Marhelorpe
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Posts posted by Marhelorpe
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I'll start off by saying I'm reserving full judgement until hearing the extended version of Lost City's audio playing on Colossus now, BUT...
Out of all the attractions that should receive an audio makeover this year, Colossus should be right at the very bottom of that list along with Nemesis Inferno. I understand they are trying to merge Colossus better with the rest of the other rides in Lost City by playing the same audio, but to take away what many would regard the defining music of Thorpe Park as a whole and to give the ride less of a unique, dominant and intimidating feel to what it was before? That does not sit right by me.
That's like taking away The Smiler's theme and replacing the whole ride with The Sanctuary's theme instead, or worse, Nemesis being changed for good (not temporarily like in 2007) if that day ever dares to arrive.
As I said, full judgement will be reserved until I hear it, but it's sad to know Alton's Corkscrew of Thorpe Park; the ride which started it all; the ride which put Thorpe on the map; the ride which Thorpe said they wouldn't change back in March is now likely never going to sound the same again. -
Since I've been travelling a fair bit this year so far, this is the updated list, which excludes Red Force at PortAventura which could make the list later next month:
Top Mixed Manufacture Coasters:
1) Helix. Everything about this ride is perfection from the speed, presentation, seat comfort, music, smoothness, intensity and track layout, and the airtime it offers is immense.2) Shambhala. Still one of the most exhilarating coasters out there with a huge sense of adrenaline down every drop, and the minimalistic restraints are what sells this ride.
3) Taron. Best themed coaster out there today and an excellent second launch, though the trim breaks near the end do kill the pace a little.
4) Nemesis. Still a firm favorite and always will be. No more.
5) Balder. For a wooden coaster, this is surprisingly smooth and has some very fast and steep drops which all offer great airtime.
6) Black Mamba. Very closely behind Nemesis, but the layout towards the end does seem a little standard and nothing that exciting.
7) Sheikra. Only done once over 10 years ago and still remember it being brilliant.
8) Lisebergbanan. This might be a family coaster, but it sure packs one hell of a punch and is surprisingly fast too.
9) Stealth. Short, fast, powerful and simple. Easy...... and only one of them.
10) Megafobia. Almost like a smaller brother to Balder; still smooth, fast and lots of airtime.
Top Flat Rides:
1) Loke.2) Talocan.
3) Detonator.
4) Mechanica.
5) Uppswinget.
6) Rush.
7) Slammer.
8) Hurakan Condor.
9) AtmosFear.
10) AeroSpin.
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Whilst it's good to finally see the announcement from previous discarded, having a faint voice over announcement with an American accent alongside a heartbeat similar to Kanonen when leaving the station is no better.
Anything wrong with using the original one once again or is that asking too much? -
Never realised Saw had a system like this installed. Found it odd when the queue board said 74 minutes the other week and this would be why!
Does the system take into account instances where either the ride is running at a reduced capacity such as Colossus on one train, as well as the Fastrack/Parent Swap/Disabled queues too? If it can calculate an estimated wait on those accounted factors as well as dispatch time in-between, that's quite impressive. -
26 minutes ago, MilesK said:
The updated website now shows that on some days, the extra fee for Annual Pass holders will go as high as £20..
Soon they'll be asking AP holders to pay full entry price...
Well you could argue they've got to recoup the cost of spending £40M last year somewhere haven't they?!
What a bleedin' joke. Scarefest this year it is then...
- L7123456 and Martin Doyle
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42 minutes ago, TP-Fan said:
I would like to see both Stealths and Tidal/Amity Beach speakers get replaced with the EV Evid speakers the park has been using lately. They sound much better than the Bose Freespace 51's currently used in the queue and they can output a level similar to what the 802's are capable of.
I have to disagree with this. The Bose ones used currently across many rides in the park such as Colossus, Inferno and Stealth sound fine when they are working properly. They offer a 360 degree sound system and are designed to withstand the harshest of climate conditions, which is why many of them still work today. They also have their advantage of not needing to be attached to walls, or in Storm Surge's case to a wooden stick in the ground.
Ghost Train I believe uses these new EV Evid speakers all over the queue and frankly, they sound nowhere near as sharp and as powerful as the Bose ones used say in Lost City for example. You only have to listen to the soundtrack through decent headphones to know how lackluster they are.
To me, fitting new speakers across the park should only be a last resort if the existing ones are genuinely broken. In most cases, this is more likely not the case, just like Saw yesterday revealed.
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Got round to visiting Thorpe today having a listen to the new audio for Lost City, and I can tell you, it's miles better than previous.
The ambience track that has been used for many years to me just felt dull, stale and repetitive, and the added use of jungle noises which were far too loud to sound genuine just got on my nerves very quickly. You can hear it when riding Colossus in the station, so it always felt odd they would just feed it to an entire area of the park with 4 flat rides additionally.
But now, it's all gone. Gone completely. It has instead been replaced with an 8:20 minute track made by IMAscore with it's own unique theme, as well as familiar and newer ones remixed together. Vortex's theme has been placed into the track, which is the section played when the ride begins to slow down and the new entrance tune has been included too. It's similar to Galactica, Smiler and Spinball where ITHOTMK has subtly been added in.
Even though the recording Marc posted the other day has the frustrating jungle sound effects still there, I can only assume that must have been during either a test of the new audio, or the older one was still in the process of being phased out, because it is no longer present, thankfully.
Also, I'm pretty sure IAC's speakers were playing new audio too from IMAscore, but I could be wrong. It didn't sound anywhere near as good as Lost City to me. This newer version is great, even if it does sound a little similar to other IMAscore tracks.Here's another snippet of the track today:
010717_lc_snip.mp3Those letters underlined are there for a reason. Look closer.
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There have been a few subtle updates and changes made to the operations and efficiency after trying it today, as well as a few new issues. This is what I have seen:
• Outdoor queue speakers cutting at random intervals again. Ugh.
• In the pre-show room, they have marked on the floor 5 separate rows with dividing lines in-between. The staff allocate you to a row to prevent overcrowding near the front. Much better.
• One of the speakers (on the left side) in the pre-show room has either been turned down considerably or there's a fault, because the audio sounds less deep and more flat than before, as well as quieter compared to previous rides.
• Again, in the pre-show room, half of the light bulbs above your head are incredibly dimly lit now, so much so that there's almost no point in them being there anymore. To make it worse, these bulbs now emit a bright and cold white light instead of a typical warmish, yellowish halogen bulb, which tells me these are LED bulbs used.
• The way they board/un-board you into the carriage in the warehouse has improved. Instead of using one set of doors to load and the other to unload, they use both simultaneously now. This means when you get on the carriage, you are guided by a staff member to use both platform walkways to speed up the whole process and the same applies for getting off again. Liked this approach much better and eliminated waiting on the walkway for the train ahead to unload fully.
• On my ride, I would estimate out of 58 headsets, 13-15 were out of use. Not a good situation to be in, especially leading up to the summer holidays and Fright Nights with the queues just weeks away.
• Finally, in the shop where you van view your photos, the green jars above were all off and had Windows error messages displayed. Pretty funny seeing this. Plus, some of them now use a red filter instead of a green one, which might indicate different faces will appear in these jars when it works. Head of the monster perhaps? Just a theory.
But overall, the ride experience was still in a good condition. All effects were working, most headsets too and the staff operated it very well.
Sent from my Samsung S8 using Tapatalk
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Glad it's changed as it became very repetitive quite quickly and was essentially Colossus' station audio with added jungle sound effects. Hopefully this newer version has a much longer and less repetitve loop. Will be interesting to see if other areas (not rides) of the park get a similar treatment to this.
Equally glad Colossus has stayed too as that is one which should never change, no matter the circumstance.
Whilst we are on the topics of IMAscore, new audio and recordings being made, here's a snippet of one some may be after:
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PA have just announced a new offer saying that anybody who has booked a room at one of their own hotels between 24th June - 10th September will qualify for a free ticket to Ferrari Land per person/per stay, which means there's no need to shell out €30+ for entry. On Expedia, some rooms available stated this is included but others did not, so it's worth pointing out to those who haven't booked yet regardless of what type of room or hotel you stay at, access is now included during your stay.
Here's the link to the offer:
https://www.portaventuraworld.com/en/promotions/summer-holidays -
If the budget for this ride was less than £10M altogether and isn't costly to run, maybe this can be signed as a one-off for Merlin and wouldn't have too much of an effect on their record.
But whether it's £30M, £40M or whatever amount it's being labelled this week, that accompanying an over-reliance of actors to get the thing working resulting in higher costs in the long-term was a huge gamble they took, and if these figures are to be accurate, that's really poor performance for a ride that is branded as the 'future for theme parks across the world'.
Now I really do like and enjoy it in the current state, but that's irrelevant. Whether it's loved, hated, forgotten or popular, it's clear the expectation, interest and hopes Merlin & Thorpe had for this thing didn't deliver the way they wanted and lessons hopefully will be learnt from this.
This, my friends, is a white elephant. -
Really not happy with this decision. Slammer despite its huge number of reliability problems and mixed opinion from day one always offered an experience that couldn't be matched anywhere else, even if it was painful for riders. Quite saddened to hear it's inevitable departure subtly announced like this.
Oh well, it was fun to ride it whilst it lasted and at least the park are being honest about it's removal and not claiming it was down temporarily for TLC/redevelopment or something similar, by then removing it from the park without any notice given the following year.
I suppose we better start speculating at what inflatable HB Leisure replacement we might be getting soon!
- ste193, TPJames and Martin Doyle
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Oh my goodness, just gotten off of it now and I was actually pretty darn impressed by it this time, which is something I never thought I would ever say about it.
There have been some subtle changes and differences compared to riding it a few weeks ago, most of which are for the better:
• Firstly, it opened at 10:13am first thing and not the typical 11-12pm hour. Much, much better.
• Staff were filling both bays to the brink which massively helped the queue moving quicker.
• Only issue I had was the pre-show began as soon as the first person entered the room in the group. Since I was near the back, I missed out nearly a minute, but not an issue with the ride itself, just the operation.
• There was no stacking anywhere between the pre-show room and the warehouse. Good stuff.
• Some may see this as a disadvantage, but the carriage was absolutely sweltering hot inside just like a real underground carriage during summer. Not sure if this was deliberate or not, but I couldn't hear the fans working to cool the units. I didn't mind it.
• Pretty much all Vive headsets were working on both halves. Great stuff.
• The first VR half had a minor addition made which I've never noticed before. When the infected girls breaks into the carriage, I could see the man sitting opposite me just casually walk out of the carriage to the right as though nothing ever happened. All previous rides show them immediately disappearing as soon as the window breaks without any trace, so this was something new.
• Half-way section was working perfectly with all audio and visual effects working, including the moving carriage. Yay.
• Now the 2nd VR half was the most surprising bit for me. Despite already haven ridden it earlier this year, new content appeared. My guess is because we were waiting still for nearly 4 minutes, the VR content goes through 3 or 4 different scenes and whenever the train is ready to move again, it cuts that scene.
So instead of waiting in green mist like last year or seeing the demon creature wander through the carriage, I was also shown an infected girl standing right in front of me before being pulled out of the carriage and then the night vision goggles turned on and another person was pulled away into the darker corners of the carriage when they stood up and the announcer asked them to keep their contamination goggles on.
My previous few rides have all only shown up to the point where the demon wanders through the carriage before being thrown into the pit, so this was a really nice surprise to see how the teams have worked around the holding issue experienced last year. Instead of having the same scene on loop, it progresses through several different scenes until the train is ready to move back into its starting position again.
Last year I said it would be impossible to avoid this looped scene as it depends on the timing of all carriages in the circuit. I'm glad that I've been proven wrong!
• Finally for the new ending without giving too much away, all I'll say is the eyes and mouth now light up in red with smoke coming out of them. You may also get a little wet too.
This has been the most complete, consistent and enjoyable ride I have had on this yet and if Thorpe can keep it's current quality running every day throughout the year and especially during Fright Nights, they have a real winner now. Keep it up!
[emoji4]
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Can't refuse a weekend at Alton, so I'm a definite yes for this.
The accommodation at Newcastle Under Lyme would be fine by me since it's near Stoke-on-Trent rail station and I'll be using it to get to and from Portsmouth. Getting from the hotel to the park is another matter though. -
For now...
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Hope I'm not too late for the booking but I can confirm that I can make both the visit and meal if that's still possible?
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Old and dead topic I know, but something I can't help but notice with Zodiac this season so far is that the wheel doesn't make it to the vertical position anymore. Instead, it reaches a maximum angle of roughly 60-70 degrees.
For a few years now the ride has struggled to slowly raise to the top which has resulted in longer rides for guests, but now, it just reaches the 60-70 degree point and then lowers immediately again afterwards. It doesn't pause for a few seconds in the vertical position anymore. As a result, the reduction in ride time this year compared to last year is definitely noticeable.
Maybe it it has been tweaked deliberately to reduce further strain on the ride considering it is now over a decade old, but just thought it's worth pointing out. Never before have I seen this on Zodiac until now. Anyone else noticed this? -
Are all the open coasters except for Colossus on their maximum capacity just out of curiosity? With queues exceeding an hour already, they're gonna need it!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk -
Just as long as the park delivers the information about later openings as clearly and as accurately as they can to every guest that enters, whether it's through social media, on-park displays or on their website, that's all that matters. Delivering accurate and clear messages is key.
Sorry for ranting on a bit about this 1/2 train issue which I know has been an issue for a few years now, it just frustrates me greatly when I see a park that has the potential to offer guests a superb day out hinder themselves like this which ultimately leads to lower guest satisfaction, more complaints and weaker incentives to visit again. If the park can run better and more efficiently for guests, they should always strive for the best and not let anything get in the way of that goal. Right now, I just don't see that sadly.
Also, I too have seen Galactica run that way in the morning a couple of times too, which I also find inexcusable and pointless. So not every Merlin park is run perfectly, you just see these issues more prominently with Thorpe for some reason. -
47 minutes ago, Marc said:
The big screen in the dome, the 2 big queue boards and the ride boards at the rides in question all state the rides which are opening at 11 - how can they make it any clearer?
As a guest your not expected to know the reasons behind ride capacity- why would you?
As for inferno and it's 2nd train - see above - we don't know why it was having the 2nd train added at 12, maybe there was a fault, maybe it opened on 2 but needed to be reduced - its upto the park to manage that and when things are not working up to them to remedy it.
Not every guest will see those boards upon entering the park and the one at the entrance doesn't show any of this information as soon as the gates open. I don't remember Saw or Colossus being on those screens but I do remember their entrance boards saying they open at 11am the other day. That's the inconsistency and unreliable information I am talking about.
I'm not saying that all guests should know the full details as to why a ride is run at a limited capacity, I never stated that. What I said was if a ride is being run at a reduced capacity creating unnecessarily long queues, why does this only happen on what is considered as quiet days and the occasional weekend (like Saturday 25th March)? Why not do the sensible thing and run everything at full capacity if you can, you know, like all the other theme parks do if the queue isn't walk on? Too many times I've seen queues of around 60 minutes for Inferno or Colossus on weekdays in the middle of March/May/September because of this bizarre decision the park has been making for a few years now. That's what I'm criticising here.All I can say to Inferno running just one train in the morning and then adding the second one on later when the queue reaches an hour is this is not the first time I've seen this. This is probably the 4th time in the last two years I've seen it happen in-person, which is why I am criticising and pointing out this activity - it is not a recent thing, it's been typical operations on this ride for some time now. This is not how to run an £8M ride that still pulls thousands of people a day on it. I'm sorry, but I just don't think it's acceptable for a park this scale to do that for guests paying up to £58.50 for admission alone.
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As far as I'm aware, Samurai, Storm Surge and Rumba Rapids are the only rides that are scheduled to open late. All other rides are meant to open on time. However, if those rides are ready and the staff are in early, the park open them up early.
Rush was only on one swing due to technical issues I believe and not due to the park deliberately reducing capacity. Unlike with the coasters, they cannot save staff costs by reducing the capacity, and the impact it makes to engineers for getting 1 or 2 swings ready is negligible. And as it stands, I believe the second train on Colossus still isn't ready due to problems with Intamin and not the park, and Stealth similar was due to timings caused by external groups.
If that's the case and it is only just those 3 rides that are scheduled to open later, where can the average guest know about this before trekking half the park to find it closed at the ride entrance? Whilst opening Storm Surge later is not something to fuss about, it would be helpful if guests knew this as they entered the park after the gates open between 10-11am so they know what's open and closed for the first hour. I didn't even know this until now, so how the heck the normal guest would I have no idea.
The only reason I am questioning which rides are scheduled to open at 11am is because a few days ago, Saw and Colossus's entrance boards stated the ride opens at 11am, not 10am. In addition, the park advertised it was opening the gates at 10am. It's inconsistent and unpredictable right now.
As I said in my previous post, I accept and acknowledge that in some instances there are exceptions to opening rides at half capacity or later in the day due to work still taking place on them. But the problem I'm saying is that on quiet days, the park operate virtually all of their coasters except for Saw and X on just 1 train all day, creating unnecessary long and slow queues for guests potentially paying up to £58.50 for admission. So how am I supposed to know now when I see a ride running at half capacity if it is deliberate or not?
An example of this is when the last meet was at Thorpe on the 25th March a couple of weeks ago, I distinctly remember seeing and hearing an announcement through Inferno's 60 minute queue announcing that the ride temporarily ceased operation whilst they were adding the 2nd train onto the track... on a Saturday.... at midday...... Well done lads.
What logic is there in this approach and why is this the normal way of operating rides at the park now? It's absolutely inexcusable that a park this large and popular can get away with such shoddy operations like this. -
Regardless of whether certain rides open later in the day at 11am as opposed to 10am, shouldn't the park at the very least give their visitors some advance notice on their website or on social media what will and won't be available upon opening when the gates open? Granted, the display at the entrance does list which rides are available when waiting, but from all the visits I have done so far this year and last year, this is only shown before the gates open. What about visitors that enter the park between 10-11am? How are they supposed to know what's available or not when they enter and cross the bridge?
The problem is that this has become the norm for a few years now. Never before the year 2015 did you ever have to think or consider which area is open or closed if you arrive before 10am. Years ago, everything (or nearly everything) was open at the hour, as advertised and at full capacity, ready for the day ahead. Now however, we have gradually seen more and more rides over time open at 11am instead of 10am. First it was just Slammer, then it was Samurai, then it was Colossus and now it's even Saw a couple of times I have visited (the entrance board said it opened at 11am). And to make matters worse, if you visit on a day the park consider to be a 'non-peak day', which is usually a weekday, you are subjected to reduced capacity on almost all coasters and the occasional flat ride, such as one swing on Rush at opening weekend or one train on Stealth and Colossus.Now I understand that every morning, each and every ride requires checks, testing and confirmation from the ride teams before the entrances open. But given the fact we are now seeing the park deliberately open a fair chunk of their lineup later than everything else, this is absolutely inexcusable unless it's a moderately less-busy ride. Alton Towers and Chessington minus their water rides have pretty much all of their attractions at the ready for a 10am opening unless their is a fault, most of the time at full capacity with all of the trains running in the circuit, so why the heck can't Thorpe follow their lead anymore? Do they have a shortage of engineers or something similar?
As for the enormous queues we have seen these past couple of days, it's good to know that the park's management thankfully refused to sell Fastrack for their coasters and tried to deal with it the best they could. But considering the place has had arguably decades of previous experience and practice to deal with situations like this, who's clever idea was it to under staff the park during the flippin' middle of the Easter holidays without having a backup plan? -
Spoiler It appears that the crash effect is now back in operation and looks better than ever!
Now lets see see if it stays this way...
Rode it again today and I too saw it working finally. Rating for the ride has now gone from 7/10 to 8/10 for me after that!
Thankfully it was, as predicted, a broken effect that clearly wasn't working until today. Wonder what took them so long to get it running again?
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The headsets are still as glitchy as they were last season, only difference is this time there are more working at once with much better audio.
As for the VR for the 1st half, as far as I can gather, it's all the same with the following possible scenarios for the characters that appear. This was present last year in addition to this year:
(1) Old man sitting - old woman infected.
(2) Old man sitting - young kid infected.
(3) Middle-aged man sitting - old woman infected - my one on Monday.
(4) Middle-aged man sitting - young kid infected.
(5) Old woman sitting - old woman infected.
(6) Old woman sitting - young kid infected.
Park Music
in General Discussion
Posted
Heard it yesterday too and like Matt, I'm not a fan of this new audio playing around Colossus either. It simply doesn't suit the ride, but it does however work very well with all the flats.
The dominating and intimidating feel Colossus once had is now gone and this change has made it lose some of it's character in all honesty, especially with the tingly, high note sections of the track (couldn't think of a better explanation) and the overuse of the island's new theme eliminates any originality.
It should stay just for use around all of Lost City's flats as it works great there, not the world's first 10 looping coaster.
Sorry Thorpe, but this to me was a wrong decision to make. Please bring back what it was before.
Also, some things will age worse than the paint work on Colossus, this tweet being one of them:
Here are snippets of those sections I am referring to:
Clip 1.mp3
Clip 2.mp3