"Maverick" Construction - CP 2007

Well I agree that the statement that it is not better is heavily opinion, but I think most would agree that Voyage is far more relentless ("out of control insanity") than Maverick.

The point of comparing two different rides would be to break down exactly WHY, per se, he liked Voyage more than Maverick. What elements contributed to that? What could be changed about one ride to make it better than another, and vice versa? What should be left the same? It's just about understanding ride experiences more precisely. You can understand things' differences far better once you understand their similarities.

Originally posted by bicoastalkid

Well I agree that the statement that it is not better is heavily opinion, but I think most would agree that Voyage is far more relentless ("out of control insanity") than Maverick.

The point of comparing two different rides would be to break down exactly WHY, per se, he liked Voyage more than Maverick. What elements contributed to that? What could be changed about one ride to make it better than another, and vice versa? What should be left the same? It's just about understanding ride experiences more precisely. You can understand things' differences far better once you understand their similarities.

I can see where you're coming from, but what if one of the reasons he liked Voyage more was because of laterals? Would it be fair to say Maverick needed laterals to be as good? Or what about those turns near the end of the ride that slam you around... that is something that makes a wood coaster great, but I sure wouldn't like to ride Maverick if it had the same kind of transitions. The heartline roll would've made Maverick better, but would a heartline roll instead of an air hill improve the design of Voyage?

In HIS opinion, maybe it would. You can't make a blanket statement like that based off of one opinion, though. Now, what if you took a large survey and 99% of people preferred laterals to the quick transitions? Hypothetically, if the ride didn't do well, you could reason that it may have done better with more laterals. Still you seem to be trying to oversimplify the act into terms of black and white, "it goes this way or that way" terms.

Rock, whats wrong with him having his own way of comparing rides? Coming from someone whos very much about people having their own opinions you sure are trying to explain why hes wrong and you are right.

Its just one way to compare (or not compare) rides. He doesnt like to compare different types, you do. ?? Im failing to see the reason for the argument.

Because he's trying to debase the validity of comparing two things based on their differences when finding those differences is half of the reason for comparing two things in the first place. It would have also helped if he hadn't blown things into ridiculous extremes to make his opinion seem more aggressively correct than others. Oh, and then calling me a dumbass didn't help much either, because we all know how ignorant I am to coasters in general.

Well, no one said you had to respond.

Anyways, Ill be on the Voyage the weekend of June 15th and then Ill come back and ride Maverick a few days later. So Ill end the debate and do a "comparison" between two fairly different rides if you must.

Now, what if you took a large survey and 99% of people preferred laterals to the quick transitions? Hypothetically, if the ride didn't do well, you could reason that it may have done better with more laterals.

Yes, that's true. If 99% of the people who have been on Maverick believe having more laterals would improve the ride, then the ride would logically as a result have more of a chance to be the favorite between the two coasters. What about the 1% that disagree, however? Their opinions are valid along with everyone else's, and as a result more people may enjoy Maverick more with them but it doesn't make the coaster better.

Still you seem to be trying to oversimplify the act into terms of black and white, "it goes this way or that way" terms.

Why overcomplicate it? I see it as being incredibly simple; Both coasters have different features that will attract different people, and some might want to see all those features in one coaster while others may not.

Because he's trying to debase the validity of comparing two things based on their differences when finding those differences is half of the reason for comparing two things in the first place.

Of course you can't compare something if there aren't differences, but I'm referring to solely the overall ride quality being compared. Nothing more.

It would have also helped if he hadn't blown things into ridiculous extremes to make his opinion seem more aggressively correct than others.

My examples were extremes in an attempt to get my point across. Does this make them any different to the lateral example you used? No. As for trying to make my opinion seem more "correct", I did no such thing. Do you think I really care if I get pwned on a coaster forum?

Oh, and then calling me a dumbass didn't help much either, because we all know how ignorant I am to coasters in general.

I never called you a dumbass. My words were "dumbass response", meaning the post I quoted at the time is one in which a dumbass would post.

I realize that the majority opinion does not falsify the minority, but from a design stand point it's good to look at what COULD be improved to achieve a more universal appeal. Like a lot of people in the community think the heartline would have improved Maverick, but since a vast majority of the people who are going to ride Maverick won't even know it was supposed to be there, their opinion will be that it's great as is, but that doesn't change that perhaps, in some opinions, it could have been improved.

No, I don't think you care that much, but that doesn't change the fact that your post came across as "you are dumb for comparing these." To me, I don't see it as overcomplicated if it's justifiably thorough. I'd rather fully understand experiences by way of breaking them down into their parts, and if that means comparing them to other rides, so be it. I don't like to leave off at accepting that they are different, I want to know why, and I usually find they aren't that drastically dissimilar. My laterals comment I feel was more realistic than comparing a drop to a loop, and by saying "dumbass response" it's kind of implied that the poster is a dumbass for posting it.

I realize that the majority opinion does not falsify the minority, but from a design stand point it's good to look at what COULD be improved to achieve a more universal appeal. Like a lot of people in the community think the heartline would have improved Maverick, but since a vast majority of the people who are going to ride Maverick won't even know it was supposed to be there, their opinion will be that it's great as is, but that doesn't change that perhaps, in some opinions, it could have been improved.

The Maverick heartline situation is a bad example since the designer intended for the heartline to be there. Plus, with or without the roll, the ride has the same "thrill goal", and is done in the same style consistently throughout the course.

I think this is a good way of explaining what I mean when I say you can't compare Voyage and Maverick in terms of ride quality:

Some people may feel adding laterals to Maverick would be a good idea, or adding fast banking rotations similar to Maverick to Voyage. In that case, if you feel some characteristics of one ride would benefit the other, then you can indeed compare the two. However (and this is a completely hypothetical situation, but nonetheless realistic), the designers may know some people may prefer features of the two coasters in one ride, but not design the coaster to include both of them because they feel it would be detrimental to the ride. This is how I feel, and what I think most people feel, including the designers of both rides. Both Voyage and Maverick have successfully pulled off the style they tried to achieve, and if you added laterals and straight banking segments to Maverick, then I doubt you will see many people preferring the ride that way. Another good example would be say, positive gs. I enjoy positive gs on steel coasters, but if you added that same kind of thrill on Voyage I wouldn't like it at all. That's really the best way I can describe my view on this.

As for the "dumbass response" thing, I actually didn't mean you were a dumbass, but either way I apologize as it was harsh and unnecessary.

Wow... quite a heated debate streaming from one little comment. All I was doing was adding a little reference point, to say "this coaster is incredible, and worth taking a trip just to ride, but it's not quite the ultimate." I was comparing the final impression of the ride. Maverick left me feeling like "wow... that was so intense! Good stuff. I'll ride again, even though my shoulders kind of hurt.", while The Voyage left me thinking "holy... freaking... god... that was insane! The ultimate. I'm going back to ride 20 more times."

So, yeah. I really wasn't comparing any individual parts of the rides, just the overall impression that I had at the end of the ride... how much each one "wowed" me. And while Maverick was really incredible, it took me a while to decide just where to put it on my list. It took a ride in the back and a ride on my old #1 steel coaster before I realized just how amazing Maverick is. After "The Voyage", though, I knew that I had just ridden the most insane coaster ever built after the very first ride, and it shot up to the top of my wood list completely uncontested. And that was just a morning ride in the front seat. The night rides and rides in the back were just bonus. I wish there was something higher than first place. Go two notches higher than that, and that is where "The Voyage" is when compared to other woodies. "Maverick" is just number one on the steel list, though. It can be beaten, and can be improved. I don't see any way that any wood coaster will ever beat "The Voyage", though.

So, there's my comparison. That's what I meant. Maverick = Insane. The Voyage = Total out-of-control, uber-intense, rampaging, airtime-ing, rider-tossing ridiculous insanity.

^ Well said.

Youtube now has POVS!!!!!, but they are backwards, facing a person. It just makes me want to ride Maverick even more!

Originally posted by cjd

Wow... quite a heated debate streaming from one little comment. All I was doing was adding a little reference point, to say "this coaster is incredible, and worth taking a trip just to ride, but it's not quite the ultimate." I was comparing the final impression of the ride. Maverick left me feeling like "wow... that was so intense! Good stuff. I'll ride again, even though my shoulders kind of hurt.", while The Voyage left me thinking "holy... freaking... god... that was insane! The ultimate. I'm going back to ride 20 more times."

So, yeah. I really wasn't comparing any individual parts of the rides, just the overall impression that I had at the end of the ride... how much each one "wowed" me. And while Maverick was really incredible, it took me a while to decide just where to put it on my list. It took a ride in the back and a ride on my old #1 steel coaster before I realized just how amazing Maverick is. After "The Voyage", though, I knew that I had just ridden the most insane coaster ever built after the very first ride, and it shot up to the top of my wood list completely uncontested. And that was just a morning ride in the front seat. The night rides and rides in the back were just bonus. I wish there was something higher than first place. Go two notches higher than that, and that is where "The Voyage" is when compared to other woodies. "Maverick" is just number one on the steel list, though. It can be beaten, and can be improved. I don't see any way that any wood coaster will ever beat "The Voyage", though.

So, there's my comparison. That's what I meant. Maverick = Insane. The Voyage = Total out-of-control, uber-intense, rampaging, airtime-ing, rider-tossing ridiculous insanity.

Yeah, Voyage is without a doubt my #1 wooden coaster, and favorite coaster overall, but closely followed by the underrated Hades.

The thing is Voyage completely spoils you. By the time you hit the turnaround, which isn't even the halfway point on the ride, you've already gone through more than you can ask for on a coaster. When hitting the MCBR, no matter how many times I ride it, I can't get over how I just went through all of that insanity on ONE ride, and still have the completely out-of-control second half to experience. It isn't fair to non-GG coasters because nothing even has a chance. If You took just 1/3 of the ride, it would still be the second best coaster out there (after Hades), that's how great it is.

Hades is wonderful too though, and isn't that far behind Voyage. If you haven't ridden it and love Voyage that much, you need to take a trip out to Mt. Olympus. The tunnel run is something you won't experience on any other coaster, as the airtime and laterals are just thrown at you right after the other and it just feels like a coaster isn't capable of delivering something that amazing. Then there's that huge airtime hill out of the far turnaround that has probably the most perfect slightly-greater-than floater air I've ever experienced and once you hit the lapbar you're just held there and there's no chance you're hitting the seat anytime soon with how long the air on that hill is sustained. And then the section from the hill next to the lift all the way to the helix is so intense due to the intensity of the turn by the station, and right after that turn you FLY through two of the best airtime hills I've experienced while turning a bit with the view of that helix in front of you. Now that I think about it, these two rides are pretty damn close. And there's that double drop before the lift hill where if you ride in the back seat, it hits you HARD with some extremely powerful ejector air.

I need to ride one of these coasters again, it's really worth the trip back out there just to experience either of these beasts a few more times.

Originally posted by IntaminFan397

I realize that the majority opinion does not falsify the minority, but from a design stand point it's good to look at what COULD be improved to achieve a more universal appeal. Like a lot of people in the community think the heartline would have improved Maverick, but since a vast majority of the people who are going to ride Maverick won't even know it was supposed to be there, their opinion will be that it's great as is, but that doesn't change that perhaps, in some opinions, it could have been improved.

The Maverick heartline situation is a bad example since the designer intended for the heartline to be there. Plus, with or without the roll, the ride has the same "thrill goal", and is done in the same style consistently throughout the course.

I think this is a good way of explaining what I mean when I say you can't compare Voyage and Maverick in terms of ride quality:

Some people may feel adding laterals to Maverick would be a good idea, or adding fast banking rotations similar to Maverick to Voyage. In that case, if you feel some characteristics of one ride would benefit the other, then you can indeed compare the two. However (and this is a completely hypothetical situation, but nonetheless realistic), the designers may know some people may prefer features of the two coasters in one ride, but not design the coaster to include both of them because they feel it would be detrimental to the ride. This is how I feel, and what I think most people feel, including the designers of both rides. Both Voyage and Maverick have successfully pulled off the style they tried to achieve, and if you added laterals and straight banking segments to Maverick, then I doubt you will see many people preferring the ride that way. Another good example would be say, positive gs. I enjoy positive gs on steel coasters, but if you added that same kind of thrill on Voyage I wouldn't like it at all. That's really the best way I can describe my view on this.

As for the "dumbass response" thing, I actually didn't mean you were a dumbass, but either way I apologize as it was harsh and unnecessary.

I understood where you were coming from, and I agree that if a ride does something successfully it shouldn't be changed. However, I don't see why you shouldn't be able to compare them anyway? But how can you say that certain differences on either ride wouldn't have improved them somehow? You can't possibly say you wouldn't have preferred them since you already have your own opinions formed and in the future would be comparing the hypothetical updates to the current experience. If the differences were already in the ride from the beginning your opinion would be completely different. Like, if Maverick didn't focus on transitions but instead positive forces, you would be all for THAT experience and would be all "they shouldnt change it" when, if it were to be changed to how it is now, the way you like it now, in the hypothetical you would say "I wish they hadn't changed it."

So when you say that if you were to add straight banking to maverick people wouldn't prefer it? No, they probably wouldn't NOW, but you can't say if people would have actually preferred it or not that was already there. Just because you like it how it is now doesn't necessarily mean you wouldn't have liked it just as much a different way.

I also think the Maverick example works because it doesn't matter what a designer intends to be there or intends you to feel, it matters what you actually feel. Like how B&M intended for the pretzel loop to actually be less intense than it is, but that's the part about the element that people like the most NOW. If they had actually had it less intense people would probably focus more on the actual maneuver than the forces. Just like if the heartline hadn't been intended to be there initially, you wouldn't see people saying "I wish there was a heartline there" now.

I'm not saying that if the rides were changed at all they would be inferior to the original design, I'm saying most people would most likely not care for a change as extreme as say, changing the banking transitions on Maverick to be Voyage-esque. You bring up a good point with "You can't possibly say you wouldn't have preferred them since you already have your own opinions formed and in the future would be comparing the hypothetical updates to the current experience." But I feel that's only true to an extent. It would be rather difficult to choose what the better design would be if there was a minor difference, but if it's something as blatant as straight banking, I would have a good idea of whether I would prefer it to the original design or not. The logic in your statement implies that the construction of Maverick has potentially changed my opinion on straight banking on Intamin rocket coasters; that if the ride had not been built, or built in a different fashion, I would possibly enjoy a style of trackwork on a steel coaster that I know I like only on wooden coasters.

I also think the Maverick example works because it doesn't matter what a designer intends to be there or intends you to feel, it matters what you actually feel. Like how B&M intended for the pretzel loop to actually be less intense than it is, but that's the part about the element that people like the most NOW. If they had actually had it less intense people would probably focus more on the actual maneuver than the forces. Just like if the heartline hadn't been intended to be there initially, you wouldn't see people saying "I wish there was a heartline there" now.

The point I was trying to get at is that usually the general thrill the designer intends the ride to deliver is what the majority of riders experience. I agree with you on your pretzel loop example, but that's not exactly the kind of "intent" I was referring to. Here's a simple example:
Maverick designer creates an S-curve with a quick rotation but zero lateral forces. A person could say it wasn't as good as Voyage's S-curve because Voyage's has lateral gs. I find this comparison to be pointless because if the designer of Maverick wanted it to have laterals they would've designed it with laterals. The designers of both rides intentionally banked/profiled the s-curves different to achieve different thrills.

I think somebody saying they prefer more laterals isn't really a comparison. A comparision would be simply saying "Both have S-Curves, but Voyage's has laterals and Maverick doesn't." I view comparisons as being almost completely objective. An opinion I see as being a personal statement made based off of the pre-existing objective observations.

Also, isn't a bit close-minded to say you only like a certain element only on one type of ride? I'm under the impression that as long as it's executed well it's enjoyable regardless. I mean, look at Intamin woodies. Their shaping is more similar to steel coaster than any traditional wooden coaster, but they still manage to be awesome. I really think it just depends on how an element plays into the rest of the ride.

I think somebody saying they prefer more laterals isn't really a comparison. A comparision would be simply saying "Both have S-Curves, but Voyage's has laterals and Maverick doesn't." I view comparisons as being almost completely objective. An opinion I see as being a personal statement made based off of the pre-existing objective observations.

Well, the comparison is implied, since "which ride is the better of the two" opinions stem from comparisons.

Also, isn't a bit close-minded to say you only like a certain element only on one type of ride? I'm under the impression that as long as it's executed well it's enjoyable regardless. I mean, look at Intamin woodies. Their shaping is more similar to steel coaster than any traditional wooden coaster, but they still manage to be awesome. I really think it just depends on how an element plays into the rest of the ride.

It isn't closed minded in the least. Last time I checked, many people find bone-jarring and painful transitions on steel coasters rather unpleasant and that smooth shaping would make the ride more enjoyable. I mean, I sure hope not wanting to get my head smashed between the Intamin OTSRs from unnecessarily high laterals and under-engineering on an Intamin Rocket Coaster doesn't make me closed minded...

Well they wouldn't prefer bone-jarring and painful transitions on a woodie, either. I mean, in the context of modern steel AND wood coasters, I don't think there's such thing as under engineering in much of anything built recently. Especially Intamin and GG...

Anyways, about Maverick.

Water cannons are working great. Scared my sister senseless since she had no clue they got installed and sitting in the back right seat you get the best view as they blast up.

Front seat ride - pretty freakin good. Its no back seat ride, but, the air over the solo air hill is pretty freakin good - very heavy and sustained air. The drop is quite a bit fun from the front as well. The G's coming out of the tunnel are IMMENSE in the front seat, just immense. Other than that, still awesome. While I give the back seat a 9.5, the front is a 9.

If ya catch me there at night, Ill be in one of those two seats.

^Exactly, in fact, Millennium force isn't even recent and it's over-engineered... Most B&Ms are over engineered... And wooden coasters are nothing like they were before. Before they were incredibly lat-ful and had tonnes of air. If someone put Voyage in the time of the Crystal Beach Cyclone, people would be 'that's way to over engineered!' Or, at least something like that. Now, they have a different idea of what's good on a coaster. It's perfectly fine to compare the two, they have similar features and the medium that they're executed on means nothing...

I think the Cyclone example is bad because back then that was considered to be really awesome engineering. If Voyage was built back then, everybody would be wondering why Cyclone sucked so much. Here I think his reference to under-engineering is in the sense that certain parts of a ride aren't designed to be "perfect." That's what my response was to, anyway, in that I think everything GG does is intentional in their design. They've had enough experience to know what is what.

Also, I'm glad to hear the water jets are actually noticeable on the ride. That does seem like a cool effect now.

Originally posted by bicoastalkid

Well they wouldn't prefer bone-jarring and painful transitions on a woodie, either.

Of course they wouldn't. The difference is that Voyage's transitions aren't painful because of the track style and trains. If Voyage was exactly the same but instead used Intamin track and Intamin rocket coaster trains, Voyage's return run wouldn't be too pleasant.

Here I think his reference to under-engineering is in the sense that certain parts of a ride aren't designed to be "perfect." That's what my response was to, anyway, in that I think everything GG does is intentional in their design.

No, that is not what I meant. I love the engineering on CCIs and GGs, and don't think that they're under-engineered at all. When I said under-engineered, I meant Voyage's transitions on Maverick would be under-engineering for it's track style.

^ Thanks for clearing that up.

You said steel coasters in general first. Honestly I think there. are plenty of steel trains that can handle heavy lats.

^ Like what?

Just about anything without OTSRs.