LOTR sword lock compensation?

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

Krellan wrote:
> I'm curious if newer ROM's in LOTR have compensation for a broken sword
> lock?
>
> Reason I'm asking is that I just found a LOTR that is the closest
> machine to my house, and sadly, it's broken... the game seems to work
> fine in all other areas, but the sword lock "styptic pencil" never pops
> up.
>
> Therefore, the machine can never hold a ball on the right ramp, and the
> software has zero compensation.
>
> I know the right ramp entry and make switches work, because they score
> properly in other modes that use them.
>
> It's a real shame there's no compensation for a broken lock mechanism!
> It seems that this part would be one that would be fairly obvious to
> fail.
>
> ROM's on the game are pretty old (the skill shot animation of the ball
> entering the tower is *not* blowoffable).
>
> Without the ability to lock balls on the sword lock, there's no TTT
> multiball, and therefore no DTR, and certainly no Valinor. Makes the
> game a lot less fun to play....
>
> I'm really hoping newer ROM's have added sword lock compensation (and
> compensation for other high-failure parts). Have they? Or, is zero
> compensation a stated Stern policy? If so, it's unfortunate, because
> it really helps out games on location with imperfect operators.

Now I KNOW that Compensation is a patent held by WMS (although it will
expire in October). Stern cannot use it without incurring a licensing
fee (which isn't worth doing for EVERY game I imagine). Hopefully
Keith will write some Compensation into a new ROM once he is allowed
to.

>
> Josh

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

LOL
how do you copyright compensation?

Stern should copyright gravity and put Wayne out of business!!


"CAH" <cmcolinh@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1122897929.231102.280280@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>
> Krellan wrote:
> > I'm curious if newer ROM's in LOTR have compensation for a broken sword
> > lock?
> >
> > Reason I'm asking is that I just found a LOTR that is the closest
> > machine to my house, and sadly, it's broken... the game seems to work
> > fine in all other areas, but the sword lock "styptic pencil" never pops
> > up.
> >
> > Therefore, the machine can never hold a ball on the right ramp, and the
> > software has zero compensation.
> >
> > I know the right ramp entry and make switches work, because they score
> > properly in other modes that use them.
> >
> > It's a real shame there's no compensation for a broken lock mechanism!
> > It seems that this part would be one that would be fairly obvious to
> > fail.
> >
> > ROM's on the game are pretty old (the skill shot animation of the ball
> > entering the tower is *not* blowoffable).
> >
> > Without the ability to lock balls on the sword lock, there's no TTT
> > multiball, and therefore no DTR, and certainly no Valinor. Makes the
> > game a lot less fun to play....
> >
> > I'm really hoping newer ROM's have added sword lock compensation (and
> > compensation for other high-failure parts). Have they? Or, is zero
> > compensation a stated Stern policy? If so, it's unfortunate, because
> > it really helps out games on location with imperfect operators.
>
> Now I KNOW that Compensation is a patent held by WMS (although it will
> expire in October). Stern cannot use it without incurring a licensing
> fee (which isn't worth doing for EVERY game I imagine). Hopefully
> Keith will write some Compensation into a new ROM once he is allowed
> to.
>
> >
> > Josh
>

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

To my knowledge, someone official at Stern posted that Stern had came
up with a technical workaround to the patent, that does almost all of
what we players think of as "compensation", without actually violating
the patent.

http://groups-beta.google.com/grou [...] cf86269dfe

If you're curious about the patent:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph [...] PN/4763256
(If the huge URL got eaten by your newsreader, the relevant patent
number is 4,763,256)

It wouldn't be economical for Stern to go retrofit older games with
real 100% compensation code, once the patent expires, but if they
re-run older games on the production line (HD, LOTR, TSPP), then it
would be in Stern's best interest to put out new ROM's that have
rock-solid compensation!

Josh

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

Exactly, don't see why you can't just write the stupid code as if it is
simply more rules of the game like every other piece of code in the
game. I.e. Rule 342 - If the ball rolls over the lock switches A, then
B, then C and then the right rollover, that is the Fantastical Ogre
feature, and the player will be awarded a psuedo locked ball in memory.
And rule 349 that if the player scores 500 trillion points, hey guess
what, ball lock will be turned off to enable the Ogre feature to be
scored. Hey another guess what, that Ogre feature will now also be
scored if the lock happens to be busted too, but so what? End result
will be the same.
So.....write 100% rules instead of 80% rules and 20% seperate and
spelled-out "compensation" logic. But I'm just a decrepid, aging Cobol
programmer so what do I know....