It also was totally scrapped on the production models.

There is only one asshole here...it isn’t Keith.

If you are realy staff at jjp ,I find this a real stupid response and totaly not professional better ask your PR people to react in stead of the soldering dude

Classy!

The middle of the playfield is a far better place to put the visual of the compass pointing to what you want the most. Maybe a combination of a round LCD window in the middle of the playfield combined with an outer rim spinning disk that you could sync up with video could be a decent looking alternative. That would put the compass in much better place that's easy to see and eliminate the apron lcd. I've never liked the positioning of the mini-lcd compass on the apron since you need to take your eyes off the playfield to see what's on it and it's not even the shape of compass.

How is simply confirming that the deposits are refundable to the panicking masses stupid? I'm sure the folks at JJP are freaking out to find a better solution to the issue, until they figure it out what else is there to say? Nobody is getting burned here. You know what's also stupid? Insulting a respected staff member of ANY pinball company that takes the time out of their day to post here. If you haven't noticed there aren't very many left due to shit like this... great job!

Didnt i hear somebody say eric was due to appear on a certain podcast today>? I wonder if that appearance was cancelled>??

That's what Kaneda said the other day, not sure if its still happening.

You seem like a nice person.

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He is the programmer of WOZ, LOTR, and TSPP just to give you a clue who he is and what he contributes to the hobby.

People, let us all try to be civil in expressing our disagreements.

The whole thing is a lesson in how NOT to reveal a new game. Not only has the hype worn off by the time it actually ships, but any changes are going to be open to criticism.

3 discs or not, the game is still packed with unique features. Yet now the only thing anyone is talking about is what has been taken out!

Had it been announced without the discs, now, everyone would be losing their sh*t about how good it is.

Moderator's comment:

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Except the people who can't get a deposit refund or have to pay a fee on their refund.

Those people seem burnt.

Oh. Well dang... OK. Yeah, I agree with your prognosis.

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Just believe me when I say I don't know who he is but if he is staff I think he shouldn't be giving false info.
That's never a nice thing to do.
I don't think it's a good business model to say to people who are excited for their new purchase and
clearly not happy with sudden last minute radical changes ,you can always take your money and run
It's going from an uber cool innovative 3 disk contra spinning with modes and lights feature to a 80's spinning disk that looks like a pancake, that's disappointing
But that's just my 2 ct's
Didn't mean to offend him.

I like soldering btw.

The problem is, right or wrong, JJP has tarnished their reputation with a lot of people here with the way the entire POTC thing has been handled. Whether people are justified in feeling slighted or not, the fact is this is not good for JJP. They really need put this one to bed somehow and really examine their marketing tactics going forward. This is not a one-off for them and it's time they learn from their past mistakes. This shit-hole that they find themselves in could have been avoided.

All good. He was just trying to be helpful, he's basically one of the greatest programmers ever. I don't think a pinball company can control a distros pre-order policies. But sounds like they need to step in for this case. The distro should really be held accountable for that. I like soldering too!

Just reading into keefers comment. It doesnt shine a very good light on any chance of good reaction coming from the JJP team after this debacle. Seems like they are content with what they are doing

Really classy.
Reminds me of the days when jack was allowed to post on pinside and would say such nasty things to potential customers.

There is nothing he said that is offensive or not true. Nobody was forced or asked to give money and if they did like me they were returned that money no questions. Keefer has got to be one of the most stand up class act people I have ever met in this hobby. Well maybe a tie with Lloyd, he's just crazy pinball smart.

Maybe you should read all the posts before commenting...

It came across as they don’t value our deposits, which translates to interest in the game.
Well, I’m getting my deposit back and use it to pay for Alice Cooper (assuming it’s the same layout as I saw in the videos).

That sucks man. Just a slap in the face.

It can’t be true. It’s a different game than originally advertised. Easy lawsuit in US.

Yes. It really is, because I have always trusted JJP in that what they do they would do to the best of their ability. Otherwise I would not have ordered the CE if I was not confident about that.

I really do believe this is a matter of money, no matter what they say, otherwise they are in desperate need of better engineers.

What post exactly did I miss that his response was correct? Seemed pretty straight forward to me.

I will try to reason with the distributor about this. What makes me sad is that I do believe that this is not a decision of Eric or Jack - again no matter what they say - as they seem to have a passion for pinball that goes beyond beancounting. Sadly that does not count for much anymore these days. I have bought every JJP as a NIB, but I am very disappointed how this is going.

And/or another bean counter.

Hard for me to buy the idea that over all these many months they didn’t have a handle on the BOM?

Possible that the $$ man said trim it? No more production delays?

I sure hope they didn’t already order the big pizza disc in bulk.

Guessing they just said F it. We will put it out there and sell as many as we can and move on to the next title.

Really bad move

This thread will be 10k before Wednesday!

There is a much, much bigger danger here than upsetting people, and that’s boring people. It’s getting boring. I’m bored with the hype-shows, bored with the delays, bored with the amateur-hour manufacturing. Not just this clusterfuck, but everywhere. And I’m just an average Joe, so if I’m losing interest, then a lot of others are as well.

Hype is way gone here and my money’s already gone to IMDN, and the sad thing is it is not about whether I am happy about the changes or not, it’s whether I care.

No, but I do know that the new map animations representing the 3x spinning disk on the LCD look considerably better then anything from other pinball manufacturers. While there is a sense of value lost in the terms of physical components there is still a single spinning disk and even more high quality code work that is being pumped into POTC.

While not a popular opinion in this thread, I’m one of the supporters of announcing a game and putting it on location to test out the toys/features. Those are things that can’t be remedied with code. However, I like knowing that my machine will hold up, especially when dropping 12k on it. Granted, they did hype up the 3-ring spinner, and I questioned its durability when it was announced, but it was surprising that it took this long to realize they weren’t going to work. I’m still in on my game at this point, and I’ll wait to see the finalized product before I lose my sh;t...the game is still packed, but I too am disappointed in the loss of the rings. I’ll still support JJP (and the other makers that are making great machines), and just view this ordeal as another bump in the pinball road.

But there-in lies the problem. The nice thing about the three discs for me was that they counterreact to eachother, so the effect on a fast moving ball is not that much but it is noticeable. A single disc a-la Xmen just slings the ball around and that right above the flippers. I am not liking that at all. Also it takes out some of the gameplay as all three rings had to be activated one by one. That is now just one shot, or three to get the single one moving.

Safe to say I am not a fan of a single disc at all. Also I went to play the machine and liked it, but now it will play substantially different due to the change to one large disc as opposed to two rings and one smaller disc.

I will say this. I know it’s Eric’s baby, but I feel he’s been left twisting in the wind a bit. Even though he’s happy with the alternative I’m sure he wishes the original design was in place. JJP had to know the news would not be met positively and for that matter it might have been better for a press release to come from JJP. This was not a call made by one person. Given the license there may have been deadlines to meet and they had to go with the most reliable mech.

The company should learn from this. It’s their fourth machine. Don’t over promise and under deliver.

I’ve been playing my Dialed In! And smiling. JJP still makes a great product. This one just hurts more because of how amazing the original design was.

Completely agree with you. I’m enjoying Dialed In right now and really looking forward to POTC. I will trust that JJP will deliver another incredible pin and I hope they listens to their loyal customers/supporters

That's really what it comes down to, regardless of the reasoning behind their decisions.

jjp has to be concerned. even the canadians are pissed!

For me it isn’t simply going from the 3x spinner to the single. The art is horrendous to look at on that spinner and really diminishes the overall look.

Let me ask this.

If they revealed this change with a single disc showing fantastic art and integration of theme, would there be as many of us totally bummed out?

In the most polite way possible of course

I would have been much less upset.

I get mechs can be finicky. To fix it with that hideous decal was a black eye on the whole machine. It would still suck but it would feel like they at least tried.

It's kind of like an AC/DC LE/Premium now vs Ugly Angus faced Pro.

Maybe they are so brilliant that they knew they had to make this change but then said let's make it ugly so people can complain... then we can "improve" it and people will be satisfied.

Kind of like going from the original coke to new coke and then back to "coke classic" (which wasn't the same as original coke) and then everyone was happy to have that over the new coke.

... yes I'm a dreamer

Damn right. Never show something too early, it's always stupid, IMHO. People are impatient, they whine about waiting, but it's sure a lot better than the kind of outrage something like this provokes.

I have a mod I've been working on for years, keeps getting delayed by life etc. Whatever, cry me a river, but before Alien I thought I was close to finishing it. I still held off on showing it before I was sure it was truly done, and I'm sure glad I did, it's changed a lot since then, and I definitely don't want to listen to people telling me they liked the old version better. Showing the process is rarely worth the headaches.

I really liked the soldering he did on Alien Invasion, the wires were tinned just right.

This was the post i was looking for again.

Exactly what i was thinking when watching the original reveal in Chicago last October.

Dream theme? No. But when they rolled out the entire package it really did seem "magical"! Blown away.

The spinning discs represented some of the coolest "gotta have it" shit out there. No movie clips with actors? So what. No original call outs or music? So what.

The upper PF rocking ship combined with the discs, artwork, layout, Keith coding just made it a SPECIAL pin.

Ordered a CE with Joe that night.

Tell me how stripping down a game at this point comports with Jack's statement from day one that he wants "Woz to be the least innovative pin JJP ever creates and they expect to do better each time out"?

1st world problems

Yes but he’s not helping the situation.

I didn't see anything wrong with any of his comments here - concise, to the point, with zero attitude. I thought we wanted to hear from people at these companies, right?

He’s referring to WoZ down payments being different than POTC down payments. Totally disagree. Money paid on anything in advance takes away another opportunity to use those funds. Accepting the money is a promise to someone to deliver the agreed upon product.