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You're very welcome. Backglass art has always been a struggle for me, not only in finding it but then actually liking what is available. This collections will probably evovle too, as I will continue looking for better imagery for a few of the tables or might wind up having to make my own.

More news always drops just after we find a spot to record. 👹 ~Jared

Cheat scores have been the bane of digital pinball since The Pinball Arcade. Our show has advocated for the resetting of leaderboards on a regular schedule (yearly maybe?) but nobody seems to like that idea (players and Zen). We don't believe Stern will join up with Zen until other companies do it first. Stern was unimpressed with FarSight's handling, mainly because FS didn't pony up for the IP licenses like Stern wanted them too. We think it's a real possiblity that Zen nabs Spooky or JJP, and if they can prove that licensing isn't an issue and that there is good business between the partners, I think then Stern might be more amenable. What you also have to consider though is there's only so much pie to be slices when it comes to profits, and companies like Stern, Spooky, and JJP might want too large a slice to make financial sense for Zen. We'll see.

@@blahcadepinball Zen seem to be fine for licenses for their original tables like board games, videogames and old tv shows, but damn are they really slowing on the Williams license these days, maybe they think spreading their real table licensing even further isn't worth it at this point if they can't produce real tables more often.

@@user-os7ec4dm8x We often have to remind people that there was a whole fan base of Zen's long before they got the Williams license. Those very fans were quite upset when all that kept coming out were WMS titles. This wasn't going to be much of an issue when Zen was planning on releasing 24 titles per year, half being WMS, but then Embracer Group demanded layoffs. Zen's staff got cut by over 30%, but guess what? They still had licensing agreements for their Originals that had to be met in a timely manner or risk losing them. Doing unlicensed WMS allows Zen to drop those in when needed without worrying about contracts, but there is still profit sharing with WMS to consider. When it comes to WMS with 3rd party IP, there's very little profit to be had, which is why those are spread out even more. Things to keep a look out for is if Zen starts replenishing their staffing numbers, and if Zen announces they'll be releasing more than 12 titles in a year. We'll do our best to get Mel Kirk back on before the end of the year for our annual 'State of Zen' talk and see what he has to say then.

@@blahcadepinball Your Mel Kirk chats are always a good watch, fair play to him to be quite open in answering your questions too.

I did not do a complete disassembly. Rather I just removed each reel and then wiped them down. My machine had been nicely maintained, so there wasn't a lot of dirt or grime on the internals to warrent full breakdown.

Yes, Titan rubber. I created a rubber set on their site that you can one click and purchase. The clear posts I purchased from Pinball Resource.

Wow, thank you! I had help watching other RUclips videos myself, but felt a different approach might help others too. Glad it did.

One of these days I'll dive into the VPX waters, but I simply don't have the time at the moment to deal with all the setup. I'm including all that goes into finding the tables, ROMS, pup packs, and then installing those correctly too. Shoot, I was getting pissed at spending 1.5 hours the other night looking for specific backglass art for 6 Zen titles!

Meguiers gold class carnuba

I had the same feeling! But once you realize it’s all just switches and there’s a causality to each one, chasing down issues becomes significantly easier. Plus there’s tons of vids on peoples working on Target Alpha that you can use as a resource

@@blahcadepinball Thanks. Well I just had time last night to put machine together. To my dismay, it is malfunctioning. It was running like a top when loaded into the truck. I assume a wheel or relay moved on transportation and now not playing as it should. In a nut shell, when push start button for one player only, players one and four go into game mode. Also, the match light stays on and changes/cycles through while came is playing with every bumper hit by ball. Would you have any suggestion where to start looking based on this. I am making assumption something happened during transport because did not do this when tested game for seller. Any advice appreciated. THX

The only thing I don't know regarding PinSim is if Jeremy is still selling the thing.

Yep, we’re still kickin’ around! And as you can see, machines abound.

I’ll need every bit of luck I can muster with Firepower.

I just installed an RTX 4060. Was initially going to do a 4070 Super until I found out my CPU (which is almost 5 years old) was going to bottleneck, so no sense in paying the price. I play in 2K and it's fantastic. Took some tweaking to get it all dialed in terms of latency, but now it's fine.

I've been playing the hell out of WCS, it really is a fun title. Plus I just posted top score on the global leaderboard by a significant number, so I like it even more!

That all depends on what you were expecing from the start, doesn't it? I knew the '4K' was pure marketing speak and that the tables were not going to be running in 4K. The monitor itself is 4K, no HDR, and looks great when playing in OTG. The more and more I play on this though, the more and more I love it. It's a great entry into Virtual Cab playing, feels right, looks great.

Glad you like that! It's probably how I'll review all future Zen titles as they come to ALP 4K, as we already know how fun or not the actual titles are.

Strangely enough, I've gotten very used to the lag and it almost doesn't even register with me now (even though it still exists). Each release from Zen has gotten better. What I love is flipping the power switch on and within 1 minute you are ready to play. Not quite as easy as dropping a quarter, but you get the urge to play and it's near instant gratification. Compare that to booting computer, loading up Steam, loading up Pinball FX, and meanwhile you decide to do something else! The other thing is I am now completely spoiled with playing in cabinet mode on a cabinet. I have a rotating monitor on my PC, I built a PinSim cab controller to mimic the feel (which in VR is still amazing), but this thing just takes it to the next level. I was sort of worried it'd be a cool toy that I quickly lose interest in, but instead it's been the opposite and I can't stop playing on it. And I hear ya about TPA! While I've loaded all the Pinball FX titles, Pinball Wicked, and Demon's Tilt (which is mind blowing on a cab), I haven't bothered with Pinball Arcade both because it lacks a true cab mode and because I don't want to get frustrated with all it's issues once more!

The audio issue has been since resolved thanks to another player advising me to reset my settings to default for all tables. Not really happy that was the fix, as I had adjusted the audio to compensate for some other tables (the Gottlieb packs in particular), but oh well. I play Zen titles way more anyways!

Yeah, I mean when you stop and stare at it the flaws are obvious. In the heat of playing though, those issues disappear. In some ways I equate it to playing in the wild on a table with a dirty playfield and all the room lights on. I'd prefer it waxed and polished in a semi-dark setting (me playing in Pinball FX) but at the end of the day it really comes down to is it fun to play and do I enjoy the rules? Because those don't change regardless of graphical fidelity.

It's a bad look for both AtGames and Zen, so they obviously want to solve this quick. Because the last they want to be fielding questions about for those 45 tables packs announced is whether or not lag is an issue.

Oh man, now ya got me wondering which of the two of us is Siskel and which is Ebert! But two thumbs up for that comment.

With the ALP 4K, there's no external spring like you'd see on a regular plunger, so no you can't just push in. It's gotta be a pull and then release. I've suggested to my contact and they passed it along that the option of pressing the 'A' button on the Arcade Control panel (for those of us that purchased) could be used. This would also work for magna saves on WCS '94, or the 'shift' on The Getaway or activating troll bombs in Medieval Madness.

They got the licensed music for Knight Rider, and in the chat the consensus was they pulled audio of Michael from the show too. Same with Xena, pulling audio from the show. For Trek Kelvin, they use the proper music, but no pull quotes. Hiring the actual actors to supply voice work for pinball specific callouts is insanely expensive. At least they are learning the lesson of trying to secure music when possible.

Thank you for your answers. The music I understand they need to pay for the license and also for the voices. But they can pull samples from the series from a blue ray or something and get it in perfect condition (320kbps or wav) and use that and pay for this. So instead of using the original actor to do sounds you can pay for the samples which will be cheaper as far as I'm informed. Second KITT is on Cameo 😎

@@v3n0m14 I think that's exactly what they did on some of the tables, but it probably is all dependent on what assets Universal was licensed to give to Zen. Some contracts with actors stipulate the use of their voice from a project is allowed, other contracts are pay per use. Robin Williams famously sued Disney to stop them from slapping his voice onto any product they could think of with Aladdin. So it'd be nice if licensing was as simple as being able to then pull audio from a project, but much more goes into it.

I lost my voice again. It’s me, I swear!

@@blahcadepinball Amazing difference! Cheers.

Even with no lag, it won’t be the best version of the game due to hardware limitations. These are mobile app versions, not PC spec. My opinion is not based on “should you spend $2000 on this for AFM”, it’s on the notion you’ve already bought the cabinet and want opinions on DLC for it. Some people will be fine with only playing the Magic Pixel titles. I’m finding much enjoyment in the Zen titles, latency and all, if for no other reason than they are superiorly designed titles. They are completely playable (I’m top 50 on TAF, and #2 on AFM last I checked), you’re just playing with a handicap like when playing a machine in the wild that has a minor issue you sorta ‘play around’.

My complaint was that the mechanical sounds that are heard from the SSF speakers are muffled compared to how bright and alive they are on Magic Pixel titles. In other words they sound artificial as opposed to real. Also, when the ball bounces off the flipper (as in a dead pass) it makes an audible thud. This sound is present in all versions of the game, but becomes obnoxiously loud and fake coming from SSF. Unfortunately I have found out that a special mix just for ALP 4K will not happen, so the sounds are what they are. I’m just gonna have to adjust my expectations.

As an owner of two ALP's, 1 ALP 4KP and I own all the tables, I can tell you the haptics and ssf integration is not bad for zen tables really peanuts is the only table that needs alot of work, is it as good/loud as the magic pixel tables no. The HD and Micro could run Zen tables at 1080p/720p IF Zen was still using the FX3 engine, on the FX engine the Rk3399 cannot do it. There are alot of people talking about flipper lag and they do not own the 4KP, I own it and I run all the Zen tables otg, Fx3, Fx, Pinball M and the flippers are as fast or faster than OTG, except Fx3 which is as fast as Magic Pixel. People expecting Fx Native tables to be as fast as magic pixel tables are probably never going to get to that speed, its the nature of FX in general, since its release people have complained about lag, some say they built in some to make fx harder than fx3 and more realistic, who knows but I score higher on native tables than I do OTG zen steam of the same tables and my PC specs are 12900k, 3080ti, 32GB, m.2 SSD 1tb HP Omen 45L, a pretty good gaming pc.

Oh, you want the DMD stretched from its 4:1 ratio to 16:9? That’d drive me bonkers! But hey, if it were simply made an option, I wouldn’t be peeved about it. It’s like when ColorDMD offered the ability to smooth out the dots since it was only simulating them anyways. It’s an aesthetic choice I’d never do on my own machine, I hated how weird it looked, but if it doesn’t affect the choices I can make in my own house, we’re good. Aspect ratio stuff is a deep seated thing for me, going back to when I was buying LaserDiscs for movies because I couldn’t stand pan and scan VHS. Then DVDs hit the market, and people raised such a stink about “the black bars” on their 4:3 CRT televisions, Blockbuster and WalMart were only stocking ‘full frame’ versions. It’s only been in the last 5 years or so that HBO finally started displaying 2.35 aspect ratio movies rather than pan and scanning to 16:9. So yeah, I want original aspect ratio on everything and am more than happy to deal with black bars!

@@blahcadepinball I do want the DMD full, just like FX3, I am not a purist when it comes to the back glass or the DMD being aspect ratio correct, my old eyes want all the screen real estate full! At least give us the option, I assume you have played Fx3 tables so you know about the full DMD, when you do OTG Fx3 if you haven't already let me know what you think, on Williams real tables that are on both FX and FX3 I much prefer the full use of the DMD.

The motivation is there, believe me. You think Zen likes having this negative attention? Zen however is not in charge of the release schedule, AtGames is. Trek, AFM, and Snoopy cabs were all announced and taking reservations before AFM was in anyone’s hands. Notice how no other CE cab has been announced since? That is Zen telling AG to pump the breaks. Now I don’t know if it’s because no cab is attached to the titles, but the Gottlieb packs get a pass with terrible graphics and weird sound issues just because latency isn’t an issue? Those are so not worthy of the $25 asking price per pack. And FarSight will NEVER improve them, as titles like Black Hole and Victory have been in this state since 2013. Look, I get why people wanna hold off on purchasing. The reasons are valid. With AFM I’m just saying the issue most people are concerned with is nearly non existent, where I can jump back and forth between this and a Taito title and not be thrown off like I am when doing the same with TAF.

There are design aspects of the 1Up I actually prefered when looking at photos, but when I finally saw one in person I was shocked at how tiny the thing was!

You’re not wrong! Costs a hell of a lot less, way more tables to play than you could physically own, and no maintenance. But I tell ya what, there’s a special kind of magic in a real machine. There are sounds, vibrations, smells, lighting, that you just don’t get from a virtual pin, no matter what. I’ve seen ball behavior happen that I’d call b.s. if it were on virtual. But the maintenance truly sucks. I don’t ever want a project machine again. And these last 2 are nothing compared to what Firepower has in store for me.

@@blahcadepinball -- My brother had an "Attack From Mars" and a "Star Trek: The Next Generation" in his basement. They were great fun to play -- when they were up. Which was about a year total over the 5 years he had the machines. And he spent, on average, $400 per year trying to keep them up. In the meantime I can just go to my game room; fire up the virtual pin cab; and get at least 80% of the enjoyment of playing those tables -- plus I have access to about 300 more. Sometimes he would even come over to play on my virtual pin; and then mutter that he had to get his tables fixed. It's just not worth it to me. But, hey, it's a hobby so it's all good!!

As a matter of fact, yes! New episode of Clueless About... has my solution.

FarSight is back to their shovelware days, trying to earn a quick buck with least amount of effort. They never learned the lesson that investing to make an all time quality product will get you purchases long after the initial rush, as well as guarantee future DLC purchases. I have the first 2 packs, won't get the other 2.

Why can't you play the PinFX tables? ~Jared

I really wish they would just relinquish any licenses to Gottlieb they may, or may not, still have. Move on with Pickleball or whatever other titles they now think will make money.

Hmm, so you're saying that it is UE4 (the engine), not anything specifically that Zen Studios is doing that is causing a degraded experience? ~Jared