RingMaster

If this is the case, which I highly doubt, they're about to upset and alienate a very large portion of their customers for the former Paramount Parks. I mean, yeah, a lot of people know, remember, and love the Peanuts Gang, especially Snoopy and Woodstock. But try holding up a picture of Lucy and a picture of Dora the Explorer to a four-year-old girl and see which one she runs after first. The same goes for a picture of Woodstock versus a picture of SpongeBob SquarePants to a seven-year-old boy.

Ohmigod, they are the cleanest, nicest people who come to the park on any given basis. They're even cleaner than the people from P&G. I only say that because, for a company that specializes in manufacturing cleaning products and non-polluting materials, they sure waste a heck of a LOT of cardboard when giving out free samples of stuff to their employees. And, need I say this without being reprimanded for it, they're nicer than some of the Christian folk during Spirit Song. You know, when sharing your love and devotion to an all-powerful, all-mighty being who asks that everyone love one another, the least you can do is not become a hypocrite and disrespect those who actually work at the park trying to make sure all the rides are running or the park is spotless when you're here.

Not to mention now it's impossible to put a maze since they added the Panda Express shop inside. That, and the fact that it gets annoying from both people screaming constantly in the maze from outside on a bench, and when the old big screens used to show football games and having to hear that while in the maze.

Nick Theater, perhaps? The only other location I can think of is inside the RVT Arcade building. Oh, and the interior of the Coney arcade building.

I had (or still have) an idea about using the Picnic Grove as a Haunt zone in itself with at least two or three of the shelters being used as mazes and both the main path to PG/Boom Bay and that mechanical road behind Runaway Reptar used as fearzone midways. One theme I wanted to see would be the carnEVIL idea you posted with the Ferris Wheel, but I'd rather see the theme expand into a full-fledged haunted carnival amusement park, complete with the moldy remains of a wooden roller coaster and such. Some mazes would be a Dark Ride haunted house, like the recent After Dark Horrorfest movie of the same name that has cheap scenics mixed in with real monsters and dead or dying victims strewn about, along with a Fun House maze that would be more in line with the old house of mirrors attractions from days past.

As you may or may not know, we have almost three months left until the return of the Haunt. Post any ideas, guesses and whatnot you have about this year's event here. Remember, so far it's only speculation, as nothing official has been confirmed by the park itself. Yet.

That bat works, alright. It's just that some members of the general public have a nasty habit of complaining about being too scared when monsters pop up or 'attack' all of a sudden. Apparently a few people got so scared of the giant bat creature or might have fainted or something (bat phobia, I guess?) that now they decided to turn it off to stop the complaints. Which, after now seeing the general publics' reaction to the sudden 'rash' of cicadas, just about proves the sheer idiocy of a majority of parkgoers. Also, the new ride program should allow for some more set pieces to be installed in the rid chamber, as certain points along the course of the ride are when the vehicle stops for a second and stares at the old photo cameras or the ceiling where the icicles used to be at.

^ Unlike a certain Jackson character who managed to accumulate over 700 posts in a little under five months. --> to iChase: Yes, and no. Yes, because I've been to the park, I believe, around 262 times within the past four years, from both a guest's and an employee's perspective. No, because while I have a photogenic memory of where everything is in the park, I don't have a perfectly exact idea of what all of the buildings look like, particularly the I-Street buildings. That's why I use the photos from KICentral and ExtremeKI to guide me, as well as photos I've taken myself of the buildings, though they're nowhere near the quality/professionalism of those developed by Ryan, Ronny, Robbie, Bill, Gabriel and several others on these and EKI's forums. I've also had to use both Google Earth and Microsoft Live Maps for aerial and birds-eye views of the park, but GE proved to be misleading as it only has maps of KI from the 2003 season and with the trees in full bloom, something that begins to be a hassle when I can't make out where the edge of a path begins/ends or where a path even is. Somehow, Live Maps has photos from the offseason of 2005 and beginning of 2006 when they were in the middle on constructing Nick Universe; the photos show that this was sometime right after the Winter SOAR when we were given a tour of NU and only the footings of Avatar were in place and they were beginning to pour in cement for the station and queue line's foundation. --> to thejoker8388: As of right now, the only program I have a thorough (in the loosest sense of the term) knowledge of is Google SketchUp, and, already, it's proving to be difficult just recreating the buildings. Drop Tower, through which 'restoration' is currently at a standstill, is incredibly challenging just by doing the ride car itself, and I haven't even begun to do the individual seats themselves! However, I do have Blender on my computer, as well as a Wikibook featuring a massive tutorial on the program. Blender is free as well, but some people have managed to do some pretty incredible things with it since its inception a couple years ago. I did check out the Alibre site and the program's features, and it has a free version as well, Design Xpress 3D. However, it looks as though it's more inclined to machine and individual part design rather than creating something as large as a building or an entire roller coaster. I could be wrong, though. --> to TombRaiderTy, Jasper, and angrybeaver: There's a reason why I'm not doing a Kings Island recreation on RollerCoaster Tycoon 3...yet. Like joker mentioned with SketchUp, RCT3 is a very limited program even with the two expansion packs currently out. While it would certainly be much easier to recreate I-Street and the other areas in the park using RCT3, the lack of diagonal and circular paths, as well as several rides and attractions not included in the game, are what hamper the game's potential. Not to mention the coasters look hideously unrealistic, and the fact that RCT3 will go to a mentally-challenged snail's pace whenever a particular park grows too large and begins to crash all-too-frequently, especially when the peeps begin to flood the park, meaning entire areas of the park have to be made into separate RCT parks on their own. However, the innumerable amount of Custom Scenery that has been produced by the RCT3 community, and the very real possibility of creating custom RIDES in the near future, means that it's still possible to recreate Kings Island within the confines of the program. Challenging, yes, but impossible? No.

Yay for resurrecting a two-week old project. Anyway, in this two-week hiatus, I've been going back and forth between learning more about SketchUp, and starting on recreating International Street: ^ A bird's-eye view of what all has been done thus far. This is only a quarter of all of the main I-Street buildings. ^ The men's restrooms and a crappy rendition of the Keyhole Photo stand. I still have to add the ATM machine and drinking fountains that are on the side of the building. ^ The Lotsapalooza store. The front door still needs to be added, as well as the sign. I'm not sure if I'm gonna do the interiors, considering the difficulty in just doing the exteriors. ^ The roofs of the restrooms, Lotsapalooza, and Girl Space stores. ^ Girl Space store. Again, I still have to add the sign onto the front. I'll add captions to the pictures later, as I'm tired. Again.

^ Seeing as how they don't play ANY type of rock music at the park, I very sincerely doubt they'd start playing Metallica on a ride. But, yeah, I would LOVE to hear Metallica on the Crypt. Now, they'll play rock music during Haunt in Action Zone (I mean, Waste Land), but it's only a bunch of stupid emo-type music (Fall Out Boy, Hawthorne Heights, Dashboard Confessional) and only a very few good songs (Marilyn Manson, Rob Zombie). If they were to ever fix the antechamber door (or if they're ever even gonna USE it), they should the song "Crossing the River Styx" by the band I Am Ghost: ^Ignore the Kingdom Hearts-type stuff. And perhaps use "The Dead Girl Epilogue" (by the same band) to play in the cave portion of the queue line: They both would bring about this eerie gothic feel to the environment.

I totally agree. I mean, it doesn't have to be anything elaborate like Tomb Raider, but lights and sounds and maybe some audio clips. I'm sure that can't be cheap, but it also can't be TOO expensive... This past weekend (particularly that Friday), The Crypt had cool tribal music and a couple theater lights installed on the ride. The beginning bit was really cool as well; when the ride begins, those bright white lights while strapping in fade out and some red and violet lights fade in all ambient-like as the music starts. I won't be able to make it up this upcoming weekend, but I can't wait to see what else they do to it.

I tried messing with the logo for a good two hours but it proved WAY too difficult for me, so I put a halt on working on the KI logo on the marquee. I did, however, shorten the the sign a bit: As well as make it a little bit thinner than it was before: But anyway, I had actually begun work on the FOF building a few days before starting the KI marquee. Here are a few pics of the progress so far: ^Only two buildings of the FOF complex have been built - the photo/video building and the hangar queue house. I don't know if I want to do the interiors of these structures yet. ^ Note the backs of the buildings aren't the same as their real-life counterparts. Meaning that part of the hangar building's roof is supposed to be taller than it is in the picture, and the photo building is supposed to be smaller. ^ I also forgot to mention I haven't finished the gate on the photo building that's right under the number 18. That, and I have to put in the light poles and all that extra stuff, which I'll save for later. ^ I'm also starting on the outside queue line, which, as you can tell, is CLEARLY not finished. The scaffolding holding the roof up still has to be added, as well the queue rails, fencing, and the Fort Kinzel Press Area sign. I'll put up pictures of the Jukebox Diner tomorrow. The reason why these updates/responses are so late is because I work 2nd shift and don't usually get off until after 10. Then I work on SketchingUp a bit and then post pictures before going to bed, usually around 4:30 or 5 in the morning EDIT: Oh, and that big blue circle on the front of the hangar is where the Bureau of Paranormal Activity sign is supposed to go.

So I got bored over the weekend and decided to mess around with the free Google SketchUp program that's been on my computer since last July. And what else came to mind for a project than to do Kings Island? Well, so far I've only been working on three buildings. The first is, of course, the marquee sign out in the parking lot: ^Ignore the KI fontage; I don't have the exact font yet nor do I know how to mess with 3D wording so that it has that nice curve to it like the real one does. I also have to find and get the Cedar Fair exclamation point logo that's behind the Kings Island logo on the real marquee. ^It took roughly about three hours to do, and I started completely from scratch. ^ A closer look at the attempts at detailing the marquee. Also, there was no way to get rid of the 'pixelated' appearance of these pictures without making the structure look horribly awkward. ^POV shot from the ground looking up at it. ^ Both sides of the marquee are complete as well. The little sticky figure at the base of the marquee is the general scale of how it would appear in reality. I was also in the process of doing the Jukebox Diner building as well as the Flight of Fear buildings, but I'll post pictures of them later as it is now ten till 5 and I really, really want to go to bed. So, laters. - The RingMaster

Define 'mind-blowing quality.' If you mean the stuff that Universal Studios and Disney comes up with for regular theme park attractions and USF's Halloween Horror Nights, then you have the same attitude towards haunted attractions that ACErs have towards roller what makes a coaster a 'coaster.' Look closely at the pictures of the behind-the-scenes work of a few of the Haunt (at KBF) mazes on Theme Park Adventure or Ultimate Haunt and you'll see that they look almost exactly like high school drama productions (though obviously better) in terms of scenic, lighting, and sound design/construction. It's two totally different experiences walking through a KBF Haunt maze in the daytime with no actors versus at night with monsters; you really feel like you're in a mental asylum or charred doll factory instead of just being in a cage and you have to have the mindset that it's 'supposed' to be a prison ward. ....actually, it (Death Row) does kinda feel/look like a prison at certain spots. Finally, Cedar Fair renamed all of the FearFest attractions at the former Paramount Parks (along with Valleyfair's ValleySCARE event) to KBF's Haunt in an effort to match the authenticity and nostalgia of the original at the Farm, hence why they added "From the minds behind the original haunted event at Knott's Berry Farm" to the press releases. I sincerely doubt it was because the FearFest names were too similar to Six Flags FrightFest; otherwise, they would've only changed our event name to something different due to the relatively close proximity between the Island and the Kingdom...in Kentucky, that is. (Is there another Six Flags nearby Carowinds, Canada's Wonderland, and Kings Dominion at all?) It seems as if, to me, Cedar Fair is beginning to copy the nasty habit that Six Flags is known for of name branding a lot of their attractions, what with all the Halloween Haunts (not surprisingly, Cedar Point's is still different), Flight Decks, and whatnot. .....actually, scratch that out, 'cause Paramount Parks did the same thing by slapping movie names on rides throughout their parks. But Drop Zone's STILL a better name than Drop Tower. Oh, and I did finally get to ride The Crypt today. WHOA. Was NOT expecting that at all. The flashing, colored lights, the sheer speed of the vehicle, the cool soundtrack (which is NOT techno, it's tribal music), etc. All it needs is some heavy bass, some props/scenery in the main building, and to turn off the friggin worklights in the queue lines, and it's a smash hit in my book. Oh, and change the queue rails so that there's actually two rows instead of an unneeded third row.

Confessions of a Teenage Killer Clown: I have a new guilty pleasure... ....I like watching Hanna Montana.

^ Yeah, but I think, again, the reason for the huge amount of recycling and that 'thrift store' look is because there's no real reason to go out and start dumping untold amounts of money to make the Haunt so extravagant when there's no real competition in terms of Halloween events. Think about it; the USS Nightmare is the only 'professional' haunt in the Greater Cincinnati area that runs alongside FearFest/Haunt, along with home haunts and school fund raisers like St. Rita's Haunted House. But, really, who wants to travel all the way downtown at night to go on one measly attraction when you can go to Kings Island, an amusement park, and go through seven attractions, PLUS ride roller coasters? Here's the way I see things-there's no real thought or planning involved when it comes to constructing a majority of the Haunt at KI. Aside from the Dead Awakening show that was well-put together and well-rehearsed and the addition of a new warehouse/haunted attraction location in Action Zone, it seems as if the rest is all thrown together hastily at the last minute. Sure, they may decide to redecorate a few of the mazes or add some new attractions to spice things up (cornSTALKERS and the worksite=two best ideas they've done yet), but others haven't been touched in years or they won't bother really trying to make an experience or setting scary (Cemetary=nice concept, horrible execution), lest they spend more money just getting one prop that has poor lighting/placement so that you can't see it that well or at all. Which begs a question that has always puzzled me - why is it Cedar Fair's flagship park doesn't have a Halloween event close to the size or notoriety as the park on the West Coast? I thought Cedar Point was the end-all, be-all of amusement park fame and fortune, next to Disneyland and whatnot? But.....I hate nagging about things that are beyond my control. I just wish they would stop and look at all the things they're doing wrong and fix what needs to be fixed instead of tossing it aside or, worse, repackage the same old setup and tease customers that it's a brand-new, completely different event and it's bigger, badder, and better...when it really isn't. PS: Michael Vick's doghouse and Death's office space with the list of celebrities he needs to kill are instant classics in my book.

Hehe, that made me giggle. It's sad that's the truth. While riding TR:TR one time the 'show' cut off halfway, the work lights came on, and the vehicle switched to Free Swing right after doing the second flip. So we ended up doing another flip-and-a-half 75 feet up in the air and the arms made a hideous creaking noise. The same thing happened on Delirium, except we were 119 feet up in the air, the car stopped rotating, and the arm switched to Free Swing. It, too, made a hideous creaking noise.

Yeah, the one thing that obviously irks me about the new Crypt setting is the new props. Those new demon bat props are pretty new, as in they must've just gotten them this season. I don't remember seeing any one of those monsters from last year's Haunt, and when working three different jobs at the park (Haunt monster, Park Services Associate, Post-Season Cleanup Crew), I've pretty much seen every prop they own/use. Which then brings the question of where they actually spent their money on these scenic elements. Hence, Googling up Unit 70 Studios: www.unit70.com And then navigating to the products page where I can find these: (courtesy of Unit 70 Studios) HellSpawn (<---can I even say that on here?) Sentries which cost around $1,900.....EACH. Along with, of course, IT: (courtesy of Unit 70 Studios) The Desmondus Rotundus which comes in at a hefty $3,500. Maybe costs a bit more to put some clothes on it. So that's $7,300 total just on three props, and maybe another 50 bucks more to put up camouflage netting to make it look scary. Now, I know it already cost them an arm and a leg to repair the ride, remove a row from the vehicle and add a new program and everything, but this is the same company that can pull off stuff like THIS: (images courtesy of Theme Park Adventure http://www.themeparkadventure.com) ...these are sets and props made completely in-house for an event that only lasts one-and-a-half months out of the year, yet they manage to create these gorgeous set pieces that sometimes rival the Disney and Universal parks. I say sometimes because their budget is nowhere NEAR that of what Imagineers have to work with. So why is it that we can't do the same thing when nearly every single piece of scenery in the Crypt is made out of Styrofoam and the best we can come up with is tiny little cobwebs and camouflage netting? But, yeah, like I said, I have yet to ride the new program, but I'll be up there this weekend to do so.

Don't you mean the CBS five-and-a-half months? Or were you actually referring to the Paramount years?

^...makes me wonder if we can get them to do that for this year's Haunt as an inside joke. No, wait, I wanna do that this Saturday when I go up there after work! I'm gonna get a couple glowsticks and start raving while the ride's in motion

Hmm my crystal ball keeps popping up Miley Cyrus, wonder where it is getting that info? ? Oh no. You do realize what would happen if Miley Cyrus came to Kings Island, right? Trust me, it would be much, MUCH worse than the Jesse McCartney and Aly and AJ concerts, AND the cheerleading competition combined.

Right, because thin, cold, over-priced greasy pizzas are somehow better than hot, thick, juicy (in a non-greasy way) over-priced bratwursts.

JacksonPKI, is that you? It's like Agent Smith from The Matrix; he keeps making clones of himself and now he's gotten a hold of poor Chef!!

So is Drop Tower, Invertigo, Delirium, The Crypt, Runaway Reptar, and Firehawk.

Let's just hope another earthquake doesn't hit Indiana within the next eight hours.