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2018: Wicker Man - General Discussion - SPOILERS! - Part One

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Ash123uk said:
With looking at the how the ride plays out...does it even warrant being made of wood?

Wouldn't it have been easier and cheaper to make that but steel?
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Couldn't that arguement be used for any wooden coaster? Woodies aren't actually that expensive to buy up front in comparison to steel coasters. The entire Wodan project for example cost around €9 million. The major cost however comes with the necessary continued upkeep.

A wooden coaster gives Towers something they don't currently have in their line-up.

:)
 
Pedantic

And I was actually meaning the upkeep costs.

This coaster without the wooden supports would show it for what it really is. Pretty lame.
 
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I can't see that the upkeep cost will be a problem for the park, they will simply not bother and when the wood starts to rot, they will simply close the ride and then they will announce the closure as part of their TLC program :eek:

I'm a bit worried about all that wood that they are going to use, especially with their history of fires at the park :eek:
 
Ash123uk said:
Pedantic

And I was actually meaning the upkeep costs.

This coaster without the wooden supports would show it for what it really is. Pretty lame.
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Well you didn't say that you meant the upkeep costs. Maintenance costs are a lot of wooden coasters but shouldn't be as much as an issue on a smaller scale one like this compared to say Wodan.

I am not massively excited by the layout but it is far too early to declare the coaster as lame. El Toro at Freizeitpark Plohn doesn't look that great on paper but it gets good reviews. It could well be a poor coaster, and the POV of the re-creation isn't promising, but that is only a re-creation. Let's wait until we know more before determining if this coaster is any good or not. We all know this isn't just going to be a bog standard wooden coaster, nothing we have seen so far is ground breaking as Towers have said it will be. I am sure there will at least be a launch somewhere and I think the extra speed generated could turn a poorish looking layout into something far more fun.

:)
 
The Smiler early recreation PoV was pretty accurate, but simply missing some of the inversions it looked awful. So I'm not looking too much in to speed or how thrilling the layout is on the initial recreation. That would be stupid. Even if it is 99% accurate, slight tweaks in gradients, banking and of course the secret element can make all the difference.

What doesn't change though, is the fact that it's far too short. I hoped we turned a corner with the Smiler in that we were possibly going to get longer ride experiences. But no, this looks like another Air/Thirteen/Swarm, where you wonder why they bothered spending all that money on design and infrastructure and going through all those planning headaches just to slam the ride into a break run just as the ride was getting started.
 
Is there a reason why they can't follow all of the old flume layout? Would at least make it a bit longer
 
AliceHL91 said:
God forbid they put some wood in a wood.
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Unfortunately it is not as simple as that! I think it is quite right as well; woodies are noisy coasters and The Flume's wooded route went fairy close to the relatively peaceful gardens, especially one of the upper pathways. The noise of a woodie rattling along in this area would cause a significant negative impact in my eyes.

:)
 
Rob said:
Unfortunately it is not as simple as that! I think it is quite right as well; woodies are noisy coasters and The Flume's wooded route went fairy close to the relatively peaceful gardens, especially one of the upper pathways. The noise of a woodie rattling along in this area would cause a significant negative impact in my eyes.

:)
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Maybe they should mention that to whoever is in charge of the volume levels of the dark forest theme, as you can hear that everywhere in the gardens and it's to the extent you can hear it clipping the shiz out of the speakers as you walk past them.

Also, you used to be able to hear the smiler theme throughout a good extent of the garden before the accident it was that loud.
 
AliceHL91 said:
Maybe they should mention that to whoever is in charge of the volume levels of the dark forest theme, as you can hear that everywhere in the gardens and it's to the extent you can hear it clipping the shiz out of the speakers as you walk past them.

Also, you used to be able to hear the smiler theme throughout a good extent of the garden before the accident it was that loud.
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Of course you can hear things, you can hear Oblivion drop from a few miles away depending on the wind direction! The point is that wooden coasters are quite a lot louder than steel coaster, and I was walking along on of the upper paths in the gardens earlier this season thinking if a wooden coaster was to utilise the full area that The Flume did there would be a significant negative impact on some of the gardens.

It's not just noise though. The fact that they are leaving in The Flume existing footings rather than removing them shows that it is a sensitive area of the park. I think you'd have done well to get a wooden coaster to have a decent layout through those trees without removing quite a lot of them anyway.

:)
 
Well I beg to disagree I have been on many walks in the Oakamoor, Alton, Farley and surrounding areas during open season and the only time I've ever heard oblivion drop from outside the park was when I was on top of the adjacent hill where the YMCA hostel is.

I'm not sure why people would be so irritated by the sound of a wooden coaster in a garden that's already bombarded with so many clashing sounds already.

If it was ground hugging I'm sure they could fit the track layout in there without removing any trees with the help of some ingenuity and extra cash. But I can understand why they're not bothering
 
Oblivion can be very audible from outside the park, depending on how windy it is. It's dear old Blivvy that enraged the Ropers so much.
 
Planning permission probably would have been denied if they had used the extra space taken up in the woods, on the grounds that the ride would therefore have been good and worthwhile ;)

Had to make it a bit pathetic to make sure they got planning permission for it :)
 
andeyhart said:
Oblivion can be very audible from outside the park, depending on how windy it is. It's dear old Blivvy that enraged the Ropers so much.
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Wasn't that the screams from Blivvy? That's why they removed "don't look down" as it reduced people screaming.
 
I'm doing a bit of a 180 on this ride now. Whereas I was incredibly underwhelmed at first, the layout is beginning to grow on me.
 
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