I like it because sometimes I guess before they do, and then I feel extra smart 
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While we generally have a pretty loose swearing policy, this post kind of crossed (or at least toed) the line to non-constructive swearing at an individual and their work. While we all have all kinds of passionate opinions about our tournaments and their formats, lets keep it civil please! Thanks!
Oh, ok. I think thatās the first f-bomb Iāve dropped here in the year Iāve been posting. Donāt remember reading a swearing policy for the site because I donāt do it much. But I guess I assume that things are pretty loose on forums, as long as there are no personal attacks. And I would argue that my comment doesnāt swear at an individual. It swears at a flow chart.
Either way, I got it and Iāll be sure to put a nickel in the swear jar.
Itās been set on the back burner because Graham doesnāt have time to set it up lately, but Iāll see if we can work it back into the show somehow.
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Well then Graham better MAKE some gd time to do it!
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Well, I understand it takes some preparation, but itās pretty exciting for the listener. It gives the show that Trivia Night kind of suspense where Iām just as anxious to hear the clip as your guest is.
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As the person who is introducing the rule, Iāll speak up with my perspective, but beyond this probably wonāt spend the time defending it here on this forum. Itās something Iāve discussed with quite a few of the local folks, and while there is some hesitation, I have a lot of support for it because nobody has better answers given the hard constraints that we have at NWPAS. Iāve even had a couple of local tourney organizers ask if thereās a way to have something similar in knockout tournaments to ensure they get done before closing time. This problem is not unique to me nor to NWPAS. Many tournaments have run past their projected schedule. Some have the luxury to accommodate that. Some donāt and it creates major issues.
Johnny has interpreted the intention of the rule correctly: this rule might get invoked once or twice during the entire tournament, and possibly not at all. It is designed to address the following scenario that happened in one qualifying round last year: we have a 3-hour limit to play five 4-player games, then we need to start the next round to stay on schedule. Thatās reasonable ā¦ most groups are done in 2 hours. For comparison, Pinburgh budgets 4 games in 2.25 hours. We had one game, however, that had a top-25 world-ranked player who scored umpteen millions on Ball 1, playing against three other players all ranked below 1000 and after ball 1, nobody had 1/100th of that score. By the time that group finished ball 1, every other match play group was already done with that game. So now, we have one game holding up 50 players who are ready to start their next game, but as in many match play events, next round doesnāt start till all groups are done. Even the player who played ball 1 was happy to move on to the next game and not play their game as they didnāt want to tire themselves out unnecessarily, except for the āwhat-ifā scenario: what if they did get passed? They chose to plunge their balls at risk. They were helping the flow of the tournament, yet if someone did pass them, they are the ones who would get screwed for their good deed. By adding this rule, itās under such a condition, where thereās probably a 1 in 1000 chance of the score being caught by someone else. If that player who played Ball 1 had two other similar balls, then one game would eat up half of the allotted time for the entire round. It would be nice to have the luxury of spare time, or more machines to accommodate more players at once. But we have hard constraints within the tournament, with regards to machine and time. Since many of our players are āBā and āCā players, playing against some A players in match play, we donāt want to setup machines so hard where everyoneās balls are 30-seconds long, just to avoid that possibility of a top player having an amazing game. Rather, we make the games more fair to everyone, at risk of a top player having an amazing game. And we let them have an amazing game. But we provide the opportunity to stop at some point, and be guaranteed their winning number of points. If that 1-in-1000 chance of someone catching them does, then thereās a written rule on how to handle it, and the person who aborted the game in favor of helping the tournament move along doesnāt get screwed with 2nd place points. So my expectation is that the rule gets invoked 1 to 3 times, and that in 0 of those times does the second player catch them, but in the unlikely case they do, we have a rule to cover it. Iād love to have an objective goal for when to use this rule, but thatās difficult to define, as itās based on multiple factors, including time, not just score. So our choices are (1) support less players, or less games per round, by making rounds longer. (2) setup machines so hard that it is no longer enjoyable for the middle-class player (3) risk running over time, which screws up the next set of players, which eventually means the last set of players to play get the machines turned off on them, because closing times are HARD at this venue. (4) donāt do match play that has this risk, whereas pump-and-dump doesnāt (5) Have a rule that allows the 99% to play pinball the way it is meant to be played, by having the 1% with an amazing game stop when the win seems obvious, without risk of losing any points if by long-shot they get passed. Given these options, Weāre going with (5).
There were some comments about ātime-proven formatsā. PAPA finals of rounds of 3-games is far from time-proven, yet thatās one of the standard formats that was being implied. Iāve seen the final 16 start at 10, finish at 5pm, in one tourney. Then in another tourney, start at 10, finish at 9pm. That is no more time-proven than any other format. If anyone has other ideas for constraining the total time of a tournament without providing so much buffer that machines are idle half the time, Iām all ears. If this is a world champions event, I agree we donāt want this rule; but we also make sure that such an event selects a venue where virtually unlimited time can be afforded. But when the show provides opportunity for tournaments but with constraints, we donāt want to say No. Itās a great venue! Rather, we do the best we can within those constraints. Iāve asked people for other ideas to address this time factor associated with pinball not being a timed game, and so far, I have not gotten better suggestions. We have a growing following who do like the events that we put on and some of the new rules we introduce, and the variety of formats that we offer. We get much more positive feedback than negative feedback with most of the changes that weāve implemented, and thus we continue with those, and we discontinue the practices for which we get a lot of negative feedback. And yeah, some of the rules I propose are experimental, but you know what, every one of the rules that I proposed in the past that are now standard in various leagues and tournaments were experimental at some point. PAPA changed to 4-2-1-0 from 10-5-1-0 scoring; that was experimental the first time it was used. If youāre not willing to take chances on new ideas, then things will stagnate and weāll never improve. The pinball revival is thanks to many people willing to try new things. Iāve been willing to take chances in the past with new formats with my share of successes and failures, and Iām willing to continue trying new things today when I see the potential to make an event better, especially with regards to getting more of the āmiddle rankā players involved. Thereās always a risk that something new fails; but if it succeeds at addressing a real issue, then yay, we have a great solution that can then be used over and over. I know some of you wonāt like it; Iām not out to get unanimous support on these ideas. Rather, if you donāt like the rules, then just donāt play in those tournaments. The attendance at the tournaments year after year will speak for itself. And quite frankly, most of the players wonāt care a single iota that thereās one less top 100 player in the tournament boycotting a rule like this, because thatās one less person they need to beat to get the guaranteed $1000 first place prize or the pinball machine prize.
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Thereās a lot of merit to trying to solve this issue, which is quite common in match play formats, in my opinion. From prior match play formats Iāve run, a pipe dream of mine (credit for the idea to fellow Bat City pinballer, Robert Byers) would be that modern pinball manufacturers include a software adjustment option to skip over a single player whose runaway score is X amount greater than his/her opponent(s) score(s).
The option would pop up at the beginning of the runaway playerās ball (even better, before kicking out the ball to the shooter lane), and if the group agreed, the runaway player would skip their ball prior to plunging via some screen-prompted flipper button combination ā but the game would eventually go back to the runaway playerās skipped ball(s) after the completion of the other playersā third balls, at the stored game state that the runaway player had when she was skipped. In the likelihood that the runaway playerās score is still better than her opponent(s) who were trying to catch her, she does her walk-off plunge(s) and scores get recorded. If an opponent caught her score, then she plays her next ball(s).
Does this merit consideration? And how difficult would this be to create as part of the standard software features?
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To your first question, bluntly, no. It would likely take a few days to implement, and this is such a niche usage (Iām guessing even 0.01% of all games played is high) it boggles my mind to spend time on something like that. The UI involved seems like it would be ridiculous as well.
(Iāll also throw out there for observation the amount of whining about code not being done, and you want us to spend time on THIS? (Note Iām not accusing you personally of doing this.))
I will note that Heighway (presumably Brian) has a bunch of in-game editing options. Itās innovative, but again the usage is so niche itās hard for me personally to see spending the time on it.
Honestly the only option that Iāve ever seen be useful is the ability to add extra balls for a player during a game. I guess adjusting the current player (similar to how some bowling scoring systems work as well as the Heighway system) would be a nice option as well, but everything else is probably overkill.
I wish there was a save game state in the menu. (Pie in the sky here ha!)
major problem, malfunction/whatever and game still has power? Enter menu -> Save game state.
Turn machine off, fix problem, assembly whatever.
Reboot game, -> Load saved game state.
Pickup where you left off.
Come on Keefer, thats just like a few lines of code right? 
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Just need to fill out a few tables.
What you ask for, though, is not out of the realm of possibility. Wonāt be very soon, however.
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Episode 26 of our bi-weekly podcast is out now. That means Graham and I have completed one full year of podcasting! My how time flies. This episode is with Jordan Semrow where we talk about his pinball origin story, go on a tangent about The Wire, and tackle Sternās new Ghostbusters game. Stay tuned in two weeks for our 1 Year Anniversary show with ZoĆ« Vrabel. Should be a doozy of a time.
As always, thanks for listening everyone!
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I would actually look forward to seeing if someone can implement something like that. It doesnāt really sound that hard, but I can see why such a thing would be a low priority. Another issue is where the line should be drawn as to what counts as a runaway score. Should it be some certain fixed amount higher than someone elseās? Should it be a multiple of the second place score or greater? Should it only kick in on Ball 2 when the runaway player has done it twice in a row? Should it be used on machines where incredible scores can be done on one ball?
This could also be a problem with games whose scoring is exponential, like AC/DC, as what looks like a runaway score early on might not necessarily be. Sternās Spider-Man, from the tournament footage Iāve seen, also tends to have incredibly lopsided scores between players, as all thatās really needed is a big break for someoneās score to explode while thereās always at least one unlucky individual who canāt seem to get anything done.
*** IF *** this merited the time/efforts of pinball programmers to address (which I now know in one mfrās case it does not), it could be done in a way where the group that is playing makes the call on if they want the runaway player to skip their ball(s) through input on the flippers in some way. No need to set a hard line for this.
Skill Shot Pincast just celebrated our one year anniversary!
Hereās the latest:
Congratulations on the anniversary!
Thanks Andreas! Iām personally going to celebrate by going to a Star Trek exhibit opening featuring actors from ST:TNG, followed by (maybe) playing all 4 Star Trek pins tonight. 
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did you see that Worf just sold his NIB STTNG? https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10208471996431517&set=t.1655270214&type=3&theater
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