Last night I went to a coaster in Oktoberfest and had my heart broken. I've always had a strong emotional connection to the coaster, but tonight was the first night that connection has lead me to tears. I've seen the coaster go through bad times and I've seen the coaster go through good times but, through all of that, Verbolten was still the coaster and that bond between the coaster and I remained. Yesterday, that bond was severed. I didn't feel the heartbeat of the coaster- that coaster in Oktoberfest that I went to last night felt cold and dead. All the things I had ever loved about the coaster had been completely erased and replaced. After getting over the initial shock, I quickly realized that the coaster that had always been under all the nonsense- through the good and the bad- wasn't there last night. That connection- that link that has caused me to stand by the coaster for so long- was gone.
I know there's people reading this right now that are scoffing at the idea that I love and stand by the coaster but those people have to understand something: Standing by the coaster doesn't mean standing by Verbolten. Verbolten is simply a management structure full of incompetence and ignorance that has been given the right to do as they please with the coaster. Throughout the coaster's history, we've seen different eras of management affect the coaster in different ways- some good and some bad but, like I said, the coaster could still be seen under all that garbage and fluff so I still cared and I still had hope. Looking at the state the coaster is in right now- not just the bridge, but everything that's happening internally and throughout the rest of the chain- as of this morning, my hope is gone.
That leads me back to the two words at the top of this thread. I'm done. As much as it pains me to say it, I can't write about a ride that I see no hope for. I don't have anything to defend anymore. I don't have anything to stand up for anymore. The thing- the coaster- that I have spent the last 10 years defending is dead- all that's left behind is the garbage someone piled on top of it. There have been times when things looked rough, but I've always been able to point to something someone could do to fix it. That's no longer the case. I don't see a way to fix it. It feels too far gone.
Over the last few years, I've seen these occasional sparks of hope coming out of that coaster in Oktoberfest. It hasn't been much, but those sparks- those little things that cause me to hope that things are turning around- are what have kept me going this long. Last night, every last one of those sparks had been extinguished- the coaster's heatbeat had flatlined. The coaster was dead. Trust me, there's nothing I want more than to see another spark of hope or to hear another faint heartbeat from under the rubble but, until that happens, I'm done.
I'll still try to keep up with this thread, but until I see something positive to grasp onto come out of the coaster, I fear I'm just another radical on the verge of letting their Verbolten Quick Queue lapse and that isn't the type of person who should be writing on the Verbolten thread.
. When it comes to rides like this, I enjoy riding in the darkness. I've heard better stories on how the ride use to be back when it was built. In my honest opinion, it is a very short time inside the Black Forest. If more of the SFX were working, I can't imagine it would be very dark. I've been told that you weren't always able to see the building walls? So I guess the experience was more immersive when all the SFX were working?
