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Episode 7 – Slings, Foxes, Neos, and Cards

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 25m·analyzed·Aug 18, 2016
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

Eclectic Gamers Ep7: Tournament results, Magna Slings innovation debate, Big Lebowski shipping logistics.

Summary

Episode 7 of Eclectic Gamers covers recent competitive pinball play at Pizza West monthly tournament, restoration work on EM machines, acquisition of a Jurassic Park cabinet, discussions of Stern's innovative Magna Slings feature for Ghostbusters (Premium)/LE models, and news of Dutch Pinball's Big Lebowski shipping with new air-freight options. The hosts also discuss video games including Star Fox Zero for Wii U.

Key Claims

  • Dennis and Tony both placed 10th (tied) out of 21 players at Pizza West monthly tournament

    high confidence · Dennis: 'we both took 10th. So that's, you know, that was about halfway through the field. I think there were 21 players.'

  • Tony started competitive pinball one year prior (approximately February 2015)

    high confidence · Dennis: 'I actually started back in February of 2015. But, yep, it's been a whole year'

  • Dennis repaired a Wood Rail EM scoreboard by replacing a coil and resoldering a loose wire

    high confidence · Dennis describing restoration work on the machine that had solder popping on multiple wires

  • Dennis sold his Three 3 Coins machine to a Washington State buyer through a California intermediary not on Pinside

    high confidence · Dennis: 'someone in California contacted me... had a friend in Washington State who wasn't a member of Pinside'

  • Dennis purchased a Jurassic Park machine locally with a faulty control room switch and plans to upgrade it with Chad Hendrickson's custom software

    high confidence · Dennis: 'I'm planning to upgrade that... to the chad hendrickson custom software he's done the software for three data east games'

  • Big Lebowski shipments have begun with sea freight (~$300-350) and new air freight option at ~$1,500

    high confidence · Dennis discussing photos on Pinside of boxed Lebowski machines ready for shipment with sea/air options

  • Dutch Pinball groups US Big Lebowski shipments in containers of 40 machines for sea freight

    medium confidence · Dennis: 'the idea is you fill up the cargo container, which requires 40 games. And then when the cargo container is filled, then that ship comes to the US'

  • Magna Slings for Ghostbusters are magnetic-based and engage the ball before physical sling contact, creating a larger 'corruption zone'

    high confidence · Dennis: 'the magnet slings are actually like the slings are even bigger, because it's only when you're close to them that it starts to actually manipulate'

Notable Quotes

  • “I guess I'm not surprised that there was negative reaction on Pinside. If anyone ever spends any time reading Pinside, it seems like I think over half of the content is negative reaction to things.”

    Tony @ ~42:00 — Commentary on Pinside community culture and negative discourse patterns around innovation

  • “When most people say they want innovation, they want innovation that doesn't change. It's just a slight tweak in modernization... They're not looking for something radically new that's going to radically change the paradigm that they're used to.”

    Tony @ ~50:00 — Critique of community attitudes toward real vs. perceived innovation in pinball design

  • “Real innovation is going to be major major changes like what these magnet slings are going to bring... this could be the start of something new... we might be seeing some things like this maybe not at the final slings down at the bottom but set up on the sides of the cab halfway up or maybe up in mini playfields.”

    Dennis @ ~52:00 — Vision for potential future applications of magnetic sling technology across playfield layouts

  • “I've never really... compared to like video game forums that I participate in, I've never seen so much negativity in a hobby location.”

    Tony @ ~42:00 — Cross-hobby comparison of community negativity levels and forum culture

  • “I'm wondering if people are going to be scared into buying the airshipping option... if your number 41 [in the sea freight queue], how long is it going to be until the 80th US pin is ready to go by sea?”

    Dennis @ ~75:00 — Concern about potential psychological manipulation through container-fill shipping strategy

  • “Not everyone who buys pinball machines is rich. And so where it becomes a difference of $1,500 or $500, it does matter to some people.”

    Dennis @ ~80:00 — Pushback against dismissive attitudes toward premium shipping costs and socioeconomic diversity in collector base

Entities

Stern Pinballcompany[name withheld pending review]personTonypersonGhostbustersgameBig LebowskigameJurassic Parkgame3 CoinsgameXenongame

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinside forum community exhibits pronounced negativity toward Magna Slings innovation despite theoretical enthusiasm for game innovation

    high · Tony: 'I've never really... seen so much negativity in a hobby location'; Dennis: 'I guess I'm not surprised that there was negative reaction on Pinside... I've never really... compared to like video game forums'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Stern's Magna Slings represent genuine mechanical innovation in sling design using magnetic force instead of traditional rubber contact

    high · Dennis: 'I think the concept of seeing them replace slings is a unique use of them... the magnet slings are actually like the slings are even bigger, because it's only when you're close to them that it starts to actually manipulate'

  • ?

    product_launch: Big Lebowski shipments have begun with tiered freight options; sea freight (~$300-350) for container-full batches of 40, air freight (~$1,500) for expedited delivery

    high · Dennis describes photo evidence of boxed machines on pallets ready for shipment with sea/air options communicated

  • $

    market_signal: Air freight premium ($1,500+) creates potential accessibility barrier for Big Lebowski buyers who may face financial constraints despite $10K+ purchase

    high · Dennis: 'where it becomes a difference of $1,500 or $500, it does matter to some people... Not everyone who buys pinball machines is rich'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Magna Slings introduce unpredictable ball behavior elements that concern tournament players due to reduced planning capability and variable outcomes

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.255

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers, episode number seven. Today is Sunday, April 24th. I'm Tony. And I'm Dennis. And we're going to talk to you about pinball video games and tabletop gaming. What have you been doing this week, Dennis? Oh, well, it's been a pretty busy week for me. We've been, well, actually, since the last episode, if I want to go all the way back through two weeks, I'd say we were both at Pizza West's monthly tournament. That was last weekend. And we actually both got to play against each other. You won two out of three. You're right, I won. You did relatively well. You put me down with your bonus.
0:38
But, hey, that's all. At least it wasn't an extra ball plunge because that might have actually made me sad. Well, let's be honest. I've barely ever beaten you when we've played ever. So the one time it actually counts in tournament play to win, it made me feel pretty good. I know. It helped that I've played that machine a lot. You cheered with your glee, and I allowed you to have that glee. But ultimately, well, we both did fairly well. We actually both took 10th. So that's, you know, that was about halfway through the field. I think there were 21 players. So we tied at 10th. So, I mean, that was that's sort of last year kind of where I was normally ending up on my good nights would be getting through about half the field. So anyway, I enjoyed that. Well, and speaking of last year, this was the one-year anniversary of me starting to do competitive pinball with you. That's right. So that was 12 months. That's right, because I actually started back in February of 2015. But, yep, it's been a whole year, and now all your training has come to fruition, and you're crushing people like me left and right. I wouldn't go that far. And achieving true glory. So we had that tournament.
1:52
And let's see, other pinball things I've been doing. I finally got one of my old EMs, my Wood Rail scoreboard, got that fixed. I think it's fixed. It currently was working. I played it some yesterday. I had to replace a coil, so it took a while for that substitute part to come. And then a final issue turned out to be going through tracing all the wiring, trying to figure out, following the diagram as to why it wasn't changing from ball one to ball two. It was getting confused. And it turned out that a wire came unsoldered. And actually, that game, for whatever reason, the solder is popping on so many wires. And to me, it's strange because I didn't think solder was ever supposed to pop like that. So anyway, I finally figured that out and got that running again. So I was pleased about that. I've been trying to sell a couple of machines off. I think I mentioned that last episode. My EM that was up for sale, three coins, is off on a slow truck to Washington State. Had an out-of-state person. Actually, someone in California contacted me. He'd seen my ad, and he said he had a friend in Washington State who wasn't a member of Pinside, which is the big pinball forum, and that that person was really interested in the three coins. So I spoke with him. And I didn't have it set up for delivery. I was just going to do a local pickup because I didn't want to deal with a shipper. But there was some pleading, and they insisted that the shippers would handle everything, all the packaging and everything, and that it really wouldn't be that burdensome for me. So beyond having to make sure I could work with the shipper and be around for their scheduled pickup, which required a four-hour block, I was actually able to get rid of that on Friday. So off it goes. I'm still trying to get rid of Xenon, but that's good. So I needed the space freed up because there was a local person who was selling a Jurassic Park. So I went yesterday and bought that. It does work. It's had a few issues. The big one that I noticed is the control room, which is the major mode selection in the game. The switch isn't always registering. And so I've ordered a new switch. I don't know that it's the switch. the the it's it's weird it's worked kind of loose it's riveted on so the rivets seem a little loose so the switch might not be engaging properly because there's too much space uh i'm not entirely sure i actually did a factory reset of the software today and the switch started working so it may have also been something in terms of the programming i don't know i'm planning to upgrade that uh to the chad hendrickson custom software he's done the software for three data east games and I'm a fan of the Jurassic Park one because we have that at that Pizza West location here currently. So I don't want to go too much into messing around with the code on the original Data East software if I'm just going to replace it. But I did not have access to a modern EEPROM burner that would plug in like USB or anything. So I've ordered one from China and I'll burn my own chips once that arrives, which will probably sometime by mid-May. So did all that. Then on video games, I'm through Act 1 on Far Cry 4, but I've not been putting a lot of time in it. Actually, I don't think I've played it at all since last Sunday, so it's been a week.

  • Negative reactions to Magna Slings on Pinside were pronounced and unexpected

    high confidence · Tony: 'I guess I'm not surprised that there was negative reaction on Pinside... I've never really... seen so much negativity in a hobby location'

  • Star Fox Zero is a Wii U console exclusive released recently

    high confidence · Dennis: 'Star Fox Zero actually is the topic... It is console exclusive to the Wii U... Star Fox Zero is out now.'

    • Dutch Pinball
    company
    Pizza Westvenue
    Pinsideorganization
    Chad Hendricksonperson
    Don and Jeffperson
    The Pinball Podcastorganization
    Star Fox Zerogame
    Heighway Pinballcompany
    Wood Railgame
    Multimorphiccompany
    Far Cry 4game
    Transformers Devastationgame

    high · Tony: 'when you're looking at the tournament and competition type play, because it'll throw another thing in there that you can't quite plan for as much'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern addresses innovation controversy through tiered model approach (Pro with traditional slings, Premium/LE with Magna Slings) to serve different player preferences

    high · Dennis: 'There's something called the pro model, and it solves all your issues... there's a model that's going to satisfy you'

  • ?

    restoration_signal: EM machine restoration reveals chronic solder joint failures; cold solder hypothesis suggests potential manufacturing or material degradation issues

    medium · Dennis: 'the solder is popping on so many wires... I didn't think solder was ever supposed to pop like that'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Chad Hendrickson established as recognized custom software developer for Data East machines with multiple game implementations

    medium · Dennis: 'I'm planning to upgrade that... to the chad hendrickson custom software he's done the software for three data east games'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Community speculation that Dutch Pinball air freight pricing ($1,500) may exceed actual costs as cash grab to fund development or incentivize upgrades

    medium · Dennis: 'the speculation was, is this another way to try and do a price grab? Cash grab is Dutch inflating the price'; forum discussions comparing to Highway's lower air freight costs

  • ?

    supply_chain_signal: Container-based shipping strategy (40-unit minimum) creates queue management uncertainty; customers uncertain about wait times for non-aligned orders

    high · Dennis: 'if your number 41... how long is it going to be until the 80th US pin is ready to go by sea? So is it going to be four weeks or am I going to wait months'

  • ?

    content_signal: Pinball Podcast (Don/Jeff, episode 79) mentioned Eclectic Gamers on air, signaling growing awareness and cross-promotion between pinball media

    high · Dennis: 'Don and Jeff over at the Pinball Podcast... they actually mentioned our show on their show... that was episode 79'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Pinball community claims to value innovation but resists gameplay-changing mechanical novelty; prefers incremental tech improvements (LED, LCD) over systemic changes

    high · Tony: 'When most people say they want innovation, they want innovation that doesn't change... They want small incremental changes. They're not looking for something radically new'

    • 5:14
    And I was catching up on some old movies instead. I decided I needed to refresh myself on Predator. I don't know why I chose Predator, but I did. Started Predator 2, but stopped after 10 minutes. I just couldn't get into it. So I rewatched the first Predator, which I really like, and Predators, which I actually think was a pretty good Predator movie. You know, it was pretty low budget, but there were a lot of practical effects and such. And I think it, you know, it was a little overly ambitious, but overall, I think it's pretty enjoyable. It captures a lot of the spirit of that first film. But that's pretty much it in terms of summary of the stuff I've been working on. I do, before transitioning to ask what you've been up to over the last two weeks, I do want to thank Don and Jeff over at the Pinball Podcast. I did listen to one of their most recent episode at the time of this recording at least and they actually mentioned our show on their show so for those listening here if you want a podcast that actually talks just about pinball and not about video games and tabletop games as well you really should check out the pinball podcast with Don and Jeff as the hosts they're very deep in I think that was episode 79 where we got mentioned so they've been at it for quite a while and it's one I've been aware of for a while and it's actually I think the very first pinball podcast I ever listened to was theirs. So go ahead and check them out if you guys are interested in more exclusive pinball content. But Tony, what's going on with you? Well, I've been doing not a whole lot over the last couple of weeks, but I did set us up finally a Twitter account. We are now officially at Eclectic underscore Gamers. for those people who are liking the Twitter. There's not a whole lot there yet, but we're going to be working on it. I've also been watching some older movies. I watched The Running Man for the first time in probably a decade, and I think that movie very well might be the epitome of 80s cheese movies. I mean, the lines were as cheesy as it gets. I enjoyed it a lot. I mean, I didn't remember it being that good of a movie, But just the cheese meter was so much that I just I loved every minute. I was laughing throughout the entire movie. I don't know if I was supposed to be laughing throughout the entire movie, but I was definitely laughing throughout the entire movie.
    7:31
    Yeah, it's in terms of Arnold. I think it's a contention for Running Man and Commando in terms of cheesy, campy 80s style action. He was the master. So it's not surprising. Yeah, I think a lot of it is is meant to be over the top tongue in cheek in terms of, you know, I don't think I've ever read the Stephen King book that it's based on, actually, or the story. I think it's a short story. But anyway, yeah. No, I think they embraced the cheese with that. They did, definitely. I haven't read the story either. I actually put it on my Amazon wish list. I'm going to go ahead and pick it up and give it a try just to see how it is. I know from, like, IMDb and this and that that it is nothing like the movie at all. It's supposed to be, like, completely different. but I still kind of want to read it now. I also watched Deep Impact, which was the much more serious version of Armageddon. That movie was not as good as I remembered it being. Some of the acting was absolutely horrible and some of the acting was actually really, really good. But I was surprised to see how many people were in that movie that I didn't remember being in that movie. Jon Favreau was in that movie, and Richard Schiff was in that movie, and there were a couple others that I didn't remember them at all, but they were in that movie.
    9:02
    It's been a long time since I've seen that. The thinking man's disaster, or how it sort of came across at the time compared to Michael Bay's work, the Dante's Peak to the volcano sort of.
    9:18
    Yeah, except for between Dante's Peak and volcano, I preferred Dante's Peak, and between Armageddon and Deep Impact, I think I preferred Armageddon.
    9:28
    Yeah, I've definitely seen Armageddon more times than Deep Impact. I find it a bit slow, and there are a lot of characters that it tries to follow that aren't all in the same grouping. So, I mean, Michael Bay knows what he's doing when he's putting together those very basic sort of storylines, and it's just trying to sell the spectacle. And I think a lot of people went into Deep Impact thinking it's going to all be about spectacle, and it wasn't. But I don't think it was intellectual enough to really be that much of a thinking movie either.
    9:57
    Yeah, I think that's pretty much how it went. And I think it tried to balance and it failed to balance. I think if it had gone into being even more dramatic and more thinking, it might have been better. But it still wasn't a bad little flick to watch. I also watched, or I should say I am currently watching as I'm a little over halfway through re-watching The Mummy.
    10:22
    And I always, that's still a fun movie with Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz. Oh, yes. Yes, that's one of my favorites. That's probably my favorite Brendan Fraser movie.
    10:35
    Yeah, it's, you know, I probably is my favorite Brendan Fraser movie, too. I mean, he's done he's done a fair number of movies that were fun, but this one was just like the it was just like the perfect note on everything. So I was pretty good with that. Other than that, I've read like six books in the last two weeks. And I picked up Transformers Devastation on Steam when it was on sale. and I beat it. And it was fun. I mean, it was nothing super special. It was a hack and slash, but I'm kind of a sucker for the old Generation 1 Transformers because those are what I remember from a kid. And it was a lot of fun to run around as Optimus Prime and hack people up and then transform into a truck and smash into them and throw them all over the place. I enjoyed it quite a lot.
    11:23
    All right. Well, we've both been keeping pretty busy. and so to continue with our busy streak let's transition to the main meat of our show and we'll start as we always do with pinball segment and we have a couple topics picked out for everyone today we want to talk about we just have we're going to have two discussions we're going to start out with the magnuslings which is a feature of the premium and limited edition models of the ghostbusters table there was some video that was put out on that recently and then the news that the big Lebowski has actually started to ship. So let's begin with the Magna slings. Tony, I believe you've seen the video. I definitely have seen the video. Oh yeah, I've seen the video. I've actually watched it three or four times now just to take a good look at what they've got up so far. So I guess I'd ask first, Tony, what did you think of the video of the slings? My own sense was when I saw it, I thought it looked cool. I know that magnets aren't anything special. They're not revolutionary in pinball. They've been used for a really long time in a lot of creative ways. But I think the concept of seeing them replace slings is a unique use of them. And given the theme involves ghosts, I think it makes a lot of sense to do it in the way that they're planning to do it. Yeah, I think it really ties into the theme. I mean, there's not a lot of themes out there where I think you could do something that tied in quite so well using what magnetic slings can give you. I know from reading on forums and stuff, there's a lot of people who hate the concept of them, and they are very unhappy with the looks of it. But I think they look like they could be a lot of fun. I think a lot of games have their, each game has its own little gimmick that are what really throw it at people and what people really remember. I think those magnetic slings are going to be the ones for Ghostbusters. I mean, it was, I played the pro and the pro was a lot of fun, but I think these magnetic slings are going to make things really interesting. Though I do understand why people could be upset when you're looking at the tournament and competition type play, because it'll throw another thing in there that you can't quite plan for as much. But watching the video and watching the ball, you know, bounce off the same sling three or four times, just reversing itself and then flipping to one side and then flipping to the other and then just kind of stopping and hovering there for a second and then shooting off another direction. I think it really works with the theme. It's going to be a lot of fun.
    13:57
    Yeah, I guess I'm not surprised that there was negative reaction on Pinside. If anyone ever spends any time reading Pinside, it seems like I think over half of the content is negative reaction to things. That's probably an exaggeration, but I've never really, compared to like video game forums that I participate in, I've never seen so much negativity in a hobby location. but uh and i get some of it but it was more than i had expected it to be uh i think some of it might relate to the to the early status of the magna slings in terms of how they're coded or whatever the test mode was so for example it was just someone with their hand was rolling the ball and the speeds were really low and only a few angles were tested and so i don't think we got a full flavor or feel of how those magnets are actually going to operate i agree with you that the tournament players seeing that are probably going to be perturbed. And part of it may be what the ball behavior specifically was. Part of it may be the fact that it seems like the magnets kick in when you haven't yet actually touched the sling. It's not like it's closing a little leaf switch against when the rubbers hit. So in a way, I could see it being explained that, well, with the magnet version, the magnet slings are actually like the slings are even bigger, because it's only when you're close to them that it starts to actually manipulate. And whereas on the pro model, the sling would never interfere with the ball until it actually touched the sling. So you actually have a bigger corruption zone where the ball could be manipulated and thrown around. But I think that it's a lot of this is just people dislike change. There's often a lot of talk on forums about a desire to see more innovation in pinball. but at least for a lot of people they may talk a good game but they don't really want innovation in my opinion i think they actually dislike change more than they want that sort of innovation they this is why we stick with that three inch flipper two sling layout you know why it was totally safe for uh multimorphic in the p3 model to build that in permanently because it's sort of set now in the psyche of the pinball player that that is right that that is normal but for you know i I think it's fine that there are going to be people disagreeing with this. That's not a problem. There's something called the pro model, and it solves all your issues. You can just, if you want traditional slings, get the pro model. If it makes you sad that the art's not the same, then too bad. But make your pick. But if that's going to be the issue of your sort of that hardcore tournament setting or that's what you want, then there's a model that's going to satisfy you and it's not going to be doing this experimentation. I don't think that the sales of the premium and LEs are going to suffer because this video came out showing this early code on the Magnus slings. I just don't think it's going to scare that many people off. And if it does, I think it just scares them down to the pro model. It's not like they all of a sudden become non-buyers. So I don't see any downside really to Stern doing this. And given that they're the big company and they're the ones that are criticized, I think, the most for not innovating, them doing something like this, especially since the table didn't take the step of incorporating LCD screens or anything, is pretty meaningful. So I'm glad that they showed it. I thought it looked neat. It may end up being terrible. I don't know. But my hat's off to them, at least, because it's different. Yeah, it definitely is. I think that when most people say they want innovation, they want innovation that doesn't change. It's just a slight tweak in modernization. So the change from incandescents to LEDs, the change from DMDs to LCDs, and stuff like that. They want small incremental changes. They're not looking for something radically new that's going to radically change the paradigm that they're used to. Well, sure. I mean, that's a good point. LCD screen and LED lights don't change the gameplay. But I mean, how much innovation is it really? It'd be like, oh, well, now, you know, we have a better clear coat. Well, that's great. I love the fact that my playfield is not going to get playfield wear. But that's not really when at least when I'm talking innovation, that's not the sounds like Star Wars. It's not the innovation you are looking for. no that's not that's really just uh modernization and iteration up of something that we already have it's not really that huge of a deal or that much of a change it's real innovation is going to be major major changes like what these magnet slings are going to bring and i mean this could be a failed test i mean there's been plenty of things that have been trialed in the past that haven't worked out and just disappear this could be one of them or this could be the start of something new it might be something we start seeing more of or we might be seeing some things like this maybe not at the final slings down at the bottom but set up you know on the sides of the cab halfway up or maybe up in mini playfields stuff like that that could really throw some play up these work out halfway decent it brings a whole new level and a whole new change that can be done so we will see We will see what people ultimately think. They'll vote with their wallets, but this theme is great, and I think it's going to resonate, and I think the premium models are still going to sell personally. But let's transition to our second pinball category, Big Lebowski. So there was news just a little while ago – I mean not earlier today, but a little while ago indicating there were some photos on Pinside is what caught my eye because I don't really follow. I don't track the Big Lebowski because it's not a pin that I've been interested in personally. But they were boxed up and all slick and tied down to their pallets and ready to be shipped out. And it did surprise me. I was expecting it to ship this year, but I didn't think it was going to be this soon. I actually – I don't know why I thought that it wasn't going to be sooner, actually. But I just – for some reason, I had it in my head that it would probably be in the second half of the year. So I was surprised that it was as early as it was. the news of note was that they were providing some shipping options in addition so the idea originally was that uh if you were a u.s purchaser and this this company as we know before is based in the netherlands the shipment would normally happen by sea and it'd be like i guess it's like 300 for the for the united and i don't recall that's embedded in the normal price for the sea shipment. I thought it was, but there was a catch to that. They're sending those over in batches. And so I guess the idea is you fill up the cargo container, which requires 40 games. And then when the cargo container is filled, then that ship comes to the US and then you have the shipment from the port to your home. So if you don't want to wait, they are giving another option where you can have it air shipped. And so if you want to avoid that weight, you can contact Dutch Pinball and they will arrange for it to be flown to the US and then delivered to your door But the condition is that an additional on top of the purchase price So you do have to pay extra Well 1 actually was the exact amount I saw but I rounding it up It about more So I guess, Tony, what'd you think about, I guess, the news in terms of Dutch Pinball shipping and probably the more interesting element that they're offering a shipping option for those that don't want to wait, but it's sort of this extravagant of an option, at least in terms of price. Well, I'm kind of like you. I don't really know why, but for some reason I was expecting a ship date in like July or August. I don't really know why I had that in my head. I don't know if it was from something I read or just kind of a feel, but that's just what I felt. So it surprised me to see them shipping already. And this might have been something that they've been talking about with people, and I just, like you, haven't really been following The Big Lebowski, because as much as I love The Big Lebowski, the movie, a $10,000 machine is so far outside of the realm of something I would be picking up that it's not even worth my time really. Cause I really don't think I'm going to see one at least until maybe next time I go to a big show somewhere, somebody might have one, but I don't think, I don't, haven't heard from anybody locally who's getting one. So I'm not expecting to see one now on the shipping. I know overseas shipping is expensive and I know air shipping is really expensive and I, but I don't know the prices. So I don't know, maybe $1,500 for a 300 or 350 pound ship is right in line. It could very well be. I just, man, putting $1,500 on top of the 10 grand you already put out for a machine that you've been waiting for, for who knows how long, seems a little insane to me instead of, you know, just waiting another three or four weeks.
    22:57
    But that's just one of those things. I mean, the real question I think is what is air shipping cost? What's normal for them? Yeah, and I've seen in terms of forum discussions, there have been people stressing, pointing out or claiming, take your pick, that air shipping actually runs a lot less. The highway pinball, I think, was an example listed where they do air shipping and their air shipping costs are much less than what this is. And so the speculation was, is this another way to try and do a price grab? Cash grab is Dutch inflating the price, going to pay the air freight and then pocket the rest. And this is just another way to help fund the development costs that are on the machine. Because the machine didn't start at $10,000 for the people who first got in. It's gone up a couple thousand since the beginning, which isn't atypical. We've seen that with other companies as well. Like you, I'm not aware of anyone in the area who's mentioned to me or provided an announcement that they are getting – I don't even know a home collector who's getting one. There very well could be, and they just haven't advertised that. But I don't think I'm going to be seeing it outside of a show either. In terms of the offering the airship, I think that's fine. I think it's fine at the price point they've presented. The only thing that really concerned me is the phrasing, or at least the phrasing that's come about from the forum discussions was, I'm wondering if people are going to be scared into buying the airshipping option. because you had just said the idea of waiting three to four weeks to get the shipment, to get the pin if you ordered it and let it go by sea. But with the statement about the container thing, that's where all the speculation is. Like, well, is the container only getting filled with pinball machines? Is it going to have to be 40? They're not going to stick anything else in the container because that's how Dutch is going to control their pricing. What happens if I'm number 41? How long is it going to be until the 80th US pin is ready to go by sea? So is it going to be four weeks or am I going to wait months before they actually fill the container? And so that is the element of it that I think was probably at least initially handled poorly because – and it may be to Dutch's advantage if they get to keep the excess amount to try and get people to ship by air. but that you know that sort of it came across to me like a scare tactic method to say oh well you know if you do it by c it's gonna you know i mean if your number if your number 40 great but if your number 41 sort of thing so i that's that that's the part that bothered me i can see that concern i think that's a pretty valid concern actually uh worrying about when it's going to come in but then again like you said i mean these are people who have been waiting for the machine for years at this point in some cases. So I don't know. If they've got the money to do it, it's everybody gets to do whatever they want. It just seems a little strange to me. And it does seem really weird that highway can ship for so much cheaper than this. But that also brings up the thought, is highway doing that kind of shipping at a loss? Or is since highway shipping from England, are their prices a little different? Is there something else going on? I don't know. There's so many different things, and I just haven't ever really looked at overseas shipping. Yeah, no, I don't. And that's why I don't want to jump on the – and instantly say, well, highway does it this way, so you should be able to do it this way. It's – I mean, different countries, highways have been shipping pens longer. They might have better deals with the airship company that they work with, and then maybe that company doesn't operate in another – there are a lot of variables. And I don't care enough about it to want to explore that, honestly. It's just, well, I mean, you know, I'm not going to lump it all where I've seen people be like, you've already spent $10,000. What's another $1,500? I hate that line of thinking because it assumes that every single person who got in on a $10,000 pin just had the $10,000 to easily throw around. And this might actually be a really big – someone might have decided not to get a new car instead of doing something like this. And yeah, it's a toy, and we can criticize it from that regard that you're spending big money on toys. But the bottom line is not everyone who buys pinball machines is rich. And so where it becomes a difference of $1,500 or $500, it does matter to some people. and so in that regard it's just i don't want to be flippant and think everyone who who bought the big lebowski is going to be able to consider the air shipping as a reasonable choice some of them are not that's just that's just too much out of the budget at this point so every time you say air shipping i just have this mental image of a zeppelin full of pinball machines floating over the ocean coming towards america it's kind of indiana jones when he's up there from last crusade and he's running around inside the Zeppelin. I get that image in my head, but instead of Nazis, the Zeppelin's full of pinball machines. Yeah, but they're checking them. They're getting over the – before they've just crossed over the port, you just hear no ticket, and they push them out. Just push them out. No ticket. Just push them out. That or – whenever I think of Zeppelins, I unfortunately always think of the Hindenburg. I just imagined it. The only way they could lift that many pinball machines was with hydrogen. Helium wasn't going to cut it. Oh, the humanity.
    28:31
    The dude goes down in flames. Tragic. And you know there'd be no refunds because it's pinball. Yeah, of course not. It wasn't our fault that the airship exploded. That's right. Stuff happens. The airshippers chose to go with hydrogen. We can't be held responsible.
    28:50
    All right. So enough about the Big Lebowski. Let's go ahead and move on to segment number two, which is video games. we actually have quite a bit of content this time to talk about let's go ahead and start with the actual games themselves i know there's sort of three that we we want to talk about and the first one i thought we should hit on which will be a bit awkward i admit for both of us because neither of us own a wii u but yes yes i i try so hard not not to say it like that but i chosen.
    29:22
    Neo, R-N. You know, there was a time I could do most of Steve Odekirk's voices. There was a time when we watched that movie like at least twice a week for months. It was. I do own it. I haven't watched it in a while but I think about it all the time. I see anything advertising the Wii U and that's why I say it the way I do is because this is what the chosen one would want. But Star Fox Zero actually is the topic rather than the console itself. But it is console exclusive to the Wii U. Star Fox Zero is out now. I know someone who's actually been playing it. But the reviews are really what I wanted to focus on because Star Fox is, in my mind, it's a flagship franchise for Nintendo. It's one of the – I mean, we don't say it in the same breath that we say Zelda and Mario. But Star Fox was a big icon. I think because it really introduced in a competent way the idea of sort of a flight sim combat style to console. It did. But at the same time, I think that worked really well with Star Fox and with the Star Fox 2. And I just don't know if it's been that big since then. All the other ones seem to be like they're searching for themselves. yeah i think you're right or and part of it is for for whatever reason and and to me it is it's somewhat surprising only because the control a control pad actually unlike an rts for example control pads lend themselves pretty well to flight but it seems that just sort of air combat broadly speaking doesn't have a really big footprint on the console side we're seeing we're seeing so We always see some of it. It's never gone away. I don't know if we're seeing more of it or not. There have been some more indie developers that are going this route now. It's gotten easier for small studios to be able to do this sort of stuff. And so I've been noticing a lot of non-major, like EA, back to air combat sort of, or Ace Combat was the example I wanted to name. But we're seeing some other things that are showing up. So there is that. Nintendo, I don't know what they've got on their radar outside of their first-party stuff, which is usually pretty well-hailed things that are locked in on their console. The thing that I thought was interesting about Star Fox Zero is the reviews are terrible, absolutely terrible. I read three separate ones, and they were all really bad. One of them said that – I think it was the Polygon non-review. They labeled it a non-review because the reviewer said that they only issue reviews except in rare instances once the gamer who's doing the review completes the game, and they couldn't bring themselves to finish it. Wow, that's pretty bad. Yeah. And most of the complaints center on that the control scheme is gimmicky and that it's actually relying on the tilt-based features of the gamepad that's overly complex to play and that it's trying to exploit so many of the features of the Wii U that it feels like a launch title, trying to use everything that the Wii U had to offer. There are certain points where the only audio comes from the gamepad, which has a speaker in it. So you actually have to listen to the gamepad. You have to play on the gamepad. You can't just turn up your TV. I just, you know, I mean, we're not going to be playing this because we don't own this console. I'm not planning on getting a Wii U. But I just thought I should note, unfortunately, for those people who are big fans of the franchise or perhaps remember fondly the Star Fox of their youth, that this game is not sounding really good. And I don't know if it's easy to rent games anymore, but I just, you know, I guess caution, danger, Will Robinson, danger. You want to be careful here because surprisingly, especially given this is really late in the life cycle. Yeah, it's pretty much end life cycle of the Wii U from the sounds of things. I mean, we've been talking about the NX for months now. I mean, there's a lot of thoughts that the next Nintendo console might be coming out at the end of the year or just after. Yeah, there's a lot of speculation that that's the case. And so that this would be a late-life console game with these style of complaints in the reviews amazes me, especially since it should have been a franchise that Nintendo cared about. but I mean I guess it is what it is but I don't know if you Tony did you have any additional thoughts on this information coming out of Star Fox Zero well yeah it seems like the Nintendo really has just kind of become the gimmick company I mean starting especially starting with the Wii and now the Wii U everything about their consoles seems to be designed around the gimmick and it seems like the best games are the ones that get around the gimmick and are still good games.
    34:25
    Like Splatoon. Splatoon is probably the biggest non-Legend of Zelda game, non-Mario game to hit the Wii U, period. And from everything I've heard and everyone I've talked to who's played it, they all love it as long as they shut off the parts of the game that required the gamepad gimmick. And when they're not using the gamepad gimmick, The rest of the game is a really good game and they really enjoy it. So, I mean, that seems to be the biggest thing. And I just wonder what it is or what Nintendo is going for that's turning them into this kind of gimmick company. They're not pushing for the big out-of-the-park graphics and the insanity like PlayStation and Xbox is. They are going their own way, which Nintendo has always done. And Nintendo has always had a certain feel and Nintendo's games feel a certain way and they've got a certain aesthetic. But the addition of all the gimmicks I don't think is really helping them at all. No, I think the Wii itself was a very successful console. It got a lot of purchases, but I don't think it lasted in the sense that people didn't continue to game on it. Whereas if you were to go back last gen to PS3 or Xbox 360, a lot of people still play those. and there was often the joking from the i i'm somewhat loathe to say hardcore gamer but that's what i'll have to use the hardcore gamer talking about how they owned a wii they all owned a wii but it was just sitting there collecting dust they never played it and except when a really cool first party franchise title would come out from nintendo so yeah we'll have to i'm sure we'll cover it when the news finally breaks about the nintendo's next console we can talk about it then But I'm really curious to see what they end up moving towards. Yeah, I am too. I know there's been some speculation from like patents and some other leaks here and there that it looks like they're going to do another view screen in controller gimmick thing. But nothing's set in stone and nobody seems to really know anything. So we're just going to have to see. All right. Well, let's move on to something that's a little more broadly accessible across a whole slew of platforms. And that is Pinball FX 2. And since it's virtual pinball, we are putting it in the video game section. Even though we have a pinball section, I've often wondered how I would handle it when we reach those crossroads. Because obviously it sort of satisfies the interest of both our categories. But here is where this sort of stuff will live. And pinball people who like to listen to the whole show can enjoy getting a double dose. I think the only time that we might shift this type of pinball into the actual pinball category is maybe if we're just talking strictly about virtual cabs.
    37:11
    That's true. I've wondered about that. That would make sense, but for just something like this, I mean, I like Pinball FX. I own like four or five tables on Pinball FX on my tablet and my phone. That's where I play the vast majority of my Pinball FX is tablet.
    37:32
    I own most of my tables on the Xbox infrastructure. I guess I probably have the most on the Xbox One. I have quite a few on the 360. I also have a few on PC as well. I think less than 10 on PC. So I've got it on a few places. But the news related to Pinball FX 2 has been around for quite a few years at this point. But they've released some new DLC, or they are releasing some new DLC.
    37:59
    Alien, the xenomorphs of our childhood and beyond, because they continue to try and do new movies. even if they're just quasi-related like Prometheus. But so there's going to be some Alien DLC. It's set to be unleashed just in a couple days from now. It's supposed to hit on April 26th, which is Fox's promotional Alien Day that they sort of started as of this year. And it consists of three tables.
    38:28
    And so I guess in terms of, I've seen footage on two of them. I hadn't seen any footage yet on the Alien versus Predator table. So I don't know if it's based on that horrible movie. Not as bad as Alien vs. Predator 2 movie, mind you, but it's still pretty bad for an alien movie. I remember back when we were in high school, there was a series of Aliens vs. Predator books that came out. They were like that real cheap, kind of like the Doom books that came out back then. They're really, really aimed at teenagers and this and that. They're just all the big gun, heavy gun, marine sci-fi type stuff. But I remember reading them, and those were actually halfway interesting. And I think any one of those stories was ten times better than either of those movies. Those movies were so bad. Yeah. I do not consider the Alien vs. Predator movies to be a part of the Alien franchise. I don't.
    39:29
    I mean, they weren't in the quadrology. I think there was a good reason for that. I think Alien vs. Predator is watchable. I think it's a lot more enjoyable than the second one was, which was a total mess in my mind. But even the worst of the regular Alien movies, Alien 3, I think is a far superior film to Alien vs. Predator. Wow. I say it a lot. There are some really strong elements of Alien 3. I think Alien 3 gets knocked a lot. It had a lot of studio interference. But since we're not a movie podcast, I won't delve into it too much. But it has some really, really good moments in it. But overall, I do think it is the weakest of the four real movies.
    40:13
    So there's going to be a table based on something involving aliens and predators. I don't know anything else about it yet.
    40:18
    The other table, our second table, is based on the video game Alien Isolation. Tony, I don't know if you were familiar with Alien Isolation or not. I've played part of it. It's a stealth game that came out in 2014. Yeah, I've seen, I watched somebody who I can't remember do a review on it on YouTube, but I've never played it. I've just seen that review and I've seen some video clips of it. I think, just in quick summary of Alien Isolation, I don't know if I would recommend it necessarily in terms of, it did succeed in scaring me. I actually did jump in my chair several times if I turn the lights out and have to try and avoid the alien. It's a total stealth game or that's how it's supposed to be played at least. but it's also really repetitive. And I've been playing it off and on, mostly off. And I've been playing it on hard. And so it doesn't take a lot for the alien to find you, and I'm pretty helpless against them. But anyway, so it's based off the game. The game was very successful in terms of sales. So I'm not surprised that they ran with that one. And then the third table, which was the first one I saw footage for, was they have got one that is based on the movie Aliens. So we're talking the table. I mean, from the footage of it, I thought that one in particular looked great because it really evoked the movie really well. You've got Sigourney Weaver standing up on one of the sides up in the playfield using the flamethrower. You've got the alien queen over in the back. And there even is at least certain points where down near the flippers, those sentry guns from the cool hallway scene that's at least in the director's cut. The cool hallway scene where it's, you know, B guns down to 50 percent. And he's right behind, and they're shooting all the aliens trying to come down the hallway. I love that scene. That's a great scene. It's got those guns. It's got those guns, at least just doing visual stuff, which is what Zen likes to do with pinball effects. You've got things that happen that can't really happen in physical pinball. Yeah, like in one of the – I've got the Star Wars starfighter pin, and it's got the turbolaser batteries that shoot as X-wings or TIE fighters fly over the table. They're the pop bumpers, so every time the ball hits it, it shoots. It just a really cool little thing you can do in video games that you couldn on a physical table so anyway uh i so i seen the footage on those latter two and i guess especially given there's the one based on aliens uh we should probably throw throw in relating back to uh back to our normal pinball segment that there is a physical alien pinball that's being made by highway which made full throttle i know we've talked about it before but i guess um i mean do you have any thoughts uh the only thing we could really compare is the art but yeah but i i think it's interesting that there are four pinball games based around aliens coming out and i mean three virtual and one real but aliens is apparently suddenly getting a big resurgence and i know prometheus didn't do that great and i know they're still talking about the sequel to prometheus so i'm just kind of curious what's really pushing this giant resurgence of alien stuff lately. I mean, it just seems a little maybe I've missed something, maybe there's something coming out that I don't know about, but it just seems like there's been just a sudden resurgence.
    43:35
    I don't, part of it may just be Fox. I mean, in terms of choosing to do an April 26th promotional day, modeled I think pretty clearly on Back to the Future Day was. Yeah, but why April 26th? 426th uh because uh lv 426 was the planet oh i mean that that's that's it that makes sense that's the it's not very good but that makes sense no it's not i think that's the closest tie-in you could come yeah i mean i suppose that's no may the fourth be with you that's no but yeah okay everything is a clone of the may the fourth be with you but unfortunately most of these movies are not going to resonate that well with it was something that convenient of a you know style sort of you know alliterations or plays on on on common phrases so yeah i'll sit down any day and watch aliens i was so happy we got to get last year go see aliens again in a big screen theater that was nice i love that movie but yeah it was just kind of weird that hey look there's a bunch of alien stuff all of a sudden oh yeah well i think for you know as a as an aside part of the thing with the alien day is on that day alamo draft house is showing aliens and i think people are getting t-shirts and stuff when you go i thought about mentioning it but but given that it's going to fall on a on a tuesday i didn't know we'd be able to swing it so this is like because alamo draft house is because that's where we went to see aliens no no we went to prairie fire to see aliens oh that's right what did we see in alamo draft house was where we went to see the ava movies that's right they had that really really really good brown sugar lemonade now yeah I didn't have that. I had a sandwich. It was okay, but I could have made better.
    45:21
    So, okay. So, yeah, just in terms of – yeah, it's really interesting that there's all that stuff coming out. Personally, I thought the Aliens DL's Zen table looks really good. I haven't seen a fully populated Highway Alien pinball yet, so I don't think it's fair to judge it yet. It's just the thing is, you know, when there was the discussion and when we touched on it a few episodes ago was the issue about there's no cast, at least on the play field art, there's no cast on Highway's version. And Pinball FX has Sigourney. It has cast. And so I'm hoping that in the video, in the call outs and stuff, that they're able to do stuff from the movies because Highway is supposed to be modeled off the first two movies. And I want it to feel like the movies. Aliens pinball table from Xen looks and feels to me like the movie. It's too bad that that's the only one that was based off the movies. I wish maybe instead of Alien Isolation, I would have rather than have done one based off of Alien the movie. But, you know, they do what they need to do. I understand that. Like I said, I watched the same videos you did. They looked pretty cool. When the APC pulled up and the ball dropped out of the APC, I thought that was kind of a cool thing. You're just grinding metal. so yeah no it's a i'll look for i'll probably pick them up at some point i will i will too i usually for uh pinball fx i usually wait for a pack sale so you know i probably i won't be getting it in two days i'll be waiting but but i most of my tables i get on sales so let's go ahead and go to our our third and final game that we want to talk about with the video game section that's Battlefleet Gothic Armada, which I am at all not familiar with. Well, Battlefleet Gothic Armada is an RTS adaptation of an old Games Workshop tabletop game. It's a naval combat-focused game set in the Gothic sector of Warhammer 40K. And while I'm not a big fan of Warhammer 40K, the tabletop game, mainly because I'm not a fan of Games Workshop's way they've handled it, And I'm not a big fan of the army sizes and stuff. I love the lore of Warhammer 40K. I mean, I've played all of the Warhammer 40K video games that have come out, and I've enjoyed them all. And when this one came out that is basically just naval combat, I was all over it. I preordered. Now, speaking of preorders, they're doing an interesting thing. They're not calling it a preorder bonus. It is an early adopter bonus. anybody who purchases the game within two months of the game's release will get all the early adopter rewards which are include two extra fleets that will be released at a later time but they've already announced one of them it's the space marines fleet and the other one is unannounced at this time and i kind of like that so you don't have to pre-order to get special things, but you can, or, but you can pick it up later. Uh, it's like, like a lot of tabletop games, a lot of video games, really the deal with this kind of space combat. It's, uh, even though space is 3d, everything's done in a 2d situation, but it's a lot of fun. I mean, it's roaring around slaughtering Xenos for the emperor, burning the heretics, killing chaos, killing orcs, almost entirely broadside combat or dead ahead combat.
    48:50
    And I've been having a surprisingly large amount of fun with it. It's a little harder than I expected. I mean, it's not like, oh, this game's impossible hard, but it's definitely a little harder than I expected. But I know we talked an episode or two ago about how a lot of games don't have, they've got very linear progression, and when you screw up a mission, you just start over. Not in this game. When you screw up a mission, they basically go, oh, well, that's really bad, and we could be screwed. And then you keep playing, going through there, living with whatever problem you have. I mean, I've lost several missions. I'm not really in a good place. I think I'm going to end up losing this first playthrough I've had of it. But it also does this really fun thing where the first time you see each of the races, it has an introduction. So you start up the game and there's an introduction to the Imperial fleet. And then the first time, and then you fight chaos and there's an introduction to chaos. And then the first time you see the orcs, there's an introduction video to court, to the orcs and all the races are very well.
    49:56
    Versions like you would expect from the lore of themselves. And it's pretty enjoyable. I highly recommend watching the work video, at least just because it's fun. and they all play differently they all play very differently but i i've been having a lot of fun with it it is a surprisingly well put together game considering i hadn't even known it was being put together until like three weeks ago well i have i have played an rts on the warhammer 40k universe before i i do have a warhammer 40k's donna war 2 but that was a ground combat focus And I didn't do much multiplayer, and the single-player campaign was only from the Space Marine perspective. That's all I really remember. Yeah, and here I think the single-player is all from the Imperial perspective, and I haven't gone and done any multiplayer yet. But there's also the normal. You can do skirmishes and this and that where you get to choose the other races. And I've talked to some people who've played them, and they really like playing the Orcs or the Eldar or the Chaos. So I'm looking forward to playing as Orcs, but I'm an Imperial man at heart.
    51:09
    So it's been a lot of fun. I'm definitely looking forward to putting some more hours into it, even though I'm definitely getting the crud beat out of me this round. Well, sometimes they're rough. Those RTSs can be really steep sometimes to get through. Interesting that they're doing what I think of the Wing Commander tree approach, where if you lose, oh well, you've got to keep going and dealing with that. Yeah, I like that. I like that a lot too. I think it definitely gives you a better feel because there's chances to bring it back, and at least I'm hoping there's chances to bring it back, but sometimes you lose enough and you're just going to keep fighting your way to the end. Now this is interesting. We've talked about the Games Workshop is definitely, this is far, far, far from the only one of their titles that they've converted into a video game project in the last four or five years. And I know there's a couple more still in production.
    52:06
    And some of them have been really good. Some of them have been okay. I know the Ultramarine game, the Space Marine game, was on Xbox. I had that on Xbox 360.
    52:20
    And it was fun but nothing great. And they've had a bunch of other ones lately, set in both the Warhammer 40k and the Warhammer Fantasy worlds. And I think it's interesting to see just how well, considering other issues that Games Workshop has had in the past, they are converting to the modern digital media. They are doing a good job of stepping out of the tabletop realm into the video game realm, I think.
    52:48
    Well, that's... And I kind of like the idea of IPs like that expanding across multiple sort of gaming divisions, gaming concepts, because I think it helps sort of tie everything together and win over new fans, which is useful. So in a way, it's basically – it's like they're upgrading. And speaking of upgrading, let's go ahead and transition. I'm so proud of my transition I just built in there. That was a wonderful transition. Thank you. Well, I am a highly paid professional. and so uh our final video game topic is actually about the news that there is going to be an upgraded playstation 4 operating as codename neo is it the one i guess we will we'll find out though they really probably shouldn't have called it the neo because while i love the matrix humor i can get off calling something the one given that there is the xbox one it is just confusing to say that so i'm sure that codename will change but uh just some highlights real quick the playstation 4 neo will be upgrading the system on several fronts. The CPU is going to be faster. It's going to go from 1.6 gigahertz to 2.1. There's going to be an improved GPU. It's going to go from 18 CUs to 36. And it's going to go from 800 megahertz to 911 megahertz. And it's still staying with 8 gigs of RAM, but it's going to be faster. It's going to be from 176 to 218 gigabytes a second. So essentially it is the PlayStation 4, but it's going to have slightly improved specs in the hardware.
    54:21
    I read the developer outline or a summary of the developer outline that Sony has released, and it does stress that they do not want to split the user base. So there are all sorts of caveats for game developers in terms of what they are allowed to do. And in a nutshell, it's that all the games that they continue to develop have to be fully playable on the PlayStation 4, I guess, vanilla version. But you can do upgrades if you want, like the ability to output to 4K, which my sense is that's the main purpose to this. But also if you want things – it's okay for things to load faster and stuff. It's just everything that – every game element has to still work. Well, that makes sense when you look at it from an outsider's perspective. I mean, that's the only way because if they split the base completely, it's going to destroy them. It'll be a complete failure. Trying to keep everybody locked in is their only way to keep the player bases united and keeping them able to, oh, I've got a Neo and I've got a Vanilla, so we can't ever play our games together. It would just hurt them in the long run. I mean, it's got to be their primary goal. Right, right. And I think it sounds like they're approaching it from an intelligent manner. I mean, Sony, in terms of the consoles, Sony is in the best position, I think, to do this because they've got the largest install base on the current gen. So they've – I mean, in a way, you could say, well, they've got everything to lose if they screw it up. But as long as they – I think if worst comes to worst, they don't get the sales on the Neo and they just drop it. But there are risks. So in terms of even with these instructions they've given developers, for me it raises some questions. Like, are early adopters, people who got the PlayStation 4 early, are they going to be mad that they paid so much and that's already getting displaced? Because in console life cycles, this is fast. And the rumor is that the Neo is going to be at $400. bucks so you know what what about the vanilla the old ps4 versus the neo is the old one going down in price and if i mean are they just going to clear out the old stock or are they keeping both in production i'm not clear on that i guess is what's going to end up happening here is about halfway through the life cycles of consoles they typically come out with the smaller version that they drop at a lower price you know like the the the slim or the uh whatever whatever they called the smaller PS3 and the this and that. I don't remember the names. And I think what's going to end up happening is that they're going to come out with that for the PS4 vanilla. It'll be a smaller version. It'll be a different footprint type thing. And then the Neo will, and it'll be at a lower price threshold. And the Neo is going to drop at probably the $400 price threshold and say, here, we're still, you can play that on the base. The base, the vanilla is the perfect machine. you can play all the same games and we can play it. It's just, it's going to look just a little bit better and it's going to cost you a little bit more to get into it. I think that's kind of what they're aiming for, but it's the only thing I can make sense of. Well, I'm, I'm also not, I, the other thing on it is, I don't know how the developers are going to feel about coding a console game to take advantage of both hardware specs. Cause that's what the instructions are. And I don't know how many are going to bother. And you know, if it's just going to be Sony first party stuff, I, you know, again, And that's more of a business thing in terms of it's going to sell for them or not. Just the main thing, I think the big question and why everyone's sort of concerned is, well, this sort of stuff, like if you're a PC gamer, upgrading the PC kind of comes with it. But everyone knows that. And people will upgrade their phones all the time. It comes with the territory. Upgrading consoles is a new concept. And part of the reason why consoles have always sort of done so well is you don't have to think. You buy the console and the games will work with the console. You don't worry about upgrading the specs. So that's the risk, obviously, is whether or not the market will be willing to embrace that. It sort of begs some questions like, what happens if the Neo 2 comes out in two more years? Are people going to be cool with that, with an upgrade from the upgrade? And is that their plan? I don't know. It's very different from console marketing's historic roots. But there have been rumors that Microsoft is looking at doing something akin to this as well. So it's apparently the direction that companies are wanting to consider, and I think Sony's probably the safest one to try and do it first. So I guess we'll find out. Yeah, I wonder how much of this is because of phones. Like you said, I mean, everybody has their iPhone, whatever number iPhone we're at right now, and then a year after it drops, they come out with the S version. And then a year after that drops, they come out with the next iteration of iPhone. And I could see that maybe what they're doing is moving along those lines that, okay, the PlayStation 4 is out two and a half to three and a half years after it drops. Here comes the PlayStation 4 Neo. And then two and a half to three and a half years after that drop comes the PlayStation 5, which will let them kick out the player base lock-in for trying to keep the Neo and the base together. and then maybe a couple or three years after that you get the the playstation 5 2 electric boogaloo and then a couple years after that you get playstation 6 so i mean it's just a i wonder if that's the type of thing they're looking at as a long range plan so they can keep the price points at 400 or whatever the price of the initial release price points are by giving them a lower example that they can drop the price while still having a higher example so they can try and keep the higher price ones on the market without people going nuts by saying you know well this game is this console's been out for four years why should i still be paying four hundred dollars for a console that's been out for four years going into tabletop we see an announcement just uh last week that was a surprise for a lot of people myself included uh privateer press the makers of war War Machine and Hordes, which we talked about in our last podcast when we were talking about tabletop minigames, has announced that they are releasing the Mark III version of the game.
    60:42
    I started playing right as Mark II dropped, so that was 2010 is when I started playing War Machine. Wow, that's quite a while then. Yeah. I mean, in terms of, they don't pump out an update a year or anything. No, no, no, no. it's been six years coming since the last update dropped. And that varies from tabletop manufacturer to tabletop manufacturer. Some of them pump out an update every year or every two years. But Privateer Press, it's one of the things I really like about them, besides just the fact that my army is steampunk czarist Russia, that I like about them is how they keep things. And while they do errata and stuff, they don't punch out something, some giant new edition that you have to get or else you can't play every year. But they did announce that the Mark III will be dropping on June 29th. And it's going to be debuted at the Lock and Load Game Fest in Washington on June 10th. Now, Lock and Load is Privateer Press's private convention where they do major tournaments for all of their games, and they do show off all of their games. I mean, it is basically like having a giant EA Fest or Stern having a convention that's just Stern. It's kind of like that. Is it open to the public? It is open to the public. Yeah, it's open to the public. They have big public tournaments people can join in. And it's a lot like any other convention. It's just instead of being a giant everything games convention, it is literally just a privateer press convention. I've never attended. I've got friends who have.
    62:27
    I've never been able to get away to get to Washington for that kind of time. And I'm frankly not a good enough War Machine player to do anything other than get slaughtered in tournaments anyway. but with six years of refinements going into the game and from reading the uh information that they've put out it looks like they're making some pretty hefty changes that's going to keep the game fun and it's going to balance some overall differences in the game because the game is uh there's two games it's war machine and hordes that are set in the same world they're just slightly different War Machine deals with more nationalist type things like I said I play Kador who's basically steampunk czarist Russia with a slathering of World War II Soviet aesthetic for the equipment and there's Mininov which is basically the Vatican with lots of flamethrowers and Signar which is you know some terribly horrible swans that are very blue and like democracy and all that stuff But the Hordes stuff is more tribal It more trolls and feral peoples and Dragonkin stuff But the games, you can play them together, and you can play against each other, but because they each play a little differently because War Machine is a lot of advanced machinery, and then in Hordes, your version of the Warcasters, instead of having robots that they're commanding they have giant creatures like giant beasts that they're commanding so they play against each other a little different and there's always been a slight imbalance very early in the games the horde units are much stronger in the early game and come end game the war machine units tend to have an advance so I mean that was kind of balanced but if the horde player could overrun the war machine player in the first few three or four turns they could take the game pretty easily and if the war machine player can hold out then the game gets long in the tooth and it gets a lot harder and they get an advantage this is going to balance out how those two play against each other with some rules changes and I kind of like that and the nice thing that is very different from a lot of other tabletop games is the way uh warmahords does their equipments and their troops is every group of troops every war jack every war beast has a card that you put on the that you put on the table in front of you that has all of your important stats your spells and other information about the cards so you can track damage and this and that and when they come out with a new edition, they release a card pack that has new cards for every single unit in a faction. So you just have to buy that faction pack and you're ready to play. And you need that faction pack and the new rulebook that has the changes in the rules. So for those two little purchases, you're completely ready to play. Where some other games change things to the point where your whole army might have it. You might have to get all new units. Your whole army might have to be replaced. Or in some cases, like I know a games workshop was real bad at times about they'd kick out a new edition, and it might be a year and a half before your army was playable because there were no rules for your army in the new edition. And that's not how this is going out. Yeah, I noticed that they had indicated in their announcement for the Mark III that they had three years of active development. So that obviously indicates that they've had a significant, serious effort to get it right and not just – it's not just a cash-in. It's not just we'll patch it and we'll put it in. We go back to pinball. We'll roll out the code after we roll out the machines sort of scenario. And it makes sense for them here because as narrow as I can tell, I was only familiar with War Machine. But from everything that I've read, War Machine and Hordes are the flagship products for privateer press. They are. They are privateer presses. Most of privateer presses' other games are side games and stuff based in that universe. They've got an RPG out there that is your standard pen and paper, roll-the-dice RPG that's set in the War Machine and Horns world. And they've got some board games, and they've got a deck-building game that's set in the War Machine and Horns universe. And they've got some other games that aren't set in that universe, but it is the core, that universe is the core of their gameplay. And they do have a video game that was kick-started and created two years ago or so, and they haven't gone the Games Workshop route of turning it into a huge franchise-like thing. That game is basically just the tabletop game directly translated over into a video game format with better graphics and a campaign tacked on. It's not horrible. It's nothing great, but it's not a terrible conversion. I've seen a lot worse stuff done. But one of their big things they have done, which is, again, something Games Workshop did with the Warhammer stuff, is they've started putting out a novel line with a lot of novels telling other lore and back-telling the stories in the universe. all right well it sounds like that feeds in really well into the that cycle of developing the product through other other means besides the main game and i think it works really well for rpg stuff anyway because there's always been this tendency to want to gather more and more background more and more lore be rpgs of all varieties tabletop video games all that it's often a core centerpiece that a lot of fans of the genre really embrace and i like this idea of this big rollout, this private convention event that they're doing. So let's see. It's June 29th that this is all being officially unveiled? Yeah, everything will be unveiled at Lock and Load on the 10th, but you should be able to pick it up in your FLGS, your Friendly Local Game Shop,
    68:59
    starting on the 29th is when the actual international release is going to hit. All right. So let's move on to the next game, a card game. There's a Dresden Files cooperative card game that showed up on Kickstarter, and I have no familiarity with the Dresden Files other than I've heard the phrase Dresden Files. So, Tony, what are the Dresden Files, and why should we care about this card game? Well, the Dresden Files are a series of books by Jim Butcher, and they are very much a core part of what I would consider in novels lately. There's been a big urban fantasy push, and the Dresden Files are that. They follow Harry Dresden, a wizard who is actively working as a private investigator in Chicago, and he's in the phone book as a wizard. He's not hiding at all. You're a wizard, Harry. That's exactly. He's a wizard, Harry. now the interesting thing is how the books uh the books pretty much take uh all your fantasy your standard fantasy tropes pretty much whole cloth and lift them and drop them into a modern day setting like elves exist they live in another basically a dimension shift and all the things you would dragons are real vampires are real werewolves are real they're all real they're just in hiding because there's so many humans and most humans just don't, when they see something magical, they just like ignore it or they put it, oh, I got hit in the head. That couldn't have actually happened type stuff. So they kind of live in a blind spot. And that's what the books are. And there's a lot of the books. I think there's 15 or 16 of them out so far. And I enjoy the series quite a lot. I've read the entire series all the way through at least three times now. And there's another, I think there's going to be like 23 books is what is planned. So they're still in the midst of releasing. Now, this is a co-op card game. And I like co-op games. And the way this game is set is it is based around the books. so you play each of your primary goals is based around a book. So like the very first book is called Stormfront. So you can play the Stormfront scenario, which has somebody playing as Harry Dresden and the other people who are playing the co-op playing as Harry's allies. And the thing is, is the way it's set up is the game is designed so you can play as Harry's allies, even the allies that weren't there and didn't actually take part in the book. So everything will be a little different and change how you play it. Now, I haven't seen an actual play of the game. I've watched the rules video, and I've watched the Kickstarter videos, and there was a video that Board Game Geeks put out just today, actually. I think I saw it on the Twitter feed, talking about the game. But it is an interesting co-op type thing where you work together, but you're not 100% working together. so I'll be kind of interested to see how it does it passed if I remember right it blew through its funding goal almost instantly which isn't surprising because of the Dresden Files name tacked onto it it's a very popular series yeah it's something that I mean I do like the co-op card game so it's something I would be willing to try even though I don't have any familiarity or high interest in the theme in and of itself In terms of their Kickstarter, didn't they do something kind of unique in terms of the, I guess, the backer? They use backer kit, right? Well, yeah, that's not unique. Lots of people use backer kit. But what's kind of weird about it, and I don't know, maybe this is a thing that a lot of companies have been doing lately, but none I haven't seen it, is when you back the project, the shipping isn't included. Normally, the shipping is included when you choose your backing tier. at least everything I've ever backed the shipping was included when you did your backing tier unless you made changes afterwards and in this case it's not so the pledge to get the game is $39 but that doesn't include the shipping so to actually get the game shipped after the Kickstarter is over you have to pay an additional $10 in the backer kit and backer kit is just a it's a back end for handling post kickstarter successes so they can keep in contact and you can they can add stuff and you can buy it like if you got in but you didn't you decided afterwards that you wanted to buy an extra set of dice you can buy an extra set of dice in backer kit and this and that but i don't know they've got a section it's different enough that they have a section inside their main explanation of the game completely explaining the shipping process.
    74:13
    And they explain it pretty well, and I can kind of see how it goes because they want to have everybody backing just putting money in that has no purpose other than to fund the game. They don't want to be spending.
    74:30
    They don't want to have to pull some of the funding for the game money out to pay for shipping. So they're making you pay the shipping on the back end, which is, I don't know. I'm not as keen on it. I think it's kind of like they're trying to hide it, but they're not. They're not trying to hide it. I mean, it's flat out right there when you read it, and when you go to back it, it's in big, bold letter type things saying that it's not saying it so you know about it. So it's not actually being hidden. It just feels hinky to me. I don't know why, if they know the shipping is going to be $10 in the U.S., why they didn't just make that backer level $49.
    75:12
    Yeah, it's hard to say. There's no legitimate accounting reason why that should have been difficult. Now, if no one really involved with it feels very comfortable with accounting, perhaps they're not familiar with setting up designated funds and thinking that it – but it doesn't really make sense to me. it would have been real easy to project a shipping cost attack on on top of what the total Kickstarter amount they needed was by just assuming how many people at that particular level would be necessary. And, you know, you would just track those funds separate as they'd come in. You'd always just shave that $10 and put it in that designated fund. So I don't know why they did it that way. As open as they are, yeah, it does seem a little odd that they, unless they think people don't read the fine print, I don't want to ascribe nefarious purposes behind them. I'm not actually familiar with this company, Evil Hat Productions. I don't know if I've played any of their RPGs. I haven't played anything by him before. I know the main game designer, whose name is slipping by my head right now.
    76:14
    I have. I've heard of him before. He's not out of nowhere for me. But I've never played any of the games he's designed. I've never played anything by Evil Hat. But I know it looks. I know I've got several friends who have followed that Kickstarter already, and I haven't put money at it. I've got it on a watch list. I'm considering it, but I just – I don't know.
    76:43
    I like the dressing files. I like co-op games. I just – I haven't pulled the trigger yet. Well, and I understand. And since they've met their goal, it's going to happen. And so if you do ever get interested, you could always buy it after the fact. Right. Yeah. Or, I mean, they've got 20-some-odd days left, so I still have plenty of time to back it. I've got it on a Remind Me.
    77:08
    Now, you identified another interesting card game under Kickstarter called Noisy Person Cards. Yes. Now, this, I want to give a big shout-out. I learned about this card game from another podcast, Fear the Boot. I have one of the key designers of this card game on it. and as soon as he described the game, I fell in love with this game. It is basically designed to help people work on doing voices for RPGs, so people who play D&D or Dark Heresy or whatever. I cast Magic Missile. Exactly, so they can work on their voices while they're doing it. Now, I watched their video of the Kickstarter, and it has not, last time I checked, been funded yet, but it's getting there pretty quickly. I really like the looks of this game. It basically plays like Cards Against Humanity, where, except for in this case, the judge sets down a card that's, you know, like a kobold or a paladin or a succubus or a dragon or something, and everybody else has to choose from the cards in their hand that are lines of dialogue, sometimes very cheesy lines of dialogue, which one they like, and then they read it in the voice of whatever is down, like the kobold or the dragon or the succubus or the paladin or whatever. But to make things harder, people can discard cards from their hand because the cards on the opposite side of where the line is have an emotion. So somebody can discard it and change, so they have to do it. So it's a sad kobold that's having to read a line, or it's an angry dragon or a drunk paladin or whatever.
    79:15
    And it seems like a lot of fun, especially if you like doing weird voices and being kind of crazy and insane.
    79:23
    Well, this sounds awesome, and I want to play it right now. And let me tell you why. Let me tell you why. All right. I like Cards Against Humanity, okay? And that's a great game, and I'm glad that this isn't doing the same thing in terms of the sheer shock value of Cards Against Humanity, because you don't mess with the master, and that's what that is. now but when it comes to voicing i talk in stupid voices all the time that is how i mean it is i don't want to say that i'm the emperor but uh but you know my kung fu is strong and so this is right up my alley i want to have a real reason besides me just being a dork to talk in stupid voices and it would be an incredible party game because it combines everything. I mean, with drinking, without drinking, it doesn't matter. It's that sort of stupid in that regard. It's the same, you know, as you compared it to Cards Against Humanity, I think that's an excellent example because it's doing that twist on something and you're just trying to see how, instead of how twisted your mind works, it's how twisted your voice is. And I just think that it would be awesome and we must have it. Yeah, this one I'm going to back. I'm waiting for payday, but this one's definitely getting a backing from me. Now, the thing is, if you want to play this, we can play this pretty easily because in addition to running the Kickstarter, they want people to play this game before they back the Kickstarter if they want to get a feel for it. So they have a print and play option. You just follow the print and play link, and it will give you a PDF, and you just print it out and cut it up, and there you go. You have everything you need to play the game right there in just the print and play. And we'll, of course, both of these Kickstarters, we'll put links up on the Facebook page and here and there so our listeners can find them easily without having to try and search them down. But it's definitely something that it tickled my fancy when I heard about it. I was pretty excited. yeah no i'm really glad you pointed this one out to talk about because yes yes it is oh that was the one i was going to do now i have to do the gandalf and he found that it was precious to me unfortunately it doesn't make any sense because that's the scene where he's reading in the library trying to figure out what had happened to the ring and i don't remember that was only in the director's cut but that i know it is what matters but yeah with all our Kung Pao and everything. Oh, there's so much potential. So much potential. So, you know, we've covered quite a number of items here in tabletop, and so I guess that's probably good because it's almost International Tabletop Day. That's right, it is. April 30th is International Tabletop Day. I've shared already on the Facebook a link so you can find any local places that are having big events on International Tabletop Day. uh international tabletop day is something that is i first heard about watching uh tabletop on the geek and sundry uh network on on youtube and all of that and i know there's a lot of communities that have very big that have big events i know locally there's two events going on locally on that day uh one of which i've attended the last several years and i'm talking and they're running all day. I know the one I attended last year, they started at 9 a.m., and they were still playing at like 2 in the morning. And it was just various games. They had over 80 people show up over the course of the day, and it was a lot of fun. And it is just a good place to try new games out, meet new friends, meet local people who like playing games and give you a better chance to play more board games and tabletop games and just do other fun stuff, and it's a good way to burn a Saturday. it doesn't look like I'm going to get to go this year because I will be attending another big gaming related thing in this case pinball but I don't know I might pop in for a little bit we'll see we'll see how that day goes but I will I've already put the link on Facebook and we'll put the links out there so you can look in and find what you can see who's in your nearby area they've They've got groups putting on events all over the world. So you just have to check out the map and see if there's anything near you. Yep. So reminder, that is April 30th, so it is right on top of us. You've got about a week. Well, that's pretty much it for our show. For those that didn't remember or hear at the beginning of it, we do have a Twitter account now at eclectic underscore gamers. We also have our Facebook page, facebook.com slash eclectic gamers podcast. You can email the show. That's eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com. So those are the three primary ways to get a hold of us. And I guess we will probably do our normal thing and be back on after another couple weeks. We're being pretty consistent with that, which pleases me.
    84:38
    But for the time being, I'm Dennis, and I will say goodbye, everyone. Yes, and I'm Tony. And don't forget to like us and follow us on Stitcher and iTunes. That helps us out a lot. lets us know that people actually like us. And we will see you in two weeks.
    84:55
    We'll hear you in two weeks. You'll hear us. You know, something like that.