Dr. M

Seriously. I can see getting rid of attractions to save money, but closing the entire path because what, you're too lazy to actually remove the stuff and not make the area look like a desolate wasteland? It's just one of those weird, stupid things you'd only ever see at a Six Flags park. The only other thing I can think of is maybe they're using the area for storage or other behind-the-scenes stuff.

The free-to-play model doesn't necessarily involve real money all the time. I believe that the difference between the free-to-play model and the traditional model is that the traditional model gives you more content as you progress forward through a game's campaign while the free-to-play model gives you more content as you accumulate in-game currency. Both of these are completely viable ways to make a game, but where developers go wrong is when they charge real currency for in-game currency. There really isn't anything inherently wrong with a currency-based game so long as the balance is fair and no extra purchases are involved after you purchase the game. The original RollerCoaster Tycoon adopted this model even - you had to pay the in-game currency to build attractions, research new ones, market your park, among others. In fact, RollerCoaster Tycoon didn't even come close to having a sandbox mode until Loopy Landscapes came out and people started using trainers to eliminate the aspect of finances (thank Arid Heights for that one). It's always been about the money. I'm not sure we're on the same page. If a game is free to play, it means in order for the developers to make any money, you have to make incremental payments as you play the game. Unless there's in-game advertising, that's how it has to work. Of course it necessarily involves real money, you have to pay for something at some point. Whether you're directly paying to access "premium" content, or you're exchanging your real money for in-game money, the result is the same. RCT having an in-game currency system has nothing to do with free-to-play, because the money only meant anything within the game itself. This guy seems to be saying that in RCT 4, you can pay real money for in-game money. That's a problem, because if that's how they're planning on making money off the game, then obviously it's going to be balanced in a way that you have to pay real money in order for the game to actually be playable. "Want the inverted coaster type? Sure, just wait three months! Or, pay us $5!"

Falcon's Fury looks freaking amazing. The scariest moment of any flying coaster is that initial disorientation of your weight being completely shifted from your butt to your chest/stomach, and that's just sitting in the station. I can't imagine experiencing that over 300 feet in the air. If I was designing the ride, I'd take a cue from the ARM towers and have the seats rotate 2/3rds of the way up, so you can't see how close you are to the top of the tower, and then have it drop the second you reach the top with no warning whatsoever. I think that's the scariest way to do it; personally waiting a full 5 seconds at the top of an S&S tower gives me enough time to go all the way from being scared out of my mind to simply impatient. True, being flipped onto my stomach would probably negate that, so I'm sure it'll be awesome and insanely terrifying either way. Rotating upright mid-fall might produce some interesting dynamics too, makes the ride more interesting in general. We'd all love to imagine the seats staying tipped, the ride stopping right before you hit the ground, your nose hovering inches from the pavement, but I'm pretty sure your eyeballs would explode from the force. Hershey needs one of these.

Assuming the site where that very poorly-written article was posted is trustworthy, then I'd say you can't argue with a direct quote. "The value of in-game currency". He's clearly saying that in-game currency will have some kind of real-world value. In any game this side of Eve Online, that's the death knell, isn't it? That's the free-to-play model, or almost free-to-play, and the problem with the free-to-play model is that it turns the game into a huckster. When I want to play a game, I want to escape from my worries. I want to make one financial decision, to buy the game, and then play the game without thinking about my wallet. Instead with free-to-play, I can't just enjoy the game, something comes up that I have to spend more money to do, and suddenly I'm thinking about the phone bill that's due this week, my car's nearly empty tank, my kid's summer camp that he wants to go to this year... No, no, no, maybe that works for MMOs 'cause it's the only way they can get people to play the darn things, but I don't like MMOs, I want to buy a game and get lost in it every few weeks, and not feel pressured by it. No thanks, RCT 4.

There's a lot of mixed messages in this. What does any of this mean? This shouldn't be a complicated issue. What we want is to buy the game and have all the content that comes with it, and not have to worry about the game itself asking us to spend more money. So what does it mean that "Despite this, it will be sold as a premium download, with Chien assuring players that otherwise all content can be purchased without having to invest additional funds"? Why should the purchase of the game be separate from the purchase of the content? That doesn't even make any sense. Can someone explain to me what he means by "premium download", and why the article makes it sound like a bad thing? And obviously, any hope we have that the game will function like a proper PC game falls apart when he says the game will be preloaded with $5 of in-game currency. WTF? More than what we paid for? We paid for the game! Any in-game currency should be coming from the in-game park guests! Again, this should be a very simple issue and he's making it sound so gosh-darn complicated. What we want is to not feel like we're getting ripped off, and right now this is just screaming "RIP OFF" to me. That whole $5 statement sounds like it's coming from a car salesman. What? Why? So no scenarios, no predefined goals? Are they saying the game is going the Animal Crossing route of time always passing, even when the game is off? If they were offering a truly sandbox-like experience where you had in-depth tools to build any kind of park you want, maybe I could buy that this is a good thing. But that kind of game would have a steeper learning curve and require a more patient, attentive player to reap all its rewards. Does anyone believe for a second that's the kind of gamer they're trying to appeal to? If you believe that last part, I have a bridge to sell you. And if you think a big commercial game should really be going back to an isometric perspective after already making the jump to full 3D, well, I disagree. Big step backwards. Can you imagine if they did that with the Sims 4? Again, mixed messages. Just how online are we talking? Can I ignore the online component and play by myself, offline, if I want? I don't know. None of this looks like good news to me.

^Fair enough, I certainly can't say that's impossible. My main point is don't get your hopes up. They've had the entire off-season to fix this, and if it hasn't been fixed by now, I'd say they probably have no intention of fixing it this year. I don't believe changing the layout of the park is something that typically happens during the season, I mean it's not like it's a matter of moving a couple fences. Can anyone name a time when that happened? I would assume the decisions regarding the changes to that area have already been made, and the map would reflect those decisions. But again, I hope I'm wrong. This is Six Flags we're talking about. It certainly doesn't seem possible that they could leave it the way it is with the addition of Zumanjaro. I can't see that bizarre bottleneck next to the top spin servicing not one, but two major attractions.

^Why should anyone be expecting last minute changes?

Comparing the new map with the one from last year (using the mobile app which still hasn't been updated), it seriously doesn't look to me like anything has changed regarding the path between the two Golden Kingdoms. But it's so hard to tell from looking at the map. One thing is for sure, the map is just extremely poor all around. Usually park maps will exaggerate the size of major pathways for ease of navigation, and you'd think the shortest route between their two biggest roller coasters would constitute a major pathway. Just looking at the new map, with no preconceptions, the area around the baboon exhibit clearly looks like a dead end, there is no path visible there at all, so I suspect it will be a dead end until the park opens and I'm (happily) proven wrong. Do you see a path? I don't see a path, I see two dead ends separated by an amphitheater. Why would they draw it that way if there was a path? See how it used to look? Clearly there is a nice big path there. That's how it would look if they fixed the problem. Seems obvious to me they haven't. Surprise! Not.

I didn't notice that sign when I went, that's good that they did that.

A) I know. B) Not everybody has the luxury of being able to visit parks during the week. Haha, I wasn't saying it's anything more like being on an African safari than going on the Haunted Mansion in Disney World is like being in a real haunted house. My point was seeing the animals roaming freely around your car was, for me, a more immersive experience than going to the zoo and seeing them all behind glass. What I meant was it wouldn't surprise me if people didn't know just how long the line was or how slowly it moved. All I'm saying is I liked it better as a drive-through attraction. Relax. Everybody is allowed to have an opinion and express it, and that's all I'm doing.

I would guess that people always used to just drive past the safari and hurry on to the park, rather than stay in their car for another hour after already driving a long way to get there. Now that it's just like another ride, people are like, "Ooh! A line to stand in! Let's go get in it!" Even though before, you could stay in your nice air-conditioned car the whole time, and now you get to bake in the sun in line, and then bake in the sun some more on the ride. Moral of the story: People are dumb. I'm not sure where you assessment of people are dumb comes from based on SORA. While I agree people are dumb, but I don't think that has anything to do with their desire to experience SORA. Throughout the 70's and 80's many patrons were not as self absorbed and in love with their cars, so hey didn't mind driving down a dusty road encountering animals. It has been known for years that many people were unwilling to drive their "nice" cars into the safari and attendance dropped. SGFAdv even tried selling upcharge bus trips a few years ago. In recent years the park has been focusing on families and SORA provides an experience for the whole family to experience together. I have seen many large family groups (ten or more people) queue up to ride together, that's what makes the ride popular. I think they have about 18 trucks (I could be wrong) and if each truck only holds 24 people and the round trip take an hour you are also looking at a low capacity ride. While the shading in the queue is not ideal, I did not find myself baking during the ride. It's a covered vehicle and the are you drive through is shaded in many places. It think most times my driver stopped, we were under a tree for shade, whether the driver knew this is not I'm not certain. And speaking of the tour guides, I found mine quite amusing and informative. The tour guides offer insight that would not not get driving through in your own car so that is a clear improvement over the safari. Just my opinion here, if I want to go to the zoo, I'll go to the zoo. I thought the drive-through safari was at least a unique experience that made you really feel like you were exploring the wilderness, and that you didn't have to wait in line for. I'll probably never do SORA because that's not what I go to the park for. If it's really that good a ride, then fine, people aren't stupid, but it would have to be really, really good to justify spending 20% of your day or more waiting in line for it. It wouldn't surprise me if most families didn't know what they were getting into when they got in line for it, just because of how that area is laid out. I would be curious what the customer satisfaction rate is on that ride, when the wait is taken into consideration. Long lines are one thing, lines that move an inch every ten minutes are really something else, mentally speaking.

Whenever I see the logo it reminds me of: I don't think we should rule out the possibility that the new ride is actually a gateway to the planes of Oblivion.

I bash Six Flags, it's what I do. Bash bash bash. However, I don't make complaints I don't feel are warrented. I was going off of this picture: And it appeared to me as though more supports had still not been added, but looking closely at that last picture it appears as though I was wrong. I stand corrected. Still don't think the added supports look that great, but at least they're symmetrical. As for the paint, I could see them having gone with a nice navy blue, or at least a more jungle-y natural color like a sandy tan. If you really think that bright holy-crap orange compliments the teal, and doesn't look like they're bolting on steel left over from some other ride, then we'll have to, well, agree to disagree.

Is that big support they added on the left seriously not going to have another support just like it on the right? It looks awful. Couple that with the safety cone-colored rails, and you have quite possibly the world's ugliest retrofit.

I'm confused? Are you saying that Robb is making all of this up for post count? Cause the park seems to think they are getting a new ride as well, seeing how they created a teaser video and the concept photo. I was just pointing out what the thread turned into, and was wondering, jokingly, if Robb was aware ahead of time that's what would happen. After all, not like there's much to really talk about at this point. "Holy cow big news, but its a secret!" "Oh wow it must be a racing giga!" Not implying that was actually his motivation for making the thread. I would never accuse Rob of doing things to artificially inflate TPR's numbers. Who could even concieve of such a thing?

Six Flags intentionally runs their rides under capacity in order to sell more flashpasses. Once you've come to terms with this simple fact, everything else in life makes more sense. Even my marriage improved after I accepted this.

Why do people insist on spouting baseless nonsense? This is misinformation, plain and simple, and the only reason it's ever posted is to try and defend sucky, mediocre rides. Find me hard data, statistics to back up this supposed fact, and then we'll talk. Until then, I'm going to stick with "The GP likes big shiny coasters, and will ride them whether they're incredible or ride like a monorail.'

This one's always been a favorite of mine:

I wonder if Robb knew he was just creating another random ideas-that-will-probably-never-happen-anywhere-that-I-just-thought-of-five-seconds-ago-and-decided-to-post thread. Not that I'm against such threads, just that, you know, we've already got one or two.

^I was talking the industry in general, not just this park, and something that would happen slowly, not just with one ride.

The more you read about that slide, the crazier it gets. It had an escape hatch for people who didn't make it around the loop, which was about half the people who rode. Seriously, google it.

Uh... I should hope so. This might be the next generation of inverts we're looking at, but it might also be the moment the invert finally jumps the shark. I'm hoping for a big shake-up in the coaster world, where the riding public at large, I'm talking the GP, says, "Ok, big drop, bunch of inversions, we get it. We don't need any more of these rides. Something new, please." Call it unlikely all you want, but I don't think it's impossible. Personally I think B&M better hop on the launch coaster bandwagon or they're gonna be left behind.

Yeah, anyone can call it whatever they want but what Banshee has looks nothing like a batwing.

It does if you haven't read 90% of what's been posted.

Who doesn't love those nice old zero Gs. Up, WHIP, down. They were still making them that way even when Talon was built.