There is a magnet near the top of the orbit which can catch the ball, then drop it into the subway. The subway has two paths (to either of the VUKs), and according to the feature sheet the subway path will be player controllable.

Wow. Sounds bitchin! Must not be coded yet? I really hope we see some significant code updates pile in soon on this game.

I did notice that hitting the back subway behind Smaug (not the left VUK) lead to one of the VUK holes. Maybe it is already programmed and we just don't know how it works? IE, if you hold a flipper while the ball is in the subway it diverts.

Jen just called. Mine may arrive Friday and I am not a business. Woot!

They are moving the pins away from the widows to the upper part where the pacman and DK machines are. Should help with glare.

Congrats! If I wasn't at college, I'd ask to give it a try! My distributor said early to late May for my Hobbit. Anyways, take lots of pics of the unboxing!

Jen told me today, that either Friday, or early next week. Im a regular customer too.

What was your Order date?

jinx !!

Am I the only one noticing double or even triple posting is rampant on Pinside lately? Gotta be some issue with mobile access.

And that has to be it as my phone didn't show I had posted above so it's easy to see why people keep clicking "send post"

It's just because people are getting told to expect their hobbits this week or next, people going crazy clicking send with excitement

iPads and mobile devices aren't working properly. You click Send Post and nothing happens so one does it again and it actually is posting every time.

It's doing it my computer as well. But yes, you need to hit send then refresh

That was my pervading thought the entire time I was playing it.

I am a day 1 order.

I'm anxious to see a pinsider here gets theres, crank up the flippers and the angle and compare the speed.

If weak flippers is the only dig on the gameplay, this thing is a winner for sure!

My wife walked away, shrugged and said "Maybe I just don't like widebody machines..." Which sucks, because I'd like an Embryon and at least one of Heighway's offerings.

I too would like to play it with the flippers jacked to the 9's. The first AMH I played was in a personal collection with the flippers cranked the whole way up and I was blown away by it. I've played a half dozen different AMH since then but none were nearly as impressive. It's probably more wear and tear though so I could understand why one wouldn't be set up that way on location.

I think theres something more satisfying about hitting a shot the rockets to the top of the playfield.

I watched a bunch of ghostbusters video today and speed of the ball coking off the flippers its starkly different from watching the TH vids.

It's a bit surprising after all the crap about WoZ flippers that JJP wouldn't have erred on the side of MORE POWER and cranked the babies up.... Hell, pre-order a set of trolls right now, it'd be worth it!

Hopefully we'll have some unboxing and gameplay vids early next week from pinsiders to compare.

Embryon is AWESOME, but definitely feels like a widebody. FullT is really good from what I've played, but it DOES NOT feel like a wide body. That game isn't for everyone, but certainly don't turn it away because you fear it feels like other widebodies...it doesn't.

Definitely was a glitch on pinside. I'm posting from my PC and it was not showing it. Hence the double post.

Let your wife play Stern Big Game and she will see how fast a widebody can be!

Cough...that's a Big Game.....Cough

LOL, too many windows open.......

Haha yeah Embryon embodies (sorry) the genius of a widebody that doesn't need to be fast to be challenging. I almost bought one this year but I have too many other machines I want more. I've had the itch to check out FullT and even tried to catch it at Kickback in Pittsburgh last time I was out there but they had just pulled it and put a cherry BoP in it's place.

Funny thing about that, there's a BG where we were playing The Hobbit this past weekend. I suggested she try it but I don't know if she did or not. She's obsessed with EBD right now but I put quite a few plays on it. The theme isn't for me at all but it's really a fun machine!

She's got good taste.

EBD is better than most DMD games.

The Twitch stream of a Hobbit about 2 hours ago said otherwise (compared to a lot of the reports). It looked like it was playing very quickly, and the slingshots looked absolutely nuclear ... pf was raked at a considerable angle by the look of it too. It really did look VERY fast.

LE #947 now on way. Changed my mind after watching light show again/recent pics/and rulesheet.. should be here next week!

Link?

Congratulations! Sounds like ours are on the same truck.

https://www.twitch.tv/seedees_pgh/v/54816122

PF visibility wasn't the best as they hadn't yet found a way to change the relevant webcam brightness / contrast and highlights were blown out, as they were streaming on a Mac. You can definitely see how much faster it is than some of the other ones we've seen though, and how fast the ball was shooting off the slingshots. It certainly wasn't struggling to get up the ramps. Multiball modes looked manic.

If you have concerns about the table being slow, I'd say they're irrelevant subject to setup of the game.

Re-read my post, I'm not saying it can't be set up fast - but I don't judge games based on Twitch streams, I go play them. I have yet to play a fast Hobbit, even typing that made me chuckle.

She's got better taste in pins than men, I'll say! EBD, Centaur, Sea Witch, TX Sector, Fireball.. Those are the games she wants right now but she's stuck with my dumb ass.

We had a blast playing the Hobbit at our weekly pinball tournament at Joystix in Houston last night.

shameless plug
www.joystixgames.com

Anyone get a price on an extra red Smaug to go with the SE? Not loving the gold Smaug...

Can understand if they need to ship it later until they have extras on hand...

. thanks.

Looks beautiful and looks real nice to shoot/play. GB also looks great and fun to shoot/play, which is just as good for the people waiting with orders as it is for pinball as a whole, after a pretty shitty year last year with one thing and another for a lot of people and the hobby in general it's looking like 2016 is going to be an awesome year with great games and success stories hopefully, and the next couple weeks are going to hopefully be especially sweet when Hobbits start showing up at doors

Finally! I got an email a few days ago that they put a Hobbit on the floor at Pinball Wizard in Pelham, New Hampshire. So I drove up there after work.

I played about 2.5 hours of Hobbit, and I had a blast! That is a pretty cool game. It has a lot going on, and it has a lot of subtlety as well.

The main Multiball is fairly easy to get. Just like WOZ, it is on the rollover switches, so it qualifies itself. The only time I shot for it was for the last lock, or near the end of a game. I was going for the jackpots at the ramp (alternating).

The orbit shots were pretty tight. Even after playing it a while I was having trouble hitting them.

Modes. Yup, there are a lot of them! Some were fairly simple (hit the right ramp for a hurryup), and some were complex. There is one change I don't like, and that was mode instructions. They seemed more clear on the LCD last year.

Postpone the lock? Yeah. The ring button allows you to switch off the lock light and start a mode instead. I really found that interesting with the strategy. I wasn't sure which was better, carrying the mode into the Multiball, or starting it during. I didn't quite figure out the launch sequence with the arrow and the moving bar on the windlance, but I'm sure I will at some point.

One complaint I had was the left VUK. It still misfires. This was an issue on the prototype, so I was surprised to see it on a production machine. It happened at least 10 times.

The feel of the game is even better than WOZ. It just had a really nice feel to the whole thing. I might have added a degree of pitch and a notch of flipper power. But clean shots hit the ramps fine.

It is a game of long shots. Precise shots were rewarded, and there was a bit of swearing at bad shots. There was nothing unfair though. Plenty of different skill shots, and I enjoyed competing for a few games on it. Overall it was worth the drive. I think it is going to be a good solid game.

image_(resized).jpg

Extra Smaug toys are $200

I got the Smaug Edition - but I ordered an extra Smaug head (in red). Think it was 200 bucks.

It's my understanding that you get to choose which one you want. It's only a charge if you want an extra which was as mentioned somewhere in the $200 range (although I thought it was north of $200).

Thanks..thinking I need the gold for down the line if I ever sell need it for completing the SE (if it turns out to really be desireable)..

No. JJP confirmed on a few occasions that the LE features the red Smaug, while the SE is brushed gold. The heads aren't interchangeable. I don't think JJP wanted to murky the build process by mixing in different heads for different machines.

I forgot to mention, the sound. PW is great because they are always there. So if needed, they would have adjusted the volume. However, they had it loud enough.

The sound on TH was really well done. It flowed well all the way through the game. It was booming when it should have been and more subdued as it stayed on script.

Also the lighting is much improved from WOZ. The overall GI was plenty bright. I was actually happy to see that the Replay effect of the green and white lights was the same as WOZ.

Mylar. Yeah, it's got Mylar. I did see a few slow moving balls effected by it. The first time I thought it was a divot in the playfield because it was moving slow and totally changed direction, but then I saw it. Slings, inlanes, in front of the popups. Kind of all around.

Oh, and the barrels splashing on the book screen was a cool effect. I'm glad they opened that shot to the pops during the redesign as well.

I'm looking forward to playing it again.

Nice write up Dave! Did they have a GOT premium??? That's it, I am going this weekend!

Still not there