MrSum1_55

This may be the very first example of the commonly stated and very annoying phrase, "this sucks because it doesn't go upside down"! Maybe THAT's why SFMM never invested in another airtime machine.

How did that knockoff SLC ride? With the better looking transitions, it looks a bit less horrific than the others.

I'll be impressed once they can consistently run both stations on Tatsu. In all the times I have seen a huge line for that ride, I have seen them run both stations exactly twice past opening. Once, it was during the week after the normal schedule spring break (when the park was not even crowded), and once over winter break of last year (this was get nice, with the overflowing queue). However, I have never seen it run three trains. Once they can get three trains running on Goliath, Tatsu, and X2, and dispatch Riddler's Revenge in under 60 seconds when thy have to run one train, I'll be impressed. One can only dream...

Well, I guess this will become another 'Full Throttle' discussion. We all agree we are disappointed, and move on to the next topic. I should stop saying what bothers me, and, instead, I will say why. This poll is one of the most, if not the most famous roller coaster poll, and, as stated in every other post above, it most certainly is not the best. The issue is the GP reading these results will assert it as a fact that one coaster is better than another by just looking at the rankings, and not ever having ridden both. Case in point: Robb's Intimidator 305 video. I have seen several comments from time to time of GP asserting things like "No, stupid. Millennium Force is better! It got ranked #1 while this is only #12!" I believe that it is a bit unfair that this is the most popular coaster poll, despite it's massive inferiority over Mitch's poll.

B&M hypers are like reggae songs; you ride one, you've ridden them all. That explains why almost all of them are grouped together in Mitch's poll. The fact that a few were grouped at the top, followed by several spread out throughout the poll proves that this is not really a competetion for best roller coasters. It is a competetion for most popular roller coasters. I still do not understand the "Maginum is better than Skyrush" vote. So, a hyper that kinda beats the crap out of you is not enjoyable, but a hyper that really beats the crap out of you is?

Wild Eagle is pretty good in the back. Actually, the back row is better than almost all new, and even some old, B&M's. However, there is no reason it should have nearly a third of the votes. Almost all completetions are biased to the hoster, but, isn't this taking that to the extreme just a little bit? Also, how did Maginum actually climb higher? 10th place was far high enough. I do believe that it has forces that could make it a top ten ride, but it is very rough and the restraints are painful to get slammed into. Wait a second...so, according to the GTA, Skyrush is painful but Maginum isn't? I haven't ridden Skyrush, but there is no way the slamming into the restraints can possibly be worse than Maginum.

It seems that the entire committee is either a) A Cedar Point fanboy b) A modern B&M fanboy c) An Intamin hater (Who are usually also B) Intamins dominate Mitch's poll, but B&M's tend to dominate this one. There are six B&M hypers on the list, and only two Intamin hypers. Well, I see it as being seven B&M's, as MF has a layout and feel more like a B&M.

These results!? Really? It seems like they don't even actually ride the rides they rank; they just look them up and rank coasters by their stats and how they look. Well, to be fair, the GTA list has always been a pretty screwed up poll. Actually, to be fair, I think they did a bit better job this year than last year with their rankings, but they are still nowhere close to having a reasonable system. Mitch's poll does so much better. EDIT: The rankings for "best new ride for 2012" are even more outrageous! Wild Eagle won with nearly a third of the votes! Skyrush tied with Oz'Iris for fifth, behind Verbolten! Seriously!? Verbolten? I really like Verbolten, but how on earth did it get ranked higher than Skyrush!?

^^I think you just posted one picture that better sumed up the LIM vs LSM talk than several pages of this thread did. Really parks in general don't care that much about enthusiests. This is not out of negligence, but out of business. Enthusiasts are a very small group in terms of park demographics. If the GP's desires are on the complete opposite of the spetrum of what enthusiasts want, then it is the opposite of what we want that we will get. SFMM isn't interested in us, and they have complete reason to be. It seems, though, that the east coast GP seem to have preferances more similar to enthusiasts than the west coast GP, but that may be a result of a more dense population, resulting in more park competetion. Back east, more parks tend to compete for tallest coaster, and, nearly every major park has a hyper, anyway. On the west coast, inversions are ganerally more popular. I am confident that we will see several multi-inversion coasters before a second hyper is built, because that is what the CA GP want.

Pocky is a good ride, but it is one of the weaker new GCI's, IMO. It starts off excellent, but seems to lose much of its pace after the fly-through. Also, I have never gotten any airtime past this point, aside from one small pop on the dip out of it. Hopefully, Gold Striker will demonstrate the full potential of what GCI can do. With the mountain's trend of liking to build cheaper rides, I do wonder what they will come up with next, because they clearly want thrill rides, but want to look for the most thrill for best value. I wonder what other ride designs offer high thrill for low cost. Hmmm

Full Throttle sideways!

I have actually thought of that approach for Superman. It would feel like a 1st generation freefall on steriods. However, the issue is they already have Lux Luthor. S:EFK is not an intense ride, but it is very "fun" to be able to look straight at the ground 400 feet in the air.

I am also all for bringing back the double down. SFMM almost never runs three trains on anything. Also, if they RMC both sides, they could run both sides, which would result in a high-enough capacity ride. Although, it is unlikely that they would run both sides all the time; only on crowded days.

Wait! I think there is hope for an airtime machine at SFMM within the next few years. Three words: Rocky Mountain Colossus. Sure, they would probably add inversions, but, as long as it has airtime, I don't really care. Since SFMM has proven that they are not interested in spending much on new rides, this would be a perfect change, as they may end up spending less than 10 million if they wanted to do this. It is confirmed that they are considering this, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for 2014/2015 .

I stated a while back that I am not going to give any rants about the ride being too short. However, I am going to say something about the ride's capacity. If the ride is 90 seconds long (which it looks like it will be significantly lenghtened by the backwards launch), then they will be pulling 720 pph. That itself is not a terribly low number, but starts to look much smaller when you consider that this is a multi launcher. If there is one thing that I like about short rides is that they usually have a high theoretical capacity. 720 pph is not that low, especially for Magic Mountain, but, considering Maverick can pull 1200 pph with six less people per train really says somthing. Verbolten can also pull 1200 pph, even with two less people per train and a drop track that must take up some time. The backwards launch will present a significant reduction in capacity. One could argue that they are trying to introduce something new. However, SFMM already has the fastest backwards launch coaster in the world. Actually, I am almost as dissapointed in the fact that this is not a high capacity ride as much as this is not an airtime machine. So, it does not do two things multi-launchers are known for. However, it would be interesting to know the cost of this project. If the rumor that S:UF costed only $6 million, then it might be safe to assume that this costed about $10 million, which, in the amusment industry, is not an insane amount of cash to spend on a coaster. Since the park likes breaking world records, my guess for the next major coaster would be a Eurofighter with the world's steepest drop.

If CGA does any more ride removals, there are not many coasters that would be missed if they closed today. Currently, Psycho Mouse is the park's second best coaster. I really don't see Grizzly going anywhere, unless in the unlikely event that ridership significantly drops after Gold Striker opens. Grizzly is a family coaster, in the eyes of this park. It is kind of like the park's "family mine train". What is sad is that it looks very impressive, and takes up way too much space for a family ride, IMO. (It is nearly 3 times as tall as a Ghoster Coaster clone, but manages to be less thrilling) However, it is popular enough as it is, so I really can't see them removing it anytime soon.

Honestly, I have to admit it... I think I am more excited for this than Full Throttle.

The RCT suspended flying coaster was based off the actual first flying coaster, Skytrak at Granada Studios. Single passenger trains did not work out well for capacity. How about an Intamin flying coaster? I wonder why they haven't branched off to build those.

I have never set foot in this park, nor in the country of Spain for that matter, but, from my observation, I think the problem is the fact that this is really more of a 'shows' park. As if it wants to be the Dollywood or Silver Dollar City of Europe. It has a few rides, but the main attractions are shows. Unfortunately, the locals seem more demanding in the rides department. One mistake they probably made was having RCCA design what should have been the star attraction. Sadly, all of the adult coasters are either painful or very short, and there is no middle of the road family coaster. If this park closed, not many coasters will be missed, but the theming and charm this park offered most certainly will be.

What coasters generally have the most airtime? Wood coasters, hyper coasters, and multi launchers. So, how does a park with a wood coaster, hyper coaster, AND multi launcher still lack in the airtime department? That being said, I think I am going to give SFMM a pass on this one (aside from two-train operations; this looks like it could easily run three, or have been modified to run three). The ride will fill the void of a full circut launch coaster. The park simply wanted a multi-launcher, but they didn't want to dump $25 million into building one. Now, is there anything (besides an airtime machine) that SFMM hasn't built? That is why I think there is hope that within the next two major coaster installations, airtime will have been legalized at this park.

Granted, but the slide is very rough on the back. I wich every SLC and Boomerang had either the new Vekoma trains, or the new KumbaK trains. (And that Vekoma would make no more painful rides)

I would much rather see infrequent major investments than frequent small ones. Alhough, SFMM's audience doesn't seem like the type that would care if they built a new coaster over a parking lot or built a one trick pony. The target audience is not going to pick out hiw clean the park is or the small details. They want ride experiences. The only chain that might actually benefit from enthusiasts running it is Disney, because they do almost everything right, and their target audience expects them to do everything right. SFMM's audience wants rides, so we get rides. Little else will make a return investment for this park.

It wouldn't surprise me if it is a one trick pony. Magic Mountain has simply been taking the easy way out lately and installing cheap rides. This dates back to Pocky. Pocky is a good ride, but it just feels like SFMM slapped it in the corner of the park just because it fit there. SFMM has plenty of varying terrain, meaning they could have built a really amazing wood coaster, yet they put it in a flat, rectangular lot. Next, came Green Lantern. It was a cheap ride that would turn out to be a capacity and painful nightmare. Next was LL:DOD. A park as large as SFMM could probably use a free standing tower, yet they made the decision to spend a quarter of the budget on a tower attached to another ride. All of these decisions would be forgivable for a small to medium sized park, but Magic Mountain has the most coasters in the country. It seems like management tends to run the park like it is a medium sized park, while it clearly is not.

I just wish that a true theme park design tool could be released. Although there are some great coaster design tools, like No Limits, on the market now, I wish something like the "No Limits of theme parks" could be released. As in, a program designed for making great parks and not mainly scenarios. It would have something like a No Limits coaster editor, but also a mode designed for making realistic parks. Alas, it would be highly unlikely for a program like that to come on the market within the next ten years. We may have to wait quite a while for a theme park game not made for young kids. Right now, RCT is by far the closest we have to that, and it is clear Atari is not paying that much attention to this part of the fanbase.

Granted, but now a pay per ride program is used, and they charge rediculous prices of each ride with no POP option. I wish Trip Advisor, and TPR at that, could be free of stupid complaints on parks by the GP.