VP is Flawed - FP is far superior technology

bob

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Favorite Pinball Machine
The one that gives you a gumball
Those are David Foley's words in an interview by Noah Fence. Excerpt below....


NF
<!--colorc-->
<!--/colorc-->: Back to pinball, for a moment. Can we expect to see many more updates to Visual Pinball...will there be a Visual Pinball 10 and so on?

<!--coloro:red--><!--/coloro-->DRF<!--colorc--><!--/colorc-->: I seriously doubt there will be a VP 10. VP is a great engine, but is flawed in its basic design. Its not really 3D, it's a single scene. Randy has kind of given up on development and moved on. We've released all of our enhancements to the engine. What's really needed is a ROM emulation system for Future Pinball. Chris is actively developing and enhancing FP, and it's a far superior technology.

<!--coloro:blue--><!--/coloro-->NF<!--colorc--><!--/colorc-->: So, we can count on having the best possible VP9 before you move on to Future Pinball?

<!--coloro:red--><!--/coloro-->DRF<!--colorc--><!--/colorc-->: Well, best possible can mean many things. We've taken the code that we got from Randy and the code that we got from Buen Diseno (UltraPin engine developer) and added in our support for the Pinball Wizard controller, along with Brian's [destruk] work on 16:9 tables and offered that to the community.

There were many things in UltraPin that Randy wanted to merge in and release but never did. He told us to go ahead and release it, as he just didn't have the time.

We invested in Future Pinball last year, and that is our primary focus. Our MultiPin<sup>TM</sup> product is based on FP, and we have no plans to go backwards.

I have two of my emulation programmers looking into developing our own emulation system for pinball that we can link into FP so that ROM based recreations can be offered in subsequent releases of MultiPin<sup>TM</sup>.

An effort was also started, and we will complete in the coming year to update the physics based on the experience in enhancing the FP physics to create the best possible simulation of an actual pinball.

We are looking at MultiPin<sup>TM</sup> and our FP project as a multi-year investment, not just a one off product release.
 
I was going to post that you could see the whole article on VPF, but VPF is still down isn't it?
 
Eh, so what is the point to this post I think we've all already read the interview, are you looking for comments here as well, what's your take on it Bob?

Frankly I just see it as the bias opinions of a commercial interest, which has failed in the past and I suspect will fail again. As someone who has actually used VP and FP, I'd say that currently FP has far more flaws then VP and FP is severely lacking in the flexibilities that VP provides.

That said yes FP does have more potential, though I'd say it will never relise those potentials, at least you or I or the man on the street will never get to use a potentially more flexible and usable FP.
 
I was going to post that you could see the whole article on VPF, but VPF is still down isn't it?

Ah, I think I start to comprehend. You didn't read the interview yourself, but somehow heard from it, but you don't manage to find it in the web, because it's at The (bad) Org?
 
So what?

I prefer VP. And anyone else is allowed to prefer VP as well, same as anyone else is allowed to prefer FP.

I'm sorry bob, but I don't see the sense of this thread.
Well, if nothing else, that interview spells the official death of VP. With Randy at the helm, there was always hope that something good would happen, though we knew development progress would be slow, often painfully so. Now he's passed it off to Nanotech and they've stated that it's FP not VP that they'll be focusing on, and the new VP9 will be the last version. That sucks, unless they plan to make it open source to allow others to let it carry on. Somehow I doubt that though.
 
Eh, so what is the point to this post I think we've all already read the interview, are you looking for comments here as well, what's your take on it Bob?

My take on it is exactly the same as you listed below. :)

Yes, I would like to see comments on it here too, as this site is always more open to different viewpoints.

Frankly I just see it as the bias opinions of a commercial interest, which has failed in the past and I suspect will fail again. As someone who has actually used VP and FP, I'd say that currently FP has far more flaws then VP and FP is severely lacking in the flexibilities that VP provides.

That said yes FP does have more potential, though I'd say it will never relise those potentials, at least you or I or the man on the street will never get to use a potentially more flexible and usable FP.
 
@ m4paws: Ok, that seems to be true. I didn't think that far. I already have consumed some beer. It's not official anyway and I expected the end of VP developement several times before in the last years, so I don't tend to look in future that negative.
 
The source link is still up; isn't it, Bob?... You obviously didn't read the entire interview at "www.vpforums.com" because that domain had been down for over a week when the entire interview was initially posted. Or are you in the mood to be overly pedantic right now?... Didn't you claim that it was nothing personal?... Haven't you very recently aired a concern that authors and sources be properly credited?... :roll:

Yogi, Bob is obviously a lurker... "www.vpforums.org" allows unregistered browsers to view most of the forums.

Bob, since we're bringing up past quotes; how about this one? ;)
As for the VPForums name and the earlier discussion of stealing it. I think it may be the best choice of names as it is a VP forum and I don't think they stole anything, but maybe shiva could tell us how AJ got the forum to begin with. :)
 
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Bob, since we're bring up past quotes; how about this one? ;)

Hehe, it is the best name for a VP forums and "I" don't think you stole anything and "I" like to goad shiva every once in awhile.... But that doesn't mean that "I" would start a site with the exact name of another site.
 
VPForums, of course.

Well, at VPForums.org, we respect the right to express oneself. All you have to do is register. Lurkers can never be heard.

Just be sure to post in the right place and no profanity anywhere but the Bar.

:welcome1:
 
I'm sorry bob, but I don't see the sense of this thread.

It's just a thread, if no one wants to comment, then the thread will go away.
 
I guess you are in the mood to be overly pedantic right now... but yet you still want to play dumb by claiming you can't tell the difference between the domain web addresses "www.vpforums.com" and "www.vpforums.org"... :roll:
 
Maybe I'll register there as AJ.org, then everyone will know it's not AJ.com :roll:
 
It's just a thread, if no one wants to comment, then the thread will go away.

Yes, that's true.

So I may ask: What's your initial aim to start this thread?

You know people would read your thread and then, as there's no real statement from you, try to interpret your post. Do you have any statement?

Possible statements that come to mind are (as you post this in bold letters):
- VP isn't flawed in its basic design
- FP isn't a far superior technology

After your second post at this thread it seems you just only want to bash VPForums.org.

Was that your initial intention?

I would like to see all the pinball interested people (my virtual online friends) at all of the available pinball supporting sites instead to see some of them to refuse membership at single places because of different irreproducible reasons.
 
So I may ask: What's your initial aim to start this thread?

You know people would read your thread and then, as there's no real statement from you, try to interpret your post. Do you have any statement?

My statement? Maybe I'm thinking about taking Tiltjlp's old job, since he's visiting AJ & Randy. That's the one where he starts threads to see where they'll go. I might even open a poetry site while I'm at it. :cheers:
 
Mmh? I give up here. You're superior to me in posting in English and I feel lost in translation.
 
Mmh? I give up here. You're superior to me in posting in English and I feel lost in translation.

I'm sorry Yogi.... I guess what I meant to say was.... If I was going to create a place to host the wonderful pictures of all the nice people from the VP community.... I wouldn't use the name "pinball people member gallery" out of respect for you. Does that help?

http://freenet-homepage.de/yogiholzer/pinballpeople.html
 
The part that bothered me the most out of the Foley interview was this:

DRF: I believe that we will be the premier supplier of Digital Pinball technology in the world. With Stern shutting down production of new machines, there is a huge need for pinball machines, and our MultiPinTM7 product is going to fill that gap. On top of that, we plan to continue to offer our consumer pinball products like the Pinball Wizard controller8, including console versions of it.

... yet no one but me seems to have noticed. Did Stern shut down production? They mentioned layoffs, but I hadn't heard anything about this?
 
m4paws, you're welcome to ask him yourself. He visits the forum daily to answer questions such as this.

@Bob - You say it's not personal, and yet you instigate it into becoming personal. I know you like the drama, but it's not one in which I wish to partake on JPH's board. THAT would be disrespectful.
 
The part that bothered me the most out of the Foley interview was this:



... yet no one but me seems to have noticed. Did Stern shut down production? They mentioned layoffs, but I hadn't heard anything about this?

m4paws, here's an article about Stern and the layoffs and it mentions continuing to produce pinball machines.

http://www.pinballnews.com/news/sterncuts.html
 
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