I have hardwood floors and rubber footies on my pins...try moving THOSE things a few inches...nope! Those things are sucktionned to the floor...
You know those shots going SDTM and you'd like to give that machine a good sideways nudge to avoid it? At my place, you get you stare helplessly at the ball as it drains.
But nudging, in general, is what pinball is all about really. And yes, thats how pinball started, no flippers, to get that ball where you need to score, or avoid gobble holes, its nudge city. You can still give my games a good nudge, they're just not gonna slide across the floor.

Stan

Quoted from Pinballed

I have hardwood floors and rubber footies on my pins...try moving THOSE things a few inches...nope! Those things are sucktionned to the floor...

Yep those things do curb moving of the machine quite a bit.  PAPA uses them on every tournament machine since they are all on carpet.

I only did it to save the floors, I dont mind moving a pin a good bit but this changed that ability.

Quoted from RayB

So who the hell are you supposed to cheer if your "heritage" is an amalgam of 3 or more european countries? All of them? What if two of those countries are playing against each other?  

Cheer for a tie ... probably nil nil ....

Quoted from wbradley

John Daly ia a very atypical pro athlete. Not to mention a very spotty record. He probably has some of the best natural talent ever ,but his poor work ethic and substance abuse has made it impossible for him to sustain a steady professional standing in the PGA.

SOunds like Babe Ruth to a T

Quoted from SquidVicious

SOunds like Babe Ruth to a T

...yet both are/were in the big leagues. There have been many notables in baseball... some that come to mind are John Kruk, Cecil Fielder, Hideki Irabu and David Wells to name a few.

Golfers? ... just look at a single tournament. You will see plenty.

Quoted from Sparky

...yet both are/were in the big leagues. There have been many notables in baseball... some that come to mind are John Kruk, Cecil Fielder, Hideki Irabu and David Wells to name a few.

Golfers? ... just look at a single tournament. You will see plenty.

Hey don't forget Cecil's kid Prince another 'big boned' fella.

Actually back in high school I worked at Thirfty's NHL players would come in a spend gift certificates that they would win. I was surprised how many (in the late 70's - early 80's) looked what would be called soft today (nothing like Daly of course but not overly athletic looking either).

Quoted from Vengeance

Isn't this last statement in contradiction of everything else you've been saying in this thread?  You just said that your own skill isn't poor, so would that be an admission that pinball does require skill?

As for nudging being cheating, that's fine, if that's your opinion, but that doesn't make it correct.  Your opinion could be that the sky isn't blue or that their isn't a sun in the sky but that doesn't make it true.  

As for the personal attacks, sorry about that, I get carried away sometimes especially when it comes to talking about pinball competition and skill levels.  

No problem....I just saw that the debate was getting a little too heated...no love lost

Yeah, I think nudging is cheap/cheating...
Is it a part of the game? For sure it is! I just don't think it should be.
If it were up to me (i.e. If I designed games or invented pinball) the tilt settings would be permanently jacked super high

As for the contradiction...
Some guy calls me out as a poor pinball player, I'm going to defend myself. Yeah, I think I'm okay at pinball, and the stats show that...I'm not the best, that's for sure! But I certainly don't suck. A few years of playing pinball daily, nudging or not, will make you an okay pinball player...that's kinda my whole argument...

I say experience/practice makes a good pinball player, not skill/talent (i.e. pinball is such a basic game that anyone can be great at it, as compared to the skill/talent it takes to being great at Hockey or Soccer)....somehow nudging got worked into the whole debate?

Quoted from Hippochrome

I say experience/practice makes a good pinball player, not skill/talent (i.e. pinball is such a basic game that anyone can be great at it, as compared to the skill/talent it takes to being great at Hockey or Soccer)....somehow nudging got worked into the whole debate?

Hell the thread started out as a rant about the World Cup

Well explain to me the difference, people don't wake up one day and all of the sudden they are good enough to play in the NHL or Play in the World Cup.  They have to train, day in and day out and practice and learn and get good at it.  There is no difference between that and what you have to do to get good at pinball (except for the very obvious physical component and the shape the person has to be in.)  Also just like in professional sports there are people who are much better and have a natural talent for the game.  Perfect example in Pinball is Bowen Kerins who walked into his first World Championship in 1994 and won the entire thing having never competed at a professional level before.  

Also I don't buy the argument that anyone can be great at it.  Perfect example is we have a member in TOPL who has been playing pinball for the last 10 years, owns over 60 machines and is one of the worst players I have ever seen.   Gretzky didn't come out of the womb holding a hockey stick, I'll agree there was a level on natural talent there but had it not been taught how to play hockey and practiced he would never have been as good as he was.  

Quoted from Hippochrome

No problem....I just saw that the debate was getting a little too heated...no love lost

...

I say experience/practice makes a good pinball player, not skill/talent (i.e. pinball is such a basic game that anyone can be great at it, as compared to the skill/talent it takes to being great at Hockey or Soccer)....somehow nudging got worked into the whole debate?

Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say ... no ... more!

A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat!

Quoted from Vengeance

Well explain to me the difference...

Pinball is as simple as learning the rule sheet of the particular game, and knowing a few tricks (i.e. Pinball 101 DVD).

Sports are take an infinitely higher level of hand/eye coordination, plus (to quote WCS94: Skill, Speed, Stamina, Spirit, Strength).

Try this: Play soccer or hockey drunk and see how bad you suck at it...
Then try playing pinball drunk. You may actually do better...I know I do...but that's true for me in golf as well

On a nudge side-note...try not nudging in a game right now. Really try to cradle or catch the ball, and aim your shots. I just tried it and got 1,300,000,000 on WCS, first try. Now Im gonna try with nudging.

Quoted from Hippochrome

Pinball is as simple as learning the rule sheet of the particular game, and knowing a few tricks (i.e. Pinball 101 DVD).

Sports are take an infinitely higher level of hand/eye coordination, plus (to quote WCS94: Skill, Speed, Stamina, Spirit, Strength).

Try this: Play soccer or hockey drunk and see how bad you suck at it...
play pinball drunk, and you may actually do better...I know I do...but that's true for me in golf as well

But it's not that simple.  I think the biggest part of the problem is that you've never ever played at a competitive level for pinball.  Yes you have OPL but I wouldn't really call that competition, more a group of friends who hang out and play pinball together and decide to keep score.  The level of competition and skill involved to play at the higher level is something you've never experienced.  It's like you sitting in your living room watching hockey and trying to tell you buddies you could make it in the NHL.  It's a very, very different world and ask anyone who has tried and I'm sure they will tell you about the rude awaking they got when they tried (Spacecadet, Frosken, Taragilia(sp?))

I'm also not trying to say that sports and pinball are on the same level, there is obviously allot more training involved and physical prowess then pinball, I'm not even going to try and argue that fact.  I'm just trying to show the parallels in that just as in order to get good at sports you have to train and practice and learn things so to do you have to do that in pinball.

As for drinking beer, I used to think it helped me play better as it would calm my nerves but have found as of late that it just makes me play worse.