In making the morning rounds through the forum, I found a gem from a new member that deserves a little more meditation than an in-passing forum post:
One possible answer is that the real machines available to the poster may have problems - maybe they're dirty, maybe they have mechanical problems that make them unplayable, maybe the DMD is out, etc. Despite the game-ending bugs and other oddities found in TPA, at least we never worry about the flipper solenoids breaking down or a gate getting stuck or having to play on a machine that's not had a good scrub behind the ears in over a decade. But this doesn't seem to be what CCV was going for...he seems to say that it is possible to prefer playing on TPA to playing a perfectly-functional real machine.
The next possible answer is one of difficulty. A real MM does tend to reject ramp shots more, and TPA's lamp does seem unusually dialed for spinnage. TPA's tables are in general easier than their real-life counterparts, and this does vary from table to table. TPA's Twilight Zone is only occasionally cruel, rather than exhibiting the ballbreaking behavior TZ is known for, whereas Cactus Canyon and Firepower are if anything harder than real life. It's possible a beginning player may enjoy TPA's tables more. But we have no evidence that CCV is a beginner, and even if he is, he's not making that claim. So we move on.
CCV brings up platform as a possible source of variance. This is definitely at least part of it, not having upward nudging on mobile devices limits the experience, especially on EMs where the upward nudge is essential. (I'm looking at you, Central Park.) While the massive delays in the 360 and the PC versions have forced me to get better at playing on the iPad, I still often have moments where I think "damn, I would've saved that if only I had a controller". For the tables I do have on both 360 and iOS, my high scores are generally five times better on the 360, despite the fact I play probably five times as often on iOS.
I think the main reason CCV perceives variance in simulation, however, is that the simulation does actually vary. FarSight has improved the physics, flippers and so on in the 15 months TPA has been in existence, but not all tables have received these improvements. So you can go from Medieval Madness, which got a general physics makeover a few months back, to Ripley's Believe It or Not!, which to the best of my knowledge still has the original physics, and wonder if you're still playing the same game. And of course some of this are the tables themselves - Genie should not play the same as Firepower, despite being only a year apart chronologically (1979 vs. 1980).
To be honest, this is probably a good thing. TPA is a collection of different games built at different times by different manufacturers. Even two examples of a real-life machine will play very differently depending on their histories, even if both were what we'd consider "well-maintained". (My Twilight Zone plays very differently than the one on location here.) I've beta-tested a number of TPA tables, using the machines at CP Pinball for reference, and in the process learned - among other things - that "normal" gameplay for a pinball machine encompasses a wide range of behavior.
I've rambled on for a bit now without going anywhere, so I'm going to stop and get back to work
, but please feel free to continue on in the comments section. By the way, these are unmoderated now, so you no longer have to wait for me to get around to noticing your comments before they'll appear on the site.
My first thought was the standard "well, of course the TPA tables won't play exactly like the real ones; there's too many subtleties in real-life pinball that can't be adequately captured in digital form." But then I looked more closely, where CCV says that "some tables play better in real life while others play better in simulation". Wait, what? They play better in simulation?! What heresy is this?! How can a simulation be better than the real machine?
One possible answer is that the real machines available to the poster may have problems - maybe they're dirty, maybe they have mechanical problems that make them unplayable, maybe the DMD is out, etc. Despite the game-ending bugs and other oddities found in TPA, at least we never worry about the flipper solenoids breaking down or a gate getting stuck or having to play on a machine that's not had a good scrub behind the ears in over a decade. But this doesn't seem to be what CCV was going for...he seems to say that it is possible to prefer playing on TPA to playing a perfectly-functional real machine.
The next possible answer is one of difficulty. A real MM does tend to reject ramp shots more, and TPA's lamp does seem unusually dialed for spinnage. TPA's tables are in general easier than their real-life counterparts, and this does vary from table to table. TPA's Twilight Zone is only occasionally cruel, rather than exhibiting the ballbreaking behavior TZ is known for, whereas Cactus Canyon and Firepower are if anything harder than real life. It's possible a beginning player may enjoy TPA's tables more. But we have no evidence that CCV is a beginner, and even if he is, he's not making that claim. So we move on.
CCV brings up platform as a possible source of variance. This is definitely at least part of it, not having upward nudging on mobile devices limits the experience, especially on EMs where the upward nudge is essential. (I'm looking at you, Central Park.) While the massive delays in the 360 and the PC versions have forced me to get better at playing on the iPad, I still often have moments where I think "damn, I would've saved that if only I had a controller". For the tables I do have on both 360 and iOS, my high scores are generally five times better on the 360, despite the fact I play probably five times as often on iOS.
I think the main reason CCV perceives variance in simulation, however, is that the simulation does actually vary. FarSight has improved the physics, flippers and so on in the 15 months TPA has been in existence, but not all tables have received these improvements. So you can go from Medieval Madness, which got a general physics makeover a few months back, to Ripley's Believe It or Not!, which to the best of my knowledge still has the original physics, and wonder if you're still playing the same game. And of course some of this are the tables themselves - Genie should not play the same as Firepower, despite being only a year apart chronologically (1979 vs. 1980).
To be honest, this is probably a good thing. TPA is a collection of different games built at different times by different manufacturers. Even two examples of a real-life machine will play very differently depending on their histories, even if both were what we'd consider "well-maintained". (My Twilight Zone plays very differently than the one on location here.) I've beta-tested a number of TPA tables, using the machines at CP Pinball for reference, and in the process learned - among other things - that "normal" gameplay for a pinball machine encompasses a wide range of behavior.
I've rambled on for a bit now without going anywhere, so I'm going to stop and get back to work
, but please feel free to continue on in the comments section. By the way, these are unmoderated now, so you no longer have to wait for me to get around to noticing your comments before they'll appear on the site.
