Dodge2002
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Everything posted by Dodge2002
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I should imagine the ride will be called something like "Derren Brown presents:_____". Much like his tv series have been.
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Even if we do get a reveal about derren brown, it's still not likely gonna reveal anything about the ride type. I just don't see how any immersive tunnel variant will be able to have the desired effect of "bending your mind". But what type of ride hardware would support a theme of illusion? Other than a vekoma madhouse perhaps? But that seems very unlikely. I just think maybe we're going down the completely wrong path when trying to work out the hardware insides perhaps...
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Well you've gotta give them credit...not many marketing teams are still at work at 10 in the evening.
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I literally couldn't get past it on my visit. There were too many people in the way, and the person telling people to move along had dissapeared. They really should've just closed off the whole walk way in my opinion...
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It certainly ties in with the opportunity to "Meet the creator" if you win the competition though and since we're just going for wild speculation right now, his tour schedule shows that he's on stage almost every day from January right through til July, except suspiciously for one week in late March - around the time the new season would usually start. Coincidence or something more...?
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I feel like Sub-Species at AT has really set the bar for what Merlin are capable of. I know this will be an unpopular opinion but I think they should just start charging for their mazes and reduce the number. It will alleviate most of their logistical problems, and hopefully push for A better quality of maze. I love that Thorpe go for the more extreme side of things but I wish they'd pour their budget into 3 amazing mazes rather than spreading it out so thinly that we just get 5 "okay" mazes. Saw alive going would be great news. Mainly because if they gut out the the rooms, it's one of the very few areas of the park where they'll have a vast area of flat, expansive space to work on a new maze with.
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Unless it's changed since I went on it, you progress to the next room whether you fail or not in containment. Personally if you're after something new, I'd rather save the money and pay the extra fiver to do a face it alone instead. £10 is way to much for what they're offering.
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After finally visiting for the first time since construction started, these pictures really don't give justice to just how big the show building is gonna be. It really makes the area around X and storm surge feel completely different too.
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I know it's not gonna put a full stop to the queue jumping, but I've never understood why they don't cable tie the fences together. Cheap as chips and it'll stop a good chunk of the ones who just pick up and move the fence.
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On the subject of face it alone, there were posters up yesterday everywhere saying that it would be Cabin in the Woods, with no element of choice.
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For those interested in containment... If you're curious, but not sure whether its worth £10, don't waste your money. Only do this if you really really want to. It would be worth it for maybe £3-£4 but not £10. As for the rest of Fright Nights, I don't need to repeat what most have said. But I will say I'm firmly in the dissapointed camp when it comes to the Big Top. When I went in there probably no more than 8 actors in the whole attraction, and I refuse to count the 2 actors by the bridge as actors, since they literally do nothing. All I could think of was how great CoS was compared to this. The theming was dreadful and sparse, the atmosphere was non-existent and the copious amounts of "dead space" ruined any immersion. Operations were also their usual shambles, obviously Tidal Wave and Samurai are out. MBV e-stopped after 30 minutes, the ops on Slammer locked themselves out of their cabin and had to close for 20 minutes, The Swarm, Colossus and Saw all had prolonged down time. TBWP was shut for almost an hour because, according to guest services "A bunch of kids were hiding in there and wouldn't come out" And generally every maze host look so depressed and fed up. I feel so bad for them, and this is just the first night...
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Thorpe's actors tend to have a lot more creative freedom than other parks I find. You can almost painfully tell where the actors' "invisible wall" is at some mazes and you know they're not going to do anything unexpected. At Tulley's they all seem to just be a little scripted in my opinion, they don't go past their boundary, they don't go off script and they don't get as touchy feely. The Tower's used to be like this too, although I think they're trying to break the mold a little now. It has its ups and downs though, as I've noticed bottlenecking is far more common in Thorpes mazes as a result, which leads to those crazy queue fluctuations that you see.
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I'm not surprised by IAC. And I'm still genuinely shocked as to why anyone would WANT to go on Loggers after 5pm with the British October time temperatures, let alone whether its a H&S issue or not. Also a while back someone mentioned a rumour that Face it Alone will be picked at random in a wheel of fortune style game. Well Thorpe just posted this picture which I guess pretty much confirms its location (if you look to the right of the clown). https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtf1/v/t1.0-9/r270/12038009_10153554025155867_4528252111220887847_n.jpg?oh=3afb0ae76e75b5c6f6b5117aafd47afb&oe=5685F994
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It does seem odd that they'd offer a meet and great with the ride creator as a prize. Itd be great for enthusiasts, but it'd have to be someone fairly interesting to the general too. Also funnily if you look at the Ts&cs it says the creator may not actually be available on the launch night.
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I think Thorpe kind of tripped up on its own marketing when they claimed it would be on par with HHN(that's paraphrased mind, they didn't really explicitly say that). I assume what they meant to say was that it'll be the first time you could experience movie based horror mazes here in the UK, but got a bit excited. You can't say Thorpe don't reinvest their profit on its most successful event though. Fright Nights gets a substantial addition every year, and whether or not some ideas turn out to be a logistical fail, they do a lot of experimentation with their mazes, especially in comparison to Alton Towers for example, where they still had vanilla linear conga line mazes last year.
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My guess is they've just moved the "Mine Shaft" scene where you get split off to the left or the right (what used to be the separation rooms in X10) right to the beginning, I guess it makes sense to have the two routes split from the beginning as it means you have smaller groups going through right from the start, rather than one big group going through the hospital scene and later splitting.
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CoS worked really well as a part indoor part outdoor attraction when it moved, so I can imagine it being a lot like that, winding in and out of tents. I'm not convinced that this is gonna be anything more than a standard Merlin themed attraction, unlike what most people are already thinking. At the end of the day, its just a multi coloured marquee, they're not exactly hard to rent out, and just coincidentally happen to fit in with the theme. I guess time will tell though. It's not always a bad thing they don't go overboard theming though, as long as the atmosphere is right. I'd take an atmospheric intimate half themed marquee over a overly themed cattle herd universal maze any day.
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I don't know if this is something to be concerned about, but someone on their facebook page asked if they'll be charging for their mazes, and the response was... I really hope the big top isn't an upcharge.
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CoS's emphasis wasn't really on the actual clowns to be fair. It was the mimes, fake dummies, gorilla etc that were scary, while the clowns just loved to have a bit of banter. It didn't rely on the cliche of "Ohh people are scared of clowns...boo!" and had some very good optical illusions and tricks. I kind off rolled my eyes when Thorpe's promo video says "We don't do cliches", because clowns are like the biggest scare cliche out there. I just hope Thorpe aren't relying on the shock factor of creepy clowns, because personally, spooky blood covered clowns don't particularly bother me. Fortunately though, it looks like we're gonna get more of a freak show, which should be fun.
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Why on earth would you wait until that shipping container was outside in the open to start painting it, rather than doing it beforehand....
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So are they gonna put MBV on the beach too? Hopefully that means we'll get a revised layout to go with it, regardless of where it ends up. It'll be a shame if the back of the build is exposed and they don't bother extending the facade though...
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The problem with the new mazes vs the old ones, is that with the old ones you'd always get a consistent experience (minus the odd effect not working). Whereas with the new free flow style, when it gets busy there's a lot of over batching, bumping into other people, or instances where the actors aren't ready for the next cue or too busy focusing on one person who has strayed from the group. That's not to say free flow can't work, because the original EX10 was build ground up with free flow in mind, and it shows, because it had a far more consistent experience, rather than CITW where its just tacked on, and completely buckles under a busy night, and basically becomes a HHN cattle herd maze.
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Remember how that Mushroom cloud had absolutely nothing to do with nuclear war, a bomb being dropped, or having any relation at all to extra terrestrials. Or remember how those silver helixes turned out to have literally no link whatsoever to The Smiler's final theme... Merlin's first bout of advertising is never usually quite so literal. I think we should think more outside the box in all honesty.
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They may not be rides in their entirety, but lets not forget Merlin are also responsible for most of the current Dungeons, which are all themed to a fantastic standard. They just created Shrek's adventure, which is being very well received for its level of detail, and let's not forget, despite its lack of popularity, Saw Live is one of the most immersive and true to its source attractions in the UK. We have no idea what Merlin are going to come up with, because we really have no comparison. Comparing Sub-terra to what this ride might be like, is almost like comparing Octonauts to The Swarm. People often make comparisons to European parks, but it just doesn't work like that. There is a massive variance in how much bang you get for your buck. Of COURSE Europa and Phantasialand are going to be better. Germany is a VERY wealthy country, and can contain most of its manufacturing within its own walls. And when a theme park aspires beyond its economy? That's when you end up with Disneyland Paris and £1.5bn of debt. I'm not saying Merlin couldn't perhaps aspire to more at times, but unfortunately that is the byproduct of the fact the company is run by investors who like to play it safe, not a media giant, or a wealthy family.
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Hopefully FN's news isn't that far away as Alton Towers have just started teasing their first new addition "Sub Species" which is 18+. Seems like Merlin are big on these intense Halloween experiences. Having been on Face it Alone in Cabin in the Woods, it really was a way better experience. I hope we see more of these types of things making their way into the main event. I remember back in the day, actors would sometimes pull you out of the group and into a room alone etc. I would love to see that kind of thing return.
