ALTON TOWERS' world firsts- yay or nay?

[coastergeek14]

Okay, so Alton has quite a few world first rides (Air, Th13teen ect) but could this be a bad thing? Yes , they allow for completely new experiences, but surely Alton are setting themselves up to have the most boring/uninteresting versions of the rides while bigger and bolder editions being are engineered? Look at Air, when it first opened it was amazing and thrilling in its own special way, but now it is overshadowed by the likes of Manta and Tatsu.

 

[Ben]

I think you must be the first person to ever reach this conclusion.

Well done, Sir. Your breath of original thought will make us all more enlightened humans.

 

[Pokemaniac]

^Stop being so mean. If being a killjoy brightens your day, so be it, but do you have to reply to all the newbie comments you see? Slate every bit of news there is? Use hard-to-detect-for-newcomers-sarcasm in every post? Pick on every instance of italics abuse and overstatements used just to prove a point?

Anyway, the thing about Alton is that they have strict restrictions to work with. Whatever they do, they have to "blow out of proportions" in order to attract customers. They have to use big words like "world's first!" or "Uber scary!" when promoting a major ride, because it doesn't sound too good with "The fourteenth tallest coaster of its kind!" or "Hyped, slightly-larger-than-normal Mine Train!". To make their rides spectacular, they think outside the box. It might be technically feasible to make the same concept ten times bigger and better, but at Alton, it's not as easy. If you can't impress with raw numbers, you can compensate with novelty.

At least, that's part of the reason.

 

[Treeis]

"World firsts" Seem to be the best Alton can do with their limited height restrictions and such

 

[Kebab]

I think it's a great thing Alton gets worlds firsts, it makes the park feel more special and always keeps you wondering what they could do next. Plus the worlds firsts have this modern 'vintage' feel, especially with Oblivion.

It's like when 3D gaming was new (talking about early 90's Sega Saturn, N64, etc. not the 3D Glasses crap), it still has that amazing classic feel when playing, even though it gets bettered over time from revising the past games. It's like that with rollercoasters I suppose.

 

[CoasterCrazy]

Personally, I think Alton Towers will never be a "extreme thrill park" and to me, I think that's what makes it so good. AT can only build up to a certain height (70ft), so therefore the ride experiences are going to be more tame, however, it's the way John Wardley and co. manage to design such great rides (Ok, Th13teen was an exception) with so much restrictions and still make them great, as pokemaniac said AT need wotrld's firsts to keep their rides exciting.

AT will always be a stepping stone up to TP...


And Pokemaniac, I completely agree with what you said about ben...