I have a deposit down on an LE. There’s still a lot to really like in this game with a great layout and cool features and code. I’m not going to wait and see how things shake out.

Thats a bit funny but also an irony. I to canceled my CE and bought a Cherry CV! lol Now an off topic question I need to ask. I have only known 1 guy named Big D in my life and he was a Kick ass harmonica player. No chance that you?.....

bait and switch yuck

Revealing prototype, unfinished products prematurely has always had pitfalls in pinball history from manufacturers. It remains an indicator of financial income issues. This has nothing to do with wishing a company to be successful as a enthusiast of the industry.

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I'd be happy to see more people buy Dialed In instead personally, I want games with original themes to sell well.

Ah ha

Stern Pirates is still the best Pirates for the money. Yes I have one, but that’s the truth and you know it in your heart.

It wasn't intentional, so it can't be bait and switch. It's just unfortunate, that's all.

"Concentric spinning map discs with 216 useable combinations in the center of the playfield"

This is in the current description of the LE - wonder if they will just omit it or try to modify.

For me JJP has always stood for "if it's not ready, then we don't ship". Every time I play my WOZ I'm reminded of that.

With this Friday night update announcement my feeling is "we're out of time and we're too late in the production cycle so we scrapped the main mech. Issues with trunk, let's weld it shut and go. Need a quick art fix then - just fix that without changing anything else - you have until tomorrow".

I'm just saying this is the --feeling-- I'm getting right now and I'm not the only one - this is not ideal for selling at the pinball Cadillac price point.

There are probably business realities tied to this right now - the money and accountants say "you're shipping no matter what" and that's what they're doing. But this still has to be done with some care.

1. I think that minimum, they should redo the art. Pizza of the Caribbean nickname is not good for business. Maelstrom or something else. Hobbit art redo time and art is cheap compared to mechs.

2. Some form of perceived compensation here even if it's just something that doesn't cost much. Just an acknowledgment that quite a bit is being taken away here. The disks were hyped and sold as a large part of the innovation of the game - just watch original streams and celebratory interviews.

We all care more than you know about JJP and we are all rooting for Eric. Some of us are followers, whatever is done is how I will take it - just trust them, they know what they are doing etc. Others like myself believe that it's good to offer suggestions and share ideas and *hash it out*.

In summary I think JJP needs to manage this shift in perception that might be happening this weekend over what JJP is about. I'm confident they'll work it out.

Wow!!! Now i see why people are really pissed,That's one killer feature..

This is disappointing for sure and I understand why many would cancel their orders. JJP made this mistake by showing WOZ throughout production and because of that I cancelled my order when the machine was still $6500. My mistake because WOZ is now one of my favorite machines. The game is not lost yet until production machines are played. I do think this change warrants a reduction in price by $500.

You are so wrong! They are welding it open.

Extended thoughts:

1) I agree the 3 discs looked better, but I still don’t think the ball action will be that much different with a single disc. Give JJP a chance to work on art.

2) no one is losing the main feature, which is a seemingly randomized way of selecting 200+ Awards/modes. Much like a modern slot machine, that feature can be achieved on screen. So the visual nature of three discs can be maintained and - from the video - it looks great.

3). The fact that they can’t get a trunk lid to work reliably is a little head scratching. Why not solve with some flashers/lights in the trunk?

4) everyone needs to give JJP (1) a chance to respond and (2) a chance to play the game. Knee jerk reactions can be a mix of good and bad. Yeah, the announcement is disappointing, but the game will likely still play really well.

You're right, it probably will...just not in my house. There's just no way I would feel good about buying a dumbed down version of this game. It really doesn't matter what the reasons are for these changes, the fact is this is not what the game was meant to be. It's just not as good as it was before, plain and simple.

There are 9500 reasons that removing these features are having such a negative reaction.

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Are you kidding me the first WOZ shipped out was a nightmare they had to stop shipping for 6 months to figure things out

I’m frustrated that I pre-ordered based on the reveal and was super pumped about the discs and other features, only so-so on the theme. The Discs were unique and core to the game.

Now I’d buy every pin available if it wasn’t for some of the standard reasons: (space, time, spouse, geographic location, money). So I’ve got to limit what I’m buying new each year.

I’ve passed up GOTG and have been holding off on IM which I both liked as themes more but was less than impressed with the features. Bought a SWLE and DICE, which left me super excited for the next JJP since I felt like SWLE had cut a few traditional corners that I didn’t like as a collector.

As a collector, not an operator, I’m drawn to the features. Less stressed about durability at 12k+ plays or a price point for a premimum model which I can flip once done on the route.

To take out a core feature just leaves me questioning why I’d wait on a pre-order where something gets fundamentally changed after so long. They committed to the Features, I deposited based on the Features and I passed up and delayed other purchases based this situation.

If I can’t trust that they commit to a BOM they advertised, I question if the company will pull the rug out under me regarding updates, support and all the other things we’ve experienced with manufactures in the past.

Let’s be clear, there is nothing about making the discs that is impossible. If something doesn’t work with it, there is more than one engineer, designer, manufacture, machinist, fabrication company who could assist out here. It’s time and/or cost that is an issue right now.

They’re making a choice of giving up on feature to get the game out sooner, breaking a promise to the consumer, which is why I’m frustrated enough to spend this time writing a post.

Expected more from JJP... hope they figure something out to restore trust...

I was really interested in POTC, but I went with Dialed In and we love it. To those on the fence about your purchase, get a Dialed in now and wait to see how the final shipped POTC turns out. You can always sell or trade your Dialed in on the POTC later. Have fun with a pin today instead of waiting

So true!

Yeah,sounds like a good idea,I played a few games on Dialed in,I didn't quite understand it but i've been reading more about it and i'm starting to see why it's pretty cool.

I recommend watching Bowen Kerins tutorial. Some good stuff there. DI sounds pretty good right now. Not to mention it's $500 cheaper than POTC too.

Yeah i need to watch that...

Replace the discs with magnets under the playfield a la The Addams Family and fix the artwork. Problem solved!!

I'd probably say the same thing if I had no intention of ever buying it.

Yes or like the spinning magnet disk on lost in space pin or twister pin...They should at least consider these kind of options

It's worth a shot at least No?

It does sound better than what they're proposing. I do agree that the single disc should be eliminated completely.

Even better!

Yeah,Who knows they might think of something and come out and tell us,They do notice after so many people canceled their orders

This announcement is just strange, especially the way it was presented. It’s something that I could see Stern pulling but am flat out floored with it coming from JJP.

Nothing is 100% reliable and that is a fact. They just need to get it to the point where it is 90% reliable and can be tweaked/adjusted or minor repair and back in business. Like the POA in Indy, can be a pain in the ass at times but when it works it’s great.

They need to get this right and not make such a knee jerk decision. I for one won’t be buying a DI if I cancel my order. Game does nothing for me.

Money will likely go to Stern for multiple new games.

If the mech wasn't reliable wouldn't that have been determined months ago? Shouldn't there have been test rigs / stations that just ran the 3x disk mech constantly and in different configurations a long time ago?

I know Stern does test stations for many of their mechs including the Ghostbusters Premium subway ramp with ball lock. Supposedly that was tested 300,000 times or something.

Exactly,Testing is always done first,Thats why like mentioned above by Psw757..This is very strange,Maybe the makers of the mechs for the disk jumped higher on their prices or no longer want to deal with it

Jack needs to stick with what he said he was going to do. Show a game that's ready to ship and start sending pins out a month later, ala Stern.

They announced this pin in October and here we are. They seem more intent on shipping a game 8 to 9 months later and sticking to a time frame versus getting it right.

After this, they will never be able to show a game again and play the field testing card.

Announce a pin and then ship it next time, period.

It appears the pinball show circuit is the only place they are durability testing their mechanism.

- The troll mechanisms went through multiple changes after reveal, and through production launch.
- The circuit board choke coils were smoking in the field.
- Light board troubles
- Flying monkey mechanism troubles

I have lots of faith in the software support, but not so much their hardware reliability.

It is good that they caught the disk troubles *before* they were in the hands of the customers.

It would be better if they got things right, before taking orders.

Check the JJP stream from March 1st at the 6min mark. Someone posted it in another thread. It was extensively tested with no major issues.

Cost cut, plain and simple.

This is a great opportunity for JJP to problem solve the discs and treasure chest. Full disclosure, add a little to the cost if it is affecting the bottom line, make it work. This will increase confidence in their brand and have more customers line up. As for me, I'm not decided yet but probably will be out on the LE. I recently got a BM 66, and the code is amazing now, awesome game. I like it way better than the DI I sold.

What is the day here to make an April fool?

I’d love an original theme. Just not that one

That must be somewhat humiliating.

They have a history of telling us what we want to hear regardless of the truth

Can’t imagine they believed announcing the “minor tweaks” via Eric was just going to slide right under the radar.

Ugh, I'm definitely out now. Wait a minute...I wasn't in to begin with.

I will say that when I played the game in November, the idea of a huge triple spinner was a major detractor to me. I loved the upper playfield and the look of the game itself (despite them being neutered on what parts of the theme they can use). To me nothing will ever match the spinner on Twin Win and I certainly don't want one that big right in the middle of the playfield above the flippers. Smaller is better and removing it completely for an embedded LCD spinning compass would be best in my view. The part about not being able to open and close the chest on a $9500 machine is mind boggling, so I will leave it there.

People, I wouldn’t do something rash and cancel your preorder because of the spinning disc change. There’s still a spinning map that throws the ball around and the animations that go with it are top-notch.

This is going to be an EPIC game and might even be BETTER without the triple discs (which never worked right, were screaming loud, and weren’t even coded yet btw).

People have been saying that this is the most jam packed, innovative, and deeply coded machine we’ve ever seen. And it still is.

Couldn’t the decision by JJP be considered rash? Heck, we are the customer spending the money so I would say our opinion matters.

Don’t reveal and publicize features if you can’t follow through.

Poor way to run a business, this will hurt them.

At Arcade Expo I played quite a few games and watched several others. My impression was that the spinning discs were the best most unique feature of the game. The number 1 toy of the game, I would rank the rocking ship number 2. This is a real shame as the ball movement from the discs was awesome. I saw balls react in so many cool ways and so very different then what a single spinning disc could accomplish. I saw balls going straight down the middle reverse directions and shoot up before ever getting close to the flippers. I saw balls do “S” turns as they fell. It really amazed me as how each separate disc would really effect ball travel depending on what speed and direction they were turning.

This is a real shame for the game and if this decision is final (please let it not be), the game for me will never be what it could have been. It would equate to removing Rudy from Funhouse and replacing him with a head bash toy without movements.

So, which is the truth?

March 1st, 'It was extensively tested with no major issues'

or

April 13th, "... we test them internally. We found some mechanism, that require tweaking"

How about I hang on to my money, until a year of field results are back.