Yeah because given a HD LCD there’s no way to make the service menu more useful and actually help more with diagnostics.

DEAE7C0E-F9F1-4984-8494-3E34607363A4 (resized).jpeg

Lol, SNAP!!

Ok - you guys win. I agree this is way sweeter. I was just thinking about the font. It's funny how the JJP menu actually resembles the RFM menus. I never realized that.

I remember this with my AV receivers as well. The onscreen menus looked like crap for years before they got around to updating them to look decent on a HDTV. They will update it eventually but you can't expect it to be a high priority.

EDIT: The JJP screen looks great. They weren't dealing with legacy software, but looks like they did a nice job designing a service menu that takes advantage of the LCD screen.

You're just making excuses for them. The SEGA 192x64 menu system was wayyyyyyy more advanced and functional.

WhiteStar, SAM, Spike, Spike2 are all backwards steps and also miles behind JJP, or even Spooky or DP (no familiarity with HW or CGC menus).

There's no excuse.

They've been dragging their feet for so long with so many things.

JJP games might be way more advanced but Stern games are just way more fun to play.

Pending a pinheads preferred choice.

DI is pretty damn fun IMO, so much so my misses who is not a player at all wants one, in perspective I haven't been able to ever talk her into paying for a pin before, but she is all up for going halves on a DI

I know DI is popular but I agree with Elwin's latest interview that games have got too complex, deep, so only the best players have half a chance of finishing them.

He says 30 minutes maximum to complete a game. Another reason I am looking forward to Maiden

But, a lot of people like these epically deep rulesets so that is cool but they are just not for me.

I'm certainly not a great player, but I got within a hair's breadth of reaching WOZ's final wizard mode on 3 ball play ... and I got there at a stage where I had probably played 50 hours of pinball lifetime.

I don't think a lot of machines that are considered 'uncompleteable' for anything other than top 0.05% players are nearly as uncompleteable as many claim.

That said, were I to walk up to WOZ at a bar now, I'd be lucky to crack 100k, as I've had so little time to play in the last year ... and Keith seems very concerned with location accessibility.

Console systems have had game save options for years. It could be an option for pins. Epic quest length rulesets that take weeks or years could be implemented. Might even give players a reason to put more money in on location.

To me its about the journey, not the destination. Whether a game is deep or relatively shallow, it has to be fun. I have played both shallow and deep games that were a lot of fun and, conversely, there are shallow and deep games that I don't like at all.

I will say that I'm more likely to purchase a deeper game. The games are heavy and a PITA to move around. I keep them for awhile. A fun deeper game keeps my interest longer than a fun shallow game. While I love IM and play it whenever I see it on location, I probably won't buy it for home.

I think there's an art to making code deep yet also beatable. Keith Johnson games often have a mini wizard mode, sometimes multiple mini wizard modes (Hobbit), that a player can reach on a good game. Then there's the super wizard modes Keith adds to his games for those rare occasions when you have a game of the year, or game of a lifetime, type game. Dwight has been doing something similar with his recent rulesets.

Keith Johnson games also incorporate multiballs and modes that work the playfield in interesting ways rather then just hitting the same shot over and over again. These modes also give a game legs by offering multiple stages which gives a player a rewarding feeling as they beat each stage.

The types of rulesets I mentioned above are the ones I personally prefer if I'm going to purchase a game for my home. I don't want a game that can be easily beat, is just focused on points (versus objectives) and lacks mini wizard modes. If I'm going to spend NIB dollars on a pin it's going to be on a Keith Johnson or Dwight Sullivan type game that offers deep and unique code.

On a final rant note, lol, there's also the question of value being provided by a games code depth. The more code work that goes into a modern game the greater the games perceived value is in my opinion as without code these games are all just a box of lights.

I think the level of 90's BW games are the perfect level of difficulty for on location games. They get boring too quickly in a home environment though.

Some do, but others I think are great. I love TZ in the home as it’s always a challenge and with lots of modes there is always something to work on. Maybe that’s the key... always having different things to work on. If a game only had 2-3 things to go for, even if they were super hard, that could get dull.

I also think though that no one game will ever offer everything.. having a nice mix of games with different play types, layouts, etc keeps things interesting.

Anyway, looking forward to summer when we might have a chance at seeing an AS update

Admittedly my misses likes the emojis and selfies

Oh well you can’t win them all, she’s got her looks going for her

well if they mentioned it... it wouldn't be a surprise would it?

remember when Stern said the SPIKE platform was to make life better for operators? Modernizing diagnostics should be part of that story.

I think DI does a good job with that balance. It's deep, but not crazily so - it's in spirit a 1990s-style mode-based rule set.

The pendulum swings back and forth. Back when Stern was putting stuff like HRC and Striker out, Gary said that games had gotten too complicated in the 1990s and he was bringing 'em back to Earth. These days people - especially home buyers - demand something a lot more complicated. Except TNA I guess?

Safe to assume that if all they are hyping 1 week out form the largest pinball show of the year is some code updates, that we are not seeing a new game next week?

I'm assuming no because Zach said there wouldn't be one till April probably, I believe

I’m sure they will be announcing something as so far this year nothing has been released... I don’t count re-skinning a current VE.

What I love about Dialed-in (and honestly hate during league play) is the focused points. Like you have specific shots you have to make to get points. You can't just whap the ball around and expect to get a huge score. I mean you can but most likely you will fail. Like if you lock both balls for the first multi-ball and don't cancel. The only real option is to nail the scoop and get multi ball. I guess you could play a crazy bob mode if you want. But I like that it keeps the game semi linear in that fashion where you get rewarded for purposely nailing shots vs just random flail.

Stern has a conference planned for Saturday night at TPF, so maybe a surprise.

But it doesn't look good, unless they are changing how they debut a game.

What would be funny is if Jack came out of the blue and showcased a second game for the year and announce that Pirates is ready to ship.

I'll be at JJP's conference for sure.

mode where the big points are in that game + the sim card

I agree with this, DI has plenty of code but not so much that it's crazy complicated.

I'm really happy there is variety right now. Because as we have seen people bitch no matter what any of these companies do. TNA makes the group that wanted something different happy, DI makes the B/W people, POTC is going to make the LOTR, WOZ, TSPP adventure story type game people happy, stern games make the fast and furious game style with mid depth unique code happy. So no matter what gets released a large group of people are not going to like it. But if everyone would just wait a little bit something in the near future will be more their style.

Games cannot ship until a cartwheel is videoed, those are the rules.

So True...and for those who have forgotten

https://www.facebook.com/JerseyJackPinball/videos/1574911519194105/

I take that back. If he's going to announce that POTC is shipping at TPF he might want to hold off on the cartwheel. He might roll right off the stage and break something.

For anyone concerned about code depth you just need to get certified and earn your code degree.

code (resized).JPG
code2 (resized).JPG

Is this what Stern is really using for corner bracket now our days? Legitimate question

Think it's been like that a while now.

Yup, first thing I replaced in my AS.

Yep, super lame and surprising they haven't bit the bullet and spent $5 a game to "upgrade" the Pros to the classic B/W corner brackets (or if they must, the older-school but still less-crap 80s-style brackets as seen in the video). Even if this isn't a direct cause of their cab splitting problems of the past, you'd think they'd know that people will be particularly tuned in to crap parts in the cab department.

Stern Premium and LE game cabs are now reinforced to hell though.

Wow those corner brackets are a joke, he put in effort to fixing it, I would have just spun a nut over it.

I thought after cabinet-gate debacle, Stern started using the full Williams style brackets? Or maybe that was just the front? Or is that not true at all?

Front only were installed on my SW premium.

Not even on the premium?!

Come on Stern, give us 4 good brackets! Lame...

I was not really surprised at this. People only had cabinets come apart at the front. Stern does the least possible amount they can to advert a crisis. Well, attempt to advert, anyway.

Same here, nut and a lock washer.

Yeah that works great. But what if you had to do that to the back leg plates and you transport your game a lot? Pain in the ass.

They have used those for quite a while now, at least as far back as Tron and maybe even earlier. I replaced mine on 2 games with the Williams style brackets due to cabinet splitting concerns (preventive measure). The ones Stern uses are super weak and SOFT! They can be bent easily by hand, like they are annealed for some reason.

Crappy material made in good 'ol China.

They make them how you spec them. Stern wanted cheap and that is what they got.

One of my legs had the plate bent into a U shape while installed. I am thinking this was from overtightening the leg bolts over the years. The wood was compressed underneath it into the same U shape and the plate had to be pried off the wood.

Then you would probably want to put a new plate in the game, but most people dont transport their games very often so its a non issue for 90% of the people. Even if you did move the game alot though its still not a huge deal imo, just takes a second to pop that nut off the inside of the cabinet.

Definitely a piss poor corner bracket for sure. Ever who thought that was a good idea should be fired.

Can I call you every time I move my LW3 then? I hate it. Haha.

Absolutely, i would help you out anytime! Maybe i will buy you a new corner bracket for Christmas for your LW3!