RCT Discussion / What would make a good "RCT like" game for you?

Lots of new games in development right now. All of them seem to be doing the same things. I think the main problem is they are going for the casual gamer.

We have no Limits, which is an all but perfect simulator. I'm not an architecture fanatic, but I know that there are highly sophisticated simulators in that field, or at least programs you can use. So if you merge those two your almost there. Program a few flat rides, add some okay looking peeps with half a brain and done. You would have a groundbreaking game.

So breaking it down you need to allow custom everything. Don't hold our hand. Have tutorials to help out, but in the end everything looks exactly the way the player wants

I'm more into the artistic/creation side of the game, vs management

Things Important to me:

- Powerful coaster editor (duh)

- Free flowing paths, can carve any shape.

- Wide variety of trees/shrubs/rocks

- Lots of building pieces for buildings.

- Good looking peeps

- Proper day night cycle, with good looking lights

Things not important to me:

- peep feedback

- park management features

- particle effects

- Scenarios

This stuff is off the top of my head, I'm sure I missed stuff and will think of more later 

Endless options, but in a UI that isn't imposing. This is why the first two games are so powerful. The ride options are moderate and scenery selection is huge, but the UI is built to make that not so daunting. RCT3 had way more of everything in a worse UI which made navigating said menus a nightmare. I should be able to fine-tune the kinds of path I want, whether tile-by-tile or free-form (like Hyper Rails and what we've seen of RCTW), including texture, border, width, curvature, or other shapes. Tree varieties should be endless and the trees themselves should be somewhere between RCT3 and NoLimits 2. Tons of bushes, shrubs, and flowers, with a sort of "zero clearance" on by default to allow heavy underbrush. Maybe divide it into "groomed" and "overgrown" and let people go through and add items to a palette for each scenery type, so they can hand-pick what they want to use for a project and not have to scroll through as much later. Robust coaster editor with FVD and geometry-based segment creation, followed by segment-specific smoothing (i.e. select an entire drop, smooth it to make it and pleasant force-wise as possible), or a simple 3D grid-based setup like RCT3 (but with the same smoothing options). Allow people to change between this "simple" and the "advanced" editor in settings. No more price micro-managing, but should still have staff micro-managing. Scenarios should get progressively more difficult while showing off to the player what the engine is capable of. RCT3 did an okay job at this early on with the scenery tools but got pretty boring later on. RCT1 is still the king of this. Proper day/night cycle with scalable speed so we don't have shadows speeding across the landscape at the speed of sound. For architecture/building scenery, I'm tempted to say a Sims 3/Sims 4 system would be nice. Snap details, windows and doors to walls, with near-infinite choice for everything. This would cut down on the need for custom content support (but it should still be there - the devs could never think of everything) while letting all parks look different, which is why RCT1 and 2 without CSO still looks so diverse, while RCT3 without CSO all looks the same (green, flat, tons of trees, maybe a western theme). No multiplayer; if anything, have parks "next" to each other like that Sim City game, and let people view other parks from within the game, but no overlapping building modes. Tons of flat rides is nice, RCT3 already has this down. Custom flat rides aren't a big deal to me.

Things not important to me:

- peep feedback

- park management features

- particle effects

- Scenarios

This is the main problem with what this community wants and what it will get.

With the exception of particle effects any RCT without these won't really happen. 

The thing is this community doesn't want an RCT game. it wants a park simulator. 

These things are what the games need as a game, they're what the public want.

As a community we take up probably less than 0.001% of the sales base for these games.

Basically we need a game with all of these things. but with the ability to be more of a park simulation. which is what 1 and 2 nailed fairly well. 

What people forget is most of the stuff we use in RCT2 today was fan made. Almost all of the scenery we take for granted was built by the community. 

What we need is a good base game we can add our own stuff to. And while people are complaining about the RCTW developers hoping the community will add most stuff. It's not entirely a bad thing for us. 

Honestly, RCT2 with a more advanced coaster editor would be fine with me.  That is often the thing that gives me the most difficulty within the game when trying to make a realistic park.  Maybe an advanced/updated UI and integrated ParkData and custom scenery creator tool as well.  

A lot of these things are in the plans for OpenRCT2 however, except for maybe the coaster editor.  Honestly I would probably be happy with that if it is able to be a 100% replacement of RCT2, which could be a year or so if not less.

Something that is sprite-based could never have any system more complex than the one it already has. Another 10+ track sprites per coaster type would have been nice, though (larger corkscrews, zero-G rolls, more banking transitions...).

Could you have more diagonal pieces with a sprite based system? Like diagonal loops and stuff?

With the exception of particle effects any RCT without these won't really happen. 

The thing is this community doesn't want an RCT game. it wants a park simulator. 

These things are what the games need as a game, they're what the public want.

As a community we take up probably less than 0.001% of the sales base for these games.

I think there would be more interest for a game of that caliber than what your implying. Our site is pretty big, plus tpr the redit, shuyguys world, and lots of other smaller forums. I found a tiny rct2 community on a kenx building site. Plus everybody from the rct3 camp, no limits community. And then I think you might attract a few casual gamers as well. When I first picked up rct I though my parks were perfect, amazing game. But eventually I improved, found this site, and it changed the way I play. The point Im trying to make here, It may be as high as a 50/50 split between casual gamers and serious ones. If not I think its at least a 25/75 splt. That's not bad really

Of course I have no actual numbers to back this up, just collecting my thoughts

Could you have more diagonal pieces with a sprite based system? Like diagonal loops and stuff?

 

 

 

I think there would be more interest for a game of that caliber than what your implying. Our site is pretty big, plus tpr the redit, shuyguys world, and lots of other smaller forums. I found a tiny rct2 community on a kenx building site. Plus everybody from the rct3 camp, no limits community. And then I think you might attract a few casual gamers as well. When I first picked up rct I though my parks were perfect, amazing game. But eventually I improved, found this site, and it changed the way I play. The point Im trying to make here, It may be as high as a 50/50 split between casual gamers and serious ones. If not I think its at least a 25/75 splt. That's not bad really

 

Of course I have no actual numbers to back this up, just collecting my thoughts

I think you are over estimating the size of our communities. It's not too tough to estimate the numbers either with a little research

NE has about 5000 members

Shyguy has 7000

TPR had 50,000

I can't imagine Knex and No Limits have as many as TPR and a lot of members will be members on all or at least two of those but say for example it is 50k each and each member is unique and every member is still active (clearly not the case)

That's 162,000 members max. 

RCT has sold 9,000,0000 copies overall. (again many of those will be the same people but for estimating its alright)

Even with that optimistic measure of community size it still only accounts for 1.8%. 

I have 1,000,000 copies of RCT myself, so when you take that into consideration we make up at least 13%

downloading it 1,000,000 times doesnt count Louis

Guess your right, with those numbers even if you attracted new people you couldn't compare.to 9,000,000 copies. I see your point

I have 4 copies of it in my shop if that counts for anything??

Ne only has like >500 active members anyway, if we wanted to cut down some orders of magnitude