Arkham Asylum - VR coaster at Movie World

[Levithian]

Aside from anything that might be coming from the headset, I dont think there is on board audio. It sounded more like sound coming from a speaker near the station than from onboard the train. When youre leaving the exit ramp you can hear talking coming from a speaker somewhere.

Ive ridden it a few times this weekend and i think the headsets arent that bad. Its just that when you hit the high force parts of the track its effectively heavier, making it feel like its going to move or fall off compared to when you started. I do have a fat head though, so it was pretty snug. I wonder how quick the technology advances. I reckon lots of the feeling issues with the headsets would vanish if they halved in size/weight. They are still pretty bulky compared to the size of the phone. Anyone get a ride photo with it on? Haha.

Edited September 25, 2016 by Levithian

[Santa07]

One other thing I forgot to mention - the VR really distracts you from the leg-crushing which is great.

[JaggedJanine]

Had a little chittychat with a few 'Inmates' today on Arkham. I said that the VR didn't seem to be affecting load times at all and they said they were trailing a few different procedures to find something that meant they didn't drop in dispatch times. Which is usually 6-8 every 30mins. Apparently one of the guys working there today came up with an easier procedure that seemed to be working really well. I did VR for the first time today and tbh.. thought it was running just slightly faster than it did without the added VR. So all of you that have complained about load times can now chill.  

[WalleyWorld]

11 hours ago, Santa07 said:

Let me put this more into context - at a time yesterday when Scooby had about a 10-minute queue and Superman was virtually a walk-on, Arkham still had a 45 minute or longer queue. I timed some of the dispatches and one of them (a particularly bad one) was about 10 minutes. Hopefully it’ll get better once the staff are more used to it.

Probably just teething issues at the moment; give operations a month or two to get it working smoothly.

Thanks for the operations insight @JaggedJanine. "6-8 dispatches' every 30 mins" = 16 dispatches/hr, that's 16*20 people = 320 pph....that's very low capacity for peak periods. I wonder if MW would ever consider getting a 2nd train for Arkham? By the sound of it, the ride has once again become a popular attraction, and even more so now with the addition of VR.
 

[JaggedJanine]

4 minutes ago, Luke said:

Probably just teething issues at the moment; give operations a month or two to get it working smoothly.

Thanks for the operations insight @JaggedJanine. "6-8 dispatches' every 30 mins" = 16 dispatches/hr, that's 16*20 people = 320 pph....that's very low capacity for peak periods. I wonder if MW would ever consider getting a 2nd train for Arkham? By the sound of it, the ride has once again become a popular attraction, and even more so now with the addition of VR.
 

I dunno, man. I don't see how they could get faster than 8 every 30 mins. To me 3.75mins per cycle is pretty good especially when you take VR into consideration. Got any suggestions?

Let's just say that without actually working with rides ourselves, we will not fully understand why certain things work on some rides and not on others.

[Theme Park Girl]

1 hour ago, JaggedJanine said:

So all of you that have complained about load times can now chill.  

Wasn't so much a complaint on my part about the load times, it's just that when there's technical difficulties with the VR, it can slow things down a bit. Especially when dealing with first time VR riders who don't quite get the calibration process for whatever reason, and need to be walked and talked through it. Pretty sure that's what happened with my last VR ride, but then again, it's not like I could see exactly what was going on whilst I had the headset on

I know the staff there work to the best of their ability.

[JaggedJanine]

I knew you weren't complaining Nikki

[MaxxTheMonster]

1 hour ago, JaggedJanine said:

I dunno, man. I don't see how they could get faster than 8 every 30 mins. To me 3.75mins per cycle is pretty good especially when you take VR into consideration. Got any suggestions?

Let's just say that without actually working with rides ourselves, we will not fully understand why certain things work on some rides and not on others.

Given the ride has approx 1:42 ride time...  2 mins flat to get everyone off the train, get new guests on, done up, harness check, and start dispatch is pretty damn good...

Edited September 25, 2016 by MaxxTheMonster

[pin142]

Now you can't go expecting US style operations here where the next group is boarding before the last group has completely left the station. Personally think 3:30 for a cycle (from air gate opening to gate opening again) would be the absolute best we can expect with 4 minutes being an acceptable average.

As for the second train personally think if they were going to do it they would have already done it by now.

[rappa]

To hit theoretical capacity you have to use 30seconds for an unload/load cycle. That is never going to happen in an Australian park. The figures Janine posted are really not bad at all for that ride. 

[iwerks]

Is 100% of the train currently getting the VR experience? Will that go down when you have to pay a $5 fee?

And more importantly, @Theme Park Girl, what happens if you spend too long in a treatment room?

Edited September 25, 2016 by iwerks

[MaxxTheMonster]

30 minutes ago, iwerks said:

Is 100% of the train currently getting the VR experience? Will that go down when you have to pay a $5 fee?

You already have to pay $5 to use it and from watching it yesterday only 4 people on one, 6 on the next...  But then they stopped doing it because it was raining...

[Santa07]

35 minutes ago, iwerks said:

Is 100% of the train currently getting the VR experience? Will that go down when you have to pay a $5 fee?

No the $5 fee is already in effect, but I noticed quite a few people were wanting to try it so maybe 1/3 of the train?

36 minutes ago, iwerks said:

And more importantly, @Theme Park Girl, what happens if you spend too long in a treatment room?

Well for me, you start loosing grips on reality and start feeling very sleepy since you've basically got no natural light and just a screen. I hadn't got much sleep the night before though so that might be why. I had to pull of the headset for a moment just to check that I was still on Earth  

[Jay Jay The Jet Plane]

when I went to do my VR experience yesterday, I think it was 6 people doing it in the group I was on. This is something I will be doing each time going to the park from now on  

does anyone if this will be going on during Fright Nights?

Edited September 25, 2016 by Theme Park Ninja

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

57 minutes ago, iwerks said:

Is 100% of the train currently getting the VR experience? Will that go down when you have to pay a $5 fee?

And more importantly, @Theme Park Girl, what happens if you spend too long in a treatment room?

even if it had 100% uptake - you can't have the entire train running VR because the front row doesn't get it - something about start up calibration i think - theres a QR code or something that the headset needs to see in order to know positioning etc, isn't there?

[Santa07]

We were told the front two rows don't have VR

[themagician]

Yeah there's a MW logo type QR code on the seat in front of you. I saw people in the second row wearing it.

[Theme Park Girl]

1 hour ago, Theme Park Ninja said:

does anyone if this will be going on during Fright Nights?

Yes it will be ?

[j_m-kelly]

I tried the VR today for the first time and it didn't work the first time I went on, likewise for the other people on our train. We were all stuck in the patient chair for the whole ride spinning around, it was quite nauseating to be honest haha. However, the ride operators gave us all a free pass to come back and do it later on in the day. The second time around it worked perfectly and I must say, I was blown away! It's an incredible experience and well worth the $5, I would highly recommend it to all!

[Santa07]

20 minutes ago, j_m-kelly said:

I tried the VR today for the first time and it didn't work the first time I went on, likewise for the other people on our train. We were all stuck in the patient chair for the whole ride spinning around, it was quite nauseating to be honest haha. However, the ride operators gave us all a free pass to come back and do it later on in the day. The second time around it worked perfectly and I must say, I was blown away! It's an incredible experience and well worth the $5, I would highly recommend it to all!

That would be awful! But yeah, don't do it if you don't have a strong stomach. It wasn't nauseating for me but it definitely takes you a moment to get your balance once you've stood up.

[MikeMac]

I thought this was interesting....

I follow CNET and they did an article over the weekend on a VR experience at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, California.  The roller coaster they used is Kong.

The interesting thing is that it is a very similar roller coaster to Arkham (maybe even the same...).  The added element in this VR experience is that it is a game, the riders can shoot characters during the ride...

So, I wonder if the people who generated the VR experience for Kong approached Movie World..."hey we have VR ready to go for your coaster....interested...."

For those who have ridden the new Arkham VR, does it look the same as Kong VR? ...different characters and storyline....?

 

Kong VR POV...

Edited September 27, 2016 by MikeMac

[SuperV]

Yeah Mike it is an SLC so it is the same as AA with the exception that AA has an extra helix. 

[Gazza]

Entirely different. The SF one is a generic one with demons etc...I rode a version of it at SFGAm on their Arrow looper. Basically it seems they have a base map, and then thread the flight path through it and add characters.

But the one at Movie World is definitely Batman/Arkham themed, as others have posted.

Edited September 28, 2016 by Gazza

[Levithian]

The only similarities I can see are they both use samsung VR gear and phones. Movieworld ride video is themed for arkham. The headset restraint things look different too.

I dont think any of these VR installs would be a straight package that you can port to another ride. Even if the ride is the same type and you use the same theme for the video, slight differences in the install of the ride would probably make the video feel glitchy when riding because it wouldn't sync up with the track. That's the one thing I really noticed riding it, I was kind of afraid that the video was going to be out of time with what you are feeling on the ride, which I knew would instantly make me sick (get car sick bad enough as it is!), but this was actually pretty surprising. I don't know how they do it, but it would have to require some sort of mapping or something of the track to model your video off. It really is pretty cool how it all comes together even if the load times might be messed around or the VR units are sometimes glitchy. It's still only early days of VR development, let alone putting it all on a rollercoaster and getting it to work and survive in that sort of capacity. I mean, honestly, its personal consumer grade technology that's being used, its not something that has been purely developed to survive the constant punishment of 8-10 hr, 7 day a week operation. Can't wait to see how quickly the technology develops though.

[MikeMac]

I am super amazed a Samsung can do all the processing required, but excited to see how this will be refined in the future.  From what everyone is saying it sound like the VR roller-coaster medium is off to an impressive start.

In relation to Kong VR, I'm not sure my brain could manage being thrown around on a roller-coaster, taking in a VR world around you and playing a game (shooting monsters) all at once....

Normally I can only do one thing at a time....  Interesting concept though.