Derren Brown's Ghost Train: Rise of the Demon

[Celia Mae]

5 minutes ago, Marc said:

^ with the greatest of respect I'm sure this was considered by both Thorpe and HTC during the planning of the ride.

 

We don't even know the issue was the VR headset it's self - if it was VR related it could also be any number of things rather than just the physical headset.

 

Even if this down time isn't specifically because of the headsets though, they have still had their fair share of issues 

[Marc]

3 minutes ago, Celia Mae said:

 

Even if this down time isn't specifically because of the headsets though, they have still had their fair share of issues 

 

I agree - they have, but most new ride concepts  suffer issues of some sort in the early days!  

[JoshC.]

On the whole, this ride has probably been more reliable than Air was in its first month of opening.  And I'd wager it will be for the next few months.

 

Let's just try and be a bit patient and not  try to look for every flaw.

[Ob2k]

I went yesterday and throughly enjoyed this!! I thought the detail and thought in the ride is absolutely outstanding..  I and everyone else walked off with smiles thinking what the hell had just happened.... well done to thorpe this ride was so immersive, imaginative and transports you to a different reality... I was amazed by it and know that everyone else on  the ride was as well.. maybe I was lucky my headset on both parts worked perfectly and I was left baffled by the experience..  fantastic.

[Ob2k]

I don't understand any negativity about this ride it is easily above hex for me...  the whole experience left me baffled I the best way.... superb in every part...maybe I was lucky and experienced it exactly as thorpe want it to be my headset was clear and perfect in both parts...the actors where great and I am still baffled by the ride system... I think it's a fantastic addition to the park. 

[onair]

Sorry but I actually prefer Hex. I was so looking forward to this but after a few rides I still feel it just has not got that wow factor and comes across as a jumbled mess. 

I still feel there is way too much VR. I actually quite like the live action bit, lots of smoke and worked quite well.

The audio is appalling throughout and you could hardly hear what was going on. Thorpe has an amazing ride soundtrack, now if that was pumping out with major bass in the train itself not headsets it would add to the experience. Both times many people said it was not worth the wait.  

[Mark9]

11 hours ago, BaronC. said:

On the whole, this ride has probably been more reliable than Air was in its first month of opening.  And I'd wager it will be for the next few months.

 

Let's just try and be a bit patient and not  try to look for every flaw.

 

The difference being Air opened at the start of the season whereas we waited a good three months for Derren Brown and besides, Air opened with so many problems because of technology that Alton Towers and Tussauds insisted needed to be added. They overcomplicated the ride to the point where it kept breaking as the two Supermans in America, never had reliability issues.

 

Besides, it's a coaster enthusiasts sole cause in life to pick up every flaw on any ride. It's basically our first commandment. And whilst I understand your positivity, I am also slightly concerned at the shelf life of this particular attraction.

[Chessiekid]

Any ride that tries to make you do stuff, is not fun. Forced interactivity is the worst thing! Instead of pretending their is something to panic about, actually make me scared. It's a shame, I went in with terribly low expectations and the whole time I was thinking what an absolute waste. It frustrates me to think what they could have built with the money they had. I try my hardest to not bash Merlin but I feel people are deluding themselves into thinking this is a good ride, its not.

[Benin]

That Josh has come up with this somewhat baffling piece of storytelling/explanation for events shows some of the flaws of it...

 

Trying to be too clever for its own good usually ends in a mess in other media, theme parks are no different...

[Marc]

2 hours ago, Chessiekid said:

 I try my hardest to not bash Merlin but I feel people are deluding themselves into thinking this is a good ride, its not.

 

Are you saying anyone who disagrees with your opinion is wrong?

 

To be fair from what I've heard it's been very well received by the public and that's the main thing.

[Charlesberg]

When it comes down to it, the GP just love VR and will just favouritise everything involving it, even if the VR is of low quality.

[Chessiekid]

33 minutes ago, Marc said:

 

Are you saying anyone who disagrees with your opinion is wrong?

 

To be fair from what I've heard it's been very well received by the public and that's the main thing.

I was afraid it may come across a bit like that, I just feel after the hype around the ride settles everyone will look at it again and see how much better it could have been. This is my opinion as an enthusiast, not a member of the GP. ask my friends what they think of Saw, 9 out of 10 of them will say its their favorite ride, that's because Thorpe Park is all they know. 

[Marc]

4 minutes ago, Chessiekid said:

I was afraid it may come across a bit like that, I just feel after the hype around the ride settles everyone will look it again and see how much better it could have been. This is my opinion as an enthusiast, not a member of the GP. ask my friends what they think of Saw, 9 out of 10 of them will say its their favorite ride, that's because Thorpe Park is all they know. 

 

I get what your saying - but then most of the people Thorpe are targeting are them sorts of people I suppose!

[Chessiekid]

18 minutes ago, Marc said:

 

I get what your saying - but then most of the people Thorpe are targeting are them sorts of people I suppose!

Which is a shame as it comes across as a sort of "that will do" attitude.

[yeah]

18 hours ago, MilesK said:

 

And this is why VR shouldn't be on this ride! And why VR just shouldn't be in the theme park industry.

If the VR doesn't work, the whole ride can't open. However if say the theming was physical, and one feature was broken, the ride could still operate.

I can see this becoming a major problem in the future of this ride operational life..

Yup, Bubbleworks even operated without any of the animatronics working for like 6 years. On my train on Galactica yesterday (the second time round) there were like 2 people per row because of broken headsets. This should have been a trackless dark ride with pshycological elements round every corner.

[L7123456]

Ghost Train is now open after being closed all morning. It's on a 150 minute queue

[Marc]

It only opened at about 4 - not had a good couple of days although I do not beleve VR related  

[Project LC]

Well vr is never going to be an issue as a whole. Servers and headsets won't all go wrong at once. It may have seats closed off individually or in blocks but never the full train. My issue with the VR is its a bottomless pit of money to keep it working. Just like the rest of the ride. In my opinion it's a bottomless pit which Merlin will have to keep pouring money into or it will close.

[pluk]

21 hours ago, Marc said:

^ with the greatest of respect I'm sure this was considered by both Thorpe and HTC during the planning of the ride.

 

From a company which spends significant money opening attractions to be staffed from a huge centrally funded promo budget for a set period, and then dumps the the resulting white elephant which is so expensive to run it is inoperable on the park a season or two later, I wouldn't be massively sure they did.

 

It does appear that for both this and Galactica the kit isn't really up to the job.

[Marc]

6 minutes ago, pluk said:

 

From a company which spends significant money opening attractions to be staffed from a huge centrally funded promo budget for a set period, and then dumps the the resulting white elephant which is so expensive to run it is inoperable on the park a season or two later, I wouldn't be massively sure they did.

 

It does appear that for both this and Galactica the kit isn't really up to the job.

 

I guess your comparing to NST? Hasn't that been closed since they had to replace the restraints and after that had a load of issues with people struggling to ride it? 

 

That and NST is one of many closures at towers so I don't think it's a white elephant as such.

[Project LC]

1 hour ago, pluk said:

It does appear that for both this and Galactica the kit isn't really up to the job.

In thorpes defence they did buy VR headsets rather than some outdated mobile phones. Although both are not up to it.

[Celia Mae]

I did read the comments on one of Thorpe's Facebook posts about the Ghost Train, and there were two types of comments. A majority of posts were people who hadn't enjoyed the ride at all and thought it was a waste of time, the rest were people who hadn't yet ridden who were looking forward to it due to the marketing hype 

[Benin]

There are a lot of similarities in ride and number of staff required between Ghost Train and Terry (also to be noted, the closure last year had a certain incident making any other problems ride might suffer cause extreme caution as part of the reasoning)...

 

In two years Thorpe will have to foot the bill for the high number of staff required to run the ride... It does feel like Merlin never learn that heavy staffing levels do cause problems later down the line...

[Oatcakedodger]

After watching the pov, I have to say that I never noticed the monster shadow in the smoke in the middle section or was this just additional for the press night? 

[Celia Mae]

23 minutes ago, Oatcakedodger said:

After watching the pov, I have to say that I never noticed the monster shadow in the smoke in the middle section or was this just additional for the press night? 

It has been there not just on press night. I wasn't even there press night and have seen it, but it isn't the clearest effect in the world