Ground Kontrol

[ROM]

yeah, I saw that score on the map site. danny b's gonna be pissed!

[PDXGeek]

I enjoy visiting GK to play the games. It pains me to see the playfields so dirty so often, but these games get a ton of play and its one of the last saviors of Pinballs in this area. I would donate time at GK to clean / fix pins in exchange for free play on the games for my son and I while we are there any day of the week. Just hand me some rags, novus 2, and some carnuba and Ill polish them clean.

[revtest]

Dude you need to check out the http://www.portlandpinballmap.com/! We have more route pinball in this area than anywhere in the country/world! A good spot if you have kids is Voodoo donuts 2 on sandy, have fun! Good luck!

[PDXGeek]

I forgot about that place. They have the crazy bacon maple bar.

[KYL]

I stopped into Voodoo Doughnut early this evening to play and the place was a madhouse.

There was a line of about 15-20 people backed up to the pinball machines and people kept bumping into me. At least three kids wedged themselves between Jackbot and the adjoining games so I couldn't nudge the table without fear of injuring one of the tykes.

I had to grab one kid's hand before he was able to press the start button in the middle of my game.

Finally, one kid put his mouth on my hand while I was playing and drooled all over it.

And they didn't have any change.

I may have to go there from midnight-3 AM if I want to continue to enjoy the awesome lineup of games they currently have.

[Dropshot]

I can't stand that place....the smell alone haunts me in my dreams.

[revtest]

Bahahaha! that is some funny shit! ya the later the better or during school hours can be good also. I just stay away on weekends period.

[PDXGeek]

I stopped in today with the kid and the change machine was broken, and I got quarters from their tip jar. The lady working there said the manager doesnt care about the pins, and never stocks the change machine. The J.Park has a bad left flipper but the other machines seemed to play good. My 6yo son racked up a nice 100mil on Fish Tales, and I popped a free game on it as well, so we played that for quite a bit. There were a ton of people in the place though, and it made it hard to enjoy the games. Definitely better to go late night for sure.

[GroundKontrol]

[GroundKontrol]

[GroundKontrol]

[GroundKontrol]

[GroundKontrol]

New Pin!

In: Funhouse - one of Pat Lawlor's best!

Out: Independence Day - meh.

Enjoy!

GK

[Opto]

Hey GK,

I see how at a glance this forum could look just like a place for us to bitch about problems with machines, but we actually post problems here for the operators of all the various locations in Portland. If you look at the threads for some of the other locations maintained by major operators, you'll notice there's a really great "call and response" type pattern to them. One of us posts a problem, the operator sees it, repairs it and reports back when the problem has been fixed. Then we all know that that machine is playing well again. It's really great! It's exactly the type of relationship that I see so many players/operators post on RGP that they WISH they could have. I understand that you want to save face in google searches, and I think that's still possible by posting your fixes when they happen. If someone stumbles upon one of our posts about a problem on one of your machines, there's an opportunity for them to see that you've fixed it in the next post, or that you're aware of it and plan on fixing it. We can tell a bartender, and maybe it'll get fixed and maybe it won't. There's really no way to know, other than to roll the dice and put in some quarters on the next visit. Your repair log idea is a good one, and I plan on using it, however there's no way for me (or the rest of us) to know when it's fixed. This is key as a lot of times, we'll go to a specific location to play a specific game, and might wait until that game has been fixed. For a month when I would play location machines, I would only come to GK, JUST to play The Shadow - that kind of thing.

It sounds like you've been playing pinball for a lot longer than most of us and have had your fair share of time on crappy location machines. . . On your Dr. Who upper flipper response. Yes, it's true you *can* play Dr. Who with the top flipper out. . . but best part of that game is that shot. A lot of us have home machines that we take meticulous care of and we DO have very high standards. Having said that, we all also play in a lot of locations around town as well (see those other threads i mentioned earlier). You mentioned going to multiple spots where games were either turned off, or playing like garbage. If I go to a place like that, it's only once cuz I NEVER go back, unless someone posts on this board that the location/operator has turned it around. The places a lot of us frequent aren't quite kept up to "home play" standards cuz that's impossible, but they're pretty damn close. I think part of the reason that we do have high standards, is that we see/play location machines that are dialed in really well and we've been spoiled Sure, you can say that we need to basically lower our standards and play games with problems, and you guys have a lot of machines so I know they're a lot of work to keep up. However, with so many options of GOOD locations in Portland, if I want to play a Dr. Who, I'm probably going to go play one with a working upper flipper - ya know?

I really haven't meant this to sound spiteful or mean spirited, so I hope it hasn't come across that way. I love ground kontrol and whenever friends from out of town visit - you're the first place we go I think the positive "call and response" player/operator relationship we have in Portland is vital to the survival of it's thriving pinball scene. These threads started out that way, but as with any internet forum, it seemed like this one was getting off track

Thanks!

PS - Cheers on the Funhouse - it'll be great to have one playing nice in town!

[sauce]

[GroundKontrol]

[KYL]

It would be nice to have the following at Ground Kontrol:

* A process to report service problems.
* A way to know which service problems are outstanding and for how long they have been. That way I don't bother you with a repeat service request or expect that something will be fixed that isn't a priority.

If you wish, please let us know what is best/easiest/cheapest for you. We want to help you to keep your machines in as good condition as makes sense for your business.

[Dropshot]

All right let's just end this. Ground Kontrol does a great job, not only on their pins but their 80 some arcade games as well. Which I am guessing makes more money than the pins do. So we should all just be so lucky they still have so many pins for us all to play. I agree that when there are 26 machines things are going to go wrong, and may even take up to a week at some times to get around to fix the issue. Let alone if they had to order the part. Like J.D. mentioned and also hinted at in a post a long time ago that for the most part those of us that use this forum probably not a lot more about pinball machines than the average player. A target that doesn't register, or a drop target that doesn't pop back up may be a huge deal to us but to everyone else, they have no idea. Even with that being said I went over a few of my notes on the machines from a few weeks ago. Of the 26 machines, I noticed MINOR issues with 6 machines. All still very playable. My guess is they are probably all fixed by now even. Even so that is 20 or so fully functioning machines. What more can you ask for. And like I said before, especially before Pinbrawl and even in general quit talking shit. Ground Kontrol and everyone involved is doing our best to make sure the machines will be in great shape for the event and for your weekly visit down. I'm sure it can be frustrating if the one machine you wanted to play happened to have an issue this week, well play one of the other 20+ and come back next week and it will be back up and running. Now stop trying to scare off all the out of towners from Pinbrawl or you are going to have a pissed of handful off people working so hard to make this thing great. Not to mention Art knows Kung Fu and J.D. has no reservations releasing him on you! (If only I had a picture of Uncle Sam to insert right here)

[ROM]

End what? Who's talking shit? It's not like people here are issuing major complaints. You're mad, dude! (as in, crazy.) Just because GK's (the person posting) style of posting is to be fairly defensive, that doesn't mean we're actually having an argument here. So, no need to feed off that, and in the process blow up a simple discussion into something bigger. We're free to discuss locations in this section. And the talk is not going to be all about how tasty their cupcakes and rainbows are. No one is slamming the place. So, relax. Be happy for Sauce, he maybe just a new job.

Are the registration numbers down, or something? Is the GK tourney page not getting enough HITS!? Oh no! Duder please, this tourney will sell out.

[ROM]