BGE 250 Drop Tower 2011 and Multi-Launch Coaster 2012

[D1993]

Not a major coaster company, inexperienced??
The only company's that have produced more coasters are Zamperla and Vekoma (that I have found), sure they may not be big in the "high thrill" section of rides but instead they are really big in the family coaster section. I also doubt that this will nothing else then a family coaster as well, since it will fill the exact same gap in their line-up as Thirteen did for Alton Towers. They have a small kiddy coaster, and the rest of them are more aimed to thrill seekers, much like Alton. Now they are going to add one that will fill that gap, which is great for them to attract more family's in the future and not fill the whole park with "chav like" types as Thorpe...

So why not go to one of the bigger players on family rides. By the look of the pictures that have surfaced so far, then it will most likely be a version of their new ESC models (Elevated Seating Coaster) and I have only heard good things about the two that have been built so far...

I'm actually glad that this won't be an Intamin, since then you could ride this thing and enjoy it, instead of getting bashed up like most Intamin do...

dude dont twist my words, i said inexperienced in COMPARISON to intamin. you cant argue that zierer are close to even being a major manufacturer. for instance with vekoma yes they make lots of rides in terms of quantity, but i think we all know that the quantity part sucks pretty bad haha. so for me theyre not a major manufacturer at all, because more than half the stuff they make are death machines.

i dont understand why you seem like verbolten will be a family ride? where along the path have bge advertised a family ride? im asking a sincere question there.
a multi launch coaster doesnt really seem like a family ride or something that zierer would make. Sure they can and im all for other companies trying. Blue Fire turned out great, but you cant argue its better than the intamin launch coasters. Intamin without a doubt makes the best launch coasters, other companies still make great rides and launch coasters but with intamin they are definetly the best when it comes to launchers.

i also dont understand the conection to 13. from the sounds of a multi launch coaster, i dont think this will be anything like 13 (ie aimed at the same target or even close)
13 is a family ride in terms of thrills for sure, other companies probably couldve done better, but does verbolten really sound like a family ride?

also considering intamin just made a pretty successful triple launch roller coaster, this really does seem like verbolten will be right up their alley. Im not ruling anything out, but just looking at whats realistic.

and i have never been bashed on an intamin. what intamins have you been on that bashed you? honest question .....

 

[D1993]

i still cant beleive mach tower hasnt opened? apparently its opening is delayed again. i never knew there could be so many mechancial issues and problems with a simple drop tower. why did bge go with .... ok ill be honest i dont even know the name of the company that manufactured this. mondial? or where they the ones that did all the windseekers?

 

[Bottom_Feeder_13]

more pics
http://bgwfans.com/?p=1140

 

[SaiyanHajime]

BGW have other non-coaster rides made by Intamin. Following troubles with Pompei, the lead engineers and such there grew to dislike the way the company deals with problems which they feel are inevitable with Intamin. For better or worse, the park is very, very careful about the public perception and try to limit incidents that other parks would see as inevitable. It's illustrated not only in their obsession with safety and reliability, but in many incidents such as unfollowing anyone who criticises them on twitter and contacting fansites asking them to remove information that they deem a threat. They are very odd indeed. The tower is a Moser, btw. There's a few of them about but BGE insisted on modifying it... to be more like an Intamin.

Oh the irony that their new drop tower turned out to be a nightmare to get up and running.

The decision to not get an Intamin coaster is, I think, daft... Not as daft as the drop tower, or the fact they got a drop tower at all, but still daft. Going with a less experienced company could provide them with something really special and I'm personally glad it's not Intamin on a selfish I want to try something new level. Even if it turns out to not be as good as it could have been were it Intamin, I like seeing parks try something new and give smaller companies a chance. That doesn't mean I understand the decision from any business perspective, mind. And I certainly don't expect it to be as good as an Intamin equivalent could be. I'm expecting better than Thirteen, but not from the hardware itself, but from the park's input. I recon the drop mechanism won't be as good as Thirteen's, but what do I know. I agree with Ben here.

Thing I really don't get about the drop tower is... why did they go for a drop tower at all, forget the manufacturer. Let's look at a break down of this illogic...
They want a huge drop tower, but not huge enough to compete with one nearby.
They don't go with the company that does what they want it to do (rotate) because of a grudge.
They customise it to make it rotate, making it more complicated and less reliable, which is what they had a grudge about.
The height of the tower is not utilized because it breaks so high up.
The audience are given mixed messages between the height of the attraction, it's theme* and it's inevitable tame-ness.

*Who's idea was it to theme a drop tower, a ride focusing on a scary sensation of falling, to a folk dance?

I love that BGW is a bit WTF, but it does make you wonder what the hell they are doing and why. They have to paint everything tall a pale blue or white due to regulations, so all their rides inevitably look a bit... nursery-like. And instead of trying to combat that, they embrace it. Lol. So odd, I wish I could speak to their creative department, it would be an interesting experience.

 

[D1993]

^ i guess thats all true. zierer will be something new and unique whether or not its better or worse than an intamin coaster. I guess i can see why bge have a bit of a grudge against intamin. there rides arent exactly the best when it comes to reliability. BGA just got cheetah hunt and it seems to not really be having problems.

the drop tower is definetly odd to me. I think lots of people have already this pre-conceived idea in their heads before its even opened that drop tower at KD will be better. and it probably will be. it rode it last year it was great. moser doesnt sound so .... great i guess.

this coaster will be interesting to see anyways. i think it'll turn out more like cheetah hunt with more theme and not as intense as i was originally thinking it to be .....

 

[D1993]

Mach Tower has opened and apparently it sucks.

 

[gavin]

^Great.

It sucks according to who exactly? If you're going to share this "news" then you could at list give a bit more detail. Where are the reviews?

 

[marc]

So far all I have read is this suck that sucks yet when people I know ride these things they like them. People need to stop reporting what people say who have set out not not like something before they even go on the bloody thing.

It totally **** me off tbh, I read the new coaster at SFMM was **** yet Gazza said it was good. I read Ispeed was one of the best coasters in the world and it was far from it.

Sorry rant over.

 

[Martyn B]

I saw a video of it the other day, and it seems to suffer with the same problem as the tower at Rainbow, brakes start waay too high up.

Even the description for video said something like "yes, it really is as bad as it looks".

 

[Brett7710]

Looking at the BGW Fans link a couple of pages back, this looks to me like a vertical drop coaster as well as a multi launch, to me that seems like Zeirer throwing down the gauntlet and trying to show that they can match Intamin in their designs and tecnology, just like Wicked seems to me to be their attempt at a Eurofighter style twisting compact inverting coaster, even combining both the launch and steep drops which gerstlauer use as seperate mechanism's.
Wether they can truly compete when it comes to ride experience we won't know until it's opened next year (hopefully by June when I visit the park on my US trip) I agree with a lot of points that loefet made in previous post's, I think it's exciting that an experienced manufacturer is turning their attention to high thrill rides and giving an alternative to the major players in the buisness today. Even if they don't manage to upstage the likes of Intamin it will keep them looking over their shoulders and put pressure on them to keep their maintainance records clean and produce new designs and concepts.

 

[D1993]

^Great.

It sucks according to who exactly? If you're going to share this "news" then you could at list give a bit more detail. Where are the reviews?

sorry. Coaster crew recently reviewed the ride (actually just rocco)

Oh and i meant by saying 'apparently' that of course its just one persons opinion and maybe it doesnt suck.

 

[gavin]

Ok, so this is a testing video - I refuse to link to that Coaster Crew (I always thought a Crew needed more than one person?) douche - but:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3UgPWtfK-U[/youtube]

Yeah, that looks really piss poor and I don't think it's one of those "ride and see" examples unfortunately. It's probably the ugliest tower I've ever seen, and that "drop" braking two thirds of the way up is ridiculous.

BGW should have swallowed their pride and gone to Intamin if they wanted a Gyro Drop tower; this POS is just embarrassing.

 

[marc]

^Yeah ok I agree lol.

Good old Merlin a nice cheep option lol, they will not get away with this type of thing in the USA.

 

[Hixee]

Looks ****.

 

[SaiyanHajime]

Ok, so this is a testing video - I refuse to link to that Coaster Crew (I always thought a Crew needed more than one person?) douche - but:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3UgPWtfK-U[/youtube]

Yeah, that looks really piss poor and I don't think it's one of those "ride and see" examples unfortunately. It's probably the ugliest tower I've ever seen, and that "drop" braking two thirds of the way up is ridiculous.

BGW should have swallowed their pride and gone to Intamin if they wanted a Gyro Drop tower; this POS is just embarrassing.

+1

 

[kimahri]

http://www.nihongogo.com/jet/photos/****.jpg

 

[Error]

It sucks according to who exactly? If you're going to share this "news" then you could at list give a bit more detail. Where are the reviews?

According to me, it's god awful.

You do get air. For half a second. Then, it's the brakes, stopping you about a quarter up and slowly bringing you down. It's likely one of the worst I've done, if not the worst. It's more a tall family drop tower, not for those who actually love them.

 

[SaiyanHajime]

It sucks according to who exactly? If you're going to share this "news" then you could at list give a bit more detail. Where are the reviews?

According to me, it's god awful.

You do get air. For half a second. Then, it's the brakes, stopping you about a quarter up and slowly bringing you down. It's likely one of the worst I've done, if not the worst. It's more a tall family drop tower, not for those who actually love them.

The crappy thing is that this thing's height conveys anything but "family ride". People riding it will expect it to be intense, and come off disappointed.

BGW are really odd with this kind of thing. Not just the Intamin hate, but the way they choose to convey their rides. Griffon, the tallest and what should be the most menacing thing there, is painted baby blue... And on top of that, it is tame. I actually do wonder just how much of that tameness is subjectivity conveyed through it's visuals? I realise the park has to paint it's tall coasters in sky colours, with the exception of Apollo due to it being the reject at the back of the park, but there are no apparent artistic decisions to make Griffon, Alpengeist, Mach Tower or even the brightly coloured Apollo look intimidating.

I mean, why they did decide to theme a drop tower... to a May pole? Just... Why?

I love the park, love it's somewhat confusing weirdness, love the cake... but it confuses me. Not the cake, the... artistic direction. The only confusion the cake provides is HOW IS IT SO GOOD. World's best cake. I swear. Even BGT doesn't have the same cake. WTF?

 

[D1993]

yep mach tower does suck. That testing video is just horrid. It literally looks like one of the worst drop towers in existence. Even the smaller intamin drop towers like at carowinds and sfa are much better than mach tower and theyre shorter.

BGE can be so silly sometimes

 

[rollermonkey]

BGW are really odd with this kind of thing. Not just the Intamin hate, but the way they choose to convey their rides. Griffon, the tallest and what should be the most menacing thing there, is painted baby blue... And on top of that, it is tame. I actually do wonder just how much of that tameness is subjectivity conveyed through it's visuals? I realise the park has to paint it's tall coasters in sky colours, with the exception of Apollo due to it being the reject at the back of the park, but there are no apparent artistic decisions to make Griffon, Alpengeist, Mach Tower or even the brightly coloured Apollo look intimidating.

I mean, why they did decide to theme a drop tower... to a May pole? Just... Why?

Huh? Apollo is in no way at the back of the park.

And what does the color of the rides have to do with the intensity, or lack thereof, unless you're an art major?

Perhaps, Busch, in it's efforts to be one of the most beautiful parks in the world, has decided to avoid theming rides with blood and guts?

Sigh.