Credit whores

Vater said:

What's dew got to do with it?

What's dew, but--

Mike Gallagher said:

I second that emotion.

Hmm...well played, Mike. Right in time.

Well, thanks. But I give credit to Smokey, not Tina. But it pretty much works either way:

"second-hand emotion"/"second that emotion."

Yeah.

When it comes to borrowing kids for credits, I'm guilty as charged! :) I love adding coasters to my growing list. But, I try not to brag about it. I know there are plenty of people that have many more than me. Some even twice as many. For me, it's a personal thing. Always trying to reach that next milestone.

I have a friend who would only do kiddie coatsers because he is scared of heights. That was the only time I would ride them. Otherwise, I dont make it a point to ride just for the credit. When I have my own kids, thats a different story...

I think 100 is more than adequate, if not less. I recall being near that point and mostly credit whoring. Few rides seemed particularly different after you hit all of the major categories. The wing coaster was the first thing in awhile really compelling enough to travel for, and even then, it was pretty much what I expected.

I did kiddie coasters when my kids were riding them. My kids were always tall for their age and were done with them by age 6 and onto bigger and better things.

The only kiddie coaster we ever went on just to get a credit was Kosmo's Curves.

My track record says 85 but I have to be up near 100 with trips to Dorney Hershey and SFGA this past year, I haven't bothered updating it yet.

I am far from a credit whore, complete opposite actually.

I won't ride clones I don't like (SLC's, boomerangs, B:TR's, etc...) That is one thing that bummed me out about CW... The crazy amount of clones! Thankfully Behemoth was there!

I ride only what I want to ride. I don't like long waits either, so I won't wait a long time for something that does not appeal to me.

Carrie J. said:

Whoa. 200 coasters in order to get a handle on what one likes? That seems like a bit much.

I don't think so. Honestly, compared to most coaster enthusiasts I know and/or hang around, 200 is well on the low end of the spectrum of number of credits. And there were plenty of types and manufacturers that I hadn't ridden at 100 that I had ridden at 200. I could imagine this being the case for many.

I would imagine one's interest shifts more based on age, health, life circumstance, etc and less based on the number of coasters ridden. At least that's the case for me.

I definitely think those go into factoring it, but still, as most enthusiasts age, they tend to hit a spurt where they hit a few milestones in a few years time, then slow down. I think the age/health thing comes in to play more at that point.

I think too much emphasis gets put on a person's track record.

In some communities, yes. But I don't feel that here at all. At least the webmaster here has never said that their opinion should be weighted more based on the number of coasters they've ridden. That statement has been made by other webmasters. Generally, I don't think most people on Buzz care so much about track record numbers.

It really doesn't add credibility in my book any more than someone with a small track record reduces credibility... there are so many other things to focus on to reduce credibility. ;-)

I think this depends on what you mean by 'credibility'. Since Richard Bannister has ridden nearly every coaster known to man, I definitely think he has more experience than I do. Does that make his opinion more 'valid'? No, but putting it into context, when he gives an opinion, I'm more likely to listen to his opinion in regards to trip planning, what should and shouldn't be missed, where I should try to get to than, say, someone with 50 coasters.

Let's say Coasterhound had a 500 coaster track record and came out with that opinion about SFoT...what would you have done with his thought then? (And maybe he/she does...I haven't looked at it.)

That's the great thing about perspective. I had it for the arguement. I can say what if till the cows come home, but given perspective I don' thave to. And how many coasters he'd ridden didn't give me the perspective to comment on his opinions. He feels that SFoT got the shaft, and that 3 other parks (two that, until 2013, have the same amount of coasters) get treated better because SFoT didn't add a flyer, wing coaster, or floorless right after adding the new Giant. Regardless of how many coasters he'd ridden, anyone expecting a major ride going in so soon to a park did themself a disservice. Parks don't really operate that way, and only a few have done back to back coasters like he seemed to want.

But the perspective I did get from his post was based on the three types of coasters he would like to see. I looked to see if he had ridden, and if so, how many floorless, wing, and flyer coasters he'd ridden. If it were none, then I could chalke his rant up to wanting to try something new. Or, if he had ridden a few or most, if not all, then I could chalk it up to his preference. The conversation would have been different, but without perspective I can't tell you how so.

I had a pretty good idea of what my taste was when I was 15 and my ride count was well under 50. It hasn't really changed much since then.

I can't imagine why the number would matter that much. I went to KI and WDW pretty regularly from 1983 - 1996 and then pretty quickly after that branched out to HW, CP, (SF)KK, GL/SFO/SFWOA, BGW, and HP in the immediate years after. My count wasn't very high back then, but was there really that much I needed to cover before I figured out what I liked and didn't like? I'd say when the typical person in 2012 crosses the 75 or 100 ride mark they very much know what's up. 

Raging Wolf Bobs final train of it's final year of operation stalled halfway through the course and the riders were walked down. That poses an interesting question. If you had not been on it prior and you experienced only half the course and it never operated again would you count it as a full credit? Do half credits exist? ;)

I'm just going by a metric several others have stated. For myself, I know my top 10 at 100 consisted of several inverting coasters, a couple wood, and a hyper or 2. I don't feel I really knew what I liked the most at that point. Again, for me, I hadn't ridden as much of what I liked as I have now that I'm closer to 300.

If you look at my top ten, it's all wood coasters and hyper coasters with a launch thrown in for good measure because I like speed and airtime. I didn't know that when I hit my first 100 on Matterhorn.

DejaVuNitro said: If you had not been on it prior and you experienced only half the course and it never operated again would you count it as a full credit?

I would. All the better that I wouldn't have to call it the next day. ;-)

As far as credits go, I think I might be guilty of trying to get more credits because of, well, credibility within the enthusiast community. I'll ride anything once just to add it to my list. On the other hand, I rarely look at anyone's track record.

So to reword that statement, I don't care about other people's track record, but I care that other people care about my track record. That's strange...

And for those who care about such things, I have 149, so far.

There are other things that give cred to the coaster enthusiast. Employment within the industry is one. Scientific knowledge is another (Rideman lol).

BBSpeed26 said:

I won't go out of my way to ride a ride that I know I won't like. Mine trains, boomerangs, kiddie rides, etc. are just not worth it to me. For example:

...

With all due respect, I find that very weird. I want every different coaster experience that I can get. How do you know you are not going to like it until you try it?

The mine ride at Carrowinds comes to mind here. I expected just a plain ol' mine coaster, but the end of that ride was a fantastic surprise. King Island's mine train comes to mind as well. Although it has a pacing problem, it is still suburb, in my opinion.

I'm not making fun or calling you names here. I just now think you are strange... Not for not caring about your coatser credits. I thing you are strange for knowing what you wont like without riding it. ...or something. :D

LostKause said:

King Island's mine train comes to mind as well. Although it has a pacing problem, it is still suburb, in my opinion.

Well yeah, Coney Island kept flooding, so they had to relocate the park to Mason. All the rides are suburban. ;)

Tekwardo said:
At least the webmaster here has never said that their opinion should be weighted more based on the number of coasters they've ridden.

While I haven't said that, exactly, I do believe that you need to have been on enough rides to be statistically relevant. So for your ratings to count in the CoasterBuzz 100, you do have to meet a certain threshold relative to everyone else. You have to be in the top half. That said, the bigger reason for this is so that drive-by accounts that sign up and rate one ride have little to no impact. Combined with some other anti-fraud measures, I'd like to think that keeps it a little less likely to be gamed.

But to your point, yeah, I don't think it matters how many rides you do to validate your opinion. We've certainly had more than our share of people who only know Cedar Point, and that's fine. Just because they haven't been on Montu doesn't mean they can't possibly like Raptor as much as they do.

@Travis -

No offense taken. I may have spoken too broadly before - it's more about prioritizing than anything else.

I'm all for experiencing new things, but to a certain extent, if you've been on 5 Arrow mine trains - you know what to expect. There is a a plateau of excitement that those rides are capable of delivering, and it ain't that high. For my money and time at a new park, I'd rather ride a truly brilliant ride once in the front, once in the back, and then once more in whichever of those two seats I liked the best before I move on to the rides that are going to be, at their best, "pretty fun". Or, in the case of a boomerang with old-school trains "not that fun at all and consistently headache-inducing".

Does that mean that I miss a few credits at big parks I'll probably never go to again? Sure it does. But it also means that I never run into a situation where I miss that last, mind-blowing night ride on New Texas Giant because I was halfway across the park queuing for a "credit".

I totally respect that. It's just so different from how I think about coasters that I found your post to stand out.

I have to ask, aren't you a little disappointed when you hear about how fun a mine ride is or how different the restraints are for a newly opened boomerang that you skipped though? Some of those rides are really superb. ;)

...Or Maverick.

I know that question wasn't directed at me, but since I have a similar outlook as BBSpeed with regard to credits, I will say that I was looking forward to checking out Carolina Cobra when I last visited Carowinds. It was down all day, so I didn't get the credit (same with the boomerang at SFoT, but that one doesn't have the new trains). I can say that I was not disappointed. I saw it was closed and moved on. Maybe I'll get a chance to ride it someday, maybe not. It doesn't matter to me. And honestly, if it was open and I didn't have time to ride it or whatever, I still would have been fine with it. It's just not that big a deal.

Then again I have less than 200 credits, so my opinion might not be as valid as most other enthusiasts.

Ut-oh. I was afraid that credit sarcasm might crop up.

I'm only at 149 coasters, much less than your 177, so your opinion matters to me, at least, Vater. ;)

Vater has 177 credits? That's exactly my count too. So we're both tied at how much our opinions matter.

Suddenly I feel like a bran muffin.

182, dammit. I count traveling carnival coasters, and dueling coasters count as 2! My opinion is clearly 5 more valid than yours, Ensign.