Jarrett
Most Obnoxious Member 2016
So a little remark I made about Valravn absolutely exploded into a giant discussion about this, so I thought I'd start a thread on it.
I basically said that Cedar Point built Valravn completely as something the GP would cream their pants over. Some were arguing that that's the point of a coaster. and shouldn't it be? Enthusiasts make up less than 1% of a park's demographic, when it comes to multi-million dollar investments like coaster choice, they don't give a rat's arse about us.
However, we enthusiasts typically have a thing for a good ride experience, one that gives us what we look for in a coaster. While we would all prefer an RMC to a B&M dive coaster, does this sell well? Sure a coaster is a machine designed to use a carriage or train of carriages carried by their own momentum along rails on multiple sets of wheels to give a good ride, but is that enough? If Cedar Point put in something like Storm Chaser, while we would all think it's the best coaster at the park, would it sell as well as Valravn? Valravn might provide a ride experience that's just barely Cedar Point quality, but if you show Gerald GP off the street a picture of it next to Storm Chaser, which would he rather ride? Storm Chaser to most would look like a coaster with a funky looking drop littered with hills and a few inversions. However, they see Valravn, they see a massive steel mountain that holds you face-first before dropping you twenty-three stories.
This, in my opinion, is another reason why boomerangs are so popular at parks in addition to their low cost and footprint. The experience they provide is offensive at best, but Joe Schmoe just going to Knott's Berry Farm because he didn't want to shell out more Disney money sees their boomerang and sees this weird contraption that looks nothing like your typical coaster that goes forwards and backwards and has all these dead ends and inversions and the like.
Some examples of coasters that rely solely on ride experience are RMCs, Helix (it was even marketed as a ride experience alone),
Question 1: Can a ride rely on just its ride experience for marketing or does it also need some kind of record/gimmick?
Parks also want their rides to get good reviews obviously (nobody wants to go to a park if people walk away from that park saying they were personally victimized by all of their coasters and their children are in therapy) or not get bad ones, but does a ride need to have a good experience to be perceived as good by the public? If you ask somebody at Tragic Mountain if they preferred Twisted Colossus or Goliath, would they say Goliath despite the almost unanimous enthusiast opinion that Twisted Colossus is better? Going back to the coaster that started this mess, Valravn has no element that isn't done equally as well or better elsewhere in the park. Big vertical drops can be found on Dragster, steep drops can be found on Maverick, the same inversions can be found on GateKeeper. But would someone who went to the park for a big, powerful drop say Valravn was better than Maverick which has a way more violent drop?
I refer to this as the "GP effect." This is what happens when the GP lets the ride's unique elements or gimmicks get in the way of their judgement of what they liked best. Back in my pre-enthusiast days, we went to Dollywood and I thought that Mystery Mine (which we would all agree is awful) and thought it was better than both Tornado and Thunderhead. Same happened at Carowinds. I thought Borg (now Nighthawk, I feel old) was better than Afterburn even though it's in my bottom 20 simply because I thought the flying position was interesting. Can parks maybe just rely on guests to decide a ride is good before they even ride it and carry that opinion through their experience of riding it?
Question 2: Can the GP accurately develop opinions on ride experiences on their own or do they let the park and their marketing/gimmicks decide for them?
To me at least...
For a ride to be as successful as possible, it needs to have both. It needs a gimmick and a good ride experience. Skyrush was a good example of this, it would be a killer ride with a normal seating arrangement, but the winged seating arrangement really helps augment an already sick layout into something special. However, just having a good ride experience or just a gimmick that works will make the ride successful. A successful ride has a gimmick or good ride, the most successful have both. One will draw people in, both will make the coaster a flagship smash hit to last for years. I think most GP at Cedar Point would vastly prefer Maverick (multiple gimmicks thrown around a good ride) to something gimmicky and unusual like Wicked Twister.
As for my second question, I think the GP definitely creates their opinions around how the park presents them. I once heard a guy scream "BEST RIDE IN THE PARK!!!!" after a spin on Rougarou during its inaugural season. To many the excitement of riding a new coaster with some kind of unique factor thrown in they've never seen before clouds their perception of what is and isn't a good coaster.
Do you agree with this?
I basically said that Cedar Point built Valravn completely as something the GP would cream their pants over. Some were arguing that that's the point of a coaster. and shouldn't it be? Enthusiasts make up less than 1% of a park's demographic, when it comes to multi-million dollar investments like coaster choice, they don't give a rat's arse about us.
However, we enthusiasts typically have a thing for a good ride experience, one that gives us what we look for in a coaster. While we would all prefer an RMC to a B&M dive coaster, does this sell well? Sure a coaster is a machine designed to use a carriage or train of carriages carried by their own momentum along rails on multiple sets of wheels to give a good ride, but is that enough? If Cedar Point put in something like Storm Chaser, while we would all think it's the best coaster at the park, would it sell as well as Valravn? Valravn might provide a ride experience that's just barely Cedar Point quality, but if you show Gerald GP off the street a picture of it next to Storm Chaser, which would he rather ride? Storm Chaser to most would look like a coaster with a funky looking drop littered with hills and a few inversions. However, they see Valravn, they see a massive steel mountain that holds you face-first before dropping you twenty-three stories.
This, in my opinion, is another reason why boomerangs are so popular at parks in addition to their low cost and footprint. The experience they provide is offensive at best, but Joe Schmoe just going to Knott's Berry Farm because he didn't want to shell out more Disney money sees their boomerang and sees this weird contraption that looks nothing like your typical coaster that goes forwards and backwards and has all these dead ends and inversions and the like.
Some examples of coasters that rely solely on ride experience are RMCs, Helix (it was even marketed as a ride experience alone),
Question 1: Can a ride rely on just its ride experience for marketing or does it also need some kind of record/gimmick?
Parks also want their rides to get good reviews obviously (nobody wants to go to a park if people walk away from that park saying they were personally victimized by all of their coasters and their children are in therapy) or not get bad ones, but does a ride need to have a good experience to be perceived as good by the public? If you ask somebody at Tragic Mountain if they preferred Twisted Colossus or Goliath, would they say Goliath despite the almost unanimous enthusiast opinion that Twisted Colossus is better? Going back to the coaster that started this mess, Valravn has no element that isn't done equally as well or better elsewhere in the park. Big vertical drops can be found on Dragster, steep drops can be found on Maverick, the same inversions can be found on GateKeeper. But would someone who went to the park for a big, powerful drop say Valravn was better than Maverick which has a way more violent drop?
I refer to this as the "GP effect." This is what happens when the GP lets the ride's unique elements or gimmicks get in the way of their judgement of what they liked best. Back in my pre-enthusiast days, we went to Dollywood and I thought that Mystery Mine (which we would all agree is awful) and thought it was better than both Tornado and Thunderhead. Same happened at Carowinds. I thought Borg (now Nighthawk, I feel old) was better than Afterburn even though it's in my bottom 20 simply because I thought the flying position was interesting. Can parks maybe just rely on guests to decide a ride is good before they even ride it and carry that opinion through their experience of riding it?
Question 2: Can the GP accurately develop opinions on ride experiences on their own or do they let the park and their marketing/gimmicks decide for them?
To me at least...
For a ride to be as successful as possible, it needs to have both. It needs a gimmick and a good ride experience. Skyrush was a good example of this, it would be a killer ride with a normal seating arrangement, but the winged seating arrangement really helps augment an already sick layout into something special. However, just having a good ride experience or just a gimmick that works will make the ride successful. A successful ride has a gimmick or good ride, the most successful have both. One will draw people in, both will make the coaster a flagship smash hit to last for years. I think most GP at Cedar Point would vastly prefer Maverick (multiple gimmicks thrown around a good ride) to something gimmicky and unusual like Wicked Twister.
As for my second question, I think the GP definitely creates their opinions around how the park presents them. I once heard a guy scream "BEST RIDE IN THE PARK!!!!" after a spin on Rougarou during its inaugural season. To many the excitement of riding a new coaster with some kind of unique factor thrown in they've never seen before clouds their perception of what is and isn't a good coaster.
Do you agree with this?
