Can we have data east and Williams do the same too? Haha
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I don’t notice this kinda stuff nearly as much on those old games. Maybe it has to do with the fact newer games tend to be brighter naturally?
Yeah maybe. Sorcerer is probably the worst Williams in a dark room I can think of. And all the Data Easts that use all the GI for flasher effects. Pretty much all their DMDs do this.
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Yeah, the GI flasher effects are the ones that make me nuts, or just shutting off the GI altogether. This seems like a recent Stern strategy to reduce ball times but mostly, I think it frustrates both John Doe Arcade goer and Jane Doe World Champion far more than it helps games take in more money.
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I don’t think it’s done to reduce ball times. I think it’s done mostly for the home buyers. They love the spectacular light shows.
Stern toned down the seizure inducing light show for Disco MB on Deadpool, so somebody there is thinking about it. Hopefully not just the lawyers.
TD’s should absolutely consider ambient lighting when setting up for a tournament. The more, the better.
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Maybe there needs to be a setting for GI intensity on light shows… so operators/collectors can choose how dark/bright to set a game based on the ambient light in a location. It’s dark as heck in my main spot and playing Munsters is almost impossible at night.
The new GOT code allows you to adjust the brightness of the flashers, inserts and GI 0-100%. It helps a lot.
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how about when someone next to you jumps up and down, yells, screams out loud, smacks their hands loud, talks to themselves out loud very loud or any other disturbance during play? or, if they have their personal headphones on so loud you can hear it and cant hear your machine well? another disturbance, their ball get stuck or something else and a tech or 2 plus them is now at their game getting in your view and moving in between games if needed etc and you are in the midst of a ball? These things happen, same as if someone has a light next to you because the game is to dark. if its not shining directly in your eyes its just something people have to deal with. wear blinders? idk. if the venue lights aren’t bright enough to see, blame the venue. if the machine has a bunch of colored led’s installed which makes a game hard to see, blame the machine owner. ill continue to use a headlamp if its needed. i want to be able to see well to play a game and it’s not my fault if the venue doesn’t have proper lighting. I will also be courteous as always and shut it off before i turn around and leave the game and not turn on until im in front of the game ready to plunge. Some events or locations i don’t need a light at all because its lit well. In a dark bar such as the stern circuit Championships in Chicago, its needed for sure. parts of pinburgh are also dark, so i need it sometimes.
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I’d be too concerned with annoying other players to ever try the headlamp thing. It’d do more to pull me out of the game mentally then any visibility edge could provide.
I believe the current rule around here (SoCal) is if a player (who is playing near the headlamp person?) complains about the headlamp, the headlamp must be removed. Not sure if this is an official IFPA/Freestate/etc rule or whatnot, but what I’ve been told. I have rarely seen a headlamp out here.
I would imagine that at a certain point players would auto-complain about the headlamp to deny someone an advantage even if it didn’t truly bother them. I ban headlamps from all my events because I don’t want to deal with this, and it’s in the rules. I have yet to have someone tell me they won’t come to my events because of no headlamps.
This might be a bit of a purist stance, but I don’t like artificial aids that only benefit one person. I say you bring your best game with what you’ve got, and see how it stacks up. There are lots of situations in which one player might have an inherent advantage over another - better low-light vision, faster reflexes, stamina for long events, ruleset knowledge, mental game, etc.
And yeah, I realize that things like gloves and smartphones to look up game hints could fall into the category of artificial aids. Gotta draw the line somewhere, and for me, headlamps are on the other side.
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I might agree with you it wasn’t for some of the crap lighting we get at events. Do you really want to win because the old guy couldn’t see the playfield on the game in the corner with no lights around?
I’m old and while I don’t need a head lamp just yet, I certainly understand why people use them. Got no problem with them as long as they’re used respectfully. One day our sport may grow to where minimum lighting standards are by rule, but we ain’t close yet.
I’m fast becoming that old guy who can’t track the ball in the dark with LED flashers going off all over the place 
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I’m only 35 and I can’t handle this. Haha
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I don’t have the best eyesight, to quote my optician, “ah Mr McRae; You’ll be pleased to know you now have the most expensive prescription!”.
I’ve never found a time where I need any additional lighting for playing, if you need this I state again I think you need to get your eyes tested.
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I got my eyes checked recently and my vision actually improved. I still need glasses with a slight prescription to drive, but playing pinball is fine. I’m nearsighted… No cataracts. Because my eyes are getting older, I need more light to see things properly. It’s a natural part of aging. There’s no modern medicine that correct this. Yes, they can work miricles with your eyes these days, but they can’t reverse old age.
Has anyone even mentioned LED mods or the fact that 47 bulbs don’t put out as much light as 44 bulbs, which many games originally called for? It’s not just the ambient lighting, it’s the games too. Again, some day the sport may grow to a point where we have lighting standards (both for games and ambient lighting), but we aren’t there yet. In the mean time, I don’t think it’s a big deal to allow people to respectfully use head lamps.
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The future.
After plenty of trial and error, and some failed attempts, I’m pretty happy with what I’ve come up with. I don’t want to turn this thread into an advert, so instead I’ll just point you towards this on PinballInfo if you want to take a closer look.
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People just need to put those LEDs that cause the ball movement to look jittery in every game.