Topic: Fireball

[Comfort Player]

Thanks for the response Brad, but the terms "ripped" and "reamed" reminds me of two guys in the state pen, not something I would do to my table.  Any "upgrade" option possibly coming up for us early adopters ?

[Old Meister]

I still say that the future direction for Foosball is the multi-play table where you bring your own set-up. Play with what you like. A whole new business could be started with custom men and handles as well as different weight rods. Bbtuna will back me up for having this idea a few years ago. Now it looks more and more possible, I love it!

[BradLaurine]

cough, cough, choke, oh oh, I think am going to get...
Okay, lets see, who are we going to sell this multi-play table to? Think in terms of marketing this one of kind table. You have to sell more than 200+ to keep it in the line. Even at that number it is a very small number.
ITSF hates the idea of one table that can handle the use of different rods. They have no choice but to avoid the desire to work with this type of table. What manufacture wants to make just rods and men to be placed onto a Fireball table?
It is a unique idea. It is a engineers dream to build a bearing that can be changed to except different rods. In marketing terms, I think it is interesting but selling them would be impossible. Way to small of a market!

Start smiling now...Prove me completely wrong and buy the first of thousands in North America. Please? chirp chirp sounds of silents... Hello, Hello, echo echo... LOL

Sorry, I am a fan of the concept but it doesn't fly outside of our cool circle of people.

Brad Laurine

[BradLaurine]

I will add that taking the rod out of the side of the Fireball table and putting in your own rod can be done, now. Custom handle, custom men and rod weight. When I get a chance, I will show you what I did for a custom feel on the Five rod and the three rod. Fits my hand like a glove, but the guys here will think I have an unfair advantage. What? Who me? No way! I am insulted!!!

Later, Brad

[Anderson]

Meister, I can assure you that many people have dreamed this idea on their own without any help. The problem is the ball and format of play. Add to that the surface. Even if I could put Bonzini men on a Fireball, the table would be too stiff, no give, and wouldn't have the grip that a Bonzini has. You would have to have an alternating-choose-the-ball format as well, an ITSF nightmare. It's a great idea, but completely unfeasible and especially not MARKETABLE. However, for the foosball enthusiast who wants to have a HOME table, doesn't have room for a DOZEN DIFFERENT tables, nor the capital, it's a dream come true. There aren't enough players in that market. Additionally, why would Tornado or Fireball or Bonzini or Garlando, or any COMPETITOR make it easier to play another product on their table? When Fireball created their 3-piece bearing, their mission most likely was to allow their own rods to be easily taken out for maintenance and shipping, not to allow the interchange of a Tornado 3-rod. I find this ability to be THE GREATEST INVENTION EVER and something that Fireball should investigate further for us diehards. THIS is why I bought this table. FOR OPTIONS.

Got a message from foosball.com today saying the new ball hasn't shipped yet. Should be available by the end of next week. Anyhow, they say they can add it to my order when the ball arrives.

[Anderson]

Now that I think about it, wouldn't it be more marketable for table manufacturers to reach out to other markets, to players who already own a table to buy something from them. Example. I'm Tornado. I want a Bonzini owner to play more Tornado, maybe someday buy a table from me, so I create a way to connect a reasonable FAKE rod, a simulation of the Tornado game on a Bonzini. Similarly, Bonzini creates a rod for Tornado owners to have a reasonable approximation on a Tornado table. I think this is more marketable. But even so, it's a dog-eat-dog world. Bonzini wants you to buy their table and forsake the other tables, Tornado can give a dam about Fireball, etc. 

[Anderson]

This first pic is my Fireball with a Tornado 3-rod, a Tournament Soccer 5-rod and a Garlando goalie(I had to do some weird tinkering to get that to work)

[Anderson]

Here's another



and another



The MOST IMPORTANT POINT of both of these pictures, in case there are any non-Fireball owners reading this thread, is that it takes about 30 seconds for me to exchange that Tornado rod with a Fireball rod or Shelti, or Dynamo, etc. 30 seconds AT MOST. You don't have to deconstruct the rod. BRILLIANT!!!!!!!!!! Seriously, Brad. Find a way to build on this. I AM HOOKED!!!!!

AND GET ME THAT BALL!!!!!!

[BradLaurine]

GREAT STUFF!
Send me better pictures and I want to put this on my site!~

Cool!!!

Great thinking over all... Thanks for the boost.

The balls went out and will be in Maryland at the end of the week.
PS. the balls are way to good, I should horde them all!

Later, Brad

[Anderson]

Brad, you all at Fireball need to restyle your site. The blue color on a black background is virtually unreadable. Painful on the eyes. I took those pictures with my phone, the only camera I have, but I'll see if I can take some better ones. You're welcome to use any of my pictures.

[BradLaurine]

Yes, I do. I just now went in and tried a quick code change but failed. I will work on it more later.

Have you gone to www.tablesoccer.com?

I wish everyone would write to Dennis Jiang, owner of the site and explain to him how that looks to you. Don't bother with the email address that is given on the site, it is DEAD. Don't bother calling either, it has been disconnected. Even "under construction" would be very helpful. At least people looking for more information will continue to look instead of seeing this and saying, "No way I am I going to waste my time with this fly-by-night manufacture".
It kills me to see it. It kills business.

foosball_site (at) yahoo (dot) com

Maybe YOU will get him to move forward on a World wide image.

Thanks,Brad "causing trouble" Laurine

[FOOZUL]

Brad's absolutely right about Dennis' site. It's badly designed, shady and doesn't work. Even Warriors' site is better, That site must go...Here we have a kick_@#$ table and sites like that will drive interested folks away. I was so hopeless about getting a Fireball till Brad came to the rescue.Also Fireball USA site is very appealing and simple and well designed.


The Multi-Player table is a great idea and very few players get the concept. As a hobby player and table collector I would still buy this. I can never be a die hard of any specific brand table, I love the game.

[Anderson]

Brad, I just spent about an hour scanning all the style sheets for the Fireball USA site and simply could not find where links were being styled to blue. I think the fix is to put in a style for a.toclink (table of content link) and style color to ANYTHING BUT BLUE, preferably NOT BLACK. It's probably just an oversight and simply never got styled. IN fact, now that I think about it, the default color for links (<a> elements) is blue, which shows up just fine on a white background. Simply add this to the style.css page in the style sheets folder

a.toclink{
     color: #FFA854;
}

I picked that color from the existing style sheet. It's a yellowish-orange which is similar to the color of the large Fireball banner.

[BradLaurine]

Mr. Anderson,
Thank you for that help. I unfortunately have managed to lock myself out of the css page that was writeable. CRAP. I somehow blew it and will need to get back in and finish. Your Fireball balls are shipped to Foosball.com. They are expected to have the parts at the end of this week. Deb is fully aware of your need and she is ready to go as soon as the balls arrive.

Foosball.com and My site will be the parts supplier for Fireball. I am currently working on getting the site ready for a click and buy.

On to other things.

The Coin Op is playing awesome. So far a couple of things have come to light and are being addressed. I found a way to get free balls, so Dennis at Fireball has sent me 25 new pieces to defeat my criminal ways.

Changing the minds of Tornado players don't come easy. Last Wednesday night, we had several people from outside the area come and play in a tournament on the Fireball Coin Ops. New balls and new table... at first, I can't this, I can't that, this is bad, this is good, oh wait, did I just do that? After awhile, they were singing the praises after the night was done. The proof is not what they say to me but what they tell others. I know people are going to blow smoke up my bottom because they don't want to offend me or make me feel bad. Thank you for the respect.

On Thursday, the "other board" had a nice post in regards to what one of the players felt about the table. Today, one of the other players that came from, yet another city was all explaining to others how great the table played. Thank you for the positive reviews.

It is going to take time to get the player to see the difference without the negative vibe.

I am a player, I see that I stroke a faster, longer, squarer pull shot then I have ever done in my entire life. Do you think that is because I am getting younger and the steroids, growth hormones and the other banned substances are working? lol I think it is because the Fireball rods, bearing, man design and finally, what I know can be put to practice on this table.

Looking forward to more.

Brad Laurine

[Anderson]

Oops! All of my pictures have disappeared. Ironically, it looks like Foosball.com has restyled their page and in fact are using a similar color for their links that I suggested for Fireball.com.