Theme Park Apprentice-Chatter Thread 2

The Lego rules are that if it has ever been a Lego product then you can use the IP. The one exception is the Lego Disney Castle with Lego Mickey, Goofy, Donald, etc. Other than that you can use whatever you can find in the annals of Lego history. Keep in mind Legoland is geared toward kids and the original IP holders will not allow anything similar to rides that have already been built....for instance, no Lego Star Tours...but feel free to do a ride for Lego Star Wars, Lego Pirates of the Carribean, Lego Ghostbusters, Lego Jurassic Park, Lego DC, Lego Marvel, etc. They have a ton of Lego games, movies, and boxed sets that you can choose from. Oh...and just for the sake of reality, don't intermingle characters sets from competing companies. For example, don't do a superhero land that has Iron Man chatting it up with Batman. They should be on opposite sides of the park...

Question? With Paramount pulling out of the London park, how will that impact the use of the Paramount IPs in Orlando? Asking for a friend of mine.

It won't...play it as if they pulled out of the London park because "your friend's" park was so much better...

Just curious, is there a reason the superhero's can't intermingle? Part of what makes Lego fun is mashing IP's together and using your imagination to mix them all together. It was part of the whole premise of The Lego movie. If we can't have them fight, can we put them in the same general area but opposite sides?

All posted! And leaving for the real Orlando in a few hours! Good luck everyone!

Congrats on a beautiful park, DPCC, and a wonderful Tournament!

Have a great trip to Orlando!

@Blake because Disney and Warners would put it in a contract that they are not allowed to mix. I realize that Lego gets a lot of IP passes, but DC and Marvel are so dependent on their brand identity that they would not allow confusion to creep in like that.

Judges and fellow Competitors,

I probably should have posted this a couple days ago, but I decided to wait on it in the hopes that my situation would change. Unfortunately, it has not. Due to a number of events outside of my control, I have had almost no time to work on my proposal for Challenge 5, and as of this writing it stands at approximately 20% complete. Rather than scramble to post a rushed proposal I am unhappy with, and as I feel any time extension would be unfair to request this close to the deadline, I am making the extremely difficult decision to withdraw from the Tournament of Champions. I sincerely apologize that I must do this, as I know it is disappointing for everyone, but at this time I don't feel there is another option.

I will avoid an extended description of my situation, but here is a brief overview of what is going on. In the past couple weeks, I have seen my workload increase by about 70%. This is largely due to staff shortages at my place of employment, and while I don't mind the extra work it has significantly reduced the amount of free time I have available. Unfortunately, it has also coincided with a period when my brother is visiting from out of state and other family events are going on (both previously planned and unplanned). In addition, I had a sudden medical issue come up about a week and a half ago that required urgent attention (nothing serious, just time consuming), and we lost a family pet a couple days ago. It has been a lot to deal with, and unfortunately this competition had to give.

Once again, I'm sorry that I must withdraw, but I hope you all understand why I've made this decision. If time permits, I'll attempt to finish my proposal and post it as an unofficial submission, but I can't promise anything.

Blake, Chad, Douglas, and DPCC, it was great getting a chance to compete against you all, and thanks to the judges for creating a very challenging season of this game.

@AJ No worries about the competition. You're right if things had to give, it was this. I'm sure we would be interested in what you have put together once the smoke clears. Please let us know if there is anything we can help with, even an ear to talk to.

Thanks, Jeff. I think everything will be fine, I've just been caught in the middle of a perfect storm of events. I suspect everything will calm down over the next couple weeks, but I'll have to wait and see for sure.

I hate to start something and not finish, so if I have time over the next couple weeks I'll definitely get at least a rough draft of my park finished and post that in the challenge thread. Essentially, I was going for a next gen park that may or may not actually work, but if it did it would be an industry changer. Each area of the park would be a fully immersive themed area even more impressive than the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and rather than just enter the world guests would become a part of it. Some of the attractions are standard theme park affairs, while others are things seen as stand-alone tourist attractions but not yet seen as a permanent theme park (for example, an escape room). I also have a couple hybrid attractions...picture something like one of the Dungeon attractions, but with a continuous narrative throughout. I haven't decided 100% whether to go Disney or Universal (I more outlined what the major features of the park would be and then was trying to decide which IPs would work best within it), but I'm leaning toward Universal as I personally feel UO will be ready for a third park before WDW will be ready for a fifth (at least from an outsider perspective...my opinion may change after finally visiting Florida this fall).

AJ, this TOC has turned into a celebration of bad Karma. Life forced you out, life forced Chad out, life nearly forced Blake out, and last night life came down on me like a ton of bricks. What's important, though, is that through everything we're still friends and will be here for each other if and when needed. I realize that nearly all of my best, closest friends came about through TPI and TPA. I think we're all winners and friends, and TPA is just a silly little contest to make that happen.

Just to give folks an update on the next round of TPA for those not in the group email. At the moment I think I might be hosting.

The last draft of challenges sent around has a lot of variety and are intentionally written very broadly rather than with lots of little annoying rules - don't get me wrong, the challenges do have twists, but they should be very accessible and provide a lot of opportunity. We do allow Disney/Universal on some challenges - mandate it on a few too - but on others we mandate other parks to ensure you're thinking more broadly too. We also drew a little inspiration from TOC and take it out of the park.

Obviously I can't produce the draft here - that would be too easy - but if there's anything people particularly like or don't like in a challenge pleas do let us know here.

So, I'm not looking to impact judges rulings. I just want to explain Lemuria to make sure its really understood.

The judges so far have been right in saying that it's not a good fit for SeaWorld, and not what it needs to revive itself. I'm not going to defend that part of it, I'm going to defend it as a stand alone park. (I'm also not going to defend the choice Khandahar. That was a huge oversight and I appreciate that you pointed it out).

The focus of Lemuria isn't really on the rides. Which makes it a bad choice for SeaWorld, but, in a lot of ways, ushers in a new era for the theme park industry. In recent years, the most popular theme park lands have been designed not around rides, but around building places where you want to spend time. Harry Potter in IoA has only three rides, and Diagon Alley has only 2 (including Hogwarts Express). These lands are spectacular, though, because they are places you want to spend time. This is true of Pandora as well.

This is the goal of Lemuria. To allow guests to indulge themselves in the "local" culture, and experience a new place. It's a magical, majestic place where guests would want to stay all day even if they had ridden the rides.

I think the most shocking part of reading critiques was when my park was compared to a themed shopping mall. Having been at Disney Theme parks since Thursday, I think that Lemuria has an appropriate number of shops in comparison, and very very few theme park lands really have only 1-3 as is expected in this competition.

Okay, this got longer than I expected. I guess I'm standing in line and so time got away from me. I just wanted to say that Lemuria isn't about rides, and, while I agree it was a mistake to place it in SeaWorld, I stand by Lemuria as a good park. Not standard by any means, but still excellent.

Congratulations to Douglas for a well-deserved win!

There were talks of a TPA 9 in the summer and I was interested in joining. Is there any update on whether or not that will happen and if it is, when it will begin? Thanks!

Glad to hear there's excitement for TPA9. An announcement is incredibly imminent. I'd say in hopefully about a day or less! Stay tuned.

Sounds great thank you!

Congrats, Douglas. I knew going into this that you would be the one to beat and it looks like your reign is well and chiefly secured. I think you have the distinction of being the most decorated TPA player of all time. To all the other competitors, I was honored to have competed against such stalwart opposition. You are all pinnacle players and genuinely good and creative people.

To the judges, thank you for your dedication and work ethic in putting together this season. I know its taxing and difficult.

To all future competitors and judges, I encourage you to participate and enjoy TPA!