I was just replying to his points...I don't have anything really to add on the innovation, but I can sure enjoy it

A mail truck?

That incredible, huh? I would have thought a playable sub-playfield only viewable on the lcd was innovative (or using a camera period.) I was trying to think of locations on the pf (and entire game) where something could still physically fit that was never apparent from just looking at the pf itself, hence my thoughts above.

There could be features like player controlled diverters. There could be a plethora of magnets (used in new ways?) that is not obvious just looking at the playfield itself (perhaps Smaug himself has several?) that we were shown. There could be a non-magnetic (porcelain) type ball used in the game in a new way? But yeah ... I'm intrigued now.

Oh, and I also suggested several times (on the Google forum) very early on to use fiberoptic lighting (that would be a first I believe) such as lighting a shimmering pile of Gold under Smaug.

An LCD in the apron?

For what purpose (that would make more sense than showing the video on the main lcd?)

It may be helpful to have a display in the apron so you can see it while using the lower flippers.

There's a big difference here (still).

JJP isnt dribbling out updates out of ther goodness of their hearts.

Unlike Stern, JJP is still beholden to pre-payment to keep the lights on. When they are asking for people to pay years in advance, they *DO* have to provide more updates than an established manufacturer.

Id prefer not to know ANYTHING about TH prior to it being *done* but I understand why that just isnt going to happen (due to above).

My hope is that JJP has worked out the kinks on production (the past few weeks certainly seem like it!), and The Hobbit will move much faster into the market. And THEN, JJP#3 may not require prepayment at all... And they can just release info when its ready, not when they think they have to to keep investors from panicking.

See my follow-up post, yes JJP does have to throw us a bone or two for TH. They really need to shorten production to < 12 months and eliminate the pre-payment model. Looks like #3 may bring them into that mode.

Just brainstorming ... but for that to happen I would think JJP would need to announce their third title within 6 months of delivering Hobbit #1 (announce #3 around 07/01/15), and shipping games to customers within 6 months from that (end of year, approx. 12/2015). In order for that to happen JJP will need to have 2 complete manufacturing lines running (and obviously employed) by then. Otherwise, JJP would need to create all 1500 THLE's in just 12 months and immediately switch over the line to build title #3. And all of this is assuming JJP can become profitable by only building 1500 LE Hobbits (no other edition) and move on to title #3. So just logically speaking ... either JJP needs to significantly increase their production rate on 1 line, or they need to create a 2nd manufacturing line. I wouldn't think you could confidently expand to 2 lines unless the assembly of TH on the first line was sufficiently backlogged to be building games for another 6 months minimum after the 2nd line (building game #3) begins.
I'm very curious what numbers they are predicting in order to generate their business plan for the next 18 months. I have my own guesstimations but I'm curious how many think they'll be building 2 games simultaneously in 2015?

Have u seen how many regulars, standards, and ruby red have flown out the door in the past few months. Hundreds.... There's no panicking, jjp isn't going anywhere!

How about three games! Jack extended woz rights for I think a few more years. He can do hobbit, pats game and woz at the same time. The production line never changes, he could easily stop making hobbits for one week and turn out 50 more woz on that line then go back to hobbits. It's just a matter of putting the parts in front of the guy on the line. The line itself doesn't change so he could have two production lines and make three games. Stern does it that way also if I remember

I think they will be building two games in '15 pats game is way ahead of where hobbit was in this time frame.

Yes Pats game is close behind the hobbit. Remember Pat does all his own stuff. He is very self sufficient. When you don't have the long delays of the approval prosses things move much quicker!

Pat has a separate design and dev team. It's basically parallelized with hobbit.

Wow I had not looked at this thread for over 100 post yet it seams to be same shit different page.

I've got to say I'm really looking forward to JJP's TH and the next movie as well. If the JJP is awesome, some day I'd love to have a 3 game collection (I have very limited pin space) of WOZ (currently own), TH, and LOTR. From what photos, video and discussion I've read my hope is that this game will be even greater than WOZ, which is currently my favorite pin.

I'd be shocked if there is no pre-payment model for JJP pin #3.

I've stated in several other threads that there was no prepayment plan for us for our RRWOZ. There was the initial deposit, and then the final payment a month before delivery.

May I remind everyone that Jack already has changed his pre-order/info release system on JJP#3 !

INFO RELEASE: The only thing which has been announced so far is the fact Pat is working for/with JJP now. No theme has been released and or other information. Jack has mentioned before that "Pat's game was not far behind of the Hobbit". That would indicate there is (lots of) info to release, but Jack just keeps info under the hood...

The same goes for the pre-payment plan. It seems he has changed the way of pre-ordering too. Due to the fact Pat is going strong (a whitewood has been mentioned) means Jack COULD have opened pre-orders already, but he just didn't. And for good reason; If Pat's game is as good as some of us hope it is, it could "eat" some of the Hobbit sales. So, no JJP#3 info is to be expected a reasonable amount of time after the release of the Hobbit.

Cool!

You're stating the obvious only after the fact and only as it stands today at this moment (as noted by your comment "it seems ...".) Communication from JJP is not their strong point. I never saw any official announcement from JJP that said we will not announce title #3 until we can start delivering the games (like Stern.) How do you know Pat won't reveal something at Expo? And yes, it's tough to start taking pre-orders when you don't want to reveal the theme of the game yet (but again, how do you know that won't happen several months prior to them shipping games?) You're only speculating. Heck, when I originally ordered Hobbit on day 1 of the announcement I made the poor assumption that info would be released in the same manner as WOZ. There was no official announcement "we will be revealing far less information". If there was, I wouldn't have pre-ordered. It was only after many months had gone by and very little information was given that it became apparent JJP was not going to throw us a bone.

An "initial deposit" and then waiting X number of months (years?) for your game is not a prepayment?

No it's a deposit. Pre-payment is a prepayment on a schedule up to payment in full prior to delivery.

In that case you can also claim that WOZ and TH never had a pre-payment plan either. Nobody has ever lost their deposit (or even incurred a penalty) by not making a payment by the recommended dates and people were frequently told to just make payments when they were comfortable or to just make the final payment when the game was ready (which many/most did.) It has really only ever been the initial deposit to reserve your game that was important.

I didn't look at it that way. It was just a deposit, like I might make on any expensive item I ordered. Unlike a lot of other things I might order, it was fully refundable. There was no asking for payments on a schedule.

Seems you seek ways to be contrary, your observations and opinions are not thought provoking, just provocative. Do you enjoy creating and perpetuating ill will? No offense intended, really, just don't know why you continually stir the pot.

A deposit is a deposit meaning I will buy your product when it's available, prepayment is prepayment meaning I am buying before it's available.

What the heck are you talking about? How was I being provocative? I was stating the facts. Nothing has changed about JJP's pre-payment/deposit model. Period. I don't care what you want to call it and I'm certainly not saying there is ANYTHING wrong with how they do ordering. Lots of folks seem to really like it. But Hensbrooker stated that the model had already changed and I'm stating it hasn't. I'm very confident you can put down the initial deposit on a TH TODAY (go for it) and not pay another dime until your game is ready to ship. Many folks did the same on WOZ. I even recall when JJP was getting close to shipping the first game that Jack mentioned on the Google forum that there were many folks who needed to get caught up on payments if they wanted to receive their games in order and that many had never made a payment beyond the initial deposit.

Yep, things may very well change with JJP #3, I have no idea and don't really care. But nothing has changed at this point.

Oh but you do...you do care, otherwise you wouldn't constantly be posting here.

Someone had too much coffee this morning.

No, you were being obtuse. "in that case you can also claim that WOZ and TH never had a pre-payment plan either"

Look, I'm just saying you have filled this thread with loads of crap, meaningless argumentative points, repetitive statements and opinions. Fine have an opinion, state it, then be done with it. Really no need to continue to add negative value to a conversation. What is the name of this thread? oh yeah, Hobbit update.. Got any, no? anything meaningful or informative to say? no? then STFU already.

? I care about pinball, yes. I care about the future of pinball, yes. I enjoy keeping up with the latest in pinball and discussing the good and the bad. But I don't care what JJP decides as far as payment plan on game #3. I was only correcting Hensbrooker.

I do not post to JJP threads exclusively by any means and you guys gloss over the many positive things I've stated about JJP/games only to attack and try to discredit any negative opinion I have.

I also try very hard to not attack others personally and I refrain from giving anyone an automatic thumbs down on their every post just because I don't like them or their opinion(s).

+10000. A thread boot is in order to keep things on track.

Ok back on track....

I pitched putting a camera in the speaker bar even specked one out for install. Set up the coding for high scores with something like ngg where u have a high score of the day. This would give any person the ability to put up a high score walking up to a game at any given day. When the high score was hit a camera in the metal speaker bar pointed at you would take your picture. So you would have that with your initials on the screen. Something I think out on location that could possible get out of hand at bars n stuff lol.
So it's not making it into the hobbit, maybe ill get lucky and my idea will make it into pats game!

Calling dibs now was my idea!

Not that it's not an interesting idea but I'm pretty confident this idea (and dozens of variations using a camera) were discussed in detail on the Google forum back around January 2013. Yes, a ton can be done with a camera (although I think this particular idea may raise privacy concerns.)

You KNOW there'd be a picture of someone's ass on there the first day...

I'd want my money going into a GAME feature instead of a camera for high scores...but that's just me maybe.

I hate to agree with CraZ4Pin but to little privacy today as there is.

Would actually be very easy to add it on and have it save a picture from the camera as your attract mode image

With a JJP game you may get both. It sounds like a really cool feature and one that could be turned on or off in the system menu. It would be perfect for player profiles on a game where you can load up your player profile, play a few games and then have your scores and other gameplay stats saved for viewing at anytime.

I'm just saying, Playmatic's Flash Dragon did this (with polaroids) back in 1986, so it's not like it's actually a new idea.

image-3.jpg

I agree, and I think that this "feature" wouldn't be wanted by enough buyers to warrant the extra cost. I think it would make more sense to spend some development costs to make it feasible to just add the camera later, similar to how a shaker motor isn't included on most Stern pins. The owner can decide if they want to spend the money to add it later.

I was thinking about what else could be in the game that hasn't been done in pinball before. One of the things I thought of was rear targets on 2 or all 4 of the pop ups. We know that the two ramps have a divertor. When the ramp divertor is enabled it will allow for a shot to the rear of either of the top two pop ups. If the lower pop ups have rear targets they can be hit from either orbit. I think targets on the rear of the pop ups would be awesome and provide for some really fun gameplay.

The other possibility I thought of was that the pop ups themselves may be the lock mechanisms. I don't think it's just by chance that there are 4 roll over targets and 4 pop ups, haha. I could see having to hit a roll over to spell "Spider", "Orc", "Golbin" or "Warg" and then lock the ball at one of the pop up mechs. The lock mechanism could be on the back of each pop up or maybe the pop ups raise up and down to reveal the lock shot. Smaug could also be the lock mech (there's another divertor in that area) of course but I would expect there to be a "Lock" insert in front of the right ramp to notify the player that lock is lit.

In the early 80's Bally/Midway tested a system for vids that would take photos for high scores, but it failed location testing because somebody flashed the camera.

doodle-jump-1.jpg

Sorry, but Photoshop is not art. Its Photos, its boring, and its lazy.

I prefer the photos for this pin, but I get your point

Art is very subjective and so much depends on the quality of the artwork to me. In general, I don't like photo clip-art pasted on the playfield like Tron or AC/DC.

I like photo-realistic artwork like the translite on LOTR.

I don't care for the look of the hand drawn art on Lethal Weapon 3 (typical Data East of that era) but the playfield art on STTNG though similar in style looks much better.

The artwork on WOZ and TBL are a bit of a mix of photo clip-art and hand drawn but there is enough of the hand drawn artwork to make them both look really good to me.

The 100% hand drawn artwork on both TWD and Metallica look very good.

The Hobbit seems to be a mix of photo-realistic and photo clip-art. I think the playfield looks okay because the photos are more background images to create a cohesive whole, rather than isolated images of the characters in various action poses.

For me The Hobbit has such amazing scenery, the costumes are very well done, and the CG (spiders, Smaug) look great as well. So I like they went that route. Also, I like TRON - the movie did a good job with the CG elements so they look good on the cabinet and playfield. Again, in my opinion. However, I would say in general I would prefer hand drawn on pins (other than The Hobbit or TRON), like MB for example. I like that playfield, cab, and back glass a lot