TombRaiderFTW
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Posts posted by TombRaiderFTW
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On 6/25/2020 at 10:26 PM, TombRaiderFTW said:
As far as a modern walkthrough goes... I'm split. I feel like there's promise in the concept, but the first thing that comes to mind is something like Madame Tussaud's, which isn't my thing. I can't think of a good equivalent in the modern era.
It just hit me that there IS a modern equivalent, kinda... It's Poseidon's Fury at Islands of Adventure, which I unabashedly love. It's cheesy as heck, but I love the concept of a show that you walk through, and I think it could very much be done in a better way that would be legitimately fun to experience for everyone.
If Kings Island were to get something like that somehow, though, I don't know what it'd necessarily be themed to or where it'd go.
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2 hours ago, Shaggy said:
BTW - as of early last week, it looked like Orion had already laid claim to at least one phone...
So like, I don't have that much sympathy if they had their phone out. But if they didn't, can you imagine much it would suck to have made it through the whole ride and lose your phone on the brake run?
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I still think there's zero correlation between the Steel Vengeance posters and Cedar Fair's plans, because they're Easter eggs. The sheer number of Easter eggs in Orion's theming should be a sign that there's nothing to that besides winking at enthusiasts. But OP made me imagine a world where there's a Wonder Mountain (from Canada's Wonderland) replica located in Vortex's spot and a coaster located inside it, with occasional peeks (and peaks, heyyoooo) outside. And now I'm gonna be daydreaming about that for the rest of today. It'll never happen, but Kings Island having its own take on the Volcano: the Blast Coaster concept would be so freaking cool. It doesn't have to be Congo-themed like Kings Dominion; it could be mine-themed to fit Rivertown. It'd be neat to see that in the background behind the Eiffel Tower.
27 minutes ago, Zader said:They do have the model that premiered at IAPPA last year that has inversions and more nimble trains.
(Emphasis mine.)
This is such a minor thing, and I don't mean to specifically call you out, Zader, but I need to point this out for everyone's reference: It's IAAPA. It stands for the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions.
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22 hours ago, robintodd said:
They are "spiral cut potatoes with KI chip seasoning"
I had them on Wednesday. For Cedar Fair food, they aren't bad. I wasn't able to identify what was in the seasoning, although I'm speculating it's something similar to (though less flavorful than) seasoning salt and/or old bay seasoning.
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The Eleventh Commandment is willing to make exceptions for improvements to the ride.
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That's a shame, but it makes sense that the pandemic threw off parks' maintenance schedules.
I loved Storm Runner when I visited Hersheypark in... 2014, I think? That one element that's half inline twist and half corkscrew is a ton of fun. You rotate quickly enough that it's basically airtime the whole time. Hopefully it's just what they said and it'll be back in 2021.
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I'm a simple man. I see Adventure Express merch, I buy it.
In all seriousness, I've never felt compelled to be into pin collecting, but I really, really like those. I'm gonna need to find some way of showing those off.
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2 hours ago, dbackdreams said:
Woh my dude that was an awesome thing to read! I guess I think it makes sense so not big red but what is going in vortes spot? Could it be another caster that has a spooky story like other.
Thanks!
So, if a coaster goes in Vortex's spot and its entrance is in Coney Mall, it'd be cool to see something with a 1920's-y theme (or even a 1960's-y theme.) Somebody here once suggested a Zamperla Moto coaster with a horse theme like this, and I have to admit that I do like that idea. Maybe not a copy of the *exact* ride I linked to, but something with a custom layout could be cool. If we didn't already have wooden coasters coming out the wazoo, that would be a neat place to put that Rye Aeroplane coaster previously discussed here.
If its entrance is in Rivertown, it'd be really cool to do what you were talking about with a spooky story! Something with a haunted mine would be really fun. Maybe it could be something like Firechaser Express at Dollywood?
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So, if you think about it, Kings Island's original design was based on a romanticized version of Cincinnati. Its German heritage (Oktoberfest), its history (Rivertown), and its classic place to have fun (Coney Island) were all there. Hanna-Barbera isn't necessarily a Cincinnati thing, but Hanna-Barbera was owned by Taft Broadcasting, which was based in Cincinnati.
(International Street is the exception, and since I've never heard an actual reason why it was chosen, here's my theory: Dennis Spiegel said at the first Coasterstock that the Eiffel Tower was originally going to be at Coney, prior to the decision to build Kings Island. Putting it in an international section gives a plausible reason to exist, plus gives an opportunity to create a spectacle of an entrance area, much in the vein of Disneyland.)
Within the context of those themes is where the park's attractions' themes exist. Was there an actual beast that terrorized Cincinnati when it was a settlement? Not to my knowledge. Did racing coasters exist at Coney Island? Nope. Do people really do things that make them dizzy at Oktoberfest? Well... Yeah, actually.
But my point is that while each area is BASED in a part of Cincinnati's identity, it's not a 1:1 reflection of it. It's just a framework for everything else to exist within it. There's not really anything reflecting real life directly, as if it were the theme/amusement park equivalent of a fourth wall break in a movie, y'know? Theme/amusement parks and movies both exist to provide escapism. And yes, I think that's still true of amusement parks, too, despite the lack of focus on theming.
Which brings me to my answer to OP's question: I'd like to see more of that "this ride's story exists within the context of the area it's in"-kind of thing happen than have an explicitly real-life-Cincinnati-themed ride at the park like Steel Curtain. This is just my opinion, but to me, if the park reflects too much of the outside world, it ceases to be a theme park and becomes a really elaborate outdoor shopping center, like The Greene in Dayton. I'm exaggerating for effect, of course, but do you know what feeling I'm talking about?
To that end, if it were up to me, I'd also not have Skyline or Tom+Chee in the park, either. I enjoy both of those chains immensely, but... We're in Mason. Cincinnati proper isn't THAT far away. Heck, there's a Skyline just on the other side of 71. Wouldn't it be more interesting to have unique dining experiences in their places? Imagine if the park even had its OWN take on Cincinnati chili. (This is in a world where such things are realistically doable in a theme park setting--I recognize that there are a lot of reasons why that kind of thing isn't usually attempted.)
I had somewhere I was heading with this, but I forget what it was.
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I've actually been thinking about this a lot lately...
So, it seems like dark rides require extra money and time from maintenance staff to keep running well. By "well," I mean consistently throughout the year and in the same state it was when it opened. It seems like most seasonal parks want to put in the initial investment without needing to continually invest, or at least not invest on the scale needed to run well.
At parks like Six Flags over Georgia, people at the top of the chain of command have decided to make their dark rides a priority. The Interpreter once pointed to Melinda Ashcroft as the reason why Monster Mansion runs as well as it does. I'd speculate that Holiday World does the same thing with Gobbler Getaway.
When Cedar Fair was doing the whole Amusement Dark thing, it seemed like they were making a point to put in dark rides that they were willing to care for if people took to them. Admittedly, that was by having zero animatronics, but still, it was something. But it seems like both Wonder Mountain's Guardian and Voyage to the Iron Reef landed without making much of a splash, so we didn't see any more dark rides from that initiative. The last time I rode WMG, the screens were out of focus, and the guns were poorly calibrated. VttIR is already being rethemed less than a decade later.
I'm curious to see how the Justice League dark rides hold up at Six Flags. They seem like they had a not-insubstantial budget put into them, and it seems like they're going to need some bucks to keep running well. They almost feel like SIX's version of Tomb Raider: The Ride, which is to say that they pursued a big concept that looks awesome at first but isn't sustainable for a seasonal park. I'd surely think they'd have kept that in mind when designing it, but...
Would I love to see more parks get dark rides? Absolutely. Dark rides are often my favorite thing about a park, and especially when they're original IPs. But it seems like a lot of major parks aren't committed to them in the long term, and I'd rather have a few good rides than a bunch of rides operating half as well as they could.
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So, I actually really like walkthrough stuff. I love Noah's Ark at Kennywood, and I enjoyed Wacky Shack at Waldameer and Kings Dominion's old walkthrough whose name escapes me at the moment. Those specific kinds of walkthroughs, though, seem to be a dying piece of history. I'm speculating that ADA requirements and some amount of liability are the causes of that.
As far as a modern walkthrough goes... I'm split. I feel like there's promise in the concept, but the first thing that comes to mind is something like Madame Tussaud's, which isn't my thing. I can't think of a good equivalent in the modern era. I'll take a highly themed coaster queue any day of the week, though.
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I'm *completely* speculating, but I do wonder if that ride couldn't pass clearance tests with standard PTCs. People can't reach out and hurt themselves if there's a gigantic wall in the way. See also: New Texas Giant and its windows.
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40 minutes ago, gforce1994 said:
That’s what I was told. If you look at each GCI train, they have more axles, wheels, and chassis per row and overall, compared to PTC.
It's one axle and two road wheels, lateral wheels, and upstop wheels per row, which is the same as PTC. I don't know what the stripped-down chasses of PTC cars or Millennium Flyers look like, though, so I'll give you that one.
Out of pure curiosity, can I ask who told you?
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34 minutes ago, gforce1994 said:
I see. I know they got new trains, but I’m curious did they alter the support structure? Due to the heavier trains they would have had to alter the structure to accommodate new loads and lateral seismic requirements.
ARE Millennium Flyers actually heavier than PTCs? Do any of us here know that?
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8 hours ago, FUN&ONLY! said:
Let’s add a Zamperla Volare in 2021!
Burn it. Burn it with fire.
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Don't forget meanest.
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^ Wait, which Diamondback? That really short, slow, kind one?
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3 hours ago, dbackdreams said:
I heard mcdonalds used to have ball pits with all kinds of gross stuff in it.
...What year is it?! I'm old now.
3 hours ago, dbackdreams said:Diamondback the biggest fastest tallest meanest coaster to ever strike Kings Island!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You're my new favorite poster here.
I'm going to start referring to Tomb Raider: The Ride as "That Highly-Themed, Totally Immersive Dark Ride Adventure, Tomb Raider: The Riiiiiiiiiide!"
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^ It depends on the specific instance, I think? In the case of The Great Nor'Easter at Morey's Piers, new track was made to replace the old track for almost the entire course. The new track was made to tighter tolerances/was more carefully made so that the ride would be smoother. I *think* new trains might have been involved, too?
I could be wrong since the details escape me at the moment, but Blue Hawk might have had specific sections of track replaced in the same way. I know it used to run Arrow trains to replace the original Vekoma trains, but I'm not sure if the Arrow trains were replaced with the change to Blue Hawk.
It's basically the same idea as retracking a wooden coaster, but more intensive since entire track segment(s) are being replaced.
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So, those bottom two cut-off images are certainly a coaster train. Based on the shape, I'd say they look like Maverick's or, more likely, Millennium Force's. The images on the left are an artist's rendering. The top images are a bit more vague, but one of those looks like a seat with a t-bar restraint.
Random spitball: it's new trains or fiberglass bodies for Millennium Force for its 20th anniversary. Or perhaps the trains are getting special decals (not advertising-related) to acknowledge the year.
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50 minutes ago, Hawaiian Coasters 325 said:
Not trying to be that guy, but we are getting a little off topic. I think we should create a thread specifically for train ops tbh.
I understand where this desire comes from, but generally, things get off topic around here when there's nothing new to discuss. Maybe I've missed something, but there's not really anything new that's been revealed about Orion. And people are generally really good about reporting new stuff here when it happens. On-topic-ness is usually self-correcting.
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No idea. With how much stuff there's been at CP over the years, it's anyone's guess. Except it's not a coaster.
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Y'all. Bruh.
It's not gonna be a coaster. Literally no amusement park is going to drop millions on a roller coaster and have their only hype be their PR guy mentioning it once on his personal account. They also don't let their only hype be posters in the queue of a roller coaster at a different park altogether. Big parks and most small parks also don't let their only hype be the announcement of an announcement a few days or two weeks-ish beforehand.
As obsessive as the coaster crowd is about details, we never seem to remember any details about how parks get attention around their big new rides.
TRFTW, who remembers when people predicted giga coasters when Kings Island announced the announcement of what ended up being WindSeeker, a whole 3 days beforehand.
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13 hours ago, super7 said:
The best maps were the PM Pierce maps from ‘79-80 I consider those the best theme park maps ever. The coasters and ride layouts are not necessarily accurate, but the creativity of these maps is outstanding. So many details!
Wow, I LOVE those. They're giving me inspiration to try making a present-day map in that style. Maybe I'll give it a shot.
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Moby Dick Ride
in Kings Island
Posted
Would you mind sharing some of what you've already found? I'm sure I'm not the only one who's never heard of this ride before and would enjoy learning about it. Not to mention that it might help jog some memories for folks who DO know something about it.