Now that distributor is worth my time.
Impressive.

Three separate threads because I understand they employed the pf fix on the CEs, and likely on the LEs that followed so this would show if it actually worked or not.

I'm trying to get as much data as possible, including past owners. The data is useless if only a handful take part.

Understood but in this Stern vs JJP showdown forum how valid do you Really expect the vote???

Is this Gary Stern or just a member of the Stern army?Jesus man you do protest too much!I guess you just ain't going to ever give it up!GnR's is fucking game of the year and Toy Story is going to sell in the big numbers, but just keep bitching and go play your Stern's.They make some fun games too!

I don't know but it may be interesting

To answers your good questions:
1. Why is GNR now ranked #2 on Pinside if the game has nothing in it? You mean the top heavily manipulated false 100 list? That list? Lol, come on that list is totally meaningless and everyone knows it. It is sooooo manipulated by the very owners of each respective machine. All vying to put what they own on top of the list. It has nothing to do with how good a pinball machine is by any stretch of the imagination. TWIPY awards are in the same category. Look at all the manipulation there. For one of many examples: TMNT topper should have gotten the award, but the masses manipulated it to give the award to the one layer plastic R&M topper that doesn’t do much of anything, because it was free and people were revolting against Stern charging outrageous prices of $1,000.00 for the TMNT topper. It blows away the R&M topper and we all know it. AIQ could have easily been game of the year (brilliant layout by Keith Elwin, with incredible rule depth), but no one wanted to give it to Stern again for the billionth time. They wanted a new contender to have it.

2. Even Kman who is totally in love with GNR says it has no mechs or not much more than lots of lights and double the songs and better concert footage than that of LZ. Really your list of things in GNR could have been put in via mods, like we all have done on Bat66 using $15 Hallmark items. The PF (concert jumbo Tron - love the marketing spin, lol) tv screen can be purchased from Alibaba for a measly $12. That exact one, lol. The cymbals on top of the pops, china made for no more than a .50 cents a piece or less. Drumstick lane, couple of bucks tops. Guitar lock neck is passive, no real significant cost there either, nor “hotrails”, super cheap LEDs (more marketing spin for the gullible). I could keep going on and on with your list of not much there in GNR. LZ is near the same and it appears almost empty compared to GNR, so this issue is not exclusively in anyway to JJP. Some makers like JJP are trying to distance themselves from mechs that make games magical, because they are trying hard to get rid of warranty claims. Which JJP has in abundance because of such poor engineering and parts. That’s why JJP dumped the best mechs on POTC, after showing them for a couple of years, because they wanted to get out of the nightmare widespread customer claims they were experiencing.

Interesting thread you started PFreak, there are photos in your other thread demonstrating your concerns. Unfortunate for those experiencing this dilemma.

My DILE had numerous issues:

A light board was installed off the marked screw holes by almost a full cm. Could barely see the leds from above the pf. Had to rescrew the board day one.

Bob lights wired incorrectly.

Trap door flap broken first week

Phone went black repeatedly. Replaced 3 times. Long process.

Playfield seating design issue on all games.

Backglass lock jams. Common issue.

Different CPUs in games. Early adopters get slower cpu which causes video issues for some (me included).

Bluetooth app support abandoned. Many don't care, but I liked and used this feature.

Code for multiballs and b.o.b. targets needs improving, but they won't do it.

All that being said, the phone and it's characters are the best integration of a second screen in all of pinball. The camera integration was new and is still awesome. It's one of Pat's best layouts. Build quality, aside from trouble spots, is great. It isn't cheap, like stern.

Stern offers a more robust machine, but they don't offer innovation. I don't know if I'd buy nib from either at this point. I just picked up a doctor who, and the shots are 10x more satisfying than anything in gnr....

A great deal of us are discovering the shots in GNR are quite bleh and you’re right not satisfying at all. Dr. Who is quite a fun shooter in contrast, with actual mechs, which GNR doesn’t have, but then again DI is loaded with problematic mechs. JJP wants to get away from those nightmare warranty problems, so they have pretty much abandoned mechs since, POTC (removed treasure chest mech and triple spinning disk mechs, the 2 most important fun mechs in the game).

I too think the DI layout is one of Pat’s finest, but with the ball so hidden all over the playfield and one of the most important shots of all completely hidden, which the player has to guess at hitting, is troublesome and takes the enjoyment out of the game. Seeing the silver ball interact with things is what pinball is all about. DI has one of the best skill shots in all of pinball imo.

I agree with your DI perspective. My other criticism (and why I decided to sell) is all the points were in the SIM card. Really lopsided scoring. I also found the audio really monotone.

I cancelled my GNR order because the shots are bleh. Played and SE locally and was really disappointed. Flippers also sucked, but I imagine they could be dialed in. Video assets were cool and game still looks sharp, but not an exciting shooter.

In general, I agree, but JP2 is a masterpiece (and the dinosaur mech on the Premium/LE is very innovative). Sure, Stern likes to save on the BOM, but Keith has showed us inspiration can still go a long way. Some of the designers are simply burnt out and just going through the motions I'm afraid.

Just to be clear...DI is a great game and is loaded with cool stuff! (and a great value in today's license-centric market). For me, 3 years was enough with it...was time to let someone else enjoy it. From my perspective, JJP's best game (and the only one I've ever owned).

I love my DI but it was kinda crappy out of the factory and the Sim card shit is pure shit.
Total design failure. A lot like my capt Marvel ramp

DI is the only JJP out of the bunch I would like to own some day.

The difficulty of the SIM shot is what makes it great, IMO.

That sounds like a real lemon. I've had hardly any issues with mine what so ever.

Nah. I just had to work on it. Plays perfect.

I'm still praying that they will add code to make the Bob targets rotate with flipper buttons. It's almost impossible to aim and hit the bottom Bob target.

Drone magnet: throws ball toward left drain.

Electric dude: often bumps ball toward left drain after theatre soft release. Super unfair design.

Other magnets: often throw the ball toward left drain.

When I play, I frequently lose the ball down the left drain through no fault of my own. If I could consistently relight kickback, it would add more variety to the game and make it far, far better.

Pretty sure they've abandoned the code aside from their wifi addition. It's a shame as polishing Bob and multiballs would make it one of the greatest machines of all time, and it wouldn't take that much to get er done.

In theory I completely agree with you. I have no problem having a tough shot becasue it's so valuable, but for me it's the hardest shot in pinball easy. Gem was a bitch but you can hit it on purpose many times a game.

Go in your audits and see how many times per game you hit that shot, it's...sobering Realizing you have to hit it probably 9 times when lit to Wizard, it's just too boocoo! I don't like adjusting games to make them easier, but I guess I could remove a post in there or at least a rubber...can;t bring myself to do it though.

I had it for a couple of months.
Terrible game with a theme even a mother cant love.
Do you wanna go after pointless spider or what?

The scoring is so unbalanced, you'll end up doing one thing only.
No thanks.

Hobbit on the other hand. Bloody awesome.

IMDN is proof that you don't need a bunch of plastic toys, gimmicks, dinosaurs throwing the ball around, etc. to have a really fun game!

JJP is still making faulty playfields because they can. Other than complaining, no one has taken action to hold them or any other pin manufacturer with faulty playfields accountable. What’s their incentive to make a change if their pins continue to sell? The only way to force a change is to stop buying their pins. If everybody did that, I promise JJP will find a way to make reliable playfields.

So is that what's happening for this fella?

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/wonka-v137-update-choppy-animations

Is it possible to replace the CPU on the JJP motherboard with the faster one to fix this? All that stuttering would drive me nuts.

Has been for a long time.

Do you have kids? I'd like to know what your sim/game audit is. My kid nuked mine cause she it's her fave game

Can't speak for Wonka but one code revision on DI made the animations at the phones choppy and delayed. Some people freaked out and started changing out components on the cpu.

Then another code revision was released and the problem went away.

Code didn't fix my sync issues.

Yeah, the parts were covered under warranty. The amount of time wasted wasn't.

Minus shipping.

That's interesting.

I have the old cpu in mine and experienced the synch/choppy video problem.

I don't remember which revision brought the problem and which revision removed the problem but it went away after updating the code.

AIQ lost because the game looks atrocious and has hideous rushed looking art. Side by side GnR looks substantially nicer, more expensive and more detailed. The art and color scheme are much more fluid. It’s just a better looking game and really rocks if you get into it. AIQ plays great but GnR plays AND looks great. That’s why GnR won to me.

Yeah i had a board blow out early and had to pay to ship it to them

Yes, they certainly have pushed that narrative. Hell, some people even still believe it

Wow. A picture is worth a thousand words. Earlier in this thread I tried to play devil's advocate because I thought these problems were mostly gone and being blown out of proportion. A little pooling is ok to me as long as it is not common and doesn't involve cracking or lifting of artwork. There is no excuse for the playfield in that picture and ESPECIALLY considering it is a CE. That playfield should be replaced with a fully populated playfield.

Does JJP really advertise themselves as "passion over profit" or is that standard Panzer hyperbole?

No their official company motto is "We are not happy, til you are not happy"

I'm in the same boat, LE scheduled. Are the newer LEs doing any better? Mando Pre is looking appealing to me as well.

I'm in the very same boat, I have a LE scheduled to arrive in the next few weeks. Do I accept shipment only to dismantle quite a bit of it to add those hard PETG washers which as someone mentioned " do they really work or do they possibly only spread the damage area? " Or do I pass at this point in time and let someone let receive theirs first and take one later down the road? As we know it's a hobby the contains a steel ball and wood field, of course we know and expected there will be dimpling and some basic use indicators but this is quite a bit beyond that.

Do those softer titan washers work? What about larger base posts like a star post etc with washers? I'm sure many others thought of these measures too and would like to hear the results their finding with their machine if they had done any of them. However I do know in all locations that star post won't let itself to work in all areas.

How can you even consider taking delivery. Even more surprising is DeathHimself asking for tips on the best way to fix his brand new $9500 game before he takes delivery.
If I ever buy another JJP, I had a Wonka that pooled and eventually peeled, I would only go through a local distributor and unbox at his location, inspect, then decide if I am taking it. I don't want to burn a distributor by refusing a game, but that is part of their responsibility.

I'm not a distro but if I were that would read to me as "customer not worth the hassle."
When hot games with low supply land (like the GNR CE launch for example) what type of customer do you think distros are going to prioritize?

If they're a good distributor, they take care of all their customers. Why should someone take it up the ass just because they're buying a popular product?

I used fiber under washers on my current POTC, seems to work fine.

007B81FC-1591-4CA3-85CD-F8B53BEC41BF (resized).jpeg

6FA95DED-D964-4D43-858C-5AAC361CFF51 (resized).jpeg

Looks....good?

Yeah, not so much! My old TZ with similar posts, no problems.