Pinball tables placed in real arcade setting

Just started playing Williams phof the disc for xbox 360. Before u enter u are looking at a real arcade. When u enter it is the arcade with ur pinball tables & etc. A real arcade. Can everybody ask farsight to make this up for us now for pinball arcade? What do u guys think ? Do u what this too ?

i prefer a quick access to the tables instead of an artificial arcade. Once farsight do the cabinet view everyone can build his own "real" arcade. And because the number of tables increase they always have to build a new arcade or at least adjust it all the time.

I wasn't a fan of the arcade setting for PHOF. My idea setup would be a scrolling list that can be configured alphabetically, by company, by year, or a customized order created by the user. If they're spending time creating a virtual arcade then that's taking time away from working on the tables, and as Franky mentioned it would have to constantly be changing.

Hi. I play wiiliams phof last night for along time. I liked the setting I always did. Real arcade . Also have gameroom on xbox arcade. Set up as a arcade but microsoft wouldn't do the right thing & put multi-player in it & yes it died. But u still can roll around my arcade & play friends are there too. They can't play but they couldn't play before they stopped giving us Dlc. I guess I am just old school. U will have 2 kill me 2 pull me out of my arcade. Dream was everybody could make. Up their arcade any way they wanted.

Forgot to tell u farsight wouldn't create the arcade the players would any way they liked. If u didn't want a arcade u could keep it any way u wanted. When we get new tables we would just place them were we wanted. Like in gameroom when you bought Dlc. U placed games & set up ur room any way u wanted. Like I said I am old school always liked the arcades pinball it is said in a arcade u set up.

I want to PLAY PINBALL, not just wander around an arcade.. virtual or not.

(not sure if being trolled or not)

Gord Lacey said:

I wasn't a fan of the arcade setting for PHOF. My idea setup would be a scrolling list that can be configured alphabetically, by company, by year, or a customized order created by the user. If they're spending time creating a virtual arcade then that's taking time away from working on the tables, and as Franky mentioned it would have to constantly be changing.

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Couldn't agree more, it would be nice to sort the tables by release date or better yet a user selected order. +1

Right now, an FX 2 style grid should work just fine. They've got 32 tables, with room for plenty more, and I don't have much trouble finding the table I want to play.

RetroDude said:

I want to PLAY PINBALL, not just wander around an arcade.. virtual or not.

(not sure if being trolled or not)

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Actually, I do like wandering around arcades. Just not virtual.

I actually thought the virtual arcade found in WHoF was a cool feature. Somehow it helped the pins feel a little more real to me. I can remember walking through real arcades with the exact same carpet design found in WHoF. Ah, the nostalgia! I would welcome a similar "menu" system in TPA. If FS ever implemented an arcade view for your tables then that doesn't mean they would have to get rid of the scrolling menu system they have now. The game could allow the user to switch between the two layouts through the options menu. Best of both worlds!

I have been a professional interface designer for several years and a gamer for more than 25. I have never have the opportunity to combine these things before, sadly, but have always wanted to, as I feel many games fall down in this way. TPA is one of those games as the interface seems to have been designed for a tablet rather than a console.

I like the idea of the arcade, it's more inspiring than a boring old menu, but if it slows down access to the tables, I think it would be annoying once the novelty had worn off. What I would like to see is some kind of compromise between the arcade and traditional menu.

I suppose Game Room is a reasonable example of that. You can't walk around it, but the machines are installed in rooms in the order of your choice, and then to play them you scroll through the rooms, and then through the machines. The problems with Game Room are; firstly; (and it may just be lousy coding) is that it takes an age to load. Maybe a minute or so. It's far too long. Any more than 5 seconds to get into what is essentially a menu is too long. And the ability to decorate and customize each room is unnecessary I think. And secondly; there is no way to sort your machines, other than manually, one at a time. It can make it hard to find the game you want.

So, a better example is the Sega Vintage Collections that were recently released on the XBLA. You have three machines (A Genesis/Megadrive, Master System or Arcade Machine). They are in a room together, against a wall, about 3 feet apart, and you hit the bumper buttons I think to move between them. I think this is the approach that would better suit TPA.

In fact, this is how I think it should be: Imagine a large, softly lit, circular room. Pinball tables are against the wall, a couple of feet apart, completely encircling the room. The "camera" is at eye level, maybe 10 feet from one of the tables, at such a distance that it can just about see 5 tables in it's view. 3 in full view, and 2 at the sides that are half visible, enough to see what they are, but only really there to show that you can scroll left and right. The central table (the one you're looking directly at) is in a spotlight to show it is currently selected. Perhaps you can hear the sound from only this one too, and maybe even the artwork on the wall behind is from this table, fading into the next table's artwork when that is selected (if it didn't slow down the interface too much).

You move between tables by using the D-pad or left stick. The tables appear to shift along as if the whole ring of tables has rotated. Once the last table you own appears, the first one is next to it as they just wrap around. You could have infinite tables in this interface. You can choose what order the tables are in by pressing a button, maybe the left bumper. You can choose Alphabetical order, Chronological order, By Manufacturer, or Randomized. Selecting a table goes into it's sub menu, which is the same screen, but all the other tables are gone, with just this one displayed at the side. In the space on the right (on the wall for example) is info such as Table History and Leaderboards (switch between the two with the right bumper). Underneath that options to access the operator menu etc.

I think this is doable, right? It's not as complex as Game Room, with multiple floors, rooms, avatars walking around, complicated lighting and custom decorations and animated objects everywhere. We're talking around a single darkened room here.

Thoughts?

I agree Ozzpot that many games have lame and uninspired menus. For example, I am always surprised at how boring and unpleasing to the eye CoD's menu systems have been over the course of several games. Though game play is much more important than menus. However, when you see a well done menu system it definitely adds to the polish of the game and makes it feel like someone really went the extra mile to present an experience that is the best it could be. The menu system in place now for TPA is one that gets the job done with minimal loading. And it can be recreated on all platforms. Anything too graphically intense such as arcade view either might not be possible on certain mobile devices or might not be as functional. So, perhaps that is why we're seeing a simple menu system because FS wants to menu system to be universal for TPA across all their platforms. Which would mean they are limited in what they can do by the least powerful platform. I for one would welcome a menu system like what you suggested (or a selectable arcade system as I suggested in my previous post).

RetroDude said:

(not sure if being trolled or not)

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I ask myself that every time I read a Gail r schwartz post. She is either seven years old, functionally retarded, or a troll. And I still can't decide which I'd place my wager on.

No, nobody wants a virtual arcade. GameRoom on XBLA crashed and burned immediately. We just want a user-sortable list of tables. Even the current interface will get unwieldy quickly once the DLC starts rolling in. It takes a good second to load the table assets so scrolling through a long list isn't very fast they way they have it now (on the phones, for example, since there's still just 4 tables on 360), and that's through a set order based on content release rather than anything permanently meaningful.

Beelzebozo said:

No, nobody wants a virtual arcade. GameRoom on XBLA crashed and burned immediately.

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There are plenty of people who would like to see a virtual arcade. I actually thought the Game Room interface on XBLA was cool. I liked navigating through the different rooms and seeing what the full cabinets looked like. There is also a menu based way to access the games so you get the best of both worlds there if the visual navigation didn't float your boat. Game Room didn't crash and burn immediately. It unfortunately died a slow death because the licenses that they expected to come did not come for whatever reason, and you can't have games people want to play without the licenses.

Back to TPA though, I like Ozzpot's suggestion. If you add a text based menu as well for people that aren't interested, you'd be set. In the end, actually playing the tables is most important so this might not be a high priority, but it would still be a "very nice to have" down the road.

The only problem I have with the virtual arcade idea is that development would tie up valuable limited resources (coders, artists, testers, etc.) and takeaway from the actual continuous development and improvement of the pinball tables themselves. If FarSight had a larger development team, I'd say go for it, but since they don't, I'd rather they stay focused on the actual tables themselves.

Would it be possible for another company/developer to come up with a front end that would work with TPA? Kind of like how MAME has a bunch of different front ends like Hyperspin, Game Ex, Mala, etc. I don't know anything about coding, but maybe Farsight could subcontract something like that out to someone.

George Klepacz said:

Would it be possible for another company/developer to come up with a front end that would work with TPA? Kind of like how MAME has a bunch of different front ends like Hyperspin, Game Ex, Mala, etc. I don't know anything about coding, but maybe Farsight could subcontract something like that out to someone.

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Since The Pinball Arcade is not open source like MAME, the only way anyone could develop a front end for The Pinball Arcade is if FarSight gives them permission, along with access to the source code, to do so.

Beelzebozo said:

No, nobody wants a virtual arcade.

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I have said more than once in this thread that I enjoyed the virtual arcade presentation in WHoF and would welcome a similar menu system for TPA.

George Klepacz said:

Would it be possible for another company/developer to come up with a front end that would work with TPA? Kind of like how MAME has a bunch of different front ends like Hyperspin, Game Ex, Mala, etc. I don't know anything about coding, but maybe Farsight could subcontract something like that out to someone.

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I doubt there is enough money in TPA to start sharing the revenue with other studios.

PiN WiZ said:

The only problem I have with the virtual arcade idea is that development would tie up valuable limited resources (coders, artists, testers, etc.) and takeaway from the actual continuous development and improvement of the pinball tables themselves. If FarSight had a larger development team, I'd say go for it, but since they don't, I'd rather they stay focused on the actual tables themselves.

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Yeah, I thought the same thing. That's why I emphasized that the gameplay is the most important and should always be the first priority.

Since I'm waiting for the PC release, all I have currently is both the Williams and Gottlieb HOF collections for Wii ..

yeah, I know... I got the system on a black friday sale.. CHEAP.. just to play those two games.. but I like the controls work to play them!

The "Arcade" interface for them was somewhat interesting, but it got old pretty quickly.
If I want a to play a certain game, I have to scroll through all the others to get there.
With two of the games on Williams, you had to go "up" the stairs to get to them.

At least they both "wrapped around", so you could scroll to the left or the right.

From what I've seen, the TPA has a somewhat similar arrangement.

It sure won't take a very large number of games released to make that sort of interface really annoying, unless you want to play the first or last game on the list.


I believe that Absolutely the games should take priority over a virtual arcade experience for the menu between games.

After all... how much time do you spend in the menu system vs. the amount of time spent actually PLAYING the games?

Being able to sort or arrange the games into a user-specified order would be very helpful.

When we get to the PC release, I sincerely hope there's a way to go directly to a specific game from a command-line or desktop shortcut, bypassing the initial menu.

This already exists, its called 3D Arcade. Its a not easy to set up and it takes a ton of hd space, but it works great. Its a frontend, so you can launch all your games from it as well.

http://www.mameworld.info/3darcade/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfmN8PJkLTc