While a bunch of people buying these remade games are fretting over trivial stuff like serial numbers and leg protectors, this question is what you guys should be focusing on. The cabinet, playfield, toys, mechanisms, etc will all turn out fine because they will essentially be re-runs of the original parts. But all these new games are going to be designed in a way that they are not backward compatible with the old boardsets (IE, the engine of the game).

Chicago Gaming is a fine company but has a pretty dubious track record when it comes to building pinball machines. I was at the Expo where they showed off Vacation America and all of it's new technology. I never owned one but the reports are that they didn't hold up very well.

Are they involved in these resigned boards? If not where did they come from? Will there be any "test locations" of these games to make sure they hold up to the pounding, as has been customary in the pinball industry for 100 years, especially when new hardware is being introduced? That is what you guys need to be worried about and be insisting on, proof of concept on this redesigned system. Not worrying about silly cosmetic issues that you could change when you get the game anyway. IMHO.

I appreciate your enthusism for this project. But what you rattled off there to convert from the PPS proprietary boardset model back to the WMS designed boards would be beyond the abilities of 99.9% of the people that will be buying these games. And I will say that the cost to source all the parts to do it would easily bring the overall cost of ownership on these games into the realm of a nice original if that did become a necessity.

Don't get me wrong guys, I'm thrilled that Rick and his partner are doing these runs. I don't want a MM or an AFM because I already have nice examples of those, but I could be seriously tempted by a fresh, minty FH or something else like that which they might eventually get around to making. I just think everyone needs to realize the hardware driving these games will be completely untested and are being designed and built by a company with not a great track record in this area. They also will be designed in a way that the average "shadetree mechanic" repair guy will not be able to work on the boards.

I was in the room when he made his annoucement. But when you say "aside from board sets and wiring harness" I would equate that as the same as someone making a reproduction of an automobile where everything will be the same as the original, EXCEPT for the engine and transmission. And oh yea, the reproduction car will be using a completely untested engine and transmission designed and built by a company with no experience, and the car will be modified in significant ways to make it difficult or expensive to drop in any other replacement engine or transmission other than that which ships in the car.

I really do hope this all turns out great for everyone, I really do. But the pictures I saw of those redesigned boards hanging off the bottom of the playfield all I could think was "so that is what happened to all those leftover parts when VA flopped...

I've never hid that fact. But more importantly, my comments come from someone that is currently batting 1000 on his MM remake predictions.

Let me state it again, I hope this project flies and is a wild success. I just think for something that will cost 2.5 times what the original did it should be very well built, and anything that has to be redesigned should be done in a way to make them last longer, or be more servicable. What I saw just smacked of "cheaper".

Dependable and proven are overrated traits in any product, I agree with you. Who would want anything that is still running 20 years later?

Before I get shouted down, and 20 more people check my profile and find out my shameful ownership secret. Can I just ask that the remake crowd stop *assuming* their games will be better because they are new, and as a representative of the WMS-Owned-MM camp, I will declare that that I am happy you guys are going to get remade games that you can enjoy. Can't we all just get along?

Because if you get rid of everything else you are only left with 150+ posts debating why there needs to be a third color of side armor trim offered.

Thanks for sharing this video Rick. Looks interesting...

One thing that has set your project apart from past failures Rick is your openness with sharing information with the general public. If you take your pipeline of future info underground it may have more negative impacts than the perceived positives of not being called out when stuff doesn't look completely perfect. I say stick it out here and keep posting vids and pics, you may end up with a better product in the end. And that should be everyone's goal.

Frankly I wish I understood more about how this board emulation stuff works. I know you said there needed to be software updates to handle the LED lighting change which makes sense, I am honestly curious why the coils and related mechanisms would function differently at all since they should just be running the original code? Again, sincerely not stirring up trouble but just wondering why there needs to be tweaking to begin with?

You know, I'm not talking about you personally, but there has been a fair amount of this going on *in both directions* on this project. And yes, I'm talking about the pre-order/blind supporters of this project.

The fact is you can roll back to the early 6 or 7 pages of comments on this project and you will see many multiples of supporters assuring all of us that this emulation boardset issue was a non-issue, the game would run with original code, on much new (and better) hardware. Now it has been revealed there is more to it than that and it will create issues, a lesser person than I might say "Told you so!" at this juncture. But nothing positive will come of that, and Rick has been kind enough to discuss the situation with me offline.

Fact is for all intensive purposes this game will be a wholly new creation at least electronically speaking. That is kind of a big deal and would speak to whom is doing this coding and tweaking. Because it obviously matters if you guys want the game to play as an original. As an owner of an original game I am willing to concede that Rick's game could eventually play better than an original WMS game. I'm just curious how all of this is going to sort itself out by the first week of January, in time for Roger's inspection...

Eight million to be exact.

I think there is clearly a third group of people that have posted here which I am a part of that I would label "cautiously skeptical". It really should be OK to ask technical questions about this new platform without getting shouted out of the room as being a "flipper" or a "hater".

So along those lines I will say I think it's great news that Josh was impressed with the game! But in keeping with my skeptical side, he admits he noticed issues which have already been identified by the programmer on the project. While it is probably an easy matter to rectify these software issues, my question is, how is Roger Sharpe supposed to sign off on the "it looks and plays like an original" by the end of this week if this programming hasn't been completed?

So you are saying Josh Sharpe was anxious to test play your game to make sure the *artwork* was up to snuff? That seems like a waste of talent, I always though he was more interested in the game play aspect of a pinball machine.

And actually I agree with you, all computer programs running on any hardware contain glitches or "bugs". The issue is that nobody has mentioned any in the original game and it's been being played for the past 16 years.

I agree Lloyd. It would be a much better product if it were built in secret, without any input. Like they did with New Coke. Customer feedback and criticism are overrated...

Agreed. And for that I am truly sorry. I wasn't picking on you Lloyd, you know I am a fan of yours. I am decidedly not a fan of blind trust of any new product. The people buying into this should want as much objectivity and scrutiny as it can get at this stage, before it becomes 1000 copies of a problem(s) that would be expensive to correct.

I am glad it passed the Roger test and I hope it meets everyone's expectations. But if it can't stand up to any inspection or criticism, and obvious and observable flaws in a video can't be pointed out without it being labeled as an "attack" that is kind of sad.

What is now abundantly clear is there will never be any more MM in existence than there are right now. It doesn't make sense to build something with obsolete, 20 year old technology so Rick is building a wholly new machine. At this point we really don't know if it will be bad or good, but clearly it will be different. Either Rick's machine will exceed the coolness of the original and everyone will dump their MM to get a MM2.0, or Rick's machine will be judged inferior and the original will still be sought after. Only time will tell, but it should be interesting.

How I imagine that meeting went:

<wms lawyer> So you want to pay us a lot of royalties to build new pinball machines?
<rick> Yes!
<wms lawyer> And the game won't have our name anywhere on it?
<rick> Yes!
<wms lawyer> So if it breaks down the owners will call you for help, not us, right?
<rick> Yes!
<wms lawyer> Do you have a prototype to show us?
<rick> Yep, right over there.
<wms lawyer> Looks like a pinball machine from here, and I don't see our name at all on it which is important. What do the fan boys think of it?
<rick> They have repeatedly stated that as long as it says "Medieval Madness" on it they are happy to be able to buy it.
<wms lawyer> I think we have a deal!

Before I get flamed let me say I'm glad this is moving forward and I hope it works out to everyone's expectations, and Rick is able to turn a nice profit and remake other classic titles. But let's be clear, WMS was *going* to sign off on this. To not do so would be to say they don't like money. Have you ever known a company lawyer that didn't like money?

If I had the time I could copy/paste MANY quotes from MMr folks on this very thread that would infer they are not concerned about build quality or any of other potentially negative aspects of this final product, they just want them to start being built. So my crack on them is well founded and I stand by it.

If you care to point out where I have insulted Rick I will happily apologize to him.

Yep. Played a few games on mine last night, it's a great machine, you should get one...

I'm only going back to page 40, that's all you get!

1A - I have no idea how this is about me at all, I'm not taking your money.
2A - I have bad eyesight as I'm an old guy, I will just wait for the movie if that is OK with you.

That fact is, a bunch of you guys seem to want is for Rick to fire up his assembly line right away. This game is a brand new operating system platform, being designed and built by a factory with very little pinball manufacturing experience. The best thing that could happen is if Rick threw out the Q2 delivery dream and built a set of sample games that he sends out for coin-drop testing. Sample 0001 should go to SS Billiards, 0002 should go to the PHOF, etc, etc. And bunch of them should make the rounds to the spring shows.

You guys seem to see me as the enemy of this project, nothing could be further from the truth. While it is a fact that I don't want a PPS:MM I may be interested if future titles like PPS:Funhouse, etc.

The Man stated in this very thread that there is exactly one prototype, he even mentioned they have been taking it apart and putting it back together as issues are being worked (which is completely normal BTW). There are no sample games on test locations now. I'm sorry if you don't like my suggestions, I was just thinking of ways to stress test this very new, very untested platform. Even with Lloyd being involved in this product I think he is the best choice to have one of these samples as he actually operates a working arcade, with actual arcade customers, and it would get a good workout. As an added bonus he isn't too far away from CG.

If common sense talk and suggestions like this somehow put me in a hole I will curl up down here quite happily. This is a pinball discussion forum, is it not? I continue to notice that the least-civil people in these threads tend to be the fans/buyers who seem to think such discussion or suggestions are selfish people trying to delay or take away their new toy. I can't speak for everyone but that isn't my intention.

I would agree there is a disconnect, I apologize for coming off sounding like I know everything to all that I have offended. Aside from my personal experiences in my job I have sat through many seminars at Expo and it kind of sunk in about how a new platform would be prepared for production. A small run of test games would be built ahead of time, taken to local arcades for the general public to pound on them, and then data would be collected on each machine. Of particular interest of course was how much money was in the coin box, but additionally they would take note of problem points on the games. That way a change could be implemented before there were 3000 of them built that would be defective (or have to have parts replaced).

Rick is free to skip this step and everyone with a deposit in is free to still want to buy them regardless. But really, with a new platform it really should be tested. Wayne and Gene didn't have to worry about this because they were building a 100% BOM duplicate, this machine is not the same as the original. Frankly, I'm jealous of the improved sound system and the fact it won't have to drive a high voltage plasma display like mine.

You know, as the owner of an original if I really wanted mine to be worth more money I would be pushing for production as fast as possible. It's good enough, let's crank up that line and churn them out! And then when they hit the market and the bugs and flaws start getting found, and it's reputation starts to drop mine would be worth even more. And with 2 failed attempts to duplicate it we would probably never see another attempt. I feel I need to mention that before the 4th person makes a snide remark related to the fact that I own an original and can't be trusted...

I was at Gene's place when he was building BBB and he showed me the boxes of NOS boards he was going to use in them. I admit he made a few playfield changes but the OS and platform were as 100% as you can get.

And the 30 or so troll target assemblies that Wayne managed to build with everyone's money looked pretty spot on as well, but admittedly I didn't personally inspect the BOM on those...

As I have been saying all along Rick on the forum and offline in email with you, good luck with the project. Seems like you and your experienced team have everything covered.

I will add my name to the list of folks that (wrongly) assumed there was a financial incentive for WMS to approve these games. That fact adds a lot of credibility to you getting their approval on your design so congratulations on making it past that important hurdle. Anyone can look at the pictures of your prototype and realize a lot of design work went into that game so obviously you have been at this longer than October of last year when we first saw it for ourselves.

If I could (humbly) offer any suggestions to you it would be that direct answers to legitimate questions go a long way toward shutting down potential controversy. And if everyone here could wait for your answer instead of assaulting every inquisitor that might be a nice change of pace as well.

It's probably too soon, but any chance you could have a game at the Ohio show? Guaranteed it would have a crowd waiting to play it the whole time!

Rick, my Dad has expressed an interest in possible getting a Standard to operate in the gameroom at his ice cream store. So related to that, is the warranty still good if the equipment is operated commercially? And also, will the games accept a DBA, or even better have you considered offering that as an option?

Thanks!

Groovy, thanks for the update Rick!

One of the WPC features that I use a lot is when you are in the diagnostic menus and you get down to a single component test (a controlled light, a flasher bulb, a specific coil, etc) you can press the Start button on the cabinet and the display will scroll through a series of screens for troubleshooting. Fuse location and size, connector locations and pin positions, driver and pre-driver numbers, wire colors involved, etc. Do you know if this feature will be retained in the remake games?

Where has there ever been a statement made that standards would save anyone any money? The precedent has been set that folks will pay the same $$ for the standard, where would be his incentive to lower the price on future titles?

Hey Rick, I was looking at the underside pictures of your game and I noticed there were no fuses. Or really anything that would appear to be "power" related (diodes, rectifiers, fuses, capacitors, etc). I'm assuming the wires leading into the bottom of the lower cabinet are supplying all that. Can we see pictures of whatever is down there?

TIA

Well, I see them now. There is a good reason my wife is constantly after me to get glasses.

I'm still guessing there has to be something in the bottom of the cabinet that is creating the voltages that the game needs to run. Plus I'm thinking it would be pretty tough to run an entire pinball machine through 3 fuses.

The only bummer aspect will be if folks that were to report any perceived flaws (or differences) get attacked just for pointing them out on this forum. Everyone's goal should be the best product possible, for the things in this new machine that are better than the original Rick and his team should be given kudos, but likewise the problems should be pointed out at this early stage while there still might be time to correct them.

As important as the bling is to a lot of folks, this tends to be a hobby with a lot of fix-it-yourselfers like myself. I think a lot of folks are interested in seeing the technical improvements and getting a look "under the covers" so to speak. In particular a primary failure point on virtually every solid state pinball machine has been the power supply, and the old WPC boardset were no exception to that. I had asked if we could get some pictures of what your new system is using to supply the power, and if that is user-serviceable. Any chance that with 2 games at this show one game could be displayed playfield up so folks could get a better look?

Good points Lloyd. I have seen the lines to play WOZ at the shows, wouldn't be cool to have one out of commission. It's just such a tease to see the wires running down the bottom of the cabinet without any pictures of what happens next. If that has already been shown someone let me know and I'll go there to have a look, but so far I haven't seen anything in the blog announcement page.

Thanks Lloyd. I wish they had gotten a closer picture but it does look very nice. I suspected a switching power supply would be part of the equation but I was curious where they were getting their higher voltages, and now we know.

Rick, there was a comment in one of these threads about a solenoid that quit working on one of the games and it was an easy fix as a wire had come loose. That got me thinking, with all of those connectors on your new driver boards the plugs seem to plug straight into the top of the board, so that when the playfield is in it's normal operating position they will be hanging straight down. Do those connections have any kind of a locking tab (not sure what the technical name is) to prevent them from working loose in that position? I'm asking not to stir up anything but if not you might want to ask the CG engineers to consider it now so that it won't be an issue when these games are out in the wild and getting a lot of play (and vibration).

Congrats either way on a great showing at Texas. Sounds like you won over a bunch of critics!

Awesome Rick. As we have spoken about offline I have no interest in MMr but would be very interested in some future titles you might do.

Well sure Rick. Folks seem to be under the impression you are going to redesign and remake every WMS pinball machine made in the 1990's, wrapping up in 2023 with the highly sought after POPEYE:LE. Don't tell us you are going to let us all down...

By then I predict you will be offering over 27 different colors of playfield glass hold down trim colors on the Popeye:LE ...

Along the lines of Greg's question, will there be updated Start button interactive help on the new machines? Will the user manual be updated to reflect the new hardware? And will the games come with schematics, or will those be available as a separate purchase (as I'm not actually sure if original Bally/WMS games actually shipped with schematics)...

Was TPF going to be the only show stop the games were going to make before they start up production?

Whatever shows the games are taken to I just hope they can supply them with decent electric service. It would be nice to hear the flippers are still strong after being played all day at a show.

Why isn't anyone asking why there is now a flipper strength setting in the software? The original games used something WMS called "Fliptronics II" which controlled the coil strength to the flippers, and even compensated when the normally open end-of-stroke switches went out of adjustment. I know there are no Fliptronics boards in these new games but I assumed all that logic had been replicated in the new system. If not this should be of much more concern to buyers than the color of some angle iron on the cabinet...

Say what you will about the old WPC boardset, but they did contain the culmination of decades of engineering and tweaking by WMS and Bally engineers who had a lot of practical experience with driving coils in a game.

Agreed Lloyd. Rick has already demonstrated his games will be superior in many technical regards to WPC. My point is what was already pretty good in that boardset that has been discarded in this new design, namely the driving of the flipper coils. WMS games are known to have strong flippers as long as the flipper linkages and related hardware are not sloppy and worn out. And they never required a menu setting to achieve it. It would be nice to see strong flippers demonstrated over the course of an entire show, with continuous play, before we declare this a non-issue. Not just to be told by the builder that its not an issue...

I agree with you. The difference being WPC games have also proven time and time again they can have strong flippers at shows. Something that has only been verbally promised so far on MMr. I guess I should be living in Missouri as I'm just more of a "Show Me" kind of a person versus just excepting a promise. Plus, I think even the diehard fans here have to be wondering why the 2 MMr games weren't just moved to another area of the Texas show where the power was better versus there being several days of excuses given, or has that not occurred to anyone but me?

For the record I'm NOT hoping for Rick to fail. I think what they did to give the adjustable timing on the lights to make them look like incandescents was inspired genius as it makes both sides happy. But all of this design and engineering will be for not if the games have (and then develop a reputation) for having wimpy flippers.

What if the lockbar and side rails were clear plastic, with continuous controlled LED lights underneath that could be tied into the menu system. Folks could set them to shiny gold, flat gold, crinkly black, glossy black, or just let they strobe through all the colors in the spectrum. People would be so mesmerized by the cabinet trim on these games they wouldn't even be tempted to press the start button.

I give you MMr:PSE, the Medieval Madness Remake: Pinside Special Edition!

Yes. Not because I don't trust Rick, but because Rick is a salesman, and I've known too many salesmen.

I honestly hope this is a non-issue, the next show will tell the tale regardless. I would be happy to be proven wrong, I just know that in the past 25 years since everyone went to electronic flippers many folks didn't get it right (LOTR anyone?). There is a fine line between strong coils and melted coils, and this is Chicago Gaming's second game they have ever designed...

I promise you, I am not trolling. I've just been around long enough to have seen the engineering growing pains that came when the pin makers went from electric flippers to electronic. I have also worked for a company that is a world leader in making large coils and electric motors and I know there is more engineering that goes into this kind of stuff than meets the eye. Everyone looks at it as a "bonus" that they have added coil strength controls, about a month after the Texas show. I say that is suspicious in that maybe it's an attempt to band aid a technical problem that they found out with the games there. Or maybe not, it could honestly just be a new "feature".

Consider these facts: Texas was a 2 or 3 day show. With 8 million dollars on the line, why wouldn't they have moved the games to another spot on the floor/circuit? Why weren't there widespread reports of all the games at Texas having weak flippers? I'll answer my own question, if they moved the games and they still exhibited weak flippers it would have been a stink.

You guys are letting yourselves get too distracted with trim options and mahogany cabinet bottom panels, you should be making sure this new board-set is all that. Now before they produce a bunch with problems. My motivations in this thread are quite selfish, I do not want a MMr personally, but my Dad is very interested in one for his business. I might also have interest in future titles, who wouldn't want a NIB FH assuming the price is right?

My suggestion: at the next show Rick should disable the EOS switches on one of the two games on the floor. The WMS version famously was able to compensate for broken or out-of-adjustment EOS switches without seriously impacting game performance. If Rick's games are being built to be as good (or better) than the older games they should be able to handle this with no issues.

But can the rails be removed without damaging the rails themselves? Because as important as this subject appears to be I'm guessing that a lot of MMr buyers are going to want to change out these rails. A lot. And then they may want to go back to the original ones that they already took off.

I think the LE games should have some kind of a quick rail release system to simplify rail removal, and so the rails can still be re-used.

If I were a suspicious person I might ask why both sample machines are needed for UL testing, and why one can't be doing that while the other was sent to the show. But this forum has educated me away from my suspicious ways of a couple of weeks ago, this all sounds great!

I wonder how long the lines will be to see and feel the side armor finish samples?

Of course it will come with a power cord. It will be the end user's responsibility to properly test the voltage of whatever outlet the game will be plugged into, then adjust your flipper strength setting accordingly. So far the sweet spot setting seems to be "8" at the factory, but if you have any other pinball machines sharing the circuit you might have to turn it up a bit more...
11.jpg

If Rick is able to sell 1500 total MMr games, less 2 plastic coin mechs each, that only comes to $36,000 in extra profit on the project. A mere drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of things...

He isn't paying anything for them because nobody is getting them, but the customer is still paying the same price for the game themselves. I stand by my math...

There is an 8mm film that has been circulating if you can get your hands on it that proposes to show just that. I watched it for about 30 minutes and it just looked like a bunch of Bigfoot and Area 51 dead alien footage to me but maybe there was some MMr stuff at that end?

Honestly since they added a "flipper strength/low line voltage" software adjustment this has become a non-issue for the pre-order crowd and everyone moved on. Hopefully folks will post videos when the games start shipping and showing up in homes...

I don't blame you, I would too. Unfortunately when the vast majority post here they consider it a resolved issue there isn't much of a push to post videos.

One of the distributors that played the game at the last Open House at the factory reported that he had to turn the flipper strength up to 8 but at that setting everything seemed strong. He didn't take any videos from what I remember...

True. And as far as the Texas show goes that pre-dated the "flipper strength adjustment" even being added to the software.

But as long as the game is receiving a solid 110 the new setting should only need to be at 1. It isn't needed to make the flippers strong in a normal electrical environment (paraphrasing earlier Rick quotes). As it turned out the factory is also having problems with their electricity as it needed to be bumped to 8. Hopefully the first folks to get the game will have a good circuit and can let us all know how well it works on the default setting?

Zero people have reported that they felt good at the 1 setting.

If you are talking about the one showing at Texas Rick would not be amongst your satisfied group, he acknowledged a problem with the power on the first day of the show.

I can look up your quote if you would like. I would agree, many statements were made around that time that didn't make sense to me either.

When the adjustment announcement was first made you assured the crowds it was not necessary to make strong flippers in the game, only to deal with low line voltage situations. I was only repeating back what you had said, sorry that I have a good memory which is important when statements get buried in hundreds of powdercoating posts...

Since the setting was put in place the game has been shown at exactly 2 Open Houses at the factory. From the reviews they were pretty sparsely attended. Where else has the game been shown to these "many"?

Wrong, but you are learning. You are also disqualified from asking questions if you already own the older model. Because obviously anyone like that could have nothing to offer in the discussion and must have an agenda or axe to grind.

Personal attacks should start in three, two, one....

There was only one copy of the manual, and everyone was going to be allowed to take a charcoal etching of it if they needed their own copy. But Rick is so upset he just destroyed it. Way to go people!!!

Rick.jpg

Stern just released the title for their next Vault run. I wonder if that is going on the line next or MM:LE?