Out of line!

Insert movie still from this scene with photoshopped text "+$1000" here

I agree with most of this statement. But saying this as a "friend" you do come off as someone having a crusade against JJP, like a deep, personal vendetta. I am not sitting here with a scorecard tallying this or that but as a frequent board reader and semi-frequent poster just stating the facts as I perceive them.

I think it has as much to do with the volume / frequency of comments as anything else. Very few posters are as prolific as you are when you are "on".

Nope, we can still argue for another twenty pages whether TH is poop, or "the poop".

Game on.

Looking forward to playing it myself, but I admit I find the toys underwhelming at this point. At least smaug is likely to be noticed by players, unlike the near invisible witch in WoZ. |

And another posititive is Panzer will not be posting about the number of toys every 5 minutes on TH... I hope

I am also confused as to the people stating they expect this game to have hella flow. I don't see it. Again happy to be wrong, but it seems to be a widebody with almost zero flipper returns? How will that lead to buttery smooth flow?
edit: I just looked at the CAD type drawings again and saw more returns than I remembered, but still I will be surprised if this has legendary levels of flow. I think I have been blinded by VUKs and "toys" to the point the rest of the playfield is mentally invisible...

I have a long memory, and remember very well similar reactions to the early WoZ code. "This can't be it, we were promised complete code". "Keefer is surely sitting on this large chunk of code that can't be shown for reasons X, Y or Z... and it will be released TOMORROW". etc. etc.... Now a similar reaction to people in denial about the hobbit.

And the stupidest thing is it could be cleared up in about 30 seconds by Jack, and either he loves to hate the negative attention or he is crazy? Just state "more is coming, re: the windlance and other issues (e.g. unfinished look at the back of the game, where the heck is the smaug tail, etc...)", or keep collecting names from people cancelling their orders. Crazyness.

I am sure he thought he had a slam dunk, with the Smaug ultra LE etc... a reasonably complete game to flip on... and instead he gets a bloodbath of disappointed customers and people on the verge of cancellation.

Much like the rest of the movies, it was like 15 minutes of buildup for 15 seconds of something that ends up not really mattering.

I loved the half hour bit at the beginning of the second movie where they basically just get horses... then immediately ride the horses to the start of the movie (my mind may be exaggerating in terms of the time... but it really is clear how they padded this out to three movies even on my first viewing).

I agree it is odd; but what do I know.

Being 100% honest it does make me think the parting was not 100% friendly though.

I am wondering this too... thinking about drop target heavy games in my collection that resent frequently, WPT is top of this list. I can only think of a single mode where the drops keep popping up rapidly, and it is fine. At least they only pop up after you hit at least one down from a bank during that multiball.

But the drops continually resetting during the smaug multiball, and perhaps almost every other mode during the game? That would get old pretty fast from a noise perspective.

I remember someone complaining about the noise from the GI relay ticking during Hulk multiball in Avengers. Hobbit seems to be like that multiplied by a thousand.

Anybody saying "just crank the sound baby" to drown out the drops... good luck with that

Yeah, I am sure my wife and kids in my home (and for the Hobbits on location... other patrons of whatever establishment) will be all for this "fix"

Even if I lived by myself, that is still the weakest sauce fix to "bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang..." I have ever heard.

Honestly it is an argument FOR digital pinball. I am wondering if the drop target noise will end up being bigger than smaug-gate.

I agree with this. There is a ton to shoot at. And thank you jack for letting the mob know things are not done. Looking forward to seeing the next showing of tbis game.

Agreed, not a "flow monster", but I have plastic that keeps the PoTD feeding onto the wireform rather than the shire (the game does not need another pause for a VUK prior to getting to my flipper). That helps decrease the dead ball time a bit.

Still, lots of shots leading to brief pauses (Bara-Dur, locks etc...).

Aware of the souls issue, for me it is worth the trade off.

I just figure VUK to POTD to VUK is a bit much stop and go, in a game with a lot of other stops. Definitely a matter of personal opinion, but I suggest this "mod" for those who like the game but want to decrease the dead time a bit.

Anybody thinking the smaug as shown was intended to be a placeholder has full blown fanboy syndrome. You dont put that much work into a placeholder mech. And you certainly don't do that about 2 months prior to shipping.