Iron Dragon VR

We got to try VR on Monday and thought it was a great experience. The story was good and loved how it brought some energy back into a otherwise ho-hum ride. The only thing missing was sound. If CP ever does make Iron Dragon completely VR, I just wonder about the significant drop in capacity. Im sure it would get much better than it was in beta testing, but would still not be overly efficient.

Overall, I give Iron Dragon VR a 7 out of 10. Only drawbacks were the lack of sound and lack of capacity.

My husband, 15yo daughter and I tried this twice over the weekend. I can say I really enjoyed the story line. It definitely added to the ride. The first time went very smoothly minus the wait for the protein spill clean up from the previous group. The second time, they had to reset our car. The video was at the end instead of the beginning. We had to get back out of the car and they had to push some button in the car. Then we had to get back in and the video was then reset. My daughter did experience some mild vertigo but was fine. They were cleaning the headsets with wipes that we use for sanitizing at the hospital I work at so I felt comfortable wearing the VR headset without concerns of pinkeye ect. I do wish there was a way to vent the headset. They did get very hot in the heat. I also think having sound would add that much more to it but the sounds of the coaster went well with it. I am interested to see how this all plays out though. Overall a very fun experience and am glad we got to do it.

Buddy and I rode it a week ago. Loved it! Can't believe I just said that about Iron Dragon. While waiting in line to ride, it was strange to hear people screaming while they were riding and actually cheering when they came back into the station. It no longer felt like a boring roller coaster but felt like a pretty fun simulator ride. A little better graphics and sound would really make this a great ride....maybe not a great coaster, but still a fun ride.

This was part of the news yesterday of things to come at Cedar Point. One of the things mentioned was Iron Dragon VR will be returning for 2017! http://cpfansite.com/2017/02/lots-of-new-announcements-at-winter-chill-out-2017/] I'm excited about this news!

Any news if they will be adding sound to the experience?

I'm not sure, but you never know. Maybe somebody else on here knows.

So is everyone excited about Iron Dragon VR returning? Nobody really posted about it.

I'm sorry, I still just don't get it. If the physical experience is so uninteresting it needs to be enhanced with VR, well, why bother in the first place? It's like going to a movie and wearing a VR headset showing a different movie.

VR has its uses and great possibilities. I just don't get it in the context of coasters....

I think it's the other way around, really. I think the idea is that they can make a VR simulation, but rather than "experiencing" it while sitting in a chair, you're actually in motion that matches the VR environment. So they're using a roller coaster to enhance that experience.

With that said... I may ride it once just to do it, but I don't anticipate I'll be waiting extra time for the VR experience.

I've only done VR on Iron Dragon, thus I can't speak for any of the Six Flags efforts.

Without VR it is a ride I enjoy and would ride a few times a year with my daughter.

With VR, it becomes more immersive and tries to approach a Disney/Universal level of story-telling for a coaster. It was better than I expected.

The riders per hour will drastically change with VR. But after a certain time, the line for Iron Dragon isn't all that long anyway.

My son loves marathoning Iron Dragon at night when there is no lines. This is gonna throw a wrench in those plans. But I'm hoping he'll be up for some bigger rides this year so we will have more selection anyway.

I'm going to join the page of "I don't get why you want to do that" on a thrill ride. I get that it may be a new way to bring excitement to a ride that has failing popularity, but I'm also not the customer that is going to walk past Iron Dragon telling my friends how "lame" it is.

Without the VR, I would never ride Iron Dragon. The VR actually made this ride really fun. People were actually screaming on it and clapping at the end. I will definitely ride it once or twice per year. Sound would make it pretty awesome though.

I really enjoyed Iron Dragon's VR when I got the chance to ride it last season, and I'm looking forward to it coming back. I almost see this as the same category as the universal-like simulator rides (Back to the Future), except this provides better feelings of the motion than the simulator rides.

Don't forget that when you're riding with VR, the only visual cues you're getting are from the program itself, so by manipulating these visual cues the program can make each drop feel larger or the ride itself feel faster, all without any actual changes to the ride's physical movements. In essence, with VR you are totally relying on the program's visual cues to tell you where you are going, and when they amplify the ride's movements by manipulating the visual cues, you end up getting an incredibly real sense of heightened movement and speed. For example, in Iron Dragon's program the first drop is seen by the riders as an incredibly deep cave; when the drop begins, the program amplifies the perceived speed through manipulation of the visual cues, thus making the drop feel much larger than it actually is. I personally rode it two or three times, and I thought it really enhanced the ride experience and made it much more thrilling. Unfortunately, I see two issues; capacity is obviously the major one, but I also feel that the resolution of the headset itself is awfully poor (mainly since they're using cell phones for the screen), and it ends up detracting from the realism by a bit. Put me in the "awesome, but needs some logistical and technical improvements" category.

On the subject of VR's future, I think that if the technology develops more, it would be quite fascinating to see it used on Gemini, both to enhance the whole space aspect of that ride and to improve the ride experience if only one track is running. You could be racing through the stars against a rival spaceship (if both tracks are running) or even a computer-controlled comet (if only one track is running); that way, the race is still exciting regardless of the number of tracks running. Of course, the logistical nightmares that come with running up to 60 headsets per cycle is something to keep in mind. The possibilities for VR are truly endless, and personally I can't wait to see what happens. Like Sam said above, this new technology really does seem like the natural outgrowth of the 90's simulator era, and I hope that the aforementioned capacity and technological issues don't doom its future in the business.

If any ride needs VR, it's Millennium Force!

VR is cool and all, but it really should only be used on unpopular or overlooked coasters. That's why Six Flags has the right idea when they put it on Vekoma SLCs.

Sadly, they also put it on New Revolution (a better ride since the OTSRs came off), Superman at SFNE (thank the Lord they stopped that), and now for this year, Medusa Steel Coaster at SF Mexico (an RMC and a star attraction of the park.) They also considered putting it on Raging Bull at SFGAm before coming to their senses and using Demon instead.

It ruins the capacity something fierce. That's why Iron Dragon only ran one train at the VR tests - if it ran 2, the second train would be stacked for several minutes. Revolution ran 2 trains for its VR when I rode in 2016, but we were left sitting in the sun for quite a while while they got the next train ready.

I do think Iron Dragon is a good candidate. It gives it more of a role in the lineup, because it lost its former role as a larger coaster with a low height restriction when they bumped the restriction to 48".

Other good candidates at CP are Corkscrew (it might be rough, but Six Flags does it on Vekoma SLCs and SFStL's infamously bad Ninja Arrow/Vekoma hybrid monstrosity), CCMR (although the restraints could use some work, right now it's best to see where you're going to brace), and if it still existed, Mean Streak actually could have been a decent VR coaster if the headsets could survive vibration.

We ran 2 trains for testing and that will return in '17. The capacity doesn't take such a hit that 2 trains are an issue.

GigaG said:

VR is cool and all, but it really should only be used on unpopular or overlooked coasters. That's why Six Flags has the right idea when they put it on Vekoma SLCs.

That's why they chose Iron Dragon and not Maverick.