VR Roller Coasters
- Thread starter CrazedZooChimp
- Start date
I haven't heard of these. Are they like the Star Wars ride at Disneyland, except that you're wearing VR goggles instead of looking at a projection on a screen? In other words, do you just sit in a seat in a room the whole time and the seat tilts and rocks to what you see on the goggles? They should make a VR water ride and have sprinklers and employees with buckets of water.
EDIT: Oh, wait. I'm reading more and it sounds like this may be about wearing VR goggles on real, physical coasters. How does that work and why would you want to look at virtual reality while doing that, instead of the real reality racing around you? Doesn't that defeat much of the point of a real coaster? I'm confused.
EDIT: Oh, wait. I'm reading more and it sounds like this may be about wearing VR goggles on real, physical coasters. How does that work and why would you want to look at virtual reality while doing that, instead of the real reality racing around you? Doesn't that defeat much of the point of a real coaster? I'm confused.
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CrazedZooChimp
Not enough guts
Yeah, they're actual roller coasters and you wear a Gear VR while riding. The VR is developed by a company called VR Coaster in Germany. Most of the rides Six Flags is putting them on are older, less intense roller coasters that had gotten less popular. So for those the draw of the reality zipping around isn't that high. But, the biggest thing for me when I rode one, is that with the VR headset you can't see the track or what's coming next, so it makes the roller coaster elements a lot more exciting. It's like the way a coaster in the dark like Space Mountain can feel more intense than it actually is since you can't brace yourself as well for what's coming. You can also add in game elements like it sounds like these do (ie. you can shoot at stuff while flying around).
As for how it works, my understanding is that that's VR Coaster's trick. It takes a lot of work for them to develop a VR that accurately matches the motion of the ride. If it gets off probably makes people nauseous, but they seem pretty good at it. I haven't read any complaints about it making people sick (and it didn't make me sick when I rode one).
Thanks. Now I won't feel like an out-of-touch ignoramus the next time that I visit a Six Flags. That makes a lot of sense, particularly not seeing the track or what's ahead. That's true that Space Mountain is an awfully tame coaster, as coasters go, and that it's thrilling purely because you don't see what's ahead (in fact, I bonked my head on the padded restraint bar as a kid because I couldn't anticipate a sudden climb; that wasn't thrilling). It's probably a lot cheaper to outfit old rides and, thus, re-use the track, especially when no one was riding them any more, than to build all new tracks.
That could be because the motion that your body feels on the ride somewhat matches the motion that you see in the VR. It's more when you're sitting still but the VR tells you that you're moving that makes people nauseous. I'm guessing that it'd be mostly just the people who already have a tendency to get nauseous on coasters who'd feel sick with this. In fact, when I thought that this was like the Star Wars ride (sitting mostly still while wearing goggles), I imagined that lots of people would be getting sick and that it'd be a real problem. Perhaps that's why we don't see rides like that, because they would otherwise be a perfect use for VR and be much cheaper and space-efficient than actual coasters.
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syz
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- Jul 13, 2007
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I saw a story on a Superman VR coaster; unfortunately it looked like an N64 game, which doesn't seem like it's very good for the whole "immersion" part.
Also in line with this I guess is mixed reality stuff like this, which is a glimpse into what VR will eventually end up peaking as once the tech is powerful enough to put everything in the headset itself.
Also in line with this I guess is mixed reality stuff like this, which is a glimpse into what VR will eventually end up peaking as once the tech is powerful enough to put everything in the headset itself.
Frankie Spankie
Registered User
A little offtopic but as someone who owns a Vive, games with terrible graphics in VR have given me a much better immersive experience than any other game I've ever played. Don't worry about bad graphics in any VR setting. The fact that the camera controls so naturally and realistically is way more immersive than any graphics on a regular screen can be.
FLYLine27*
BUCH
I HATE roller coasters, never have been a fan of heights, and I always think i'm going to fall out of the seat. But this seems like a cool idea and might not make the roller coaster that scary since I can't actually see the real physical height that I am at 
I loved the Dino Island thing at Canada's Wonderland. Never went on James Bond but I saw SpongeBob
Does Disney still have that RockN Roll ride? Aerosmith, I think?
Does Disney still have that RockN Roll ride? Aerosmith, I think?
CrazedZooChimp
Not enough guts
The grapics were definitely **** on the one I road at Magic Mountain. I don't know if that's a result of doing with with a GearVR (and Samsung phone) or like the amount of power needed for timing the VR to the ride or something. I hope it will get better, but it's still surprisingly immersive (it's fun just to be able to look around).
I HATE roller coasters, never have been a fan of heights, and I always think i'm going to fall out of the seat. But this seems like a cool idea and might not make the roller coaster that scary since I can't actually see the real physical height that I am at
I actually never thought about that, I guess if you don't know you're actually going upside down or really high it could be less scary
Big McLargehuge
Fragile Traveler
I rode the first one of these, The New Revolution at SF Magic Mountain a few months ago and...well...the headset didn't stay on my head well at all, which is one major problem. The second issue was that the graphics looked like ****, which is to be expected on something expected to run on a phone with GearVR.
It did spice up a historically significant coaster that is kinda boring by modern standards (The Revolution being the first modern looping coaster, built in 1976), but I don't know if its something I want more of.
Also it slowed the loading/unloaded process down horribly...went from a 10 minute line to nearly an hour thanks to having to tighten everyone's headset (they didn't do mine well at all), certain headsets having their batteries die, wiping the headsets down between uses, etc.
It did spice up a historically significant coaster that is kinda boring by modern standards (The Revolution being the first modern looping coaster, built in 1976), but I don't know if its something I want more of.
Also it slowed the loading/unloaded process down horribly...went from a 10 minute line to nearly an hour thanks to having to tighten everyone's headset (they didn't do mine well at all), certain headsets having their batteries die, wiping the headsets down between uses, etc.
Ew. Why would they do that to such a historically significant and iconic coaster? Revolution is one of my most beloved coasters. Ever since being a kid, I've gone on it every time that I've visited Magic Mountain (except maybe once, when it was closed, which was likely very disappointing). Sure, it's tame, but I appreciate the "vintage" feel of it and getting to experience what thrilled people back in the 70s and 80s. I guess that it's largely nostalgia, and I understand that it can't be very thrilling for newer generations who don't have that, but I wish that there were some other alternative.
Can you simply decline the headsets or, at least, take them off to experience the coaster as it was intended? I assume not, but that could be a way of accommodating both younger and older riders.
Big McLargehuge said:
That's terrible. One of the best things about the older coasters is that, to make up for them not being quite as thrilling any more, they tend to have really short lines. I especially love to hit up coasters like (original) Revolution later in the day, when you can get in line, be on the coaster minutes later, get off, get back in line and be riding again only minutes later. Riding a tame coaster on a whim, because there's next to no line, and then riding it over and over again in quick succession gets me more excited than waiting in a long line for a hot, new coaster. It's really disappointing if they're slowly replacing all of the "quick line" rides with much longer ones because of a gimmick. Perhaps that might shorten lines on other rides by spreading parkgoers out, but not necessarily.
Big McLargehuge
Fragile Traveler
Well, The Revolution basically was a walk-on even when the park was packed in the summer...something had to be done and I'll take a gimmick to drive up interest over outright removing a historically significant ride. The ride wasn't re-built, but it was given a really nice makeover to make it both look better (re-painted) and ride more smoothly than I remembered.
And I'm pretty sure that you can decline the headset if you want to, and they weren't giving them to riders in the front row.
I don't like it, but aside from the wait aspect it's a better ride now than it was last year, so...meh. It's tough for a ride like The Revolution to be at a park like Magic Mountain...they don't really go together too well, Six Flags covets a teenage thrill-seeking audience and The Revolution is simultaneously too thrilling for the younger audience and not thrilling enough for the core audience. This tries to appeal to that core audience in a way that it didn't before. I'd be more upset if I thought it was a better ride than it is...but instead I'm kinda happy that they gave an old ride new life...I just don't know if this is something that is really repeatable in a ton of parks, nor is it something I necessarily want outside of a unique circumstance like this.
And I'm pretty sure that you can decline the headset if you want to, and they weren't giving them to riders in the front row.
I don't like it, but aside from the wait aspect it's a better ride now than it was last year, so...meh. It's tough for a ride like The Revolution to be at a park like Magic Mountain...they don't really go together too well, Six Flags covets a teenage thrill-seeking audience and The Revolution is simultaneously too thrilling for the younger audience and not thrilling enough for the core audience. This tries to appeal to that core audience in a way that it didn't before. I'd be more upset if I thought it was a better ride than it is...but instead I'm kinda happy that they gave an old ride new life...I just don't know if this is something that is really repeatable in a ton of parks, nor is it something I necessarily want outside of a unique circumstance like this.
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542365
2018-19 Cup Champs!
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I'm not really a germaphobe, but I'm not sure I want my sweaty head in the same headset thousands of other sweaty heads have been in that day. I guess it's not much different than going to the gym since it sounds like the wipe everything down, but it sounds kinda gross to be honest. I'm a pansy, I'm well aware
syz
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- Jul 13, 2007
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I'm not really a germaphobe, but I'm not sure I want my sweaty head in the same headset thousands of other sweaty heads have been in that day. I guess it's not much different than going to the gym since it sounds like the wipe everything down, but it sounds kinda gross to be honest. I'm a pansy, I'm well aware
Nah, they sound like they get pretty gross. Common procedure at trade shows and the like eventually became to wipe them down after every use.
Also God forbid someone gets on one of these coasters and decides to puke.
CrazedZooChimp
Not enough guts
You can definitely decline the headset, and I read that you can even skip most of the line if you don't want the headset. When I was last at Magic Mountain the backup seemed mostly caused by lack of wearable headsets, or they always leave a few seats for non-headset riders (I think maybe the front seats always have non-headset riders since they don't have a way to calibrate the headset in front). So you can still have it both ways
I think if you're under 13 (of course, now way to check) you're technically not allowed to use the headset because of some rule GearVR has.
Trust me, I was similarly very skeptical until I rode it, I was surprised by how fun it was (even with the ****** graphics). The slow line is definitely a problem though, I hope they figure out how to speed it up at some point. But Six Flags isn't really known for their operations. My guess is now that they'll have one VR ride per park, they'll stop there and just update the VR every now and then.
Big McLargehuge
Fragile Traveler
To be fair, if somebody pukes on a moving roller coaster (which almost never happens) nobody is going to have the time to react anyway. If anything this just creates an eye shield that is fairly easy to wipe down.
I worked a couple summers at an amusement park as a teenager, I'm way too used to cleaning up puke
Lice and pinkeye seem like they'd be able to thrive in such an environment, though...
RoadDoggFL
Registered User
This is a point that Valve made back in like 2013. The most immersive experiences are the ones without hyper realistic graphics. It keeps getting brought up as a reason why only a Vive or Rift connected to a beast rig will ever produce acceptable VR, even though that's been disproven before the consumer versions of the new VR wave even existed.
I believe that Frankie was saying that bad VR graphics are more immersive than realistic non-VR graphics, which makes sense, since VR will always be more immersive than a 2D monitor. If Valve actually once said that unrealistic graphics work better in VR than realistic ones, it was likely half because they wanted to hype (and sell) their product and half because it was the case at the time (and possibly still is), due to technical reasons. I'm sure that, in the future, realistic VR will be more immersive than unrealistic VR, just like how realistic non-VR is more immersive than unrealistic non-VR. Everyone knows that VR will keep getting better and better, but we can't really expect a company like Valve to say so when they need people to buy the 1st generation, rather than wait for the 2nd or 3rd.
RoadDoggFL
Registered User
Your brain is likely more willing to put you in a cartoon world than one just chilling in the uncanny valley. If a game tries to look realistic and fails (physics, AI, interaction, graphics), the bar set by the graphics makes it a more jarring problem. In a cartoon world, the cardboard box bouncing like a tire might seem more like a quirk of the world you're in than a glitch.
I don't think that your brain is more willing to put you in a cartoon world. Why would it accept unrealistic graphics (which you observe the whole time) better than unrealistic physics (which you observe only a fraction of the time)? The reason why it would be less jarring to have unrealistic physics in a cartoon world is that your brain has already accepted that the world is not real (i.e. you're not truly immersed). If, on the other hand, the world appears real and it's jarring when things start moving and interacting, then that speaks to how immersive the realistic graphics are. The goal should be to fix the physics to bring them up to the level of the graphics, not forever dumb the graphics down to make them as fake as everything else. It may take a while to get to the point where no one thing sticks out like a sore thumb and ruins the illusion, but, once we do, realistic worlds will be a lot more immersive than cartoon worlds.
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