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TBC: SW9 Speculation

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Matt N said:
As the thread has been bumped, I'd like to share an idea of mine for SW9; could the ride potentially go at the park entrance and trigger a major redesign of Towers Street? Only suggesting it because over in the USA, coasters at the entrance seem to be becoming quite popular, so I can imagine Merlin Magic Making could create a nice version of that with more theming.
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Nice idea but they would never get planning permission for a coaster there. It is the closest area of the park to Farley with both noise and visual impacts being a major issue.

It would not surprise me if the next major investment at the park was not a coaster, although I've thought that before!

:)
 
I would like the see the Duel warehouse gutted and a new major dark ride take its place. I think Towers are fine on the coaster front at the moment.

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An indoor coaster would be my preference. I do miss Black Hole still.

So much you can do with indoor coasters that simply isn't possible for normal ones. Lighting, audio, theming etc.
 
Benjsh said:
So much you can do with indoor coasters that simply isn't possible for normal ones. Lighting, audio, theming...
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...fire, which would be totally wasted on an outdoor coaster at a park only open in the dark for a handful of days a year...

I still can't believe all the praise Wicker Man gets for all of its hardwear mediocrity and outdoor daylight concept stupidity. Fair enough, it's a fun little thing and a lot of the theming is done well, but really it is just alright. It doesn't hold a flame to so much which has gone before it at Towers. We've been so delivered so much rubbish across Merlin for so long we've become greatful for this simply because it is not utterly terrible. It is 'better than nothing', which is by their own admission what the park appear to be aiming for :grin:

Whatever we get for SW9, I'd like it to start with an actually decent ride (be that coaster, water, or dark ride) and be developed forward in terms of theme and experience from there, rather than having a poor ride shoehorned in as an afterthought around a flawed concept or USP.
 
I feel one major coaster needs to happen in the UK every 3 years really, We get loads in America but we don't see any apart from Alton, Thorpe or every 15+ years Blackpool. Take out Icon, and Blackpool didn't have a new coaster since 94, Drayton 2005, Flamingo Lands last decent one was 2009, and Thorpe was 2012. Thats 6 years between any park apart from Alton getting one between Icon and The Swarm, and excluding Icon it'll be 8+ years since any park apart from Alton got a major coaster. I say 8 because there was talk of project 2020 at Thorpe, if that's changed it'll be 9 years.

For a country with so many parks we only have two parks, three at a push that will be able to open major coasters. If SW9 was a non-coaster we'd be left with another big gap unless BPB forked out.
 
Drayton added 2 coasters since 2005 but back on topic I also think Alton Towers have enough coasters at the moment and really need to sort out filler rides in X sector,Dark forest and Forbidden Valley as losing ug swinger,Ripsaw,NST and Submission and replacing them with picnic tables,SBNO,landscape and HB games ain’t good enough for a park like Alton Towers.
 
MakoMania said:
Kumba is 25 years old and runs in a 365 day park with some days opening for nearly twice as long as Alton Towers. Nemesis has several months a year off and much shorter operating hours so I guess it has quite a lot of life left in it yet.
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Nemesis gets to sit there for six months a year doing nothing, I've often wondered if that is counter productive to its lifespan due to corrosion that could set in because it's not being used. I'm not an engineer, but surely a track that is running every day is keeping itself warm and fending off corrosion rather than one siting there doing nothing in freezing conditions.
 
IanSR said:
Nemesis gets to sit there for six months a year doing nothing, I've often wondered if that is counter productive to its lifespan due to corrosion that could set in because it's not being used. I'm not an engineer, but surely a track that is running every day is keeping itself warm and fending off corrosion rather than one siting there doing nothing in freezing conditions.
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You can prevent corrosion, I'm more talking about track wear and stress from constant cycling of trains.
 
I'm starting to hear talk of a water coaster as SW9 and I don't know what to think about it. As much as a water coaster would be fantastic, I don't know whether Towers needs it. On the one hand, I feel there's a noticeable gap missing without the Flume, and a family water coaster may fill that, but with so many restrictions, it really would only realistically be launched if they want it to be a SW thrill coaster. What do you guys think?

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michaelanthony1252 said:
I'm starting to hear talk of a water coaster as SW9 and I don't know what to think about it. As much as a water coaster would be fantastic, I don't know whether Towers needs it. On the one hand, I feel there's a noticeable gap missing without the Flume, and a family water coaster may fill that, but with so many restrictions, it really would only realistically be launched if they want it to be a SW thrill coaster. What do you guys think?

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I personally don't like water coasters that much, I can't exactly pin down why, they just don't excite me as much as more conventional coasters do. I would be fairly disappointed if SW9 turned out to be a water coaster, as i just don't see the point of having one in the UK, where 90% of the year it's fairly cold. Who wants to be soaked and freezing for the entire day? I would prefer the next SW to be a new launch coaster to replace Rita, as its clear it's coming to the end of its lifespan.
 
Agreed, a water coaster is a bad choice for the UK.

As much as I'd like a better launched coaster I'm struggling to see the USP from a marketing perspective. You can't remove a launched coaster and replace it with a different launched coaster and then try to say it's something new. It also doesn't help that Pleasure Beach have opened a double launched coaster this year.
 
I just think with what Wickerman has achieved we could get a launched coaster. I’m hoping they will go for a good all round ride over this gimmick crap they keep churning out
 
Ah, the water coaster. A couple of slow, dull coaster sections, broken up by slow, dull boat ride sections, and stupidly wet splashdowns. Proof of the old saying "Jack of all trades, master of none."

... How very fitting for a Merlin park.
 
I really don’t want to see SW9 be a water coaster. It’s literally as Diogo says; they’re simply not very good rides. The only water coasters that are actually successful at creating any sort of experience are ones that incorporate a dark ride segment into the ride (think Flying Dutchman at Efteling). But we all know how bad Merlin are at creating dark rides.

Aside from that, water coasters, as has been pointed out before, just aren’t very suitable for our cold climate, and it would be silly to even think that Merlin would actually invest in something that many guests will not want to experience for most of the year.

Actually, wait... :rolleyes:
 
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