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Thorpe 2013

It is odd how Swarm bombed so much tbh, when I was there I just attributed it to not having a huge queue to it having quite a decent throughput and the quality of the ride was impressive, probably favourite in the park.

Hope Alton has a bumper year next year to show Merlin these scale of investments can pay off
 
Did anyone else find last year that Swarm's queue was never of moderate length? It was always non existent, or plagued with technical trouble and thus over an hour?

I agree with Jordan. Swarm was not a success, and I think its pretty obvious why. It looks intimidating, but it's a tame ride experience overall and it's really rather slow.

I'm so glad we got it from a selfish perspective, because I think it's great, but I can't help feel it was the wrong choice, if being objective.

What WOULD be the right choice? Well, Colossus has retained popularity despite it's age... It'll be interesting to see if Saw is the same, because right now Saw is extremely well received.

It's a shame. I guess with Swarm, the theme, park and ride experience just clash a bit. I felt that Wild Eagle was a hell of a lot more fitting thematically with the physical ride experience.
 
I rode The Swarm about 8 times over 3 visits last year and only once queued more than 15 minutes - most times it was practically walk on. But the comment I heard most from other riders was that it was too short. Odd when Stealth is just over the water, but I guess people were expecting a couple more corners or something.
 
I think even if they'd gone to town with the near-misses the ride would have been much more successful.
 
B&M's had its day with the likes of Nemesis, its now time to get with the Intamin's of the trade. Thats what Thorpe Park needs, as proof with Stealth. Shorter than Swarm and yet the biggest pull in the park.
 
Screaming Coasters said:
B&M's had its day with the likes of Nemesis, its now time to get with the Intamin's of the trade. Thats what Thorpe Park needs, as proof with Stealth. Shorter than Swarm and yet the biggest pull in the park.
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Due to the speed and height. With the public, it looks more appealing.

Same that...
. Colossus has it's many inversions.
.Saw has the vertical drop and IP
.Nemesis inferno is inverted.

But Swarm's gimmick of being on the wing doesn't really help that it's a fairly slow ride. The only reason Air gets away with it is due to the flying position. I guess people may find Swarm more appealing backwards. To be honest other than the first drop and first near miss, Swarm isn't incredibly exciting to view at. But if this backward row thing doesn't help, I don't know what will help The Swarm.

The Swarm is my second faviourte coaster after SAW. Yeah, Saw! Persoanlly it's a more wild ride and in my opinion, the theming is better. Couldn't Swarm get some red dye like Nemesis had/used to have for the water by the helicopter. That would be pretty cool.
 
Nemesis of oblivion said:
But Swarm's gimmick of being on the wing doesn't really help that it's a fairly slow ride. The only reason Air gets away with it is due to the flying position. I guess people may find Swarm more appealing backwards. To be honest other than the first drop and first near miss, Swarm isn't incredibly exciting to view at. But if this backward row thing doesn't help, I don't know what will help The Swarm.
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I really disagree, I think it looks really intimidating. It's huge, it's black, it makes noise, it had fire, it has water, it's black and metallic looking, it is based around a wrecked church (hence it is evil), it has its own island, etc, etc. I think this is the first time ever that Merlin have REALLY put a lot of effort into making a ride look good, and this is unfortunately the ride's downfall. It looks mean. It looks thrilling. But in reality it's one of the 'gentler' rides in the park, people aren't coming off of this thing vomming or with a rush of adrenaline, they're coming off of it going 'meh, let's go ride Stealth'. The way it looks and the way it rides are two totally different things, and it's jarring, hence the disappointment in the ride. Unfortunately that gimmick will only work once per person, once they've been on the coaster no amount of making the ride look mean is going to work, because the rider now knows the true nature of the ride.

Therefore, making the ride backwards will work, at least again once per rider, because it offers a new ride experience, something guests haven't felt before and hence anticipation builds once again. Will it lead to disappointment? We only have a couple of weeks to wait and find out ;]
 
Haha but shouldn't Swarm have a more re-ride factor though. Ride both sides and now they'll have the back rows. I do agree with your point btw NadroJ. Altough if guests do back row first then will they see any point to go fowards? My goodness we're so different to the public when it comes to coasters :lol:
 
The perception of the people who go to Thorpe is that rollercoasters should be extreme. That is it. And that ideology is further reinforced by things you see around the park. Hell, even the park map shows little peeps throwing up and stuff. Yes, I prefer a coaster that I can sit on all day, but most people who go to Thorpe want to ride something that 'challenges' them, not something they can happily get off and re-ride without any extreme physical effects. I've seen people at Thorpe purposely re-riding stuff to make themselves sick or to prove how extreme they are, if there is a ride that everybody can go straight back on then the appeal is lost because it doesn't show you to be better than others because you can withstand another round.
 
That surprises me, people must have extremely low tolerance XD

Just reading back through this topic, did anybody here/know anything else about the Vengeance ride? Seeing as everything else Erol has said has turned out to be true we may as well pay this some attention =]
 
Vengeance IS going to Thorpe (in containers) to be stored but it's NOT opening there. It's future is unknown at this point.
 
A dark ride that's anything less than the system they use on Spiderman/Transformers would SUCK for a park like Thorpe. It's a thrill park, anything less than intense won't get a look in.
 
How about a Alien encounter sorta ride. Even more thrilling! Although, we know how Thorpe Mantain effects, it'll be like sitting on a park bench in the dark :roll:
 
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