Will you spend $$ to be able to run Future Pinball?

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tiltjlp

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From what I've read, a lot of us with older PCs won't be able to run Future Pinball. My Dell is almost 3 years old, and I have no idea if it will run FP or not. Not being at all tech minded, I'll simply have to wait and see. But if FP won't run on my PC, I can't afford to spend X amount of $$ to upgrade, besides the fact I wouldn't have a clue what to upgrade. Beside, no 1 program is important enough to me to spend money upgrading to run, especially not a game.

Since I can and do use VP 6.1 to make tables, and not sure if my partner is going to switch to or at least use FP alongside VP, it's not very high on my list of priorities. I haven't finished reading the FP manual, so I can't say if it makes sense to me yet, but from what I have read so far, VP looks better and better, with or without any improvements from Ultracade. From what I've read, and from the comments of others, FP won't be nearly as flexible as VP has proven to be.

Another consideration is that many originals are not as high quality as recreations. Part of this seems to be due to newbies rushing to make tables before they understand the ins and outs of VP. But part of this is also because of a trend that has developed which I completely dislike. Wholesale public betas are now being released, and then die on the vine, never to be improved and completed. Of course there is no such thing as the "perfect" table, and bugs can turn up no matter how much a table is tested. But the time for heavy duty testing is BEFORE a table is released.

So if what we're going to get from Future Pinball is a series of half finished beta releases that are seldom improved upon, I'm sure not going to spend anything to upgrade in order to use FP. There are some very talented original authors, but there are also a goodly number of newer authors who simply don't seem willing to take the time and effort to make and test their work before releasing it. So unless that changes, FP will simply spawn better looking beta releases. And that, for my money, isn't much to get excited about.

John
 
OK, I have not D/L the manual yet nor have I had a good look at the FP forums
but from some of the summaries that I have read here and at VPF, FP(free) lacks two things,
Drop Targets and Ramps

I will D/L FP and I will enjoy playing around with it
But Drop targets are one of my favorite features on a pinball,
and ramps bring that extra dimention to a table (one wonders if the inability of including ramps was the reason for the program now being issued free)
TMFP
 
FP most definitely has drop targets.
I have NO idea where some people get they're ideas from.
No ramps is true. For the time being.

John the thing you need to consider is FP is not trying to please everyone.
Some will like it and go out of their way to make sure they can use it at full detail.
Some will hate it and find any excuse to rubbish it in anyway possible.
The rest will fall somewhere in between.
We have known and faced these possabilities all along so, there will be no surprises at all come release day.
Not that it means anything in particular, the manual was downloaded 300 times in the first 48 hours.
 
8 of those downloads in the last 48 hours were me. Future Pinball comes with a pinball too, of course it's more of a marble than a pinball, as you can't do as much stuff with it.
 
Leo Wanker said:
FP most definitely has drop targets.
I have NO idea where some people get they're ideas from.
No ramps is true. For the time being.

John the thing you need to consider is FP is not trying to please everyone.
Some will like it and go out of their way to make sure they can use it at full detail.
Some will hate it and find any excuse to rubbish it in anyway possible.
The rest will fall somewhere in between.
We have known and faced these possabilities all along so, there will be no surprises at all come release day.
Not that it means anything in particular, the manual was downloaded 300 times in the first 48 hours.

I realize you aren't trying to please everyone, that would be an impossible task. I'm hoping I'll be able to run FP, so that I can decide for myself what I think of it. As of yet, since FP isn't out, I don't have any opinion one way or the other. I have read the entire manual, and most of it is too technical for me to make any sense of, but VP was that way in the beginning. I would expect to learn as I go. I just wonder if a lot of folks haven't built up a lot of expectations so that they'll be disappointed no matter what. As for hating it or loving it, how can anyone until they get a chance to try it. Personally, no matter if I can use it or not, I hope it's popular since anything that adds to the awareness of pinball has to be a positive thing.

John
 
Here I thought you were going to be able to have a chase camera follow a ball right into a drop hole if you wanted to. Someone mentioned something about only set camera views? Is that a feature to be added later or in a future pay version or can it do it now? Sure it's bizarre and unrealistic, but I thought moving cameras was one of the big things about a true 3D table.

My computer is too slow to run FP anyway, so I guess I won't have an opinion on it any time soon.
 
For me it's not about $$$$ (or €€€€)... My lack of upgrades is just laziness... for Future Pinball, why? I have all VPM tables I ever wanted on my hard drive and then some...

My old junk Athlon 1300 plays most of MAME, Half-Life 2, NHL 2006 and 80% of the new games just ok.
 
Me, I'm saving up for a new PC, so that way, I can try it out and see if I like it. I've taken a look at the FP manual, and it kinda looks like it'll be somewhat easier to script tables. Like for instance, there's a one line script that resets the score display to say 0.
 
FP seems a bit greedy on the system requirements. There was a commercial 3D pinball set of games awhile back that looked pretty good and wasn't that bad. You'd think this was Doom3D or something, not pinball. And here I thought VP with VPM was a bit slow, but at least VP has VPM running as an excuse. I'm sure some original authors will do something interesting with it. My 1GHz PC won't be able to run them, though. I'm sure we'll see lots MORE typical originals with better looking standard parts, but not much else, if you know what I mean. I'm not upgrading for THAT. No VPM means no interest for me otherwise. Besides, VP can do everything I need and it will soon do more. I highly doubt jaggies will be around much longer either in it as that's not commercial quality.

It is funny, though how people over at those FP forums think FP is replacing VP when they're not the same thing and especially since a new version of VP is in the works (trust me on this).
 
Just maybe I'm going to have to upgrade my graphics card, since I'm starting to have problems viewing attachments at FP forums, and avatars here. I did change some Internet settings, and that helped, but if I can't view jpg files I can't save them to make more tables. I guess I'll look and see if there are any settings out of whack on my ATI card, but that'll probably be useless, since I won't know what to change. But since Patrick and I are partners, I'll go with whatever he decides, and he seems to like VP 6.1.

John
 
Pacdude said:
It is funny, though how people over at those FP forums think FP is replacing VP when they're not the same thing and especially since a new version of VP is in the works (trust me on this).

Who has said that???
I can't find anyone saying that FP is replacing VP???
There are a few "excited" individuals but, that's their right to be so.

None of the FP development team as far as I know have ever looked at FP as being a "replacement" for VP. We have only looked at it as a move into a new (and hopefully better) direction for computer pinball simulation.

It is glib and silly comments like this that will perpetrate an "us verses them" mentality and that I can guarantee you is NOT what we want.
 
vpin_2000 said:
Me, I'm saving up for a new PC, so that way, I can try it out and see if I like it. I've taken a look at the FP manual, and it kinda looks like it'll be somewhat easier to script tables. Like for instance, there's a one line script that resets the score display to say 0.

Trust me, if you can't make a table with VP, you won't be able to make one with FP either.
 
My main concern about FP is: will it be used to reproduce real world tables? If not, I really can't see a compelling reason to download it. I play very few originals as I am far more interested in real pinballs and reproductions. Quite frankly, given what many people have been able to achievew with VP I can's see the point unless we can make even better reproductions.

DS
 
davidsss said:
My main concern about FP is: will it be used to reproduce real world tables? If not, I really can't see a compelling reason to download it. I play very few originals as I am far more interested in real pinballs and reproductions. Quite frankly, given what many people have been able to achievew with VP I can's see the point unless we can make even better reproductions.

DS

Good point David. If it's flexible enough to allow me to recreate a counter top baseball game I have perfect imagees of, then it might just get my attention. But from what I've read, with no dropping walls, I'm not so sure how useful it'll be for me. The biggest drawback FP has for me is that I already use VP6.1. If I have to struggle to learn or use FP, I'm not sure now patient I'll be. Things aren't as easy for me to learn as they once were.

And I agree with Bob, FP won't make an artist out of a hack. You'll still need some basic skills and a few tricks up your sleeves to come up with good tables. Graphics are important, but there is a lot of good looking junk out there already, and FP will only make the junk prettier.

John
 
davidsss said:
My main concern about FP is: will it be used to reproduce real world tables? If not, I really can't see a compelling reason to download it. I play very few originals as I am far more interested in real pinballs and reproductions. Quite frankly, given what many people have been able to achievew with VP I can's see the point unless we can make even better reproductions.

DS

Well for my part I plan to do EM reproductions with FP.
I have 3 on the go ATM.
I know the web page says "we do not condone the use of copyrighted images.... etc." but, that is no more different than the "you must own the rom to use it....etc." that comes with VPM.
How many people own the roms they use with VPM??
AS I said before: Early on things will be a little limited however that will improve with time.
There are certainly some pinball parts that I would like that won't be in the first release of FP.
Lio is only one man and has a life outside of all this so, I will be patient.
 
davidsss said:
My main concern about FP is: will it be used to reproduce real world tables? If not, I really can't see a compelling reason to download it. I play very few originals as I am far more interested in real pinballs and reproductions. Quite frankly, given what many people have been able to achievew with VP I can's see the point unless we can make even better reproductions.

DS

David :shock: I was hoping that maybe you got a bit of fun out of some of those Original tables on VPOH. :) :wink:

Anyone can make a reproduction, that's why we don't call them Originals 8)

My current systen won't play FP, Microsoft is releasing their new Vista OS about 1 year from now, I may wait until then to update, because I want to go all out on my next update.
 
Leo Wanker said:
Lio is only one man and has a life outside of all this so, I will be patient.

Leo, this is the main reason I became Admin at VPF
so that Lio would have more time to build all those part models for you!

See, I was just trying to help :p

TMFP
 
When it's available I guess I'd try my hand at Spy Hunter - looks like everything is supported for it except perhaps a captive ball - looks like a good chance though.
 
If FP will run on my idiot box I plan on trying my hand at a counter top trade stimulator called Gumball Baseball. And no, gumballs don't replace the pinball. But what I'm really waiting to see is if FP will make some of my poorer quality images look decent enough to use. Probably not, but I can dream.

John
 
tiltjlp said:
If FP will run on my idiot box I plan on trying my hand at a counter top trade stimulator called Gumball Baseball. And no, gumballs don't replace the pinball. But what I'm really waiting to see is if FP will make some of my poorer quality images look decent enough to use. Probably not, but I can dream.

John

LOL
It's a pinball simulator not the "second comming". :wink:
 
Leo Wanker said:
tiltjlp said:
If FP will run on my idiot box I plan on trying my hand at a counter top trade stimulator called Gumball Baseball. And no, gumballs don't replace the pinball. But what I'm really waiting to see is if FP will make some of my poorer quality images look decent enough to use. Probably not, but I can dream.

John

LOL
It's a pinball simulator not the "second comming". :wink:

See there Leon, I try my best not to be negative, and here you go shooting me down. :p Supposedly FP will handle graphics better than VP, so like I said, I'll wait and see.

John
 
*sigh*
A bad pic is still a bad pic.
The only way a bad pic gets to be a good pic is for you to make it better in a paint program.
FP won't do it for you.
Me thinks you expect too much.
 
TheManFromPOST said:
Leo Wanker said:
Lio is only one man and has a life outside of all this so, I will be patient.

Leo, this is the main reason I became Admin at VPF
so that Lio would have more time to build all those part models for you!

See, I was just trying to help :p

TMFP

Thanks Postie. :lol:
You're a dead set gun son.
 
Leo Wanker said:
None of the FP development team as far as I know have ever looked at FP as being a "replacement" for VP. We have only looked at it as a move into a new (and hopefully better) direction for computer pinball simulation.

It is glib and silly comments like this that will perpetrate an "us verses them" mentality and that I can guarantee you is NOT what we want.

ok, so could you explain what "Next Generation in Pinball Simulation" means? That makes it sound like it's better, well, it's new and it's different.
 
destruk said:
Leo Wanker said:
None of the FP development team as far as I know have ever looked at FP as being a "replacement" for VP. We have only looked at it as a move into a new (and hopefully better) direction for computer pinball simulation.

It is glib and silly comments like this that will perpetrate an "us verses them" mentality and that I can guarantee you is NOT what we want.

ok, so could you explain what "Next Generation in Pinball Simulation" means? That makes it sound like it's better, well, it's new and it's different.

Quake 4 will be out soon and I will no doubt play it.
However that doesn't mean that I will stop playing Quake 1 every now and then. Even though Q2, Q3A and Q4 are "next generation" to the one preceding it. yet with the exception of Q3A I still play Q1 and Q2.

You will only read into the phrase what you want to read into it Destruk.
For my part I hope, eventually, FP will be better than VP. In some ways it is already (my opinion only).
VP will still be there for your amusement and bemusement and weather it gets updated or not is in Randy's hands.
Noone is taking your toy away from you so relax man.
 
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