Sopranos is farrrrrrrrr under rated!
But no, that's not his gig a Stern now.

It's funny how my favorite pin is avengers , and my wife's favorite one is nba fastbreak ...both Gorge Gomez designs .....

Sopranos is a pretty cool pin. If you are familiar with the show, it really follows the theme well.

rd.

I would be happy with a new Gomez pin

I would be happy if we could stop the Stern drama wagon.

#1 on IPDB rankings, #2 on Pinside rankings. Not a great earner on route due to breakdowns, but definitely one of the best pinball machines ever IMHO.

Debatable

Keefer da man! You sure do get up early to educate us pinheads.

Hilarious. Simply hilarious. You OF COURSE realize that MB and LOTR are virtually the same design, and that even Avengers is a twisted to the left variant right? Well, no, you clearly don't. That's nothing against Gomez too, he just continued to work on a design of his with changes and updates, I have them both. Eddy did this with AFM and MM, and no one faults him there either.

Furthermore which Lawlor design is not original or ever really similar to another? Both Lawlor, Ritchie and Gomez, and every other designer other than Trudeau (always different) or Borg (always copies, though TWD is a shining light of something actually "his") really has their "signature" stuff.

You can't rely on anything Stern wise in the last 6-7 years as a true indication of copying, as clearly there is a mandate to reuse to cut down on design time and money, and even here Ritchie is using his previous designs.

I don't understand why when people talk about another designer they have to defend this with a "Lawlor is shit" comment basically. You lose all merit instantly with me in that, given the PINBALL GOD Lawlor is, as well as Ritchie.

This is another ridiculous comment as well. As if he is done because of a ramp that just didn't work on Avengers. I'm not a fan of the theme, or the cheapness of the game as a whole (this is a stern issue, not a Gomez one), but at the very least, Gomez was taking a classic design of his and twisting it a bit for a relatively new design, which is pretty interesting all in all, and one of the more intriguing stern layouts in a long time. I do not fault him for the center ramp given this.

I pray JJP gets ginormous in this industry, and then hires all the greats back (if there is still time) so guys like Ritchie, Gomez, Trudeau AND Lyman and any others still willing can join Lawlor and once again build in a "William'ish" environment.

Mix these designers with Lyman and Keefer for rules, and JJP build and overall direction for quality....... my right eye just popped out thinking of it...

My left nut just busted thinking about that.

Ohh yeah .....one playfield , one translight , they use bulbs , they use flippers , they are all rectangular shape also , and forgot to mention they use pinballs ...yup you're right Gomez uses the same design every time ....

Yeah..with the bang up job they did with the Hobbit, I can see that happening.

Then The Hobbit is called "Pins and Needles?"

I understand you're upset and you've got a right to be. However, if 25% of GG's development team is phoning in their work as you suggest, it's going to take them time to sort that out. Maybe they've put him on a PIP or are in the process of managing him out. My point is that it's entirely possible that GG is doing the right thing(s) but the medicine might take a while to kick in. Based on past comments from SR and co, it's not clear that Stern is the best work environment. It's possible that if Lonnie doesn't give a shit, they've conditioned him not to give a shit, right? Doesn't make a difference to your situation I'll grant you, but it's understandable.

I think having GG design games and a professional manager start running the day to day makes sense. If GG has peter principle'ed himself, maybe it's time for a factory reset. Dunno.

Keep the faith dude. ST is a great game with a great layout. The code will get fixed eventually. I find it enjoyable even with the current code but I'm probably not as good a player as most folks here.

Aurich - what am I missing here? What is broken with ST?

I wouldn't mind a Transformers II! I know throw something at me. TF Vault edition. More lights, More sounds, Slightly different code, Replace right mini pf with a normal ramp. Update the art on the pf. Sweet!

A transforming toy on a Transformers pin would be a no brainer surely?

I still like that game very much.

I honestly don't care who designs what pin.

You should watch the promo video for the LE when it was first released. It showed a transforming toy. The megatron gun in the video showed the balls shooting out of the cannon, not the case. This was the first LE that made people delighted to get the pro.

Think fast! (throws something).

TFVE - hilarious! Why not just go out to the half fallen down barn they have all the unsold LE's in now and pick from the oasis of unsold TF's.

Wasn't that the case with xmen too? I recall a vid with them suggesting the magneto would have a magnet between the hand and PF that had many people interested in the LEs.

Oh Stern...

There are whole threads on the subject, so I won't rehash it, but like I said, Steve Ritchie himself got on stage at the Dutch Pinball Open recently, called the machine broken, apologized for the state of the code, promised to do his best to get resources to fix it, and said that he wanted to own one himself, but wouldn't until the code was fixed.

I mean, doesn't that shit embarrass the hell out of Stern?

I like George's designs. No one is great at their job everyday, every time. I was told John T. was up next so we will see.

Guardians of the Galaxy could be a good theme.

Textbook example of the biggest problem: people always dreaming about the next game, rather than talking about fixing the crap that currently exists.

New and shiny is fun, getting your games into legendary shape is also good for business as it encourages repeat customers.

You can only sell so many games that the market would freely value at ~$4.5-5K for 8K before even the must gullible noobs catch on. I think they have started

Oh I know I watched that promo and was pumped for an LE, then I saw the actual game and put my money back in my wallet.

Good Luck. YMMV. I waited 2 years for the necessary code polish and clean up on Avengers. A game I love. Once I realized it wasn't coming it became easier to let the game go for something new that I hadn't played a couple thousand times. Alternatively, once the "fix the BS" code update finally dropped on TFLE it was too late for me, even though I still had the game. I was able to "finish" the game finally, but it was too little too late. After thousands of plays on imperfect code, final, upgraded code is probably never going to be enough to warrant keeping a game you've grown tired of.

This is Stern's biggest crime. Penalizing their NIB buyers with incomplete code and making them wait years for a compete product.

I agree it is tough playing incomplete and sometimes pointless code but where does blame specifically fall? Designer? Programmer? Overall operating budget for a pin?

That's one of the reason I stuck out the 18 month journey with JJP. When they first started for real shipping games, there were code updates with new features every single month until it was in a more playable state, and, even then, they really tried for every two months until it was done. There was no, "Yeah; you have your pin and now you'll just have to hope we release code." The manufacturing had it's ups and downs, but the way they handled the code was top notch. I'd rather have to wait a long time to get a pin than have a broken pin and hope they're going to fix it.

It's always more of a process and development pipeline problem. As software becomes more and more complex, the bugs are more and more difficult to root out. You solve this problem by organizing your development assets in a pipeline fashion .

I think Stern's pipeline is 'broken' based on everything I am reading, but I'm basing that all on Pinside rumor and anecdotal evidence . I see a lot of issues with Star Trek that should have been hashed out at this point. While I didn't pay top buck for my LE, I would be very torqued if I bought mine NIB. It feels so unfinished.

What you do is put your top, most experienced software talent on your new pins at the beginning of the project. They're in charge of the design requirements and they code the foundation of the game tying in all of the music and dots (art). They need to leave sane "hooks" or "placeholders" in the code for the eventual addition of new features. Great programmers can think like this. This defines both the process and the head of the pipeline for a new game.

Your tier two programmers have less experience than your leads and, if they're the right type of programmers, are competing to get to the head of the pipeline for career purposes . These programmers inherit the games before release and expand the rules based on guidance from the design requirements and existing code. Once the game is released, they get feedback from the field, fix major issues, as well as implement the remaining code.

Your tier three programmers are more of your sustaining engineers. They're the "noobs" so to speak. They're your fresh grads and entry level programmers. In theory, once the software falls to tier three, they're fixing minor bugs, polishing, and being mentored by tier 1 and 2 engineers. Think of these engineers as your minor league talent. They're absorbing how a pinball machine is designed, learning the company's programming methodology, and are being productive sustaining product in the field.

This scheme works. It has its flaws and panic mode certainly clogs up the pipeline . However, if you create a better process, software development can be a heck of a lot easier. You don't want to micromanage every step of the flow, but you have to have some kind of development flow in place or else you will certainly risk abandoning development on buggy, released pins in favor of new product.

I'm more of an FPGA designer by trade, but I integrate a LOT of embedded SW into my projects and work with software people all of the time. FPGA design also requires some kind of design methodology like the one I described. We "pipeline" design a lot of products like this. I will not say that the scheme is 100% foolproof, but its a heck of a lot better than other design paradigms I've worked with over the years that tie a lot of design elements together into a single product.

Just my silly thoughts ...

I agree. I think Gomez represents a lot of what's RIGHT in industrial pinball. He takes chances, tries to do things differently, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. If you're batting 1.000, you're not taking enough at-bats.

I also think The Pin is THIS CLOSE to doing it right. I really do believe that the technology exists to give a heavy-duty pinball experience in a low-to-moderate cost LOW MAINTENANCE package.

If Stern keeps going for it, they'll reach it eventually. The cost of tech keeps dropping and the capabilities keep rising.

Well IMHO it goes to the top. Maybe Lonnie doesn't care enough to get it done, I dunno, but ultimately it's about resources who is allocating them. Which is why I'm saying hey Gomez, get your people taking care of what we paid for man.

What?

He addresses it in the last spooky podcast.

So wait, by broken you are just referring to unfinished code? If that's the case, take your ST and get to the back of the line. You should get nothing, and all the unfinished games from the mod 2000s should be well before ST. Not to mention - are you new to pinball/stern? If you buy Stern and don't get the code update at some point, being 2014 and with all the threads on this, you are just as much to blame.

I bought TSPP, LOTR and WPT well after they have been released and done. I bought ACDC Prem only after the last Premium came out (before the Luci's) and when 1.4 was done and everyone raved about the state of the code. I wouldn't throw a rock at a stern prior to everyone unanimously stating "this update makes it done".

If you buy pre-order, as it comes out or prior to any major code completion, you should be well aware you run a very high and historical risk of that game not getting completed. It's not right, but that\s how they work - **stop buying games until they are done/complete!**

I think Nordman does a great variety of layouts. Haven't clocked tons of time on Gomez games, but there is a point that Pat and Steve reuse shot layouts, whereas it seems like Nordman games have more of a unique layout with reused elements like the funnel and wavy ramp returns.

I agree. If I played Scared Stiff, White Water, and Wheel of Fortune I would have no idea that they were all designed by the same person, but if I played Whirlwind, The Addams Family, and Monopoly I would be able to tell for sure.

Atomic this is best thing you ever wrote...it could be a Pindside mantra if you had added "No Pre-order" to it.

Yes

So now, who is the designer? Who makes the code?

please tell me this is not the lame theme they gave to Elwin as his first game.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/what-will-be-the-next-stern-pinball-machine/page/20#post-3965389

Danny, LoTR, MB, SOPR, among others, are all basically the same layout. Plus, I can't forgive him for lying about code. I've heard him straight-up lie twice: once about the use of QR codes in TF, the other about code every two weeks, for BM66.

Borg (design) + Lyman (code) + frere (artwork)= GOTG?

Sorry for my ignorance but who is Chris Franchi? Thx