They flashed RZ with new code last night to fix the player 1 ball save bug. Appears to have ben fine since then. Game is still preproduction.

We have had zero issues with our AMH having sound tearing or any game breaking bugs. May want to give chuck a call as it sounds like you have a trough issue or maybe the inverted sling wired issue on your AMH which can cause other matriz issues.

Likewise.

I didn't think you'd opened yours?

Charlie said he was aware of the sound problem but just told me to turn the volume down, as if I hadn't tried that. It's pretty frustrating.

It's an audio overmodulation issue, caused when too many sounds are layered

On AMH if you turn Music and SFX both down to 25-50, then turn up your amp, it should improve.

Rob Zombie, yes there was a condition in which a CHOP awarding a ball save would act as a ball drain instead of a save. We've let the programmer know.

1 is open and has been on route for over 7 months. I have a second personal game still sitting NIB.

For sound, try like ben says to adjust the software based volume and the amp based volume. A little fine tuning and u should be good.

Thanks Ben, that's a lot more helpful, I'm pretty sure it's at 60% on mine right now and still pretty bad. I've spent hours on my knees with a flashlight fiddling with those amplifier knobs.

We'll see when I get home, hope it works.

Are there any plans to send out a service bulletin with all of this kind of information?

Would love to hear some more reviews from people that played it in Texas. Damn excited to own this game.

We'll come up with something for multiball shows. I was really hoping for a bug free weekend, then I could focus on flare.

Ben was able to fix a thing or two while he was there but I have another update I will be testing that should tackle this once and for all.

As for audio, the "tearing" is addressed. I do know there are a couple clips that should be redone as I can hear the scratchiness. What Chuck could have been referring to is the Pinheck AV side of things, which Ben has commented on.

David found the fix for audio clipping while working on Rob Zombie. I will apply it to the next AMH update as well.

I honestly don't understand the amp either. I'm sure Chuck does maybe he can do a write up.

Ghost post.. 2nd one today.. Even worse than duplicate posts

Hi fawzma, I played the game this weekend at tpf, it was a lot of fun. I am in on #212 and can't wait to get my game.

One concern I have is with the large amount of air balls caused by the stand up targets. It got so bad that I lost 4 balls during my 2 game plays, due to an air ball flying across the whole table and into the drain. I know this is a design issue and up to he spooky team to correct, but I wonder if you could in some code to help this.

I was thinking something similar to Indiana jones, where if a ball falls into the trough, but not a single outlane switch was activated, the game recognizes it was an air ball and kicks out a ball save for the user. Is it a possibility that something like this could be added?

You can say that again!

On a more serious note, how would you be able to tell the difference between an airball and a center drain?

That would work if there was a switch to detect the ball draining at the flippers...

That's a good question. I wonder how it is able to tell the difference in Williams Indiana jones, the machine seems to be able to tell when those center drops cause an outlane air ball drain and corrects for it every time. Perhaps someone wiser than me can chime in here.

I hope this gets discussed more, doesn't seem like anyone is talking about it yet, but it seems like a very BIG deal, every game I watched or played in had at least 1 air ball drain.

I guess, if a certain shot never causes a drain without first hitting a switch, then you can assume such an occurrence is due to an airball and resurrect the ball. I don't know if this is the case in RZ.

So maybe if the game reads a switch hit on any of the stand ups in the back left of the game, doesn't record any other switches, and it sees a drain, detect air ball and resurrect? I would think a center drain from those stand ups would most likely hit another switch befor going down.

Obviously would be better if there was a physical fix, but not sure what could be done other than dropping flipper strength or putting plastics over the tops of the stand ups to deflect the ball back down.

If the airballs are really that serious, then this is something that needs to be addressed outside of code. You don't want airballs destroying your playfield, plastics and toys.

I think a clear plastic like was created for sparky on Metallica covering the living dead girl area from left side of ramp over to lower pop would work great and solve majority of problems.

Was surprised how much I liked this game. Hate the band and the pictures I've seen so far had lowered my expectations. Boy was I wrong. Had a blast with the few games I played at the show. it reminded me a bit of TZ in how punishing it is for inaccuracy. Good jerb!

I think on IJ it's something maybe more timer based.. Like a 1 second ball save starts after hitting the problem drops. I'm not sure it cares about switches; that may over complicate the code.

Let me talk this one over, I see where you are going with this and it's possible. Something else, each flippers power can be controlled. Maybe they needed to be turned down a tad.

I have code that tells me what switch was hit last. If you drain without lanes, I can read the last switch and see if its a pop, center target, LDG targets and drop target. I would more than likely put this in as a user option.

I watched and played RZ a lot this weekend and didn't see a single ball jump the flippers. FWIW.

also FWIW here's my my feedback from what I could tell in crappy convention environment:

1) multi-ball start flare for the coffin add a balls would be cool. maybe it was there and I didn't notice but I see the other poster's point
2) mix in more variations on the callouts- "one out of three" (on the skill shot) got old extremely fast. so did the knocking on the coffin during the add a ball targets
3) there were times when someone would cradle a ball and look up to shoot what was lit and seemingly nothing was lit?
4) early strategy seems imbalanced towards spamming the coffin add-a-ball.
5) ramp not worth enough outside of modes- however I will say that one strat I just thought of was to hit the ramp four times to spell CHOP which seem to provide a mid ball, single ball, ball save. neat.

Everything else was great, simply gorgeous in person. Loved the game, felt fantastic to flip, ramp and orbits very satisfying. Flipper rubber a little bouncy for my taste. Game could have been a little steeper. The 4, 5+ multi balls were super fun and something great for pinheads and non pinheads alike.

This sounds like an easy fix for it. I would rather have something like this happen than have to drastically turn down the game's speed.

Having said that, depending, reinforced stand ups to ensure they don't bend backward at all might be another way to try to address this. I know a couple games got something similar.

And... I haven't seen it myself, so no idea if I agree with what I'm saying, but I do like Sparky's thing on Metallica.

1 - will work on it more
2 - is a partial bug and he's says 1 out of 3 when he's not supposed to, coffin hits give indication of how many you got before your next ball. Maybe we can change the sfx to something else wen that mode isn't available.
3 - that was a last minute change related to in-game info. I was afraid it was causing some screen issues so I took it out, then changed it to show you what modes were beat on the PF. I missed adding in what shots were available.
4 - not sure what can change without going against the original design
5 - Center ramp outside of modes is used for raising hands out of the grave. if you shoot the right orbit before raising the 6th hand you don't get the maximum point award.

Make the add a ball harder to get, or make it worth less somehow.

Ew no please, I don't want another Earthshaker/Whirlwind/Police Force/etc.

It's the easiest, safest, and most repeatable shot on the game, there should be by far the least reason to shoot it versus anything else on the playfield.

I'll agree with this. Haven't played RZ yet but will in a few weeks. One of my favorite games is Viper: Night Drivin'. It has a GIANT, easy as heck to hit ramp in the center of it. That ramp is worth practically nothing, except that you can after three successful shots combo it with a difficult shot to get a bit of a bonus. If I keep spamming the shot, after like 20 consecutive hits, I have something like 4-5 million. Which is equal to one jackpot in multiball.

It makes a shot that is otherwise really easy into something that is not something you want to shoot. Sounds like this is the same thing, which I would enjoy.

But stern manages this just fine? They are bigger i know, but stiĺl. I live in norway and when asking about it i got a reply that it was due to licensing restriction....

The more I read the more I want one.

I'm certainly not one to ask about the legal side of this, but licensing restriction could be due to the music company charging more per region in which the music will be "redistributed in". From what I know the same happens for Netflix when they license movies, which is why say Netflix US and Netflix Canada have much different content.

Thanks for the actual game play reviews... Pics have been shown to death at this point. Keep up the rules suggestions.

It's worth noting that the single ramps in BBH and Avatar and even the double ramps in IM aren't worth a ton of points outside of modes either. The last thing I want is a ramp-all-day game... balance is of utmost importance.

I hear you guys on making sure it isn't just "hit the ramp" game like a race car making laps around the track. But keep in mind:

1) we aren't all professional.
2) it's an extremely dangerous shot in the middle of the table with a standup on one side and a freaking pop bumper on the other.

The IM ramps are done extremely well, like the combos in TOM. Ball keeps fast speed, shot is repeatable with growing reward but shots is extremely dangerous as well.

I say all this but note that I don't know what the raised hands from grave (Fawzma mentioned) mean so maybe it's all moot and that raises hand thing is awesome and creative way to reward ramp I just didn't get to it in my 5-6 games.

when is the next show that will have RZ's to play?

I assume MGC. I might have to make the trip, I really want to play this.

MGC it is.....

did anyone have their game go into ball search?

Where was the ball?

Was it a stacked ball in trough?

Was it multiplayer or single?

Single player. Ball stuck on top of plastic between the two pops on left and the wire form ramp. Saw it happen two times on games I was playing and once just watching someone else's. Never saw a ball search trough related issue.

Also random code idea I saw several times an inner orbit shot be made when the drop target was still up. I think you should add in a sneak shot award or value for making that shot with the drop target up, like dirty pool on afm or sneak in bonus on cftbl. Thanks for all of your hard work.

Thanks for the feedback

Yes, dirty pool is on the books. Just working out what video clip to use with it.

I think I know what issue your referring to. I was 1 group behind the one that had the problem and was helping KT try and locate a missing ball.

The original issue was with a multiplayer game 2 player if I remember right, and the ball got stuck somewhere on the right side of the playfield not sure exactly where as I didn't see it. Game went into ball search cycled through a couple of times and the ball never came out, went to tell KT, came back with a key and the ball came out right as we were starting to get the key in the game. Couldn't catch it with a flipper and not sure if it hit anything but then the ball drained. The game kept searching in ball search for a ball. It was not able to kick it out. This is where my memory gets fuzzy because a lot was going on, but at some point we tried to kick a ball out manually to see if we could get the ball search to stop, but that didn't work and I think that is where the balls got double stacked before it went out into the shooter lane. Charlie came back at that point and emptied the trough and we had 7 balls, put them back in the game and everything worked well.

The key was though at the beginning that the ball drained after cycling through ball search multiple times and it didn't detect the drain, kept cycling in ball search.

Hope that helps. I'm not on pinside a lot but I am a AMH customer so if you have any other questions get with Charlie or KT they have my email. I'm Richard from Arkansas.

Good description.

I went ahead and updated it so the deadswitch check resets after the 3rd cycle/ball kick. This gives you about 7-8 seconds to hit another switch. Will see how it turns out.

Thanks

My experience with AMH was flying balls settled down a lot after the game was broken in.

I wish people pushing for fixes the way they want then done would realize that what you want may not be what the other 299 of us want.

no worries lizard we are just giving feedback on a forum. (and in response to requests for it...) of course not everyone wants the same thing! We are talking about small fine tuning and results of real world play testing from the couple perspectives that were fortunate to get some time with it. Fawzma/designers can accept/ignore whatever they like!

I fully understand that but the give a ball back because it wasn't fair the way you lost it feature on AMH is the worst part about that game. The last think I want is another game with that programmed into it.

thats the great thing about user options turned off by default