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Roller Coaster Tycoon 4 discussion

I knew the mobile game would be disappointing (the screenshots, the graphical aesthetic felt too similar to Farmville and the obnoxious narration in the trailer). And I feel sorry for the people who blindly bought the game without waiting for reviews or engaging their eyes and brain.

I hope RCT4 is worthy of the RCT name. I'm quite content with RCT3 still (though it would be nice if the RCT3 forums here would be more bustling. The NoLimits forum looks great and NoLimits is a lot more technical on a Coaster Design Front). I won't be devastated if RCT4 is awful. I will just be disappointed.

Theme Park Studio is strange. It's still in development so I cannot be very harsh on it because things change. At this very moment and build it feels like a 3D painting/collage. You design your park with the currently available tools, but I can't see anything animated. It feels dead. It feels like building a park in pause mode. The UI of ThemePark studio is very clean and professional looking. Which means it's going to be a computer programme rather than a "game".
 
Omg Omg Omg. Can't wait to hear more. For me theme park studio and no limits are just too detailed for just some fun, I hope this new RCT basically just fixes where 3 went wrong. Online doesn't bother me but could be interesting.

I'll watch that video later.
 
I've had to go and lie down while my cynicism returned to normal levels enough for me to say "meh" :roll:
 
We've seen a Ferris wheel and some shops, but it does look very nicely done so far. I'm excited.

I hope it comes out on Steam as my laptop has no disc drive....
 
We haven't seen much so far...I'm not sure if that was real gameplay/graphics or just made for the trailer. If that is real, then great!

A little part of me thinks that they might screw this up and disappoint us, but I'm really hoping it turns out good. Excited to see more!
 
I hope they make it acceptable at the very least.
Sure we will still have RCT3 and its talented community of modders, but lets be frank. Look at RCT3 communities. They are stark. There's about 2 and a half of us on these forums. The last two contests were a very modest affair (the second to last contest never announced a winner).

We need a good RCT game to inject some fresh people into its fandom and reignite excitement.

NoLimits appeals more for the physicist and engineer side of coaster enthusiasm.
ThemePark studio is still coming along, and is a more accessible version of NoLimits with added Theme Park design (but no gameplay).

RCT has had a simplistic but decent enough coaster design system. Allows you to design parks. Has management aspects to it, and has gameplay. RCT has a wider appeal. I hope RCTW is good and is popular because I do RCT3 videos on my Youtube channel, and I would like to justify doing them more often.
I've been doing other videos, and those took much less effort to produce (even if one of them caused me chronic back pain for the next few days), and gets a lot more attention. I semi promote my RCT3 stuff and it gets decent views.

RCTW being popular and good (and me being good enough at it) could be a golden age for my channel. I know Youtubers who rocket up in popularity because they by chance produced topical content on a fresh release.
 
Don't forget that RCT3 was/is also a *pain in the ass* to play what with its framerate and load time issues. It's as bad as the Sims, only it's less fun to play and the modder community isn't as big or organized.

I really think the original two worked so well because of their simplicity. They were enough of a sandbox (despite the absence of any actual sandbox mode) that we could really run wild with them. RCT3 lacks RCT2's fluency of gameplay. It's just not as intuitive.

One of the biggest challenges with any amusement park game is that this industry changes way faster than the games can keep up. RCT2 was outdated almost instantly and now we have to resort to all sorts of complicated, difficult-to-grasp hacks and cheats and stuff. So I'd say one of the most important features for RCTW is EASY modding and cheating capabilities - something no game in the series has accomplished to the level of (I'll use the same example again) the Sims.

So I'm cautiously optimistic. We'll see what happens with Chris Sawyer completely removed from the process. This could be really dreadful or really good, or it could be really really unremarkable.
 
My problem I had with RCT3 was that it gave you less reason to use theming. Since a lot of the models had their unique appearances. Plonk down a lot of "Western Themed" rides, paint the floor sand and you can get away with a Western Looking park without planting any cacti.

Took me 7 years until I started using scenery. Then another 2 years to use it well.

What was stupid about RCT3 was that you got more land to play with when designing a Scenario that the actual Sandbox Mode.

I'm sure the pathing of the guests were stupid too. They weren't willing to walk miles for the bestest coaster. You had to coax them along by placing rides every few feet, like in Theme Park Inc. RCT2 didn't have this problem.

RCT2 had a lovely aesthetic (that was lost when it went into 3D. That's the nature of polygons), but you had much less tools. Less elements to play with and less tricks etc.

RCT3's terrain tool is powerful. Just it does weird things and you need to know workarounds to avoid being annoyed by it. Especially when you throw in paths. The tool isn't explained well and you have to use trial and error.

I thinked that you had infinity to do the criteria in the campaign mode of RCT3. It gave you freedom and no pressure. You can still mess things up by not managing money, but you didn't have to worry about getting 1400 visitors by the end of 5 years. I felt like the deadline meant you just built what gave the best money and not build what you wanted to build.
 
I hope you can build outside the confines of RCT3.
I tried building Dragon Khan from a POV and got confused when the Cobra Roll was in the wrong place.

I looked on Google Maps for its footprint, and saw that the bastard was in a triangle formation.
 
This video explains what you should expect from RCT4 and shows some screenshots. It all sounds very promising and most importantly, it is said that the coaster designer will be much more flexible than RCT3's.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk3auAhDcuM&list=UUkSWAX1wZBnWQyRHWn17W0w[/youtube]
 
So I got an email advertising the new website being online. Not much info or pics have been released but they've rebooted the community forum. Turns out they very recently changed the developer. Sounds like a drastic thing to do so close to the original release date which is now a 'early 2015'. After a little while of reading through the forums it has a lot of people worried that they'd change developer so late in the day and that there has been such a lack of pics and videos released when release is just around the corner.

Anyway here are the links for the site...

http://www.rollercoastertycoon.com/
Forums
 
This game being good will benefit me greatly. I would be able to start a side business of producing more regular video content around it.
 
Yeah, today's post has really intrigued me. I like that they're listening to the fans though and addressed the custom scenery. I also think it's interesting that they've said that there will be several free updates after release. Which I think is silly, would it not be better to just delay release rather than release an unfinished product?
 
Perhaps the free update will be additional content?
In this current gaming climate, if they can ship a game that actually works and functions by itself at launch, that's a win.

It's the age of digital distribution. I don't see anything wrong with free updates post launch if the game actually works without the free updates.

I hope this game is:
a) a good as it needs to be to replace RCT3 or offer a valid alternative.
b) sells enough so that the franchise doesn't go back into wilderness years ever again.
 
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