they are looking so stripped down

here is the exploding death star on the premium / le

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Just from the pics I can see the "Ritchie" in the design. That's not a bad thing, love his flow...

Yeah that why I sold my LE - cause it is soooooo awesome!

Love it, open PF concept is always better to me, this just looks fast and with the Ritchie flow should amazing plus real clips from the films, I'm in for a Pre.

Well, your in the minority on that one... different strokes for different folks I suppose.

Well i know many have a hard time bailing on an LE (I felt the pain for months myself before just finally pulling the trigger) but in my small city alone myself and two others have done the same so it's a huge majority of the people I know that purchased GBLE new. I agree different stokes for different folks but not sure about "majority" Many don't want to speak badly out of fear their "investment" will plummet - LOL. Sell quickly and quietly me thinks

Why exactly did you have such a problem with the LE? The reason I say majority is because the game is very well liked among the pinball community.

...the community that bought an LE, that is.

Every game you have to play it the same. There is no variation in the code. Plus modes not finished, air balls, cheap drains, lack of flow. It's getting almost as tiring as the game to go on and on about what I didn't like.

I know of many people who sold their GBLE for similar reasons. People who currently own the game don't say much bad about it until they sell it LOL. I know of this situation right now but once he sells it he will tell you what he really thinks too.

ha it is?

I love "drain this post"

I sold my GBLE. It is a great game. I sold it because I don't trust the long-term serviceability of the Spike system. I'll re-buy one down the road of things hold up, but it was making me worry. Maintenance nightmare.

Baffling reason to sell. SPIKE is very modular, easy to drop in and replace new parts.

Benefits of a Bus system over a Matrix one.

Not among myself or any other GB owners I know.

Sounds like a fantasy you concocted for reasons that are your own.

Ever played stay puft mode with no multiplier and silly scoring? Ever had multiple multiballs going to have the reverse flipper multiball destroy the entire thing? Ever had ok who brought the dog play game after game after game? Ever had are you a god do nothing? Ever had ball jump rail to outlane? Ever had to hit slimer again to start anything in the game?

Ok maybe you are right - I have concocted the whole thing myself cause I wanted to sell my grail pin and lose $1000... sorry it is not and will never be top 10 pin for a reason- here's to hoping SW is nothing like it.

I hate to be down on pinball but I whole heartedly agree. Absolutely adored the movie, growing up. Loved the art, call outs, dots, and music. Loved the ecto goggles and magna slings. Overall, I hated the game and sold it after about a month.
It's got some great bits, but as a whole, it just wasn't for me.

Actually it isn't really that easy, and you don;t know how easy it will be in the future; which is what he's referring to.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/reliability-sam-vs-spike

IMHO the single biggest design flaw was the left captive balls. In theory it was a cool feature, but it didn't translate well into gameplay. Locks, playfield multipliers, super jackpot and add-a-ball all were key features dependent on the player being able to reliably and repeatedly hitting those balls. The shot was neither intuitive or easy because it was too far to the left. Plus, it times out which hampers your progress. SFMB locks were changed to light after so many ghosts and add-a-ball was changed to be lit at the start of multiball. So there's 2 of 4 captive ball features which had to be made easier, otherwise people were not getting them. Then there's the playfield multipliers which are extremely difficult to light from the captive balls.

Rob

Man... I suck at predictions. I completely missed how similar SW would be to GBLE!!

How did this thread turn into a Ghostbusters hate fest? The hate is serious! Similar to how men talk about their ex wives smh.

Lots of senseless ramblings and opinions there.....not much facts.

Conclusion, you've concocted it in your head.

Node boards are practically drag and drop.

Boards from the 70's and 80's are recreated and sold today. If for some reason 20 years down the road Stern no longer makes them, someone else will. They aren't that super sophistocated.

Seen that. Nothing in there to change my mind. My GB is rock solid, my friend's GB is as well.

Our local arcade has three SPIKE games. No issues with node boards there.

It's ridiculous to swap a board when for decades we've always replaced individual components. Spike is a step backwards for serviceability.

I've no doubt that given parts available today a node board is an easy thing to make. The concern many have whom follow trends in the electronics industry is that manufacturers who build a given chip package today will come up with a new and improved package tomorrow and they have no need to care about backward compatibility because they were never intended to be used in serviceable products anyway.

So while they may be super simple, will parts even be available 5, 10, 15 or 20 years from now?

Yeah someone will probably come up with a solution using modern components when that time comes but it certainly wouldn't be compatible with existing nodes so you'll end up replacing all of them.

Another factor is the price, 300 bucks a pop is not a fair price point for a drag and drop disposable component. If they were 50-75 bucks I don't think people would have the same level of concern. Heck OPP uses node boards and those can be built with inexpensive parts from mouser and its just a buck or two for the bank boards.

Just play better.

Most of the examples I have seen with node board issues are happening very early in the (less than 60 days) games life. Stern support is great about swapping them out of course during that time. I am sure there are exceptions where failures happen after thousands of plays.

To imply that parts won't be available is nuts. Ghostbusters sold THOUSANDS and Star Wars has a great chance of being Stern's best selling game in the company's history. There will be plenty of parts for Spike 1 and Spike 2.

SW could easily be Sterns biggest seller to date, but if rumours of Elwins Archer layout being used for GOTG next is true I could see that being just as big for Stern.

Either way like you said there will be plenty of parts for SPIKE 1 & 2 coming out of Stern for a long time. And if pinball history shows us anything, if stern ever stop producing them, someone else will step in to satisfy the demand.

Uhm Ok... forgot to mention this mode not working right either. Boo.

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If you're really concerned about total longevity and availability of hardware you should sell your woz too.

Yep there are bugs in every game.

It's ok if you don't like it, but don't make up excuses. Just "don't like it" and move on.

It's pretty obvious that I'm a huge fan of the Ghostbusters pin. It was a maintenance nightmare though. I don't trust Stern's build quality anymore. And with Ghostbusters being on its own Spike revision, it might be extra costly down the line. Some of us don't want the potential headaches.

What game is GOTG ?

guardians of the galaxy

The Guardians of the Galaxy, this bunch of A'holes

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Not concerned about hardware availability. You quoted the wrong person. I am just concerned about unfinished code but I did get rid of WOZ for gameplay / code reasons as well which I believe have since been addressed.

That's the way all electronics is going.

Like or not, it's just how it is. Stern is not alone on this.

Ghostbusters is not its own SPIKE revision.

WWE, KISS, GOT and GB are all SPIKE version 1.

IIRC, so is WNBJM and PBR.

You can't compare a cell phone or a gaming device that isn't meant to be used commercially, such as pinball or arcade games. They're meant to be serviced by technicians. Taking that away from pinball is a bad direction.

SPIKE is meant to be serviced. You replace the Node boards.

It may not be the way YOU want them to be serviced, but they are serviceable.

Replace =/= serviced. C'mon, dude. You're a blatant Stern apologist, and we get that, but you're going to have to concede on this one. SPIKE is a step backwards for serviceability in every way.

Yeah, I've stated my case. Don't have anything else to add, and arguing with a wall is never a productive use of time.

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Cool, he's gone.

Anybody have any guesses which show will be first to have a Star Wars playable? I'm guessing California Extreme should have one, but is there anything before that?

CAX is my guess as well... likely Pro. Would love to see a Premium though.

But I'm not sure the node boards are interchangeable. At least not per Chaz when I had issues GB/GOT

Pintastic New England show is in second weekend in July.

https://pintasticnewengland.com/

Gabe is trying to work with a local distributor to try and get one in time for that show.

The fact that I (and apparently many others) get blown node boards when you do a code update is very unsettling. I've owned Tron LE, Tron pro, Star Trek Premium, IJ4 and never had a blown board from something as innocuous as a code update.

Easy assuming you can get the parts and its still under warranty. The actual warranty time period seems to be a little "loosey goosey" based on each situation. I've heard 6 months warranty period for node boards. Once it is out of warranty some of them cost $300 a pop.

I lost a node board when I did the last update to my Batman66 LE and its almost been 4 weeks and still no replacement yet. Very frustrating to say the least.

Code updates killing a board? Wow, they don't test these updates??

Is it just me or does the old Stern NASCAR game from 2005 look eerily similar to the new Star Wars board? The pinballs even circle around the entire board along the bottom of the field the same way! LOL

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Which will come first? Star Wars Vault Edition, or game play videos?