To which I ask, why pour more money into unnecessary effects when you literally already have THE best steel coaster in the world?
Will the general public view it as a new ride or simply just the same ride?
If they side with the later, that is money poorly spent on new special effects.
UC, Mike T etc are all spot on with this.
New trains are a nice addition, but if a park were to go spend money on them, there is no way they would make that money back, since it is the "same ride"....in effect it would be a gesture of goodwill to guests, to make their experience a bit better.
If you retheme a ride, add effects etc, you
can make that money back because
some guests will come to the park specifically for this 'new' experience.
That is the crux of all this, the trains will take up the bulk of the budget, but the effects will deliver the bulk of the return.
Now, the success comes down to how well guests receive a 'new' experience of an old ride, though judging by X2, its a winning formula.....I mean, why
shouldn't it work at SFNE if it worked at SFMM. Guests are guests.
People need to stop looking at parks from an RCT scenario perspective, parks don't have a little pot of money that they divvy out on things that would be nice to have, and they don't 'save up' to get big rides or whatever. They just spend money with the aim to make it back and then some, and there is nothing stopping them spending as much as they want, so long as they are sure they will get the returns needed.
Effects might seem like a silly little thing to spend money on, but obviously they have crunched the numbers and it's worth it to them.
One random point I felt like bringing up...But couldn't SF just be evil and build the new effects, but not do new trains? Similar return for far less investment :twisted: