Look stunning, and in the lighting of a pinroom will look amazing. Am imagining the lights picking up the gold accents.

Nice mock up, with teeth and lighting effects Smaug will look fantastic.

JJP have really listened to feedback here.

edit: yes awesome job Matt!

PinPatch has a point, with just a small piece of neck he would look more 'whole'.

Has anyone seen the seaside bronze up close, it looks like an off-black.

Edit: i haven't seen it in real life, just going by the photos available

Good idea and I would but it won't get to the UK before Dec 31st

Hey there bzb, I know bronze and I know dark, but the colour of the LE is not dark bronze. It looks somewhere between metallic black and grey.

Cheers For chipping in Aurich, I trust both your eye and judgement. Can get back to enjoying Christmas now...

Still don't know about those daft things on the slingshots, what are they trying to accomplish? Game looks good though.

Edit: that colour scheme fits the game much better than the gold, nice.

Not bothered either way with the news, would rather just had the money in the bank for this length of time. Cheers?

There are a lot of dispersions being cast on Jack from people who are reading into comments posted on the interweb. I would say if people are really not happy call him up and talk to him man to man instead of just whinging on a pinball website. I did, and it certainly helped me to make a decision one way or the other.

SE looks tacky in gold with the same artwork overkilled 3 times. LE is earthy and manboobalicious.

Nothing wrong with a good saggy scrotum...

I started off thinking about the pf protector... but I have one on my LOTR - it causes horrible reflections (even with invsiglass), gets crap behind it and worst of all it does affect ball phyics I don't care what anyone says.

My pf is going commando on my Hobbit!

It's funny that some people say the feel of the ball is the same with or without the protector, I'm not in that camp... Maybe some people are just more sensitive to having a pf protector than others.

Pinball machines (like couches!!) have a lifespan. Anything that limits enjoyment in order to prolong that lifespan is redundant imo.

note: in an operator environment it's about protecting your investment against hooligans, different story....

QRs are a gimic and will be redundant in my machine's home use.

Stern are really raising the bar with their recent social media campaign and cool little innovations. Come on JJP!!

You took the words right out of my brain. I also switched from SE to LE, the overall tone and colours are perfect for the theme. I love the colours of the habitrails, can't wait to see them in person.

The only thing I might do if I have the spare cash is order a gold Smaug toy as I honestly preferred that.

beelzeboob I always saw the method in your madness, it must be those hypnotic canine eyes of yours...

I can totally see why he's not keen on pinside. Some people here shit on him and his business every chance they get.

He's not silly enough to be talking to the whole of Pinside, for example I know he's not referring to me. But there is a core of people here who just love to yank his chain.

... and there was me stupidly thinking all this activity was relating to a Hobbit pinball machine update.

Looking at WOZ and FT they are in a totally different leagues in terms of licence and production values, so the difference in price can be justified for me. I hope Alien closes this gap.

I think the only difference here is one was a heavily licensend machine, one wasn't. Last week I got a glimpse of what HP are striving to achieve with Alien but licensing is still waiting in the wings so time will tell, I really hope it works out. I saw some pretty amazing things early on with TH but which later got slashed or had to totally redone as they did not fit with the brand or they did not get permission for. I'm in for an Alien LE and am being cautiously optimistic, whatever happens I know it will not be due to the passion and talent at HP, the same goes for TH and JJP.

Also Jack doesn't need me to defend him but I think it's harsh to say he constantly shits on this community. He loves pinball and the people in pinball or I don't think he would be in this so far. And let's be honest there are some people in this community who are absolute morons, trolls, shit-stirrers, etc. however you want to label them. They just thrive on disrupting threads with no real reason, these people deserve to be shitted on from a great height imo

I take your point, but I would still say some of that is deserved for some people on here. The speculation about the financial situation of his company, accusations about his character and buisness practices, etc. then all the trolls jump on the bandwagon. I'm a JJP customer and I know his comments are not aimed at me. Any issues I've had as a customer I've phoned him up and aired my concerns/grievances and we've sorted it out privately.

So is this the final Hobbit, no extra Smaug plastics, no backboard decal, no Bag End? I'm in for this but this pin is so late it's starting to feel old before it's out.

Come on JJP, what's the crack?

Even if no hardware info then something on the code would have helped.

Third flipper is the Smaug kill shot.

People are tired of bashing JJP so let's just bash the movies whole we wait for some news...

I was there for Joe's speech. What a lovely bloke he is, a true pinball gent.

I think Smaug was supposed to be a real dominating toy, but it sounded like the concept was just too ambitious. You can see how crowded TH is at the moment so it would be hard to find space for a mech that actually comes through the pf and then eats balls. Great idea, just didn't work out. As far as why he left JJP he would not comment, instead he opted to keep his integrity intact. The trolls and cynicists in this thread could learn a thing or two from him.

I disagree. In the development stages of anything direction can change for a number of reasons. Looking back it's easy to say that this could have been an a very different machine, etc. the fact is some ideas had to get dropped for a number of reasons whether they be tech related, licence related, etc. I would at least wait and judge the machine on it's merits instead of on concepts or ideas.

He never really commented about anything being cut due to licensing. It sounded like more down to the fact that a huge Smaug could be made to emerge through the pf to take balls of that 360 ramp, just couldn't happen and you can see why.

I had the chance to chat with him in private the next day and asked him what his inspiration was for the drop target arrays. He said he always tried to introduce something unique in his game designs. The ability to be individually dropped/reset is that unique element in TH, i'm really keen to see how this will be implemented.

There are also two words standing in the the way of GOT killing The Hobbit - Keith Johnson

Interesting to see the influence (hesitate to use the word plagiarism) of TH on the pro with regards to the ramps. Knowing this has been blatantly copied cheapens it slightly, was hoping to see something more unique. Not blown away with either to be honest.

You're right Rick, but my first reaction was "I've already seen this" which naturally negates an urge to be interested in ordering it. I think they missed a trick to come with something fresh and exciting. This smells of lack of ideas.

Once could even say the other models resemble WOZ but that is more than a stretch... if they had come with something more unique and progressive I may have been interested. Until then my money stays with Middle Earth.

Sticking with the LE, it just looks like it has a bit more class. You can have too much of the same dragon, although the new gold is much better.

Looks great, good stuff JJP

God that looks absolutely awful, I'm cancelling my LE pre-order for a GOT Pro...

... said no one ever

When GOT grows up it wants to be a Hobbit.

Even with their first LCD machine Stern will be playing catch up to JJP from here on out. By that time JJP's base code will have matured so much. I think if nothing else the gap between the two companies will widen, they are leagues apart in terms of the product they offer. One is quality over quantity, the other quantity over quality, with the choice up to the buyer...

Also when you think back to the complaints levelled at WOZ's knocker. Now it sounds like nobody can complain