When will the next Pinball Arcade table be released?

Rights unfortunitly can and sometimes do work like that. Now i dont know how the contracts were written but im prettt sure they did tell us back in the day that terminator 2 had a set amount of years, so presumably these were timed contracts. And if they for example have paid for 10 years of the use of the art and sounds for the terminator 2 table then depending how it was written they could have exclusive right to use that art and those sounds until the time expires or the people who own terminator 2 licence refund them and end the contract. The sudden nonexistence of a product does not end rights contracts that have been prepaid.

In any case im hoping farsight has some tricks up its sleave and will put out something so retooled and awesome it makes zen look like total crap. Prior to what they have done with williams i always looked at zen as that lame company that makes really terrible star wars pinball tables that suck. Now i feel like a traitor because im literally paying money to the bastards that sucker punched the amazing guys who gave me years of continual pinball awesomeness. I hate zen so much, yet here i am unable to not hand them money. Please slam something out of the park farsight.

Damn Pete, that's some serious hate you have there for Zen! I mean that's some Grade A vitriol you got right there.

So first off, Zen didn't sucker punch FarSight. Scientific Games actually approached Zen a few years back, but they were neck deep in licenses like Portal, South Park, and Fox and needed to take care of those first. Scientific approached them again sometime between 2016 and 2017, the rest being history. Zen said yes to an opportunity, but they aren't the bad guys.

You also don't have to feel like a traitor. It is possible to like multiple digital pinball games, it's not a case of being a Red Sox and Yankees fan. Do you hate Zaccaria Pinball too?

For a "lame company that makes really terrible star wars pinball tables" (really? I mean c'mon) they sure are killing it with graphics and physics of these Williams tables, don't you think? In all the time FarSight was doing the game, they couldn't even be bothered to put in a floor image that was hi-res. They found a nice groove with visuals of the tables during season 3, but never went back and spruced up all the AAA offerings from the first 2 seasons. Meanwhile Zen has continually upgraded old tables through each iteration of the platform, from FX to FX2 to FX3. It's the difference between owning a classic car by keeping it in a garage and polishing the paint, to fully restoring the thing to better than off the factory floor quality. FarSight didn't mistreat them, they didn't let 'em whither in the back yard, but now they are in a true collectors hands that wants them to be all they can be.

What was the last Zen original table you tried? Just curious. There's a big difference between when they were making tables like V12 compared to something like Aliens or Adventureland. And until FarSight comes out with a new engine, they aren't slamming anything out of the park and will be lucky if they can get a double. Meanwhile Zen is acting like they are at the home run derby and just crushing it.

The newest ones i got were the 3 movies ET Back to the Future and Jaws. have the now retired south park pack and random things going back years. Before zen existed i think it was called pinball fx or something like that bought stuff for it on xbox 360 that thing was so bad. I dont know if its because i play real pinball more or what but the ball has always seemed weird and floaty on zen tables. And the older layouts just annoy me to look at, the newer stuff looks better though. I dont know. But yeah if zen gives us vr for fx3 all is forgiven and i will love them forever lol.

Yep, it was Pinball FX on 360, Zen Pinball on PS3. A bunch of those tables never advanced beyond FX, so even Zen recognized a certain lack of something. All the ones for the PS3 made the cut to subsequent generations, but I don’t care for most of those. Weird shots and impenetrable rules for modes was a common theme.

I never got the floaty feel for the ball, as to me it was more a sense of being super heavy. Later I realized it was because the rubber had no bounce anywhere on the tables. Some of the designers started sneaking it in, like on Return of the Jedi, and that was an a-ha moment for me. Most of the stuff designed for FX3 has livelier rubber.

Aliens and Jurassic Park are my two biggest recommendations (those specific tables) for people that haven’t liked Zen in the past. I wouldn’t hold your breathe for FX3 VR, as it’s a costly endeavor for a very small marketplace. If it continues at all, it’ll probably stay under the FX2 banner.

shutyertrap said:

Yep, it was Pinball FX on 360, Zen Pinball on PS3. A bunch of those tables never advanced beyond FX, so even Zen recognized a certain lack of something. All the ones for the PS3 made the cut to subsequent generations, but I don’t care for most of those. Weird shots and impenetrable rules for modes was a common theme.

I never got the floaty feel for the ball, as to me it was more a sense of being super heavy. Later I realized it was because the rubber had no bounce anywhere on the tables. Some of the designers started sneaking it in, like on Return of the Jedi, and that was an a-ha moment for me. Most of the stuff designed for FX3 has livelier rubber.

Aliens and Jurassic Park are my two biggest recommendations (those specific tables) for people that haven’t liked Zen in the past. I wouldn’t hold your breathe for FX3 VR, as it’s a costly endeavor for a very small marketplace. If it continues at all, it’ll probably stay under the FX2 banner.

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It's interesting to note the observation about the ball rebound off the rubber. I tried playing a Zen Williams table and realized that's one of the elements that throws me. It sometimes feels like it's a rock, not a pinball. Some of the bounces just feel dead.

To me, it plays a bit better than previous zen tables, but not by much. The fact that shots so easily hit their mark/ramp with little effort isn't great either. I feel like so much effort went into the looks of the tables, some gameplay was sacrificed.

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1adam12 said:

It's interesting to note the observation about the ball rebound off the rubber. I tried playing a Zen Williams table and realized that's one of the elements that throws me. It sometimes feels like it's a rock, not a pinball. Some of the bounces just feel dead.

To me, it plays a bit better than previous zen tables, but not by much. The fact that shots so easily hit their mark/ramp with little effort isn't great either. I feel like so much effort went into the looks of the tables, some gameplay was sacrificed.

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Were you playing in regular single player or Classic with arcade settings? Because there is significantly more bounce in Classic, and shots do take effort.

trash80 said:

I still hope the best for them though and wish they would put some effort into some EM Gottlieb table releases.

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And Monopoly!

shutyertrap said:

Were you playing in regular single player or Classic with arcade settings? Because there is significantly more bounce in Classic, and shots do take effort.

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I genuinely don't know. Instead of a pinball sim I seem to be playing some game that is made to look like pinball with a ton of extra bells and whistles. It's even timer and score based instead of open ended.

Whatever the mode is that it starts at is what I'm playing. I chose the medieval madness table and check in every few days.

What do you have to do to get a table to play in a more realistic manner, and why bother with the other mode?



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yespage said:

And Monopoly!

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That's an interesting one. I played a table IRL. It was odd, but engaging.

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1adam12 said:

I genuinely don't know. Instead of a pinball sim I seem to be playing some game that is made to look like pinball with a ton of extra bells and whistles. It's even timer and score based instead of open ended.

Whatever the mode is that it starts at is what I'm playing. I chose the medieval madness table and check in every few days.

What do you have to do to get a table to play in a more realistic manner, and why bother with the other mode?



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You're talking about the mobile (Android/iOS) Williams Pinball App, not the PC/console Pinball FX Williams Collection.

They may be made by the same company, but they're two entirely different beasts.

EldarOfSuburbia said:

You're talking about the mobile (Android/iOS) Williams Pinball App, not the PC/console Pinball FX Williams Collection.

They may be made by the same company, but they're two entirely different beasts.

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That explains it! My laptop is too old to run fx3, and last I checked it wasn't Mac compatible, so I've been checking the mobile version. Thanks for clearing that up!

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You need to upgrade a table to 3 stars to play Pro Physics. Until then, you get regular Zen style physics.

I just want to play pinball in my cab. Whoever gives me that gets my money. By Proxy, TPA probably owes NOEX some of my money now that I'm thinking about it.

shutyertrap said:

You need to upgrade a table to 3 stars to play Pro Physics. Until then, you get regular Zen style physics.

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Pro physics and difficulty require Grade 4 (at least on Android). We can unlock a Pro Challenge at Grade 3, does that incorporate either feature or is it simply a higher score target?

MBeeching said:

Pro physics and difficulty require Grade 4 (at least on Android). We can unlock a Pro Challenge at Grade 3, does that incorporate either feature or is it simply a higher score target?

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I'm pretty sure Pro Physics and Pro Difficulty (aka "Tournament Mode") are the settings used in Android League Play. Table rake is noticeably steeper and things like random awards are no longer random - such as Stroke Of Luck in AFM always awarding 50,000,000, or the random award in HS2 always following the same progression (5M->revs->Freeway->Video Mode->Multiball).

1adam12 said:

That explains it! My laptop is too old to run fx3, and last I checked it wasn't Mac compatible, so I've been checking the mobile version. Thanks for clearing that up!

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Pinball FX3 is not Mac compatible, but luckily for us, they are releasing the new tables (tables not being released on FX2 anymore) including Williams on Zen Pinball 2. I play it there (2015 13" Macbook Pro) and it works well. It does have notable shortcomings compared to Pinball FX3 (taken from my post on the official Zen forum); the most obvious being that you can't save in the middle of a game, there are no online leaderboards so you have no community to compare your scores to (I would love to take part in some of the facebook community weekly tournaments), you don't have tournament physics mode for the Williams tables and there is no portrait and /or cabinet mode. I don't care for all the FX3 gimmicky stuff (Powerups etc), but that is also missing.

At least I can play the new tables and I'm grateful for the opportunity to play the Williams tables without having to buy a new PC or console and importantly for me, for the Williams tables you have both the zen physics and the classic arcade physics (real/simulation physics) and with the option to play with the graphical enhancements. The physics and thus gameplay, as far as I can tell, is on par with the FX3 physics (both standard and arcade physics) based on gameplay videos that I have watched, so that is probably the most important aspect and I'm very grateful for that.

Still hoping they find a way to bring us Alvin G's Mystery Castle. I've never seen one in real life, and it would be a real treat.

I too would like some more alvin g's they are all very rare. Also thank you for breaking up the giant conversation about zen in this farsight topic... i get that zen is releasing things so its exciting but shut up about zen all over the farsight topics lol.

Didn't catch much of the last stream but they mentioned their next table is unreleased and the artist (farshight) was working on a females hair on the table.