Wonka has the worst GI lighting I have ever seen. It is the only game in the modern LED era that actually needs Pinstadium lighting.

The artwork is applied digitally rather than silk screen. The theory is the artwork isn't bonded as well and is being pulled by the clear and helping make the pooling and chipping worse than areas where the clear is directly applied to the wood. The past three games from Stern have had no issues with pooling since they started this. Compared to the prolific pooling issues, there have been a very few issues with warped playfields from Stern on the latest games. Stern seems to be replacing them in a fairly timely manner though.

Not excusing anyone here, but I will play devil's advocate and say that I think this is being blown out of proportion at this point. It sure seems like the bulk of the issues with GnR were in the early runs from last summer and the reports are few and far between these days for recent builds. Unless someone can prove this is still widespread including cracking, I would not let this slow me down at all if I was in the market for GnR. Pooling has no effect on gameplay and seems to have no effect on resale on this title. If you want the game, buy it, make sure all the posts have a washer, forget about all this and have fun playing.

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.

This is one thing I think we can all agree on.

Not sure about down votes, but I keep waiting for that one guy to pop in with his obligatory statement pointing out that GNR was the Game of the Year in the Twippies.

Wow. I heard that before but didn't believe it could actually be true because it is so totally wrong and a complete F-you to the buyer.

(See my comment above.)

Yep once all the dimples join together in one big mass, it doesn't look so bad.

ee41c402a1b1254ecdb77f0ecb6f1c9ee4e4f343 (resized).jpg

This is a $10,500 game? Those washers look like ass and whoever put the mylar down did a terrible job. The one picture you can see the mylar is off by at least a half an inch from where it should be. And then there is the theory that any artwork underneath a post is liable to separate with time, so looking at a game that is new doesn't really tell us what it will look like in a few hundred plays. Fingers crossed that this game will hold up with the test of time...

Wow that video sure is revealing. What a rookie design for the posts. This not the whole problem though; this is just an idiotic design for the post holes that makes the problem with the clearcoat pooling and artwork de-laminating even worse.

JJP should fix the design and drill the holes properly as noted in the video. My suggestion to people who own this game is to remove these posts and add a small ring of heat shrink around the shaft above where the threads go into the T-nut, and then another over the first one and another until the post barely fits back down into the playfield to be screwed in. You need to eliminate as much play as possible. Someone who owns this game and a 3D printer might be able to make sleeves that will serve this purpose. Or maybe there is some nylon tubing with the right inner and outer diameter that could be cut and slip over the post and just barely fit into the hole to hold the post snug?

The posts that took a pounding like next to a ramp entrance didn't use T-Nuts underneath. The holes were cut so tight the post basically had to be threaded through the wood if not hit with a hammer and then a nylock nut and washer below the playfield. Literally no play in this setup. Places that used T-nuts were generally spots that didn't get whacked as hard like flipper lanes. Even still the t-nut barely fit into the hole and it was still tighter above than the silly Gnr design. I have no way to prove it, but I will bet the posts on the Pat Lawlor JJP games are not like this.

Yeah he's graduated from fan boy to sycophant and doesn't even have 500 posts yet.

Most likely JJP has seen the writing on the wall in reduced and canceled sales and has no choice. The market and local collector circles seem to be flooded with GnR LE and it can't just be because of the meh gameplay.

Will never happen and they are probably fearful of the day where people figure out the build date of the first games with the new playfield, because everyone will be holding out for the newer games or just buy from the glut on the secondary market.

No that is not true; sorry. Just change clear to airball and you would be correct. It's not dimpling b/c there's barely any airballs. When you see dimples, it's because there's a good amount of airballs.

There are other factors. Maybe Stern is using harder wood for the playfields now? That is what really determines the depth. They went from 1/2 inch particle boards for the cabinet bottoms to really nice 3/4 inch birch plywood, so anything is possible.

Interesting. If they really have stopped marking the playfields, this might mean that JJP is indeed planning to change vendors eventually. I doubt they want people to be able to identify exactly which games have a new playfield vendor and which games don't. They might even keep installing washers for a while, even after there is no longer a need. They'll probably try to keep it secret at least until the old playfield inventory has been purged from the factory/JJP and passed on to the buyers and distributors. Once the cat is out of the bag, people will zero in on a build date for games with the new playfields and games before that date will be less desirable immediately.

Of course, this is assuming the new vendor will be an improvement over Mirco! Over the last three years, this problem has been rumored to be fixed many times only for it to come back again. The only way to be sure is to wait and see. I just got a Jurassic Park Premium with April 2021 build date and the clear is beautiful with no pooling. I held off buying when they originally came out because of the issues.

I do have a feeling this time the fix will be real and it happens sooner than later if not already.

Maybe Vid left them out because warped playfields are very few and far between compared to what we're talking about here and when there are serious issues, Stern stands behind their games and provides replacement Playfields at no charge?

We are talking playfields here. And yes, there is no excuse for the way Stern handled the node board issues in the early days of SPIKE and there were also some really bad cabinet build issues too for a while there before they got seriously beefed up again.

Wow. Either he is in denial or he truly doesn't understand. That doesn't bode well for them fixing this problem any time soon. Sad state of affairs when the best possible explanation is that he is lying to cover up the problem and working feverishly behind the scenes to fix it.

Sucks that my favorite designer just went to my least favorite pinball company. Oh well.

Wow, the post above really hits some key points that I haven't heard on the Mirco process. Thanks for the insight. I look forward to seeing the rest of the pictures.

This I have not heard before, but it would explain a lot. JJP was definitely shopping around back in the day looking for investors.

I think it was your use of the word "generous" that was mostly in question. Whether you saved money on a purchase or not, you still can't possibly be arguing that JJP is being generous here?

That's crazy the way the artwork just slides around with the clear and the clear looks soft as bubble gum. It is unimaginable at this point after a year of this same problem that they haven't removed the art under the posts and come up with a little harder clear formula. Not to mention this is the third game in a row. There is something fundamentally broken with their process and appears to be no effort to fix the actual problem.

Unfortunately that type of dimpling is to be expected on any game that has a lot of airballs. Day one (thick) mylar or one of those playfield protectors would be the only thing stopping that. After a while longer it will all blend together just like all of my old Williams games were.

I love that color. Starting to see it or similar on more and more vehicles. Also, love the no chrome black out package.

I remember when they used to sell the ceramic coat AFM playfields and then suddenly they went away. Seems like when now know why. What a pile of junk. Imagine paying top dollar for a playfield and then spending many many hours swapping it out only to have that happen? I would be so pissed.

Not to mention replacing a defective playfield with another defective playfield.

Or they could just fix the problems with art not adhering and soft clear coat instead.

Yeah it is pretty simple. If the game shows up with washers under the posts, the underlying problem is not fixed. This problem has been "fixed" many times only to turn out that nothing has changed. I stumbled on a thread from ten months ago talking about a fix. Turns out quality control testing doesn't do much good I guess. How did this work out:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/new-mirco-quality-control-procedures

Once again what does "fixed" mean and what does "fine" mean? Having loose artwork and soft clear is the problem. Covering it so that chipping and pooling is delayed or possibly just hidden is not a fix or fine in my book. To me nothing is fixed or fine until the games come without washers. If it really is fixed then people should be fine with removing all of the washers and playing the hell out of the games. Volunteers? What will people find under those washers in a year? Two years? Five years? It boggles the mind that they haven't taken even the simplest path of removing the artwork from under the posts! Of course that would be admitting they have a problem, but so are the washers.

Good luck is right. Playfields have been designed with the rubbers at a certain height since games came with wooden side rails in the 50s. Any additional height changes the physics of the game because the ball no longer hits dead center in its height. The washers JJP is using and Marcos sells are 0.063 inches which works out to ~1.6mm. That should not really effect things too much but adding more washers underneath might not be a great idea (without somehow having shorter posts to compensate). Personally I would make the washers out of the thin PETG that is used for playfield protectors either 0.020 or 0.030 inches.

This still doesn't explain why they haven't taken the simple step of removing the artwork from under the posts? It makes no sense whatsoever to me. It's like selling tires with a handful of roofing nails already installed.

The playfield pooling/chipping issue has been here since long before the pandemic.

Not if the new playfield has the same problem as the old one.

So you are willing to try it without the washers under the posts and let us know how it looks after a few hundred games?

Having the ball drop directly onto the switch cutout is poor playfield design plain and simple. Stern has some games that do this too and it makes zero sense every time I see it. The ball should drop onto a square of extra thick mylar then roll over the switch area. Also, the switch hole should be surrounded by mylar even if the ball is not dropping directly onto it. 6000 plays or not, the hole in that playfield is the game designer's fault along with whoever decided not to install mylar in that area.

I've had games with drops like that and always put in the Cliffy switch protectors as close to day one as possible.

Yeah I never noticed or paid attention to this until I got Metallica Premium and the ball literally drops right on the switch. After that I started looking around my own game room and online and most games drop the ball on a flat spot covered by extra thick mylar rather than dropping directly on the switch. If you think about it the switch spot basically has two edges that are going to rapidly get beaten up compared to just having the ball drop on a nice flat, protected spot and rolling over the switch slot. Since then I tend to look at every game I see and there is a dramatic increase in damage over time on games with this design flaw.

I would just cut the wires and abandon those speakers in place, then use external speakers and sub. JJP went to that setup when they moved the huge computer case out of the base cabinet and into the backbox. Seems there was no room to mount the speakers properly, so they point straight up instead of pointing out at the player. The result is awful. The older JJP games sounded much better. I was really surprised when I played GnRLE for the first time at how bad that sound actually was for a music machine. I suppose that's why the topper on the CE is a soundbar. For that amount of money it needs to at least sound better than the crappy speakers that come in a Stern Pro.

JJP is still making games?