That's not a true statement, Gomez said it will happen recently in a podcast.

If you are able to, you might want to access the Admin features of your router. There may be options around 2.4ghz "band steering" or some legacy support for older 2.4ghz devices.

I had an issue with my 2.4ghz access point in that IC would see it but could not maintain a connection to register. Once I adjusted these settings I was finally able to get it up and running on WiFi and stop using an ethernet cable running to the head.

Good to know. I thought he originally said it wouldn’t.

He did, but recently walked it back in a newer podcast.

Many thanks, will try another USB Wi-Fi adaptor.

Thanks for the insight

Just knock it out all in one seating.
After a few made it becomes like a flow of making them.
The only X factor of making so many in a row is if/when a game
in a future tournament lineup is changed but that is an easy one thing adjustment.

Here's a random silly achievement idea for IC I borrowed from early Xbox 360 games

The development team have an achievement unlocked for them. In order to get the achievement, you have to beat someone with that achievement. So there would be very few people in the beginning who have it, but then slowly more and more would unlock it by playing in competitions.

I didn't check to be honest, I was more concerned with the disconnects. I'll roll one of my games back onto the original dongle and do a comparison. I'll post up after the test.

IC needs some meta rewards for earning xp. Right now, you rack up xp, but so what? I guess that is something. But imagine some possibilities:

-by gaining xp you level up or earn titles. Your title is displayed proudly on the screen for a moment when you start a game, or game somehow makes a fuss over you. Kind of like how knocker draws positive attention, games gives a small VIP feedback.
-tangible reward like swag or t-shirt you can only get by achieving xp thresholds. Like 10k xp club or something.
-free games. Like every 1k xp you earn a free game you can redeem when you log in on location (operators would need a way to opt in/out if they are not down with it)
-enhancements to game play when you are logged in. Ones that do NOT affect score. Similar to cosmetic upgrades in competitive video games. Such as special call outs, animations, sound effects. You are shown these rewards and how much xp you need and can work to unlock them.

I would be way more motivated to earn xp (and thus play more on location and give money to operators) with some of these features.

some people may rack it up at free play locations just to spend it at coin drop ones. And operators will want to get paid for that.

I’m still hoping that on my GZ to have achievements unlock new game play.

I had listed out a ton of ideas and will add yours to my list. You came up with some great ones for sure!!!!!!

Correct but think about getting players to increase game play everywhere. In the end what is a free game here or there, I think there is more positive if our player community continues to build.

I would think an operator would trade a few free games for more people coming in.

Obviously you aren't an operator.

The best approach is allowing redemption at the same location or possibly even on the same game where they were earned. The op needs to be able to control the % of freebies, just like matches and high scores.

Has anyone installed an IC kit on a stranger things pro with the UV kit installed? I noticed the apron from the UV kit has a hole cut horizontally on the right side and possibly is ready to have IC installed.

I haven’t received the kit yet, just curious if anyone’s done it.

Yes. That horizontal cutout is for the IC kit so it can fit with the UV.

Great, thanks!

I’m not an operator you are correct.

My son and I play on location twice a week for about $60 each time. So at $480 a month I think one free game each month is not out of the question but for some operators maybe that’s too much. At that percentage rate a match free game would happen more often at the default % rate but some places might even set that to 0. Our local spot does control matches and free games, with achievable levels, I’m sure Stern would give you the IC choice as well.

Is it possible to get hold of the qr reader separately without having to buy a full IC kit? I don't want mine on the apron, so dont want to spend $$$ on something I wont use. I have plenty of spare SD cards and wifi dongles too.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/stranger-things-club-join-our-party/page/313#post-7036753

(key post in ST owner thread)

Unfortunately, not. But...if you can borrow a QR reader from someone, you can get your machine set up (using your SD card & wifi dongle) and then remove the QR reader, logging on with home team.

I think his point was that the free credits need to be location specific and not transferrable across operators since some locations are on free play, not that he's averse to free games.

Ive done that and it works, however, cant get into the network setup menu unless you have the QR reader connected, so no wifi s/w updates etc, until you plug a QR reader back in.

I took a look at the QR reader hardware - looks like an off the shelf qr reader but with a stern board fixed to the rear that connects to the node network. Stern haven't released a schematic for this board as far as I can see - I cant locate it on their support webpages.

I may hookup a data interceptor to the node network to see if I can figure out what signals the QR reader nolde board sends to tell the game that it is present and correct. Not an easy task, but not impossible either...

I thought the WiFi updates still worked, as long as you set them to automatic before you disconnected the QR reader.

ahhhh. good point. i’ll try that.

What features are people looking forward to this year?
This is the year of the Stern App launching maybe?

Your browser is an app.
Asking for additional apps will split the resources used now to code for web browsers into coding iOS, Android & web browsers.

Let them get to some kind of fairly static feature set before you start asking for UI changes to the interface.

The thing where each Bond game unlocks features in the other seemed kinda interesting. I don't know if they're still planning on doing that though, they may have abandoned it.

It would be funny if the Marvel games unlocked content in each other, or whatever. Or something. The truth is that it would be hard to make people feel like content isn't just being arbitrarily locked behind a gimmick. Even so, I think it would be an interesting experiment.

I keep forgetting to do this test but I will. I did have one new thing happen which I thought I should report. Bought my 6th IC title on Friday, got it registered with Stern and of course commenced with playing the crap out of it. After about 2 hours I noticed it was offline, went into the menu and it was reporting there was no USB dongle anymore. Tried re-seating it, running the dongle reset, moving it to the adjacent slot. At one point I got it to come back on for another 20 minutes and that was it. It's completely dead now. And Stern can't blame my network this time because it's not a connection issue, the game is reporting it can't see the dongle at all.

I already had a TP-Link branded dongle on the way because the general suckiness I've had with the factory ones so I'll be back up and running as soon as the Amazon truck pulls up today. But it is irritating they continue to put such a sub-standard component in these games for an important new feature, this latest game was built on November 1st 2022 so it's from a fairly recent run.

Any news when there Will be more features in The leaderboard?

yeah - the stern Wi-Fi adapters are not awesome. I have some of them working fine, some third party ones, and some wired machines. One thing I can say is that Stern support has been great for me. I told them I had an issue with a dongle from one of the upgrade kits and they sent me two replacements right away.

Right on, knock on wood most of mine were painless installs.

I would like to setup a virtual league and compete with others. It would be fun too to create virtual teams and be able to do a badge. Would be fun on a Friday night to see who is online and compete from home.

I only have 4 IC pins at home but having net connected challenges with friends would be awesome, heck I would buy more pins!

That would be great! I know it's just a pipe dream, but it would be pretty cool to play a two player game across the country. When your opponent is playing, your local machine's solenoids fire off (including flippers) in real-time and the display shows what's happening remotely on your opponent's pin.

Might be cool to have some more generic achievements, like beyond played 1,000 games, achieved 100 extra balls, or like sponsored locations - played a game at the pinball hall of fame.

You mean like Heads Up! or Cosmic Cart Racing ?

I admittedly haven't been following Multimorphic - is this something that already exists?

I'd like it if you could reset your Achievements for a game, so you can go back through earning them all again.

Yes, and iirc you can save your progress on Heist and there is a role playing game by bingopodcast called Ranger In The Ruins

Great idea! All they would need is to code it in.

Create a second account?

Any luck?

Just to update. I borrowed a friends firestick, bought the app and had an old 32" tv to hang at the bar... in testing this setup is working! Only pain is you have to be on site to change the URL when the leaderboard updates, which isn't a huge deal. You change the url via the app settings w/ the firestick remote. Going to try and hang this tv tonight!

It works and also auto loads the app from a power reset or outage. You just have to update the URL monthly or whenever you change the leaderboard. Also one $20 fee gets unlimited usage across multiple fire sticks, for a few locations it does work out nice.

I use OptiSigns. It’s $10 a month per device but I can update it from anywhere, anytime

yodeck - free for two devices or $8/device per mon

They'll even give you hardware for free if you are on a paid annual plan.

yodeck has a web CMS with schedules, etc. I play videos, webpages, league ads, etc

We run monthly specials and all kinds of stuff

I have done that at home. We created two home account to make a challenge where we see who can get the most badges in an hour of play. Would be cool if we could setup home challenges but no go so we just create a ton of free accounts. Like Jan23Player1, 2,3…

I love that idea. Thanks for sharing. And a good one for Stern to implement on their end...