Alcohol may be involved, LOL

Sounds like Iceman pounded one too many again.

Releasing any game with place holder code is shockingly bad and there is no excuse for it.

Icey left his question mark at the door.

rd

I agree now. I have completely changed my mind. The investors who own Stern are loving it nowadays.

Theres not a pinball company around that launches all of their games code complete. People who want games that are code complete should buy games that have been out for 2 or 3 years instead of buying them NIB.

The other funny thing is, most of the people who complain will never see the end of the code or understand the rules anyway. This is pinball people, have fun of GTFO and find another hobby. Im also not saying its right or its wrong that games don't come code complete but it is what it is.

Ding ding ding.

There is no wizard mode on Munsters.

That's why it's in quotes

Alright Ice...We'll let you two slug it out...

::shrugs:::

There is a difference between legit unfinished code, and rules that you don't like and subjectively want changed.

Examples:

-Spider-Man might have been one of the first games that was noticeably unfinished, due to this: All modes had a video clip intro, clips when you hit a shot, and a finale clip...except the 3rd Sandman mode. There was just text, and this was clearly due to it being unfinished. When big updates finally started to hit, not only was that finished - but Lyman added TONS of new stuff...new combos, new rules, new light shows, new shaker FX. All great stuff...but, had it not been there, you couldn't have called "unfinished"

-Wheel of Fortune....WOF has a bunch of inserts that say "Wizard Mode Bonus"...those inserts are totally unused, and there's no wizard mode coded in the game. That's the main thing that makes the game unfinished...had those inserts never been put on the playfield, there wouldn't have been such a scandal. There are a few bugs in the game too, such as Multiballs ending with 00 on the display for your points earned...but if you put those things aside, it's a pretty robust, creative and interesting game...a person can totally play it and enjoy it, plenty of modes and puzzles to solve.

Now with Munsters...granted, I haven't played it enough to say if you could call it "unfinished", but I get the sense that the complaints are subjective...people just don't like the rules and approach...but if everything that was meant to be in the game is in the game, and all the features and inserts function and mean something...then, it's probably finished. If anything else gets changed or added, that's up to Stern & Dwight to take customer feedback into account or not.

Dwight Sullivan's apparent inability to listen and react is costing Stern sales numbers.
There's a ton of owners happy with how it is now, also saying it doesn't need more and it's fun as it stands. That's great, they're happy and enjoying it.

Then there's a whole load of us fence sitters who think the game is ok as it is BUT expect a lot more bang for buck than it currently offers. Considering that we all see DP and BM66 getting non stop treatments and are games of very good/great depth, then we expect more from this GREAT THEME title.

And no on hears a thing from or about Dwight Sullivan. Heck, Steve Ritchie even wrote a nice decent long response assisting BKSOR owners with some issues in which he stated he reads Pinside posts etc, so don't tell me Dwight would be unaware of potential new sales on MUN if he got off his arse.

Also, you tell me ONE current happy MUN owner who would be annoyed or pissed off if they wake one day to see that thier game stays with the same features they have now BUT they see that it has just had a ton of new tasks added to it. Every single owner would be downloading that code and raving/praising.

OK, I'm gonna give Dwight some credit here. When GB came out, I gave Dwight a list of things that were driving me nuts, like:

-Starting a mode, cheap-draining, then having to start the same mode again instead moving on like most mode games.
-Timing out a mode & having to start the same mode again instead of moving on like most games.

He made those changes & put options for these things in the settings. I also pushed for a randomized mode option, but he wouldn't budge on that one...he was committed to the linear ladder concept.

Soooo...he DOES listen. Whether he implements things come down to whether he agrees and/or whether he has time.

Fair enough.... but.....other programmers all seem to "have the time", so for an unknowledgeable, lack of facts, 12000km away speculator such as myself it just "looks like" he is ( sorry to say ) ....lazy.

I heard he doesn’t clean his house much.

Do they? It takes Lyman years to get a game to where he wants it to be. Didn't Kiss just get an update years later from Lonnie (or maybe new guys took it over)?

I get that people want specific stuff from their games, but don't make it personal.

Here's the truth:
-Stern schedules are short...much shorter than any of these programmers got when they were at Bally/Williams.
-Stern no longer publicly tests games...so they don't get real world feedback & the time to make changes before shipping product.
-Working at Stern is a JOB. It's not a hobby for these people. If Stern doesn't give them the time needed, that's on the company & their corporate culture. A programmer doesn't OWE us anything, especially their free time. They're being paid to perform a task during a window of time. None of us should expect them to work free overtime at home. Work/life balance is important. These are human beings we're talking about...I'm not going to insult them if they refuse to work themselves to death so a toy is better.
-That being said, as a customer, I don't buy Stern games anymore due to everything above this line...lol.

Munsters is the 8th best game of all time according to the latest and greatest Pinside Top 100. Why bother to do anything with all those happy customers and players? Mission accomplished I say!

Its crazy that somehow Dwight has become the new Lonnie. He can’t be happy about that but i bet Lonnie sure is. Lonnie hasn't had anything bad said about him in a couple of years now i think. That poor guy used to get one hell of a bashing on Pinside i tell ya. Aerosmith saved Lonnies butt!

That is just silly. I had to do a double take a check myself, but yup, ranked #8.

oh my.

Lonnie still gets criticized a lot, but I thought AS code was fine (I owned it) and Mustang (also owned) was pretty good too. Not as "creative" as someone like Lyman, but that goes without saying.

Totally Agree. CGC, JJP, and who knows what deeproot will bring out

That's where my money is going...not Stern.

So you're a deeproot customer already and they havent even rolled out their first game yet. Hmm......makes sense to me.

They just put a Munsters Premium in the local arcade so I spent some time on it this morning. My takeaway was it was a lot of fun to play, the mini playfield was cool, i enjoyed playing it for a couple hours.
HOWEVER after learning the rules I was able to get to Munster Madness so easily and quickly multiple times that I could see this game getting stale after a few days in a home environment. I spent 4 bucks and played at least 15 games because it was not very challenging to win a free game. In fact I left a couple credits on the game when I had to leave. And Im not like a master player by any means.
Beautiful game, fun to play on location but yeah, I feel like I did pretty much all there was to do in the game with the code the way it is.

And you saved 7400.00, I never was a stern fan and never will. There games still feel cheap after all these years.

The game isnt really about getting to Munster Madness, thats just another mode basically. Its about bulding jackpots and cashing them in and thats very challenging to do and good fun trying also. There are also three levels to Munster Madness, you only reached the first level. Try reaching all three of them and see how easy it is. Its more of a risk/reward game with the jackpots than a mode game, but the modes that are there are pretty fun too..

Definitely plan on going back for more, usually go to this arcade once a week so I will be playing it again. I did like slapping the zap button to build the jackpots.
The other two games they have there are GOT and Star Wars, and honestly I enjoyed playing Munsters more than SW.

When the ball goes over into the dragula lane thats where it cashes out the super jackpots. You want to hold down on that button real quick and cancel out your jackpots until you have like 6 or 7 of them built up....or maybe less if you were playing against your friends and trying to beat their score. If you were on ball 3 you would probably go ahead and just take whatever jackpots that you have built up and try to beat their score.

Also in addition to stacking your jackpots up you want to get the playfield multipliers up by hitting the "kitty" shot. Hit it once and you got 2x multiplier, hit it twice and you got 3x multiplier, and hit it a 3rd time and down by the flippers you will see the 2x and the 3x lights both on and that is 6x multiplier. That is when you want to cash in your super jackpots in the dragula lane for big points.

From what i understand there are a total of 10 jackpots that you can get built up. I try to cash them in around 6 or 7, especially if im on ball 3. I guess if i was on ball 1 i would probably try to collect more before cashing them in. The rules are simple for sure but they are very challenging at the same time. Super fun game in my opinion and the shots like all Borg games are very satisfying.

Wasting your time Who.

Rule no.1 of Pinside hate threads - don't bother learning the rules - that only complicates things.

I agree with Rare

Work/Life balance is crucial. I refuse to work myself into an early grave. Dwight shouldn't do shit for free or after hours. Anyone who does contributes to the root problem.

Sometimes the only way to get support from your employer is to let their decisions blow up. There's a reason Stern hired more programmers...

I don't think Dwight is to blame. I think code gets cut by "the Bob's" just like PF features, voicework, etc.

2-bobs-office-space (resized).jpg

Lol i know. Im really not trying to convince anyone to like it though or anything like that..i was just explaining the rules a little to him because he did seem somewhat interested in the game so i thought maybe that i could help him enjoy it more the next time that he.plays it. Once i learned about the jackpots and how they worked i started having way more fun playing it.

Wait wut?

Me likey AS code now

But I’m just a simpleton

Interesting dilemma. Stern have always copped a lot of criticism for releasing games with inadequate code. Often the code was barely feature complete and the basic structure of the code was not even crystallised. The inadvertent upside to that was the early adopters were in fact the beta testers. The owners and players of the games were giving real feedback of the game after playing it for weeks or months. Even the coder and designer could have a lot of hands on time with the actual production game before finalising code direction. It could be argued some of the greatest Stern games have greatly benefited from this process - TWD, ACDC, Star Trek, Met.

More recently Stern have clearly started releasing games with much more complete code. This means the basic structure of the code has been fleshed out before shipping. While this is great, it means there is also means there is less chance for user feedback and also means there is less chance the code direction will be changed since more work has already gone into its basic structure before release.

Not sure which scenario I prefer TBH.

Except for Star Trek those are all Lyman games

And ST had to be “redirected” and fixed

Lyman is the only Stern guarantee for greatness

Thus, no matter when it releases, Lyman for the win

True - trying to find a silver lining here Ice.

Code? What is code?Stern donen’t care about you. All they care about is your $. F—-k the dumb person trying to make a $. Stern has perfected that! If you buy a new STERN YOU ARE AN IDIOT. Look at the ratings.

But they sell 12k games a year to a bunch of “idiots”

Your 5th post in 4 years and that’s the best you can do?

Sounds like someone is jealous to me.

I know, just stirring the pot. You’ve nailed the description- jackpots, Munster Madness and stacking both with multipliers. Simple but hugely rewarding.

I'm a lover, not a fighter

That's a nice explanation. Especially with WOF.

Thank you.

I will say code isn’t everything.

Look at Empty Wars, I mean Star Wars.

IDGAF what they code into that desert. I’d never buy one NIB & reward the Stern Bean counters &/or Disney IP gatekeeers. Before SW owners get all sassy & downvote me just know I’d consider buying a used one, just not new, out of principal & shit.

However, for me to buy a game it sure needs good code.

Now I feel like Ice, over here just arguing with myself.

Lol, what if Star Wars had Munsters depth? That would possibly make it the most skeet ass game in non EM history.

You know what they say....

“If loving you is wrong then I don’t wanna be right”

So code ‘IS’ everything...got it.

And then there's the people that bought it, recognized the familiar stench of the Batman'66 launch state and said "aw, hell no!" and dumped the machine within weeks, deciding to jump in again in a couple years IF it is improved. Instead of upgrading Munsters Pro to a Premium for the route, we dumped the Pro, cancelled the Premium order and brought in Deadpool Premium instead. It was a great change.

One of the reasons why Mun is a piece of pooooo
and those female pad's he calls targets.

Stick with Lyman and you will be guaranteed a great and completed code.
Dwight has had his last chance with me, such a disgrace especially with the GB code!

Well I did say I was arguing with myself haha

Code is a must, a game has to have it, but a game needs more than just code.

A good example of my nonsense if you care to study it would be how AS captivated me for reasons very different than TWD.

AS has some magnificant art, cool animations, legit sound package, awesome toy box catapult, solid layout & ok code.

TWD falls short of AS in every way by razor thin margins in some areas except code which is so good it makes up for everything else & then some.

So maybe a game has to score an 85% to live in my basement & the % is determined by the score of a half dozen categories?

I'm making this up as I go along. I don't really have a formula. GOT has solid code right? But I sure dont want it. Hard to explain & there's no reward for trying to figure me out