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VR Comes To the Demon 8/13

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Postby SFGAM_Hog on August 11th, 2016, 1:01 pm
stergmi wrote:Coaster Force was out today. G-Am is splitting the line between VR and non-VR riders. I would assume that means alternating dispatches to reduce the nightmare other parks saw when they went VR
Thank God. I don't have to shoot terrible pixalated gargoyles.
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Postby anewman35 on August 11th, 2016, 1:15 pm
Is it possible people can stop complaining about something they've never even tried? Some people will like it, you don't have to.
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Postby Guy_With_A_Stick on August 11th, 2016, 2:58 pm
In line for the T Shirt Preview day now. My full review soon. Also, for the 'split lines', they use the Flash Pass line for the VR.

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Postby JaminOut on August 11th, 2016, 4:03 pm
Guy_With_A_Stick wrote:In line for the T Shirt Preview day now. My full review soon. Also, for the 'split lines', they use the Flash Pass line for the VR.

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Really? I though it would make more sense to have the regular line be for VR since it contains switchbacks.
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Postby Guy_With_A_Stick on August 11th, 2016, 4:52 pm
So there's 10 minutes left of the ERT, and they haven't even opened the ride. We're all getting a full refund, an exit pass for the VR, and two other exit passes. The whole event was a mess.

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Postby RollingCoasting on August 11th, 2016, 4:59 pm
Guy_With_A_Stick wrote:So there's 10 minutes left of the ERT, and they haven't even opened the ride. We're all getting a full refund, an exit pass for the VR, and two other exit passes. The whole event was a mess.

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Lucky, I've never gotten an exit pass period. You don't have to ride Demon + 3 exit passes? That's a win-win.
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Postby JaminOut on August 11th, 2016, 7:28 pm
RollingCoasting wrote:
Guy_With_A_Stick wrote:So there's 10 minutes left of the ERT, and they haven't even opened the ride. We're all getting a full refund, an exit pass for the VR, and two other exit passes. The whole event was a mess.

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Lucky, I've never gotten an exit pass period. You don't have to ride Demon + 3 exit passes? That's a win-win.


I can't (The Grand) Stand you... lol


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Postby RollingCoasting on August 11th, 2016, 7:40 pm
JaminOut wrote:
RollingCoasting wrote:
Guy_With_A_Stick wrote:So there's 10 minutes left of the ERT, and they haven't even opened the ride. We're all getting a full refund, an exit pass for the VR, and two other exit passes. The whole event was a mess.

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Lucky, I've never gotten an exit pass period. You don't have to ride Demon + 3 exit passes? That's a win-win.


I can't (The Grand) Stand you... lol


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Technically there's no "The" in the name. :) :wink: And "I Gran't Stand you" would've been a better pun. :D
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Postby gottastrata33 on August 11th, 2016, 7:55 pm
RollingCoasting wrote:
Guy_With_A_Stick wrote:So there's 10 minutes left of the ERT, and they haven't even opened the ride. We're all getting a full refund, an exit pass for the VR, and two other exit passes. The whole event was a mess.

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Lucky, I've never gotten an exit pass period. You don't have to ride Demon + 3 exit passes? That's a win-win.


Ever waited in line for Déjà Vu? You got one every time you stood in line LOL I still have a Déjà vu exit pass actually from 2007 haha

Wellllll that sucks about the event. I'm goin tomorrow to try out the VR.
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Postby Jacklw6499 on August 12th, 2016, 1:11 pm
Is anyone at the park right now? Any initial thoughts on RotG?
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Postby anewman35 on August 12th, 2016, 2:06 pm
Not at the park, but I saw a post on FB earlier saying that VR wasn't working. Don't know if it ever came up.
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Postby stergmi on August 12th, 2016, 2:11 pm
I was at the park this morning.

1) at the second of rain VR gets shut down

2) I ended up riding it, technologically is pretty cool for the visual. The "game" part of it was meh.

3) if this becomes permanent we need new trains with leg restraints. Even knowing how to ride Demon and where the inversions are the headset bumps around the OTSRs and not comfortable
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Postby SFGAM_Hog on August 12th, 2016, 4:00 pm
stergmi wrote: 3) if this becomes permanent we need new trains with leg restraints. Even knowing how to ride Demon and where the inversions are the headset bumps around the OTSRs and not comfortable


Yep. It needs new trains. I would love to have open seats with a lap bar and leg restraints. I just wish that the actual ride would get repainted. If Six Flags could paint the rails red, get new tunnel lights, fix the lift hill (usually breaks down on the lift hill and is just really loud) and bring back tons of original theming, I'd ride it a lot instead of just riding it as a credit.
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Postby gottastrata33 on August 12th, 2016, 4:28 pm
Just rode it. So first try was a fail. I saw the same image the whole ride. So I got off & asked if I could ride again to give it another try. They gave me a new headset & told me to go ahead & sit down.

I honestly thought it was a lot of fun. The entire train was screaming so loud which just adddd to the excitement. It's a little uncomfortable on my big nose haha but other than that I wouldn't say too bad. :) It's def a cool new add on but the loading is really rough on everyone I feel like. No one really knows what to grab or where to look without a ride host haha but that's kind of obvious.
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Postby CoasterDave316 on August 13th, 2016, 1:15 am
I rode Rage of Gargoyles today, here are a few thoughts and comparisons.

- The headsets were a lot better then the ones on New Revolution at SFMM when I was there in June. They were able to fit tighter which made the picture clearer.

-The OTSR's were really awkward to deal with the headsets. I didn't know if I should put the restraint down first or the headset on first, neither seemed like a comfortable way to do it. It was much easier with the lap bars on the New Revolution. They should probably figure out what the best method is then inform guests of the best way to go about it.

-After I had the headset on and was ready to go it took about 5 more minutes before they dispatched the train, this was really weird because you can't see what is going on and what is taking so long. My headset started to flash "Battery Critically low" while waiting so I was getting worried it would shut off during the ride.

- They didn't seem to have as many headsets as SFMM had on The New Revolution, when the train was loading we were told that the headsets were being cleaned and it would be a few minutes.

- For a 2 train wait it took about 15-20 minutes to ride. This is going to be painfully slow just like New Revolution was at SFMM.

- Overall even with all the drawbacks the VR thing is still pretty cool to me. It is a cool experience, if you don't have to wait too long for it. The gaming aspect of the ride isn't really that great, you can shoot at the gargoyles a little bit on the lift and brake run but that is about it.

- The lack of turns on Demon really hurts the Virtual Reality, New Revolution has a lot of turns which really added to the amount of movement you experienced on the headset.

- It would be nice if they could enable the camera on the back of the phone while you are waiting in the station so you can sort of use the VR headset as a monitor to know what is going on, then go to the headset once the ride starts but I am not sure if that is possible with the current technology.

Overall I say if you haven't tried it, it is worth a shorter wait. Unfortunately as history has shown with these VR Ride's you can expect a huge wait.
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Postby JaminOut on August 13th, 2016, 10:18 am
If anyone's at the park today, can someone tell me if people are running over to Demon? I'll be heading there Monday and am the only person in my group who wants to do VR.


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Postby Jacklw6499 on August 13th, 2016, 1:57 pm
I'm going to the park around 9:30 tomorrow to get Gargoyles over with. Wish me luck everyone!
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Postby aaron60060 on August 14th, 2016, 3:30 am
We rode Demon w/VR tonight for the first time, and thought it was pretty good. Some observations:

1. They were running 1 VR train followed by 1 normal train earlier in the day, but it caused a major slowdown for the other line. At this point, they moved to sending 2 normal trains, followed by one VR train.

2. As compared with the Iron Dragon VR test we did when we were at Cedar Point, the restraints on the headset were significantly less comfortable, although the image quality was the same, as was the hardware itself. Iron Dragon is a longer ride than Demon by quite a bit, and the VR was a bit more intense on ID than on Demon.

3. We waited about 100 minutes to ride the Demon. That means alot of people streaming into the Demon instead of other rides, and that means shorter lines overall.

4. The interactive portion of the game is kind of cool, but it's mostly just a gimmick that actively detracts from the experience of VR. Bullets flying everywhere means it's difficult to see the awesome backgrounds and world you're flying through. That's where the real appeal of VR comes in. Even if you've ridden a coaster 1000 times, you can experience it differently with each new VR scene.

5. VR is going to be wildly popular. I expect that most queues / stations that are built in the future will be built with VR in mind to mitigate the slowdown that VR poses on a ride.

6. Raging Bull may have been more challenging than Demon to corral people into separate lines, but Raging Bull is a long ride which would offer an incredibly immersive experience. Even though I'm pleased that they started with Demon, Raging Bull would have actually been faster from a load time perspective, since there are no over the shoulder restraints to fight with, and attendants don't have to bend down to help you with the helmets / replace them when they go low battery.

7. When you get on the platform from the VR queue, you are given a VR headset and told to wear it around your neck with a lanyard. This is pretty offensive, because essentially the only reason they want it on there is because they're worried you'll drop it before you get on the ride. The harness is uncomfortable as I mentioned earlier, but it fits all head sizes with a cool adjustable wheel on the back of your head. It's further secured to your dome with a chin strap - also easily adjustable. That said, my girlfriend's headset came loose a bit during the 2nd inversion and she said she had a large area in one eye that she couldn't see anything, but when jostled back into position it continued working as it should have.

8. Battery life is an issue. I was given a headset that gave me battery warnings shortly before the ride launched, and was then given a replacement.

9. There are issues with almost every train that we saw run. Some people have headsets that won't calibrate, some have trouble getting it into position, or adjusting the focus wheel on the top front of the headset. This is usually a 1-2 person per train thing, and just slows everything to a halt.

In closing, I highly recommend people try this out, but if you can't get out right away, I wouldn't worry. The VR revolution is now.
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Postby Bullsnike on August 14th, 2016, 11:27 am
Well looks like demon is being demon today. 11:30 and still not open. They've run 3 test trains the whole morning and can't get it to keep running. Word is vr is running fine and it's the coaster itself having issues starting. On the plus side they gave exit passes......that aren't good for vr.

Thanks six flags. Not a good way to start the day
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Postby Bullsnike on August 14th, 2016, 3:57 pm
Bullsnike wrote:Well looks like demon is being demon today. 11:30 and still not open. They've run 3 test trains the whole morning and can't get it to keep running. Word is vr is running fine and it's the coaster itself having issues starting. On the plus side they gave exit passes......that aren't good for vr.

Thanks six flags. Not a good way to start the day


Demon is finally fixed and opened at 4:00PM. I'll post a report after I get on.
Hopefully they got everything worked out.
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Postby Bullsnike on August 14th, 2016, 5:20 pm
Bullsnike wrote:
Bullsnike wrote:Well looks like demon is being demon today. 11:30 and still not open. They've run 3 test trains the whole morning and can't get it to keep running. Word is vr is running fine and it's the coaster itself having issues starting. On the plus side they gave exit passes......that aren't good for vr.

Thanks six flags. Not a good way to start the day


Demon is finally fixed and opened at 4:00PM. I'll post a report after I get on.
Hopefully they got everything worked out.


Well it was cool but be ready to wait forever.

Here is my take. If you haven't experienced vr ride demon without it till you know the layout. Also make sure you have a good headset as lots were not working. I had to switch mine twice. Dispatch time is vr every 3rd train. Expect about 15-20 minutes per vr train when judging the line. The images have a lot to be desired but remember the technology is new.
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Postby Jacklw6499 on August 14th, 2016, 5:51 pm
Wow, what a day! When I arrived at the park early to find the Demon closed, I was quite disappointed. After periodically checking back every couple hours, Rage of the Gargoyles finally opened around 3:30-4:00. Overall, I thought the experience was great and while I did have to wait about an hour for them to open up the queue for RotG, I was on the second VR train of the day dispatched. When I climbed into the seat I found that my first headset was dead, so I got an employee to get me another headset and that was also dead. :lol: The third one did work, but it didn't have any padding on the glasses so my nose hurt like a mother the entire ride. Even though it was a painful experience, I thought that the VR was very cool/trippy. It definitely improved the ride experience, but expect long waits because the dispatch times are long. I really have to give all of the employees credit today because they really were trying their best.

On another note, is anyone going to count this as a new credit? I'm leaning towards no, however I would consider New Revolution a new credit due to the fact that it got new trains along with the VR. Does anyone agree with me?
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Postby RollingCoasting on August 14th, 2016, 6:56 pm
Jacklw6499 wrote:On another note, is anyone going to count this as a new credit? I'm leaning towards no, however I would consider New Revolution a new credit due to the fact that it got new trains along with the VR. Does anyone agree with me?


You're riding on the same exact track as before, in the same position, just with new trains. How is that a new credit?
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Postby Jacklw6499 on August 14th, 2016, 7:16 pm
RollingCoasting wrote:
Jacklw6499 wrote:On another note, is anyone going to count this as a new credit? I'm leaning towards no, however I would consider New Revolution a new credit due to the fact that it got new trains along with the VR. Does anyone agree with me?


You're riding on the same exact track as before, in the same position, just with new trains. How is that a new credit?


Well I suppose you're right. I guess I just thought it would be a new credit because it changes the ride experience so much.
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Wood: 1. The Voyage 2. Renegade 3. Mystic Timbers 4. The Legend 5. The Beast
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Postby coasterkidd100 on August 14th, 2016, 7:22 pm
I wouldn't count the VR version of Demon as a whole new credit. Nothing has really changed about the ride itself. The track, trains, and layout are exactly the same as before so I don't count it as a new credit.
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