(obligatory long, winding backstory warning)
I'm finally joining, after about a year of playing TPA, the last six(?) months of which were spent perusing these forums.
In any case:
I started with Future Pinball. (I didn't know how to find a pinball machine at that point). I only played Addams Family, and eventually, TZ. This was good for getting me into pinball, but the fact that the software is emulated in FP with whatever people put in (why don't I get my door panel for beating the Power? Why is the bonus card falldown SO DARN SLOW? Why can I start a multiball EVERY SINGLE TIME by shooting the left ramp after a single gumball -> lock? Why does the end of LITZ also end my ball? [yes, this actually happens.] Why don't my lit EBs stack? ad infinitum...) does not make playing TZ pleasant. (TAF was a considerably [IMO] simpler table, and probably much easier to script.) There's also the fact that the physics in FP sucks, but there are entire other forums devoted to that, and I haven't played FP in about two years. So I rest my case... for now.
I took about a year sabbatical while I did other things, and then I found VP. Great, VP! It was good until... why are these graphics from 1998? (Admittedly, it's gotten a lot better, but it's still not even remotely close to FP or TPA.) What is this COM object tomfoolery you speak of? Why do I have to download ROM files for everything? But the point is that it was a massive step up. I was playing with (still) TAF, TZ, and eventually TSPP, and the game worked like everyone else said it would, ad infinitum. The ROM actually saving a la un real machine was also amazing (probably one of my next wishes for TPA, but I'm sure they have other fish to fry).
Enter TPA. Real tables, emulated (close to) perfectly (sans TZ's jackpot sound...), without paying $111,000 dollars like SDC mentioned! (It's probably even more now, since that blog post is from season 2? Not sure.) Of course, the tables were no longer free, but I figured it was a drop in the bucket compared to actual arcade costs. (I've logged about 400 games across TPA, and probably played countless more... so about $200 saved at least, and the tables are like $5 or whatever...) I immediately jumped and bought TZ.
Disregarding my actual playing of TPA since that's not important at this point in time, I also eventually found this forum... and with it, SDC's blog. (Is there a way to tag him?) Most of what he talks about proved to be very interesting for me (I'm a bit of a numerologist, per se...), and I eventually started analyzing my play. The exact details of this are best left to other threads when I get around to posting them.
At this point, I also found my (so far) only real pinball experience, which ended up costing $4 for 12 plays. Guess what it is... it's a TAF. And holy gods, it must have been a pretty well used, or otherwise old TAF. The table itself seemed like it was leaning to the left, the playfield was worn... what have you. And then there's the actual playing! Guess what, self: Balls actually do go down outlanes on real machines, probably more so than the center! (Blame the Power.... I didn't even get a multiball started because of it.) VP's thing-flipper-to-right-outlane on a messed up graveyard shot can and will happen! (Thank God I didn't activate thing flips...) Like people actually say, shooting the electric chair from the right flipper is a bad, bad, idea! I even tried nudging.. it probably moved the ball all of .02 inches closer to the drain. Oh, and SDC was totally right about sim scores being 10x higher than real scores. Admittedly, I didn't get to play the machine for 6 hours on end or whatever, but my VP TAF GC is something to the tune of 1.8 billion. On the machine at [location removed], my best score was like 40 million.
So here I am, and I finally joined this forum. (insert obligatory self-description starter here. insert possible arrogance warning here.) I basically only play modern (90s era) DMDs on TPA, which is probably unfortunate as far as variety goes. Right now the current tables that I log are (in order) TZ (left outlane... don't hurt me... no more), MB (I think the outlanes on this one hate me), MM (yay for easy castle lock shots!), AFM (saucer, you suck, even in TPA), TOM (why can't I just get that darn GF finished...), CFBTL (let's tilt while a 2B SJP is lit!), and STTNG (why must the spinner shots be so tempting?). I've also played a little bit of CP (stupid boxers), CV (what color is the Ringmaster's face today? All those bruises...), and SS (does this game ever end?).
HSes on machines I listed above at the time of this writing. You won't find me on the HS list; I don't have (but probably should make) an FS account.
TZ - 21B plus change
MB - 7.4B (bonus 2 laments... holy gods... and a 105x bonus)
MM - 1.5B
AFM - 293B (victory laps are OP)
TOM - 3.7B (yeah, I kinda suck at this table)
CFBTL - 39B
STTNG - 40B
And that's the end of it. Thanks for reading!
TL;DR: New member really obsessed with numbers, and kinda obsessed with 90s DMD tables.
I'm finally joining, after about a year of playing TPA, the last six(?) months of which were spent perusing these forums.
In any case:
I started with Future Pinball. (I didn't know how to find a pinball machine at that point). I only played Addams Family, and eventually, TZ. This was good for getting me into pinball, but the fact that the software is emulated in FP with whatever people put in (why don't I get my door panel for beating the Power? Why is the bonus card falldown SO DARN SLOW? Why can I start a multiball EVERY SINGLE TIME by shooting the left ramp after a single gumball -> lock? Why does the end of LITZ also end my ball? [yes, this actually happens.] Why don't my lit EBs stack? ad infinitum...) does not make playing TZ pleasant. (TAF was a considerably [IMO] simpler table, and probably much easier to script.) There's also the fact that the physics in FP sucks, but there are entire other forums devoted to that, and I haven't played FP in about two years. So I rest my case... for now.
I took about a year sabbatical while I did other things, and then I found VP. Great, VP! It was good until... why are these graphics from 1998? (Admittedly, it's gotten a lot better, but it's still not even remotely close to FP or TPA.) What is this COM object tomfoolery you speak of? Why do I have to download ROM files for everything? But the point is that it was a massive step up. I was playing with (still) TAF, TZ, and eventually TSPP, and the game worked like everyone else said it would, ad infinitum. The ROM actually saving a la un real machine was also amazing (probably one of my next wishes for TPA, but I'm sure they have other fish to fry).
Enter TPA. Real tables, emulated (close to) perfectly (sans TZ's jackpot sound...), without paying $111,000 dollars like SDC mentioned! (It's probably even more now, since that blog post is from season 2? Not sure.) Of course, the tables were no longer free, but I figured it was a drop in the bucket compared to actual arcade costs. (I've logged about 400 games across TPA, and probably played countless more... so about $200 saved at least, and the tables are like $5 or whatever...) I immediately jumped and bought TZ.
Disregarding my actual playing of TPA since that's not important at this point in time, I also eventually found this forum... and with it, SDC's blog. (Is there a way to tag him?) Most of what he talks about proved to be very interesting for me (I'm a bit of a numerologist, per se...), and I eventually started analyzing my play. The exact details of this are best left to other threads when I get around to posting them.
At this point, I also found my (so far) only real pinball experience, which ended up costing $4 for 12 plays. Guess what it is... it's a TAF. And holy gods, it must have been a pretty well used, or otherwise old TAF. The table itself seemed like it was leaning to the left, the playfield was worn... what have you. And then there's the actual playing! Guess what, self: Balls actually do go down outlanes on real machines, probably more so than the center! (Blame the Power.... I didn't even get a multiball started because of it.) VP's thing-flipper-to-right-outlane on a messed up graveyard shot can and will happen! (Thank God I didn't activate thing flips...) Like people actually say, shooting the electric chair from the right flipper is a bad, bad, idea! I even tried nudging.. it probably moved the ball all of .02 inches closer to the drain. Oh, and SDC was totally right about sim scores being 10x higher than real scores. Admittedly, I didn't get to play the machine for 6 hours on end or whatever, but my VP TAF GC is something to the tune of 1.8 billion. On the machine at [location removed], my best score was like 40 million.
So here I am, and I finally joined this forum. (insert obligatory self-description starter here. insert possible arrogance warning here.) I basically only play modern (90s era) DMDs on TPA, which is probably unfortunate as far as variety goes. Right now the current tables that I log are (in order) TZ (left outlane... don't hurt me... no more), MB (I think the outlanes on this one hate me), MM (yay for easy castle lock shots!), AFM (saucer, you suck, even in TPA), TOM (why can't I just get that darn GF finished...), CFBTL (let's tilt while a 2B SJP is lit!), and STTNG (why must the spinner shots be so tempting?). I've also played a little bit of CP (stupid boxers), CV (what color is the Ringmaster's face today? All those bruises...), and SS (does this game ever end?).
HSes on machines I listed above at the time of this writing. You won't find me on the HS list; I don't have (but probably should make) an FS account.
TZ - 21B plus change
MB - 7.4B (bonus 2 laments... holy gods... and a 105x bonus)
MM - 1.5B
AFM - 293B (victory laps are OP)
TOM - 3.7B (yeah, I kinda suck at this table)
CFBTL - 39B
STTNG - 40B
And that's the end of it. Thanks for reading!
TL;DR: New member really obsessed with numbers, and kinda obsessed with 90s DMD tables.
