Author Topic: Surfers Timezone Swipe System  (Read 1650 times)

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Offline Pop Bumper Pete

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Re: Surfers Timezone Swipe System
« Reply #45 on: January 23, 2013, 01:40:14 PM »
Brett, don't complain so much
A forum is a place for discussion, everybody is allowed to have an opinion
By posting your opinion , you allow others to post their opinions

If we all agreed, this would be a boring place


PS, posting in different colored texts does not make your opinion more valid
« Last Edit: January 23, 2013, 01:43:57 PM by Pop Bumper Pete »

Offline pinnies4me

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Re: Surfers Timezone Swipe System
« Reply #46 on: January 23, 2013, 02:31:35 PM »
Clean up time gents, the Timezone stuff now has its own thread.

Unfortunately, when people talk in absolutes they expose themselves to question.

You cannot dress up an absolute statement of fact (eg "1200 swipes/games per day") as an *opinion*. That is a statement of a fact, not an opinion. You should expect to be questioned about statements of fact when they appear ridiculous as they did here.

There are many long-time pinheads on this forum, and some that have major history of operating games. They understand the commercial side of pinball, and have every right to question statements that are patently incorrect.

As far as the insulting comments, I agree, they are not necessary.

I believe the Timezone issue has now been sufficiently covered, and suggest that it be left at that.

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Offline ktm450

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Re: Surfers Timezone Swipe System
« Reply #47 on: January 23, 2013, 03:36:12 PM »

As far as the insulting comments, I agree, they are not necessary.



Yep, true, I got carried away, I have a hard time reading the spin that is put into some of Bretts posts, which I am sure he can agree on.
I apologise if I have offeneded you Brett.

Offline Caveoftreasures

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Re: Surfers Timezone Swipe System
« Reply #48 on: January 23, 2013, 04:22:04 PM »
Apology accepted, except the spin part, and the part where you said I just make things up,lol,  I dont make anything up, I just tried telling u guys about something i saw with my own eyes. At 43 yrs, I dont make things up, unless I am laying down with my 3 yr old son, patting his head and telling him sleepy sleep stories.lol  Perhaps sometimes on here, we all take things too literally. If I pissed anyone off, incl the mods or Gav, or KTM,. or anyone else, apologies from my end as well. I just want this place to be fun and maybe we should all learn to be less aggressive when we dont agree with something else someone has written. We are all on the same team. The Positive Pinball team to keep this great hobby alive......No big deal, lets all move on.

If saying repeated positive stuff about Stern is spin, then fine, cause I try to be a positive person about new pinballs and I think it is extremely important we focus on the positive stuff about Stern to help get newbies into new pinballs. If we all just bagged Stern all the time, even though they are not perfect, than how can we expect newbies to grab a new pinball machine and start on their journey to be a collector in this fun pinball hobby.

If the Avengers pinny had of shown 500 swipes, I would have said 500 but it did say 1200 swipes per day. I cant argue with the games own software. I was there for 4 hours during the 10am to 2pm busiest times they have in school holidays. I didnt stay there the whole 15 hours they were open.
In any event the machine spitting out 1200 swipes on its software may have been a glich or whatever, I wasnt arguing that, I was just showing that every swipe costs someones pre-paid arcade card a $1.50 a hit etc. It was all designed to be informative, nothing else at all. Anyway, who cares, but i just tried to pass something on I saw on a game counter.

I will go back down there sooner or later, and I will ask the manager of TimeZone to let me have a look at the diagnostics for 3 or 4 of the pinnys, and if he lets me, I will take some photos of the data each machine carries, then u will see what i have seen and u can interpret what u want from it.

The point is, that i dont know if there is another pinball arcade or any arcade in the world, where say a Avengers Pro, or Xmen Pro etc, get absolutely hammered during the busiest days when people are playing the hell out of a pinball machine 15 hrs a day , 7 days a week. Who knows, perhaps TimeZone in Surfers Paradise is a unique place, where everything in the place just gets flogged n flogged n flogged. Thats what i have seen before when the place is absolutely packed with probably 800 or more people all in there at once with apparently another 3,000 people on top cycling thru the place per 24 hrs etc according to the Manager.

The fact that Avengers has only been there a handful of weeks, and it is already showing signs of various high game count service issues, shows how a modern day Stern does or doesnt stand up to massively high traffic. I have always thought drop targets would be good for a home machine but not so good for high usage on a sited game. The Avengers H drop target needs fixing and is worn out already. I dont think this will be a issue for a home game for a collector, but its food for thought for anyone siting a pin with the drop targets...

Does anyone know of another pinball place in the world which is open 15 hrs a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year...if not, maybe good old Surfers Paradise has the USA arcades beat when it comes to high traffic. Maybe Disneyland in the USA might come close if it has modern Stern pinnys on site ?? does anyone know. ?? !@#

Anyway, I have something I am going to add to the Avengers thread that i have had printed for all of the Stern flyers on A3 sized gloss paper with lamination done to each poster. They look great. See the Avengers thread for some info, costs and photos.

Cheers.
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Offline Homepin

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Re: Surfers Timezone Swipe System
« Reply #49 on: January 23, 2013, 04:46:43 PM »
The swipe card system would make me spin around and walk straight out..............
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Offline pinnies4me

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Re: Surfers Timezone Swipe System
« Reply #50 on: January 23, 2013, 05:30:57 PM »

As far as the insulting comments, I agree, they are not necessary.



Yep, true, I got carried away, I have a hard time reading the spin that is put into some of Bretts posts, which I am sure he can agree on.
I apologise if I have offeneded you Brett.



Good on ya Matt, nice to see someone prepared to admit when they are wrong!  ^^^
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Offline Freiherr

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Re: Surfers Timezone Swipe System
« Reply #51 on: January 23, 2013, 05:35:12 PM »
The swipe card system would make me spin around and walk straight out..............

+1
Hate 'em.
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Offline dendoc

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Re: Surfers Timezone Swipe System
« Reply #52 on: January 23, 2013, 05:42:36 PM »
The swipe card system would make me spin around and walk straight out..............

+1
Hate 'em.

Wonder why you hate the swipe card? They have Pinball only deal - $20 give you 30 games. Good value to me, don'thave to run around looking for a change machine, minimal efforts to collect/empty the machines of money. Seems fine and works well.
Time ZOne is a fairly unique place, just noisy as hell!

Offline swinks

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Re: Surfers Timezone Swipe System
« Reply #53 on: January 23, 2013, 05:55:36 PM »
They just opened up a new Time Zone in Charlestown (Newcastle) and all machines don't spit out tickets anymore on any games BUT they store ticket numbers on the card including pinballs.
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Offline delarge

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Re: Surfers Timezone Swipe System
« Reply #54 on: January 23, 2013, 06:02:32 PM »
I went to Ulladulla Funland in the Christmas hols. Caught up with an old mate and girlfriend went shopping. Got my $20 swipe card and went straight for the pinball machines. My friend joked about being the oldest people in the place. All the machines worked, but the swipe card didn't work at all on Transformers. Another guy tried it and ended up walking away. What an annoying system!!!!

Offline Caveoftreasures

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Re: Surfers Timezone Swipe System
« Reply #55 on: January 23, 2013, 06:09:58 PM »
One of the problems with the pinball machines for Novices, is that when they swipe the card the game doesnt start cause they dont know that they have to hit the start button. This is why most people swipe multiple times before they work it out, leading to extra swipes and $$ spent by accident.
The swipe system is a major money earner on anything that requires a push of a start button to get it going. Then they finish a game and dont realise they still have credits which get wiped by the next swiper. This is why they make soo much money at Surfers at $1.50 a game.

What they do outside of holiday times I cant remember, but I was getting 3 games per one swipe one day, and only 1 game a swipe the next day.
The Transformer machine always seemed to give 3 or 4 games per swipe which was good, but with the flippers being so weak on that machine and Tron, u didnt bother even finishing a game cause you couldnt even hit the top ramp shots. I am glad they finally serviced some of the games for the school holidays, but I have a feeling AMD did it when they were up there for the AC/DC comp a few weeks back etc.

You couldnt run the mnachines there on coins, the machines would need emptying too often and the call attendant light would always be on the swiper mechanism.
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Offline GORGAR 1

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Re: Surfers Timezone Swipe System
« Reply #56 on: January 23, 2013, 06:59:56 PM »
I hate swipe games to I just walk away.

Peter

Offline Crashramp

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Re: Surfers Timezone Swipe System
« Reply #57 on: January 23, 2013, 07:02:22 PM »
I went to Ulladulla Funland in the Christmas hols. Caught up with an old mate and girlfriend went shopping. Got my $20 swipe card and went straight for the pinball machines. My friend joked about being the oldest people in the place. All the machines worked, but the swipe card didn't work at all on Transformers. Another guy tried it and ended up walking away. What an annoying system!!!!

I haven't been to Funland in years! What other pinnies did they have?

Offline Retropin

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Re: Surfers Timezone Swipe System
« Reply #58 on: January 23, 2013, 08:55:48 PM »
But they dont get wiped.. a new swipe adds to the credits, and while you play the game, the credits keep coming.
I had a friend go check out the arcade.. game next to him had 3 credits on it.. guy came up and with ONE swipe there were 8 credits.. so either one swipe is worth 8 credits or it added 5.. either way it does not add up to the arcade making a fortune.. it adds up to them losing a fortune as you can play for free almost. While game was playing, it kept giving more credits.. none of which came off the card.

None.. absolutely none of this equates to games played... it MAY have said SWIPES or CREDITS when you saw 1200 Brett... but in no way was it games.. and in no way can you summise flippers being strong after an approx 70,000 games as you have absolutely no way of determining how many games aproximate or not have been played... you can only summise that the whole swipe system here is buggered.

Also.. NONE of this has been about Stern bagging.. its been about displaying the impossibilities of a grand statement... a statement i believe that was made more from enthusiasm than fact.

So we have a faulty swipe system causing an arcade to LOSE money rather than make it... free games being triggered during play and an attendant that knows about this which why the machines are turned off and on again to wipe the remaining credits.  All is not good at Surfers then...

Offline Caveoftreasures

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Re: Surfers Timezone Swipe System
« Reply #59 on: January 23, 2013, 10:54:27 PM »
But they dont get wiped.. a new swipe adds to the credits, and while you play the game, the credits keep coming.
I had a friend go check out the arcade.. game next to him had 3 credits on it.. guy came up and with ONE swipe there were 8 credits.. so either one swipe is worth 8 credits or it added 5.. either way it does not add up to the arcade making a fortune.. it adds up to them losing a fortune as you can play for free almost. While game was playing, it kept giving more credits.. none of which came off the card.

None.. absolutely none of this equates to games played... it MAY have said SWIPES or CREDITS when you saw 1200 Brett... but in no way was it games.. and in no way can you summise flippers being strong after an approx 70,000 games as you have absolutely no way of determining how many games aproximate or not have been played... you can only summise that the whole swipe system here is buggered.

Also.. NONE of this has been about Stern bagging.. its been about displaying the impossibilities of a grand statement... a statement i believe that was made more from enthusiasm than fact.

So we have a faulty swipe system causing an arcade to LOSE money rather than make it... free games being triggered during play and an attendant that knows about this which why the machines are turned off and on again to wipe the remaining credits.  All is not good at Surfers then...

For the 20th time, its swipes not games....I have said that so many times its embarassing.

When i was there for 4 days in a row, credits did not accumulate, they dissapeared when someone new swiped. Unless they have changed that since I was there. The machines never got turned off once in front of me.

The arcade is not losing money at all, to suggest so is crazy. Games only get put on the machine after a $1.50 swipe, unless u buy a different discount card.

I have been over this 100 times and I am not wasting my time debating it anymore. To suggest my statement is not fact but from enthusiasm is disrespectful, and I dont need your patronising comments yet again. I think your statements are made from ego and a desire to inflate yourself being the big man taking me on so there you go. You have your opinion, I have heard it all before. No more polloution please. Do u really want to waste another 20 posts arguing over something not worth anything.

For the 20th time, move on as Nick has already suggested for gods sake.
Behind every garage door could be a pinball collectors
"Cave of Treasures" 55 in my collection

Into  Stern -JJP - Cars , Road Bikes- Jet Skis - Star Trek n Sci-Fi & Electronics    
Beware of Stalkers & Walkers when playing The Walking Dead

My 7yr old son Hunter is my best mate in the world !