30 replies to this topic

[toxie]

The good thing about this is that they may concentrate on more exotic machines, not just the popular ones. The downside is that they may not earn that much money anymore.  :/

[Schlabber34]

TPA made me build my first 1 screen table top cab which turned into a 2 screen cab now. They brought a lot of memories back. So much for the pro's!

 

How in the world can you ignore the development of your own product like they did!? Crappy scans, no updates, horrible UI and bad physics! They call themselves game "DEVELOPERS". I see no development in their product. They had the chance to switch to the fast lane and overtake anybody else. And Stern is ignoring the fact that their tables and their brand are part of a buggy, low class  product. Every table they release should look like Time Shock. Anything less is a shame for a professional game developing company.

 

I can't believe that a bunch of Mechanics, Taylors, Lawyers, Architects and what not, are makeing twice as good tables as they do. Game play and visuals! On a DX9 engine!

 

They stole a 100€ from me, because i didn't know it any better at that time!

[Carny_Priest]

WMS/Bally license holders are not just going to disappear from the scene. I wonder who will get the license to sell virtual tables now?

 

The only advantage here is that this is entirely licensed and legal. But, hey, it's not like I'm running for office.

[malifica]

WMS/Bally is Scientific Games, they are a billion(s) dollar in revenue a year company which just so happened to put a previous Electronic Arts head into place as the CEO just a couple weeks ago. Does that mean anything? Probably not, but since SG forced Farsight to remove the Switch version and also strip any WMS/Bally property from any future TPA sales across all platforms. I'd guess they have an internal developed game in the works. Go look at their numerous worldwide software studio portfolios, they are growing fast and looking to diversify. Lots of great job opportunity in some very fine cities as well. 

 

I guess I am surprised Farsight held onto the WMS/Bally license for as long as they did.

 

And based on what I have heard, only what was already in the pipeline for TPA will be released, which means Mustang, Star Trek, AC/DC, Whoa Nellie and Big Buck Hunter. I heard a while ago that RCT was coming from a certain Gary, but that was mentioned to me specifically in the context of SPA, which is supposed to be going Free to Play and set up much more as a physical table primer, than a full-featured video pin platform. 

 

Of course, anything I posted here that could be considered forward looking could change before the pixels are dry...

Edited by malifica, 16 May 2018 - 01:30 AM.

[hlr53]

I am not a pinball cork sniffer. I enjoyed playing their games and still do on occasion. Is the physics and some other stuff off? Yes, but I could give a rat's ass as long as I get some enjoyment out of playing the tables. I kinda gave up PBA when they went to a mobile swipe menu interface and we couldn't get it to work with PinballX any longer. At least, not without a ton of work.

 

I have 60+ PBA tables (I started virtual pinball with PBA first, long before FX2, VP and FP on a vertical 27" monitor) and may buy the Arcooda package for Steam. I have June to decide. I already can play in semi-cabinet mode with DX11 and Freezy's DMD app.

 

As mentioned in this thread it is interesting to see Scientific Games (stupid name for a gambling based gaming company, but what do I know) owns Williams and Bally IP. I didn't know that and went and snooped around their site. Perhaps, like the now defunct Nanotech that was going to build a steam punk inspired gambling pinball machine, they may build some gambling virtual pinball machines in the future. Currently, they only have Williams and Bally named slot machines.

Edited by hlr53, 16 May 2018 - 11:19 AM.

[Drybonz]

So, are they going to refund 60% (or whatever) of the money people paid for these tables so far?  lol  (I think I know the answer to this).

 

This game has always been a scam.  Thanks goodness for VP.

[DJRobX]

 

Regarding the Spike/ Spike 2 capability of the TPA dll, it runs all the recent Stern code, not just Ghostbusters. I'm sure someone here that works on the pinMAME side of things can chime in if they want. But Farsight had the Ghostbusters VPX table removed because it used the Farsight .dll to run, not because of any assets or anything like that.

 

 

No.  SternGB.dll, for example, is just a natively-compiled version of the Ghostbusters game code, minus the binary resources (DMD art, sound).   It cannot do anything other than run Ghostbusters.   They use a similar approach for the SAM games also, one DLL per game.  Since they partner with Stern and they have access to the code, the most efficient way to run the game code is for them to compile it natively for the target platform.    That's important if you're trying to run these games on a slow mobile device.    A PInMAME emulated approach would never cut it for what they're doing. 

[malifica]

I worded that incorrectly.  I should have stated that the capability of the framework used by Farsight will run any of the modern Stern code. 

 

Thank you for the clarification, DJRobX.

[FrankT]

Did anyone manage to rip the textures from those tables before they were removed?

[gtxjoe]

No, that would be illegal

 

I bet the B/W tables are still in the TPA download image as the people that previously bought them still get access to them.  New people just can buy them and unlock them...

[Joe]

I worded that incorrectly.  I should have stated that the capability of the framework used by Farsight will run any of the modern Stern code. 

 

Thank you for the clarification, DJRobX.

 

I worded that incorrectly.  I should have stated that the capability of the framework used by Farsight will run any of the modern Stern code. 

 

Thank you for the clarification, DJRobX.

is really just compile and run or do they need to work the code and then have it run? and how fast can they update?? Also I head there Ghostbusters does not do the skill shot right.