This is similar to the situations where a busted shooter lane switch causes a ball search and the ball autolaunches (or locked balls are kicked out).
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Well, yes and no. We had that exact thing occur at a tourney in Nashville(Congo, shooter lane switch broken). The player is allowed 5 minutes from the time his turn comes up. In this case the player went to the restroom. The game ball searched and auto plunged his ball and it was determined the player got a compensation ball at the end of the game.
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This is not the exact same thing as the WCS magnet firing at all. The magnet firing is unfortunate but the player had control. An auto launch prevented the player from playing their turn, that is different.
Another scenario, this happened at 24 hour battle to Johnny Mnemodica. He shot the center lock to start multiball, animation, everything, suddenly he finds his turn is over! How? The magnet didn’t send the ball all the way into the lock, and rolled back down the middle; multiball not awarded. No compensation was the correct ruling there and here.
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Johnny Mnemonic has so many software bugs, it deserves its own “Malfunctions” category. 
Multiballs not starting as promised, ball savers not working as promised, the infamous Hold Bonus exploit, weirdness with the glove, etc etc… makes it hard to recommend its use in competition IMHO.
(However, +1 for “Johnny Mnemodica” 
)
I had something similar to this happen at GOT launch tournament at expo. I hit the mystery shot. All GI goes out and DMD goes into award selection. Unfortunately, the post failed to catch the ball, and while the lights where out and I couldn’t see the ball drained.
The issue with WCS is the magnet firing. One cannot really blame insufficient faulty switch handling. As this is additional time and test time in developement. And not trivial for edge triggered functions.
The magnet firing in ball search slipped in design. As it is unnecessary and disturbs the player. It inspired a ROM fix:
http://tiltforums.com/t/new-world-cup-soccer-custom-competition-rom
On which game, if I may?
No game should go: ball in play->ball search with the ball in shooter lane at start of ball. No matter how flaky the shooter lane switch may act. It must be a case of multible malfunctions.
This is by software design. To survive malfunctions in the wild. Not great in competion play. If only it had been custom to have stuff like this refined when games selected for competition play, As with valid playfield rules, which I have brought up previously.
Player is SOL and the scores stand.
Players do not get compensation for when a “regular” ball search results in a drain. There is no way to prove this drain was a malfunction.
Can the TD be 100% certain that:
- The player didn’t accidentally just let go of the flipper or rattled the ball for a second and drop the ball in the drain?
- The ball was actually trapped, and not still settling and perhaps just rolled off the flipper?
- The player had not bricked enough shots already that a ball search was imminent regardless of trapping?
Heres an interesting question to think about: Say the ball search did cause the ball to move - how can you be sure the ball search was 100% responsible for the drain? If the ball search puts the ball in jeopardy, is the player %100 absolved of all responsibility for keeping the ball in play? Like, if the ball moves 2mm, can the player just let go of the flipper and dump the ball in the drain and say “hey I got an unexpected ball search and I drained becuase it moved the ball - I want my ball back now, and free skill shot.” There is no way to determine that the game caused a drain in this scenario.
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But how does the game know the ball is in the shooter lane if the switch is broken? All the game knows is the ball is missing after an attempt to go in the shooter lane. The game needs to find the ball. maybe it flew somewhere weird and isn’t in the shooter lane. …yeah maybe for a tournament this isnt ideal, but for a money making machine on location it seems exactly the programming I would want.
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Pretty much all WPC machines, at least, isn’t it? Pretty sure I’ve encountered this on several different machines. And from a software point of view, this makes sense… ball is served to the launcher lane… X time goes by without any switch edge or level activity (because we’re stipulating that the launcher lane switch is dead)… machine assumes there’s a ball stuck on the playfield somewhere and tries to ball-search to find it. As Cayle notes, the game doesn’t know the launcher switch is dead, it just knows there’s been no recent activity, and a ball that’s unaccounted for.
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Isn’t common game logic (matured CPU games design, say mid-80’s and up) …
No ball search until “ball in play state” aka “valid playfield”.
No valid playfield until ball is registered out of the shooter lane (sometimes by multible switches).
And trough to shooter lane ball movement logic relying on trough switches.
Unless I am completely overlooking stuff here. The shooter lane switch is: auto-plunger timing, skill shot timing and sound/light effects.
That being said. Odd games might work differently. Either by design or by bug. That is why I asked for an example.
Not so common at all, I’d say. More likely in certain manufacturer’s games than others, certainly.
I don’t recall offhand when ball search really started in earnest. I’d say most 80s games don’t have ball search, in fact.
Valid playfield is a concept that only existed at Williams (in terms of needing 3+ switches) and post-Williams Stern, JJP, and I suppose others may do it too?
However, holding off ball search until valid playfield is a big mistake.
The shooter lane is generally the least-trusted switch in the game due to lack of usefulness and the amount of abuse it takes.
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Thanks for the discussion on this.
I was the affected player and the ruling was game over, no consolation ball. As soon as it happened I said “My fault, should have known!” (in reference to not being able to cancel the buy-in). Had I been paying attention I probably could have done something about it, so I felt dumb for not seeing it happen. Lesson learned!
@stevevt A few people I’ve talked to have shared your slippery slope feelings on this. I was starting to feel like I could have pleaded my case to the TD for a more player friendly ruling, but it’s just too sketchy for some of the reasons already mentioned in this thread. Hmm… maybe for the right price I could have hired the services of @Adam Lefkoff & Associates, LPA.
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Actually this happened on the Shadow. It happened to Johnny Mnemodica.
Let me also put in a word here about case-pleading when a ruling needs to occur: as happened here, there really shouldn’t be any.
If it’s a problem where a rule might not be the best or accurate, that sucks, but you have to follow the rule then think afterwards about whether a rule change is appropriate. Arguing for a ruling just causes a mess, and is the type of thing that in most sports would lead to infractions or ejection.
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I agree with that for the most part, and absolutely agree in cases with knowledgeable, seasoned TDs. Any “pleading” I’ve done for rulings has been asking a less informed TD to actually look up the rule in question and follow it by the book.
At Pinburgh this year I reallly wanted to challenge an official ruling I received regarding where a stuck ball was placed, but I didn’t want to cause drama and waste time by getting another official involved so I just went with it. After the tournament I asked a higher ranking TD and was told the wrong call was made.
Mistakes definitely happen, but I think there are some instances where it’s not out of line to calmly ask an official to think a little more or flip through the rules about a call if something doesn’t seem right.
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Curious - what was the ruling you thought was wrong that another TD confirmed was wrong? The official rules state that it is up to the TD to place the ball and the player no longer has a choice. I’m not aware of any other rule that dictates where the ball is placed, although someone mentioned this past weekend that PAPA will place the ball on the same side as where the ball was stuck. Don’t know if that is official or just an informal rule used by PAPA. I like consistency though and will do that in the future at my tournaments.
It was a stuck ball on the right inlane switch that was placed on the left flipper. That struck me as odd, since I thought it was supposed to be placed on the flipper of the side of the game where it was stuck. That was later confirmed to be the rule and how it should have been handled.
I like the consistency of the rule and removing player choice from the situation.
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Did they give a reason for putting it on the opposite side? Are they assuming an inlane transfer or something?
This is not the rule. The rule says the TD has discretion about ball placement.
I agree that there was a mistake made in the discretion; at Pinburgh we attempted to use the same discretion in all cases. But it is not correct to say this was a miscarriage of the tournament rules.
He said it was TD discretion as to where it was placed. I left it at that.
Sorry if I’m misunderstanding, but this is the exact quote I received from Doug about the situation which led me to believe the rule wasn’t carried out properly.
“Based on what you are describing, the ball should have been placed on the right flipper. At PAPA events if the ball is stuck on the right side of the game it should be placed on the right flipper, left side is left flipper.”