DLC Guru

What DLC do you guys think FarSight will give us in the coming months? Here are my predictions from December until June (assuming we get TZ this month):

December 2012: Tables Pack #8 (Attack From Mars & Space Shuttle): I think FarSight are going to go all in with the sci-fi theme here. I initially considered Pin*Bot to be AFM's packmate, but then I considered that that might make it feel a little too similar to Tables Pack #1, as AFM and MM have much in common in terms of their design.
January 2013: Premium Table #2 (Star Trek: The Next Generation): Even though FarSight have only promised a Q1 2013 release, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they make a January release for this one.
February 2013: Tables Pack #9 (Firepower & Genie): This is the first of two predicted "make-up" months (that is, FarSight are going to "make up" the lack of PHOF ports in the two Premium Table months with two months of two PHOF ports). For this first month, it was an obvious choice to pair Firepower & Genie, both to check tables off the PHOF Gottlieb and PHOF Williams lists and to contrast what the two firms were doing in the digital display era.
March 2013: Tables Pack #10 (Pin*Bot & Victory): Here, we have our second "make-up month". This time, we get to look at what Gottlieb and Williams were releasing during the alphanumeric era. Also, we have a good contrast of styles (open playfield vs. a more claustrophobic-feeling multilevel playfield), which always makes for good fun.
April 2013: Tables Pack #11 (Whirlwind & Whitewater): Think of this one as the "April Showers" pack. Both these tables are really fast, white-knuckle affairs, so assuming I'm correct with this prediction, we could be in for some good times in the spring.
May 2013: Tables Pack #12 (Dr. Dude & Sorcerer): This one is mainly for the marked contrast of art styles. You really do get both ends of the art spectrum from this pack, with Sorcerer representing the more serious "heavy metal album cover" school of art design that started to lose popularity around the alphanumeric era the more gonzo art style that became the norm later in the alphanumeric era and into the DMD years.
June 2013: Tables Pack #13 (Cactus Canyon & Jive Time): What better way to wrap up the Williams PHOF ports than to pair the oldest of the lot with one of the newest tables they've announced? Everything about these tables makes for a beautiful contrast, from the simplicity of Jive Time clashing with Cactus Canyon's far greater complexity to EM vs. DMD to where pinball was going when each table was released. Hopefully, Jive Time isn't quite as hair-pulling as it was in PHOF Williams...

Tell me your own predictions below and also feel free to tell me how utterly wrong mine probably are (seriously, I wouldn't be surprised if I got all six table packs completely incorrect).

That Whirlwind/Whitewater pack is the one that that has me the most excited. Hope you are right about that. I would also like to see Haunted House, Fireball, Fish Tales, and maybe Centaur or Sword of Fury sprinkled in somewhere as a surprise or two. They seem to throw a curveball every now and then (Elvira, Cactus Canyon).

Your forgetting the patterns 1 DMD & 1numeric display also you might think this is silly but 1 backglass features breast out of every DLC and 2 of 4 of the core tables do, sure there on MM backglass but not as prominent as BOP.

Not a bad guess, except what skill_shot pointed out about one dmd game in every pack so far. Has Whitewater been announced? If that is the case I could not be happier. Also keep in mind it takes ca 6 months from they start on a table until it is finished.(maybe a bit shorter for the old em games) I do not think we will see Jive time that fast (maybe not at all from div facebook answers about it) We know they have had Victory, Cactus Canyon and dr. dude for at least 3-4 months now so my guess would be all of those feb-apr 2013

1. I thought they said they wouldn't do Jive Time. When did this change?
2. Where do you get the PHOF makeup idea?
3. WW and WH20 are a great pairing, and would make logical sense. Many of these others though, not so much. Firepower and Genie? Talk about a sh*t sandwich on that one.
If this proves to be true, the only good thing about it is us 360 suckers are going to be missing out on a lot less, and once a year updates will be much more palatable.

Richard B said:

1. I thought they said they wouldn't do Jive Time. When did this change?
2. Where do you get the PHOF makeup idea?
3. WW and WH20 are a great pairing, and would make logical sense. Many of these others though, not so much. Firepower and Genie? Talk about a sh*t sandwich on that one.
If this proves to be true, the only good thing about it is us 360 suckers are going to be missing out on a lot less, and once a year updates will be much more palatable.

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1. I'm not familiar with any such announcement—I'll go check their FB and see what I can find.
2. I assumed that since every DLC pack so far has had one table from either PHOF Williams or PHOF Gottlieb, FarSight wanted to port as many of those as possible as quickly as they can. Since premium table months slow that goal down, I thought they might take steps to remedy this.
3. What's so bad about Firepower & Genie? I've seen gameplay footage of both and even though they might not be my first choices to play, they don't look nearly as bad as you make them out to be.

Richard B said:

Firepower and Genie? Talk about a sh*t sandwich on that one.

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I'll buy both and probably have a lot of fun with them, but that line from Richard is flat out hilarious. Made me drop my ipad.

I am pretty sure Dr. Dude is going to be sooner than May. They have had that thing in the studio since before the first behind the scenes video was released last February. And wasn't there an interview with someone who said that "Either Dr. Dude or Earthshaker will be released before the end of the year." I am quite certain that Dr. Dude will be February, possibly even January. Also, I don't think I agree with you that Farsight will put Gottlieb and Williams Hall of Fame tables together, but anything is possible.

Dont forget FS has been told what games to make for popularity reasons, and they have a limited liscense..so they will get the highest rated tabels under that liscense that obtainable.

I'm most excited to see if they add Whitewater and Earthshaker to the 2013 list. Earthshaker in particular is a damn good table.
And of course Haunted house too!!

I also don't believe that we'll see a 'catchup' few months. I get the feeling that Farsight are more than capable of keeping up a regular release pattern whilst also developing premium DLC (they managed to get the Elvira tables sorted in short notice JUST before Twilight Zone) and it'd make more business sense to keep the P:HOF tables to one side to ease the workload.

By the time they've released all of the P:HOF tables (21 or so in total) they will have released 21 months of DLC and should have become experienced enough to release two new tables per month.

In fact, say that Farsight DO decide to release ALL P:HOF tables (including Jive Time) then that would make a perfect 'end' to the re-release schedule and allow Farsight to do a few EM tables soon afterwards.

Gottlieb collection FS's first pinball game had several EM's and Im sure they will recycle those seeing how GENIE and VICTORY are announced and both are from that collection. So Im guessing since EMs have no ROM to emulate these will be easy recreations like CENTRAL PARK and ACE HIGH.

Richard B said:

Many of these others though, not so much. Firepower and Genie? Talk about a sh*t sandwich on that one.

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I don't know if they'd really pair two circa-1980 early-SS tables like that; they seem to like to have a newer table in every pack. But Firepower is awesome, both in PHoF and in real life; whenever I go over to Pinball Wizard I dump a bunch of tokens on theirs.