Triple Drain live from ClePin: tournament recaps and Bond pinball leak discussion.
Summary
Triple Drain Podcast records live from ClePin (Cleveland pinball tournament) with hosts Travis, Joel, and Tom, plus guest Raymond Davidson. They discuss their tournament experiences—Joel finished 89th out of 116 in qualifying, Travis and Raymond made finals—and cover tournament mechanics, game difficulty, queue management, and major leaks/announcements about the upcoming Stern James Bond pinball machine.
Key Claims
Cleveland tournament used a 'pump and dump' format where players buy tickets, play games as many times as desired, and top 24 players advance to finals
high confidence · Joel explains the tournament format in detail
Attack From Mars lock diverter was repaired during the tournament, causing high scores to jump from ~1-11 billion to 24 billion by day's end
high confidence · Travis and Joel discuss the lock diverter fix and resulting score explosion
Jeff Teolis, who did not make top 24, continued grinding Quicksilver after qualifying ended and knocked Travis out of the #1 seed position
high confidence · Joel and Travis discuss Jeff's last-minute qualifying play affecting bracket seeding
James Bond pinball machine was leaked via blurry photos after being set up on the floor at a UK-based arcade expo on Monday
high confidence · Joel explains the leaked Bond photos were taken during floor setup before the official Tuesday reveal
Stern pulled the official James Bond pinball reveal from the UK Expo, citing respect for Queen Elizabeth II's death and funeral
high confidence · Joel states Stern's official response regarding the reveal cancellation
The Bond pinball Pro model is based on Dr. No artwork, and the Premium is based on You Only Die Twice
medium confidence · Joel and Travis analyzing the leaked photos and artwork sources
Gilligan's Island pinball code includes a kickback that gives all opponents 1 million points when activated
high confidence · Joel discusses Monica's kickback mechanic during the women's tournament, noting a special ROM exists to negate this
Monica (Travis Murie's partner) finished 3rd in the women's tournament and selected Gilligan's Island for her final match
high confidence · Multiple references to Monica's tournament results and game selection
Notable Quotes
“I only played Turtles once... I ended up scoring 5.9 which gave me like 40th Place... that's my like middle of the back I'll feel good about that”
Joel@ 6:56 — Joel's perspective as a new tournament player contrasting with experienced competitors' multi-million point scores
“it's a lot of waiting it's a lot of waiting so you you got to get yourself in the queue you wait you wait you wait you get up there you kind of talk yourself into it and then you drain quickly”
Joel@ 8:05 — Key observation about tournament queue logistics and mental toll
“as long as nobody takes my Quicksilver score I think I'm gonna be good and sure enough Jeff teal was was grinding away on Quicksilver... screwed up all the groups”
Joel quoting Travis@ 10:55 — Illustrates the cascade effect of late-game scoring changes on tournament brackets
“we fully expected him to pick like Transporter so he was driving the bus on the other side like a Neil McRae type thing but it's it's just fascinating”
Joel@ 15:05 — Explains the unpredictability of top seed's game selections in finals
“the queue is always it's like oh there's six people in the queue it's like well that'll be five”
Travis@ 20:09 — Quicksilver's notoriously fast play pattern making it low-queue option for late-round play
“so Stern's official response is they decided to not reveal the game at the Expo out of respect to the Queen's death and her funeral but obviously there's questions of did these leaked photos potentially piss somebody off”
event_signal: ClePin tournament hosted 116 players across main and classics divisions with pump-and-dump qualifying and bracket finals; produced strong competition with game-specific mechanical issues discovered and fixed during event
high · Joel: 'I ended up at the end of qualifying I was 89th out of 116 players'; Travis and Tom made finals; Raymond won Classics
?
leak_detection: Stern James Bond pinball machines were photographed on UK arcade expo floor during Monday setup before official reveal; blurry photos circulated online before official announcement
high · Joel: 'the game was supposed to be revealed at a um like a Expo like kind of an arcade based show over in England and so there were two games of pro and premium that were shipped out there and unfortunately They Were Somehow set up up on the floor on Monday so they're in the process of being set up and there were some pictures taken'
?
announcement: Stern cancelled the official James Bond pinball reveal at UK Expo, citing Queen Elizabeth II's death and funeral as reason; speculation exists about whether leaked photos triggered the cancellation
high · Joel: 'Stern's official response is they decided to not reveal the game at the Expo out of respect to the Queen's death and her funeral but obviously there's questions of did these leaked photos potentially piss somebody off'
?
product_launch: James Bond pinball official reveal scheduled for Thursday (after podcast recording date); Bond website accidentally published press release early on Friday morning
high · Joel: 'so Bond leak photos it's technically the game is supposed to come out on Thursday... Bond website... come Friday morning actually puts out this press release of hey there's a new Bond pinball machine'
Topics
ClePin tournament format and mechanicsprimaryNew tournament player experience (Joel's perspective)primaryJames Bond pinball leak and announcementprimaryTournament queue logistics and wait timessecondaryAttack From Mars lock diverter repair impactsecondaryFinals bracket seeding and game selection strategysecondaryWomen's pinball tournament resultssecondaryKickback code mechanics in vintage gamesmentioned
Sentiment
positive(0.78)— Hosts are enthusiastic about tournament experience despite competitive stress; joking throughout; positive reflections on ClePin organization and camaraderie. Brief negativity on Attack From Mars and Godzilla being difficult/frustrating games, but overall tone is celebratory of tournament play and community gathering.
Transcript
youtube_auto_sub · $0.000
[Music] the pinball network is online launching triple drain pinball podcast oh man that's a good start um Travis are you uh you ready I forgot we don't do pre-production meetings anymore no we already had it it was what are we talking about oh Cleveland and bond should I write it down on a piece of paper for you real quick I forgot we talked about that huh where where are we Tom are you ready uh uh yeah okay are we in Joel's room or are you naked on the couch we're all naked it's like a sauna in here oh man we don't have a beep we need a beep it's freezing in the hall all right I forgot cussing my fault and uh go ahead I'll be the beep just say I swear oh that was your phone all right insert a insert theme song starter song We uh all right it was inserted clearly I don't know [Music] and then you always go that was good enough okay well hello everyone this is up I don't even know this is so stupid I don't even know what episode no we're way past 20. yeah is this episode 25. it's not 25. it's episode 23. we've done enough where people are at least rebelling on one of us okay see what happens when I have half a beer half a beer it is episode 23 if it sounds absurd it's because all three of us are in the same hotel room clothed believe it or not but if you want the middle image of what's naked the other one not wearing a jacket it is hot okay yes that's a good idea I'll take the hoodie off we are together at Cleveland um that's all it took is for Tom to say I'm the only no it actually it once again points out that Tom is the smartest guy in the room because we're complaining about being hot in here I just want to say hi to my biggest manager you have one fan or your biggest fan noise yeah well we know who doesn't have fans Travis Travis trending down on the pinball show how can you two even be in the same room oh he's a mean man [ __ ] you Joel I should have the biggest beef with Travis he just knocked me out of the tournament yeah that's about a point yeah that was bowden's oh that was that was my fault so we're um I don't know what the goal of the podcast is we just decided we're we're in the same room literally and we just spent the day together here at Cleveland um I well now I feel like this this podcast has completely changed but before it was two tournament Players and The Outsider being me yeah and now I think I can officially say it's three tournament Players I mean I think we're officially just a tournament focused podcast at this point yes so I had a final round I've played in a tournament I did not make final round that's for sure um this was the Cleveland tournament it was a pump and dump so you buy tickets and every every time you play a game you have to give away your ticket to then put in a score and there's no pressure here you can play as many games as you want and continue to improve your score and then based off of all of the scores the top score on that game would get 100 points and it would go down and down and down and down to somewhere where I am and I'd get a few points yeah and then your cumulative total I only played in the main category the cumulative total of your best five games is what ends up giving you your player positions and the top 24 players make the finals the two of you made the finals I was far from that but I ended up at the end of qualifying I was 89th out of 116 players so you know sorry to everybody above me but not bad yeah I was um I I my I I started my tournament life with turtles it felt great loved it that I was impressed yep I was thoroughly impressed yeah like everything you do is impressive oh yeah I forgot so inside apparently thinks Travis is too mean so I just need to remind myself that literally any any compliment that comes out of your mouth is just completely made up and not real I'm trending up I'm trending up yeah yeah but I will say I mean My overall view of playing in a tournament I get it I get the appeal when you when you drain and you think to yourself I could play better you want to buy another ticket and you want to play it again yeah oh so you're saying we got you addicted it's it is a fun time I thoroughly enjoyed it you're gonna play another one if I'm there if I go to another show I would play another job okay yeah I was gonna say if you're there yeah of course you know next one's Expo yeah well I won't be at Expo remember oh yeah unfortunately I'm not in a position to commit to like traveling specifically for a tournament I would say that would be a little more disheartening to if I actually went just for a tournament at my current skill level because I was far from making finals but it was a good time you had fun I had fun that's all that matters I find pinballs you have fun to see it's a weird thing where when you have five games and you have five scores and then you're like looking at the game going can I improve on that score because it'll potentially bump you up and so I just I just wanted to see my number go up but you guys are in a totally different spot where you guys are playing for buys or Travis you ended up right on the bubble so it's like you had really good scores but which one do you think you could possibly improve on it's uh that's a little more stressful than what I was going through that's well now you get an idea though so what was the main game that you played today I only played Turtles once I was very surprised I I went up I saw that the lowest score was one point something million I said well I know my goal is more than one million and I end up scoring 5.9 which gave me like 40th Place out of I don't know there was like uh 70 play people or something I had played it so I was like I'll take that that's my like middle of the back I'll feel good about that but yet your scores were you were like 20 something million yeah and so were you right I had like 22 23 million yeah so my view is like hey I ate a five point something like that's I'll take a quarter of your score that's that's good enough for me what was your besides Turtles what was your favorite game that you played today in the tournament um uh try transporter I did try transporter so that was one thing shout out to you straight down the middle Chuck wart and his crew they they've streamed the tournament so when I was working yesterday I actually had the stream up and the the streaming rig was on transporter and uh Quicksilver the most so just watching other people play the game kind of showed me okay this is what you're trying to do it's that easy right and then you step up to the game and no it's not that easy that was there was a definite wake-up call because watching transporter it was like everybody was hitting down the six drop targets locking them all hitting them down locking them all boom multiball keep it alive I never got all six drop targets down when I played it but um I well that brings up another thing that I've realized tournaments it's a lot of waiting it's a lot of waiting so you you got to get yourself in the queue you wait you wait you wait you get up there you kind of talk yourself into it and then you drain quickly and then you gotta go through that whole process again of waiting waiting waiting but definitely a mental game but I played that I played a lot of quicksilver because same thing I saw people doing stuff on stream with Quicksilver that I just assumed I could do and I was quickly humbled and proven that I can't so they're fun but get away I had a good time on that and then Royal Rumble I never played that and had a good time there as well so definitely eye-opening like when you actually play a game instead of just playing it to flip around and see what it's like when you go in with a with a goal um it was a lot of fun and even Turtles I've never played turtles in that light secret guests either that or our neighbor wants us to shut up but yes I've never played turtles in a way where I actually cared about score yes yeah we got an extra ball we have an extra here go ahead and sit over here are you already recording yeah we're recording Raymond Davidson everybody there you go don't feed me all tomorrow so Rady's here Rite Aid just won Classics so congrats on that well thank you Joe yeah we uh we were saying that clearly now we're just only a tournament focused podcast now that I've played in one you know I'm not no longer The Outsider but um no we're walking through that and uh yeah continue I'll sit and listen here and see if I have anything to happen well I was saying based on watching a stream because Chuck's streaming this on Friday I saw a lot of Quicksilver and I saw a lot of Transporter and I was thinking oh okay that's pretty easy to do and then you step up and try to do it and in my case this may not be as understandable for you three because you guys are the ones doing the things that I'm watching you do you know what we're hearing it from your point of view my point of view was this looks this looks like it can't be that bad and you do it and it is that bad but no it was a good time and um no I I definitely see the appeal I definitely see the appeal and I went in very like I just wanted to have a good time but to see it from your guys point of view where it's a little more stressful you know you got to make finals and even at dinner Travis like refreshing his phone phone because he was 20th and realizing oh yeah you can talk about that you went from 20 down to 22nd for one reason one reason only and if you want to talk about that go ahead because the FN Jeff teolis yeah so our good friend Jeff teola is a pinball profile and final round who was not in top 24 apparently was motivated to keep playing and uh Travis all day pretty much had the number one spot in quicksilvers which was 100 points number two spot is not 99 no it drops all the way to 90 points so going into dinner Travis is like as long as nobody takes my Quicksilver score I think I'm gonna be good and sure enough Jeff teal was was grinding away on Quicksilver for whatever reason screwed up all the groups yeah he did and Travis and I had to face each other again and now I have to face Neil yeah so it messed with your score too yeah the one Jeff teolis because it knocked Brian down because Brian had the number two score on Quicksilver so Brian fell below me so then I moved up to Neil's group so it's it's insane that Jeff till I don't I mean he didn't even make the damn place no I think Butterfly Effect she's doing it to do it yeah Tio was a fact yeah it was well I would just say we're like trying to enjoy dinner and I could tell you were a little stress not stressed but like stress you're looking because it's like I knew I was going to be in I wasn't worried about that because there's a couple people below me too so it's like if you lose points you know that the people below you probably have the same games or similar games so they're going to lose a point too right so really what I was looking at was well what are the groups going to be and what's it going to be solidified at because I'd like to know who I'm playing yeah too because I'd like have a great idea and of course we ended up having Luke in the horny act be our bus driver and it's literally like having a lunatic at the will [Laughter] so yeah I really thought he was going to pick transporter I thought he was too well those two games he picked I was I was very surprised but he did this first I was like yeah didn't look put up uh like 6 million on transporter or something good and qualifying like seven so seven yeah and and kids maybe he didn't know that the kids had such a tight tilt because Luke likes him he was surprised he said he had played it a few times like for qualifying before it ended and he was getting consistently 200 million so we think I think they might have tightened the tilt down because they're very first one just for Luke yeah yeah I mean it was tilty when I qualified on it like I tilted ball too danger danger tilt with one slap save and so but otherwise the the love gunshot was the easiest love gunshot of any kiss ever yeah like you couldn't miss it it was just it was so money I busted that man he was player player one and then on ball one he he tilted and one of the dangers went into traffic so that was actually interesting uh was so just to explain the people like me that are new to all this it's whoever was the top seed going into it gets to pick all three games for that round so nuke Luke was picking the game he was he was driving the bus he was the bus driver yeah so Luke yeah Luke picked all three games but so Luke would pick a game and then they'd go to the next seed which happened to be Tom and Tom was able to pick his spot so normally you want to go last because then you know what you have to shoot for so he went last and then they go to the next seed which was Steven Bowden so Bowden would pick third and then they'd go to Travis last and Travis had his choice to pick first or second normally you pick second but because Luke throws the game around so much Joe's like I'm not doing that again so he picked first which was kind of a surprise but it paid off for you because you played Corvette and in the second game and you blew it up on ball one well yeah another reason why I wanted to do that too is because you could lock in the balls right and then you could send it back up top before skill shots yeah but if they were locked previously by the virtual a lot oh God so it there's a lot here and even even going back all the way to dinner when we realized the everything changed who was playing who then all of a sudden you guys are going through this mind game of well who's driving the bus Luke is so he's probably gonna pick this this and this and like you're already like preparing yourself for potentially what's gonna happen oh we Tom and I both knew he was going to take us off of freaking Cliff yeah they seem like standard picks to me Corvette kiss and AFM it's not loot pics though you know what I mean like we fully expected him to pick like was a transfer so he was driving the bus on the on the road in the right lane going 60 miles an hour when you were expecting maybe yeah maybe he was driving on the other side like a Neil McRae type thing but it's it's just fascinating I mean I obviously watch this firsthand and my only experience with tournaments is watching them on stream and it's just to see it in person one it's a lot harder to see what's going on you know AI you basically can from the I don't know the stands but like standing behind everybody it's like you can see the DMD and you can see their body language and that's it that's all you can really tell on how well they're doing and um I don't know it's it's awesome to watch it on stream I wish it was more clear like I I know I've seen other ones where streams they have projectors or this or that for for people watching but it's still enjoyable to see and just seeing the mental challenge that is tournament sharing I mean props to you guys for staying mentally engaged for the whole day and then as soon as the stream's over you know I understand Tom grabbed a beer pretty quick and I uh respect that yeah yeah but no so it all came down to um so Travis laid a big old goose egg on game one on kiss but you came you came out motivated game two blew that up I couldn't lay a goose egg then no so he's screwed so you it was you got four points there then by the time you guys got into game three Stephen was kind of pretty much for sure going through he just needed a point mathematically anybody still could have went through yeah but yeah he was he was in the driver's seat yeah and it came down to you guys played an attack from ours and all three of you guys had similar scores going into ball three and at the end of the day Luke Luke got what fourth you got you got first in that game Steven got second and then Tom got third and how it worked out so uh Travis and Stephen are through to the next round which starts bright and early tomorrow morning which I know is your favorite time to play Ray day no so this is gonna obviously come out I don't know maybe it would come out tomorrow highly doubt it but sometimes so yeah in the future congrats to whoever wins Travis congrats to uh winning though I never win this thing the goal is we got to keep Ray up really late and then he'll be he'll be ready to go tomorrow now why you invited me into the room but Ray did win classic he sure did Google trophy that was a crazy classic I was scrounging every round where it was like game three I had like two points most of the time and I like I had to win my game three and I pulled it off both both rounds to get to the finals and then in the finals I needed to win game three to win the tournament and those eight voids of meteor in a row during practice came in handy because the last game was meteor and I I blew it up so that was yeah we were watching that there was a lot of refreshing on phones during dinner and it's like oh it's like Rady's right he's gonna have to do something and boom you did it it was like wow he won the thing yeah he's like yeah don't did you get a fourth on any of the games in classics I think I dodged the goose egg I dodged the fourth and that that's that was what made the difference because if I would have got a fourth there would have definitely been like tiebreakers involved or I would have just been done yeah well I mean at the end of the day this this has been a fun time I mean I've only been here one day I understand also the appeal of coming on Thursday or coming earlier because the queue is a huge thing it wants props to Carl D'Python Anghelo that software that never drained software is pretty impressive stuff and uh just the Simplicity of it of getting in line waiting for your place and having enough people you know directing it or um what's the word score keeping I mean they're very quick as soon as one game's over the next person's up and it's just a it's a well-oiled machine but when you go to queue up and you realize every game has at least a 30 minute wait you know it's kind of a then all of a sudden you're looking it's like well I got two and a half hours how am I gonna fit this in and you know I understand you come to Thursday though that's a big part of it because the cues they well here in Cleveland too like in Classics there was only what six games and five count yeah in the in the classics and then in Maine there's nine games and five counts so it's one of those things to wear these games here at least for a main division they're set up pretty favorable I mean they're not super easy but they're not super difficult either so a lot of these games aren't quick games so what ends up happening is that a lot of people end up just stacking up and you get good players in front of you that are putting up like five or ten billion on Attack From Mars or whatever it is that's where you get your 30 to 45 minute cues and we were seeing that happen later or after today you know and the only game that was quick was Quicksilver Quicksilver the queue is always it's like oh there's six people in the queue it's like well that'll be five I feel like they always have one of those at every tournament as like the emergency latch of like oh it's the 11th hour and everything has a line I normally wouldn't play this because it's risky or or whatnot but it's my only option maybe that's why Jeff would get played around everybody just saw the score and they're like oh disable could do it yeah but you could do it no it was well attack from Mars that's another thing that was interesting because you said Thursday and Friday coming into today the high score for Attack From Mars was like it was like a billion it wasn't much I think something changed because that yeah even when we played it that lock shot was a lot easier to hit well all of a sudden today the high score went from like a billion to the final high score was 24 billion it was I think entering today or maybe even yesterday it was like around nine to eleven it basically like doubled almost tripled the high score when they fixed the lock diverter that was not setting right so when you shot it it would kind of rattle instead of go around smooth and the right flipper was it wasn't weak but it was just strong enough yeah on a for it to make it but only if it was buttery smooth yeah so once they fixed it you could hit the lock shot and turns out when you get multi-balled you get a lot more billions well that is funny it's it's also a reminder of like watching somebody play attack from Mars and it's literally billions of points and then you walk over to Turtles and you're pumped if you get like a million like you know you hit a shot that's worth five hundred thousand point you feel are you saying Dwight needs to change no it's just a good score there's quite a difference between these different games of well what's actually the the goal or the standard like what's considered a good game like instead 250 000 you know points you get 250 million yeah just just a few more a few more zeros do make you feel a little better about yourself but but no it was a good time it was it's it's been a good time and I'm excited to see how finals turns out tomorrow so obviously good luck Travis and and Ray day here um because you and me are hanging out tomorrow you and me are hanging out all day it's gonna be great in the booth you know yeah it was a big battle for a top seed um did Los end up keeping it yeah I believe so laserless wow he showed up today later in the afternoon after he heard that and I think he must have heard that attack from Mars something changed because he walked right up to it in his very first game of the day he set that 15 billion that like some it said a ridiculous score it's like all right yep Carlos is here and doing doing Carlos things here's the real question well Carlos Paul an all-nighter tonight before finals uh I think he told me he's gonna try to get some sleep and he's gonna be up early tomorrow because apparently he can't just roll out of bed and start playing yeah whereas that's like my superpower specialty well there you go well cool I don't know did you guys have anything else to say that you wanted to say about today oh well we should say women's women's tournament oh yeah Travis I don't know if you forgot about Monica yeah he's carrying her her purse I mean her trophy so well we do know for sure the the the the Murray mobile is driving home with at least one trophy so yeah yeah congrats to Monica she actually got third in the women's tournament so uh we kept checking in on her all day and she ended up going into the finals with number one seed and it was a ladder tournament so it was it was what the bottom four people play and the last whoever loses is out and then they keep working their way up so she sat and sat and sat and sat got all the way to the final four and made it through that and then she lost on that so third place and then she proceeded to pick Gilligan's Island that was her that picked it she survived the round of four yes yeah barely kind of squeaked out a win there and then picked Gilligan's Island and the very first thing she did was give all her opponents a million points yeah so that's a really interesting they were all looking weird at each other but yeah apparently that's built into the code so Monica went out the left out lane which is a kickback and the moment the kickback enables it gives everybody else a million points so that happened to me when it was at District 82 but there is like a special ROM out there that you can put in that'll negate that so it was funny that she was ball one she was player one ball one drains her ball and players two and three already had more points than her and they hadn't even started playing yet because her Kickback had gone off and they both got a million points so kind of a kind of it's stupid as well you had a great you haven't thought about putting that in any of your games where you just give out points to the other players hey I mean would you rather have your ball end or would you rather give everyone in a million I mean with between those two choices yeah I think the problem is the kickback doesn't always do that that's the real oh because sometimes it gives you a million so yeah yeah it's kind of random there's a there's something in Alice Cooper that does that too yeah when you uh start a multiball at someone else locked you give the person who locked the ball a million points yeah which oh so it's locked stealing but they still rewarded for it kind of yeah he doesn't make a lot of sense but okay it's kind of a nice way to steals imagine that in TNA if every time someone stole a multiball you were getting getting paid yeah yeah there would always be a question of do I want to steal that multitude yeah I do yeah well yeah but no so far so good it's a good show um I don't know I don't have anything all right let's see we were talking about triple drink triple drainage driving here do we know who won who won the one Islands um was it Deborah no it was second yeah the final game was on Godzilla Deborah put up 16 million it was playing really rough uh really mean yeah that game sucks and then they um who was it who was it I actually don't know who the who the winner was because I don't have the names in front of me sorry sorry whoever that was yeah it's her awkward place you did great though I didn't watch it so don't blame me nope we all got up when Monica got out we all got off the inflatable couches that were not fully inflated it was like a blob if I sat down and like launched Travis up like a teeter-tock it was a good time it was a good time so you're like glowing though so now I know you're You're Gonna Play tournaments it was a fun time I I the I understand the enjoyment of the competitiveness even though I'm not indeed that when we do triple combo yeah you finally are gonna pull your weight yeah right it's very clear I mean you can go into any game with a strat and it can fall apart real quick and then you gotta kind of adapt and see what happens I mean I think I'm still on the tournament shred of survive like what's what's what's the goal for this game survive um but yeah well that was clean um the only other thing we thought about talking about was some of the leaked Bond photos but I don't know if I don't know if radio you want to participate in this country you could sleep anyway all right thanks for having me on briefly during the tournament talk yeah looking forward to hearing your thoughts and that on everything else yeah sounds good get out yeah Raymond Ravens Raven's making seconds 10 30 tomorrow morning Central Time a very smart decision for his job to probably not discuss that but um he was like what league photos yeah wait what what's happened Raymond just snuck under the bed guys I'm not here he's sitting right outside the door no um yeah props to Raymond for just showing up that's awesome so I'll see you giving Raymond a chair and you made me sit on the bed I gave you an entire bed and that was there gonna be so many crumbs yeah you ate like the most crumbliest whatever bar that's totally Joel's fault for not realizing I'm like an eight-year-old inside a 30 plus year old's body I think we've all know I think we know he's not a new this isn't a new thing we can't we can't be mean to each other no okay yeah you guys are all great if I had like a spray bottle of water okay well if anybody's still listening to this podcast um so it is we're recording this late on a Saturday technically the official Pond reviews reveal is supposed to happen oh Katie Coos Coster Katie Coster one women's that's what Ray just said so thank you congrats to her yes thank you so um oh he's still texting and maybe edit that in or for the who won part nah there was discussion on where we're going to record this and we're like we could do it outside and this and this I was like that sounds like a lot of editing and telling us that's not my problem if you have a kid or anything in your car while you're listening to this you should probably turn it off oh yeah but good thing we give that disclaimer 30 minutes into the box yeah nothing's better than a disclaimer this far in yeah so Bond leak photos it's technically the game is supposed to come out on Thursday what's interesting here for anybody that's on I mean I'm assuming you guys know at this point but the game was supposed to come out last Tuesday the it was supposed to be revealed at a um like a Expo like kind of an arcade based show over in Robert Englunds and so there were two games of pro and premium that were shipped out there and unfortunately They Were Somehow set up up on the floor on Monday so they're in the process of being set up and there were some pictures taken those pictures started being passed around and all of a sudden everybody sees everything and it's all out and so Stern's official response is they decided to not reveal the game at the Expo out of respect to the Queen's death and her funeral but obviously there's questions of did these leaked photos potentially piss somebody off thus saying no pull it let's not reveal it so for a few days all we had are these blurry leaked photos and which kind of stirred up a lot of like questions about the artwork it looks like it's a lot of art just pulled directly from movie posters it is definitely Sean Connery Bond the pro is definitely based off of Dr knows artwork the premium is based off of you only die twice I think is what it's called um so but then looking at the different mechs a lot of people zooming in and out of very blurry photos well what's funny though is there was a bond website that must have already had the press release and forgot to not release it because this Bond website I forget what it was like 007 fan club or something whatever it was come Friday morning actually puts out this press release of hey there's a new Bond pinball machine was it another website it was another website it was like a bond fan club website oops that put it out there and it actually had high-res nice you know professional photos of the of the cabinet art and the Playfield for both the pro and the premium so thank God for you know actual good images but it was not purposeful it was not purposeful that's for sure so yeah so there are there are on on pinside in other words those have since been pulled but obviously they're already out there so now that we've actually seen high-res images of both the cabinet art and the playfields for both the pro and premium initial thoughts on those um Tom you're typically in for an Le uh I'm not on this one okay um I'm not like the biggest James Bond fan but I'll probably end up getting a pro yeah um just to you know just to have it get to know the rules that sort of thing I I see now that I now that you know I'm a tournament player I see the uh I see the advantage of having a game in your house even if it's just to buy the game own it for a few months just to learn it learn the rules you know and then move it on just from a competitive standpoint having that experience is worth owning the game even if it would potentially cost you a few hundred bucks like in a loss so I I totally see that but um I do know you moved from the you said you're not the biggest bomb fan so you're passing on the Le Pro would be a good time Travis I don't know if I don't know what were your initial responses or thoughts on seeing the Playfield what is going on Yeah Yeah from the from the distributor and dealer side it's just it's been a whirlwind week yeah it's just very confusing and just you know I mean because it's like we spent all weekend getting ready for the reveal and thinking okay it's gonna be at 3am because they're going to show it in London and then all of a sudden you see some granny photos and you're like okay you have your first impressions but you're going to kind of wait until you see you know the official release that you know the good pictures and video and all that but yeah it was just it was then the queen dies and blows it up she died like a week prior but yeah I messed everything up yeah yeah so it's just I wasn't expecting it to be delayed at all so it definitely definitely costs um I won't say turmoil but it caused a crazy week of just adjusting and saying seeing okay when's this going to be out and what's going to move and how that how does that affect our schedule how does that affect their schedule I mean it's just it's a whole ordeal Joel yeah I don't think well I've been reading the messages obviously in our Facebook group and whatnot and just even even trying to like look at Pin side I mean it's just a roller coaster for everybody because you know you have le buyers that feel like they need to commit even before the game is revealed and then you have other people that are like this is the worst thing that Stern's ever made based off a few crazy photos well it's been crazy because opinions are all over the place yeah like you have some people saying oh this is the worst thing I've ever made and the Art's horrible I had somebody else tell me it's one of the best R packages they've seen based off the official like they legitimately told me that yeah and they liked the pro I I guess it's a pro cabinet that's yellow yeah it's all yellow they actually like that well but and then I guess Kerry Hardy put out a video Yeah comparing it to Godzilla so there's some people giving it some big praise out there still I mean it's kind of there's no middle of the road no it's the weird part you're either thoroughly impressed with the whole package yeah 10 out of 10 are complete garbage yeah or you're just kind of like oh what's gonna happen so I mean I don't know I'm interested in it I think the right side of the Playfield looks pretty cool with the the right uh side ramp and then the right ramp then it looks like you have a shot through the two yeah yeah and it almost looks like there's a captive ball back underneath there too I don't know if my oh wait I don't know what's under the yeah yeah that's why I could have swore I saw that but I don't know that for a fact so and then I'm trying to figure out what the left side is with that eject and it almost looks like a dead end so I don't know if it's like a dead end Target or dead end and then it drops down into it yeah yeah that's what I'm wondering because there's another there's a left flipper so Gomez game it's absolutely we know for sure Tacoma is game there's an upper left flipper and it looks like there's a difference over there the pro it looks like I don't even know if there's a Target it just looks like you may hit something behind the flipper and then the ball drops down into a scoop and that ball would actually then shoot back out of the scoop and um I don't so it's more comfortable so yeah so Travis is moving around he's not not comfy so that's on the probe but then left but then on the premium over in that area it looks like it's it's probably going to be something like Creature from the Black Lagoon where it's instead of wood Playfield it'll be an acrylic and then probably a sculpt or something underneath to give you some sort of visual appeal of oh you went underwater you know something like that so it's that kind of looks interesting there's some other crazy mix there's James Bond on a on a stick essentially that'll swing out on the on the premium and it looks like you're gonna with a magnet drop a ball like drop a ball onto a Target which is pretty unique poop a ball out yeah poop a ball out um but there's there's a dude Craig yeah shout out to Craig Bobby and his tongue I don't know he has a gift and and making that song There's a rocket in the upper left of the Playfield though that it though it was packed with foam around it which means it moves so that's the question is it gonna move up and down is it like on a spring does it move around there are stand-up targets that kind of surround it so it's very clear you're going to shoot the ball back in there and hopefully the rocket is forcing that ball to move in some way so that's kind of unknown but that's where Kerry Hardy was kind of getting off because it was the layout is very unique and based off of how many shots I think he counted like 15 shots and the way it's going to flow and move I think that was his biggest comparison to Godzilla because Godzilla is such a weird flowy game and I mean it's so far from a standard fan layout that I think he was looking at from a shots and layout standpoint he thinks there's going to be a lot there that this layout is just more Dynamic it looks to be yes I'll give you dynamic as a good word I think it looks to be a very Dynamic layout now code wise just based off inserts there's it's talking about villains it's talking about henchmen it's talking about Bond girls it it just that alone reminds me of episodes villains minor villains from Batman 66 are we going to see a game here that's as deep as Batman 66 maybe I don't know there's gadgets involved there's there's a lot there's a lot going on in this Playfield the rumor is it's Dwight but no one's confirmed that and I think a lot of people are thinking Dwight based off of how many times it says Playfield multiplier yeah and there's an action button that involves a Playfield multiplier so we'll have to wait and see on that but if you're a fan of Sean Connery Bond and may have movie posters of these movies up in your game room I mean this this may be you know you've already been looking at this Arc for years you're probably all in on this cabinet yeah no they they pulled the art directly from that time frame so it looks like straight out of the 60s and 70s and obviously there's people that aren't going to necessarily like that artwork in 2022 but it is true to the theme and it makes sense from a theme standpoint yeah and there's there are other rumors I mean there were still we have yet to see the Le um people think it may be uh what is a gold finger is the I keep messing up there's gold finger and gold member Gold members the Austin Powers right yeah let's go with the gold member Le is it gold yeah that's awesome result member no Goldfinger is Austin about okay okay gold fingers Gold members is it the other way around one of those but people are like oh I'm assuming I'm assuming the Le's going to be all gold and gold this and gold that but like diamonds are diamonds are for are forever that one hasn't been shown it could be very shiny I don't know I mean what's that it's one of the other movies yeah I know nothing about James Bond no I've never seen like one second of it well we don't know we don't know what's going on the Le and then unfortunately there's a there's an additional rumor of potentially another like a fourth version so obviously Distributors are getting nailed from all directions of what is this what is this what is this and you guys consistently have to say with actual honesty I don't know I'll just I'll just put it out there guys okay I'll confirm something for everybody there is a game coming that is made out of pure gold it's gonna be a hundred thousand dollars one pot Bumper in the middle of the Playfield and it has five flippers yeah okay five flippers and and dealers set the price two and a half inch mini flippers so you heard it here first I'm confirming it confirmed it's on its way you can send your deposits to Joel yeah great I did the code that's why that's why he had to leave so quickly Robert Miller did the code I think Robert wow so I don't know we have we I'm assuming this this episode will come out before Thursday but we're just in a wait and see situation and it's very strange I mean almost every pinball machine has a leak in some form whether it's just verbal confirmation of this is what's coming or like discussion of this is what I'm hearing or the trailer will get leaked the day before a few pictures or a sketch or something but this has just been such a weird ride of of all this it's it is Bond and then what type is it going to be new old Sean Connery Bond and then then grainy photos with no idea what it was now these higher a few high-res but not no visual anything as long as we take a video out with a girl hitting a jackpot and a her dad fist pumping his hands in there yeah it's all good that's all we need now but I don't know we're just we're kind of in a wait and see but my initial reaction to the Playfield is it looks unique I'm excited I'm I'm excited to shoot it just because it doesn't look familiar at all like I'm I'm really curious to see what the shots are going to feel like um and I do see the left orbit goes into a ramp I like shots that are kind of go that route orbit into ramp stranger things had one there's a lot of games out of that um but then Deadpool yeah well on the premium has that which will feel good which is also designed by Gomez there you go there's a controlled gate in the back so it looks like if you do the orbit from the back there will be times where that'll stay down and it'll drop into the pops well there'll be other times it'll go all the way around and feed the left flipper so there's a chance this may flow really well but um we really don't know we really don't know until we see more but um I would say I've I've gone from like not excited to like really not excited when I initially saw the images I was like God that looks awful like art wise it just was a huge turn off but now to actually see professional photos it's like that actually looks pretty good and now that I actually have a better understanding of the layout like that actually looks really fun so it's pretty incredible the like and I don't even have any money in this and so I can't imagine you know you elitist over here we're not buying yeah but you haven't you had a decision to make right like you had to actually think now why did you not get an Ellie on this one again I think it's just more theme wise I just is it the collecting the women part I mean it's too close to home yeah it's too close to home yeah this only goes up to seven this only goes up to seven times come on yeah because yeah he's like we can only have a seven way on this yeah yeah right that's crap give me another game there there was kind of another uh pinball release uh a photo oh there was a video do you remember what it was it's what we cranked this podcast up to Joel oh 11 yeah this is fun yeah why are you not excited because 11's not high enough that I'll my first reaction to this final tag my this final tap released videos and photos were if people complain about the rush artwork and the three Rush guys in the middle like this is straight up just Photoshop copy paste from screen Clips there are no inserts or so few inserts in the middle of the game it makes it look really cheap I think if you look close enough you might actually even see that little clip art logo the art package it's amazing well it really it actually says a lot because of the two releases that we've seen this week over the last week what do we have to see really it's just art and you can really be impacted heavily one way or the other by just the art of a pen I'm telling you like it's huge there's people that buy pins specifically for the artwork and they'll just leave it in their game room and they hardly ever play it yeah it's like an art piece yeah it really is well I doubt any of those will be first final attack because it looks rough and it actually brings up another thing which is I saw a post I forget who said it but it was like I think I think the art packages of all the pins released in 2022 so far worse than like to like these are the worst our packages we've seen since 2010 like I think twippy for the best art package as of right now it's gonna be lit I can't wait uh we're it's just I don't know it's not there hasn't been a standout in my mind that's for sure maybe if it's standing out it's in the in the wrong direction I did like the rush artwork though like I like the cabinet artwork and I like the back glass I would say it's the best the best so far for sure yeah well yeah and you're right we haven't had very many good art pieces come out nothing stands nothing stand out yeah I mean unless you crank it up to 11. well that's what it is uh shout out to Dennis griesel because he just keeps taking our packages and increasing the saturation to make it pop that's what you say that's the problem with all these nerving they're not popping enough yeah we got to take that bright yellow Dr no package and really make it it's got to be like fluorescent yellow at this point well that layout too on on spinal tap it's actually not half bad I mean all things considered when you when you compare it to Thunderbirds I mean of course anything's gonna look better than Thunderbirds but it still looks halfway decent yeah and it's like a commendable layout but I don't like how much are they charging for it though is it nine ten thousand it's like another which will do the we'll do the typical comparison what do you want you want that or you want a Godzilla premium well which is kind of another random comment of we still have no idea we've been told to expect the price increase but what does that actually mean for stern games is it just change your spawn that's increasing are all the stern games increasing is that going to go into effect the day James Bond comes out is that going to go into effect January 1st we don't know of course expect to pay more money but uh this is the other thing that stood out for me on the spinal tap pin is they were bragging about their in-lane switches there are no longer actual physical switches they are doing some sort of opto related switch in the inlanes which is low friction more accurate all that I mean I know uh pinball brothers and alien they don't have any physical switches they're they're detecting the ball in some way so maybe props for that but this one there's still a physical slot in the game though and you just see the opto like in it so I'm curious if dirt or anything over time will actually make that no good but um I don't know and then this also the spinal tap game has a DMD and it has an LCD so from the little bit of footage I've seen it literally looks like the LCD is pretty much just playing the movie right it's just movie clips while the DMD is actually trying to track score and the game in some way so I don't know we're just if you're a spinal tap fan and you're excited about that game hey good on you if you enjoy it good on you but that's not I'm not rushing to uh I don't think any are you guys picking up home pin you're going to be a distributor phone but anytime soon yeah I can't remember the who the guy is from Hometown but he basically came out and said like it's not for tournament Players which no that's not huge that's not for me clearly not for me anymore God nope as he takes us away yeah he's gotta get used to this new life there's no rules in the game so you you should enjoy it yeah that's a bunch of Lights there's a movie Point yeah you hit hit one like shot and The Scene goes and then it just stops like pauses until you get the next shot just barely creeps up well yeah I kind of said that I mean turtles I've owned Turtles for quite a while but I've never cared about points I'm all about progression and when I played it today I did no progression I wasn't caring about modes it was just getting to this multi-wall try to do these things it's amazing how different a pin feels when you actually care about the points so so that's what this is like you have to think about where you're shooting it you don't have to think when you're progressing through a game but it's it is different well the difference is when you're just doing General progression for progression's sake you're just going through whatever the game's telling you to do yeah pretty much without any because the game won't explicitly tell you hey you need to stack this mode with this multiball or you need to get this multiplier ready to go or you need to short plunge here or you need to plunge and SWAT over there or you need to backhand this shot you know what I mean sure there's a lot of nuance to it so it's exciting to see that you are discovering this nuance and you're like a little butterfly now it's just becoming like a big Mothra oh no you can't wait starters should just have some special code you put in and it has like Raymond or Keith just telling you how to play the game yeah well hey there it'll be nice hey there a little butterfly let's go ahead and spread those wings here we go hit right here no not there hit right oh wait I've actually had Raymond on my stream telling me exactly what to hit and it didn't exactly pan out but prop stored in his patience that's for sure yeah you should ask Owen to do that for a reason I would not wait I already feel bad wasting my day's time I'm not gonna I'm not gonna waste yeah hey Joel can you not ask me to do this again thank you sorry Keith yeah but for the record that's Joel dissing on himself no yeah not Travis no Travis is encouraging me yeah no but I'm enabling you now so kind of your addiction we need to just throw a bunch of tickets at you no I get it I I definitely this is this was fun there's no doubt about it playing intern I understand the appeal to it especially when you have the skill to back it up and if you guys are playing at that level consistently obviously playing local tournaments probably doesn't give you the same kick as actually playing against like really good competition and I mean that's a double drawing but I still like playing at the local level yeah you know the thing that's awesome local level is also yeah yeah you you play at the local level in your house and Neil can you know hold his own and kick your butt yeah that's true what were you gonna say Tom apology I totally interrupted you no I was just gonna say like you know there's the tournaments going on but there's also a social aspect oh 100 no meet a lot of new people just playing and and like I I did a lot of square keeping too which was fun and you get to meet people that way well put names of faces too and there's you're you're waiting more than you're playing so to be able to engage I mean everybody you're waiting with is or once I'm waiting more than I'm playing but everybody you're waiting with is all there for the same reason and shares the same joy and passions that you do so it's I mean it's it's an instant I can't mute sneezes you know when we're all in the same room I sneezed thanks for not grabbing my pillow and sneezing straight to that appreciate that that would have been something but it was funny uh Neil Neil was score keeping and he's like yeah some people like take it really uh really like you know you come up to them and they're like ah I got this car yeah it's like yeah you just gotta they just take it on Amazing stomp off yeah that's why when he's asking me is like what do you do in that situation I'm like I just put their score in they didn't tell me the point so I'll just put it so when you finish the game you're supposed to hold your hand up and then one of the score keepers comes over and they're supposed to type in your score so they're looking at it and they're looking at scores all day so they kind of have an idea of what's good and bad and so there was twice that I had a score that the score keepers like they're like do you want to go ahead and void that and I'm like like no like that's actually I don't have a score yet go ahead and put that in please yeah but um yes I know you're used to a few more zeros on the end of that but please go ahead and enter that in yeah but uh oh somebody else is knocking here we are about to wrap up is it housekeeping telling us to shut up no it's a third place in the women's division third oh we actually have a champion come on in and tell us how to play Pinball real quick why did you bring us Steve she brought us a Diet Coke and three bites left qualified person to tell anyone how to play well um you're the only one so far has done anything yeah what's it feel like winning what's it feel like winning something today this is how Raymond Davidson feels you're you're sitting in a seat right now yeah he actually was sitting there all of 30 minutes ago but did you have a donut is it a donut in bourbon that's a winner right there that's a winner well congrats we already talked about you a little bit yeah we were like what a yeah we had to remind Travis why did you pick Gilligan I told you to ask me this listen I'm not coming here because I don't want to be asked why I pick Gillian's Island okay Joel he does it to his wife yeah ask her why she picked Gilligan's Island real quick hey Monica tournament oh okay hey tell us about that last game you played felt really in control yeah until well I just like that ball three Travis finally waves you over you know ready to like instruct if asked if asked because Joel asked me he's like do you ever tell Monica like give advice or anything I'm like I just don't listen to you yeah only if she has yeah because I was sitting there and I was like does she know how to play this game he's like I don't think she does I was like well you got to tell her he goes no only she has I used to give Neil advice and now I don't well I love your answer though because he's like hey do you or you know you need to like collect some stuff over there on the left side and your answer was I'm scared of the left side okay and he goes so you're just gonna flip around and hit stuff she's like yeah I was like well it's got her this far it's his number one seed so yeah gotcha third place they tricked me oh they tricked me into going on to the stream today which never happens Java's nose what do you mean like with the heck set on yes that was so weird wow you don't like talking about what you're saying I don't like it at all you know like that Donuts well believe it or not Monica we're already out of topics unless you have anything else we want to talk about um they asked me what I was I was playing flip-flop who's they like them people the person the people at the tournament okay the other commentator who's asking okay gotcha he asked me what I was thinking on flip flop because I I guess I did something like decently good and so you asked me what I was thinking and I just thought don't [ __ ] flip the flippers out don't look like an idiot wait I don't know if that's a proper pinball answer I've had those moments yes I said my tactic all day was just survive you know it didn't matter what game survive F you Joel me what it's so good for both beers I did he was telling you could have won the women's tournament Joel I would have shot the left side of Gilligan's Island he was telling me all afternoon I just got to pass Monica no it's and he was like yeah yeah he pissed hardcore I looked at I looked at the players scores and I was like why I mean all the names I recognized are like the top toy like there's no way like I know that so it's like what's a single name I need a single name get over a million of turtles I was like I need a hundred points okay let's go you're back yeah [Music] hey you know I gotta set goals I didn't say they were very high but because the best part is you had you had 11 entries that you did on Thursday and then you hadn't played any so like yeah I stole a couple of tickets I'm like I'm like I gotta get in the top ten on all these games you need a bottle just get past the point oh look there was plenty of women that would scored higher than that but it was what I knew was Monica wasn't competing anymore so her score was gonna stay or lower so I thought it was achievable and hey I had like one more yeah I had 11 injuries you had 11 entries and I came out just a few a few above you but Cassidy are in the tournament but you you clearly were doing something better with your time and you're actually playing in the women's tournament and winning it so yes that's exactly what I was doing with my time yeah like not drinking until 2 30 a.m and sorry about that I've definitely told I do software support for a living and I definitely said love you bye to a customer once and I called him back and I was and he was laughing and I was like uh so my wife was leaving and I kind of waved at her and it kind of goes no I just assume you're this close with all your customers I was like all right good but well on that note we should probably wrap it up and say our goodbyes well you gotta have a Tom talks is there anything you want to say about today we're not going through two straight episodes without Tom talks I'm Someday I'm taking Travis down again oh that did happen yes so so they had they were in the same group it got to it got to game three and Travis yeah Travis came back and it's for Cosmos I think you motivated I didn't play very good I think I think he goes into it going Tom and I need to get through this group but deep down he's going yeah I know how nice he is his friends technically it was bowden's fault yeah if he would have passed me right and it's his fault and I mean not really it's really my fault for not playing well you deserve better he was your wingman Stephen he is you know he doesn't play well with others Monica agrees correct yes 100 that's all we need okay there's artificial insemination oh god Tommy want to talk about uh I don't know why you took it there those kids look like me I'm pretty sure right when they're like crooked eyes like their hair is going there's nobody still listening at this point everybody skip to the next podcast so well this was the Tom talks part yes so thanks Tom thanks Tom for taking us I'm glad I could help yeah all right we gotta plug stuff now yeah go ahead go and plug our podcast nothing just listen to Triple drain podcast which is the fourth best podcast on the tpn network out of how many hey are you just picking up four oh yeah I'm just making yeah third yeah I'm third I'm better than you you're the third best podcast on tpn yeah she got third place when did you do your podcast we're just talking numbers I'm third hey Monica go ahead and plug whatever you need to plug um [Laughter] good Fox Cities pinball will have super series coming up and pinball Expo so tune in yep wait when is the next when is the pinball Super Series uh uh first because in October it's like October 6th through the 9th I think holy [ __ ] that's too much sorry I warned you people yeah oh yeah the the warning in the middle of the episode yeah and I'm Joel I do uh flipping out stream every Wednesday on the pinball Network and then every other Thursday on The Flipping Out stream and this podcast and just another pinball podcast so uh like always Tom you get the honors you get the last words later mofos
Joel@ 30:58 — Reveals the political/respectful framing vs. speculation about leak-driven cancellation decision
“Bond website... come Friday morning actually puts out this press release of hey there's a new Bond pinball machine”
Joel@ 32:02 — Secondary leak: the official Bond website accidentally published the press release early
design_innovation: Carl D'Angelo's 'Never Drained' software used for queue management and score tracking at ClePin; praised for efficiency and simplicity in managing multi-game, multi-round tournament logistics
high · Joel: 'props to Carl D'Angelo that software that never drained software is pretty impressive stuff and uh just the Simplicity of it of getting in line waiting for your place'
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product_concern: Tournament games at ClePin have wide variation in scoring difficulty; Turtles yields ~1-6M scores while Attack From Mars yields billions; creates confusing scoring context for new players
high · Joel: 'watching somebody play attack from Mars and it's literally billions of points and then you walk over to Turtles and you're pumped if you get like a million... just a few more zeros do make you feel a little better about yourself'
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manufacturing_signal: Attack From Mars lock diverter at ClePin was repaired during tournament play after being misaligned; repair allowed lock shots to hit consistently, resulting in multiball access and score increase from 1-11B to 24B high score
high · Joel: 'all of a sudden today the high score went from like a billion to the final high score was 24 billion it was... once they fixed it you could hit the lock shot and turns out when you get multi-balled you get a lot more billions'
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competitive_signal: Jeff Teolis grinding Quicksilver after failing to qualify created cascade of bracket changes; knocked high scores down, which moved Travis from #1 seed to #22, which moved Brian below Travis, which moved Travis into Neil's group
high · Joel: 'Jeff till was was grinding away on Quicksilver for whatever reason screwed up all the groups... Brian had the number two score on Quicksilver so Brian fell below me so then I moved up to Neil's group'
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venue_signal: ClePin tournament experienced 30-45 minute queues on slower games (Attack From Mars, Transporter); Quicksilver consistently had short queues; coming Thursday vs Friday made significant difference in queue wait times
high · Joel: 'when you go to queue up and you realize every game has at least a 30 minute wait... the only game that was quick was Quicksilver... that's where you get your 30 to 45 minute cues'
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content_signal: Straight Down The Middle streaming of ClePin on Friday provided real-time gameplay visibility for players; Joel cited watching stream helped him understand game strategies before attempting them
high · Joel: 'shout out to you straight down the middle Chuck wart and his crew they they've streamed the tournament so when I was working yesterday I actually had the stream up... watching other people play the game kind of showed me okay this is what you're trying to do'
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community_signal: Triple Drain Podcast self-identifies as transitioning from 'two tournament players and the outsider' to 'three tournament players' after Joel played in ClePin; reflects growing competitive participation in podcast host community
high · Joel: 'before it was two tournament Players and The Outsider being me yeah and now I think I can officially say it's three tournament Players I mean I think we're officially just a tournament focused podcast at this point'
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regulatory_signal: Stern cancelled James Bond pinball reveal at UK arcade expo citing respect for Queen Elizabeth II's death and funeral; signals heightened sensitivity to IP holder/brand reputation during sensitive cultural moments
high · Joel: 'Stern's official response is they decided to not reveal the game at the Expo out of respect to the Queen's death and her funeral'