Project 2018: Battle for Eire (VR Attraction)

[Nicole]

Now that we have our official itinerary, BGWFans wanted to let everyone on the Forum know that we will be attending the Media Event for BfE tomorrow morning.  It is possible that in a break with precedent there will not be a soft open before the media reports on the attraction.  My understanding is that ACE will be there, as well.

What:   Battle For Eire Media Day
When:  Friday, March 30, 7 a.m. – 10 a.m.  
Where: Busch Gardens Williamsburg

 

[WDWRLD]

Soft openings starting sometime on or after March 30th with official opening April 13th..........no particular reason why I say that. Probably completely wrong.

I tried to give y’all a hint days ago......

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Also why I haven’t posted any #battleforeirewatch posts since passholder preview or spent time waiting at the park.

 

[Lord Robert]

It's great that media day is fast approaching. Can't wait to see pictures of the pre-show rooms.

 

[Zachary]

Since media rides tomorrow, I want to say a little about what I have heard leading up to media day from people who have ridden already.

From what I understand, there are headset problems. I've heard a number of reports from riders who say that headsets are simply going black mid-ride. This seems to be one of the main road bumps facing the attraction right now.

In addition to this, however, electrical contractors were still onsite yesterday and this morning signaling that something is still going on inside that isn't directly software related.

This is all somewhat baffling seeing that employees have been riding for over a week now and a media event is scheduled for first thing tomorrow morning.

My earlier soft opening predictions were based on forecasts the park clearly blew past over the last week or so. What this means for a soft opening or official oppening date now is really hard to say—especially if the experience isn't 100% ready for prime time tomorrow morning. We shall see I suppose...

 

[WDWRLD]

Team member at the Scotland park map station is telling everyone that “the new VR ride opens Saturday”.....was checking showtimes and overheard him tell a number of guests. Thought it was interesting......and also a poor choice of information.

 

[Lord Robert]

I don't know about that employee's statement, April is the perfect time for an opening day.

 

[WDWRLD]

I wasnt saying that I believed him.....more the fact he was telling guests that it opened Saturday....like it was a sure thing.

 

[Lord Robert]

I was only saying that about the Team Member, not you specifically.

 

[WDWRLD]

I was only saying that about the Team Member, not you specifically.

Oh....gotcha!

 

[Luke]

Exciting news from today:
"The new #BattleForEire lockers are functional this morning!"
[instagram=https://www.instagram.com/p/Bg6Qx9jnMIj/]

And this:
"Interesting start to #BattleForEireWatch today: There's a media shoot of some kind happening in front of #BattleForEire this morning!"
[instagram=https://www.instagram.com/p/Bg6QSn0n1H8/]

 

[Lord Robert]

Here it is guys, the first sneak peak of the VR version of Battle for Eire. The graphics looks really good and I'll bet it's even better in person!

 

[Nicole]

So, in the last email Marketing sent us about tomorrow's media event, we got the following information. It is odd, because it directly contradicts what they told us at the construction tour.

Please be advised, eyeglasses may become scratched while wearing the VR mask during the ride. It is recommended riders remove their eyeglasses.

 

[WDWRLD]

The headsets were designed to accommodate wearing glasses by having the soft headgear fit over the arms of glasses. What they failed to calculate was the distance between the eye and VR lens and there isn't enough room for glasses. Some frame designs will probably work but not all.

 

[WDWRLD]

So, in the last email Marketing sent us about tomorrow's media event, we got the following information.  It is odd, because it directly contradicts what they told us at the construction tour.

Please be advised, eyeglasses may become scratched while wearing the VR mask during the ride. It is recommended riders remove their eyeglasses.

It also reverses the hundreds of reply's they have given guests on FB and Twitter assuring then that the Emerald Mask comfortably fits over glasses. This ride could surpass Mach Tower as the biggest park failure ever!

 

[warfelg]

So, in the last email Marketing sent us about tomorrow's media event, we got the following information.  It is odd, because it directly contradicts what they told us at the construction tour.

Please be advised, eyeglasses may become scratched while wearing the VR mask during the ride. It is recommended riders remove their eyeglasses.

1 - Not really all that shocking, because I think it would seem optimistic that it could work.

2 - With bigger and thicker frames becoming more popular, I think it was hard to ensure it fit all styles and fit well on people without glasses.

Mostly, I think it was very optimistic to think it would work. Can't be that upset over this IMO.

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It also reverses the hundreds of reply's they have given guests on FB and Twitter assuring then that the Emerald Mask comfortably fits over glasses. This ride could surpass Mach Tower as the biggest park failure ever!

Just out of curiosity, why so negative about it? I feel like you've been pessimistic about quite a few things with the ride? As I said, it was a very optimistic thing to begin with to hope that glasses would work.

 

[Lord Robert]

Oh please WDWRLD, Mach Tower had TONS of different problems from the start. Battle for Eire doesn't seem to suffer the same amount of problems from what I can tell so far.

 

[WDWRLD]

Every version of this ride on the same ride system has been less than spectacular. There are numerous issues going on, every day there are more problems than solutions and they never could work out the problem on Kracken and just removed them. When you say "I think it was very optimistic to think it would work. Can't be that upset over this IMO" is crazy to me. They have all along said they were designed to fit over glasses, some people will not be able to see anything with out their glasses so they will be forced to watch the screen. I will just keep my opinion and info to my self from here on out to not sound pessimistic.

 

[warfelg]

Oh please WDWRLD, Mach Tower had TONS of different problems from the start. Battle for Eire doesn't seem to suffer the same amount of problems from what I can tell so far.

Drachen Fire, "No that's not a ride you see being built", "that's going away after one year". I can think of much worse things than, we were hoping you could wear glasses and we found a problem in testing.

I'm willing to bet that what happened was they realized that making that mask comfortable means there was some jostling, and this is to cover themselves from potential lawsuits for not saying it could cause damage. So the options were: let people wear glasses, get them scratched, get cases over the fact they didn't warn about it OR warn about it, see a tiny percent of people complain, move on. They take the latter every time. The percent of people that will say anything negative are likely single digits.

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Every version of this ride on the same ride system has been less than spectacular. There are numerous issues going on, every day there are more problems than solutions and they never could work out the problem on Kracken and just removed them. When you say "I think it was very optimistic to think it would work. Can't be that upset over this IMO" is crazy to me. They have all along said they were designed to fit over glasses, some people will not be able to see anything with out their glasses so they will be forced to watch the screen. I will just keep my opinion and info to my self to not sound pessimistic.

No one has ever done it on a motion simulator, so how has it been less than spectacular if it doesn't exist anywhere else yet? How can they avoid problems if they didn't know they could exist?

 

[Lord Robert]

Exactly, the poster saying that Battle for Eire will have the same problems that Mach Tower had which doesn't make sense to me. The problems that Battle for Eire WILL have, are going to be far different than Mach Towers problems were, I'm not denying the problems' existence for the upcoming ride, I'm just pointing out the clear differences.

And yes I would rather have the recommendation of people taking their glasses off during the ride will help a lot, in spite of a tiny percent of people complaining about it later (I wish Tempesto did that when I rode it once back in 2015). I'm near sighted myself and whenever I try on a VR Headset I can still see things crystal clear because of how close it is to my face. So this will not be an issue down the road for me and I am still completely excited for the ride despite this.

 

[Nicole]

To be clear, at the construction tour they explained at length about how they had spent months testing the mask on as many people as possible. They also emphasized that they tested it on several sets of glasses. It fact, it was supposedly designed to work with a wide range of glasses and head sizes. So, I am not willing to give them a pass on this.

I hypothesize that they tested the masks, but not the VR goggles.