Star Wars Land announced for Disney's Hollywood Studios

[MisterPenguin]

The way this is setup would make for some real awkwardness if you can crash the ship early. An attraction like this needs to have a fixed ride time and having this effectively be a video game rendered in real time makes this increasingly difficult. I wonder if the solution would be to have the simulation start over again if you crash?

That's unlikely given the fixed time parameter. If it's a six minute 'ride' and you crash at four minutes, then the remaining two minutes is too short to start again and too long to sit there idly waiting to be let out.

 

[DanielBB8]

“Anyone who thinks that at this point they have a finished product doesn't know anything about computer game development.”

They always need more time and they’re never really finished.

 

[MisterPenguin]

“Anyone who thinks that at this point they have a finished product doesn't know anything about computer game development.”

They always need more time and they’re never really finished.

Well, there is the "broken" v. "barely playable" hurdle that must be crossed.

 

[PizzaPlanet]

Easy solution: make it so you can't screw up so badly that it ends the experience. If they thought it was acceptable for guests to miss out on a majority of the ride experience because they failed at something they've never done before, that's ridiculous. Could you imagine the frustration if grandma ended the ride early for everyone? And let's not forget we're talking about people who have waited 5+ hours in line.

 

[djkidkaz]

I’m thinking this is more mission space than anything. Your going to have grandparents, kids, people who don’t speak the same language and whatever else all doing this. It’s probably just some buttons you can press that do things to the movie your watching. Oh seat 6 hit the yellow switch above them and shot the special laser cannon. If you do your seats task too early or too late at the end of the 6 minutes you get the “crashed the falcon ending”, if you make minimal mistakes you get the “landed the falcon ending”.

 

[sedati]

Well, at some point you are divided up into groups of six. Now, what if seats aren't chosen randomly, but there is some sort of activity/test in the preshow that determines who gets to be pilot, gunner, shields, etc? Then the better positions aren't claimed, but earned. An early aptitude test could also guage the entire group to give the ride a starting level of difficulty- easy/medium/hard.

Looking forward to when someone sits down in the Falcon and executes the Konami maneuver: up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Start.

 

[Casper Gutman]

Right, what I took from their reporting is that the product presented during the initial test-plays still requires calibration to skew the experience towards the "fun" side as opposed to the "challenging" side.

Per the podcast, the primary frustrations are stemming from the [lack of] skills of other passengers in cooperation-based activities, rather than the attraction's software/programming/etc. They predict that these issues would become even more problematic if riders don't speak the same language.

All part of the fun of developing the attraction.

This all seems really, really predictable.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I feel pretty firmly that the move towards “interactivity” in theme park attractions is foolish and counterproductive. As several posters here have indicated, any real interactivity requires the possibility of failure, and failure isn’t an allowable outcome in a theme park ride, either from an operational standpoint (do guests stare at a Game Over screen for three minutes?) or in relation to guest satisfaction. Theme Park interactivity also needs to cover an almost impossibly large range of skill levels. In the end, you are largely restricted to basically meaningless button pushing.

On a deeper level, “interactivity” isn’t really desirable in theme park attractions as they exist today. By their nature, theme park rides are more akin to cinema then video games. This is pretty obvious in the wide range of rides that are variations on the “sit in front of a screen” model - flight simulators, screen based dark rides, etc. Even non-screen-based rides, however, work better when they adopt certain cinematic principles, physically moving the viewer rather than moving the camera. Think of the carefully constructed impact of the reveal of the Splash Mountains showboat scene or the sea battle in Pirates.

If we must have interactivity in our theme parks, the most fruitful model seems to be Knotts Ghost Town Alive. That kind of mass LARPing is the sort of thing that could fit neatly in immersive IP lands like SWL, and Disney has been developing the tech to facilitate complex role playing in this mold.

All this is a long-winded way to say that, while I am really excited for SWL, the MF ride has always seemed to have fundamental problems stemming from the rush to “interactivity” rather then a focus on simple, strong, cinematic storytelling.

 

[Old Mouseketeer]

Jim Hill's sources are all dead or retired.
In other words - he doesn't know anything.

So is his ex-wife's married Imagineer. Oh, did I say that out loud?

 

[DisneyDodo]

I’m thinking this is more mission space than anything. Your going to have grandparents, kids, people who don’t speak the same language and whatever else all doing this. It’s probably just some buttons you can press that do things to the movie your watching. Oh seat 6 hit the yellow switch above them and shot the special laser cannon. If you do your seats task too early or too late at the end of the 6 minutes you get the “crashed the falcon ending”, if you make minimal mistakes you get the “landed the falcon ending”.

I think this is the only way to do it. Mistakes by the participants may have immediate adverse affects like crashing into something, but the ship will continue to move. Only at the very end of the ride can you experience “fatal” consequences.

 

[Goofyernmost]

I think this is the only way to do it. Mistakes by the participants may have immediate adverse affects like crashing into something, but the ship will continue to move. Only at the very end of the ride can you experience “fatal” consequences.

That would go over like a pay toilet in a diarrhea ward.

Spoiler: OR

a screen door in a submarine.

 

[Purduevian]

It sounds like the current version of the ride/game requires all 6 people to be coordinating. Does this mean there will be a single rider line for this attraction? With a family of 5, without a single rider line, it would be pretty difficult to find 1 person willing to join our cockpit and leave their friends/family after a 3+ hour wait.

 

[SpoiledBlueMilk]

I'm sure Disney recognizes the limitations of cooperation when you force 5 potential strangers to try to work together. The last thing they want is the bad press from angry guests who were forced to wait 270 minutes for a frustrating experience that they were intended to enjoy. This sounds like early beta testing. There is still a long way to go....

 

[drod1985]

Wouldn't a simple solution be that in the first few moments of the ride there is a sort of attentiveness test. Whichever passengers exhibit active play remain active, and those who don't... don't and are overridden with AI.

The simplest solution is to just not allow the ride to end no matter what the participants are doing. If they all blow it then the ship is wrecked by the end of the ride and you get yelled at by Chewie. If everybody does great then you celebrate at the end. These results also play into your in-world RPG style score that they've talked about.

I think this is the only way to do it. Mistakes by the participants may have immediate adverse affects like crashing into something, but the ship will continue to move. Only at the very end of the ride can you experience “fatal” consequences.

Exactly.

That would go over like a pay toilet in a diarrhea ward.

Spoiler: OR

a screen door in a submarine.

First, I immediately thought of the BTTF2 scene about the screen door/battleship/submarine. Second, why don't you think letting the ride come to completion regardless of the passengers' performance would work? I don't see any other simple way where this ride could be functional unless every single adventure ended no matter what. The end result could be different, but the duration must always be the same.

 

[Goofyernmost]

The simplest solution is to just not allow the ride to end no matter what the participants are doing. If they all blow it then the ship is wrecked by the end of the ride and you get yelled at by Chewie. If everybody does great then you celebrate at the end. These results also play into your in-world RPG style score that they've talked about.

First, I immediately thought of the BTTF2 scene about the screen door/battleship/submarine. Second, why don't you think letting the ride come to completion regardless of the passengers' performance would work? I don't see any other simple way where this ride could be functional unless every single adventure ended no matter what. The end result could be different, but the duration must always be the same.

Because if anyone of six people screws up and makes the ship crash, 5 people are going to have been deprived of the full experience and another 6 hour wait in the queue would be required to reenter and try again. I wouldn't want to be the screw up in that particular pod, would you?

The reality end to a mistake leading to a crash is death. I can think of nothing more fun the being declared dead on a fun theme park ride that you spent more time in line then anyone should have too. I have no idea what the plan is or how it will work, but, I feel really confident in saying that this will not be how it works. You may bounce off a meteor and therefore fail in your objective, but, you will remain in the hunt until it is over, just no medal of honor for you. Cause you and your crew were complete and utter failures. Wow, I'm going to leave that attraction with a lot of warm fuzzy's.

 

[SpoiledBlueMilk]

Saw this posted on the Star Wars Leaks reddit. Looks like Disneyland is getting some Falcon elements installed - the seats in the lounge. Not sure if this is for the ride or the Falcon itself.

 

[Master Yoda]

Because if anyone of six people screws up and makes the ship crash, 5 people are going to have been deprived of the full experience and another 6 hour wait in the queue would be required to reenter and try again. I wouldn't want to be the screw up in that particular pod, would you?

The reality end to a mistake leading to a crash is death. I can think of nothing more fun the being declared dead on a fun theme park ride that you spent more time in line then anyone should have too. I have no idea what the plan is or how it will work, but, I feel really confident in saying that this will not be how it works. You may bounce off a meteor and therefore fail in your objective, but, you will remain in the hunt until it is over, just no medal of honor for you. Cause you and your crew were complete and utter failures. Wow, I'm going to leave that attraction with a lot of warm fuzzy's.

My gut is telling me that a worst case scenario will be a very ticked off Rey or Chewbacca scolding you for wrecking their ship.

 

[PorterRedkey]

Couldn't the choices be binary?

If position 1 completes the task correctly "A" happens, if they don't then "B" happens. "A" and "B" would not be a complete crash or ship failure, just different paths (scenes/dilemmas). Same for positions 2-6.

This could lead to many different outcomes depending on the actions completed correctly/incorrectly. Its a real-time simulator for a reason.

 

[drod1985]

Because if anyone of six people screws up and makes the ship crash, 5 people are going to have been deprived of the full experience and another 6 hour wait in the queue would be required to reenter and try again. I wouldn't want to be the screw up in that particular pod, would you?

The reality end to a mistake leading to a crash is death. I can think of nothing more fun the being declared dead on a fun theme park ride that you spent more time in line then anyone should have too. I have no idea what the plan is or how it will work, but, I feel really confident in saying that this will not be how it works. You may bounce off a meteor and therefore fail in your objective, but, you will remain in the hunt until it is over, just no medal of honor for you. Cause you and your crew were complete and utter failures. Wow, I'm going to leave that attraction with a lot of warm fuzzy's.

Yeah, I don't think we're too far off in views here. I think it's going to be as @Master Yoda said - if the other crew members fail you still complete the ride, but there may be repercussions like Chewie or Rey being upset because you wrecked the Falcon. Nobody's getting declared dead, and nobody is being deprived of the full experience, you're just getting a different outcome. I can't foresee people being angry about that.

If anybody wants to take the ride that seriously then they better roll in six deep. Otherwise just have fun and do the best you can at your position.

 

[HauntedMansionFLA]

It sounds like the current version of the ride/game requires all 6 people to be coordinating. Does this mean there will be a single rider line for this attraction? With a family of 5, without a single rider line, it would be pretty difficult to find 1 person willing to join our cockpit and leave there friends/family after a 3+ hour wait.

Just like Pandora Flight Of Passage, there will not be a single rider.

 

[drod1985]

How do they handle filling in the gaps on FoP without a single rider line, just yell and ask for singles? I've been on it three times and I don't recall. I'm sure they try to max out every single ride session.