Table Pack #41 Speculation

[Kratos3]

By the way, seeing the season 5 placeholders on the pinballarcade.com site just makes me happy.

 

[pm1109]

By the way, seeing the season 5 placeholders on the pinballarcade.com site just makes me happy.

Lets hope its one of the better seasons we will have.

 

[mpad]

Lets hope its one of the better seasons we will have.

There hasn't been a bad season yet.

 

[Michael DiFilippo]

There hasn't been a bad season yet.

FS has kept their word and my interest every month releasing new tables. Seasons really don't mean much in this context.

 

[The Night Flier]

There hasn't been a bad season yet.

True.Arguably Season 2 overall is the least great of the lot but to varying degrees i dig all TPA tables and always look forward to the next one and i think most genuine Pinheads do as well.

FS has kept their word and my interest every month releasing new tables. Seasons really don't mean much in this context.

Releasing tables every month?Wishful thinking for me.For various systems the whole Season thing really is rendered mute and is a bad joke.

 

[wolfson]

There hasn't been a bad season yet.

mpad totaly agree.

 

[shutyertrap]

Releasing tables every month?Wishful thinking for me.For various systems the whole Season thing really is rendered mute and is a bad joke.

But they are making them every month. Playstation and Xbox don't get them due to the 6 week authorization time. I hated waiting when I was on PS3, but there was nothing to be done about it. This is why FS holds a few tables and then makes one large submission, because not only do they have to deal with the wait time, they have to pay (at least on Xbox) each time they do submit. This is not the case with iOS, Android, or Steam. I know it sucks, I used to play on PS3 too.

I don't know why you think the seasons are a bad joke though. iOS is the only one that can't buy the season until the end. For everyone else, the season is a great deal provided you were gonna buy 6 of the 10 tables anyway.

 

[vikingerik]

HS2 makes sense to me as a season seller. You know, kick it off with an A+ title.

HS2 makes sense as a season seller. But season sellers don't go in the leadoff spot. Every previous season other than the first opened with a weaker entry: Dr Dude, Fish Tales, Phantom. If the premium title comes first, people will just buy that individually and not the season. You want the heavy hitters in the middle or end to drive sales of the whole season, like Dracula, Addams, Road Show.

Getaway won't come before #43 at the earliest, and maybe not until like #49 if they get the big TSPP or LOTR kickstarter for the middle of the season. Everybody has been predicting Getaway for like every table pack and I keep predicting it won't come yet. So far I've been the one that's right.

 

[p6800]

I'm with vikingerik.

Hs2 talk was rampant since #34 speculation! It will be here, but later...

http://digitalpinballfans.com/showthread.php/10046-Table-pack-39-speculation?p=208958#post208958

 

[The Night Flier]

I don't know why you think the seasons are a bad joke though. iOS is the only one that can't buy the season until the end. For everyone else, the season is a great deal provided you were gonna buy 6 of the 10 tables anyway.

Don't get me wrong.Season Passes are a great thing, especially for me since i am bound to buy every TPA table anyhow.I mean that the Season release schedule is a bad joke for PS3 users.A Season format for me indicates a regular release, in this case monthly(or at least every two months), to look forward to.Just not the case for PS3 and other consoles.There they might as well abandon calling it a Season and just communicate that they will have random releases throughout the year.

 

[DA5ID]

Don't get me wrong.Season Passes are a great thing, especially for me since i am bound to buy every TPA table anyhow.I mean that the Season release schedule is a bad joke for PS3 users.A Season format for me indicates a regular release, in this case monthly(or at least every two months), to look forward to.Just not the case for PS3 and other consoles.There they might as well abandon calling it a Season and just communicate that they will have random releases throughout the year.

Season sub-packs! But don't rock the boat I like the option to purchase a season on ps3 - especially since my other platform is iOS.

On a funny side note - I get my zen table on ps3 2 days before it's available on iOS

 

[The Night Flier]

On a funny side note - I get my zen table on ps3 2 days before it's available on iOS

Hehe...in general, unlike Farsight, Zen has no problem releasing tables(also single tables) within the same week on all platforms.And, also unlike Farsight, they have no problem communicating the exact release date 2,3 weeks beforehand.None of this should, could, maybe, we'll see, let's get lucky stuff.

Don't get me wrong.Love TPA and always look forward to the next table.But i feel Farsights communication and release department leaves room for improvement.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

Hehe...in general, unlike Farsight, Zen has no problem releasing tables(also single tables) within the same week on all platforms.And, also unlike Farsight, they have no problem communicating the exact release date 2,3 weeks beforehand.None of this should, could, maybe, we'll see, let's get lucky stuff.

Don't get me wrong.Love TPA and always look forward to the next table.But i feel Farsights communication and release department leaves room for improvement.

Actually it's just different ways of handling that communication.

Farsight are very much about "this is what we're doing now", each month's table is on the front burner and in development in the preceding weeks, and they will from time-to-time give peeks into the build process.

Zen, it appears, will be working on a table without publicizing it, until it's ready. So when they say that "Ant-Man is coming out next week", what they mean is, it was ready 6 weeks or more ago and they already submitted it to Sony (and presumably Microsoft) then. And to Apple with what they might estimate to be enough time (given Apple's approval times are a mystery known only to Apple, maybe). So when release date comes around, everything is ready to go.

So the trade-off between the two is, with Farsight, you know what the latest stuff is going to be as soon as possible, but know there's going to be an inevitable delay on some platforms when it's ready. The alternative - doing what Zen does - would mean a sudden gap in the release schedule and an uneven release schedule for everyone, which really isn't in Farsight's interests. If they'd done that from the get-go, fine, but they're locked into the cycle now and it would be extremely difficult, if not irreparably damaging, for them to break out of it.

 

[DA5ID]

Really good point - I remember hearing about ant man coming to zen in an obscure leak 1.5 years ago. They def have things in the pipeline and a really good lid.

I guess I am more like FS - front burner, no multi tasking, and of course instant gratification.

Speaking of - are we getting safecracker and a newsletter today?

 

[The Night Flier]

Actually it's just different ways of handling that communication.

Farsight are very much about "this is what we're doing now", each month's table is on the front burner and in development in the preceding weeks, and they will from time-to-time give peeks into the build process.

Zen, it appears, will be working on a table without publicizing it, until it's ready. So when they say that "Ant-Man is coming out next week", what they mean is, it was ready 6 weeks or more ago and they already submitted it to Sony (and presumably Microsoft) then. And to Apple with what they might estimate to be enough time (given Apple's approval times are a mystery known only to Apple, maybe). So when release date comes around, everything is ready to go.

So the trade-off between the two is, with Farsight, you know what the latest stuff is going to be as soon as possible, but know there's going to be an inevitable delay on some platforms when it's ready. The alternative - doing what Zen does - would mean a sudden gap in the release schedule and an uneven release schedule for everyone, which really isn't in Farsight's interests. If they'd done that from the get-go, fine, but they're locked into the cycle now and it would be extremely difficult, if not irreparably damaging, for them to break out of it.

I hear ya and this makes sense to a degree.The best way to handle this for Farsight is to take a short(3,4 months) timeout.Work on patches and then go ahead with the next season with every system more or less on the same page.That would make a whole lotta sense.But as you say they may have burnt those bridges and are locked into their flawed release schedule now.

That still doesn't explain, 6 weeks approval process or not, why they can't communicate which tables are coming up next and roughly when.They must have already handed the respective tables in for approval and should have a date/week by now(in this case i'm using the upcoming PS3 release as an example).As said Zen has exact dates 2,3 weeks before.Not that hard to say hey these tables are coming up next and will arrive this or maybe that week.

And also: Last PS3 release was 4 tables, now apparently 3, before that i believe Phantom was a single.Nowadays Farsight releases them whenever they bloody feel like.That is what i meant about lack of Season character.There needs to be dependable continuity not this randomness.Not like PS3 users(and other console users) are paying less for the tables.Think they are entitled to a serious effort being made to at least try to provide a similar service.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

Since I'm not a PS3/4/Vita/X360/XONE owner, the release schedule for these consoles is only something I tend to notice in passing in the background. I can understand the frustration though. Probably similar to, but maybe somewhat more annoying than, the Skyrim DLC which was X360-exclusive before coming to the PC (and was delayed time and time again for PS3).

I guess though I am a patient guy. It took Bethesda 2+ years to finally officially admit that they were working on Fallout 4 when they announced they'd walked away from Skyrim. I was never one of those complaining on a daily basis that they weren't handing down any official word.

As for Safe Cracker - yes, it will be today, along with newsletter and hint. (Still think it'll be F-14, by the way.)

 

[The Night Flier]

Since I'm not a PS3/4/Vita/X360/XONE owner, the release schedule for these consoles is only something I tend to notice in passing in the background. I can understand the frustration though. Probably similar to, but maybe somewhat more annoying than, the Skyrim DLC which was X360-exclusive before coming to the PC (and was delayed time and time again for PS3).

I guess though I am a patient guy. It took Bethesda 2+ years to finally officially admit that they were working on Fallout 4 when they announced they'd walked away from Skyrim. I was never one of those complaining on a daily basis that they weren't handing down any official word.

As for Safe Cracker - yes, it will be today, along with newsletter and hint. (Still think it'll be F-14, by the way.)

If i feel that every effort is being made at keeping us PS3 users(and the others) up to date then i can also be patient.But i'm not feeling it at the moment.Especially when you're already speculating about the S5 opener.F-14 would be awesome!But Cyclone first!

 

[pm1109]

If it's not HS2 than its F-14

Case Closed!


Anyways with the newsletter coming out we will all find out very soon.

 

[Pinballwiz45b]

 

[Captain B. Zarre]

I don't know this one. Like at all.

It's certainly not The Getaway or F-14, for sure...