Tables pulled from VPF.org

[Noah Fentz]

Alright, enough lies, Shocky...

You asked to be banned BEFORE I asked if I should just ban you. I PM'ed you in response numerous times discussing it. Let's get it straight for everyone to understand what really happened, not your distorted rendition. While I appreciate you're pissed off and hurt, that in no way justifies lying about what went down.

"Yes, why don't you just ban me, then you would not have to deal with it." - Shockman

You were warned twice for flaming/baiting and your reply was ...

"You are asking me to stop doing what is being done to me, and I am refusing." -Shockman

Also, you manipulated the topic in question by posting a long ass retort in your usual griefing manner and then deleted it. After which you suddenly became the 'victim'.

I called 'bullshit' on that, and you suddenly couldn't sleep as long as that topic existed. All the while I said NOTHING insulting to you in that topic, and you repeatedly accused me of lying to you and called it a 'staff conspiracy'. Just how many times have we heard this from you?

You've been banned how many times and yet it's always someone else that did it? You're never the one at fault? I don't think I'm alone in thinking that the conspiracy claims are just a deflection after the second time, let alone the third or fourth.

As far as GRONI goes, he and I are totally cool now. I don't ban someone just because they disagree. There has to be MUCH more than that to it. I will ban someone for continually PMing me nasty and harassing comments that serve no purpose other than to cause grief. It seems perfectly reasonable to me, especially after I've asked them to stop.

Now, after a dozen PM's and 64 exchanged emails, I feel I've given this matter enough attention. The door was open for you to come back, Phil, but you just kept painting yourself further and further into a corner. You were banned after four warnings, so it wasn't like this should have been any surprise to you. You just kept pushing and pushing me to see where I'd finally run out of patience. Removing your tables out of spite was just your last remaining effort to pushing my buttons.

So, you see, YOU banned yourself, not me.

Also, please note that Shocky said his tables were for the community, and I may restore them. He even went so far as to tell me that if he ever asks to have them removed again, to tell him to 'fuck off'. I realize now he only did this to give himself more crap to sling at me, which is fine, considering it's just that ... crap. He's now accusing me of 'stealing' them.

There is no place in any community for behavior such as this.

 

[Shockman]

So it was the sarcastic one.

It was not my opinion that it was flame baiting. It was my opinion that it was my opinion. It was certainly no worse than what was being done to me. If you do agree with that just say so.

Yes and that long post was not restored was it? because I said nothing in it but explained the history and it bad mouthed no one except PacDude and mentioned that destruk, as well as the rest of the staff was cool with what he was doing.

You told me my tables could be put back up "IF I DECIDED TO RETURN" I told you you could put the tables up, meaning "I HAD DECIDED TO RETURN"

I don't know what you mean by painting myself into a corner. I know you are getting everything you want, and I am getting nothing. Does it mean that is my choice as well?

You banned someone over a disagreement with them. You felt you were mistreated, and it did not mater to you how I felt. Of course if you think that as a reason for to ban me, it is your site, so it is all the reason you need. Am I right?

I banned myself. I of course don't understand that comment.

There is a place in the community for behavior such as this, at least that is what I was told when I was told that those things said about my work were not lies but opinion. What is really the difference between how each of us were acting at that moment in time?

This does not have to be settled by who can argue the loudest, or put a better twist on it. So..

Would you be willing, in public, to discuss each thing that was said against it, and argue point by point the relevance and truthfulness of it? It is a lot of points, so it would not be over real fast. All I said besides in that post that I did delete when I cooled off and you restored for your own selfish reasons, was that I would understand your side if you explained it and and it made sense? I would be willing. And perhaps I would unban myself (or does it not work that way too).

I really have no idea why you are so pissed off. I would love to know. If I did anything to bring this on I am truly sorry. For my reaction, after it did come on, I truly am not.

 

[Shockman]

In the mean time, now that we are sharing email. I have one from destruk,

"get over it, grow up, and let this drop or you'll get me pissed off at you - and if that happens there isn't any going back."

This put me at an unfair disadvantage, because destruk is pissed off at me. He had to be pissed of at me to say the untrue things about my contribution. Very pissed, and like I said, If I said or did anything before that thread then I am sorry, but I would still like to know. I think everyone would like to know. The things I said after that thread, I am not sorry for.

 

[Noah Fentz]

'If you decided to return' meant when you were ready to stop acting like an asshole. Yeah, that's just my opinion, as you would say, but the PM's about your behavior in my inbox lead me to believe it to be a consensus.

Let me remind you of the events as they happened, Phil, and make it clear that you are WAY off the mark here...

Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 12:16 AM - You ask for your tables to be removed.
Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 12:39 AM - Tables are removed.
Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 5:32 PM - You give me shit about the 'If you decided to return' comment.
Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 1:36 AM - You tell me to go ahead and restore your tables 'for the community'.

So, what you just posted is untrue.

On the point of restoring your long post, I CAN'T! You edited it before you deleted it. Nice one!

As far as discussing each thing ... again ...

We've already exchanged 64 emails for Christ's sake, and it's time for me to move on to more productive things. We have a BIG month coming up, and it's no small task for me to get things ready. I suggest you leave it be and quit trying to make me look like the bad guy. It's definitely not helping your crusade to be welcomed back any time soon.

And I wasn't sharing emails, Phil, nor is it appropriate that you share someone else's emails in our discussion. You simply lack tact in everything you do, don't you? This is probably why I'm so pissed. Not to mention you take it to another board (whether it's here or elsewhere is irrelevant) and play the victim.

 

[Shockman]

Yes. That is true. And I realized, though I was wrong, that I would have to let you put the tables up first.
Or was your comment about me coming back when I decided to something that I should have just given you shit about, you would know that better than I.

We did have many exchanges, and in not one of them would you acknowledge those things said other than generally, and that they were opinion. Well my opinion is that they were known lies. And my opinion is what I said afterward was not. I think to discuss those things is to discuss the problem here, to brush them off or avoid them makes you create other issues to attach blame to.

There was nothing that earth shaking done. Nothing that earth shaking said. Nothing that could not be worked out in two minutes if we could be face to face. It could have you at a disadvantage, if being asked a question, automatically puts you on a paper chase instead of saying what's on your mind to me.

 

[Shockman]

Playing victim? I don't see it that way. For all I know the entire membership would take your side. I was banned from your site, but you can not expect me to leave the community. Well you could expect it, I guess.

I can sum up the problem simply.

An insulting free for all was committed in the thread I talk about. Free for all but me it seems.

Many untruths were said about it, misleading the new guy. A disservice both committed and endorsed by you. You were joining in and with the first untruth. Then destruk. Then me, THEN you saying to take it to PM. I think I had at least as much right to post in that thread as anyone, yes, including you Paul. I said I would drop it and guess who people that go read the thread is going to see who posted next. No it was not me, It was you Paul. I thought you changed your mind about wanting it dropped, or done in private. I see now that you did not want it dropped, you wanted me in trouble. I could be wrong, as I said, but it is not outlandish for me to come to that conclusion, certainly not at this point.

What do you want? For me to say it was all my fault? Would it be enough for me to say that, when it is not how I feel? Is that it? Do you want me to kiss your ass? Why for the love of God would you want that, or do you feel you have a need for that? You should want to know my honest feelings on the matter, not to suck up.

I feel more than ever, that which popped in to my head when I found that thread, that you are gunning for me. There is nothing I can do to stop that, to turn that around, or understand it without the explanation I begged you for. The last post has that in size 3 or 4. I increased the size of it 3 straight days.

Of course it is your site. You can ban me without ever giving me that explanation, why those things were said in that thread, but I wish you would.
You don't have to give me a clue as to when I could enjoy the grace of returning to your community, but I wish you would do that.

Nothing that bad has happened. Good God man, nothing that bad was even said!

 

[Shockman]

"I wasn't wrong, it's not a fix but an 80% effective workaround. I'm not trying to take away from your efforts, but that IS the reality of it. If 1 out of 100 balls go through the flipper, then 1 out of 800 do using the fix."

I don't refer to it as a fix and you know that. Where did you get that math? 1 out of 800 without the 'fix'. I have news for you. 100% of the balls 100% of the time will go through the flipper if the have a chance. It does not matter how fast or slow the ball is going and it does not matter how fast or slow the flippers are going. Do you really still not understand?

I gave a number as only an example that would have the balls go through the flipper 100% of the time if they had the chance. The workaround does not change anything about the bug in VP8. It bypasses it.

Are you saying that because if you hit a car that was sitting still, if you could throw 70 MPH that you would hit a car that is going 75 20% of the time?

You see, I do not appreciated people educating others on my work. Especially if they have no understanding of it. And you have zero understanding of it it seems. It does not fix it. It does not fix it 20% or .020% It is not meant to fix it, and I have never suggested, or led anyone to believe it does.

It is close to 100% effective. For most it is 100% effective. There is exceptions to every rule. If for example a ball was to hit the flipper while it was going down it would go through the flipper every time, not 20% of the time, not 80% of the time, not 99% of the time. IT JUST CAN'T HAPPEN IF THE FLIPPER IS EVEN JUST A TINY BIT FASTER THAN THE BALL.

Remember the example of a car going 75 and you could only throw a ball 70. Yes, you can still hit the car. If you were to throw it from the side and the timing was right, but never if you were behind it and throwing at it while it was going away. Try it, Try it with a friggin rock, you are not going to hurt anything. *Disregard this if you can throw an 80 mile an hour fastball.

Now. You might say I don't like having others explain my work and get it wrong, but it's no big deal if you just go ahead and do it anyway. Right?

Is it a big deal if someone was to Mod T2 the first week because they thought they had flipper settings that more people would like. We know the answer to that, because it happened, and you refused that request, and we all knew how much it upset you to be asked.

Now, what if I was to answer questions someone posted in a thread they started about T2 and I was to answer them and say "well it sucks, it would be better if this build did not exist, I had it myself, but I deleted it. I hated it so much that I deleted all the tables that had flippers that were the same size and color. Don't bother with it because it don't work, it never has and it never will. And even if it does there are better tables to play that use better techniques. The flippers don't show up? They did not for me either, they can not be fixed. The lights are not working, no reorder won't do any good, and even if it did it is unrealistic so it sucks, Real tables have lights that show up without reordering anything, That's why I deleted it. No rubber?, no options, you could turn them grey and then they will show up, but then they will get stuck every time you use them, they will not swing back down."

I think I know how you would take that. Hell, I know how you would take reading that the settings make them too spastic as far as aiming.

Nothing said about the work around was positive, most of it was lies, and none of it is understood. Gravity returns the flippers, the work around makes it instant on and off. It works 20% of the time, it works 50% of the time, It sucks, It's half @@, It caused VP8 to not be fixed proper, etc.

This is about respect. Giving respect and expecting respect. As far as I'm concerned. There is a power element as well. If you have the power to disrespect, and take no disrespect, well that is another matter. I thought this was beneath you however. I left for three days after telling you that I felt disrespected.

What were you guys trying to prove anyway? That you are blooming idiots, or that you were free to disrespect me?

 

[Shockman]

I was hoping I would have my membership back by this weekend.
I'm going to the west coast for a couple of weeks. It is going to be a road trip. I was hoping to get online there with family members and set them up with some pinball. We will just make them some accounts of their own, so no problem. Maybe when I return.

I have skype, and a telephone. Noah has real time communication options as well. Too bad it had to go down like this. I think there was things on both sides that would not have been said to a face, or a voice.

Again, I'm sorry for my part, but I don't think it exceeds half, personally, because of the timeline, I think much less, but that's debatable. If being honest about that is going to keep me from the home base of the community, well, it's not the first time.

At least wish me a safe journey if you can.

 

[TheMcD]

Well, July is coming up - "Pinball Forever" month at VPF. Tournaments, chat sessions with pinball greats - Noah's really got his hands full. And when Noah has his hands full, he's easily pissed off because there are probably more pressing matters to attend to.

The best thing to do would be to wait for a while, then taking the matter up again. Like I said, it worked twice for Groni. A couple of weeks sounds like a pretty good timespan for the tides to calm.

I've never really understood the whole "ball through flipper" stuff. I've pretty much never experienced it, never understood it and will probably never say much about it except "it exists in VP8, I've not seen it in VP9 yet, I assume it's gone there". I have no knowledge of any "fixes" or "workarounds" or if they're half-assed or not.

But yeah, the whole thing probably rests on the fact that Noah has quite the bit of stress right now. Heated discussion + stress = getting pissed off most of the time. That gets in the way of resolving the issue, and I doubt anybody could do anything against that - it's just human. At least that's the way it works with me - good thing I can usually avoid stress - however, as an admin of a forum like VPF.org it's really hard to avoid stress.

The McD

P.S. Have a safe trip.

 

[elton]

I've not come across the BTTF issue for years but when it was prevalent it ruined a good game of pinball. There was no telling when it would strike and in fairness, Shocky had a solution that worked for probably most of the time. I've never used VP8 or 9 so cannot comment on whether it does or not.

Anyway, as McD said give it a couple of weeks and try Noah again. Clearly he is under pressure and stuff like this wears peeps down in, what after all, is a time consuming hobby.

The community and forums will be a quieter place without Shocky - so I hope he can return and resume his place in a hobby where he has contributed much expertise albeit in his own inimitable style.

Have a safe trip ... hope to see ya on the flipside.

 

[Shockman]

A lot of members have not experienced it. It use to be that everyone did. There is a reason for both of those.

I can understand stress, and I hope he overcomes it. I don't want anyone to suffer anything.

However, that's just part of the equation. X = Heated discussion. ~X = ~stress

Thank you.

And thank you elton. It was there from the beginning through VP8 and up until nine. The workaround came around dogfood 5 or VP6, I believe. It have saved countless balls, and as you said, games. I remember perhaps one ball through the flipper after the work around, and that is many thousands of balls.

 

[mrschultz]

A lot of members have not experienced it. It use to be that everyone did. There is a reason for both of those.

I remember spending some time years ago working with Pinball Ken trying to solve the ball through flipper problem. He thought he had it solved and made the mistake of saying so, got people all worked up when it didn't work for everyone. I can't remember the table but I do remember losing a lot of balls on both up and down swing. Problem is even if you tell people a fix is not 100% if they see the problem even one more time they will say the fix is useless.

I remember it being very dependant on the computer and table combination, a table would play fine on one computer but on another it would have the problem a lot. I haven't seen it even on the older tables since 2 computer upgrades ago.

Hard to belive it's still getting people worked up, seems like an old issue.

I've got the bug to work on tables again, with the ball falling through walls when they hit the top corner problem not happening in VP9 (at least I have not seen it yet), Escape From The Lost World might be a good one to update, balls falling off the skill shot bridge caused all kinds of problems in VP8. But that table is such a problem for the graphics, all that molded plastic can't be recreated easily with walls.

 

[Shockman]

The 'Fix' is useless if it is not set well. I agree that having one ball go through the flipper is not acceptable. Many many people have worked on this problem for the very same reason. Not glory, not recognition, but to not have balls go through the flippers. There have been many things that have been tried.

-upside down flippers.
-layered flippers. In many different implementations.
-flippers that came up 1 unit then stopped, then went up another unit them stopped, so fast that you could not tell.
-walls popping up in sync with the flippers.
-many smaller flippers inside that came up while the main flipper was coming down. When it would have otherwise popped out of the main flipper, it would be turned off and another turned on that could do that short swing up without popping out and showing it's self before being replaced with another in another position.
-others.

Some of this reduced it. None of it eliminated it.

Yes the problem was that annoying. And if we still only had VP<9 and no workaround that does work, people would still be trying to work around it.

I have no doubt that VP would be nowhere near as popular as it is today if the problem persisted. It would be in fact nowhere near as good. Especially if your style is to play the ball, and not just flip when contact can be made with the ball.

I have never had one ball through the flipper on any of my tables, or those that I have set up for play. I have seen it as I said, but on tables that others have set up. If I did, I would have changed the settings and re-released them, because with a fast enough setting, it's not just that it won't, it can't possibly happen.

One thing is certain to me. If there is anyone other than destruk that would rather have balls go right through the flippers like they are not even there, than ANY alternative, I have not met them.

There have been many discussions about this through out the years, and I have never heard anyone say anything like what is in that endorsed thread at VPF.org. Not from anyone.

VP9 does not have this problem. But so far VP8 conversions to it have been a royal pain in the ass. Not because of any technical issues, but because of new bugs.

 

[Shockman]

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