HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: gt6139a@prism.gatech.EDU (Brian Dominy)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: Re: Fishtales
Date: 11 Jan 93 01:00:30 GMT
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology

In article <1993Jan10.103504.1@fennel.cc.uwa.oz.au> a_donati@fennel.cc.uwa.oz.au writes:
>
>Is it my imagination, or am I the only person who finds FishTales really hard?
>I have yet to get more than 50m on it, and still have not managed a multiball,
>50% of shots at the captive ball rebound straight down the middle, the lock
>and stretch the truth/monster fish shots are nearly impossible, and I only seem
>

I've just recently started playing Fish Tales myself, and amazingly, there's
a Whitewater nearby it, too.  The first few I played it I became really
frustrated.  The balls were draining like crazy, and I really did not know
what to shoot for.  However, I have found that getting jackpots is the
easiest way to rack up points.  As intimidating as that boat is, I aim
more for the lock and the monster fish spinner.  The captive ball is not
my favorite target, though you can achieve some good scores from it if you
do manage to keep the ball on its return to your flippers.

Maybe you've been playing too much Whitewater.  The two games are played
totally differently; Whitewater's ramps are the key to high scores.

BTW, have any of you Whitewater players experienced problems with the
game's upper kickout?  The version we have in Atlanta was one of the first
prototypes to come out, and every time I play it a ball or two gets lodged
in there and the kicker is too weak to do anything about it.

-- 
Brian #2

Similes are totally useless, like fireflies that know Shakespeare.
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
From: xor@clotho.acm.rpi.edu (Joe Schwartz)
Subject: Smithsonian article (Jan 1993)
Organization: The Voice of Fate
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 23:45:59 GMT

There's an article about pinball in the January 1993 issue of
Smithsonian magazine.  I haven't read it yet, but it has some
nice photos, including a full-page color photo of a TAF playfield.

You can subscribe to Smithsonian for $22/year, or $3 for a single
copy.  The address is:

Smithsonian
PO Box 55593
Boulder, CO 80322-5593
-- 
Joe Schwartz       E-mail: xor@acm.rpi.edu
MapInfo Corp.
200 Broadway       Disclaimer: "Everything I know is wrong."
Troy, NY 12180     Corollary:  "Nothing I say represents MapInfo Corp."
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
From: sigma@raphael.ipl.rpi.edu (Kevin Martin)
Subject: PAPA III
Keywords: tournament prizes etc
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 21:28:33 GMT

I'm surprised I haven't seen anything in this newsgroup about PAPA III, at
least not in the last nine days' worth of articles.  Who's going?  Does
anyone have any new information about which pins are going to be used, and
how they'll be setup (ie, no EB)?

Personally, I'd like to see:

Super Mario Brothers (hard settings)
Creature From The Black Lagoon (excellent machine!)
Fish Tales (long flippers, pleeeeeeease)
The Addams Family (of course)
Cue Ball Wizard

I'm concerned that there will be machines I haven't see yet (Whitewater,
for example), or machines I dislike, or machines I'm awful at... but I
supposed we all take our chances.

If anyone's curious but hasn't called, the special hotel rate is
$99/person/night based on double occupancy.  For the Big Apple, that is
somewhat cheap.

-- 
Kevin Martin
sigma@ipl.rpi.edu
"I told you I'd shoot, but you didn't believe me! WHY didn't you BELIEVE me?!"
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
From: henwoogr@elec.canterbury.ac.nz (Gazza)
Subject: WhiteWater Queries
Keywords: BigFoot Bluff jackpot, White Water JP.
Organization: Electronic and Electrical Engineering Department, University of Canterbury, New Zealand.
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 07:11:59 GMT


I've played this game for a while now, but a couple of things still elude me
about it:

First, what determines the base White Water jackpot - I've had it as low as
18M, and as high as 22M (At least, the triple jackpot that I got was worth
66M, so I assume the base must have been 22M).  Is there something that can
be done to increase this jackpot.

The second query: Does anyone know the complete set of awards that can be
given when you get three BigFoot Bluff Jackpots? (Or is it as many as is
needed to get the items to the goldmine and not just three jacpots)?

I realize that the game is pretty new and not a lot of people have had an
opportunity to play it; I'll post my tips and explanation list soon, so
when it comes to your favorite arcade, you'll know a little more 'bout it.

Thanx in advance.

Gazza (henwoogr@elec.canterbury.ac.nz)

#include WittySig
(NULL)
From: buzz@apple.com (Steve Bollinger)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: Re: WhiteWater Queries
Date: 12 Jan 93 17:47:09 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer, Inc.

12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901
34567890
In article <C0qBzz.CDo@cantua.canterbury.ac.nz> Gazza,
henwoogr@elec.canterbury.ac.nz writes:
>The second query: Does anyone know the complete set of awards that can be
>given when you get three BigFoot Bluff Jackpots? (Or is it as many as is
>needed to get the items to the goldmine and not just three jacpots)?

It is the same as the awards to light the gold mine. It will not, however,
award the gold rush. You must hit the mine for that.
I hit bigfoot bluff four times in one hot foot session and I got (in
order)
the flashlight, the map, the key, and a cow (yes, its the industry
standard
cow) I then hit the gold mine for a gold rush (two ball multiball, all
switches 250,000 points). I then immediately (unfortunately) lost one
ball (drat!).

-Steve
From: phaedrus@halcyon.com (Mark Phaedrus)
Subject: Re: Fish Tales question
Organization: The 23:00 News and Mail Service
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 18:36:05 GMT

In article <1imue1INN4g1@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> bi011@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Bill King) writes:
>
>For Fish Tales, when you shoot the far right lane, shouldn't the ball 
>go all the way around and come back down the left lane in most situations?
>Our machine used to act this way, but after the guy worked on it and
>I mentioned the change, he said something like "Oh, it only lets you
>shot it around in certain conditions". Seems to me that door is messed
>up or am I missing something?

     That little gate at the top of the playfield that blocks the ball from
completing the loop should open for about a second under two situations: when
you shoot the plunger shot, and when you shoot the ball up the right-hand side
of the loop with the red "Long Cast" light flashing there.  Hitting that right-
hand shot with "Long Cast" not flashing should start it flashing but should not
open the gate.
     You should be able to see the gate move at these times if the machine is
working properly; otherwise the gate is broken and needs to be fixed.  (A game
with a broken gate is quite a bit more difficult, since you can't shoot the
Long Cast loop to light more bonuses on the captive lane.  If it's like most
Williams machines, the game will eventually detect that the loop is broken and
compensate somehow.)
-- 
\o\ Internet: phaedrus@halcyon.com  (Seattle, WA Public Access Unix)     \o\
 \o\ "How'd you like to move a few steps down the food chain, pal?"       \o\
  \o\ If you enjoy fantasy/SF stories with transformation themes, email me \o\
   \o\ for a copy of the Transformation Stories List.                       \o\
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
From: xor@clotho.acm.rpi.edu (Joe Schwartz)
Subject: Re: FishTales Super Jackpot
Organization: The Voice of Fate
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 03:54:17 GMT

In article <C0F574.1ur.1@cs.cmu.edu> dstewart+@cs.cmu.edu (David B Stewart) writes:
>In article <1993Jan6.004531.1198@quorum.com> hempling@quorum.com (David B. Hempling) writes:
>>Could someone please explain how to activate the FishTales
>>Super Jackpot?
>
>You must get three jackpots during Multiball via the caster-club/upper-
>eject-hole combination.  Each one lights one of your tackle boxes.  After
>that, the super jackpot is lit.  Each hit is worth 100Mil.  However,
>after you get the super jackpot once, if you lose 2 of your 3 balls,
>the super jacpot ends, and you must start over and get 3 more jackpots.
>
>Here is another question.  When the jacpots reset after the super jackpot and
>end-of-multiball, the jackpots seem to be worth double there original value;
>i.e. 40M,60M, 80M.  (I only got up to the 40M, so I can't confirm the other,
>and nobody was there to watch the backglass if it gave any info about it!)  Is
>the super jackpot also up to 200,000,000 by that time?  Can anyone confirm
>that this is in the FT rule sheets?  What happens the 3rd time (if anybody
>has ever gotten that far!)

According to the article in the December issue of pinGame journal, that's
the correct behavior.  After the first Super Jackpot ends, all the values
are doubled.  (It's not clear whether ALL the values are doubled, or just
the Jackpots and Super Jackpots.)  So the second time around, the Super
Jackpot is worth 200M.  The third time, it's worth 300M, and so on.  It
stops increasing the sixth time around -- at 600M.
-- 
Joe Schwartz       E-mail: xor@acm.rpi.edu
MapInfo Corp.
200 Broadway       These are my own opinions.  Any resemblance to the
Troy, NY 12180     opinions of MapInfo Corporation is purely coincidental.
From: kjohnson@csugrad.cs.vt.edu (Keefer)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: Re: FishTales Super Jackpot
Date: 8 Jan 93 21:29:30 GMT
Organization: VA Tech CS Dept., Blacksburg, VA, USA

Hi everyone, I'm back from break...

Believe it or not, I actually found a Fish Tales somewhat near my house during
the break, and so of course I started playing it (a lot).

I REALLY like this game.  It is a nice game, fun to play, albeit sometimes a
little frustrating.  However, when I first started playing it (like 2 days
before Christmas), the game had a very weak auto-plunger, so it would usually
just barely make it past the cast ramp, then fall harmlessly to the right
flipper.  This was *very* nice from discussions I had read on here.  They 
eventually fixed it though (can you believe *THAT*?!?) and it started 
throwing it around the loop the whole way.  Though it was a little more
difficult, our machine was tilt-friendly (you could death-save it and would
only get a warning, sometimes not even that) so it wasn't TOO bad...

By the 27th I had finally started getting the hang of the jackpots (must be
the absolute hardest jackpot sequence in the world) and broke 1B.  (Yea, it
handles billion scores correctly, even on multi-player mode!)  The next day,
I got the 100M super like 3 times, then managed to start multi-ball again
after that.  I got the first jackpot, 40M, but didn't remember doubling it...
When I got 60 million the next time, I figured the scores must have been
multiplied, and that's definitely what I thought after I got the 80M and saw
hit captive ball for super jackpot, 200,000,000!  

Needless to say, I was quite surprised, because I had heard no mention of
multiplied jackpots at all on here.  (And the game's been around for awhile.)
Anyway, I hit it a couple of times, and that same game got 3 MORE jackpots
(60, 90, & 120M) and actually had the captive ball lit for 300,000,000.
However, I failed to hit the ball at all that time.  I started multiball once
more, so the SJ was still lit, but the whole time I was just not making the
shot so I never got the 300M.  :(

Anyway, I wound up with 2.5B that game.  Should've been a lot higher.  I can
see someone breaking 10 billion on this game, depending on condition, etc.

Oh - my $.02 on the extra ball shot - also the hardest extra ball to date.
Sheesh!  I've never gotten it from the left flipper, could only backhand it
from the right.  And then sometimes I wouldn't even hit it hard enough. aargh
And MAN are those some dinky flippers!  Wow!  No gaping chasm kickback, 
thankfully.  The game, not surprisingly, quite resembles T2 IMHO.

Well, that's enough for now.  I've *FINALLY* seen a "new" pin!  Yea!

later,
keith
-- 
| Keith Johnson ("Keefer") |> SUPPORT <|My power is beyond your understanding!|
|VA Tech. Dept. of Computer|>SHAREWARE<|        - Skeletor                    |
|  Science  Undergraduate  | Help keep |Understand MY power!                  |
|kjohnson@csugrad.cs.vt.edu|prices down|        - Jake Johansen               |
From: despair@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Craig Andrew Tollifson)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: Big Guns
Date: 6 Jan 1993 18:13:40 GMT
Organization: Computing Services Division, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
NNTP-Posting-Host: 129.89.7.4

Okay, is the big green button thing between the flippers suppossed to pop up
or something when you're invincible or what?  I think the machine I've been
devoting so many quarters and hours on is flawed.  Otherwise I don't see a
point to becoming "invicible."

Also, I'm curious about point earning tips for this oldie.  I usually go for
multi-ball right away and try to rescue the princess.



Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
From: musjndx@gsusgi2.gsu.edu (Jonathan N. Deitch)
Subject: White Water sheds parts! (was Re: New Data East: ROCKY & BULLWINKLE)
Organization: Georgia State University
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 05:17:42 GMT

sbb@panix.com (Steve Baumgarten) writes:

>Oh fooey on this!  Broadway got its WHITEWATER in and one day later
>Big Foot had a nervous breakdown and started shedding parts (he wasn't
>bolted together all so very well, and pieces started dropping off).  

The attendant at CyberStation here in Atlanta (awesome place for pinball ...)
said their White Water (beta test) had a flipper completely fall to pieces last
week.  Seems the screws fell out that hold it together.  They *were* able to
reconstruct the flipper and all has been well since then.  I even got a single
and double jackpot during a 5x playfield scoring period ...

- Jonathan

-- 
 Internet: musjndx@gsusgi2.gsu.edu      Fidonet: Jonathan Deitch@1:133/411.7
           jdeitch@gisatl.fidonet.org   Bellnet: 1 - (404) - 261 - 3665         -----------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Atlanta 1996 !! | Play Pinball !! | Don't Panic ! | "I hate it when I can't
--------------------------------------------------| trust my own technology!"
"Thrills!  Chills!  Magic!  Prizes!" -- Hurricane |    -- Geordi LaForge

Gene Roddenberry, Isaac Asimov, Jim Henson, Dr. Seuss, Mel Blanc ... Sigh ...

Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
From: "charles blaquiere" <charles.blaquiere@canrem.com>
Subject: dr who
Reply-To: "charles blaquiere" <charles.blaquiere@canrem.com>
Organization: Canada Remote Systems
Distribution: rec
Date: 10 Jan 93 16:08:19 EST

Here is my strategy for Dr. Who:

I always start with #6, which has the dual effect of upping the score
multiplier _two_ notches for every loop shot, _and_ lowering the
multiplier at a slower pace. This translates into much higher scores on
everything, since I usually keep the multiplier at 4X. In addition, all
those loop shots add up, and give me a chance at the W-H-O sonic boom
every 10 loop shots: a cool 120M most every time. Also, on our machine,
W-H-O counts towards an extra ball whether earned in normal or sonic
boom mode, so after 20 loops, extra ball lights up. (When I shoot the
loop to get that final "O" on the second sonic boom, I always flip once
with the right flipper; this lane-changes the extra ball into the left
inlane, which is where the ball always goes when you complete the sonic
boom "O")

In the meantime, I also lock balls and hit time expander targets. I
always make sure my multiplier is at 4X before I count down to factor
zero! This makes the Daleks worth 180M or 200M. It always saddens me to
see a novice play the game, who hasn't got a clue how the Doctors work,
get multiball and do all that hard work for a measly 50M, when they
could've upped the multiplier first and gotten 200M!

My second choice of Doctors is #3, to help me get extra balls. I do
_not_ care for #5 one bit; that long shot to build transmat power is as
boring as watching grass grow. And I find that I can light up all those
Doctors without resorting to the transmat. This, in a nutshell, is my
Dr. Who strategy.



Now it's time for me to ask a question: how the heck do you light
Doctors without using the transmat? Often, after a productive multiball,
I'll look up  and see that all seven Doctors are lit. Other times it
doesn't seem to work that way. What's the whole story?

                                            Charles Blaquiere


--
Canada Remote Systems  - Toronto, Ontario
World's Largest PCBOARD System - 416-629-7000/629-7044
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
From: hagedorn@betsy.gsfc.nasa.gov (John Hagedorn)
Subject: Re: Restoring a playing field...
Reply-To: hagedorn@betsy.gsfc.nasa.gov (John Hagedorn)
Organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center - Greenbelt, MD USA
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 13:52:46 GMT


In article <1993Jan6.110551.4383@ucsvc.ucs.unimelb.edu.au>,
u6066061@ucsvc.ucs.unimelb.edu.au writes:
|> 
|> 
|> I have a Williams "Phoenix" (1978) which is in fair condition.
|> 
|> I am after some suggestions on how to restore the playing field...


I am also interested in playfield restoration, so I would appreciate
it if any information or tips would be posted.

thanks

- john
From: Jayson_Hahn@hq-bbs.wisdom.bubble.org (Jayson Hahn)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: Re: Fish Tales question
Date: 9 Jan 93 20:17:16 GMT
Organization: Headquarters BBS (Morristown, NJ)

In a message dated Sat  9 Jan 93 15:00, Bi011@cleveland.freenet.edu (bill K
wrote:

 BK> For Fish Tales, when you shoot the far right lane, shouldn't the ball
 BK> 
 BK> go all the way around and come back down the left lane in most
 BK> situations?

The ball only goes all the way around when the "Long Cast" is lit. You
light it by shooting the ball through the right part of the boat, then it
hits the switch in the left return lane lighting the "Long Cast" for a
period of time.

 

-- Via DLG Pro v0.995

Jayson Hahn
Amiga Sysop Headquarters BBS
1-201-672-8944

Jayson_Hahn@hq-bbs.wisdom.bubble.org

FidoNet# 1:2605/106  AmigaNet# 40:703/11 
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
From: nugget@genesis.nred.ma.us (Ralph Barbagallo)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: Re: Tristan players?
Date: 8 Jan 93 09:23:41 GMT
Organization: Genesis Public Access Minix  +1 508 664 0149


  Tristan blows big time!  The GREATEST pinball games ever made are Pinball
Dreams and Pinball Fantasies for the Amiga!  Great simulations of modern
style pinball machines...  dot matrix displays, cool music, etc..!  I hated
Tristan... even if it was in SVGA... 

------
  Ralph A. Barbagallo III
  nugget@genesis.nred.ma.us
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
From: bi011@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Bill King)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: Fish Tales question
Date: 9 Jan 1993 16:27:45 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: bi011@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Bill King)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


For Fish Tales, when you shoot the far right lane, shouldn't the ball 
go all the way around and come back down the left lane in most situations?
Our machine used to act this way, but after the guy worked on it and
I mentioned the change, he said something like "Oh, it only lets you
shot it around in certain conditions". Seems to me that door is messed
up or am I missing something?
Bill
-- 
Hey, hey champ, was she a "whoo"?  No, she was a "WHOOOOOO!" --Ric Flair
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
From: xor@clotho.acm.rpi.edu (Joe Schwartz)
Subject: Re: FishTales Super Jackpot
Organization: The Voice of Fate
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 00:18:21 GMT

In article <C0K116.1tv@csugrad.cs.vt.edu> kjohnson@csugrad.cs.vt.edu (Keefer) writes:
>Oh - my $.02 on the extra ball shot - also the hardest extra ball to date.
>Sheesh!  I've never gotten it from the left flipper, could only backhand it
>from the right.

I don't think it's possible to hit the extra ball target directly from the
left flipper.  If you sight it from the flipper (put your face down at the
level of the glass), you'll see that there's a post in the way.  Maybe you 
could rebound the ball off something, but I don't think there's a direct shot
from the left flipper.
-- 
Joe Schwartz       E-mail: xor@acm.rpi.edu
MapInfo Corp.
200 Broadway       These are my own opinions.  Any resemblance to the
Troy, NY 12180     opinions of MapInfo Corporation is purely coincidental.
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
From: gary@aragorn.inmos.co.uk (Gary Morton)
Subject: Data East stole my replay :-)
Reply-To: gary@aragorn.inmos.co.uk.UUCP ()
Organization: INMOS Transputer Group, Bristol, UK.
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 20:05:20 GMT

I was playing a LW3 in a pub recently, and a strange thing happened. 

The machines replay score was only 40 million. "Easy" I told myself, then
preceeded to play several very poor games. In one game I captured the ball
on the left flipper, turned around to take a drink from my pint glass, and 
when I turned back to the table the ball had gone ! It soon became apparent
that the flipper button was dodgey. On my last game (of course) I played
better than usual and got around 90 million, and of course earned a replay.
I was quite pleased as the table was steeper than it should have been and also
it leaned to the right, resulting in a lot of drains at that side.

When the game had finished a message appeared on the dot matrix display
along the lines of "current game replay percentage : 8%" and on the
line below "desired replay percentage: 7%" and then "Press start to increase
score replay from 40M to 45M". Needless to say, I wasn't sure what was
going on, and I wasn't too keen to press the button to up the replay score.
After about 30 seconds the display went away. When I pressed the start button
to have my replay, I noticed that it had disappeared as well !

So come on Data East, what's going on ? What happened to my replay ?
You owe me 50p (or at least give me my free play back) !!!!

Has this happened to anyone else ? Any explainations ? Software bug ?

:-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) (just in case anyone takes offense to my demands)

--Gary
+---------------------------( Gary Morton )-----------------------------+
|Disclaimer: The opinions above are my own personal views etc.          |
|Inmos Ltd, 1000 Aztec West, Bristol, UK         Email : gary@inmos.com |
+-----------------------( +44 454 616616 X526 )-------------------------+
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
From: mdchaney@fractal.ucs.indiana.edu (M Darrin Chaney)
Subject: Re: Big Guns
Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 15:45:59 GMT

kahlerm@sumax.seattleu.edu (Michael Kahler) writes:
>In article <1if7gkINN7nb@uwm.edu> despair@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Craig Andrew Tollifson) writes:
>>Okay, is the big green button thing between the flippers suppossed to pop up
>>or something when you're invincible or what?  I think the machine I've been
>>devoting so many quarters and hours on is flawed.  Otherwise I don't see a
>>point to becoming "invicible."
>>
>>Also, I'm curious about point earning tips for this oldie.  I usually go for
>>multi-ball right away and try to rescue the princess.
>>
>
>Yes, the flipper post is part of the timed invincible sequence,
>obtained by loading both cannons, shooting the center gun, then
>re-loading the lit cannon.  Invincible consisted of 15 seconds
>(settable?) of the post being up, the gate on the right drain open, and
>unlimited kickbacks on the left drain.  

Not only that, but if a ball does happen to sneak out the drain (through
a raised flipper), it is immediately returned to the plunger.  I used to
play this game when they had it here next to Funhouse.  Funhouse had to get
bad before they'd bother to fix it, so Big Guns got plenty of tokens from
me.  It's a good game anyway.

	Darrin
-- 

mdchaney@iubacs mdchaney@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu mdchaney@rose.ucs.indiana.edu

"I want- I need- to live, to see it all..."