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Thorpe Park | Derren Brown's Ghost Train | VR Attraction

Re: Thorpe Park construction?

I still think it will be some sort of tracked ride, with a simulator bit in that tunnel section. I do like some secrecy though, but if they go down the Thirteen route and make the ride a total surprise to riders right until the very end, it could easily become a disappointment.
 
Re: Thorpe Park construction?

elephant58 said:
I still think it will be some sort of tracked ride, with a simulator bit in that tunnel section. I do like some secrecy though, but if they go down the Thirteen route and make the ride a total surprise to riders right until the very end, it could easily become a disappointment.
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Or Sub-Terra, where they deliberately keep you in a state of constant bewilderment, even after it's ended.
 
Re: Thorpe Park construction?

The building's big though, so I'm expecting it to actually involve vehicles going somewhere.....
 
Re: Thorpe Park construction?

GuyWithAStick said:
^Cheaper ads mean more money towards the actual ride.
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Wrong. Marketing budgets are completely separate to attraction budgets.
 
Re: Thorpe Park construction?

Ian said:
Some great images there, Josh! I'm quite intrigued by the L (almost) U shaped walkway. I wonder if that is part of the queue or the ride itself, meaning there could be an on-foot section.
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I was curious about that also! I don't think it's part of the queue, as the queue line enters the building near where the yellow digger is in those photos. I'm thinking it's much more boring and just a staff access section or something.

Lofty said:
GuyWithAStick said:
^Cheaper ads mean more money towards the actual ride.
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Wrong. Marketing budgets are completely separate to attraction budgets.
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But when advertising a major attraction, Merlin parks shove all the budgets into one and say "Look at our £x million investment". Smiler's and Swarm's £18-20million costs that they threw about a fair amount will have included everything, from construction costs, to the ride hardware, theming and things like marketing. So the rumoured figures (£30-35 million are what I'm hearing the most) will probably include things like marketing too.


As for the marketing thing, I've heard that the park plan on drip-feeding marketing every couple of months (leaving us with the next push around Fright Nights I guess), and then doing a big reveal shortly before opening. Apparently very few staff members know exactly what it is, so the park really do seem to be milking the secrecy as much as they can.

In a more selfish way, I do hope the park don't reveal the ride typebefore opening - it'd be a novel aspect for enthusiasts to have no clue what the ride is / does. However, I do hope that they reveal what the ride is before opening, as otherwise there'll either end up with loads of disappointed riders expecting too much, or simply not enough people wanting to ride it in the first place.
 
Re: Thorpe Park construction?

When Nemesis and Oblivion were built, a £5m marketing budget was set aside, not included in the ride budgets (£10m and £12m).
 
Re: Thorpe Park construction?

elephant58 said:
When Nemesis and Oblivion were built, a £5m marketing budget was set aside, not included in the ride budgets (£10m and £12m).
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To be fair, that was 15 years ago and when they were owned by Tussauds. It wouldn't be surprising if they've changed how they arrange the finances in that time.
 
Re: Thorpe Park construction?

For some reason it never even crossed my mind (until now) that this could (most probably) be just another Sub-Terra-esque dark ride... :(
 
Re: Thorpe Park construction?

Ben said:
^For this price tag it's safe to say it won't be.
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Are you being uncharacteristically optimistic, or implying they'll find some other way to blow the money?
 
Re: Thorpe Park construction?

Does anyone know where this figure of £35 million has come from?
Last I heard it was somewhere in the region of £20 million, which is still a fair old chunk of change (for a dark ride) but 35 mil is huge, simply unheard of in the UK. I mean, we're almost talking Amazing SpiderMan/Curse of Darkcastle sorta money, right?

I gotta be honest, the massive budget is the only thing keeping my hopes alive at the moment. So far the teasers (all that 'minds wanted' crap), the construction and all the secrecy are doing nothing to get me excited. In fact, it's starting to do my head in.
 
Re: Thorpe Park construction?

^£35mil has been bounded around since the start and confirmed by some people in the know.

£35mil is like DarKastle level, Spider-Man was more like $100mil in the 90s so, no.
 
Re: Thorpe Park construction?

The difference in cost between Darkastle and Spidy shows, but DK is still superior for a regional park. Superior.

I do not believe that with equal money Merlin could pull off a Darkastle standard ride, even if you gave them equivalent to make up for stuff being cheaper in the US. The need to find an IP, to make it unique and god knows what else would get in the way and hack costs.

If this has an IP that's a huge chunk of of he budget gone bye bye before we've even started.

EDIT:

Also, look at SeaWorld's Antarctica. That is the kind of horrible mistake Merlin would make with a huge budget. "Oh look pretty shiny technology people will love that!" And even that, which is highly regarded to be damn awful, I bet is 10x better than anything Merlin would do. And as if Merlin could afford decent tech anyway - if they do, it'll ruin the rest of the experience. They can't win.

I'd also guess the budget for this has been hacked post-Smiler, anyway. Some fundamentals of it will be gone, leaving a weaker all round experience. And I would put money on it requiring actors of some sort which'll get ditched when all 5 people who cared have ridden it and no longer care.

I'm sorry to be negative, but... It's realistic.

Also, someone pointed out to me that the arch-tunnel thing they're building looks suspiciously like one of these.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-y1IFIAaz0
 
Re: Thorpe Park construction?

So, Thorpe have just posted this on Facebook;

12033163_10153529873855867_7033789232144249969_n.jpg


Which is a cheat code used for Konami games.

They make all sorts of games, but it's a proper old school cheat. So, are we looking at the IP being a video game?

If it is the only thing I can think of that fits the "mind alteration" **** is Silent Hill - Universal have used that before for HHN but I can't see that really being a licensing issue.

If you go on the site and type the code in it brings up a page that states...

“We’ve got some intense time ahead of us putting our heads together and making sure that this really is just the most unique and extraordinary thing that’s ever existed, ever.”

At least they're not over-hpying what will be a disappointment again, because Merlin.

#speculation
 
Re: Thorpe Park construction?

I would be surprised if its Silent Hills related. Konami recently dropped the planned Silent Hills video game even after the huge success of the playable trailer they released for it. Thorpe Park are doing a damn good job of confusing us with this!
 
Re: Thorpe Park construction?

Currently at the park so grabbed a few construction picture.



Zoomed in a little and im not sure but the arch in the photo looks similar to what Id imagine an immersive tunnel would look like from the outside. This is all located in the smaller more temporary looking building so doesn't explain the larger space which has a much more complex structure and basement.



You can also see the site from inferno but not much to talk about. Looking at the site I think there will be multiple parts to this ride. Perhaps a simulator then a small drop style ride similar to that of the London dungeon but more complex. Seeing the site has probably left me even more clueless than I was before!
 
Re: Thorpe Park construction?

Looking more and more like a more technical version of the lost world ride at movie park. As that is pretty much two rooms. Loading and then move forward into the tunnel and then reverse back out again. But here looks like in the bigger potion of the box we may see a park of the floor drop or move in some sort of way eg what we find on the backlot tours and other such style rides.
 
Re: Thorpe Park construction?

pitchnoir said:
Looking more and more like a more technical version of the lost world ride at movie park.
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Has anyone rode this ride and is it any good? I did check out the POV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDX6LyKH94Q but the videos rarely capture what the ride is like for things like this. I agree it could be a more techinical version of it as it doesn't look like it requires a particularly enormous building to be housed in.

And about the Silent Hill speculation- tbh I doubt it because its not the most relevant video game IP since the next gen instalment was cancelled, Metal Gear would be a much more relevant and popular choice of Konami IP.

However a Silent Hill dark ride would be easier to make, they could throw in some jump scares and **** to fit the scary horror theme and if they did choose Silent Hill I could see Merlin doing something like claiming they were putting a 15+ age restriction on the ride for publicity, news stories and to make people generally more curious about it, then they suddenly 'reconsider' and remove it. You all know that would be such a Merliny publicity stunt!
 
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