...on the lockdown bar. Doh!

Okay, since we all know that the secret to happiness is managed expectations, here's my contribution to this thread...

It’s not "The Mandalorian", it’s "Inspired by The Mandalorian" - different characters, voices (brought back the guy from Walking Dead), plot, locations and oh yeah, no Baby Yoda because his agent was being a dick. And Gomez designed his own version of the Razor Crest ship, and it's on a spring!

Okay, this looks better than I was fearing/expecting. Fan layout. Art looks good (Prem better than LE, as usual). Pro might be the way to go as well if you don't care about the PF flipping up.

Well to be fair, historically that has been the case. It would seem that Stern has learned a few valuable lessons in terms of how to make games that appeal to collectors. First by bringing back hand-drawn art (thanks Dirty Donny we miss you), then by investing in more complete/complex software, and lately in more elaborate custom mechs.

Which is awesome.

Hesus Aurich ! If I did that I could completely miss out on the pre-order window for some flashy new game! What about my carefully nurtured FOMO?!

The fact that distributors are reporting their "interested" lists for LEs are full for unannounced future games by Elwin is surely a sign of the apocalypse.

The fact is, so long as the prices for new and used pinball machines continue to increase at an accelerating pace like the expansion of the universe (or a soap bubble) people see no downside to buying up these NIB at whatever the cost. They *know* they can flip them later, probably for a profit if surely not close to their original purchase price. And they are not wrong, at least today.

The minute that the supply increases enough to substantially outweigh demand, or demand drops substanitally, the whole thing will implode like the house of drop-targets that it is. Stern realizes this, why do you think they keep increasing their prices on a constant drip? Everytime they do that the used game in my basement increases in value too, eventually well above what I paid for it new. It's a pyramid scheme, with NIB buyers supporting the rest of the hobby by setting ever-higher prices as the new normal.

It's been a hell of ride, not looking forward to the eventual collapse.

Boy, that left ramp is sure repeatable..

I thought it was fun(ny).

Yes, thankfully. That does count as "innovation" for Stern.

If so he must move on all the editions or they'd have a lot of pissed off Pro buyers on their hands.

Some kind of post announcement surprise??

My pet theory is that Baby Yoda did move originally but once Gary Stern saw all the LEs selling out sight unseen, he went down the line ripping out the guts to save $ on the BoM (like it was a SR game).

Or... they will release to cool moving version as a custom mod later, ala UV lights on Stranger Things.

A much more apt comparison would be the T-Rex on "Inspired by Jurrassic Park", which you conveniently left off your list.
...and nobody thought the flail on BK was unimpressive.

Seems obvious to me as well. Bash it once the lid opens, bash it again, Byoda gets pissed and uses force powers to fuck with the ball (via magnet in front). Done.

If you have to ask...

Screw that. Make sure you make that animatronic Baby Yoda (tm) DANCE baby!

...we'll know what Jack really thinks of the game if he switches the stream over to the DP in the Stern game room halfway through.

To be honest, if the all the video assets were animations done in this style, that would be the one thing that might push me over to the buy category on this game. Doubtful.

I would bet that the cost to produce the plastic ramps, stock and track them, etc. far exceeds any per-unit price difference at these volumes between them and the two-wire wireform version.

Stern is just going through all this trouble to slant more people towards the Premium model, which is annoying. I much prefer the "carrot" approach, where they actually put compelling additional features into the Prem vs the "stick", where they take stuff away as a deterrent to purchasing vs. actual cost savings. See spinners in Metallica Pro.

...Ugh. AIQ is everything I despise about the Marvel universe.

You guys watched the stream?? I got "distracted" on the Twitch front page by a lovely young lady in a bikini riding an inflatable banana in a kiddy pool in her living room...

Sorry DeadFlip , you're going to have to up your game! ...might want to make sure the pinball machine is grounded before you try that though.

Guys, Munsters code is the way it is BY DESIGN. In several podcast interviews Dwight noted that Gomez had suggested that he try going simpler with Munsters, I suppose to make it more approachable to casual players. This might have been an over-correction after SW, I don't know, but Munsters is exactly the way they wanted it to be, for better or worse.

The problem is that when a coder known for complex, deep rulesets switches it up suddenly nobody is expected/wanting that from them, and many are left disappointed. Just like when your favorite band decides to alter their musical "formula" and loses 1/2 their fan base.

So if you want Munsters to have deeper code, I suggest you start coding it yourself.

...but by all signs Mando will have an interesting ruleset more typical of Dwight's style.