cygnusx1

Thanks for posting the link, Elissa! I liked the test, although I thought the square/rectangle questions were wrong. It asked me to click on the rectangle, when everything around it was a square. I clicked on a square, and it told me I was wrong. Squares are rectangles too; they just have all of their sides of equal length!

^ Michigan's Adventure has 3.

^ What he said. The guests at KD that I've heard from seem pretty sick of launched coasters (and most of them don't like Hypersonic much), so "launch and then nothing" rides would fall flat in a park that already has two very well-liked launched coasters in Volcano and Flight of Fear. Another point to support that is that KD currently doesn't have any coasters with more than 4 inversions, although some of the general public still fall for what marketing may have said a while ago about Anaconda's "6 loops". A 7-inversion floorless would be a very good ride to put somewhere in KD, either in the XLC/Extreme Skyflyer area or in the currently unused land behind Anaconda's lift hill.

^ Something like the biggest Gerstlauer EuroFighter ever made would fit nicely into Hypersonic's spot.

I just made a post like this on PkdPlace, but in general I don't think this will happen. Parks with high coaster counts (>10) take pride in that and don't want their coaster counts to go down. However, if they can take one coaster out and swap it for a better one, then the park looks better to both investors and the public. They'd have lots of good, new coasters for people to ride. In 2005, Kings Dominion had 12 coasters: Hypersonic, Volcano, Flight of Fear, Anaconda, Shockwave, Avalanche, Hurler, Rebel Yell, Grizzly, Ricochet, Taxi Jam, and the Scooby Doo coaster. In 2006, Kings Dominion closed Flight of Fear for most of the season but opened Italian Job, so they still had 12 coasters and marketed the park as having 12 coasters. In 2007, I think the park plans to keep Flight of Fear open all year, which would bump them up to 13. But if they remove Hypersonic, they'd be back to 12. Then in 2008, the park can open their next big coaster (since they haven't gotten one since Hypersonic), take out Shockwave, and still have 12 coasters. If the coaster count goes down, then that might give off the impression that the park's struggling to make a buck / is in disrepair / etc., when in reality all they may be doing is removing bad rides that have low ridership, expensive maintenance, or what have you. I think that the same kind of reasoning is what keeps rides like Flashback at SFMM SBNO instead of removed from the park entirely. Parks like SFMM, Cedar Point, and possibly also Kings Dominion and Kings Island take pride in their high coaster counts and see them as a huge selling point that can draw guests from hundreds of miles around.

Santa Clarita Auto Center Parkway... what the heck?! That's similar to when the Orlando Magic sold the naming rights to Orlando Arena, and it became the TD Waterhouse Centre. No one in the general public wanted to call it that; they still call it the O-Rena. And in Baltimore, everyone calls the Ravens' stadium Ravens Stadium, whether it's actually called that or it has PSINet or M&T Bank's name on it. Even though I'm on the East Coast, I recognize the name Magic Mountain Parkway - because I've heard of Magic Mountain. Not many people outside Santa Clarita and the immediate surrounding area care that there's an auto dealership on that road. Car dealerships are in every decent-sized city; well-known amusement parks aren't. If anything, I would have thought that the name Magic Mountain Parkway would have given the car dealership more business. (People that live in the area probably would say, "Oh, we can just go over to the dealership by Magic Mountain to get our new car.") It sounds to me like they will just need to raise the sales tax rate in order to get more sales tax revenue off of this.

I really like the No Smoking Fish on the fifth page of the 2004 Tokyo DisneySea pictures. The theming in all of Tokyo DisneySea looks incredible. So are people fish, or may they smoke?

There are at least 11 slides at the top level of that tower alone, plus more below that. I finally found Nagashima Spa Land on Google Earth (!) and counted them. If you have Google Earth, you can check it out for yourself. The coordinates of the tower are 35 degrees 1 minute 49 seconds North and 136 degrees 43 minutes 43 seconds East. (It can be pretty hard to find Nagashima Spa Land if you're like me and haven't been to Japan before. I found another city in the prefecture called Nagashima and spent about 20 minutes looking around in that, only to find out that it's in another city on the other side of the Mie prefecture!) It looks like there are probably a lot of other slides in the tower that start off further down.

I was just checking out Kings Dominion on the Microsoft maps; KD doesn't show up in good resolution on Google Earth. Microsoft's images must be very old; it looks like that picture is from back when the Safari monorail was still in the park! There was no Flight of Fear, Volcano, or expanded Waterworks in their picture. (Hurler was there, so this picture is from either 1994 or 1995.) Although it does give a nice view of what land Kings Dominion has that they can use for future expansions. What would be really cool is if Microsoft and Google could start getting new images every year or every few years and let us compare how areas have changed over time.

Nothing's definite with me yet because I'm still looking for a job, but.... I might get a season pass for PKD next year after a lot of years of only going once; I'd like to see what they do with WaterWorks first and how easily I can take weekdays off to go down there when there aren't long lines. I would like to go back to Hersheypark to go to the Boardwalk and the Great Bear.... I still haven't been on a B&M in real life, and that's the only one within a couple hours of my house. I'm really hoping to go back to San Antonio to visit Schlitterbahn New Braunfels and SeaWorld San Antonio for the second time. I'd also like to go to Six Flags Fiesta Texas, since I missed it on my trip there in 2005. (I made the mistake of thinking that it was as bad as Six Flags America. Now that I've seen TPR's videos of SFFT, I know that SFFT is a nice park and that I really want to go there!) If possible I'd like to make it down to Williamsburg to make my second visit to Water Country (first in years...!) and my first visit to Busch Gardens Europe. All I know is that this year has been incredibly, inexpressibly boring for me since I didn't get to go to any parks! I haven't had a year with no amusement parks since probably junior high, and I finished college this year. Even just going to PKD once next year would be an improvement.

Yes, I think that's a wonderful program that Atari's doing through that. ... I wonder if they'd do it for grad school too? Back on topic... I don't have RCT3 Wild, but I've seen videos of the extended coaster. It looks like that one uses Arrow or Morgan track. Probably just a minor fix, but I think they should include a B&M-style extended coaster in a future RCT game as well.

I think they only do deals with one park chain per game. In RCT3 I recall the only had Hersheypark stuff, and they had some kind of contest to design a coaster for Hersheypark. A kid won a college scholarship from it. They probably get the advertising from parks because they're willing to do exclusive licenses for advertising like that. Although I do hope they do Cedar Fair next time around. Between the parks that were Cedar Fair's before and the Paramount Parks they picked up this year, there's a nicer diversity of rides and theming that they could give us. I'd love to see a complete recreation by Atari of my home park, PKD, just to prove that they've made sure they can do it in RCT4!

Yes, the lag is pretty nasty especially in large parks. You can expect that though; the graphics card has a lot more work to do as you start putting more scenery in your parks. Still, there has to be some way for them to improve the lag, especially in Coaster Cam, without sacrificing graphical quality.

No they shouldnt. Nobody wants to buy a new game that looks 5 years old. (except people who cant spend 50 bucks to get a better video card). Why are you so snappy and rude? What's your problem? People, people, people... even the creators of the game say the lag is not needed. I find the graphics restrictions acceptable, but the creators themselves said the game's lag is inexcusable. I sympathize with you a little bit, since before I got this computer about 4-5 years ago I was still using a 486 with I think Windows 95 and trying to find good games for that. He is right, though; being behind the latest technology in graphics has caused many games to get panned by game reviewers. That and there are a lot of gamers who feel that good graphics is more important than a fun game. I'm not one of them; but at the same time, I think that new games should take advantage of the great graphics cards I've gotten in my desktop and my new laptop. Although, with a new version of Windows coming within the next several months, that will probably raise the minimum specs for future games higher. My desktop's barely Vista Capable, so I may have to upgrade that computer just to run the new operating system, much less any games. A little more than 5 years ago is just before Windows XP came out, and in several months that will be two whole generations of Windows ago... much like expecting to buy games written for Windows 2000 (maybe Windows 98) today. I think most games that are more than about 2 years old usually end up at the discount racks at computer stores anyway, not on the prominent displays. And Atari probably wants their games to be as visible as they can be to customers, so bringing the graphics up to date for RCT4 is pretty much a necessity for them to keep up with their industry. They have to be able to get, and keep, their customers' attention with a theme park game when all most of the gamers ever play is World of Warcraft, EverQuest, shooter games, and The Sims 2.

Now that I've been reading TPR and other amusement park-related forums for a few years, I think I'd like to see the rides have better descriptions that include the manufacturer's name. That way we can distinguish between Intamin Floorless vs. B&M Floorless, Morgan Hyper vs. B&M Hyper, Vekoma flyer vs. B&M flyer vs. Zamperla Volare, and so on. Also I think that the pay-per-ride is somewhat outdated; I think of it more as a carnival approach than a theme park approach. Some parks still have it, so the option for it should still be there (some people would argue that it should stay for nostalgia's sake too). I'd prefer to charge the outlandish admission prices that parks are charging now to get into the gate, and make the rides free. Adding the Stengel dive to the Intamins would be pretty awesome too (although I think the tracks need more banking options in general). I'd love to see what I could do with a Maverick type of coaster in RCT4.

I think companies that make games should try to make good use of the technologies they have available to them. Otherwise, the players (especially kids and game geeks) complain about the game being behind the times. That said, the game should certainly stay 3D but just make better use of it. If you don't like it, oh well. I guess you need to turn your settings down or get a new graphics card or a new computer. I got a better graphics card just so that I could get better graphics in RCT3 and The Sims 2. I'm quite satisfied with how my games perform most of the time, even though I have a 4- or 5-year-old computer. (Except it does take a while to quit them. I usually have to use the task manager and End Process for TS2 and its Body Shop.) I do think the implementation of RCT3 could have been better. The game slows down exponentially whenever I use a lot of theming or allow a lot of peeps in a huge park, so I make most of my parks "ride labs" so that I can ride the rides without the peeps slowing down the game. (I'm currently working on Six Flags Over Asphalt, a ride lab in a parking lot that doesn't have much theming anyway.) So, what I'd like to see in RCT4: - Less cartoony graphics. Those peeps are really ugly. - Better adjustment on angles for tracks. I like how they let us pivot the seats on the 4D coaster in 5-degree increments. They should expand that to turns, drops, and other elements. I don't think coaster designers do everything on 45- and 90-degree angles. And it's not possible to get a really good recreation of Balder in RCT3 as it is now. - A more complete, realistic set of elements on all coasters. I'd like to be able to recreate Thorpe's Colossus or PKD's Volcano, as well as any B&M with an Immelman or a dive loop. - Being able to adjust the heights of elements more easily - no fixed sizes for corkscrews and loops -> A better building interface. I *hate* having to slide tiles on walls and floors. With one of my favorite indoor coasters, it took me less than half an hour to get the track the way I wanted it, and three days to build the building. Completely unacceptable. So most of the time, I just throw a track down and go on to my next idea. - In the test results, I'd like to see if the park guests would be able to survive my rides. I finally did build a coaster with over 10 excitement last month (an Intamin rocket coaster with a zero-g roll through fire, a second zero-g roll and a flying snake dive into mist, three other inversions, and a bunch of airtime hills), but I'd be surprised if any real-life human could go on it. - Tighter turns on water rides. I shouldn't have to build something 200 feet high just to recreate the Pipeline Peak at Kings Dominion and Carowinds. - Getting to see rides get built. - Peeps need to be able/willing to go to the back of the park. I once built a park with great coasters in the middle and back and an aquarium in the front. The aquarium's queue was flooded even after I had expanded it several times, but I had to place my entrances and exits very strategically to get anyone to go on the roller coasters. - Better promotion for new rides - the initial announcement to the public, the grand opening, etc. If you can't get a new ride open on time, prepare to have some ticked-off guests, just like in real life. Similarly, the guests should be mad at you if you have staffing/maintenance problems and can't keep all of your rides open.

I haven't been on a lot of coasters, so TPR videos are my main source. Favorites: (Wood) Balder and the Voyage - two coasters that look absolutely perfect in a video... beginning to end. Unfortunately, I've never been to their parks. Shivering Timbers - the second half of that ride looks absolutely insane. Just wish it had The Voyage's great scenery. (Steel) Colossus (Thorpe Park) - The quad heartline roll with one more at the end for good measure makes this a ride I'd like to go on if I ever get to go to the UK. SheiKra - that water splash looks awesome both in the on- and off-ride versions of your POV. Flight of Fear's final corkscrew. That ride made me so dizzy that after the brake run, I got out of the train and could hardly walk. I'd also count Black Mamba, but I think that whole ride's amazing; again, if I ever get to visit the park, I'd love to ride it. Least favorite: (Wood) Probably the Rattler, if I remember correctly... it really slows to a crawl at the end. (Steel) Adventure Express - I don't like coasters with more than one lift hill anyway, but a lift hill into the ending?! Volcano - the last drop goes into a brake run? Pepsi Max Big One - I agree with tour2ma.

I've been to SFA a few times. Even though I'm a lot closer to SFA than PKD, I still consider PKD my home park because SFA is that awful. The last several times I went to SFA, I remembered that hardly any of the rides were open, even in the middle of summer with decent crowds. I do know one family that has season passes there and actually likes it, but I don't intend to go back to SFA. I haven't been there since the first year it was Six Flags, and I've been to PKD annually almost every year except this year (I do intend to get a season pass for next year if they add anything good). I don't have much of a desire to go to any other Six Flags park now, except for Six Flags Fiesta Texas, which looks better than PKD too, not just SFA.

^ If I understand it correctly, the Master Blasters always use jets. The ProSlide Rockets use conveyor belts.

Well, only one ride outside the US was in either the Top 10 Wood Coasters or Top 10 Steel Coasters list, Expedition GeForce. That shows me that this poll has some pretty significant bias towards US rides, particularly with rides at Cedar Point and Six Flags parks, which took 6 of the 10 spots on the steel poll (name recognition, anyone?). And the top B&M ride in the steel poll was at #4; three B&M hypers and one invert made it, but I was surprised SheiKra wasn't there. Fortunately, at least Voyage and Hades showed up on the wood list. I'd have liked to see Balder, SheiKra, Speed, and Black Mamba show up in the lists; while I haven't been able to visit their parks, those rides look really impressive.

Check the PKDPlace forums for some more discussion about it. Some of the people who post there work at PKD, so they've taken some pictures and whatnot. The arch in front of the ride's down, and there's a fence around the ride, but there's no announcement on the fence saying that they're working on anything in that area. I think one of the users there said that FoF's been taken out of the building though. At least PKI's will still be open this season... Here's the thread link: http://www.pkdplace.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=761 About the Italian Job, there have been some pictures on PKD's website and at PKDPlace. The track seems to be done, but the theming and everything else is not in place yet. Media Day's on May 25th (pushed back from May 18), so it's unclear when IJTC will be open to the public. It won't be Opening Day though. I'm not much of an expert on ride construction, but comparing what they have in the most recent pictures I've seen to what's in the promotional video on the Kings Dominion site, they don't look very close to being done.