Wow Clay, I don't always agree with you, but you certainly hit the nail squarely on the head with this one my friend!

From the connectors to the current state of Stern, I echo your well put points completely.

I'd add that I don't like the fact that the boards are in the bottom of the cabinet on WoOz. The metal case WILL end up removed and discarded in route games as proven on every title this was done on in the past. Problems with dropping metal parts on boards will be an issue. That and boards are much easier to access and work on in the head. Kind of tough to put a game through its paces and monitor a board issue when the playfield is above your head.

I'll also add that I completely respect Stern for giving us years of pinball when everyone else folded up shop and went home. Their current state of price gouging is out of control though.

--
Rob Anthony
Pinball Classics
http://LockWhenLit.com
Quality Board Work - In Home Service
314-766-4587

I have to agree. Why would anyone use .100 connectors? That makes no sense given the trouble those things have given operators in the past. If anyone should know better, wouldn't Jack? Has he improved upon the trifucon connectors?

These...........these are great ideas!

QSS

That happens for real in the game TX-Sector - it is badass for sure.

Most new board designs now use the "mini-fit" style of square connector pins. The first example of this was on Gottlieb system3, but Pinball 2000 also used this. It's really the way to go. But I would take .156 Molex connectors too. Just no .100" connectors. (They are terrible in a high vibration environment like pinball playfields.)

just add on a few zeros in your head

Well I think scoring is a big part of pinball, heck thats the main reason we play is to get a good score. Sure the score is the same for all players but I want to feel rewarded once I have finished a game. Having a 100 mill super like on getaway or 1 billion wizard jackpot say on Shadow feels like you have got something special. Getting a super of say 5mill or a jackpot of 100k pfftt I dont feel the need to chase after these.

Uh... seriously? That's your logic?

Yep..

So, honestly, if someone came out with a game where the average score was 1 quintillion, you would immediately stop playing all other games simply because they would no longer be rewarding enough. I mean heck, that machine would give you a 15 trillion point jackpot, so what's the point of even bothering with a 1 billion jackpot on those other crappy machines?

lol well you gotta draw the line somewhere, but not sure that going back the SS/EM days is the way to go in terms of score.. Your saying you could play a game these days where the scoring is similar to Paragon or BK????

I am glad to see a low score

All they are doing these days is adding extra zeros at the end of the score. I don't see what difference it makes whether you have the extra zeros or not. It is not like you can compare scores between two different themes.
Italy was very happy to get rid of their Lira and accept the Euro, especially since it eliminated all the zeros at the end and made counting their money much simpler.

I don't see why not! It's all about context - what's good for that game, not what's good for the highest scoring game ever made.

I think scores have inflated to a point where too much of it means absolutely nothing. You can't even earn a single point on a Stern, so why have the digit? 10 points is nothing, 100 points is nothing, it's only when you get to 10,000 or so points where it's even worth knowing about, and most people probably wouldn't even care until 50,000 or 100,000.

Now, there still has to be granularity. You can't drop down to something like NBAFB. But I think a system where people can equate points with something they're already familiar with, like dollars, isn't a bad idea (ie. most people would be thrilled to get a million dollars, so a million point game should also be good). Worth a shot anyways - Keith can always add 3 static zeros to the end.

Yeah dont get me wrong I am not saying that games like AFM and STTNG are better games than say HS2/LOTR etc but I just think the standard should be scoring like TAF or any game where 1 billion is an awesome score... replays at 40-70 mill, good game at 100mill great game 300-500 mill and a blinder at 1 bill +... Lol I get off Xmen after killing it and only get 50-60 mill.

The only issue will be the ability to match. I guess the match could be a single digit.

Maybe match on 3000, or 4000 or something. To be different Woz could have a zero zero tolerance policy and match on 1, or 2...

I guess you're talking about adding blank zeros... I really don't think Keith would actually ever do that. They seem pretty determined to try out lower scoring.

I don't think it would be hard for Keith to program the game such that it adds one or two zeros to everything as a user selectable item in the menu.

I'm jumping in late here, but I don't get the whole 'weak flipper' stuff. I mean, so a few ramp shots didn't make it up...big whoop. Take a game like IJ, TOM, or IM. All of these have ramps that reject you if you don't hit them dead on! WOZ appears to be like that.

The main problem I can see, is that the interface wasn't designed to hold that many digits. Without shrinking the font size, it seems optimized for maybe 8 (10's of millions). With that said, Keith has mentioned there won't be any artificial limits to scores (like the 4.3 billion limit on Stern games).

No, I mean one digit match for the last number. I was thinking if the game has points in multiples of one the last digit will not always be a zero. Instead of matching in 10's,shack as 10,20,30 it will be 1,2,3. One digit matching.

I don't see why they'd have to change from 2 digits if that's what they wanted to use. Mathemetically, a 9% chance of a match on 100 possible numbers is exactly the same as 9% of 10 possible numbers.

You have to play it in person to get a feel for this type of thing IMO. It didn't seem like the pitch was all that steep either making it less difficult to hit the ramp. It's not all about being able to hit a certain shot either though it is about the flippers feeling/being as strong as the player would come to expect. Almost every pinhead I talked to after playing it thought the flippers needed to be a bit stronger. It's constructive criticism no one should get bent out of shape over it. The machine is not finished and I highly doubt they would ship it without making sure the flippers were solid.

That is correct but most pins have 10 matches available. Makes you feel like you have a chance out of 10. Rolling through 100 numbers makes your chances seem distant. You want people to feel the have a chance and they want to drop more money.

Of course you are right, but it's all about perception. Before I start my story, I'll just say right now that it'll be last-single-digit match.

LOTR stores all of its scores internally as half of its actual value and runs with a score multiplier of 2 throughout the game. This was done to accommodate the Gollum "1/2 scoring" (in reality it's actually 1x scores instead of 2x scores). The effect of this was that if you had a game where you didn't get Gollum, your scores would always end in an even 10s number (20, 40, etc). The earliest games went to France as they are wont to do, and the players there actively whined that it was impossible for them to match because they weren't getting Gollum often enough, so when a 10 or 30 or whatever came up for match, they didn't have a chance to even get that digit.

Of course everyone here on pinside (I assume) knows that modern game matches don't work that way. If you didn't know, the first time you matched a 9 on Party Zone - then you knew. Your lucky "roll" is against the match percentage set in the adjustments (side note - most Gottlieb DMDs defaulted to 1% match), so if you are a winner, then the match digits are set to be your number (hence the PZ example above). These guys obviously did not realize this, so I was forced to come up with a change so that everyone thought they had a legitimate chance to match every game.

The fix wasn't to adjust any in-game scores, but bonus. See, the 1/2x, 1x, etc. stuff applied to the amount added to bonus too, but no one would ever really realize that, so I took out that functionality.

Anyway, this story was just to point out that people will know when something is up. A 9% match against a 2-significant-digit number will feel phony and unnatural. People may or may not care about this, but my experience after this LOTR fiasco makes me very hesitant to mess with any natural laws of numbers. It does make me wonder, though, if those players whining about the even 10s digits ever felt ripped off playing Gottlieb games. If you've spent any time on them in a location setting, the match thing is glaringly obvious.

Having played my share of Paragon, I would say low scoring means that there isn't a zillion point loophole. Which is a good thing.

The game looks simple but interesting. It would really take over a home party with it's uniqueness.

Ball time does seem long.

I think any woz buyer/owner should be stoked on the video. I'm totally impressed.

Everytime Keith speaks I learn something. If he did not have work to do on WOZ I would encourage him to post more often.

Sounds like small number scores and single digit match if I understand Keith correctly. Love the info Keith note get back to work! (kidding)

Firebird, you are welcome to come to my unboxing when it gets here. Going to have a bash soon. Wish Sealclubber was still here.

Can't wait to hear they are shipping. Hoping I will see it by Christmas. We can only wait and watch. I am still in and have no thoughts of getting out.

Look at the thought that goes into something minor like the match concept on WOZ. And people are worried about the big things?

Well said sunfox +1

I don't think anyone here who isn't a programmer or a game developer, has the slightest idea what is involved in a project like WOZ, every time KJ posts on here, you realize how much they are putting into every little thing. That's why I get so frustrated when the trolls come on here or RGP and spew their drivel about how it should be done

I'm sorry but that logic is flawed. I don't doubt JJPs intentions towards perfection and I agree that there are many signs that there will no doubt be a lot of great stuff but sometimes you can be so involved in the technical minutae that the overall direction can get a bit confused.

Enough with the troll accusations too. I think most of the drivel around here is spewed by JJP fanboys. Not all of them, some are just genuinely excited like I am but some of them are militant and attack anyone even daring to politely state worries or negative opinions of any kind. By all means defend the accusations but give it a rest with all the complaints eh? You'd think that you don't have any decent arguments to use as a reply. If the naysayers are spouting such drivel it shouldn't be that hard to correct them without resorting to namecalling.

If I put a post it note on my BK and Paragon backglasses next to the score windows with an arbitrary amount of zeros will you like them more? Sounds like a cheap mod if it'll jack the price up in some people's minds...

55 zeros... BEST GAME EVAR!!!!!!

I also will set all my games to take something like 99 coins to start... more expensive than yours... BEST GAME EVAR!!!!!!!

I am glad you at least clarified your point later on.... I agree some consistency is helpful across scoring.... but anybody who just blanket posts "higher scoring games are automatically better" gets a picard facepalm .

Keith.. why match on numbers? Why not match on colors? With the RGB colormixing, you could have a portion of the playfield that changed color? Some of the more modern LCD Pachinko games have these animated match/roulette sequences that look pretty cool. I'm sure you probably have plenty of work cut out, but the match sequence could be changed-up to be different.

Amazing a company and game can create so much back and forth. Some guys don't like it, did that honestly surprise some of you? Glad JJP is here, and making games. Looking forward to whatever game #2 might be.
For some of you, do you think it is possible there might be some who don't like game #2, game #3, and so on? Will you be ok with that?

As Keith said, I think it's about perception. When you match on a number, the player earned their number. If you match on colors or faces - how does the player get to choose what's their color or face? If it's randomly assigned, they won't be happy.

The layout of the scoring window is a bit uninteresting IMHO. I understand there is a desire by the design team to have the game as a low scoring game. That's fine, but different than the last 10 years of releases, which may be the point.

However the score is a BIG part of the playing experience and at least it should POP on the backglass, or be large enough for a quick glance by the player. The current font isn't very eye catching and its not a score font I would imagine in a pinball machine. Its more like an older video game score font. Its positioned very close to the bottom of the trim and is daunted by the other images, which are equally as important, but nothing is as important as the score.

woz-scoring.jpg

I'm sure people judging the font/placement haven't taken everything in to consideration. I can see many reasons why it is like that.

When you are playing, having the score as close to the playfield as possible limits the length of eye travel to get up to the score from the playfield, and back down again.

Having it smaller also limits the left to right field you have to take in, giving you a better "quick glance" at your score.

At any rate, it's not really worth arguing about until we all get to play the games, and even then, small stuff like this could be changed with a code change in little to no time, if in fact everyone doesn't like it.

Its important but it sure seems like WOZ elevated the steps to getting there. Seeing the soldiers go down one by one is the small step towards getting the big score. Now we can see clear goals and rewards.
I think this makes sense and is a good direction. Sure beats hold down flippers.

Hope springs eternal!!

Christmas 2013 would honestly be a more realistic date.

They still have not hired in at the factory yet - you know it will take months after the hire in to get production going, OSHA inspections, unionization....

That's seems a bit to long. If i would guess, i would expect the pin around eastertime.
With Keith still having a lot of programming to do, and the factory in it infancy, that would be my guess.

Christmas 2013 is a little silly...don't know what your info/experience/rational is.

The hardware is clearly very far along. The long pole is software. The software foundation looks like it's in good shape based on the videos. Hopefully JJP employs more than 1 programmer. Even if Keith is the only programmer, it still seems like it's 3-6 months from completion.

I wasn't referring to you as a troll at all, but the fact that you took it that way makes me wonder

Look, everyone is entitled to an opinion, but when that opinion is obviously tainted by an agenda, then calling them a troll isn't namecalling!! I don't often agree with what you have posted here or on the WOZ group, but as long as you're objective in your comments, I have no problem.

This can be true from both sides ! Two years of expectations can make people real ugly..

Jim

Well said.

"Troll" is the most overused, overrated and overindulgent word used on this forum. Low hanging fruit, at best.

And oddly enough many of the people who have gotten ugly didn't order a game.

Strange people.

And I'd add the word "hater" as being a close second.