Richard

I've changed the page order back to left to right and also added a new dropdown jump menu at the bottom of the page. Also thought I'd put up Construction HQ to get some feedback. It still has a way to go yet but this is it at its core: http://www.parkz.com.au/constructionHQ/

Interesting you mention that... the design for Construction HQ does indeed feature more colour in the titles. I think in this case the highlighting works better as only the length of the title, but you might be onto something with making them full width on the index page (and the database section to the right). There seems to be a bug where the name dexter appears with blood spatters around it. How perculiar.

How about phase one of rev 1? In regards to the screenshot, not sure of your browser but in IE7 and Firefox 3 the "But wait there's more..." box is properly spaced. With page navigation perhaps a dropdown list is in order. I probably agree with ordering them from left to right rather than right to left. The ordering carries on to the individual photo page navigation but it's easily adapted whichever way the navigation ends up going. Ordered from oldest to newest meaning page 1 is the oldest, page 2 is slightly newer, page 3 is newer again etc.

I guess what you could call phase one is currently up and running -- pages of photos are now ordered from oldest to newest. The biggest difference is that to keep pages static the first page is often only partially complete. Example: http://www.parkz.com.au/photos/AU/Gold_Coa...e/construction/ If anyone runs into any problems/bugs with it let me know. Construction HQ is nearing completion and I'm really liking how it's turned out. Hopefully it'll be running by the end of the month.

If you're going straight to the latest posts section, have you considered simply bookmarking the View New Posts link? Alternatively, you can syndicate with the RSS link down in the bottom left corner of the forums. A mobile version of the site would probably be a good idea. The two issues I see is that technology in this area is rapidly improving, and this site is naturally a very media-intensive so in some respects there'd be little to gain in developing a site dedicated to mobile users because much of the content would either be lost or scaled back to a point where it's no longer effective. In terms of keeping current on a mobile device, RSS feeds would probably be the best way to go about it. We had them on the old site but I'm yet to get some done for this one (aside from the aforementioned Forums feed). That's my thoughts as well. If/when the video section comes back to this site, it'll be if we can work out a way to get relatively regular high-quality "official" videos happening. It'll all come down to having the time needed to both work out the logistics and then actually do them. It's been something I've wanted to do for years now.

That won't happen in the foreseeable future. In all likelihood the link will be removed in an upcoming update until we figure out if/how videos are going to be implemented on the site.

How the current global economic conditions affects our parks remains to be seen. What has caused this has not happened in Australia, where banks haven't pursued sub-prime loans like in the US, partly through responsible government regulation, and also because of our strong resources sector. I'm not convinced average Australians will feel the crunch of this current situation. Banks will, as will companies because of the global nature of finances and the economy, but I don't think the average homeowner in Australia will. Interest rates will have a much greater impact on attendance as this by and large controls disposible income. In short there are still a lot of people out there who can ably afford to visit theme parks. If our parks are negatively impacted anytime soon I'd put the shortcomings down to marketing and failing to live up to the market's expectations rather than a change in consumer sentiment. I'd tend to agree with joz's expectations. Though I don't think Dreamworld's per capita spending will increase quite that much as I believe their management have come to a dead-end with that method of internal growth. As far as the dollar goes, I reckon Village are very happy with their aquisitions. I'd imagine the decision to do that was based on our dollar's performance and we should see a slow down on their international expansion for the time being. Expect the dollar to level off at about $0.75 or possibly higher; the current abysmal value is the market overreacting. It's made me pretty antsy given I rely on US imports so the next few weeks/months will be interesting, especially after having an awesome period there where it was up at $0.98.

That plan was rejected because it was simply inadequate for the area considering current and projected population growth. The fact that it was being built by a company with no expertise in operating a retail centre wasn't a winner, especially considering proper companies will be less likely to come into the area in the future if there's already competition, in which case no one wins.

The only track that remains to be built is the turnaround after the launch. Someone will be wishing they had proper vehicle access to that central section of track when it comes time for maintenance or there's need for emergency access (train valleying etc.). You can see why it'd be easier to just bury the track during construction when you consider the effort needed to get a crane back into that area, jimmy out a section of track locked in with the track beside it. Uncovering it again... if I were Intamin I'd look forward to the call for a replacement section of track because they somehow broke one with a backhoe.

Hmm, a few things... In my view Village Roadshow is a shoddily run company and has been for years. One of their few consistently profitable divisions is their theme parks. Reasons for their share price tanking has little to do with how their theme parks are performing. Share prices are not (necessarily) a reflection of profitability, nor are they are comparitive measure of success between two companies. Looking at any company on an internal level, so long as their investments pay off, they maintain a manageable level of debt and invest capital such that they can continue doing these two things into the future then the company is a success. Decisions are not made to influence share prices, they are made to maximise profits for the shareholders, which in turn causes the market to respond accordingly. Of course this is a generalisation and doesn't hold true for all companies, especially those where there is a majority shareholder such as Village Roadshow, but in the case of Macquarie Leisure it's fairly true. For the record I believe Macquarie Bank owns something like a 12% stake in Macquarie Leisure and aren't in fact even the biggest unitholder, so their influence in the company is fairly limited. Macquarie Leisure's unit price have to me been way over-valued by the market over the past few years, driven by their first real expansions since the company floated, and are now stabilising. My feeling is that once we leave this bear market (whenever that may be), we'll see Macquarie Leisure's unit price increase, but I can't see the $3+ happening soon without significant expansion of the company -- beyond the scope of buying up bowling alleys and fitness centres.

Yeah the "SeaWorld Orlando" pics seen was a mistake I made -- I uploaded a few publicity pics of Manta and decided to add some of my own while I was there and forgot to change the name back to mine. But this is an indication of what the partnership coverage will be like, albeit a bit more prominently advertised.

Forum integration is ultimately the best way to go about comments when you consider that it by default allows for a whole lot of very important features that'd be a huge task in implementing otherwise, including: editing/deleting abilities, including user info (avatar etc.), incrementing post count, moderation functions, censorship / spam protection etc.

The default page for any attraction will still be the most recent photos and the photos will still be ordered from top to bottom newest to oldest. The only difference is when you go to the next most recent page of photos it'll be labelled page 9 instead of page 2 (in the case of Jet Ski Rescue). The navigation will also remain the same in that you go from left to right to get from newest to oldest, so there will be no change to functionality, only the naming, which will add the ability to meaningfully link to a page of photos, knowing that its link will be cemented, just like linking to an individual photo/article/etc. I also want to see photo comments as I totally agree that it'd be of great benefit to the community. It's probably not as difficult as you might think. The framework used for the article comment system could in fact be ported across with zero modifications. The underlying problem is managing what would be literally several thousand different topics, but once I have that worked out it could be relatively easy to accomplish. You've got me thinking about this feature a bit more so I could possibly get it up and running along with the other features listed.

I have had a chance lately to layout the framework for a number of new features that will be coming to Parkz in the coming days/weeks/months. Obviously since Parkz's launch we've had a chance to reflect and modify things to better suit the site. Redesigned / revised index page It's important that the index page has the scope that makes it capable of providing adequate coverage so that when there is a lot of new content it's all reasonably accessible. Everything that is 'good' about the current page will stay but the way news is displayed in particular will change significantly. We've invested in a special piece of software that I think will vastly improve the functionality of the site. I'm really happy with the beta version and I hope to have screenshots and/or the final release before too long. New 'Construction HQ' Construction HQ will be a gateway to all the latest construction content we have available. In recent months it has become clear that to be able to effectively cover a large number of different projects we need an easy-to-use and prominent place where users can keep track of content. In addition, to make this feature work effectively, the way galleries are organised will be slightly altered. Pages will be ordered from oldest to newest, so for instance if you post a URL to 'page 11', its content will not change when new photos are added like it currently does. 'Partnership' coverage More on this later, but think of it for now as a way to vastly expand how much content we can offer. User content profiles Yes this feature will finally be made available. Each user who has submitted content (photos, articles, database entries) will have their own profile that displays all their content. I expect these features (as well as a number of minor improvements and adjustments) will be rolled out over the coming month or so if all goes well. Comments/suggestions are welcome as always.

Assuming that the set will still be Italian themed as Steve Peet said about six months back, it sounds to me like there's not too much chance that any of the cars being reported will even remotely fit the concept.

In our database, if an attraction's date is listed as ???? that means it's still operating. Only attractions where the date is listed as ???? - ???? (or 1992 - 2004, ???? - 2000 etc.) are closed. That means we've got about ten attractions listed for Universal Studios Hollywood. Of course we don't have everything single thing to see or do listed, as not everything in a park warrants its own attraction entry.

Now naturally I can't speak for other sites, but what I can say is that, based on our visitor stats, either there are vastly more enthusiasts out there than you or I would think, or visitors to this site are on the whole not what you'd consider enthusiasts. In fact I'd say based on reading patterns, search engine keywords etc., that enthusiasts are outnumbered upwards of 6 to 1 in our readership. It's not all that hard to appreciate why when you see that Parkz ranks in the top handful of results for many Australian theme park related searches. Looking at it from a marketing perspective, appealing to enthusiasts/fans (in any industry) is about a lot more than just tapping this group's own disposable income. This group is known within their community as being knowledgeable or expert on the subject, and as such their opinion holds more value. Most members here are probably the person family or friends come to for advice if they're planning a theme park trip. I'm sure thinking about it, most will realise they've been able to influence others' decision making pretty heavily. Interesting questions with John Menzies. Nothing there that isn't what you'd expect the answers to be, but I found the Master Blaster comment pretty interesting. The follow-up question that begs asking is, "That said, what then is the strategy behind Jet Ski Rescue, a ride that is fundamentally identical to Motocoaster?". Thinking about it some more, there's two possible answers to this: that it is all about how they frame the attraction and utilise a strategy that highlights its key differences and strengths, or that in terms of return on investment, this style of roller coaster represents the best the industry has to offer. Following up these two questions would be, "Why then can't that same strategy be used to differentiate a superior Master Blaster from that at a competing park?", and "Really??", respectively. I think I'm just thinking aloud now...

Good review. I think you've summed it up very nicely. The thing people need to understand, especially with the comparisons between Tornado etc., is that a water park like WnW, with the attendance growth it has seen in recent years, needs to expand to simply stay on par with attendance (which they haven't in recent years). For the simple sake of variety, not everything can be, nor should be, a record-breaking blockbuster attraction. From all accounts, underestimating Kamikaze as a cheap/tacky ride is your own loss.

I think the mystique and hype around media events in the enthusiast community is bizarre... kinda makes sense in the US where they often use enthusiast groups as TV camera fodder, but here it's a bit different. You know the last time I think I asked for an invite to anything was back when Shrek opened. They obliged but I don't think we were able to make it anyway. These days if I find an invite in my inbox, it's relevant (e.g. not a haunted house) and I can arrange coverage (myself or others to attend) we might cover it but that's about the extent of effort/time I'm willing and able to put into sorting these things out. The parks know who we are and what we do, so the rest is up to them if they want the coverage.

Grey-outs are fairly common coasters with high sustained g-forces. Granted it's not a pleasant feeling but it's not inherently medically dangerous. It's a long way from losing consciousness or even blacking out, which requires far greater prolonged g-force exposure than any coaster can provide. Normally it comes down to dehydration and tiredness more than anything else, both of which are fairly common in a day at a theme park. That helix on Goliath is definitely up there... can't think of any coasters off the top of my head, yet I found its sister Titan at Six Flags Over Texas wasn't nearly as forceful through the helix. Thunderbolt at Dreamworld used to be pretty bad, owing to its large circular loops.

Excuse me?!? The only posts that have been removed from this topic are those which had absolutely nothing to do with this topic. I'm sorry if we're not ruling with an iron fist when it comes to posts making fun of someone incapable of composing sentences at a primary school level. You seem to think that everyone here owes you respect, despite doing nothing to earn any, and showing no respect to fellow members. If you want to derail every single topic by whinging whenever someone disagrees with you then I'm sorry you should probably not waste your time on this site. Further to this, Clint (djrappa) has said nothing that isn't totally appropriate. He was good enough to answer the initial question, and if you're somehow offended because you were politely told that your speculation was wrong then again, reconsider your participation in this forum.

Granted it's been five years or so since I last rode GhostRider, but back then there was just as much hatred of it for being rough/painful as there is now. Despite this I found it to be well within the realms of what I'd call acceptable for a wooden coaster. Yeah it's a wild ride, but isn't that what wooden coasters are all about? In fact of all the wooden coasters in the US that have a reputation for being rough/painful/badly maintained etc. that I've ridden, the only one that lived up to it for me was Gwazi at Busch Gardens. Collossus and Psyclone at SFMM were both incredibly smooth (more so than most of the park's steel coasters). Belmont Park's Giant Dipper had not a moment of roughness. Even Coney Island's Cyclone, though not smooth, was by no means rough to the point where it was painful or unenjoyable. I don't know, but it seems to me that a reputation has been formed in certain enthusiast circles which eventually just become fact because it becomes cool to just bash the ride. Dreamworld sucks. Only wooden coaster I've ever had a 'painful' ride on was Bush Beast back in about 2003 or so. It was always a ridiculously rough ride due to its maintenance (or lack thereof) but the next time I visited it seemed to have improved. Likewise, Luna Park's Scenic Railway is also way too rough, but I find it pretty funny that a ride with almost no significant speed can be so badly kept to the point where trains are bouncing around as much as they do, even on flat, slow sections.

Paradise Country was never intended to be a drawcard for the domestic market. It's sole reason for existence is to cater to international tour groups that are bused in and out and this is where the majority of its business lies. That's why you don't see it advertised -- it just does its own thing catering to its own market. Theme parks are intended to make money, that's not an issue, nor is cross-promotion. It's the sheer corniness of carting a tram-load of suckers, err guests, through the back-of-house of the park and over a hill to see some kangaroos and sheep... and charging them $10 for the privilege. The opportunity so plainly exists for WVTP to vastly expand on the Paradise Country concept to build a proper third gate at the Oxenford property based around a more traditional zoo experience, but I guess that'd be a discussion for another topic.

This is Paradise Country: http://maps.google.com.au/maps?ie=UTF8&amp...mp;t=h&z=17. Scroll to the right for the other parks. Charging $10 to take a tram ride to a petting zoo is about the tackiest way to make money I've heard. I'd sooner endorse bungy trampolines or minigolf -- or an unthemed tin shed filled with arcade machines in the middle of a nicely western themed area -- than an idea like this.

Good old human error once again. I saw that they said Soarin' but forgot to change it... should be right now.