OlivusPrime

Nexo Knights Kingdom Castle... sorry I keep picking on you I don't mean to.
 
It will be known as Haunted House. Just the same as it's known as Atlantis over Atlantis: Submarine Voyage. It's solely to reflect what it's all about.
 
I don't think Ghost works whatsoever.
 
 

The biggest problem with this refurbishment is they seem to have spend the money in all the wrong places. Of all the ride’s flaws, why’d they bother fixing up the zombie tomb at the entrance? It’s looked cheap since the beginning of time, reparing part of it wasn’t going to fix that. Demolishing it really would’ve been better, as it makes the ride seem super tacky, hence most guests don’t bother riding. The space it’s in would serve much better as a proper entrance sign. Likewise, the money for those TV’s in the queue was a huge waste, they’re too bright, and distracting from the proper portraits. While on their own they’re a nice touch, they certainly should not have been a priority. The lighting in most places is still tragic, especially the timing. The great hall demon is only lit up towards the end of its movement, yet we see the whole thing reset.  The same can be said for plenty of the effects. I think the only one that disappeared on time was electric bill?
 
On the topic of the ride’s exterior- while it’s pleasing to see they’re now diverting guests though the woodland queue, rather than just shoving them though by the side of the house, the entrance really could benefit from having a proper sign to make it stand out, it sort of just seems like a gap in the hedge at the minute. Oh, and please change the name. No guest reads “Duel” and thinks ‘ghost train’. If it had a name that actually told you what the ride was, maybe it’d be more popular 

What a bizarre discussion.
 
It's all fair and well for a theme park fan to say "You should really plan your day fully in advance/work your way around the park in a specific order", but who honestly expects a member of the general public to be that forward-thinking and knowledgeable about the park's operations when anticipating what should be a leisurely day out at a park?
 
I can't speak for everyone, but the only modus operandi I tend to stick to when visiting a park is to leave the newest attraction(s) until later in the day, but Towers' operating schedule has basically done away with that unless you're of a very specific age group/demographic. I have never, particularly in off-peak season, had to plan out a schedule of rides prior to visiting a park, and I'd say there have only been two occasions where I've done a noticeably disappointing number of rides, one of which would have seen no benefit at all from forward-planning.
 
Visitors are paying more than they ever have to enter these parks, and yet Merlin are maintaining cuts that are very clearly having a big impact on a substantial number of guests' days out. Expecting people to accommodate this by putting a schedule on, or in any other way restraining a relaxed day out that they've paid for, is ignorant and against much of what theme parks were intended to be in the first place.

What a bizarre discussion.
 
It's all fair and well for a theme park fan to say "You should really plan your day fully in advance/work your way around the park in a specific order", but who honestly expects a member of the general public to be that forward-thinking and knowledgeable about the park's operations when anticipating what should be a leisurely day out at a park?
 
I can't speak for everyone, but the only modus operandi I tend to stick to when visiting a park is to leave the newest attraction(s) until later in the day, but Towers' operating schedule has basically done away with that unless you're of a very specific age group/demographic. I have never, particularly in off-peak season, had to plan out a schedule of rides prior to visiting a park, and I'd say there have only been two occasions where I've done a noticeably disappointing number of rides, one of which would have seen no benefit at all from forward-planning.
 
Visitors are paying more than they ever have to enter these parks, and yet Merlin are maintaining cuts that are very clearly having a big impact on a substantial number of guests' days out. Expecting people to accommodate this by putting a schedule on, or in any other way restraining a relaxed day out that they've paid for, is ignorant and against much of what theme parks were intended to be in the first place.

My point is that you shouldn't HAVE to go a particular way around the park in order to achieve more than 2 rides in a day.  Whilst planning your day will of course mean you get on more rides, it's pretty shocking on Alton's part that people are coming away having only been on a handful of rides in the day.

No mate...
 
Like always you've completely missed the point again, but I'll help you out, I'm nice like that.
 
I was giving an example of how my day played out, a day in which I wasn't rushing and was only really there for the Wicker Man. The entire point of my post, was to show, it is infact possible to leave Alton Towers with not much above 2 rides to your day. As I said before, I spoke to a member of the GP who was having an even less successful day, a man who wasn't just there for Wicker Man, a man who paid full price to get in, a man I'm sure would love to hear he's doing it wrong from someone on the internet who didn't even bother reading the full post.
 
As for your plan.
 
I'd rather not walk to the entrance and use up most of my energy before the day has already started, done it once before (didn't like it) and I wasn't in a rush on this day. Most of the GP automatically assume they have to use the monorail anyway, so we'll just write this one off.
 
I have an Annual Pass (for now anyway) and could have just slithered in, but my brother needed to pick up his cheapo annual pass ticket (which you can't print at home, as they need to see me and my pass as proof), so your logic is make my brother pay more just to get on more rides in a park I've done hundreds of times? Judging by the queues, 40% or so of the GP buy/collect their tickets on the day, so another mute point.
 
Smiler had a 90 minute queue at opening (I've ridden it many times before so f**k that, also I got it walk on later). Rita, Nemesis, Craplactica & Thirteen weren't open yet. Oblivion and Spinball are crap. Wicker Man is what I came for and because it's the new hip thing, it's what most of the GP head to first.
 
Wicker Man was up and down like crazy throughout the day, if I followed your plan I'd almost certainly not have got to ride it twice, this was the ride I went for, so I made the right decision I think. 
 
Where in your master plan did you factor in an almost 3 hour unplanned breakdown and evac for Wicker Man? Alot of people were in that queue and lost almost 3 hours of their day, I guess they should be punished for doing it wrong?
 
Get off your high horse and put yourself in the shoes of those there on the day before making fruitless comments about how everyone was doing it wrong...

Been one of them "lurkers" on here since 2006 (!) but wanted to say, love the new park music. Sounded great on park, love the CD.
 
BUT... the removal of the Colossus music is a big loss to the park. Truly iconic, its replacement is far too wishy-washy. Felt it didn't work on park - any intimidation and drama the original had has gone. Works perfectly well as area music around the flat rides but not strong enough as the coaster's theme track. Strange decision..! I just hope the track isn't extended to Vortex which was still using its modified Colossus theme it's been using since 2002. Fits Vortex as perfectly as it does Colossus. 
 
Really hope the park listens and reverts the Colossus theme back, while utilising the new version as part of the wider Lost City area music as the majority seem to suggest, but we'll see!
 
The new Nemesis Inferno track on the other hand is very good! It's essentially the same but extended/embellished. The original track was great, but was always far too short for the queue line.

- Love that video and the insights it gives
- Love the whole concept of bring the park audio together with a consistent identity theme tune
- Like that the classic ride themes have been incorporated into the new themes, if they had to be updated. Inferno and Collosus especially were strong enough already though, should have left them alone tbh.
- Adore the opening countdown, have seen it myself and didn't know it was a thing
- Unfortunately I don't like the actual theme they have running through it, sounds kind of childish somehow, like it would fit in better at Chessington. It doesn't have much sense of drama, as a melody, and worst of all it's very forgettable.
 

As I said in WD thread, X with the budget of what WD had, it could have been a great original IP with some pretty epic lighting and sound thought the attraction. It's a shame the park has to be so invested in WD. Before WD, it was a pretty busy ride and had a queue all the time. With 500k, so many awesome things would have been done in the ride area too. Shame. 

The future of theme park theming consists of labelling what buildings are supposed to be (e.g. "Safe Zone") rather than actually theming them

The future of theme park theming consists of labelling what buildings are supposed to be (e.g. "Safe Zone") rather than actually theming them

The future of theme park theming consists of labelling what buildings are supposed to be (e.g. "Safe Zone") rather than actually theming them

Those plans are atrocious, could they seriously not afford/be bothered to theme the whole building like the one in Billund?
 
I've attempted to part ways with LLW, since it's a drastically different park now than the one I grew up with, but whenever I come across any news about the place, it's almost always depressing to me. Long gone are the days of unique attractions for each park (which encouraged fans to try out each of the LegoLand parks, a long-term return on investment as opposed to the short-term savings of Merlin's duplicate attractions), abstract themes that prevented attractions becoming outdated upon arrival (*cough* Land of the Vikings *cough*), wide use of actual Lego models and a charming location.
 
Edit - Just remembered where this is going to be built too. Right smack-bang in the middle of one of the Orient Express' previous scenic areas. Argh...

Will fit right in...

I too get frustrated at this notion IMAscore are the be all end all in the themed attraction soundtrack market.
 
They have pulled off some really great stuff don't get me wrong, but for the most part it's all a bit samey and underwhelming.
 
Too many people see, "IMAscore are involved" and get over excited, whereas my reaction these days is, "oh, again?" and I know almost exactly what it's going to sound like before I even hear the teaser.
 
You're joking with that being an official post on twitter right? I know I'm old and miserable but that's just awful.

My main issue is that I don’t really think any of the soundtrack is particularly good. It’s all just so bland. Nemesis Inferno and Colossus had the best soundtracks in England if you ask me - but now they are wishy washy bland typical
Imascore.
 
Enthusiasts seem to praise imascore like they are the messiah which I really can’t understand. I love theme park audio, and my personal favourites are all composed by single composers who have clearly taken care in making an intellectual, atmospheric piece that uses a real orchestra. These pieces seem to have so much more of a purpose than the drab commercialised imascore numbers.
 
Also, Thorpe Park Twitter: I usually love the banterous persona but they seem to think that releasing a CD has completely changed everything and re-written their underperforming year. It’s a CD, nothing more.

That's not how theme park music is commisioned or contracted, it's usually always bought outright by the parks, so IMAscore likely own no (or little) aspect of the music. Unless this is a new deal where they've retained the sales rights to the music and its simply on contract to Merlin. Either way, Merlin will have come to an arrangement for them to be allowed to sell it, and will be receiving significant royalties from the sales of these CDs, because it's their intellectual property.
 
 
That's just not true, the public respond very well to themed audio, they just don't get hooked on it and want to listen to it at home. If you watched a movie with no musical score or a poor score, it would obviously feel flat and have no atmosphere. But you wouldnt necessarily want to go home and immediately buy the movie soundtrack, you don't have to be a film enthusiast to enjoy the effect. This "only enthusiasts care" attitude much of the industry has today is a complete misunderstanding.
 
Ride soundtracks were always a big deal in the past, but the standard dropped in the mid 2000s in the UK, just because parks weren't commisioning much for a while.

The IMAscore era of Thorpe's on park soundtracks is lazy, repetitive, uninspired and bland, quite why anyone would want to sit down and listen to them off park is beyond me.
 
As for if the CD will get put on iTunes, I very much doubt it. I waited months for the Liseberg CD to go up, it never did. Very few IMAscore CDs are on iTunes, you'd be very lucky.

As a fan of Thorpe's past music, I have very mixed feelings about this CD and the new music as a whole...
 I feel like they're patting themselves on the head and going ah yes.... leitmotifs.... we are such intellectuals... beat that disney.
In general, I FAR preferred the old main thorpe theme, as barely recognised as it was. It was used in this promo video a few years back:
 
 
Much preferred it to the electric pop beat we have now. It sounded a lot more Intelligent, as if the park was fun but took itself more seriously -and more British (these new soundtracks sound very manufactured and American)
I was sad to see the OG Colossus and now the OG Inferno tracks go, but I think they've done an alright job with the new ones and I'm very very glad that they're similar to their predecessors. It's a bit stupid that they've essentially paid IMAScore to redo something that was already great and didn't need fixing.
 
Does anyone also know if this CD will be available on iTunes, Amazon music and the like? My household have converted to digital music pretty much and I don't know if there are even any surviving CD players in the house.
Sorry that this post is a bit of a shambles gramatically.
 
 

It think it's great they are doing this, but for me the boat has been missed. The original scores for the older rides are 'my' Thorpe Park, and I'd love to have them, but the new ones do nothing for me and mean nothing to me. There's nothing wrong with them I suppose, it's just not of my time, and I don't think on the whole they are an improvement on what went before.

I quite like some of Thorpe's new audio for this year, especially the recurring motif which I think works well in the environment.
 
The issue I have is when existing park music is unnecessarily replaced with very similar sounding music, I don't see why every piece of music in the park needs to be copied and pasted by IMAScore as it defeats the point of having very different sounds and sights throughout the park.
 
It's also a shame when the chilled out "island" theme they're going for is undermined by having every ride themed to an abandoned warehouse - I'll miss the music they added to X for this year!
 
Personally I have no issue with parks selling copies of their audio, as long as they continue writing/purchasing it with the area of the park in mind rather than how it will sound on a CD.

You're going to need a taller watchtower to see past the abomination in front of X...

Preach. 
 
I don’t think I’ve ever ridden a smooth Gerstlaur. Even The Smiler in opening year had a rattle.
I don’t enjoy rollercoasters where you have to think about how to ride - in order to escape with only minor injuries. Sit forward, people tell me, increase your neck strength, others say - na, I’d rather sit back and let the ride take me where it wants, which is the purpose of roller coasters after all. 
 
Saw’s poor layout (for my element preferences), ridiculous roughness and undesirable theme mean I will never like it. Sorry fanboys.  

Sorry, but Timber Tug and Lumber Jump are not worthy subsititutes for X’s replacement. If Loggers Leap was to reopen the same year as this re-theme of X, this may all be manageable but no indication suggests this to be the case at the moment. So as things currently stand, the lineup for families is likely going to be reduced for 2018 and this is where the problem lies with me.
 
If this Walking Dead theme for X is going to result in a new height/age restriction imposed, what coasters are those between the 1m - 1.4m height bracket going to be left to ride in the park other than Flying Fish? Nothing. At least with Chessington and Alton Towers there is a wide variety of coasters which appeal to this market, as well as older audiences such as Vampire, Dragon’s Fury, Spinball, Runaway Mine Train, Thirteen and hopefully Wicker Man soon.
 
X might have spent the majority of it’s life so far since 1996 with a 1.4m height restriction, but I consider these last 4 years to be the better years of the ride since it finally stopped pretending to be an extreme thrill and started to welcome kids as young as 5 onto it at long last, whilst appealing to the young adults at the same time.
 
If it happens, why would the park want to reverse this decision and theme it on a horror TV show, other than to plaster an IP over it with another hyperbolic “world first” claim? It makes no sense other than for marketing reasons.

You're going to need a taller watchtower to see past the abomination in front of X...