The Pinball Office Novemberfest Tournament - 24th November

[SilkySox]

Ugh - got a stinking cold. Gutted - was looking forward to my first day at the Office.

 

[Lecari]

Ugh - got a stinking cold. Gutted - was looking forward to my first day at the Office.

Hope you feel better soon

 

[Taxiturn]

I’m looking forward to the report on speaker-enhanced entrance music for the final. Will there be a light show too?

 

[Lecari]

Huge thanks to everyone who joined us on Sunday for NOVEMBERFEST.

The finals were just head to head games so there was sadly no opportunity for walk on music!!! (Plus we were all tired by that point) Sorry @Taxiturn!

Huge congratulations to @NateG119 who was 1st (confirming his place as THE SEAL MEAL), @David_Vi 2.0 who was 2nd (definitely 'big in the back time') and @Itch 'the birdfather' who was 3rd!

Plus, let's not forget our under 16s: 1st: George (who qualified 6th overall!), 2nd: Sofia, 3rd: Effie.

Ian Clarricoats managed to get a ball stuck just before the trough on Dialed In - that won the prize for 'best stuck ball', first time I've seen that

Personal highlight for me was getting to Wet Willie's on Whitewater - first time I've managed it! And, of course, seeing David play so well all day. The surgery certainly seems to have made a huge difference to his pinball playing abilities - although I would rather not have to play head to head vs David in a final again please! Try harder next time @DanLewell!

Qualifying standings: https://app.matchplay.events/tournaments/167183/standings
Finals: https://app.matchplay.events/tournaments/167532/standings

As always photos are on Google, please feel free to add any photos you took throughout the day: https://photos.app.goo.gl/X5Gf5skYqqe4kcRP7

the results have been submitted to the IFPA so will be up soon.

Hopefully see you all again soon at the next one - which should be in January, for the Pinball Office anniversary (and will certainly have walk on music, I promise!!). Thank you as always @Hiltoncriss for hosting us all.

 

[David_Vi]

I almost don't recognise myself considering the two post surgery tournaments have been my most consistent yet.

However playing Claire was horrible, it might be the worst I've ever played. But once past that I started to relax again.

Ball 3 of stranger things Vs Nate was probably my moment of the day. I drained with around 195mil and needed to win to take it to a third game.
If I remember correctly I got my 2x bonus just as I drained and that bonus count is what did it.



Thanks everyone for coming, especially @Nick for helping maintain the games while I'm on
'light duties'

 

[Lecari]

IFPA results are up - https://www.ifpapinball.com/tournaments/view.php?t=83577

 

[C&C]

Thanks for running the competition @Lecari, and thanks for allowing us to play your collection of games @Hiltoncriss .

The following is meant as constructive feedback to @Hiltoncriss and is given in a positive and hopefully polite manner, which I hope is taken in the manner it is offered.

The competition itself went well, with a great selection of machines and was run very efficiently.

There was one issue which caused a LOT of comment, and which negatively affected the experience for a large number of the participants (myself included). This was the NO PRACTICE RULE, where people were not allowed to play other games when their match had finished.

This is a recent change in the arrangements at The Pinball Office, and it meant that many people were sitting around, surrounded by unused pinball machines while waiting for the other matches in the round to finish - sometimes for quite some time, especially if their game was on a short playing game such as Gorgar, and a bunch of good players were having a long game on the likes of Stranger Things, Wizard of Oz etc..

I think the situation was even worse for players who are newer to competitions, and perhaps had shorter games themselves, and had expected to be able to play all the games at TPO during their time there. As it was they had 12 short games, spread over around 7 hours at a cost of £28 (incl parking). That's over 77p per ball.

I spoke to Claire and David about it, and I THINK the reason for @Hiltoncriss having the no practice rule is that following previous competitions, he’s been left with a much bigger list of faults on machines than after a typical public session. He has therefore concluded (wrongly) that competitors put much more stress on machines than the general public, hence his introduction of the no practice rule to limit potential damage/issues.

What happens in reality is that the general public actually do more damage to machines - especially kids repeatedly hitting both flippers all the time, but as casual attendees, most random visitors have no clue as to how specific machines work and so when a machine develops a fault, they have no idea that it’s not supposed to do that.

One example at the weekend was with Whitewater. The right stand up target to enable the ball lock wasn’t registering 90% of the time, which obviously severely impacts game play. A random punter wouldn’t have a clue that there was a fault on the machine.

The result of all this is that faults build up through public sessions, but go unreported. When a competition is held and experienced players turn up who know exactly how the pinballs are supposed to work, they immediately identify all these faults and report them, so at the end of the competition there is a long list of faults. This gives the impression that the competitors have caused the faults.

The issue isn’t that the competition players cause more faults (in fact competent players are actually more gentle on machines), but that they are way better at identifying faults, and WILL report them, hence the much bigger list of faults after a competition.

It’s a cause and effect thing, but I think that @Hiltoncriss is wrongly attributing the cause to the people reporting the effects.

Even as an enthusiastic competitor, I’ll have to think very carefully about whether to attend future Pinball Office competitions if the “no practice” rule continues. I think it also has the potential for massively putting off those new to competitions, which would be a real shame.

@Hiltoncriss , as I said at the start of this comment, this is meant as polite and constructive feedback, and I hope you will take it as such, and will consider allowing practice at future Pinball Office competitions.

All of the above is based on my understanding of the situation and I'm happy to be corrected if I'm miles wide of the mark.

 

[Hiltoncriss]

Thanks for running the competition @Lecari, and thanks for allowing us to play your collection of games @Hiltoncriss .

The following is meant as constructive feedback to @Hiltoncriss and is given in a positive and hopefully polite manner, which I hope is taken in the manner it is offered.

The competition itself went well, with a great selection of machines and was run very efficiently.

There was one issue which caused a LOT of comment, and which negatively affected the experience for a large number of the participants (myself included). This was the NO PRACTICE RULE, where people were not allowed to play other games when their match had finished.

This is a recent change in the arrangements at The Pinball Office, and it meant that many people were sitting around, surrounded by unused pinball machines while waiting for the other matches in the round to finish - sometimes for quite some time, especially if their game was on a short playing game such as Gorgar, and a bunch of good players were having a long game on the likes of Stranger Things, Wizard of Oz etc..

I think the situation was even worse for players who are newer to competitions, and perhaps had shorter games themselves, and had expected to be able to play all the games at TPO during their time there. As it was they had 12 short games, spread over around 7 hours at a cost of £28 (incl parking). That's over 77p per ball.

I spoke to Claire and David about it, and I THINK the reason for @Hiltoncriss having the no practice rule is that following previous competitions, he’s been left with a much bigger list of faults on machines than after a typical public session. He has therefore concluded (wrongly) that competitors put much more stress on machines than the general public, hence his introduction of the no practice rule to limit potential damage/issues.

What happens in reality is that the general public actually do more damage to machines - especially kids repeatedly hitting both flippers all the time, but as casual attendees, most random visitors have no clue as to how specific machines work and so when a machine develops a fault, they have no idea that it’s not supposed to do that.

One example at the weekend was with Whitewater. The right stand up target to enable the ball lock wasn’t registering 90% of the time, which obviously severely impacts game play. A random punter wouldn’t have a clue that there was a fault on the machine.

The result of all this is that faults build up through public sessions, but go unreported. When a competition is held and experienced players turn up who know exactly how the pinballs are supposed to work, they immediately identify all these faults and report them, so at the end of the competition there is a long list of faults. This gives the impression that the competitors have caused the faults.

The issue isn’t that the competition players cause more faults (in fact competent players are actually more gentle on machines), but that they are way better at identifying faults, and WILL report them, hence the much bigger list of faults after a competition.

It’s a cause and effect thing, but I think that @Hiltoncriss is wrongly attributing the cause to the people reporting the effects.

Even as an enthusiastic competitor, I’ll have to think very carefully about whether to attend future Pinball Office competitions if the “no practice” rule continues. I think it also has the potential for massively putting off those new to competitions, which would be a real shame.

@Hiltoncriss , as I said at the start of this comment, this is meant as polite and constructive feedback, and I hope you will take it as such, and will consider allowing practice at future Pinball Office competitions.

All of the above is based on my understanding of the situation and I'm happy to be corrected if I'm miles wide of the mark.

Thank you for the feedback Conrad, I’ve received the same feedback from many other people. This week I had discussions that lasted hours on this subject so I won’t get too much into it.

Yes, everyone was right!

Yes, from now on, the “no practice rule” is cancelled.

Things will go back to normal and people that didn’t enjoy their day, got a full refund on the spot.

If there is anyone else that considers that they should get a full refund please send me a PM.

I do apologise for this unpopular rule.

Chris

 

[C&C]

Thanks for the quick and very positive response. Very much appreciated.

Personally, I'm not interested in any refund, but very much look forward to the next competition at the Pinball Office.

 

[Fantazia2]

I dont think the no practice rule was that recent as it was in place last year when I attended, but its nice its noe been reviewed and removed.

 

[cooldan]

It’s a great venue with a large collection of lovely machines (and Big Buck Hunter). Thanks Chris for listening to the feedback, much appreciated.