I'm having the same thoughts and thanks to Aurich for starting a thread that I hope stays civil and concentrates on why this happened and what to do now. I went to look at a JM today at a pinsider's house who lives close to me and he had several pins that were in good shape. I've been looking for a Funhouse for a long time and he had one in real nice condition, I'm hoping he sells it to me at some point but I had a game it was amazing and The Hobbit all of a sudden came to mind, I'm not a WOZ fan but the there is no denying its beauty and I put money down on The Hobbit as its a much better theme for me and I figured I'm getting WOZ quality with a great theme how could anything go wrong, sadly it has and I'm trying to hold on but here's the point if that fella had said today give me $4000 for Funhouse I would have which would mean cancelling TH, my response should have been I have to pass I have this awesome game coming and need my cash for that. I really want to keep my pre-order but Jack needs to speak up a lot more than he has and I think waiting till next month is a mistake. Hopefully we are all going to be eating these words down the road but for now I need something, if TBL was a theme I enjoyed for pinball I would be out already.

The fact that LORT's really is a fantastic pinball machine is not helping. Those pictures are making me miss mine a lot. I hope Stern makes a VE, at the very least I probably will have one again.

IJ4 isn't a keeper for me I've had it twice now but it looks amazing and the gameplay is quite fun, non-pinheads love it thus it still makes coin on route and garners a high price. That being said TH playfield is actually fine with me, its all about the atmosphere and Smaug, if Jack shows final product with a full Samug toy and all the other filler that should be there, figurines of the characters and landscapes with proper illumination then I'm still going to buy it, at this point gameplay and rules just cannot be judged, I watched a video of TBL and while its a beautiful looking game everyone pretty much thinks its awesome with out a lot of play on it so there is hypocrisy going on here to some degree. Personally TBL call outs would get very tedious after a short while along with the bowling alley. Look, like all pinball companies B/W included every game can't be a winner. Theme is very important, what if DP's first game was Ishtar? Wait I actually love that movie, DP lets make it happen.

Hopefully someone makes them, its one of the cheaper mods that really helps the look of the game. Should be included.