deeproot Pinball thread

If you are specifically gathering location gameplay data, why would you deliberately run your flippers weaker than the game design calls for? To protect badly-printed prototype 3D toys? I don't agree with their priorities. Gameplay must be sorted out first and foremost, but that never seems to be important on JPOP games. Hope this doesn't become another MG...

Because it was not. The intent was to test a prototype.
For the rest have you done market analysis to know the NIB sales? By brand? The playfield issues may have calm down everybody but just for 2 brands but it’s not the end of pinball and the world.

Funny thing here we see always the same avatar for negative comments and positive. Seems like a fan club for negativity here too
We still need to hear the broken record but at the end the final product might shut some mouths, I hope... i really don’t care what DR said or their marketing approach, seems like a big deal for some. I will not put a poster of DR in my room even if they release the best pin ever.
I personally don’t like any recent pins moreover Stern. My Alien is an exception.
I don’t to pay crazy price for a feel cheap pin with bad taste design with unfinished code but it’s my opinion. In the 90’s they were working hard on design and creativity: moreover WMS and capcom. I’m nostalgic....

Generic question: what have we seen revolutionary since pinball 2000 released 19 years ago? What? Big lcd screen? Wow... p3 is the only one.
DR is supposed to have the gut to try with the risk behind. We will see but they didn’t revealed anything as stated in their interview...

But the cabinet! the translite! 3d printed thingys!

But unlike FDM, you can gang resin prints on the same plate as long as they fit on the plate and it doesn't double the time like it would with an FDM since it it layer at once instead of having to draw each layer. Resin is more of a hassle to deal with, but in a facility the size they have, there's plenty of room and plenty of ventilation to have a dedicated print room if they wanted.

But these are all logical solutions after the fact that would have resulted in much better impressions for little or no change in cost. They didn't do that, so who can know what's in their head?

If somebody was able to make the ramp shot once, then everyone else who didn't make the shot just isn't that good.

I made the ramp shot a couple of times but it required a perfect shot with a moving ball. Wasn't happening from a cradle. It did feel a bit clunky but being a proto I was trying to look past a lot of that. For the little bit I got to play it I thought it was fun to shoot. I'm holding my opinion until I see more polish first.

Who said anything about the flippers Failing? ... I thought someone said weak? ... oh well.

It is pretty funny if you think brand new flippers perform exactly the same as flippers that have done say 2000 plays (or whatever, sorry I just picked a random gummy number). I never said how much weaker, but maybe enough that you cant make the ramp from a trap? .... you know just to see how players reacted.

Pinside.... what a "special" & unique place!

crikey ...

Well said. +1

Could be because I had time on this pin and and face to face conversation with the engineers....

My take is that this protoype game feels like something they might have put together like a year or more ago and had it more or less lying around since then as-is. So they decide they need to show *something* to get people talking about them again and maybe keep the folks waiting for it off their backs so they decide to polish it up a bit and show it. Meanwhile back at the shop they have multiple games much further along, including this one, but they want to save their powder for a proper production reveal next year. Also manages everyone's expectations a bit so they can try to blow our minds next year.

If this isn't the case, and this truly represents the actual state of this game after all this time, well, they're done for IMHO. Maybe they spent the last 3 years re-inventing backbox hinges and shit instead of making actual games, I dunno.

...and I actually love the idea of a major shot/ramp in a game that can't be made from a trap up. These guys that refuse to play on the fly and must control every shot from trap drive me crazy...

That was their reveal, whether they like it or not. Even if you are an established business, like Stern, you shouldn't test your machine in public (and I'm sure you'll never see Stern testing a machine in public). Let alone when you are a company who is releasing their first pinball ever, has insinuated that it will be superior to everything else out there...and everybody is watching.

"As for NIB sales, companies keep these figures very close to their chest. Anecdotally, several of the vendors at Chicago Expo said their sales were down quite a bit. Some even said they wouldn't be returning in 2020, it wasn't worth their time."

interesting. Maybe the price increase is not for nothing. When I started collecting pinball 7 years ago, you could find TZ like new for 1500 euros so those stupid prices has consequences at the end. At the same time, it's difficult to know exactly what's going on since new designers are coming, stars and show are paid (Elvira) and so on...

It could come also from changing the way they distribute their products too

I saw a bunch of RAZA videos and all I saw was balls hitting nothing and staying in the lower part of the playfiels. No flashing, no calls, it really looked boring as hell.

Prototype or not, it was the reveal of Deeproot first game after years of bragging about themselves and spitting on everyone else. I also had to check my monitor setting twice I thought it lost the red and blue color, I really hope their is a lot of people out there who like green, well super green actually.

I spoke with the DR folks at length, as well, and it's clear that DR was holding stuff back. To Levi's point, the real question is how much.

There's two broad options:
1) What we saw was 80%+ what we'll see in March, with most of the changes being spit, polish, process... and a sprinkle of "innovation"
2) Robert's promises come true and we get our minds blown

My vote is for #1. All of the "innovation" we keep fight.. erm, disagreeing about is not likely to be above the playfield.

Lame, but pertinent, example: I noticed when they popped the playfield that every mech was connected via Molex connectors. Been done a million times, especially by folks like Chris at HEP. But, imagine how much simpler - and cheaper and less error-prone - it is to assemble a pin when you don't have to solder stuff on the assembly line. Not a "mind blown" situation, but it is an example of how I expect DR to keep costs down.

IMHO, folks expecting levitating balls and augmented reality are likely to be sorely disappointed, though it's easy to understand how they were led to expect that kind of stuff.

My guess is the "innovation" will be more around online connectivity and manufacturing efficiencies and the final product will still look like most other pinball machines.

Until then, we get to bitch about who is wrong Look forward to having a beer at TPF and finding out who is right!

It didn't look like that in person. Was a factor of the crap lighting. Scroll back for someone who posted color-corrected pics that are closer to reality.

I really don't see what's wrong with that. It's a new company, it's their first pin, they got several ongoing pins and they wanted feedback for one.
Again what is best: wait the released and point out all the could have been things missed ?
They want to have a spread judgment larger than their 10 engineers working in closed space on the same project every day...
Really I don't get what's wrong.
Stern has been around for decades with DE and Sega and JJP was a large pinball supplier already...

Selling big intend is not the same than selling 500 pins.

If by batch you mean over years... yes. The ones recently weren't bad, they were comically defective.

I liked your comment but I hope you're wrong

A Reveal of some kind of prototype, of course.

A Reveal of the actual RAZA, Definately not. That has been abundantly clear to most people following, since well before Houston.

This is a Reveal of DRs game with no new innovations, as they stated.

Yes, Testing their "industry standard" regular pre-release first concept never to be sold machine, in a public location, makes complete sense for deeproot!. They would be stupid not to.

In other things that make complete sense, the idea of these guys relaxing as a group for a bevvy, after Houston, to peruse this thread and take some time to Cack Themselves Laughing at some of the clowns in here!

Here here! +1

If they are weak that has failed the game play. Have had games at the brewery that have 6000 games on them, no flipper issues. Not weak not stuck nothing. So I get it, the games at home are played much less. I am just giving my opinion to you on failure rate in the field as most would not realize what it's like to play your games 20k+ times.

Either way thanks for your opinion. I mean to no ill will just having an objective opinion.

Also another observation I was making was in 28 hours, 2000 games is a lot. You figure there are some very good players and some not so good but the average would be almost 72 games an hour which we all know is very unlikely.

Yeah, nah, yeah ... lol ... I meant "simulate" <however number of plays it takes to> make the flippers weaker from lack of maintenance, whatever.

I did not mean the game would get anywhere near 2000 plays in a couple of days, just meant ... simulate advanced "deterioration" so that they can guage how players react to their game if it was not performing 100%. That's all . Like a location "scenario". More feedback than "data" for that bit maybe. I dunno, was just speculating.

It’s a win-win. If I’m right, I win the Pinside guessing game. If I’m wrong, we get a lot of cool new pinball stuff

Exactly

I'd say both is true.

The game we'll see (aka the things on the playfield) won't be "vastly" different or they wouldn't have brought it for testing.

The cab (therefore a lot of "looks") and how everything is manufactured will definately change.
(And they seem to be pretty sure that these additions bring enough new things to the table that this rekindles interrest.)

How the game was presented and that one machine had weak flippers as it seems is a bummer but most likely none of this will matter when the machines are ready for shipment.

So for some of the Feedback the game got here...

RAZA definately has no overwhelming new toy in it but especially when you see the duck target and ferris wheel rotating this thing definately has an amusement park feel to it and there is little mechs all over the place, for most of the shots.
In Addition it was said that RAZA is supposed to be one of Deeproots lower tier machines.

So in my opinion comments like "tear that gimicky stuff out and concentrate about the shots like Maiden (wich is a great but COMPELTELY different beast)" are kinda out of place for the game RAZA wants to be.
In Addition with all this smaller mechs it is way more packed then any Stern Pro; People said GotG Pro was "stuffed" but they just spreaded one "Vengeance" (comprising of Magnet, Drop Target and Backkicker) over three toys. Here we have a newish spinner, the rotating target, the sideways moving target, the ferris wheel, spinning disc, a kinda unique ring-the-bell target/ mech and I believe even a magnet and a little subway.
All with "molded" decoration.
So yes, while this game is not the "revelation" people expected after all the initial bragging, wich it by announcement isn't supposed to be, I can't see how anyone sane can compare this to a Stern Pro and see it lacking. - In terms of BOM and Design of course, since we don't know how it'll play.
For other comments circled about what took them all this years: Deeproot started to built/ re-invent the basics from ground up or as H2H said it, they built the company first, then the game. So they'd have to do their own Spike System and lot's of tiny things like the (simple but elegant) opening mechanism for the Spike2 backbox. All from scratch.

So, does that game set the world on fire as it is? - No, definately not.
But it allready does things differently (like the LCD) and seperate from the theme the game seems way less "reduced"/ more lively with little stuff (mechs & molds) all over the playfield.

I like that! - Even if I propably won't buy this game (not my theme AT ALL). I'm interested what we'll be shown in march.
Regarding all that given info I'm ok with the prototype. I hope that ramp will be more makeable in the final game (aka. constant flipper strength) and an added coil for the back-center Ned target to give some hit-feedback would be nice.

Does anybody think a pinball game can be bad (besides Ghostbusters)

If this game was in your local arcade today would you not play it? Of course you would which means it’s good.

When I walk into anyplace and there’s a pinball machine, I head right over to it. And if it ends up being a Ghostbusters, I head right back out the door

But only because you've allready played it.

I would throw a coin in, like I do on every new pin. The next coin is a different story, it comes from how enjoyable the first one was.

Is it me or is it so obvious that Deeproot’s big innovation is swappable playfields. Why do they act like we don’t know??? Robert sounds so foolish, we are not a bunch of foolish bums. Most of us here on Pinside are professionals who work in big industries, for big companies. He would be wise to listen to us. Why not take a humble approach to business???

It’s you...I 100% disagree with everything you just said. Listen to Pinsiders because “we” supposedly work in big industries for big companies??? Recently this thread proves exactly why they shouldn’t listen to “us”.

Robert just called Zombie Yeti’s art work on the original RAZA a “Hack Job”, do you want to comment on that? Robert will crash and burn as he sounds like a total douche bag.....JPOP junior. We are the customer and rule #1 in any successful business is listen to your customer.

Well...yeah...
Robert called me, on my cell phone, to tell me I would receive DR machines for the money I had lost with JPop/Zidware. Answered any question I had and has kept in touch with scheduled updates on that status.
I couldn't get JPop to even return an email, much less get him on a telephone.

You need better game if you gonna be sliding into JPops DMs like that

Say what?

OMG!! Robert’s interview on Kaneda is blowing my mind away!! He just called Stern “weak”! Is this guy crazy??? No doubt he is!! Who wants to bet this company goes belly up!

OMG!!! Pinside calls Stern everything imaginable every minute.

Oh come on. You cant be serious in making this comment.

He said Stern's business model is weak. He said they have high fixed costs and they might have a hard time adapting to the next economic downturn especially with increased competition. Can you really ship 3 cornerstones, 1 vault and 1 boutique machine per year during a recession? He needs to polish his message but he may have a point. Only the future will tell.

1 word - “Ghostbusters”

As the recepient that it is adressed to.

Whatever Robert says it doesn't need a new posting and outcry for every statement.

Stern will be the only company to survive a recession and if you or Robert don’t understand that.........You need to rethink your perspective.

Umm, not so fast. JJP has a multi-millionaire backing them. Spooky is so lean they’d survive a nuclear winter, DR is run by a hedge fund guy, he knows what’s coming too. So a few can easily survive..

Not much can be revolutionary with pinball at this point. Evolutionary, yes, but it needs to retain some nostalgia as part of the experience. The 3D theater in DI shows some cool evolutionary changes, especially when the spotlight extends up into the LCD on the backglass. I wish they’d go further with connecting the playfield to the screen as a direct extension of gameplay in some modes. Alien is great with the screen in the playfield. RGB has been nice. Complexity of code. And so on. I don’t care as much about revolution, evolution, or innovation as this: is it fun? Honestly, Lebowski is very WMS like and incredibly fun to play.

Speaking of fun, how did you get the only prototype Archer by Keith Elwin?! I keep hoping Stern reboots Maiden as the original Archer.

As for RAZA, it’s too early to say. Maybe it will end up great.

Looks more like stern will be the First to go under with their super low budget, cardboard quality builds, and rediculously inflated prices, from what I have experienced. If stern really have no margin on pro's then they are very bad at running a cost effective manufacturing bussiness. But, I think they probably do manufacture cost effectively. In my opinion it is more likely they just claim there is no profit margin on pros, because obviously it would be a super bad look if everyone knew just how much they are getting fleeced and ripped off. Keep taking more and more out, as material and build quality continues to plumet. While the price blows out more and more to provide ever increasing profit margins for wealthy greedy investors. Gotta love capitalism, I suppose.

In my opinion Stern is on the way out mate, they are complacent... I am not the only one whom will never buy another NIB stern. There are more and more of us with every passing day. If Deeproot is even half successful, that will only be an increasing trend.

I wouldn’t call 750k$ a month to release an unfinished prototype, that looks like nothing but another pinball, a low fixed costs.

The guy has 0 experience in pinball and a company that’s barely anywhere, how can he not be laughed at for making this comment ?

I’ve never believed that 750k a month number, think about it an average professional employee makes about 5k to 6k a month in Texas add benefits and real estate rental, I just don’t see how you could come close to half that number with 20 or so employees. Unless he has other businesses and costs that he’s counting towards that number that have nothing to do with pinball.

Wow! What did the game look like underneath? I’m so curious. Were there tons of circuit boards and bus cables or was it a “proper” pin with the electronic and driver transistors in the backbox and separate cables for the playfield features?

While we are in analysis mode, interested to know your thoughts as to how you rate JP a 1/10?

I just don't get it!