Richard

That'd probably mean your password is incorrect -- an error box will be coming shortly. When it's successful it'll take you to a welcome box. It'll be the same username/password you use to log into the forums, and also try refreshing the page -- according to the site you are logged in.

I've taken note of all the bugs/typos etc. and if they're not fixed now they will be eventually. If you post twice or more within half an hour in a topic then they are automatically merged into one. If the formatting is wrong in this case just edit it to fix it. I've temporarily enabled the content system for users. Just login via the box on the main page and you can get started with the "You" menu. http://www.parkz.com.au/ The only thing I ask is even though we're in beta testing, please only submit genuine content. I've spent plenty of hours submitted dummy content to test things; so now we're only after genuine content that you'd be comfortable with submitting under normal conditions. If you haven't entered a fullname yet in your profile you will be promted to before you can add any content because the new system links up with names for searches/profiles. Whatever you choose here will affect all content you add, but won't automatically change previous content so say you enter "J. Bloggs" now and decide 6 months down the track that you'd prefer "Joe Bloggs" then the previous content will either not appear in your profile, or you'll have to go through and manually edit all those previous entries.

WnW_Rocks: I'll see what I can do regarding linking up the logo. Because it's a background image it'll require a change to how it currently works, but I think I'd be lying if I said I didn't often click the logo on websites to get to the homepage. The member functions will become active in the near future. The main reason they're not is I need to duplicate the forum database from here (a few hundred MB) and then revert these forums to the new version, which will require shutting this site down for a short while. It's a bit difficult to use thumbnail navigation because the photo system is open-ended rather than being sorted into groups of photos (galleries) and there could be 10 or 100 thumbnails to display. There's the previous/next buttons on each photo and alternatively you can return to the page you came from underneath those buttons. I haven't decided on how we'll display larger images so for now it'll be as-is. They will be coming, but it hasn't all been worked out. I expect probably that you'll need to be logged in to view them, and subscribers will get a larger version. If I knew the launch date I'd put it up. All I know is that it'll happen the moment everything's working like clockwork... no mysteries here, just that January XX means I have no idea myself! All the about pages will be added before too long. Those that don't work are simply because I haven't gotten around to them, so the system automatically directs you to the default about page. Gazza: You've pretty much hit the nail on the head. What I'll do is put a dropdown list of countries below the search box where users can select countries with parks, and be taken to the state/park list. You're right that that state/park list is very messy right now. It'll be completely redone before the official launch... it's one part of the site that I've just quietly swept under the rug for now. I think you make a point with the ratings system. I'll see what I can do.

Thanks for the comments. I'll try to answer everything as best I can but if I leave something out let me know... Gazza: Content added by others may appear in my name for now because of the limitations of the conversion process. Every time I see an article by someone else I change it, but once we go live any I've missed should be in your username and able to be appropriately edited from there. There are links here and there broken. I'm still slowly going through all this stuff. As said we're still in beta and I just figure with a few dozen extra hands spotting errors I'll get through it quicker than if it were just me. Just let me know any links that don't appear to be working and I'll get on it as soon as I can. Some photos are missing tags. We're dealing with 1,600+ photos here so this will probably be a long-term thing. My original goal with the "narrow" system was to indeed use checkboxes to narrow in this manner, but the limitations with the URL structure meant for now we've had to go with this current format. I've got a few ideas for how the checkbox system can be implemented so we might see that down the track. Good idea with the link to all Australian parks. My thoughts on the rating system is that 10 is a bit superfluous. Sites like Youtube etc. do fine with 5, and the rating will average out to a percentage so on a large scale it should be fine. Yeah I thought it's important to make it known up front what our photo policy is. We have as much responsibility to enforce park rules as major sites like Flickr and YouTube do, that is to say not at all. All content on a website remains legally the property of its copyright owner; we're merely a medium for its public display. T-bone: My feeling is with the hopefully more rapid-fire nature of the new site, with more members adding more content more frequently, it's important to have a main page that reflects that. Cutting down the level of coverage on this page would limit the ability for the site to readily promote itself. Thanks all and keep 'em coming. It should become a bit more interesting for all when I open the content system.

"Stage One" of Parkz is now live: http://www.parkz.com.au/ Because of the nature of the design, ads are in many instances too much a part of the fabric of the site. There will be new subscriber-only features in the near future and for the forseeable future (i.e. beyond when all current subscriptions expire), Roller-Coaster.com.au will continue to operate ad-free for subscribers.

You'll find that the reason they moved it to the outside was to make it so people queue looking over WhiteWater World, giving them a plenty of time (thanks to Cyclone's dismal capacity/operations) to ogle at the water park and then decide they need to upgrade their ticket.

I expect in the next day or two beta testing will commence. I have decided that the best way to do it will basically be o launch it as a read-only version of the site without the content-creation systems in place. This way we can focus on correcting design/formatting bugs. Shortly after we'll open the content-creation system and make the site fully functional. It will then be "officially" launched with the forums moving over. This site will remain as-is for the time being. Until then, here are some more screenshots:

They've been playing 'Thrill Ride' again? That film is a decade old and so incredibly out of date. I thought it was outdated when I first saw it back in about 2001. I always liked how it runs out of roller coasters halfway through and decides to proclaim motion simulators as the next big thing. It's always a shame that Dreamworld have turned what could very easily be a major drawcard to the park into a very minor attraction by not giving it any attention. Granted it'd be more expensive to run if they kept the films up to date and fresh but surely then it'd warrant being more heavily promoted and the attraction could then actually serve a meaningful purpose within the park.

Every indication so far suggests that it is going within Dreamworld. The fact that their master plan for the overall area has been rejected and Macquarie Leisure have given no indication that they are proceeding with it at this stage would be one very good reason as to why it wouldn't be a separate attraction. I don't think anyone would care at all if it were built as a completely separate attraction.

To me the difference is arcades aren't really out of place in a theme park. Not my cup of tea at all and I'm also not really a fan of how Intencity turned out, but it's nonetheless a commonplace in most parks. They're cheap to install and maintain so why not as far as I'm concerned (not that I'd ever drop a cent in one). Afterall no one would fault Dreamworld for operating theirs all these years. On the other hand, bowling? Is there honestly research that would suggest that bowling is the best allocation of resources and offers the best rate of return for a theme park? To me it just creates the image of an organisation that's so creatively stale that they aren't prepared to invest in something that will contribute to Dreamworld's image and product offering as a theme park, but rather reliance on affiliations in any capacity to strengthen the company at a coprorate level above all. At the end of the day, most theme parks would have a portion of capital expenditure to put towards upcharge attractions. The fact that Dreamworld has chosen ten pin bowling speaks volumes about their concept of a theme park.

Some users may have received a PM from a user containing a link. This is a new type of spambot that mass-PMs instead of posting. The link contains malicious coding and should not be clicked. The offending account has been deleted along with all the PMs sent so if you received a notification about a PM from a deleted member please disregard it.

No thanks. This kind of topic really serves no purpose and only ends up wasting everybody's time. There are countless other topics where people have put up their suggestions.

FlowRider to me was an appropriate investment. What was ridiculous about it was sticking it in the dry theme park instead of the water park. Evidently, they are very eager to hold onto and grow the incredibly high operating margins that the park currently has. I understood FlowRider because by its nature it is an attraction. Ten pin bowling however is not, and I find it crazy that they would even consider going down this path. The fact that AMF is owned by the same company is obviously a big factor in it, but it doesn't lend any sense to the idea as the two are very different products that don't exactly go hand in hand. There are countless other upcharge attractions available within the theme park industry that would have endless marketing potential and I would guarantee offer far greater return. I totally understand that most parks, especially those operated by public companies with a need to maintain growth, need upcharge attractions to maximise profits. I just don't understand why our parks don't take a page from overseas parks who invest in such attractions that are just as much a drawcard and spectacle as any other 'free' ride in the park. I'm of course talking largely about the "extreme thrill" style rides. Though certainly a sizeable investment, the ROI on these things is quite staggering -- certainly compared with the pittances a bowling alley would make. Bowling is no more suited to Dreamworld than a fitness club or marina would be -- both other businesses Macquarie Leisure own.

I don't anticipate any changes to the forums in the forseeable future. If there were to be some sudden influx of international members down the track, I'd be more inclined to start afresh and keep these forums going exactly as they are. More than anything else I think these forums are an incredible resource and it would be a big loss if there weren't some Australian theme park forums of merit.

As said, there's no reason to think that the level of Australian coverage will be any different. Initially international coverage will be fairly light, but I expect it to grow with time. Australian news will dominate in the short-term, and by the time we get to a stage where there's more international than Australian, it'll be designed so that you can be selective about which you want to see. The www.parkz.com.au site will be set to Australian-only by default when that time comes. More excitingly I think is the fact that the database will be opened up to international parks and with the accompanying gallery, hopefully there will be new photos to check out very frequently so instead of new photos monthly, it'll be weekly or daily. As far as Total Thrills goes, I think it's been dying a slow death for a long time now as I really don't have the time to be maintaining two separate sites. I expect with time I'll get the photos that are there moved across, and add the many more I have collected since then. Just so you all know, things are making good progress and I anticipate beta testing could commence as early as this week. Site launch is well on track for early January.

The real solution is to get someone with the appropriate qualifications/experience out to look at the system and settings and make appropriate adjustments so that it operates like the 100-odd other Arrow coasters that brake just fine throughout the world. This should have been done back in 2001 before it even opened; I don't know who thought it was acceptable to run it how it is with such a pointless capacity bottleneck that could be fixed with minimal outlay. Friction wheels and other modifications to the ride would require a redesign/retrofit of the trains, which doesn't strike me as a cost-effective solution. Other Arrow rides haven't needed to be modified to brake correctly, so no point in re-engineering things.

Oh sorry Gazza I missed that one. Yeah I do hope to have a rating system (without the need for written comments), either when we launch or not long after. I totally understand the feeling about the shift towards international. The way I see it, it won't change the level of coverage, but rather it will add new depth. I feel that this site's style of reporting is totally unique to us and I think we can offer a genuine alternative to other international sites, because my feeling has always been that they for the most part are very stale, in particular the US sites (some of the European sites are fantastic). For this reason I will be introducing very early on a system to filter only one country's news, and it'll be stored in your user details. The plan will also be so that eventually if you access the site from www.parkz.com.au, it'll by default be Australian news, with US/UK/etc. news accessible from another URL. At the end of the day for this site to continue to grow I feel that we've reached a crossroads. I feel that we've expanded as much as the Australian market alone will allow us to. The cold hard fact is for this site to be able to do what I want it to do, and for me to be able to take it there, it needs to be financially viable; just a fact of life. As far as the loss of our very good search engine rankings, the new site has been designed to be search engine optimised (SEO), and the transition period will mean that existing high rankings will redirect to Parkz, such that over time we will be able to equal and eventually beat R-C's very strong rankings.

Thanks for all the comments everyone. I'll try and post some more screenshots in the near future as it's fairly hard to gauge the overall look when you're only seeing about a third of one page. I see your points about the header image. In all likeliness it'll be changed before the site goes up. I still haven't decided if we'll go with the pinboard look or not. Putting more Aussie rides in there at least is a good idea; especially since when I first designed that there have been a whole handful of new rides open at our parks. The forums will move across with the site and be redesigned to be incorporated into the new layout, but what I'm getting at is there won't be any structural changes for the time being. Everyone's username/password will remain the same and everything like that. I hope that answers everything for now...

After over a year of development and even longer spent conceptualising it, I'm proud to finally be able to announce that Roller-Coaster.com.au will be relaunching as a totally rebranded and revised site. The site has been completely rebuilt from the ground up with many significant improvements and a new focus. None of the key features of Roller-Coaster.com.au are being lost, but the site has been consolodated, removing under-utilised features and merging a few others. Firstly, the features that will be removed: Park and ride counter Opinions / Ratings These features will be merged together: Press releases and news Rides and roller coasters will be just rides, sorted into a whole range of different categories including coaster, flat rides, water rides, water slides, kids rides, etc. The decision to make these changes are based on what's been learnt over the past three years. I'd be particularly interested to hear if anyone has any comments on the features that are being removed. Now for the good parts... We will be renaming to Parkz. The URL will be www.parkz.com.au. Why the rename? Roller-Coaster.com.au is too long, it's also very generic (i.e. it doesn't really offer us a cohesive and unique identity). It also is a bit misleading as this isn't a site that is all about roller coasters, but rather parks in general. Parkz was chosen because it's very short, unique and describes perfectly what we are all about. The site will cease to be an Australia-centric site. We will still maintain our high level of coverage on the Australian theme park industry, but in addition to this we will also start covering news from theme parks across the world. Basically the idea is instead of having a new article go up every week or so, we will try to have fresh news on the site all the time. Eventually we will be able to sort news by country if you only want to see news from one particular country. Users will now be able to upload their own photos into our gallery. Each photo will be tagged so it's perfectly linked up with the database. Full credit will also be given on each gallery page and people will be able to sort by photographer. Each user will have their own profile page showing the latest content they've contributed to the site. Photos will not go up immediately; they will enter a queue at our end to verify for quality etc. For articles and parks, there is now a tags system that means articles and photos can be tagged with more than one park or ride. A photo which has two rides in it will then be seen in the gallery for both rides, or an article about Dreamworld and Movie World will be accessible from both parks. As with the current site, users will be able to add articles as well as add new database entries and edit existing ones. The process has been vastly streamlined and improved so it's easier for anyone to do. Database entry stats (length, speed, height etc.) use a new dynamic system that allows a virtually limitless number of different and custom stats. Parks will also be categorised by owner and resort so that you can easily get from one to another within a chain (like Six Flags) or a resort (like Walt Disney World). All content currently seen here will be ported across. Roller-Coaster.com.au will continue to operate but will redirect users to Parkz. The forums will remain exactly the same but the URL will change. I honestly haven't decided if the forums will be changed down the track to reflect the international focus of the site, but at least in the short-term nothing will change. I anticipate that the site will launch in early January. It's actually very nearly finished right now, but there will be an exhaustive beta testing process which I hope to get many members involved in -- more on that soon! A screenshot of the main page is seen below. As always I'm very eager to hear any comments, suggestions etc.

Yeah absolutely. I have little doubt that those teasers were thrown in than to do anything but build hype, but remember he's talking at the annual meeting to an audience that is interested in the company's corporate achievements/future. This is totally separate from any conscious marketing efforts by either Village Roadshow or WVTP. I don't think I really need to add that I have little doubt that WVTP will "surprise and dazzle" us (well, hopefully not surprise if I do my job correctly); all I'm really saying is that what's been said here is the same sort of stuff that they have said in meetings or financial reports in previous years. The difference here is that a newspaper has picked up on it (which also has happened plenty of times in the past), and that it's then been posted here (which didn't happen all that often in past years).

That's true, but this coverage is in the business section and the article stems from the annual meeting; you'll find most papers around the country are covering the same general meeting in their own way, as they always have in the past. The difference here is that the Gold Coast Bulletin has focused on some of the pro-Gold Coast aspects of the meeting. Nothing has really changed with the way Village Roadshow releases information, and WVTP have played no part in it. I agree though that this sort of stuff is definitely good to start drumming up hype, but in this case the hype is coming from the newspaper, not Village or WVTP.

Not to be a buzzkill, but this openness is nothing new from Village Roadshow. Over the past decade or so they've always been reasonably up-front about what's coming from a corporate and financial perspective. This info is coming from Village Roadshow, who use this sort of stuff (rhetoric and hype etc.) to keep up interest in their shares and instil confidence in the future of the company. Unfortunately it's pretty unlikely that it'll translate over to WVTP and more importantly their marketing department, who will most likely market future attractions in a similar manner to those in the past, for no other reason than it's worked well in the past.

The explosion was an incident back in February 2003 in the studios' pyrotechnic compound which creates fireworks and special effects for studio productions and the Police Academy Stunt Show; three guys were badly burned, one of which had burns to 60 per cent of his body. Anyone else sick of these freedom of information 'reports' by papers and TV news? They seem to be great at informing us about either things we already know, or things that really aren't newsworthy.

No, I'm saying go the speed limit (i.e. follow the rules). You're basically saying we should go that extra step and do 80 in a 100 zone, just to be extra safe. Recheck your facts; the June 6, 2005 issue with Kingda Ka was caused by bolts holding the cable trough coming lose. It occured during a test run with no passengers and the reason it took two months to come back into operation was that Intamin had to fix what was a design flaw. It's not a policy contradiction at all. For one every single ride at Movie World bar Superman Escape and Lethal Weapon operates in this manner. The majority of rides on a worldwide scale that I've experienced do not have any such lose items policies. As a prime example Disney's California Adventure have no problems with people taking cameras on California Screamin'. I'm saying here that if a ride is one where lose items are taken on, the rider should be well within their right to press record on the camera they're holding in their hand anyway. For the record, I don't record videos or take photos on rides and the only time I ever have in the past few years is under the direct supervision of operations staff.

I couldn't disagree more. Duty of care at all times, with respects to the operation of any ride, is 100% in the hands of those charged with operating the ride. It doesn't matter where; it is the responsibility of the park and its employees to ensure that a given ride is operated in a safe manner. If a ride's policy is that loose items are taken on with the rider, I see no logical or justifiable reason that they can't film the ride for their own personal use. If they've got no bag, then that camera will be in my hand; and tell me what is more likely to fly out of someone's hand and cause damage: a camera that the rider is consciously thinking about and trying to keep steady, or one that is in their hand but that they're not thinking at all about? I'd never for a second advocate avoiding rules and sneaking on cameras etc.; let's make it absolutely clear that what we're talking about here is rides where loose items can be taken on board. This whole topic of discussion has been dealt with in great detail here over the years, and I've not changed my opinion. From the rider's perspective, all they should do is respect the posted rules for each ride and nothing more. In the five years that this site has operated, no one has once given any sensible reason as to why cameras etc. can't be taken -- and used -- on a ride with no lose items policy. Coins getting stuck in brakes is up there with bolts coming loose on coaster wheels or restraints snapping in half. While we're at it, let's all crawl into bomb shelters and wait for a meteor to come and end humanity.