Shavethewhales

I'm headed to Branson tonight and will hopefully be on OR first thing when the park opens tomorrow morning. You have no idea how excited I am, I've been waiting for this for years now, but haven't been able to make it out the park yet this year due to how busy I am. I'm hoping that when the 2015 project rolls around I'll be settled enough to make it to media day. It sucks having one of the best coasters in the U.S. open up near you and then not getting a chance to actually ride it. Definitely a first-world problem in the extreme though.

It definitely looks like some random person bought it and is setting it up for refurbishment as a hobby project. The track is in rough shape, but with some new paint and bolts it could run again well enough for backyard-playing purposes. Shouldn't be too hard to rig up a motor and chain for it - but finding a train could be expensive if it didn't come with one. It will be interesting to see if this gets fixed up within the next couple of years. Maybe they'll buy some more rides to fix up

Nice TR, thanks for sharing the photos. Still hurts to see OzCat wilt away. I didn't know the vegetation had gotten so bad. For awhile there I was holding out hope that they'd ship it to Georgia, but I think now they're just putting off demolishing it for as long as possible. Lots of awesome memories on that thing - it was even better than it looked. I would even go so far as to say it kicked of a golden age for GCI coasters... I still haven't made it to SDC yet this year myself. It's been surreal seeing all these coaster enthusiasts flock to the park and talk it up. I'm still used to it being this hidden gem that I had to convince people to check out.

Good to see some crowds in the park again. I haven't visited in a couple of years, but the place used to be empty most of the time, even on summer weekends. The new owners are still doing a great job keeping the park sustainable with the concert series and general improvements. I thought ErUPtion had been taken down already. Shows how much attention I'm paying when I drive past there. I had heard that the Wild Kitty had been replaced as well, but it looks the same. Maybe they replaced it with a very similar kiddie coaster. At the very least it was recently refurbished.

I'm going to go ahead and resurrect this topic since the new updates probably don't warrant a whole new topic. Bell's is still chugging forward with their efforts to rebuild the park at Swick's Flea Market. I don't know if this has been posted yet or not, but one of the local news stations had some coverage a few months ago: http://www.fox23.com/news/local/story/Bells-Amusement-Park-rebuilding-slowly-but-surely/4YVCc3spSUqv4b8cJuIrYg.cspx Right now it looks like the children's helicopter ride is done or just about done, and they are still coming along on getting the Tilt-a-whirl repainted and restored. They are talking about doing the Carousel next, and Robby has mentioned moving onto bigger rides in the future such as the log flume. What's really interesting is that the park has it's own facebook page now, with several thousand followers, in addition to several other unofficial "Bring Bell's Back" pages and groups that also have several thousand followers. I was surprised to stumble upon all of this support for the park after so many years. I guess Tulsans are getting pretty bored. The facebook page is here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bells-at-the-Saturday-Flea-Market/227315583990587 I've gotta say it again: I've come to really admire Robby Bell's dedication. He hasn't always been a great businessman, and I wish he'd gotten on social media way back when the mess at the fairgrounds started, but at least he's never given up. I have heard that he is working a full time job seven days a week right now and still manages to work on Bell's at the same time.

The pic Steve posted must have been from a different Tornado since that is looking North from Diamondback. The big one was way South. There were several tornado North of the park yesterday, and possibly more today. Edmond, a city just a bit north of the park, was hit pretty bad already yesterday and probably got it again today.

The big tornado was nowhere near FC. There have been so many in the area that it's hard to say if they got any storm damage, but it's very unlikely that they've been hit badly or I would have heard about it. The big tornado was south of OKC in the south part of a suburb called Moore. FC is in the northeastern part of OKC. The new waterpark in moore might have sustained some heavy damage though.

I have also heard that there was an incident at OR today, but the rumors going around about it are both wrong and in some cases harmful. As knowledgeable enthusiasts, we need to be understanding that these kinds of rumors rarely hold much accurate information and can cause all sorts of issues for both the companies and families involved. I was informed earlier today that the incident was not related to the operation of the park or the ride. I would encourage others to wait until there is some official information about the incident before making any assumptions about what may or may not have happened.

Almost to $72,000 with 6 days to go and I'm not even worried anymore. Assuming of course that this momentum keeps going to the end. I think as we approach the goal more and more people will be willing to pitch in though. What I'm hearing from a lot of the casual gamers is that they really want the money features before they back the project. The crowd for design-only type gameplay is smaller than I thought. ^Hyperrails wasn't that bad... if all you wanted to do was create and simulate roller coasters. I'm excited that this game will use the same coaster editor as it was pretty flexible.

To add to Coaster Cow's post, you might as well drop any aspirations for using the Galaxy theatre or whatever over random large buildings for ride purposes. You can't simply hollow out a building and throw a ride in it. There are so many considerations to deal with such as air exchanges and fire suppression that it would just be silly to deal with. DL is doing fantastic with their recent additions anyway. The park sounds like it is being transformed right before our eyes. In the past few years they've overhauled the waterpark, a kid's area, and now the lake front. It sounds like they're just moving through the park bit by bit, bringing it up to HFEC standards. I'm really excited to hear about how the boardwalk turns out.

The numbers on kickstarter have really started climbing today. I know myself and several others have started working to get the news out to the larger gaming communities. I've been submitting to reddit, but keep getting systematically downvoted... even though this story is way more interesting than 99.99% of what passes for good content on reddit - but that's another story. They are so close to reaching $50,000, and might get up to $60,000, but getting all the way to $80,000 will take a huge break. I hope the developer continues on in spite of this. I think this Kickstarter did very well considering the low coverage it got outside of this community. There are a lot of confounding variables that prevent this from being a good test of the market for this game. Some people are turned off/confused by Kickstarter, some people won't support a kickstarter if it doesn't look like it will make it, some people won't support a project if there's doubt that it will even get finished, etc... That all being said, there's still some hope to be had to get this project completely funded. If we all continue to pass the link around outside of this community, we could get the big break that this project needs. We only need about 650 people pledging to buy the game to reach the funding goal.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and I think the failure of the Kickstarter campaign could come down to not having the right marketing "edge" so to speak. The game has been hyped so far for it's realism and extreme flexibility, which is something most of the gamers on here have dreamed of forever. For the casual gamer, however, a lot of the material out there on this game just looks intimidating and complicated. What they need to do is produce a video of them throwing together a bunch of coasters and flats in a simple manner and basically proclaim this as the new RCT... in a sensible way of course. I'm not saying they should use the RCT name in any way, but they need to do something that screams "Hey look! Fun roller coaster game!" I know this isn't much like RCT, but the GP doesn't care too much. As long as they get to build roller coasters they should be interested. Then you could pique the interest of a lot more of the general gaming audience. It would also be great to reach out to a few gaming blogs and get some publicity/interviews/whatever out there. This is a really interesting and groundbreaking project, and not really anyone outside of this forum seems to know about it.

Sad to hear about the continued break-downs on OR, but I'm glad they've been doing so well in working through the difficulties and getting it open every day. They are still dedicated to doing their best. I hope they can get these issues fixed before the really busy late summer hits. Sounds like Pete is basically saying to expect another coaster in 2015 from what Grapeslie reports. He doesn't kid around when he drops these hints. I just wonder if they'll go after the thrill-crowd again so soon, or if we're going to get an iteration of what DW is getting next year...

Finally pledged myself, but at this rate they aren't going to make their minimum goal required to collect the money. I think they've captured all of the enthusiast crowd that's willing to pledge for this, now they need to branch out into technical and video game communities to get support. Reddit would be a good place to start.

I don't think they're going to make it, but I think they can get above $50,000 with another push. Unfortunately, they set their goal too high, so I don't think they're going to get any payout from this. Luckily it looks like they weren't necessarily counting on it to get the game done, but we probably won't see any additional features.

I'm going to be tempted, but I'm going to hold off until after I finally get a chance to ride. It feels like I've been waiting loooooooooooong time for this.

That's unfortunate, but if you do go, you'll probably end up being able to ride OR at least a couple of times. SDC is very efficient with their operations. Then again, I haven't seen a ride this big open before at SDC... I heard that when Wildfire opened they actually used the entire station AND the overflow queue outside that hasn't been used in years... hard to say what will happen. I don't know when I'll be able to get out there either. I've been so busy over the last couple of months I haven't had any time to get caught up in the hype leading up until opening. I kind of want it to keep all my excitement bottled up until I actually get a chance to get there. I am looking forward to seeing people get blown away by it through TRs though.

I saw a few people mention that there wasn't as much airtime as they expected... From watching the footage I've seen I was actually more worried that there will be so much airtime my thighs will be hurting after riding this. There's only one specific hill created exclusively for airtime, but there are also at least three other points of insane, out-of-your seat ejector air, including the first drop. There will also be pops of air in unexpected places I'm sure, plus there's got to be something that happens on the sideways "wave turn". It's definitely going to be a bit unlike any other ride so far. Being the first coaster RMC has built from the ground up with this technology, the layout is unrestricted. It's hard to explain, but it feels like since they didn't have to follow in another ride's footsteps with this one, they were able to create more a unified experience along the total length of this ride, like all the elements are designed to work together...

Keeping with the rest of the claims about the ride, the claim that it's the first-ever release of an original song for a roller coaster isn't entirely true:Even so, I'm glad they're putting some extra effort into the ride. Maybe it won't fall apart in a year? There are so many coasters out there with theme songs that this claim is just ridiculous. They might as well start claiming that this is the first coaster to go upside down at this point.

March? Seems early? Hmmmmm I have vaca days that must be used by March 31st. OMG coaster gods please let this happen so I can actually go! SDC attractions virtually always open in March when the park opens. The "grand opening" ceremony/media day won't be until sometime in April, but the customers here have come to expect the new rides to be open when the park does. I wonder if this is the start of "official" testing, and the handover of the ride from RMC to SDC? Some of the third-party vendors are convinced they've seen testing already.

I think it's pretty much done and we have to sit tight until opening day. I assume we'll see another episode of "Through the Barrel Rolls" between now and the soft-opening in March that will showcase the testing that has apparently been going on. There didn't seem to be that much landscaping left to complete last I heard, they just need to finish planting I think...

This is a VERY interesting aspect of this game. This could start a whole new genre of share-able content games. I'm excited that they have chosen this direction and I hope the community rises up again for the incredible opportunities here.

Pretty cool. If it will be anything like the one that used to be at Flamingoland my feelings are mixed. I think I prefer regular frisbees, but if the restraints were a bit more comfortable it would have been a lot better. I remember it being an interesting experience at least. In any case it's a sweet investment, and the package will definitely breath some life into this park.

SDC always opens their rides on opening day. The clientele here expect it. The actual media day will be later, but the ride will be open until then. In other news, testing has begun, the first train has cleared the course a few days ago, and as of today it sounds like some PR or RMC folks actually got to ride. Here's a great video series from the park that shows some of the train fabrication and the arrival on park:

^Surely there are a variety of options so that those with mega computers can get those graphics while everyone else can get graphics as chunky as they need. I know it would inspire me to build a PC for it. I'm tired of playing minecraft on 'near' settings anyway.