are happening or what this "this black weldment" even looks like. HELP!

I tell friends that it feels like LOTR... Your're on a quest. You're battling.
The loop/spinner shot that shows you traversing the terrain is brilliant.

And I love how you get a 'Map Bonus' for your completed mode as long as you are at or ahead of the location where the mode occurred.

The black metal is the mech cartiage itself.

It consists of a lower bracket and an upper sliding assembly.

The upper part can be easily bent slightly from shipping.

This keeps it from dropping properly.

Its soft steel that can be straightened by slight careful bending.

You want to bend it at the point where it binds to straighten it out.

Proceedure:

Raise a troll mech physically with the power off.

Grip the raised mech from the top of the playfield.

Wear a glove if necessary. The flap is very sharp.

Physically raise and lower the mech to see where its binding.

When you feel the area or height where it binds:

Physically push the mech forwards towards the backbox or rearwards towads you to bend it slightly.

Raise and lower, push back and forth until the mech drops like a rock

Also there is a blue plastic washer that helps guide the mech rod as it goes up and down in the assembly. I have found that if the mech isn’t centered well it could ‘catch’ here instead of where it touched the play field opening.

Also take care to not push too hard on the soft metal behind the beast as it will force it up against the switch and it will be to rigid or worse be right on the leaf switch.

For those of you with Hobbits at home, how do they do with casual players? Kids?

Very well, however, you can't just have them go straight to understanding all the rules and ALL of the modes. Way too much there. I just have them focus on two things. Hitting the rollovers and hitting the right ramp to start Smaug mutliball. Once they get that down I have them shot for the spinners and the drop targets, then to how to start modes. And that is enough for new players and kids to last for a while.

My son is 6 and loves the game. My 10 year old nephew visited in July and probably put 100 games on it in three days.

For casuals, you need to guide them some. You can't just spray the ball everywhere in this game and make progress like a Bally Williams game. Having the flow chart printed out really helps when having new players try the game.

There is plenty of interest for casual players.

In my gameroom people just love to bash monters!

If they just do that, they claim victory!

Also i enable fresh daily scores so they can put in initials.

Invariably theres a competition based on the daily scores.

What a difference a quiet case fan makes! I just replaced mine, and it is well worth the small expense.

Tell me more! What is a quiet case fan? Where do I get one? How do I install it?

Computer fan, same size as what you want to change in your game.

Computer part stores. Quiet fans can be found, usually cost a lot more than noisy ones.

Youtube how to build computer videos. Remove the old. Stick in the new.

LTG : )

Any 80mm pc case fan will work. Most people like noctua because they are made to be very quiet. If you replace the stock one, I recommend connecting it to the sysfan header on the motherboard. JJP directly wires their fan to power, but the motherboard will throttle the fan and it’ll be even quieter.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NEMG62M/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_6BatFbYDAYZ68

They want the fan running at top speed for non-stop commercial use.

Home use, you can easily get away with fan throttling.

Thanks for all the answers. I know what I’ll be doing next weekend now. When I’m not playing TH of course

Thanks for the link - I'll have to give it a shot

This mod works wonderfully to quiet down the game when you're not playing it. Mine sits behind me all day in my office, so this was quite welcome! I connected it to the motherboard connector as well and that was very simple with no wiring mods needed.

Question: Where exactly is the ball supposed to go once fired from the Windlance (automatically)? I've been bending the shooter rail to try to get it to feed the upper flipper, but is it supposed to hit the rubber part of the flipper, or go slightly past it up into the lane above the upper flipper? Mine goes up the lane about 30% of the time and 70% of the time right into the flipper which it bounces off of. Thanks!

You'll never get a consistent place where that fires too however theoretically it should "mostly" go into the right orbit. Go into the menu system and increase the coil power until it "more reliably" puts the ball into the orbit.

I believe the best part of this game is it's fairly easy to get a multi ball going and the video/audio announcement excites kids. It makes them feel "rewarded". The other thing to do is to reset the HOF. Kids really feel proud when they get to put their name/initials into it.

Unfortunately I do not believe you can change the strength of the Windlance via the coils menu.

Yes you can. I adjusted mine. You want it to go up the right orbit some and then feed back down to the upper flipper. It's adjusted via the kickback strength setting.

I tried that setting but it doesn't appear to actually do anything. It is also odd that it says "time in milliseconds" as the number that is being adjusted for that. Why doesn't it have a strength value like the other coils?

Wrong setting. That is the delay time from when the ball triggers the switch until the kickback fires. It allows the ball to settle so you get a more consistent kickback feed.

Interesting what is it called then because it is listed as "kickback strength" lol. Losing my mind!

Also, what shaker motor strength are people using? I have mine set to high, but not to "extreme" or whatever, because I was concerned by the warning on it. Is it actually risky to use that setting?

Anyone have any tips in getting the battery out? I’ve taken coin cells out of all my games but this battery is flush with the casing it’s in and no way to pull out. Knicked my hand so many times on the fan. Game was nib 4yrs and a few months so time to replace. Any ideas are welcomed.

Can you put a piece of tape on it to grab it and slide it out ?

LTG : )