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Next time we do a game with 4 interactive up/down targets, we'll be sure to design them 2' x 2' to get the requisite detail that film requires. (I don't know how we'll fit them under the glass or even inside of a cabinet, however.) In the meantime, I'm sorry you and others are disappointed with the approximately 1.5"x1.5"x.75" targets that Matt had to get approval for that you'll be viewing approximately 2.5' away which results in an effective viewing size of, I believe, .6-.7". Which also are, btw, interactive targets that a steel pinball can whack the shit out of that you don't even see a lot of the time.

Wow, we're just getting the full JJP staff on here tonight to put out this fire, aren't we? (at least 5 including the CEO himself ??) The company that just loves honest feedback, huh? It is constructive feedback. Do something with it instead of telling customers the parts are tiny and meaningless anyway. People see the 2" zombie heads Stern is showing off (which, by the way, are in the far back right corner of the game) and wonder why similar quality art is not in the actual game toys that JJP is showing. Was the witch just as meangingless in WOZ and that's why that toy was approved? A very clear way to improve your product has become apparent ... how long JJP remains in denial is up to them.

Here is a bottle opener that we had made in our warehouse that measures the same as what you describe. There were probably 40 of these made in a few days, for wrap gifts for various folks on the crew. It took one artist, and I realize this is not a very high standard either. But, this was just a fun wrap gift.

We shoot small items all the time and with high-def we have to be incredibly accurate with details. I think a lot of folks here expect the same.
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Can that thing take repeated abuse from a steel ball and not chip any detail or break off the nose?

Oh noes! An anonymous internet forum poster who isn't going to buy our product and has been on a personal vendetta against us for weeks is mad!

Since the Stern targets that you brought up seem completely noninteractive (perhaps I am wrong here) and always visible, they obviously had different design constraints than we did. I hope you enjoy your purchase of TWD.

No it can't. Nor, is it fragile.

But, it could be fabricated to take/handle abuse for sure

Honest to God ... if only there some mature employees at JJP who could handle criticism they might actually have had a future.

Because that quality of art cant be produced in a different material like the one Matt prefers? Is that your point?

Maybe not in those dimensions required for the pop-up...maybe the finer details would chip off? I'm not an expert here in sculpting or making toys, but those are legit reasons I would guess. Licensee approval is another...

That said, I do think the Orc and Goblin look off...but they still look ok.

Actually yours looks to be about 533% larger than what I described, but it does look quite nice.

Let me know when you want to have a constructive conversation and I'll think about it. Nothing in your posting history for the past month suggests that to be the case, however.

33%...

Why aren't highly detailed sculptures encased in a clear resin "tube or cube" so they can have the sh#t hit out of them and keep their ears and noses on?

Scratches in the resin can be easily polished off.

Solves the detail problem and the durability problem.

I think these will be just fine in light of the following:

- we are looking at them in isolation, close up, from one photograph, taken at one angle, and not in the game
- there were constraints on the design because of how they are to be used and placed in the game
- there were licensing constraints

The orc and goblin depicted are not the main characters in the film but are a representation of the many hundreds of orcs and goblins which appear in it. I think the main thing is that the bash toys look different enough so that they can be distinguished from one another and yet similar enough to their corresponding characters on the playfield (which I think they do):

playfield bash-toy comparison.jpg

If people had seen a picture of the MM troll in isolation several months before that game was released there may be a similar reaction. Remember also that TH will have four individual bash toys (that we know of so far) rather than two that are the same (like in MM). I think its great that so many different characters are being represented as toys in the game because it will likely make the machine more fun to play.

Matt's explanation of the design process was very interesting, thanks for that. I also applaud him and the rest of the team for coming on here and engaging in a dialogue with the public.

By the way, I actually like Matt's sculpting style. I think it's good that his toys look 'hand-made' and have an artisan flavour about then, rather than being super-slick and realistic. It will, no doubt, imbue the game with a certain feeling of warmth as his toys do on WOZ (especially when the extra "75th anniversary" mods are on the game). It is important that this style in maintained on all the toys throughout the game. In any case, the orc and goblin are supposed to be ugly although I actually think that the orc is a bit "easier-on-the-eye" than the example from the film which was shown in the picture that someone posted earlier.

Whatever people's opinions on these, how come Stern release an $8k WD pin with the cheapest, awful pop bumper caps and no one says a thing? I detest those pop bumper caps with the led's poking out. Doesn't stop me buying games as they can be modded but a free pass for those?

Because we got used to these things with Stern and gave up on having any influence on their decisions.

For JJP not all is lost yet and we are trying to stop them going down the same road as Stern.
Additionally JJP has the pretention of making the best pinball machines in the market themselves.

They just don't look as good as expected. It's not a deal breaker at all but there's nothing wrong with telling JJP how "the crowd" feels about these toys. And you must admit, some of the posts/comparisons are really funny, i feel very entertained by this thread.

The more I look at the photos comparing the sculpts to the originals, I think part of the problem is that the orc and goblin that the sculpts are based on are not only ugly misshapen creatures, but too similar.

If I remember correctly, the biggest difference between the orcs and goblins in the movie tended to be their size and weapons, which is lost when you're only looking at a head.

Because what was shown was still more than what was expected. Pop bumper caps aren't even on the radar.

Edit: One of the reasons JJP has my money and Stern doesn't.

These guys have been in the industry almost all of there lives, Im sure they have considered a steel ball smashing into there bash targets. Come on give them some cred!!!

its like worrying that Apple's new phone wont text correctly

Dude get out of here if you are going to start being disrespectful again. You don't want a Hobbit, already sold your spot and you have been bashing WOZ non stop for weeks now. Why keep posting in this thread?

My opinion of the pieces aside, it's one thing to give all these explanations of why they are what they are. And another to post them as the entirety of an update people have been clamoring for for months.... what did they expect?

update should have been something else, anything else...

This.

That's the drawback of revealing small things, one at a time. Waiting to see how it looks on a populated PF.

I really think posts that are very very anit-spirit of the thread should be banned from Pinside. I understand that there is an ignore feature, but it doesn't help the responses, etc.

At the end of the day, a nice conversation about the pros and cons of an idea are fine. But what this guy is doing here is just plain cynical.

This is one case where the mods needs to step in and put this kind of behavior to rest. It is adding no value to Pinside. If anything, it is annoying a lot of people and wasting a lot of time.

Please Pinside, put a fork in this one.

Will the game be out with the movie at the theaters? Or will it not be ready in time? I would think they should have it out the beginning of December? I am hoping this next hobbit movie is more exciting then the last one which was boring

Good call. I'm glad somebody mentioned the cheap crap Stern uses on their games. JJP had the first bumpers I'd seen that were sculpted, but everyone just takes that for granted now.

The Hobbit Troll, CraZ, is welcome to come to my house and play mine when he realizes how great the game is and can't buy one anymore. I'll even hand him some Kleenex.

Ok let's say per your example it took multiple people 3 days to make 40 of these. How long to make 12,000+ needed for the game? Seems like many years to me.

Is it just me or does the Orc look like Charles Barkley?

CharlesBarkley.gif

Or does Charles Barkley look like an Orc?

That's TURRIBLE...

Just to justify my math:

1.5 x 1.5 x .75 = 1.6875
2.25 x 2 x 2 = 9
9 / 1.6875 = 5.33333

I'm so glad someone else knows how awesome these guys are. Been a huge horror/pinball fan TWD is finally where both go hand in hand and I can get Greg to sign my pinball machine.

Regarding the Hobbit Matt with do a great job, looking forward to seeing the final product.

I can understand standing up for Matt and being defensive about some of the over the top comments here. But to look at the pictures posted and not understand why people excited about this game are disappointed is borderline delusional.

Uh...I wouldn't F with The Keef when it comes to math. Alex, either, for that matter...

If you were to mass produce you would not make each one by hand

By the way, if we end up breaking one of the bash toys (or after years of abuse they are smashed smooth) are they going to be easy to replace?

And by easy I mean: available, cost effective, and technically easy for the average Joe to replace on his machine.

Ready for the big reveal soon - go Jack!

I don't normally like to chime in on these sort of "rag on the company" kind of threads, but I think for me it basically comes down to an issue with consistency.

1) Whether you love it or hate it, the playfield artwork is photorealistic and straight from the movie (I personally love it)
2) The cabinet artwork is all from the movie, and very realistic.
3) The barrel pop bumper caps are extremely well done and could be straight out of the movie.
4) The Warg and Spyder are very well done, and I know exactly what they are the instant I look at them. Very consistent with the movie.

Kudos and congrats on everything above, you totally nailed it.

The Orc and Goblin, though, have only a passing resemblance to the movie characters and feel very cartoony. The Orc looks like some sort of badly realized mummy, and the mouth is very oddly placed off to the side of its face. The goblin looks more like a disfigured cat than anything else. If the whole theme was cartoony, then they'd be fine. But it's not, the entire theme is photorealism and it's been nailed so far.

It's not that they're bad, they just don't fit and feel jarring next to all the awesome stuff that's been revealed so far including (perhaps especially) the other sculpts done by, Matt.

Please, JJP, see if there's some way to improve these. TH in general makes me super excited to own and play it. The orc and goblin just make me sad.

Oh, my mistake...I was just going by length: 2" / 1.5" = 1.33333 or 33% larger.

But your calc is better.

Just want to mention that going back to 1994, Stargate had some cool resin sculpted toys on it, including two sculpted Mastages for bumper caps (with a lit ring below them) and a rising Horus and Anubis, and of course, the glidercraft. Very cool, especially for their time, and well integrated from the movie.

I own Stargate, and seeing the similarity between its sculptures and the WOZ sculptures swung me to the purchase of the WOZ. Wish I could afford The Hobbit (or any other NIB for that matter), but the wife would probably kill me.

Moving on to the current debate, how anyone can compare 1960's-ish lit bumper caps, dimestore toys and action figures on the playfield to what JJP has been doing? (Deep breath, waiting for the Pinside barrage of Fanboy remarks).

You don't have to like every aspect of every piece on every game. The WOZ trees are excellent, but the witch could have been executed better. But, within the game, it is good, and no one looks at it and says that it's mesed up. Everyone knows what it is, and isn't that the point? I suspect the Hobbit will be the same.

To me, JJP is making an attempt to return to the good days of the 1990's with their products. We all know that it hasn't been without issue, but they have kept improving their game. At least acknowledge or respect that. In any event, more pinball manufacturers means more pinball for all of us.

Yep. We can't have a proper JJP thread without some Stern bashing.

Way too much worry about the detail on these. They aren't perfect, but seem fine to me.

I'm going to be bashing them with a pinball, not admiring them as if they are priceless works of art.

I'd like to see a picture of them in the pf for comparison

Didn't mean to bash Stern, and I apologize that it came across that way. I love their machines, and will buy the next one they put out whose theme and gameplay I like. I was simply drawing comparison between the cheap bumper caps vs. the sculpted ones JJP uses. Not a fanboy thing at all - I love pinball...especially when it's done right!

Anyone know if they will have hobbit at expo next month?

The digital model exists for all these characters, probably should have worked weta and just printed them.

Can we please, please, just stop trotting out this tired argument?

There's really no reason why this has to be a Stern vs JJP fest. It's dumb. We all love pinball, this isn't like choosing your favorite baseball team. There's no need for blind loyalty.

Stern hired a professional to sculpt some great looking custom toys for TWD. There are no dimestore toys and action figures on the playfield. Gregory Nicotero is an industry vet, very talented, with an extensive career, and he did some beautiful work for the game.

So just stop, it's not even true.

Here's my perspective: When the Hobbit playfield was revealed there were some disappointed reactions. I was amongst them. But I didn't just whine, I tried to be constructive. I was told, just like now, "license, deal with it". But you know what? Somehow changes were made and the studio approved them, and the playfield looks better now.

I can't remember if it was Keith or Alex (guessing Alex) but someone from JJP came in and said something along the lines of "you're our customers, of course we listen to you".

So what I took away from all of that was speak up. If something could be better then say so. Because JJP might listen and then we all win.

So I'm not bashing Matt. I'm not bashing JJP. And I'm utterly uninterested in uninformed attempts to bash Stern. I just want pinball to be great.

That's cool. I'm just really tired of the tit for tat JJP/Stern stuff. These companies and machines all have their strengths and weaknesses independent of each other. Cool stuff and room for improvement all around.

EDIT: I do want to add that I'm very excited for both TH and TWD. This is probably the first time that two new pins are legitimately battling for my money. Very likely I'll buy one of these.

Aside from just not looking like the characters they are supposed to, I think the toys in general just lack a "fun" factor and feel to them. The trees, State Fair bumper, and now these pieces. They seem like figurines that should sit on a shelf instead of being in a fun game. I don't know what material is used to make these but the paint on them just seems really dull? Not good. Just my opinion.

As long as the gameplay is great, who cares for how detailed or movie-prop-like the toys are? But warg and spider are close enough to the real thing, actually I think they're awesome!
Orc and the feral cat (?) ... not so much. It's not that I miss details, the heads just don't really match their movie versions. After the reveal of the warg and the barrels I expected something different.

Smaug might bear closer resemblance but I don't think it'll be that important in the end. In any case, the visual appeal (or supposed lack thereof) of single components won't "make or break the deal". It might still work very well (visually) when everything is put together.

Not to digress too far or add fuel to a fire, your math is correct but you're leveraging the cubic nature of volume to prop up your argument a bit and that's not usually how scaling works. I would doubt anyone would look at the 2.25" figure compared to a 1.5" figure and say "Wow that's 5x the size!" despite the volume mathematically agreeing with that statement.

Now, as far as the JJP models go, I honestly think they look fine. They will never be perfect for everyone and as long as WB thinks they are good, I say move along and get them into a playing game, and film them being bashed!

I generally try to stay out of the swill on these threads, and made no mention of any brand or manufacturer purposely, nor did I state anything negative towards any manufacturer or game.

You mentioned Stern, and quoted "dimestore toys and action figures" from my post in the same breath. Maybe you want to think about that. They're your words, no one else's.... You drew that conclusion.

If a debate serves to make any one manufacture step up their game in any respect, then it's good. When the debate turns sour, as it does most often on pinside, there's no value added.

You mentioned TWD, and, some of the artwork and toys I saw looked very good. Maybe you're thinking that previous efforts from Stern had "dimestore looking toys and action figures" on them when compared to TWD.

But then again, maybe I am uninformed.