Meet The Team and Q&A - Richard Newbold

[Richard Newbold]

Hey everyone! Can I say that you’ve put together some fantastic questions but I won’t be able to get through all of them, but I’ll do the best I can!

 

[Richard Newbold]

We are speculating on the suggestions forum about the ability to get flat rides and attractions with a modular system build. Of course, it's amazing to get attractions with different themes but sometimes we would like to get the same basic ride to build it on different situations or scenarios. There's gonna be the option to change the theme of certain rides? Like fances, lights, colours or objects like the "central Statue"?

We’re hoping to allow you a bunch of different customisation options such as adjusting the colour of your ride, the ride sequence, fence types, queue wait times and the lights on the rides. All of which should allow you to place 2 identical rides and customise them so they end up looking and feeling different in your parks.

 

[Palaber1984]

Hey everyone! Can I say that you’ve put together some fantastic questions but I won’t be able to get through all of them, but I’ll do the best I can!

Sure. I thought myself that you couldnt. Because to early for all information?! XD

 

[Richard Newbold]

1. Can you give us any details on the que lines in game? Will we see hour waits, and the ability to in any way micro manage the que lines?

2. What about the UI? What direction are you all going with the UI, will it be Metro, clean and simple or something else?

3. Like a few others above, can you shed some light on how we will be able to build things in general, do all things have a modular system that we can build and add too, to make things the way we want or are they going to be single items we just plop down?

1. We’re currently targeting the ability for you to adjust your queue width, look and feel and wait times.
2. We’re targeting a very clean and simple UI. The game is going to be full of lots of functionality, customisation and options and data being reported back to you so we want to make sure that you can see and access all those things easily.
3. We’re going to have both! There’ll be lots of scenery pieces and decorations that can you use the modular system to construct with and some standalone scenery objects that you can place in your parks. There's going to be more information about this in the upcoming dev diary. #spoilers

 

[Richard Newbold]

Out of all the features of the game that have yet to be showcased, which one are you most excited to see shared with the community?

That’s a crafty question darkhorizon! There's loads of awesome features that we're working on that I'm excited to share. Our landscape sculpting is amazing and modular building is really powerful. It won't be too long before we'll be able to share some of that with you. (And of course, Chief Beef!)

 

[Richard Newbold]

1) You are a simulation nerd? Great! We know you are aiming for us to be able to have 20k guests in our parks, but I was wondering: part of RCT 1/2/3's sim is that you don't have "that many" guests so they stay like 2-3 hours max in your park and wait for 1-5 minutes for a ride, but how will it work in PC, since there are many more guests? It may break the sim if we have them waiting 45 minutes for a ride, so how are you planning all these capacity/time sim thing? Will we have our games on 3x speed most of the time? I'm not sure it would be great for immersion... (but I'm loving the fact that we will have "true" guests numbers and not ridiculous ones!)

2) Are you planning to do some "interior rides"? I know you may not be able to announce Something thise early, but a lot of people are looking forward to build (and design?) big "interior" rides that aren't only dark rides: think of Toy Story Mania, Soarin', walkthroughs... and dark rides, obviously!

1. We’re aware that we need to make sure the park sim operates under the conditions of such a large crowd. Of course, the park population is heavily determined by what the player has placed in their park to start with, and it is crucial to balance the influx of guests sensibly based on the park contents and ride capacities. The simulation is powerful enough to support very large crowds, but attracting them into a park in the first place is going to be a challenge for the players.
2. Interior rides are exciting to the team and something we'd like to do but we're not sure if we have time to do in the initial release.

 

[Richard Newbold]

1. I know this is early on, but how do you expect the sharing of rides/coasters features to work? Or what be ideal in your mind?
2. What number are you aiming for in number of simulated guests in a park?
3. Any chance we will see rides or coasters that do not exist in the real world and are just 100% imagination. Or are you guys going for realism of following coasters/rides that already exist.

1. You’ll be able to share your amusement rides and coasters with other members of the community including customisation options and coaster layouts.
2. It’s hard to provide an exact number at this point but we’re talking thousands.
3. We’re currently basing our rides on real world examples. The coaster track technology is based on the real world but you'll be able to combine these in game with landscape sculpting and modular building to come up with whatever your imagination invents.

 

[Richard Newbold]

The question I have is one that's been speculated a lot around here - custom content, will we be able to make and integrate it into Planet Coaster? Over a decade after RCT3 was released, and the game continues to grow with custom scenery, rides and now even tracks. With the promise that PC will be a game to last, is this part of what was meant by that?

With Planet Coaster, we're offering user-generated content in the box. We'll be providing you with hundreds of individual decorative components that you can use in the modular building system to create some truly spectacular and unique things. By doing this, we'll provide you with creative options that you've never had before to create your perfect park.

We’re going to provide you with the ability to share your creations from inside Planet Coaster with other members of the community.

 

[Richard Newbold]

Already thanks for the work that you guys are doing! We believe in you!
So some questions (made by a friend call ANGELIS^^):

Question 1 - Buildings like Restaurants, Shops and Hotels :
- 1-1 : Is it possible to have more information on how we can build our own buildings ?
- 1-2 : Will it bepossible to build a real restaurant or souvenir shop rather than "stalls" ?
- 1-3 : Will it be also possible to build hotels to create resorts like Disneyland ?

Question 2 - Modular building and sharing :
- 2-1 : Will it be possible to create modular structures (for buildings or rides) ?
- 2-2 : If so, can we share them with other players via a specific platform ?
- 2-3 : If so, will it be possible to build structures designed by other players in our games ?

Question 3 - Darkrides :
- 3-1 : The darkrides being the most present ride type in big theme parks. Will you have a special attention with the development of a tool which allows us to create them ?
- 3-2 : If so, would it be possible to add our own textures inside?
- 3-3 : If so, Did "animatronics" are elements you want to include ?

Question 4 - Transports :
- 4-1 : Are transports will be available like little trains, monorail, shuttle bus, tramway ?
- 4-2 : If so, will they be considered by visitors as a real transport, such as ride, or both ?

Question 5 - Around the world :
- 5-1 : The game is called "Planet Coaster". Will it be possible to build theme parks in several places on the planet ?
- 5-2 : If so, does the weather have a role to play ?
- 5-3 : If so, does the seasons will have a particular impact ?

Question 6 - Our suggestions and ideas :
- 6-1 : The forum has a category "Suggestions and Ideas" very active. Is suggestions were accepted and will be incorporated into the game ?
- 6-2 : If so, can we know which one(s) ?

Question 7 - Music :
- So no question about soundtrack of the game...
- So can you tell us something about music/sound in the game that we have to know?

Hey buddy! That’s not just 1 question, nor 7, but 18! A bit cheeky! I’ll answer a couple and then move on so that I can get to the other people.

Question 2 - Modular building and sharing :

- 2-1 : Will it be possible to create modular structures (for buildings or rides) ?

You’ll be able to use the modular building system to build infinite creations. We’ll provide you with building blocks and we’re all excited to see what you all create. The most special aspect of this is the integration with rides, paths, coasters, shops and facilities. We're itching to reveal our next dev diary to show you why it's so special.

Question 5 - Around the world :

- 5-1 : The game is called "Planet Coaster". Will it be possible to build theme parks in several places on the planet ?

Yes, you’ll be able to build your theme parks in various places on the planet in different settings.

 

[Richard Newbold]

A) Will there be a spline based coaster editor in the game?
B) Will User-Generated Content be incorporated into the game?
C) How many coaster types are going to be in the game?
D) Will there be restaurants and gift shops?
E) What is your favorite feature in Planet Coaster?
F) Will we be able to import custom music and pictures into the game similar to speakers and billboards in RCT3?

Thanks for all the hard work you and Frontier are doing on Planet Coaster!!!

A) Our coaster system will be piece by piece rather than spline based to allow you to have a high level of fidelity on your coaster creations.
B) As mentioned before, we’ll be providing the ability for you to share your creations in-game with the rest of the Planet Coaster community. We’re offering hundreds of artist authored wall pieces, windows, sculptures, fountains and animated decorative items for you to combine in any way you can imagine. The quality and consistency we believe offers the perfect toolset for building perfect parks.
C) We’re offering a large number of varied coaster types but I’m not able to say how many at this point.
D) You’ll see more about how you’ll be able to use shops and facilities in conjunction with scenery to suit your needs
E) Currently it’s the path and landscape sculpting tools, they’re really powerful and allow me to make some really cool things.
F) It’s a great idea but right now, it’s not on the plan for the initial release.

 

[Richard Newbold]

Will Planet Coaster have any kind of particle editor? If so, will it have a mixmaster to help synchronize those effects to music? And if yes to that, will we have the ability to use ride triggers to synchronize a particle effect sequence using a tracked ride?

We all loved using the Fireworks Editor and it's on the list but we're not sure it'll be in the initial release. We have a huge list of features and content that goes beyond our release date. We want Planet Coaster to be the biggest and best theme park experience and we won't stop until it is.

 

[Richard Newbold]

Hello Richard! As you are producer: can you say how big is the team working on Planet Coaster? How many animators and programmers are working on it? Are there other field of responsabilties for creating this game I didn´t mention, if yes, can you name them please [noob]

This big! (taken just now)

View attachment 43

We've got a huge team of talented people on the project. Animators, programmers, designers, audio designers, artists, GUI, QA, producers and all the other talented support groups not in the shot at Frontier like Tech, HR, Marketing, Community and Customer Support.

 

[Richard Newbold]

I ask something no asked before.

Can you say something about creating environment and water physics?

Yes but not at this moment in time. [happy]

 

[Richard Newbold]

Can I just ask some more questions?

A) So far we've seen two types of rides customization: colors and moveset. Should we also expect different themings to apply to every single attraction?

B) Will the campaign mode be structured in different levels and scenarios, as we saw in the previous Frontier games? (RCT1, RCT2, RCT3)

C) Can we know something more about the piece by piece building system that Planet Coaster will use?

D) Could you tell us more about the whole coaster building mode in general?

Thanks Richard![squeeeeee]

A) Not all of the rides can be themed, but you'll be able to change the theme of your ticket booth, entrances/exits and use the scenery system to build themed pieces in the area surrounding your ride. Much like a real world park. Theming isn't restricted to the rides and scenery; you'll be able to adjust the biome and theming of your landscape.

B) Yes.

C) Keep your eyes peeled, they'll be more information coming in a future dev diary!

D) It's going to be awesome.

 

[Richard Newbold]

Can we get one in game screenshot?

Have you had random people using your coaster editor tools, are they making good coasters using those tools? RCTW coaster builder was powerful but difficult learning curve.

BOOM! (I am aware of how big this is)

View attachment 44

We always test our games outside of the development team to make sure our tools are the best they can be. We're really looking forward to your feedback in the Early Bird Alpha in March.

 

[Richard Newbold]

Sorry we didn't give you much notice on the Q&A, I'll pop back in the morning to answer a few more questions if you have them.

Thanks so much for your questions, it's been great to share more information about the game and thank you for all your continued support.

 

[Palaber1984]

Thanks for answering our questions! Hope for more Meet the team threads in future!

 

[MrPizzaCrust]

Thanks for answering Richard!

Hope to see more very soon [big grin]

 

[Patlefro]

Thank you so much for this Impression Richard![noob]

 

[KnoxVegas]

Thank you so much Richard!! Glad to get to meet you and very excited to see what you and the rest of the team will create for us! [big grin] [up]