The Next X...

Terrain coaster, or not terrain coaster, the semantics hardly matter. The tought thing about X being built somewhere else is that the station is on a hill and most of the ride is not. A clone built on flat ground would have to have a station (guessing here) about 80 feet tall.

A clone wouldn't be so bad, for all the folks on the east coast who haven't been able to ride it. The ride certainly is amazing enough to draw crowds... for those who haven't ridden it, yes it's absolutely amazing! Thank goodness for Season Passholder preview days! 36 rides so far! And boy are my calves sore.

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Can't this thing go any faster?

CoasterBob-

Theoretically, the cost of the ride should go down if Arrow outsources the manufacturing. Other companies have built themselves around being able to manufacture steel products at cheap prices. Arrow can let multiple companies places bids on a new coaster project and then select the one with the best quality for the lowest price.

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James Draeger
http://draegs.livejournal.com
"Legend is a wooden Jesus"

X is not a Terrain Coaster. It can Be Put in any where. If you have ever seen the hill in real life its not big at all about 20ft tall same height AS BKF station. Actually its lower than that.

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Hart High. Indian Pride.

I imagine we might see another 4D ride in the next two or so years, but it will certainly be at a large park, as the cost of building one is prohibitive... a HUGE drawback!  However, the crowds would obviously skyrocket at whatever park it was built at, and with that, increased revenue.  I could see one being built at SFA or BGT.   The other thing we might see could be a design by a company, perhaps Morgan, who emulates the better parts of the ride and places them within their own designs.  Can you imagine Phantoms Revenge as a 4D?  Hooooooooo.....
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Check out my website!

In response to IntaminAG:

I call Millennium Force and Magnum your not so average everyday rollercoaster.  And I call Wicked Twister a freakishly weird impulse( Which looks wicked!!)  Sorry, corny joke there....

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IntaminAG1@school said:

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So what do you call Millennium Force, Magnum, and Wicked Twister?
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Hart High. Indian Pride.

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Magnum and MF were just taller versions of other coasters, and WT is stretching it if it was the first not fifth impulse ever i could see your point.

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I think that if Arrow Dynamics is going to go under. I think that they should sell the patent rights so that another roller coaster company would be able to let the 4th Dimension be built all accross the country and world for everyone to experience. I dont believe that having to travel 4000 miles just to ride a one of a kind ride just because the company was to stingy to sell the patent right would be good. I think that everyone should be allowed to ride that ride one time in there life. It looks like something that people would enjoy.

Not after that media day.

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X should have been named XXX

To put all this clone speak in another perspective....

Commonization=Profit

I work at an auto manufacturer. Do you think we build a different vehicle for each state?? No way. The only thing we have to change is emissions stuff for California and the Northeast. Having to engineer and stock two different exhaust systems costs twice as much as having one.
Our management is maniacal about reducing the number of unique parts between vehicles. I've had cool product suggestions shot down, just because it would add a couple more part numbers into the mix.

Applying this to the coaster biz, it makes perfect sense not only to build clones, but to name them similarly as well. As SF, all I have to do is pay for the design of one "Batman - Six Flags" T-shirt, and I can print, send, market, and sell that sucker at multiple places all over the country.

It's all about economies of scale. Let's use my T-shirt example. Say it costs me $100 to draw up the artwork and create the silk screens for my design. If I sell 100 T-shirts, I need a buck from each to recover my "tooling" costs. If I can sell 10,000 shirts, I can spread that out to a penny a shirt. If I assume the same selling price in both instances, the 10,000 unit run is an extra 99 cents per shirt of PURE PROFIT.

Six Flags' cloning/naming doesn't seem so stupid, does it???

Later,
EV
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"Just remember, wherever you go, there you are." - Buckaroo Banzai

It's only stupid to enthusiasts, who think everything needs to be built for their tastes and satisfaction only. Nobody else gives a flying Reptar. In fact, if you were to show the average park goer X in action, are they really going to say, "yeah it looks nice, but for my park I want an original design from Arrow Dynamics only longer, with more Raven turns and better capacity". If only.  What your MUCH more likely to hear is, "I want to ride THAT coaster, period".
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"Conviction is a luxury for those who sit on the sidelines"-A Beautiful Mind(best film of 2001)

Ah, the great clone debate.  Six Flags parks aren't destination parks, period.  They're part of a regional theme park chain.  It benefits places like Disney World and IOA to have unique rides, because the parks aren't within a day's driving distance of 80% of the country (or whatever Six Flags likes to boast).  They want to have something that no one else has, because they want people to visit from across the country (and world).  Six Flags, however, is pretty much everywhere.  All they need is a popular ride to keep profits up.  Six Flags also isn't interested in competing with itself.

So, until Six Flags decides to make Magic Mountain, or any other park a true destination park, you'll generally see clones.