SaiyanHajime
CF Legend
There is a pattern of coaster enthusiasm, one that enters this self-hating stage where no one can offer anything interesting to say and so churns out "but the GP will love it" over and over. I've been there, thinking I was being clever by seeing past my nerdy selfish interests, but I realised I'm just wrong a while ago. It's the biggest trope of the wider community. We need to stop thinking of our opinions as being so vastly different from the masses, because like I said before, the masses just lack of knowledge to pre-judge, but they can tell a good ride when they get off it and they lack our overall preference for comfortability that comes from over-riding. In a similar light, I think a lot of criticisms people throw at coasters are kneejerk rubbish like "it's rough" without seeing the whole ride as a package. No ride is perfect, it's about weighing it up. Maverick, for example, has some transitions that don't work all that well with it's OTSR.
It's hard to tell how popular Maverick is, going back to Snoo's point, because it's capacity ain't great... And like I said before, that's probably why CP keep getting boring B&M's now and spent money transforming Mantis from an operationally slow stand up to a speedy sit down. For all that Maverick did well for them, it's throughput is not going to be anywhere near the likes of Gatekeeper. Cedar Point gets mad busy, but I'm not sure that's a good enough reason to have a sea of samey-feeling coasters from here on out, but I can't think of another reason why they would keep buying B&Ms of recent. There's no way it's because the selling point is good enough alone... Hm, though that said, the surge of people buying wing coasters implies that parks think their gimmick sounds or looks impressive... Why I have absolutely no idea, because no non enthusiast gets why they're unique or interesting without detailed explanation, and I've had people say to me "so it's like Nemesis?" to which you have to be like "well, yeah, except... erm, you're on the side of the track which ...looks cool?" Like, seriously, what is so appealing that is making parks keep buying them, I don't get it? And here's an even better question, why almost 20 years post-Oblivion is CP going "oh hey vertical drops are cool right?" I'm not saying that every new coaster should be some new gimmick, not at all, but it is a bit weird imo that these rides never really... took off, but rather have just slowly appeared over the past 20 years. What is the thought process behind buying one??
There is absolutely zero snobbery in being like "that coaster is boring and the public will agree", which is basically my stance here. What's gross is when someone tries to have an interesting discussion and people, instead of responding and talking about it, throw insults that anyone even had a thought outside their bubble. There's more to this hobby than watching mud and track slowly go up and discussing commenting "I don't like the colour scheme". Cedar Point fans are the absolute worst for defending their precious park, because they never even try to come up with a response, they just throw their toys out the pram and call everyone names. Cedar Point is not very good critically. It's a fun park to visit, there's a lot there, when it's not raining their operations are some of the industries best, but the lineup is mediocre and they keep building boring rides.
I agree with Crazycoaster above, too, that Oblivion's appeal is almost entirely tunnel based. I've heard people say they prefer G5, but it's important to remember it does still have a tunnel. Sheikra's second drop is definitely better than it's first. A lot of my problem with big coasters is they lack falling sensation because they typically have long trains, increasing speed gradually, and the distance from the ground and other objects to compare your speed to is so great that there's no illusion of speed. This is what I mean when I say "Millenium Force's drop doesn't do anything", because whilst the ride has appeal for being so high off the ground through most of the circuit, there is no sense of speed or acceleration. Compare that to Big One, which has a jagged first drop because it's a poorly made piece of poo, but there you have a sensation of speed caused by the fact that it's violently doing stuff as it falls. I'm not saying it's better, I'm just saying that it's important to accept that some rides stereotypical "faults" are actually what make them great, and stuff like smoothness can actually be detrimental to ride experience.
It's hard to tell how popular Maverick is, going back to Snoo's point, because it's capacity ain't great... And like I said before, that's probably why CP keep getting boring B&M's now and spent money transforming Mantis from an operationally slow stand up to a speedy sit down. For all that Maverick did well for them, it's throughput is not going to be anywhere near the likes of Gatekeeper. Cedar Point gets mad busy, but I'm not sure that's a good enough reason to have a sea of samey-feeling coasters from here on out, but I can't think of another reason why they would keep buying B&Ms of recent. There's no way it's because the selling point is good enough alone... Hm, though that said, the surge of people buying wing coasters implies that parks think their gimmick sounds or looks impressive... Why I have absolutely no idea, because no non enthusiast gets why they're unique or interesting without detailed explanation, and I've had people say to me "so it's like Nemesis?" to which you have to be like "well, yeah, except... erm, you're on the side of the track which ...looks cool?" Like, seriously, what is so appealing that is making parks keep buying them, I don't get it? And here's an even better question, why almost 20 years post-Oblivion is CP going "oh hey vertical drops are cool right?" I'm not saying that every new coaster should be some new gimmick, not at all, but it is a bit weird imo that these rides never really... took off, but rather have just slowly appeared over the past 20 years. What is the thought process behind buying one??
There is absolutely zero snobbery in being like "that coaster is boring and the public will agree", which is basically my stance here. What's gross is when someone tries to have an interesting discussion and people, instead of responding and talking about it, throw insults that anyone even had a thought outside their bubble. There's more to this hobby than watching mud and track slowly go up and discussing commenting "I don't like the colour scheme". Cedar Point fans are the absolute worst for defending their precious park, because they never even try to come up with a response, they just throw their toys out the pram and call everyone names. Cedar Point is not very good critically. It's a fun park to visit, there's a lot there, when it's not raining their operations are some of the industries best, but the lineup is mediocre and they keep building boring rides.
I agree with Crazycoaster above, too, that Oblivion's appeal is almost entirely tunnel based. I've heard people say they prefer G5, but it's important to remember it does still have a tunnel. Sheikra's second drop is definitely better than it's first. A lot of my problem with big coasters is they lack falling sensation because they typically have long trains, increasing speed gradually, and the distance from the ground and other objects to compare your speed to is so great that there's no illusion of speed. This is what I mean when I say "Millenium Force's drop doesn't do anything", because whilst the ride has appeal for being so high off the ground through most of the circuit, there is no sense of speed or acceleration. Compare that to Big One, which has a jagged first drop because it's a poorly made piece of poo, but there you have a sensation of speed caused by the fact that it's violently doing stuff as it falls. I'm not saying it's better, I'm just saying that it's important to accept that some rides stereotypical "faults" are actually what make them great, and stuff like smoothness can actually be detrimental to ride experience.
If it came across like I did, sorry. 