Gazza

Another update is done, check it out from the main page of parkz

What do you mean "think about it", there are loads of big rides out there, so that still isn't enough info for people to work out what you are on about. Do you mean this? I mean that is a big ride isn't it? Or what about this? Thats a pretty big ride too. See what I'm getting at? Don't be arrogant just because you know something. I'm with Myk, Ill believe it when I see it. And anyway, i doubt they mean what they say...Mick Doohans was said to be thrill ride, and it isn't, so when they are talking about a "big ride", I doubt it would even be 40m tall!

Might as well just relocate it out of view, sheds are just bolted together so all it would involve would be laying a new foundation elsewhere. Theming it as a mountain would just look random. Since I have no hope of getting this whole thing I have been working on finished before Friday I'll post up what I had in mind so far. It is based on that Stunt Driving multi motion dark ride I posted back on the first page (And Richo added to) see http://www.parkz.com.au/forums/in...ost&p=47457 As you can imagine, the vehicles tip from side to side on the turns, emphasising lateral forces and the out of control feeling. People would enter into the offices of WB, and would queue up in an air conditioned area with TVs showing a highlights package of famous WB car stunts, and photo frames with stills of famous moments. You would then enter one of two preshow rooms. The rooms would be set up like a video conference, and groups of guests would be told by the director that he was on the hunt for the next generation of stunt drivers, but to be sure you are up to the task you would be completing a 'crash course'. The production schedule is tight, so if you succeed in making the cut you will have to go straight on to filming. From the preshow room a long hallway (with fake doors to various other departments in the studio) leads to the station. The station would be themed as a garage where they tune and modify the stunt cars. You board into a 12 person vehicle based on the standard 4x4 design, but they would be made to look like a modern 4x4 and painted in glossy colours. The whole ride fits in a 70X90m shed (so a little bit bigger than the looney tunes ride's shed) The first part of the ride has simple theming. Its just a big shed really with a training course in it. From the station you turn left, then pick up speed along a straight, and make a u turn past a screen showing a car doing a slalom, you do the same, zig zagging past obstacles, doing a u turn, then zig zaging some more, the whole time the vehicle is tipping about as you battle to stay in control. Via the onboard speakers the director complements you. You then make a right and go past a fake jump (Director: "we'll skip that one for today") you then make a left past another big screen showing a car doing a two wheeler. Again you do the same, and the whole vehicle tilts to one side as you travel down a straight, before bouncing back onto all four wheels. You then make a U turn, and stop for a second (Director: "lets see if you really have what it takes") Your vehicle then accelerates towards a brick wall, with the nose of the vehicle tipping upwards, and at the last second you swerve past the wall. You make a right, and stop in front of a big screen where the director talks to you, he congratulates you, especially on how you weren't chicken when swerving around that wall. But there isn't much time he says, and you now must play a bandit on the run from the cops, speeding through the city at night in their latest film From there you make a left turn through a roller door into the sound stage. The first scene is a city street, to your left is a slow moving van, you zoom past it, but all of a sudden further down the road a pair of police cars 'light up' and it becomes apparent they have set up a road block aimed at stopping you. You make a sudden u turn across the road to avoid them, but that van you just passed is still coming! you cross in front of it, its horn blares and you miss it by meters. As you pass it the driver yells "maniac!" You then are forced to turn right to avoid some roadworks, and find yourself in a narrow back alley, where you swerve all sorts of junk. And thats it....... well not really, but i havent drawn all the scenes up yet, so youll have to imagine the next bit. the whole layout looks like this: at the end of the alley way you make a u turn to the right and head down another straight street, you would pass a couple of cop cars with police behind them shooting at you (the police would be projected onto glass behind the cars, similar to the banditos on WWF before the backwards drop) Compressed air would be aimed at the riders through this section, simulating bullets whizzing by. Off this street you make a left into a construction site, which you cut through in an effort of shake the cops. This section would be themed as you would imagine, with piles of dirt and rubble, half built walls, porta loos and site offices, and piles of construction materials. All through this section the vehicle would bounce around roughly and shake riders up a bit. You then smash through a gate on the other side of the construction site to get back onto the streets. You would then head down a street, and at a junction you would actually head down a freeway exit ramp. You are now heading the wrong way (plenty of cues to emphasise this such as wrong way go back signs) The freeway then enters a tunnel, and you would swerve to avoid oncoming cars down both lanes. The crucial moment comes. Two big trucks would be occupying both lanes and you are on an unavoidable collision course with them. Their horns roar loudly, and the headlights would dazzle riders and get brighter and brighter. At the last moment the vehicle swerves to the left, and the wall of the tunnel opens up like a door, you are now off the set and back in the "big shed" area, come to a quick stop. A big screen shows the director, and he enthusiastically congratulates you on how that whole chase through the city went, and how this film will be a hit. you make one last turn and you are back in the station.

Being built by Intamin isn't really an important milestone.

^Blabla no one cares Why? VRTP already own a few Intamin rides so I don't see where you are coming from. Are you saying that it is unlikely they will build one even though they have in the past And how are we supposed to predict that? we don't know what they are thinking. Going by what has been coming from a few sources, I think a new coaster could be coming sooner rather than later personally. It seems like you don't wan't people to talk about anything. So what if nobody important reads this? We have things such as the 'Letters' page in newspapers, Talkback radio etc where people say what they think irrespective of who is listening. How is this any different? Sometimes it is interesting to exchange ideas between ourselves. How can YOU say that with certainty? They would just build whatever they see as fit for the park. Lets look at past precedent. 2007: Kids Rides 2006: Thrill Ride 2005: Coaster, Show 2004: Nothing 2003: Exhibit 2002: Coaster 2001: Exhibit 2000: Coaster 1999: Show 1998: Water Ride 1997: Kids Rides 1996: Nothing 1995: Coaster In 2 years time as you say, Superman will be 4 years old. Thats a long time between drinks considering the rate they have been building coasters in the past few years. Again, going by past precedent, a flat ride is actually pretty unlikely...it doesn't particularly fit into the flow of the park...and on all the WVTP properties how many full sized flat rides are there? Just two. Its not something they make a habit of installing. The one you have nightmares about derailing on?

I'm not even going to bother explaining to help you understand, everyone else gets it, which is the main thing.

Surely it doesn't waste that much....find a building to put water tanks on if need be to top it up. Painted water doesn't fool anyone. The wave looks all right though.

You cant polish a turd.

That certainly is a deviation from the consensus, lol wanna explain that one? How did it stack up against the other rides at DW, and the other rides on the GC?

An article appeared in the Age in Melbourne a couple of days ago, which points to the sorts of ideas that are being thrown around for when they eventually do something with Luna Park in Melbourne: http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/lun...7135656431.html Well my thoughts on it all: This sort of mentality annoys me. It seems not one major development can go by without cafes, bars and restaurants being tacked on to it. Plus right next door is that Triangle site redevelopment. At the end of the day it is a place for kids, these hold limited interest to them. Lets hope this also includes stuff like the big dipper and river caves...not just the easy way out with what is just a funhouse. I hope that a return of the Giggle Palace isn't just one of those soft play structures. This is the sort of mentality that drives parks into the ground and spoils any 'magic' they have. While plans are not yet final, the plan could include roofing part of the park to protect it from weather and allow development overhead. . To me this sounds plain odd. Im getting this mental image of a sort of 5 story building, with the bottom four floors gutted out as a big hollow space, with the top floor being those cafes. Or maybe it will look like one of those houses on stilts. It sort of concerns me that they want to diversify, the park is tiny as it is so that space should really be left just for rides, and there is the whole of Melbourne if you want to build restaurants and cafes or whatever, can't they just leave this one little parcel just for amusement purposes? If they made an effort to make the rides and attractions good enough it could be just as successful, but at the present time, even with the last renovation it had, it still remains as being tacky flat rides.

I think both rides have separate pick up points/storage areas for the rafts. For TOH its right beside the stairs and for Rippers its under the orange and purple slide: http://www.parkz.com.au/photo/AU/Gold_Coas...le_Rippers.html I guess it works off the assumption that if you go through the whole queue at ground level you exit the queue right where the pick up point is. There are indeed signs, look closely and you can see two sets of them to the right of the pick up point for the rippers. Did you and Missy Higgins get your rafts from the same place? PS, when are we gonna see your moto coaster review?

Yeah, but what's the point of even bringing it up when its not going to happen? As you said Intamin do that sort of product anyway, so wouldn't it just be cheaper and easier to get Intamin to make it and have it in the package rather than having to subcontract out to some other company to put in the launch system (As universal did) B&M dont do launched rides basically because of the reliability of them. One of the key differences between B&M and Intamin is B&M are more focused on 'simpler' products with higher reliabilty. Intamin directly market themselves as being able to handle ambitious customer requests: I guess you can simply think of it as B&M not having it as one of their capabilites, it is a bit like how Vekoma dont make hyper coasters, and Intamin dont make flying coasters...well B&M dont make launching coasters.

^See, you are on the right track, it has a commercial tie in with a brand name, so it's right up DWs alley, heck it even has a giant Pepsi can you go through: http://www.rcdb.com/m/ig775.htm?picture=3 The coaster itself seems pants to me though, definitely a fair bit behind what B&M and Intamin make.A coaster that tall should have a lot more airtime hills, and the drops should be a lot more steep. That thing seriously looks like it was made in RCT. Too bad Arrow aren't even in business anymore. Pov here if you are interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1HHQfuVJNg

But why did you say a looping coaster as a family ride in the first place?

Since when are looping coasters considered family rides? Seems like a bit of a tacky theme though, no offence, not exactly immersive, or even interesting. Big ridiculous oversized objects and vague themes are more of a DW thing I thought it was well established Hulk was a once off launched B&M we wont be seeing again though, wonder why people keep suggesting it?

^Dunno, at $23 its basically half a ticket to say WnW....though I wonder (and doubt) it would even be half as good (and at 30 minutes its a lot more than other forms of entertainment) Furthermore, is the attraction as a whole any better than other things at theme parks, such as nightmares? Other scary dark rides like Haunted Mansion? It may be a family operation, but at the end of the day you can only give so much of a concession to this fact in a competitive tourism environment, especially when you are spending that amount of money to get in. I doubt the average visitor is going to care that it is family run if they have had a disappointing experience.

At Dreamworld, the Claw and Mick Doohans motocoaster both have test seats out the front of the ride, so you can sit yourself in there and see if you can close the restraints properly before entering the ride. Giant Drop was built by the same manufacturer as the Claw so the seat system is the same, so if the Claw test seat is fine then Giant Drop will be too. Cyclone is fairly similar so that should be right. Wipeout has automatic restraints (and it doubles up, as there is a over shoulder restraint, and then a second T bar that closes on to it) so it can fit pretty much anyone. The water rides and Vortex have no restraints (well, Thunder River has a thick velcro lap belt which could fit anybody) At MW, Wild West Falls, looney tunes river ride and Batman adventure would cause no problems. Superman escape should be fine for you, the restraints look similar to most looping coasters, but the pressure is on your thighs (the contact point is well away from your torso..about halfway up your thigh), not on your chest or stomach. The thin straps that go over your chest do nothing, and dont touch the body) At SW, Bermuda Triangle, The Eye, Vikings Revenge would cause no problems. You could always drop by the Guest Relations office at each park and enquire, they would be able to deal with any questions.

Funny you should say that, Initially this was something I had in mind for what became Batwing. When they went with the Batman theme I just adapted it to a Lex Luthor theme instead. Though guys you don't need to quote my fairly long post twice.

^ And we all know how much people hate travelling rides in parks.

No It wouldn't. To build a massive 60m high woodie like Voyage costs about 7.4 Million AUD: So logically a smaller woodie suitable for DW could be built for 6 million. Stop being stupid, that is a bit like saying it would use too much concrete to build a freeway, or it would take too much seawater to fill a new harbor, or it takes too much steel to build the sydney harbor bridge. If you have the money you can buy as much timber as you need, how on earth did they build the other couple of hundred wooden coasters in the world? Again, stop being stupid, even the biggest coasters only take about a year to be built. Its simple really, the bigger the ride, the earlier you need to start building. Though yes, trying to build the worlds biggest woodie is a bit pie in the sky and unrealistic for an Aussie park, and really unnecessary. Nobody would care if it was the biggest wooden coaster since there aren't any other proper ones here anyway, in North America having that sort of record would make sense, but here...bah.

No, I was thinking of a thrill ride, not a family ride. MW already has a ride like that (The Marvin the Martian rocket) Building it half indoors would look like crap, would not pertain to the theme, and would really do nothing to "partly reveal the nature of the ride"...people are still going to know its a magic carpet or whatever by the motions it is doing when it does poke out of the building, they aren't stupid. Plus with flat rides they are definitely something people often like to watch what they do, both for fun and to decide whether they want to go on it. A woodie built by RCCA is the last thing you want, they are probably the worst woodie manufacturer out there. I dont like that train design much either, looks too plastic and doesn't have that more rustic look of the trains used on rides like Boardwalk Bullet. It's all well and good to say 'oh they can do this for this film etc' but you are saying nothing about how the film would translate into a ride, you actually need to link the film concept to the ride somehow. Seems to me all people are doing is copying and pasting from the ride catalogues of Intamin or whoever. Also, why would you build a blockbuster ride like that and spend tens of millions on a childrens film with limited appeal....while we are at it lets build an Intamin Giga Coaster themed to Pokemon Edit: I think I have worked out how some people get their ideas:

Ok, after spending more time with the uploading system, it would be better if after picking a park to tag the photo with, that the rides at that park would be given preference at the top of the drop down menu. In the future when the database gets big It might be a bit much to try and have to scroll through every ride in the database to find the one you want. I guess also if you are in a rides profile entry, when you click on "Add your own photos" the tags box should be autofilled for you....theoretically then the only time people would have to pick from the lists is if there are other rides in the photo.

^Bingo.

This was something I dreamed up about a year ago, but It's a second ride for near Superman and themed area. Basically, the area Superman occupies should be fleshed out to be a Metropolis city area: The purple bit is a new ride (I'll get to that in a sec) But the area which is all just sand in the middle of Superman escape would be opened up and would be "Metropolis Central Park". It would be grassed, have European style trees (rather than palms like elsewhere in the park) gardens, and all the other thing found in a park such as benches. A meandering walking path would run around the outside so people could view Superman up close, and the safety fences would be coloured black and be a classic wrought iron style. There could also be a playground for kids (good for keeping ones who cant ride Superman occupied) again with a bit of an American look. The centrepiece of the park would be a roundabout with a bronze statue of Superman in middle (The plaque could say something like "In recognition of the hero of our city" Another feature could be a small stand selling American (or NY) style foods, like hot dogs, bagels, doughnuts etc. If Anybody is familiar with that green stand in main st it would be just like that. People could sit and eat and watch the ride. The sides of the Lethal weapon shed would have skyscraper façades added to it further building on the Metropolis theme. The new ride could be a thrilling flat ride based on Lex Luthor (Ride Name: Lexcorp Antigrav) The basic story would be that Lex Luthor, in an unexpected move, has opened the headquarters of his company Lexcorp for an open day, but it turns out it is all just a trap for him to collect unwilling test subjects to try his antigrav device on, which he eventually intends to use to defeat superman. Again, the ride would have a Skyscraper façade as its entrance, after all you are going into his corporate headquarters. And the inside of the queue would be like this: The 'overflow' part of the queue would just be a foyer area, with a reception desk at one end. It would be like the foyer of any big office building, with polished Terrazzo floors and walls with timber trims etc. The queue ropes would be brass posts with maroon coloured ropes. You then progress into the 'restricted area' where Lexcorp does all its technological development. The walls would be concrete and the floors would be white lino. There would be appropriate lab theming such as this, with some interactive elements like buttons to press and touch screens: After going through the queue you would go into a holding room where you would place your items, whilst this is happening speakers would play a spiel from Lex Luthor, pretty much your normal bad guy rant...resistance is futile, you will be my next victims, soon I will have control of this city with my Antigrav device, blah blah etc. You would then be let out into the main ride area, the ride itself would be whatever thrill ride MW felt like getting, its good because basically any thrill ride would work with this theme. The ride itself would just be themed to look like a bizzare piece of machinery/ evil guy invention...lots of exposed pipes and lines, warning signs and stripes on it, flashing warning lights and the like. The area the ride would be in would be outdoors, and would be closed in by nasty looking electric fences, the ground would have markings etc on it to give the look of a testing area. After the ride you would head out the exit through a small room where you can pick up your items from the other side of the cubby holes. The reason for this ride would be to fill a hole in MWs line up (thrilling flat rides) but also to give more rides for a proper themed area. There is a sort of a contrast too, on Superman you get rescued by the good guy, but on this you are at the mercy of the bad guy. Also, I was trying to flesh it out and prop up the ride itself by having a themed queue so it would sit better with MWs other offerings, whilst also providing a better start to finish experience than DWs flats (which are nicley themed as it is)