WGN Radio Interview with Bobby King

[Jeff Strong]

They make the tables easier? That sucks. Screw the average player - that's what Zen is for. Give us tables as close to the real thing as possible! If the player isn't good enough to make it through all the modes, he just needs to practice more until he is good enough to do it!

Yeah, I agree. I wish they wouldn't water them down at all.

 

[Kolchak357]

They make the tables easier? That sucks. Screw the average player - that's what Zen is for. Give us tables as close to the real thing as possible! If the player isn't good enough to make it through all the modes, he just needs to practice more until he is good enough to do it!

I don't have a problem with this. I for one, would probably never finish a table if they didn't do this. I dont want the tables to feel like a chore. This keeps them fun for the average player. But they should have table options or a tournament mode for those who want more of a challenge.

 

[Russell Bergman]

Great interview from Bobby and it was so cool he mentioned The Texas Pinball Festival! Billy has an incredible Hyperpin setup!

 

[shutyertrap]

Didn't care for the radio host myself, thought he was a bit of a goober. You should have seen my eyes roll when he asked about scrolling! There were a couple of times when Bobby mentioned something and I was screaming for the host to follow up, and instead he just rolled onto his next question. Oh well, some good stuff in there anyways.

And yeah, not happy 'bout the tables being dumbed down. Now I REALLY want a tourney mode, cause I want my TPA skills to actually translate to real life skills.

 

[gooche77]

Great interview! I didn't realize they had to play the Gottlieb machines that Tim Arnold owned before he opened the PHOF in Las Vegas.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

They make the tables easier? That sucks. Screw the average player - that's what Zen is for. Give us tables as close to the real thing as possible! If the player isn't good enough to make it through all the modes, he just needs to practice more until he is good enough to do it!

FarSight can't just "screw the average player". There are not enough of us diehard pinball fanatics who would willingly slog through a full-strength table to keep the business model going. I'd rather play tables that have been made slightly easier than not have any tables at all because of a misguided quest for purity. As it is, the "average" video game player, new to pinball, probably finds TPA frustratingly difficult already.

As someone who has frequent access to 10 of the 14 released tables so far, I can tell you that the rulesets have not been changed (at least not deliberately) and that with the exception of "replay-is-extra-ball", the settings are generally factory defaults, and that 98% of the time, the ball behaves as it would on the real table. I'm assuming, given Bobby's comments about how the real tables were designed to take players' quarters, that the collision geometry has been slightly adjusted to reduce the number of "cheap" SDTM and outlane drains, and perhaps so that in marginal cases where a real shot has a 50-50 chance of going up a ramp or deflecting at a weird angle, TPA gives the player the benefit of the doubt. I'm OK with this. The adjustment must have been very slight anyway, because these forums still have posts complaining about Rudy vomiting the ball straight to left outlane, Monster Bash's and Cirqus Voltaire's outlanes being voracious, MM's flipper gap, etc.

We also do not have the same degree of fine control, especially on mobile devices. TPA has difficulty with live catches, drop stops, tap passes. Playing a trapped-style multiball is pretty futile, because any attempt to do a controlled cradle separation launches the balls into the stratosphere. So given the lack of fine control, it makes sense that the table geometry is tuned a little easier for compensation.

As far as getting through the modes: I have seen Atlantis exactly once in TPA. It will be years before I am good enough to see Atlantis on the real RBION. So TPA has enabled me to enjoy a feature of Ripley's that I would not have otherwise been able to experience. It was still plenty challenging in TPA - it took me four months, and I'm pretty good at this game. I imagine the great majority of players will not reach Atlantis on TPA ever, even with whatever FarSight has done to make it easier.

So while I'm surprised Bobby volunteered the information that they tune the game to be slightly more forgiving, I'm not surprised that they do such tuning, nor do I have a problem with it.

And yeah, not happy 'bout the tables being dumbed down. Now I REALLY want a tourney mode, cause I want my TPA skills to actually translate to real life skills.

TPA is good for shotfinding a real table, as the sweet spots on the flippers are in roughly the same places, but otherwise the skills do not translate as much as you would think, particularly nudging. I'm certainly not getting anywhere near 240M on the real TOTAN. It does work the other way; I do better on TPA tables where I have extensive experience with their real world counterparts.

 

[SilverBalls]

Great interview - thanks for posting Jeff.

The cabinet mode and Editor stuff sounds very interesting. Now that Bobby has owned up that some tables are made easier than the originals I hope they will consider at some point in the future of adding a 'authentic mode'. I can understand why they don't want to make them difficult as it may put less-abled players from buying tables, but at some point in the future I hope they offer this as an option.

 

[shutyertrap]

FarSight can't just "screw the average player". There are not enough of us diehard pinball fanatics who would willingly slog through a full-strength table to keep the business model going. I'd rather play tables that have been made slightly easier than not have any tables at all because of a misguided quest for purity. As it is, the "average" video game player, new to pinball, probably finds TPA frustratingly difficult already.

You are correct in your statement, but I do want the option to play it as it was meant. Look, the same thing can be said about Star Wars and all the subsequent changes that have been made. The vast majority of people aren't going to care about the tweaks and changes, and for the most part I'm fine with it all too. But I would very much like the option to revisit them the way I saw them in the theater. So whether it be 'authentic' mode or 'tourney' mode, I want something available that as an option that makes the experience as true to life as possible. Even though I'd probably play the regular mode 97% the rest of the time.

 

[Kolchak357]

Since Bobby mentioned talking to FOX about The Simpsons Pinball Party, maybe he can also inquire about The X-Files. As an accountant it would be pretty sweet to bash the hell out of that X-Files filing cabinet. Shouldn't be an expensive license, as the show and the movies seem to have dried up.

 

[Rudy]

See, I'd say there's a pretty big difference between Star Wars and say pinball machines. With Star Wars there's several ways to view the original movie, but they all pretty much come to the same conclusion. Many of the 'modifications' of the Star Wars franchise are down to licensing and whatnot, we've already seen a few minor edits of pinball tables with Farsight having to cut one or two songs from Creature of the Black Lagoon.

With pinball however, there's all sorts of different tunings with most depending upon the operator in the first place (some could have slight bias' towards certain aspects of the rules/bounciness of objects etc.) in this case we COULD say that the operator is Farsight and as we're playing in their arcade we have to abide by their rules. At the moment I'm willing to wait until the ST:TNG tables come out with operator menus before making any rash judgements. Who knows, they might be able to change some of the things we're wanting in the first place.

Besides, if you were probably going to play the regular mode 97% of the time and the hardcore pinheads are already a smallish fraction of TPA owners... then it'd probably make less economic sense to release a 'pro' mode. It's a fraction of a fraction and I think the only compromise we're going to get is if Farsight develops a 'pro testing' simulator for the sake of pinball creation and uses some of the code to modify existing tables. Until then we're stuck with tables that are much less customisable than the Pro Pinball series, but much more realistic PLUS we get roughly two tables a month as opposed to one table every 9-12 months.

I'd say we're getting a good deal here and I'd much rather that Farsight continue producing tables to their 'regular' setting and producing more of them than ending up needing to work twice as hard on each individual table and having much less choice. Besides, Farsight might throw a much more harsher table in to see how people react to it... but I don't think it'd be pretty. It's hard enough unlocking some wizard goals as it is without having to put 2-3 years into one pinball machine to become experienced enough to master it.

 

[BonzoGonzo]

ok, really not happy with the whole, lets make tpa easier-than-it-allready-is scenario

and how exactly does it work: more forgiving physics or settings or what?

 

[Heretic]

Methinks the comments been taken outta context to be honest. We all know as power stands especially on mobile devices we cannot and will not get a perfect sim for 10 or more years yet hah.

I dont object to a hardcore or brutal mode in the future in fact im all for it.

With such cross platform design the lowest common comes first aka mobile, if tourney mode was. 5 quid iap for all tables id not blink twice.

Tech improves and so will farsight,...show me the pinball gerry..

Yeh drunk

 

[Bonzo]

Hey, it's not about making it easier than it is, it's about tpa being a little more forgiving than the real tables. Or did I get something wrong?

 

[BonzoGonzo]

yeah, just give me some sort of tournament (single player also) mode, and i couldn't care less...

but since we are talking about making it easier to attract more people to it (so they wouldn't get mad and quit playing/buying new tables), then i'm really worried...

coz i'd imagine that making a tournament version of a table is going to eat up resources/time/money, so they just won't do it coz there is not enough potential customers to make it viable

you know, coz who would actually want a challenge? if i buy a game nowadays, i should be able to finish it (i've given my hard earned money for it), right!?!

 

[BonzoGonzo]

Hey, it's not about making it easier than it is, it's about tpa being a little more forgiving than the real tables. Or did I get something wrong?

i sincirely hope so...

sorry for the rant posts, but as Heretic, i'm not actaully completely sober (been to a friends house, played some versus jojo's bizzare adventure hd and generaly been taking it easy)

 

[BonzoGonzo]

so i actually listened to the interview now, and yeah, he says that they are making 'friendlier' versions (so the stuff doesn't drain that much and stuff) of tables, which we all know its the way it is: tpa is easier than the real thing

have no problems with that, tpa is still extremly playable... now if only we could somehow get those harder rules/no extra balls in there also

 

[neglectoid]

Didn't care for the radio host myself, thought he was a bit of a goober. You should have seen my eyes roll when he asked about scrolling! There were a couple of times when Bobby mentioned something and I was screaming for the host to follow up, and instead he just rolled onto his next question. Oh well, some good stuff in there anyways.

And yeah, not happy 'bout the tables being dumbed down. Now I REALLY want a tourney mode, cause I want my TPA skills to actually translate to real life skills.

the scrolling question cracked me up. i haven't seen a scrolling pinball video game since the first or second nintendo systems. i was glad they had an interviewer that was a fan of pinball.

 

[Jeff Strong]

the scrolling question cracked me up. i haven't seen a scrolling pinball video game since the first or second nintendo systems. i was glad they had an interviewer that was a fan of pinball.

The default camera option in TPA is labled "Scrolling" in the pause menu.