And today, I've achieved a level of livid that I'm not used to getting to.
So, February 24th, one of the commercial pinball simulations I was running on Radiant Silverball, Zaccaria Pinball, had an update pushed for a new table. Unfortunately, that update broke the multiple screen support that enabled full Cabinet Mode. Everything but the freebie pack-in table started to just crash to desktop, 100% of the time, unless the software was set to use a single screen.
This is the first problem. Realize that I only play virtual pinball simulations on my home-built cabinet. I won't play it single screen that way, that's not the way I want to run the cabinet.
The second problem is that they decided that the fix could wait for the next table to be released. OK, fine, I can be patient and merely remove stuff from the menus until it's fixed.
The third problem is that they are not communicating reliably on Steam. Basically, if you want regularly monitored support threads, you have to subscribe to their Discord server. For software sold on Steam. Now, as awful as I've heard the forum tools on Steam are, that's not good. Do I have a Discord account? Yes, I do, as Black Aeronaut can attest. Do I want to subscribe to at least a half dozen of those for software I regularly use, just to get official support that should be provided via the service on which I actually purchased? No, and I should not be expected to.
So we're now up to three strikes.
And today? I found out through the grapevine that they consider those of us asking for cabinet mode to be fixed to be asking for something for free. This was posted by their social media guy to the Discord channel.
This is a feature they advertise. This is a feature that's been present in the software since August of 2017. This is a feature that I expected that I was paying to have when I was buying DLC. If they did not actually price the feature into the pricing of the DLC, that's on them and not on me.
I have not, and will not buy the table that was in the mode breaking update. I will not be buying their DLC going forward. I changed my review to "not recommended" and made edits to point out why. I completely uninstalled the software from the cabinet, from my desktop, and even the version (that I paid for DLC separately) from my phone.
I'm probably going to add "must be out a year, have cabinet support, not break cabinet support at all" to my criteria list for commercial pinball simulation going forward.
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
Update: Unsubscribed from the discussion, REMOVED the game entirely from my Steam and Google Play libraries (lost money, but y'know, I'm also not paying for any more of that mess either). And stepping away from anything other than what I already have on hand for the pinball.
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
Well, good. No one needs any added stress after the last year, so if their handling of things is going to turn your hobby into another aggravation, good riddance.
(04-05-2021, 02:59 AM)classicdrogn Wrote: Well, good. No one needs any added stress after the last year, so if their handling of things is going to turn your hobby into another aggravation, good riddance.
Yeah, that's pretty much the thing; if the gray market stuff like Visual Pinball is now presenting a fraction of the friction, then that's where I'm going to be. As my friend Myk has put it... this is how we encourage piracy. I really wanted to have the machine be as legitimate as possible; that's incredibly difficult when it's being made clear by at least one publisher that what I have set up is NOT in their intended market.
I've pretty much decided to not buy the last DLC pack for Pinball FX3, which was going to be a package of Star Wars tables. I was on the fence; they're changing to Unreal Engine this year, making a new version for that just called Pinball FX, it's going to be exclusive to the Epic Games Store for a year, and on top of it I'd have to rebuy all the DLC to get it with their new physics. The Zaccaria thing put me over the edge, even with being a completely separate publisher; yes, they probably have literally cost someone else a customer in the long term, as well as themselves.
I also went into Steam, into each store page for the other pinball simulations, and told Steam to Ignore so that they're not being considered for recommendations based on my play patterns.
I'll still be following the Visual Pinball side of things.
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
actually, I think thats the worst part of todays internet and such. Deciding you no longer want anything to do with a particular game and getting the services to stop bugging you about updates or similar programs.
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to rock the sky?
Thats' every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry!
NO QUARTER!
I treat emails like some lizards do their tails. I don't want to loose it, but if it distracts a predator? POP and off it comes and I'll put a new one up to replace it for everything I need.
Yeah, Steam doesn't really email me except for stuff on my wish list going on sale. It was more about telling it to not recommend commercial pinball simulations to me for right now when I browse their storefront; I'm highly NOT interested in seeking out commercial pinball simulators for the moment, and I'm working up some strict criteria for the future so that I don't get burned again when I'm ready to look at the space again. I play virtual pinball almost exclusively on my cabinet, if I'm considered to be in a tertiary market because of that (Zaccaria Pinball I don't even feel like I'm in their SECONDARY market), I will make my judgement accordingly.
Besides, I already have enough pinball on the cabinet to play.
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
04-06-2021, 02:15 AM (This post was last modified: 04-06-2021, 02:17 AM by classicdrogn.)
How do they expect the nominal target customer to play? All I find on a superficial search are physical game cabinets or VR headset software, but I didn't think the latter was widespread enough yet to be a primary market, and physical tables take up physical space for a single game, that seems like it would be hard to justify except for serious enthusiasts and/or the traditional corner of a pizzeria, cafe, or comics shop. At the same time, the long and narrow form factor of a pinball table is all wrong to work well with a landscape format computer screen, so your setup seemed like it would be the ideal to be shooting for, rather than some kind of bodged-up afterthought to be dropped from support if the deadline is a little tight or the code monkeys' billable hours are adding up.
(04-06-2021, 02:15 AM)classicdrogn Wrote: How do they expect the nominal target customer to play? All I find on a superficial search are physical game cabinets or VR headset software, but I didn't think the latter was widespread enough yet to be a primary market, and physical tables take up physical space for a single game, that seems like it would be hard to justify except for serious enthusiasts and/or the traditional corner of a pizzeria, cafe, or comics shop. At the same time, the long and narrow form factor of a pinball table is all wrong to work well with a landscape format computer screen, so your setup seemed like it would be the ideal to be shooting for, rather than some kind of bodged-up afterthought to be dropped from support if the deadline is a little tight or the code monkeys' billable hours are adding up.
Simple: the target demographic for Zaccaria Pinball appears to be basically desktop gamers. Not even the sort that do what the Japanese know as Tate Mode, but just someone who sits down in front of their single screen landscape computer or down on the couch in Big Picture Mode on the television. The Campaign Mode has never worked right with a portrait monitor. They clearly don't even test a two monitor configuration at all during an update's QA period, which really gets me because they should have programmers using multiple screens, even when working from home, unless where they're at it's just culturally considered an excessive thing to use more than one monitor. The company's pinball "interests" harken back to earlier smart phones; some of the table content provided is ports of old phone games they did when they were known as A.S.K. Homework. And it's clear they don't understand the part of the market that, if you basically advertise "we have a cabinet mode" that those folks expect that it's a properly supported feature, not just an add-on thrown in as a "bone".
Definitely, I want to be clearly considered to be in the Primary Market moving forward when I reopen my wallet to Commercial Pinball Simulators. Not the Secondary Market. Definitely not the Tertiary Market as Magic Pixel KFT apparently does for Zaccaria Pinball. This is while I'm acknowledging that cabinet folks are a niche part of what is really a niche market when you get down to it.
People complain about Zen Studios not fixing table bugs, but I do know that, at least for them, I am considered to be part of their Primary Market - even though I had to email off for a "Cabinet Code" to enable the cabinet mode in the software, it wasn't a big deal to do so and it's free, and they have never broken multiple monitor support with an update. My big beef on their side is the (understandable) exclusivity deal they signed with Epic as part of switching over to the Unreal Engine over their in-house one, and that I will be expected to rebuy the DLC that's carried for once they're back on Steam a year after the Epic release. I blame that last aspect on them having corporate overlords who probably want to ensure that the changeover isn't basically a "loss" in terms of the conversion efforts, it was probably "they either rebuy, or you don't convert the old content and it goes away." Note that the whole "new engine, exclusive to another store, content there going forward, rebuy required if you want the new physics engine" had already put me on the fence about the last pack for FX3... and the issues with someone else put me over on the "don't buy" side of the fence.
On the VR front, there is very much a growing contingent that, even if they've built a cabinet, that tends to be for friends or when they don't want to strap it on for one quick game. I get that, apparently the VR experience kills the potential of lag, and makes it feel so much more like real pinball. It's telling that I've heard one member in that community refer to playing on their cabinet without using the VR as "Pancake Mode".
I suppose that a big part of why I got so frustrated is because I built my cabinet myself, with the expectation that I'd get to play all this purchased content on it. I'd still have built the cabinet if I'd known that Magic Pixel considered me a "wanting something for free" in their model, I wouldn't have spent the money I did on their content. And I'm now willing to over-correct on that by putting everyone else to a much higher standard with regards to supporting my cabinet going forward.
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
So, the curation process is beginning on Radiant Silverball... from a high of well over 700 tables before the Great Magic Pixel Purge (which got me down to around 615), and we're now under 600 as I type this.
I'm not expecting to get it down to a super-tight 100 tables, but I'm hoping to shed quite a bit of dead weight - hopefully upwards of a third.
Around 75 are Commercial Pinball Simulator - and all tables you can't buy as physical tables. It's basically all the Pinball FX3 stuff prior to the Bally/Williams license deal, with the exception of the pack that includes Archer and Bob's Burgers, Pro Pinball Timeshock, and Pinball Wicked. I may eventually go through and make a cull of the FX3 tables, I don't need that many.
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
And an update to the software issue: Two months for the update from Magic Pixel that fixes the cabinet mode borking in Zaccaria Pinball. Content had a higher priority than the bug fix, the update includes the second table that I'm refusing to purchase. The whole software remains uninstalled and out of my libraries.
I'm at least no longer angry, but I'm really disappointed (and not surprised), and I have my criteria set for all future software purchases - absolutely strict "must be out for a certain amount of time", "cabinet mode baked in", "doesn't break cabinet mode with an update", and "cabinet mode consists of much more than multiple monitors arranged in the shape of a pinball machine", which for all intents means I'm not buying any such software until at least a year from now, and quite possibly ever.
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
I fear Zen's losing some opportunity. They released two new Star Wars tables today (The Mandalorian and Classic Collectibles)... but exclusively in their brand spanking new Star Wars Pinball VR app on Steam, which basically means that those tables won't be available in FX3. I'm curious if they're going to be brought into Pinball FX later this year when that releases.
To a certain extent, while it's annoying that it turned out this "last pack" was actually not going to be offered to me anyway (since we have no VR hardware right now, we're NOT in the target market, and like a number of gaming purchases, we're not buying in without a bare minimum number of games we'll actually PLAY), it's not actually surprising to me given what else has been going on this year and knowing that Zen has corporate masters fairly recently. I do feel a little led on, even though the stuff with Magic Pixel shoved me off the fence into not buying anyway, because I thought that it was going to be the last pack for FX3 and that it would technically be available to me.
Zen is really going to have to offer something really special in Pinball FX for me to even look seriously at it, honestly, even with my new criteria for consideration of Commercial Pinball Simulators. Clearly the enthusiasts no longer have full control of the helm over there, and I can factor that in to my decisions going forward.
I may well be out of the Commercial Pinball Simulator market for good, and sticking with fan-built tables in Visual Pinball.
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
So... replaced the 1080p screen in the pinball cabinet with a freakin' 4K screen. Forget all the rules about there not being that much difference between 47" of 1080p vs 49" of 4K... those are for when you're sitting 10 feet from the screen.
When your eyeballs are 1/6 of that distance from the screen... it really does actually matter. OMGWTFBBQTHISLOOKSSOGOOD
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
(05-21-2021, 11:42 AM)Black Aeronaut Wrote: Hah. I'll have too keep that in mind when I'm finally in the market for computer monitors.
It mostly came up with my friend Myk, who said he didn't notice much difference on the screen he uses for modern console gaming and regular tv watching - not really much difference between HD and 4K when you're sitting on the couch with a controller in hand. For a desktop (and the pinball cabinet, naturally), you're much closer to the screen and then the difference can be noticeable. It is very much one of those cases where the context makes all the difference.
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
Yeah, and it was time to get a different pinball machine. This one has more rules and much much deeper gameplay.
Our first pinball machine is now gone, but not forgotten. It's just the acknowledgement that, while we have no regrets taking it in, we would have been basically no longer even playing it with the new one in the house.
Here it is in comparison to the vpin. A little bit of a difference in stance, but still very similar looking. I'll probably keep the machines separated like this for right now, just because it gives room to work.
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
(06-10-2021, 03:57 PM)classicdrogn Wrote: I just have to say that "Radiant Silverball" is an absolutely amazing name to paint on a vpin cabinet. Top kek.
It is the name I had in mind for the couple of years before I cut the first sheet of plywood to build the cabinet. It's one of those names that has several levels, on the level of the MST3K mantra of "the right people will get it".
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
06-13-2021, 11:46 AM (This post was last modified: 06-13-2021, 11:47 AM by LynnInDenver.)
New video today: All about installing that 4K playfield screen in the vpin. This is also the last video where Solar Ride is in the background, as it was the last video we shot before replacing it.
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
So I was inspired to take a picture of Radiant Silverball when the admin of one of the virtual pinball forums created a new Member Cabinet gallery with a call for pictures.
Yes, there's a LOT of stuff added to the top of the backbox since the last picture. In this case, since the cabinet has a 12v DC rail, it's a pair of automotive beacons and a headrest fan assembly. There's actually THREE accessory plug sockets installed on the back of the cabinet for them, so I can run the cabinet without them, or replace them easily.
Oh, I had also sworn to not put cupholders on the pins when we first got a pinball machine... when I started streaming, it became more important to have water handy than avoid liquids around the machines.
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
So there's one less thing in the house that's raw plywood. I rebuilt the four player MAME cabinet, finally.
We wound up with an extra stand for the MVSX, so I appropriated it to service this cabinet.
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
(07-17-2022, 07:06 PM)classicdrogn Wrote: Looks nice! I'm envious; I can't even say for sure how long most of my WIP craft-y projects have been languishing.
Yeah, this one has been languishing for over 3 years as raw plywood. And it wasn't like it was because we were playing it. I was just lazy and it really tends to only be used when we have company over.
I'll be getting the last few buttons reconnected tomorrow night, then making sure I didn't mess things up.
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
So, last Saturday we had a board gaming gathering, with people who had never been to our house before, so I fired up the arcade for show-off purposes.
We wound up playing arcade and pinball between the board games, so it will be turned on again the next time they're over.
My husband was pleasantly surprised, he figured it would be, "okay, neat", and we'd shut off the arcade as we played board games.
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
