Oh yes, really can see that! Picture this: the tower should be lit up at night with purple and pink and have a strobe light as “lighting” when the trains goes down the tower after a hold break. Plus having a spot light on the tip as a lighthouse becan shining all around would be great! Theming and presentation really matters and would improve this coaster experience so much.
News Project 2027/Purple: Delayed “World Record Breaking Coaster" (Phantom Spire?)
- Thread starter Zachary
- Start date
I really think this line of thinking is killing the artistry that was once put into enjoyable coaster layouts, and even if that makes sense to the business, it's not something I will applaud. Parks are more focused on spectator spectacle (which is not even to say people who are physically there, but rather "impressing" children online who will say "that's cool" and never in their lives dream of spending time in Jackson Township, New Jersey) than the actual riders' experience in a way that disfigured the quality product of a Mack spinning coaster into the grotesque layout we now see. I'd be very happy to see the coaster built with a reasonable effort at assimilating to the existing theme of the Boardwalk, in New Jersey. The generic theme of Scary and Dark with a big boxy show building isn't gonna do much to enhance what is already a showy, vapid layout focused on intangible superlatives, hence why I pray to Ron every night that Phantom Spire is a placeholder trademark. I fear something like Dr. Diabolical or Professor Screamore or would just saddle the experience with insipid "lore' that has neither history nor intrigue. This already a massive investment (that I hate) because they focused on being so Big and Visible, I just hope the theming budget is put to good use for something that (if not boardwalk-themed) has an expandable or relevant future on its own to define a whole new area of Great Adventure instead of presented as a one-off Ultra Villainous Experience
It’s really beyond parody at this point. Complaining about the idea of a regional park theming their new coaster well. We’ve lost the plot in this thread.
Had you stopped after the first sentence, you would have had a salient point. You are definitely on the wrong site for bashing cohesive themes and lore.
This forum has a sizeable chunk of theme park enthusiasts rather than coaster enthusiasts. I’d consider myself both, but lean more towards theme parks rather than just coasters as I get older. I like this forum bc there’s others like that. We need a niche space on the internet where we won’t be lumped in w Disney Adults
I would consider myself a theme park enthusiast in that I believe the Landschaftpark Duisburg-Nord is the best theme park in the world but fantasy for fantasy's sake doesn't do it for me personally. I love a nice (or novel) environment and rides that are part of creating said environment. Infrastructures of amusement are not only fun rides (generally) but their structures can be amazing setpieces. One of my happy places is the courtyard that Dorney's Thunderhawk creates, even though it's one of my lowest ranked woodies. Not every hulking piece of steel (or wood) needs an overly contrived narrative to justify its existence imo.
I appreciate the inclusive "we" <3
You can have that opinion, but I believe most people—most artists/creatives specifically—almost certainly find it helpful to narrativize a project like this as a way to keep things internally coherent and consistent. Why we would ever object to a park's creative team going that extra step—going through the added time and effort—to create a narrative around an attraction is so far beyond my comprehension.
In my experience, great "complete package" rides almost always have a narrative story behind their concept and theme whether it is communicated to the public or not. Most people who ride Copperhead Strike, Verbolten, Iron Menace, Tumbili, Big Bear Mountain or any number of the other recent narrative-heavy projects in the industry don't know much-if-anything about the story behind those attractions and that is perfectly fine. The story still acts as a core framework for creatives to build out and create an environment/setting/vibe that feels like its own synergistic thing.
So yeah, well-presented or even well-themed coasters can exist without a story, but the best almost always involve a narrative in their development if only as a useful tool to build around. Literally no reason for anyone to ever object to this if you ask me. I can fathom no reasonable criticism.
Edit: I forgot to address you with whimsy
Nice, Understanding, and Historically Well-Versed Zachary,
I think the layout is bad and that any and all ride-associated expenditures that aren't related to a better layout are futile attempts at mitigating the issue. Money that go theme could go track. Money that go 400 ft dual station shuttle could go full circuit
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I can understand the frustration of the ride presumably being a shuttle coaster, but we know nothing about the layout. We have seen zero renderings and have been given zero concrete information of what all this ride could do or even be. In addition, many parks are starting to realize that people don’t want to go to a park that looks rundown as fuck and has no atmosphere. Thats why you’re seeing a lot of parks pivot away from the amusement park aspect and more toward theming. And I personally think that one way for GAdv to really drive home the point that they want to become a destination again is by not only having a huge eye-catching icon, but also having a themed experience with a unique atmosphere. In GAdv’s case a shuttle attraction w/dual station but a well themed experience means they have found a way to balance a themed experience with a high thrill but also fairly expensive attraction.
But that's just not how attraction procurement, cap-ex budgets, or timelines actually work at all in even the most-normal scenarios—and this is FAR from a normal scenario.
If I had to guess, Cedar Fair likely had a production slot reserved with Mack for a 2026 attraction pre-merger—potentionally for something like that hyper shuttle spinner concept that was pitched for Kings Island. In that scenario, that production allocation was likely shifted to Six Flags Great Adventure post-merger in order to fast-track a Ka replacement and, in turn, was massively scaled up to (hopefully) the strata version of the concept. I theorize that likely-scale-up is what has probably lead to the 2026 to 2027 timeline slide. There's honestly a good chance that this was the only realistic way to get a remotely Ka-scale attraction installed before 2028—an upsized, adjusted, capacity-optimized version of an existing pitch.
Mack is a VERY in-demand manufacturer right now—it's not at all unlikely that they're booking out through the end of the decade now if I had to guess. Typically, parks can't just waltz up to a premier manufacturer like Mack and ask for a coaster for next year—and they can't massively change the scale of such a project mid-development either without significant delays. The theoretical upsizing from from hyper to strata probably already delayed it a year—imagine how much longer SFGAdv could be waiting for something even larger (ride hardware order-wise).
Re: budget & timeline: ride hardware has to be finalized VERY early (relatively) in the development process. Six Flags is a corporation currently experiencing massive and ongoing upheaval. It would not be remotely surprising to me for this project's budget to have been upped recently (long after ride hardware was finalized). You can't just go redesigning the coaster at this point, so if additional cap-ex is flowing, it is going to go to theming, placemaking, aesthetics, guest experience, additional attractions, etc., not towards magically changing the shuttle strata spinner's design.
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Edit: I forgot to address you with whimsy
Accommodating and Charitable Zachary, whose correspondence fills me with a feeling similar to the smooth and warm texture of the inside of a thoroughly cooked crinkle-cut french fry,
I've previously made the argument that they shouldn't even have aspired toward this. It will not be Kingda Ka (Ryan Eldredge is gun-shy), but it will look like it's trying to be.
There's not a reason I can see that the Tormenta design couldn't have been rerouted to Great Adventure, which I've previously noted could've been advertized as a Green Lantern replacement. Either way ignores the potential of Six Flags having had a Kingda Ka replacement planned, which I believe is true because of the surety that KK "should've" been around until 2026, or at least later than 2024. I have openly acknowledged how terrible legacy SF has been to Great Adventure, and I still think they would've procured something *I* would've enjoyed more than this, which Cedar Flags presumably could've built.
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I'd say there's plenty of reasons the Tormenta design couldn't have been rerouted to Great Adventure. Obviously we've seen the case of rides like Siren's Curse being moved around fairly willy-nilly, but consider that Tormenta is 149' taller than Siren's Curse and has over 1,000 more feet of track. With the change in parks you end up with huge differences in terrain and soil (the Tormenta plot has some decent grade, whereas the Green Lantern plot is flat), so you'll have to redesign some supports and test a new set of soil.
Eh, even if it could have been reallocated to SFGAdv, give me a shuttle strata spinner over a giga dive any and every day for the rest of my life.
Even if B&M manages to make Tormenta just as smooth as the early dives (doubt) and even if it's the best dive ever built (as a B&M vest hater, doubt), I'm confident I will enjoy the shuttle strata spinner dramatically more than the best dive I can possibly fathom.
Even if B&M manages to make Tormenta just as smooth as the early dives (doubt) and even if it's the best dive ever built (as a B&M vest hater, doubt), I'm confident I will enjoy the shuttle strata spinner dramatically more than the best dive I can possibly fathom.
in my scenario Tormenta would've been a Cedar Fair design adapted for SFOT as well. No reason they'd keep one legacy project over another, so it'd be no more work to adapt one or the other for either site.
I get it. I don't agree, but I think a lot of it for me boils down to the fact that I consider both the quantity (length) and quality (overall experience) of the track to be lacking in the case of Phantom Spire. I know everyone's judgement is comprised of different values.
100% agreed. Tormenta looks great and all, but a dive is really just the safe option lately. B&M’s quality control issues as of late also concern me as a theoretical addition to a park that needs a home run, Rapterra’s launch wobble didn’t detract from my experience last year but it also absolutely should not be there and would be even more heavily criticized if it were at a park that already receives so much criticism, both fair and unfair.
Great Adventure has historically been known for NOT taking the safe option and going with something either very uncommon or completely unheard of. Sometimes it doesn’t pan out and they end up with an unreliable pile of scrap metal like Viper or Chiller, and other times they get a Superman Ultimate Flight, GASM, or Medusa. The park’s last 3 coasters have been, at the time of their announcements, relatively unheard of models (Joker, JDC, Flash) and if you ask me, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that we’re looking at another risky model.
Yeah this shouldn’t be a hot take at all. Tormenta has a very underwhelming layout to the point where it’s nearly as much of a one trick pony as the GAdv coaster will be.
Difference is, the GAdv coaster is going to be so unique and unlike anything we’ve ever seen, while also likely being an insane experience on top of that.
I said it before and I’ll say it again, Phantom Spire (assuming that’s the name) WILL be the better ride. Only way I’d change my opinion is if the ride made me nauseous due to the spinning (fingers crossed that it doesn’t, got my sea bands and dramamine at the ready lol)
Tormenta looks like a fine ride, its just a gimmick we've seen far too often already. It'll be great for SFOT but something like that at Great Adv doesn't make a ton of sense. Locals will likely immediately compare it to Iron Menace. Phantom Spire will be unique, a gimmick ride sure, but it's at least a new and exciting gimmick. I'm excited for that inverted launch and I've never done an extreme spinner before.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, they were never going to build something that would appease everyone. There are people out there who legitimately think something the size of falcons flight is needed to properly succeed Kingda Ka. This was an impossible task the moment that tower came down. I think the spinner is a solid replacement ASSUMING that there is more coming down the pipeline now that the maintenance budget is much lower. Given that the amount of cash put into this park the last two years in general park improvements has been second to only SFOT I feel confident that there is more coming. They need to knock the marketing for this thing out of the park though.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, they were never going to build something that would appease everyone. There are people out there who legitimately think something the size of falcons flight is needed to properly succeed Kingda Ka. This was an impossible task the moment that tower came down. I think the spinner is a solid replacement ASSUMING that there is more coming down the pipeline now that the maintenance budget is much lower. Given that the amount of cash put into this park the last two years in general park improvements has been second to only SFOT I feel confident that there is more coming. They need to knock the marketing for this thing out of the park though.
I’d take a Quality Winged coaster over a dive any day. I get way more enjoyment out of the winged B&M Coasters then I do dive coasters
That said, Dive coasters are no where close to as bad as people say they are. They’re a great time
But here came tilt coasters to basically make dive coasters an irrelevant addition
That said, Dive coasters are no where close to as bad as people say they are. They’re a great time
But here came tilt coasters to basically make dive coasters an irrelevant addition
I like a dive contextually because I'm consistently told that was the only alternative to the spinner. Its a less obtrusive gimmick that doesn't prevent the ride from being a worthwhile full-circuit experience. I fully agree that B&M wings are by far superior to all the dives I've been on. I actually think something like Rapterra would've been a safe and solid addition, but we're only allowed to think inside the box of Cedar Fair unbuilt leftovers. The inability of the park to secure Siren's Curse over Flash really speaks to the level of ambition we're working with, and to some degree I agree it would've made a potential dive addition less relevant.
I mean the comparison would've been very favorable. Tormenta is almost twice the height of Iron Menace
Even if I made this assumption I would still maintain that whatever's "coming down the line" is conditional on this addition being successful enough to merit reinvestment, which I am skeptical of.
"As we move forward, if certain underperforming parks don't respond to our initiatives, we will consider rationalizing our investments in those properties and deem them to be non-core."
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