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

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Why is everyone dismissing this? It's not even open yet, nor have we seen any testing footage yet! Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but I will reiterate what I have said multiple times: never judge before you ride. I personally think this looks like a great woodie for families and will be a really fun ride, nowhere near Nemesis-beating, but fun. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, though. But until I ride, I'm going in with an open mind, whether the ride turns out to be awful or fantastic.
 
Matt N said:
Why is everyone dismissing this? It's not even open yet, nor have we seen any testing footage yet! Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but I will reiterate what I have said multiple times: never judge before you ride. I personally think this looks like a great woodie for families and will be a really fun ride, nowhere near Nemesis-beating, but fun. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, though. But until I ride, I'm going in with an open mind, whether the ride turns out to be awful or fantastic.
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It's just it's themed somewhat similar to TH13TEEN so most people are expecting a let down, I'm not as it seems different like merlin are actually taking their time to get it done right.

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Matt N said:
Why is everyone dismissing this? It's not even open yet, nor have we seen any testing footage yet! Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but I will reiterate what I have said multiple times: never judge before you ride.
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To be fair I can't see many people dismissing the whole ride, just voicing opinions about previous projects and how this one may or may not be different. One thing that I think is fair to judge is the limitations of the layout which we can all see from the plans, but doesnt mean I wont go in with a clean slate when it opens - it's got people's interest a bit more so that's a good thing. :)
 
electricBill said:
To be fair I can't see many people dismissing the whole ride, just voicing opinions about previous projects and how this one may or may not be different. One thing that I think is fair to judge is the limitations of the layout which we can all see from the plans, but doesnt mean I wont go in with a clean slate when it opens - it's got people's interest a bit more so that's a good thing. :)
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I suppose so. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion. I suppose that there's only so good that Alton's chosen layout can be.
 
I am definitely not dismissing it.

I don't think the coaster is going to be as good as many other GCI creations, but from an experience point of view, this looks like it's going to be very well done - especially compared to things like Th13teen and The Smiler.

I know the resort have been keen to learn from the nightmare queue of Smiler and the shoddy build quality of Th13teen, for example.

Just look at how well planned this project has been compared to anything else in the past 10 years!
 
AstroDan said:
I am definitely not dismissing it.

I don't think the coaster is going to be as good as many other GCI creations, but from an experience point of view, this looks like it's going to be very well done - especially compared to things like Th13teen and The Smiler.

I know the resort have been keen to learn from the nightmare queue of Smiler and the shoddy build quality of Th13teen, for example.

Just look at how well planned this project has been compared to anything else in the past 10 years!
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I agree on the well done part @AstroDan. You only need look at the buildings, the stone wall, the statue and the queue fences to see that this project has been done extremely well. We haven't even seen the pre-show and the brief indoor part of the pre-lift section yet! I reckon the pre-show could be something quite special. The ride's marketing and general theme also seem very mysterious, and almost hint at a Hex-style vibe, which I'm in full support of, as Hex is a stunning ride!
 
AstroDan said:
Alton Towers also know that the indoor queue section of the Smiler is a poorly executed waste of space.

As a result, entertainments are looking after all special effects/AV elements of this ride.
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I actually think that the Smiler's indoor queue section with the projections is quite well executed when everything works, considering what they were going for! The exit corridor is also something I'm quite partial to on Smiler. Simple but effective!
 
The work on it looks good. I am going to leave comment on it until i have ridden it and see what i feel like about it. As it will have its own ride experience.

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Matt N said:
I actually think that the Smiler's indoor queue section with the projections is quite well executed when everything works, considering what they were going for! The exit corridor is also something I'm quite partial to on Smiler. Simple but effective!
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Crucial part of that post being "when everything works." In over 30 rides on The Smiler I can count the number of times everything has worked on two hands (probably reducing to one if you remove the couple of rides I had on opening day on which it was a given that everything should work!) Common problems have been flooding inside due to shambolically installed drainage, projectors either off or so badly aligned they may as well be off, projectors showing blue screens or other error messages, audio not working and the safety floodlight being on illuminating the absolutely barren mess of concrete and cheap corrugated metal that it in reality is.

I am hopeful that with Wicker Man this change with effects/AV being cared for by a different team will prove fruitful, as The Smiler truly was an abomination from that aspect.
 
matthewgcole said:
Who is doing this?

For a start, opinions are split so it can't possibly be "everyone". Secondly, I haven't seen anyone "dismiss" the ride in recent posts so I'm interested as to what you think is being dismissed?
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Come to think of it, I probably phrased that wrong, and for that I apologise. What I meant was that I've seen quite a few people across the web (not everyone, admittedly) already presuming that the ride is going to be mediocre when we haven't even seen any testing footage yet. Admittedly, we have seen the layout, but the layout doesn't give away everything.
 
Matt N said:
Come to think of it, I probably phrased that wrong, and for that I apologise. What I meant was that I've seen quite a few people across the web (not everyone, admittedly) already presuming that the ride is going to be mediocre when we haven't even seen any testing footage yet. Admittedly, we have seen the layout, but the layout doesn't give away everything.
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And we don't know other details yet, such as the trains, inside of the station, shop and pre-show etc.
 
Alastair said:
I am hopeful that with Wicker Man this change with effects/AV being cared for by a different team will prove fruitful, as The Smiler truly was an abomination from that aspect.
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It will all come down to money eventually and whether the park is given enough maintenance budget for AV & FX. Certainly if the money is there in the long term, things will stand a hugely bigger chance with any Ents tech looking after it over rides maintenance, so that's a good sign.

Previously it's been that MMM provide the maintenance budget for effects for 3ish years (in theory) and then after that it's over to the parks to pay out of their attractions budget - but they have often no money left for that because of other priorities. Do we know if this will still be the case?
 
Matt N said:
Come to think of it, I probably phrased that wrong, and for that I apologise. What I meant was that I've seen quite a few people across the web (not everyone, admittedly) already presuming that the ride is going to be mediocre when we haven't even seen any testing footage yet. Admittedly, we have seen the layout, but the layout doesn't give away everything.
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There's really no need to apologise, I was just hoping we weren't going to join in with other forums in having this debate as I don't think it's relevant or nessasary here.

IMO, this thread has been far more sophisticated in its discussion of this project than other forums have. Unless I'm mistaken, I've not seen any conclusions being drawn about the final ride in any of the above posts. We've speculated on what we don't yet know and shared opinions on known facts, but no one has passed overall judgement on here yet as far as I am aware.
 
Matt N said:
I actually think that the Smiler's indoor queue section with the projections is quite well executed when everything works, considering what they were going for! The exit corridor is also something I'm quite partial to on Smiler. Simple but effective!
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It really isn't. It's dark, dirty, often smells and gets too hot on warm days. A horrible place to wait and the queue always feels like it moves slower there than anywhere else.

The most pleasing part of this whole project so far is how they seem to have learned from the likes of The Smiler and Thirteen.

:)
 
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Ultimately we will all be happy if we end up with this at the end. Short and sweet excellent themeing brilliant at suspense building, my personal favourite.

Credit where credit is due it seems so far they have taken the negatives from there previous two sw’s and learnt from what we can see so far. Thirteen ain’t bad but poorly built and rushed and smiler, well it’s an excellent ride but the rest is just appalling.

This although short and family orientated could be the closest we have been to a Wardley SW

Edit- if only this was the oblivion of today. Ride budgets must be so small for all these rides to get in such a state. Shame.
 
matthewgcole said:
There's really no need to apologise, I was just hoping we weren't going to join in with other forums in having this debate as I don't think it's relevant or nessasary here.

IMO, this thread has been far more sophisticated in its discussion of this project than other forums have. Unless I'm mistaken, I've not seen any conclusions being drawn about the final ride in any of the above posts. We've speculated on what we don't yet know and shared opinions on known facts, but no one has passed overall judgement on here yet as far as I am aware.
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When I said across the web, I was actually referring to the other forums you speak of. I actually agree with you in that I think TST has been quite open-minded with this project.
 
AstroDan said:
As a result, entertainments are looking after all special effects/AV elements of this ride.
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Hasn't entertainments historically been the whipping boy when it comes to budget cuts? Is this a sign that they're putting more into the entertainment side, or just another convenient excuse when the effects stop working?
 
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