887467_10153578870534244_5722989158934166180_o.jpghttp://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2015/09/04/hbo-teases-game-of-thrones-pinball/
https://www.facebook.com/sternpinball

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Do yourself a favour and watch the show.

If I was Jack I'd be shitting my pants right about now. LOL Granted... I'm still waiting to see 3 major things 1) layout 2) pricing 3) solid code at launch. The Canadian dollar is playing against this release with us up in the great white north and everyone around the world apart from the US.

Agreed. Better have solid code available at launch on this one.

Any price increase will literally kill 90% of the Canadian market. I don't know about international but price increases every release for the last 3 years has seriously jeopardized the home market in my country. I hear it all the time.." I wish I could buy this pin but I am priced out".

I know. Just stating what Canadian buyers in general are going through right now. I wish I would have follow my gut and kept all my US money handy in my account and let the CDN crash.....I would be 40% richer right now LOL

Wondering cost wise if an LCD is actually cheaper than a DMD? I'm talking cost of the actual screen, time to animate in dots vs. cutting scenes from TV show etc... ???

Too soon? LOL
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If would have gone through all the shit that he did. You wouldn't either.

IGN is set to release picture Tuesday.

I'd like to see the ball climb the wall.

You bet your ass it's a no go. Even some of the high rollers in Canada have said they can't afford to buy the LE's....

Unless it's for the ball lock and released when the armies attack the wall

The only difference I would like to add to that is that Stern as released more than 6 games since JJP announced The Hobbit. Mind you the code was not stellar on any of them for quite some time.

First opinion..
The pinball cabinets are absolutely horrible on all models. The pro feels so stripped down and at that price point I would have liked the pro to feel less like Game of Thrones "The Pin" and at a pricepoint of $5995 MSRP...that's $9145 CDN for a PRO... The LE / Prem look jam packed with stuff and can't wait to see what the animated dragon does. Pinball climbs the wall and then rest on the throne but at a price point of $7595 MSRP ($11585 CDN) for the prem and $8795 MSRP ($13416 CDN)... I'm out... Who's got a TWD Premium to sell me?

It the back habitrail that feeds the throne.

"Look we have a picture of a dragon and then we'll just add the type in Photoshop and blast the damn thing with a black drop-shadow with a value of 0% distance, 100% spread and 150pt size and then we'll spew it on both sides of the cabinet. 30 minutes of work....there we have a LE cabinet...."

All models have that battering ram.....at first I thought it was somekind of lift mech like Stern IJ.

It looks flat because the images are 3D generated

That pop bumper thingy sounds interesting!
"Players can win valuable random awards and features with Reel PopsTM, a fun new software mechanism, by playing the Pop Bumpers and spinning three virtual spinning reels on the display. When three identical symbols line up, the player is awarded the prize shown on the reels. "

The Hound does the call outs...

YES.

My beef with this is that they raised the price again and it feels like you are getting less (Pro). With the CDN dollar in the shits this will be a tough sell. This game needed the wow factor from the get go and I do believe most feel like that are not getting their money's worth (Pro wise). The LE is retailing at $13K Canadian and the Prem at $11500.. the folks up here that were prem and LE buyers where hoping for a nice pro because some can't afford the new pricepoint of the LE. Most of them will not go for a PRO in this state. I'm speaking based on first impressions.

If you compare the ST Pro and ST LE... esthetically they were close. Same thing with Kiss and TWD....when you looked at all models...they somewhat looked the same.

GOT Pro VS LE does not look the same at all! And that's because they took out the upper PF. Whic then takes out the throne, which then takes out out the Wall...

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ST got knocked down on color choice in the playfield as well.

It's in the back ..but it s a VUK (seems like it) that feed the habitrail on the LE / prem

I'll also like to add to this since Aurich hit the nail on the head. I'm not a wealthy collector and love pinball (took me 4 years to get enough scratch to buy ST and Tron and lots of man hours repairing other machines in order to get there). The LEs and Prem are out of my price zone. So I'm left with the Pro version that leaves a lot to be desired.

What I am trying to say is that a lot of home collectors wish they could afford LE / Prems but can't and settle for the PRO. Then Stern releases this PRO. Argh...

I know.... we can't get everything in life...it just sucks....

Damn if you do...damn if you don't

I think you got my point all wrong. I think Stern just blew the lower end of the home collector spectrum out of the market on this one. That's the point I was trying to make. I guess I could have worded it diffrentely.

I somewhat agree but it just feels like the PRO is bare because the upper playfield is completely removed. Put something else there that serves a purpose but that's not full blown like the Prem/ LE layout.... give me something other than a big f*king gapping hole!!

I know it's not Stern's fault but would you pay $9K for a pro in this state? Answer truthfully. $5995 MSRP x 1.35 conversion x 1.13 taxes = $9145 and since we have all but one distributor in Canada deals are slim. Now would you buy the LE or PREM at respectively $11,500K and $13,400K? I can't even imagine what our friends in Australia and Europe are feeling right now!

Should Stern worry about the exchange rate...you bet your ass they should!

The LE and Prem have a motorized animated dragon...the pro as an animated dragon...whatever that means.....

In hopes of not getting completely stoned for saying this. I really don't mind the snap latch. It's sturdy..does it's job and cuts down on weight.

Why is there a shadow of a dragon in the middle of nowhere?
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Technically speaking it's comical gradients......I mean conical gradient

They are present in the intro of the show but that's pretty much it. Makes the PF look steampunk more than anything else. But to try and be positive it does seem like a lot is happening on 2 of there models feature wise.

Not to mention the "we are too much in a hurry to create diffrent slingshot plastics...let's just transform the thing on horizontal axis and call it a day. I'm not saying to to use the same elements but at the very least change the freaking background texture so it's not an exact replica. Get the shadows aligned properly.

Summarized for you:
Art is a major let down....gameplay looks promising on Prem and LE, Pro is a bastardized( see what I did there) version without the playfield and other major components. .

Andrew must be having a field day with comments like this....

I'll agree with everything you said apart from this paragraph. I don't think people insist on licensed themes. I just think Stern wants to use those because they are popular (make sense). If they come out with something original VS licensed and it's awesome people will buy it.

What's the last original theme Stern produced? I'm not targeting other manufacturers here.

posted this on where's the code facebook page....let's see what kind of replies I get.
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JJP, Spooky, DP and others alike have their prices higher due to the smaller numbers that they run. Now Stern on the other hand can produce 100 games per day, yet their product in some instances is less superior than smaller manufacturers how is that possible? Can we really only blame overhead?

How can JJP sell The Hobbit for $8500 and include an LCD monitor with top notch animations, awesome artwork, loads of soundbites from the movie and a projected 31 modes while GOT is almost the same price with NO LCD, lack of great artwork?? Just wonder if JJP produced 3000 Hobbits and drop down his price if he would actual gain a bigger part of the market....?

I'm not saying to give it away but isn't good business to lower the price but sell more units in the long run? Just asking....

Video is awesome......

I'd rather see a company own up to it's mistakes then hide them under a rug. The overall art on the cabinet and playfield still sucks but at least they added a throne and yes the background with the throne is much better than a huge White walker starring at you.

That would make the hole on the left look twice as empty.

By adding the throne they had to change the background or else you would have had a huge white walker starring at an empty throne. I hear you...it's not ideal but they are in damage control. The warning signals should have been clear before even releasing this art package...oh well....

I think Stern took the opportunity of a life time and flushed it down the toilet. This thing could have been a gold mine. You can't blame Steve Ritchie on this one. You have to blame whoever is at the top at Stern and whoever approved / rejected the artwork on HBO's side.

At $13,000 for an LE it has. Don't kid yourself if you don't think Stern, DP, JJP are pushing a lot of folks out of the market with their ridiculous pricing. This LE model BS is going to stop eventually because the pool of buyers that can actually purchase at that price point is limited and at one point those buyers won't have the room to buy the games up.

JJP playfield link to high res shot. This thing is a work of beauty!
http://files.ctctcdn.com/a938cca2101/14b5a1ea-166d-494c-9d73-832245d84052.pdf

I played it at Allentown and was please with the play back then. If I'm going to dish out that kind of cash I'm going spend it on this instead of something else.

If I am not mistaken they have taken the drop shadow behind the characters...that alone makes a difference.

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I'm sure if they placed Steve Ritchies head on the middle of the playfield it would be 100% buy for me.

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Glad you got the sarcasm in that. Everyone as a differnt opinion on art. For me it as to be the entire package or nothing at all. Some other people are more lenient

That looks like a white plunger that lifts up to stop the ball.

doublepost

Nope. It's one piece. It's installed properly if you look at other angles. or even a clearer picture of the same image posted on facebook. The plastic is also tapered toward the stand up target so it can't be flipped. It also has an edge under the pyramid.

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If you buy a Ferrari that comes in the body of a Honda Civic I'm sure you will be the first one to say "It's ok...you don't see the exterior of the car when you are driving it or at night."

Now all kidding aside. I get what you are saying. Art loses focus during game play. But if I'm going to buy a Ferrari, I want the entire thing not just the engine.

Maybe not this time around. I really feel they thought GOT was going to fly off the shelves. For some reason I don't think that will happen for 3 reasons

1. They fuc*ed up the art
2. They raised the MSRP
3. The currency sucks for anyone else but the Americans (i know.. i know...I`m just stating a fact not complaining)

It's possible but would have to be generic art unless Aurich wants to tackle copyright limbo again. It would take a real long time to ensure every hole and insert matched the overlay without the cad file. Someone would have to take hundreds of hours to do this.

Tomorrow reference stern facebook for time.

I'll agree they seemed to be having fun and I didn't really care if the occasional "F" word came out. With that said they are still a professional company and should act like wise but they are learning and that's what counts. From the video, what I found was that there seemed to be quite a lot of code done already. Mind you it's not complete but I came out with the sentiment that they are trying to improve the code base on release.

Game wise the game seems lightning fast but I got tired of watching the guys do the same right ramp over and over and over and over and over again. I'll also agree with some people on here.... The dragon was a letdown, which leaves the battering ram and the sword lock... again for the amount of coin needed to purchase one of these...I'm left feeling I'm not getting my money's worth feature wise.

Code = heading in the right direction
Features = lacking
Art = Still bad
Gameplay = fast

yup

I`m with Aurich on this one. The LE will now be forgotten for this version of the Premium. It's not perfect but it's a vast improvement to the LE.

What I don't understand is how Ritchie doesn't know if there will be 3 or 4 multiballs after 2 years of development? And this points to a larger problem because

a) the designer and programmers should have this nailed down by now
b) all features should have been set in a technical spread sheet and confirmed
c) designers / programmers don't seem to agree on things (specifically the video mode) Steve kept repeating and emphasizing that you could skip the mode. As well knowing they spent time programming that video mode which increases production costs and looks like that is really disappointing. It's like playing an MS DOS game like King's Quest all over again but at least the 25 year old game had colour. I'm half expecting to enter some for of action in an input box "Fight Pixelated Warrior".....ENTER "Draw Sword".....Enter "Fight".....Enter "Swing Sword"...Enter

That's the problem...don't you think after 2 years of development they should already know by now how many multiballs there are??

I know I get that. But they should know by now I mean 3 months ago they should have known. I know far too well the kind of havoc "feature creep" can play on a code base. When we (my team) designs website for large corporations (10,000 pages+) and the client comes in 4 months in development and asks " yeah can we add this feature and this feature and this one" oh...and remove this one. Non technical people don't get it. It's like saying...."yeah we'd like to remove the 4th floor from this building and change all the bathroom locations on everyfloor" after the cement has been poured and all the drywall is up. It's infuriating.

You are probably right.

Managing....yes...executing.....not always rosy. The goal is to try and avoid feature creep.

I like your point Nokoro. My only question to you is, do blood, guts, cold, winter, death, dragons, poisons, adultery, incest, murder and pretty much anything else with GOT make you feel warm and fuzzy?

According the the first specs released the Dragon says animated dragon (Pro) and motorized animated dragon (Prem / LE)...now not sure what that means.

This makes me laugh.

I guess giving all profits to charity doesn't count. Chambahz before putting me in the sellout / douche bag category make sure you have your facts straight. I've never made a dime on where's the code nor do I intend to. This thread is not about that campaign. I'm allowed to voice my opinion. Considering that the game as been in development for quite some time I find it extremely surprising that the code for the upper playfield is not in progress.

I guess to appease the masses i should have said it made me chuckle. You are correct that the base code looks more polished than before and I have said so on this thread.

Apart from that I'm not changing squat.

I guess we just don't have all the same bank roll I was really hoping that this was going to be my first NIB. I guess I'm a bit bitter as well about things I cannot control such as currency. In are seriousness here's to hoping that Star Wars will hit the mark. I really want to buy a new game.

well f*ck me...I've reread your post and must be drunk because I read that the upper playfield code had not even been started. Whoa, I need to get some glasses. Now I'm understanding all the hate...

Ok now I'll admit it...Chambahz........"Nice to see for a change!"