Annual clean up PART 1
Soon one year have past since Planet coaster released. I'm one of them that was very active during the Alpha period, but not after the release due to some frustrations about the gameplay. However, after the three seasonal updates I came back and finally start to play and enjoy it during summer and until now. I love Planet coaster and I want it to be of its best!
It is time to adress some stuff in the game that I know more than me gets annoyed about but no one really want to take time to dig into. Some quite messy stuff, other just non consistent that make my OCD go nuts. I do respect that a lot of player just don't care, not notice this stuff or that just accept this kind of errors and build ways around it to handle it. Like there are a lot of item assets that is hard to find today in the browser because they are missplaced into the wrong category. Some just accept and learn were to find it and stop depending on the categories. Another common error are items with the wrong xyz-coordination making extra work for the user to place them in the park or jumping between items in the X-mode.
Well that is not a good aim for a high qualtiy AI and gameplay. And people like me are like the canary in the mine, so if I am content, everyone are content and gains from it! Right? [big grin]
So I want to help and make something creative of this frustration. I have a range of issues to bring up and will make a series with separate parts to focus on, because the topics will be different. This first one however will be more generic to make an understanding of what kind of issues I want to bring up into the daylight. I don't find this as bugs, rather errors. And this are not really suggestions. I have plenty of that in its correct forum area. So I place this in the main discussion forum of Planet Coaster.
Please feel free to assist by pointing out any additional wrongs and errors you find as well. [happy][up]
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Shop signs
Today, I'm going to check trough all advertisement signs and objects up to date. I have sort them up to see the consistens of assets for the different brands in the game.
I will look for and point out:
- Missplaced items were it is obvious that this item should be categorized differently for the user to find it. I mark it with yellow in the pics.
Items I had to find in the wrong category are placed outside the colored areas I made for the the wall signs and standing signs.
- Wrong oriented xyz-coordinated items. I mark it with green in the pics.
- Lack of content. Items I expect should be added to the game later, because related shops in the same brand has it. I mark it with red in the pics.
A lot of content was missing at the release last year which felt bad, however additional assets have been added by the devs at the three free updates during the year. So I have a great trust in Frontier still working on this.
- Night lights.
- Name inconsistency that makes related objects being apart from each other in the browser.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Brands
1.1 The Chief Beef brand
Chief Beef - Hotdog Squad - Pizza Pen
Very worked trough today. Lots of assets and only miss 2 objects. I would love to see more mascots and mascot statues though. Otherwise the supply of ads are good.
Errors:
- Hotdoq Squad Sign - Projecting sign 1 Lit = Missplaced in Scenery -> Should be in Building > Wall signs > Shop signs.
- Pizza Pen Sign - Projecting sign 1 = Missplaced in Scenery -> Should be in Buliding > Wall signs > Shop signs.
- Hotdoq Squad Wall Sign 5 = Missplaced as themed sign though burger and pizzas counterpart are categorized as Shop signs (and have the name "wood" in them).
- Chief Beef Sign - Wall sign 6 Solute cutout = Missplaced or wrongly xyz-coordinated. -> Standing advertisement should be consistently placed in Scenery > Props > Signs and Advertising.
- Chief Beef patrol light = Missplaced as wall sign. -> Should be in Scenery > Props > Signs and Advertising.
Missing:
- Hotdoq Squad Sign - Projecting sign 2 Large
- Pizza Pen Sign - Projecting sign 2 Large
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.2 The Cosmic Cow brand
Ice-cream - Milkshakes
Lots of assets. Both shops have a equal set of signs.
Errors:
- Ice Cream Cone / Ice Cream scoop / Ice Cream Souce = All these are missplaced as Props > Misc when they should be in -> Scenery > Props > Signs and Advertising.
- Planet coaster sign - splat = Missplayed. At least this one is in a sign category compared to its ice-cream cone counterparts.However, it should be better placed in -> Building > Wall signs > Shop signs.
Note, the splat is xyz-oriented for being placed on ground. So unsure if it is wall intended or not.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.3 The Gulpee brand
Energy drinks - Slush - Soda
This brand have developes after release, but still some assets missing.
Errors:
- Gulpee Soda Sign - Projecting sign 1 Lit = Missplaced in Scenery -> Should be in Building > Wall signs > Shop signs.
- Gulpee Soda Sign - Projecting sign 2 Lit = Missplaced in Scenery -> Should be in Building > Wall signs > Shop signs.
Missing:
- Basic Soda Sign - Wall sign 1
- Basic Soda Sign - Wall sign neon
- Generic Soda Drink Statue
- Generic Slush Drink Statue
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.4 The Pipshot brand
Juice - Smoothies - Water
Pipshot barely existed at the release and it assets have grown at every update. Nothing is missplaced, very good.
Still missing though:
- Generic Smootie Statue
- Generic Water Bottle Statue
I would love to see a mascot to this brand.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.5 Stand Alone brands
Mexelente - Tikichiki - Monseiur Frites - Missy Good Donuts - Street Fox Coffee
Then we have five food shops with their own branding. Only two have mascots. I would love to see some of this brands to grow. Like Monsiur fritas could sell churros.
Anyhow, you can see that they are related because they have similar range of signs though they are not connected by brand.
Errors:
- Missy Good Donuts - Projecting sign 1 = Missplaced in Scenery -> Should be in Building > Wall signs > Shop signs.
Missing:
- Generic Chicken statue
- Mexelente sign - Swing Sign
- Mexelente sign - standing lit sign
- Mexelente sign - Projecting Sign 1
- Mexelente sign - Projecting Sign 2
- Tikichiki sign - standing lit sign
- Tikichiki sign - Projecting Sign 1
- Tikichiki sign - Projecting Sign 2
- Missy Good Donut sign - standing lit sign
- Missy Good Donut sign - Projecting Sign 2
- Street Fox Coffee - Swing Sign
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.6 Giftshops brands
Hat's Fantastic - Just A Momento - Looney Blooons
What to say, we only have three merchandise giftshops today and they haven't any big range of signs to choose from. What is, is at least complete. However...
Errors:
All three standing merchandise stands have different xyz-coordinates when placing them. This is such a mess, part 2 will explicit be about this issue.
The overall standard in the game for objects standing up are to be oriented as the Loony Balloon sign; were green is up, front facing the blue arrow and red sign shows the side. Wall objects are oriented as the Hats fantastic sign were blue is up and facing front to green. However, the hat fantasic sign is a standing sign by obvious design!
- Hats fantastic sign is facing wrong and lies down. The origo-reference point is misplaced compared to the others.
- Just A Memento are standing but facing in the wrong direction.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.7 Facilities
Toilet block - First Aid - Information - ATM
Last to check is the facilities.The main theme set are complete for all four facilities. However, we only got themed signes for toilets at the moment. And that is only for pirate and fantasy.
No missplacement. But those four standing signs are quite hard to find. They are not put together and they dissappear in the Props>Signs and Advertising category, while the others have its own sub-category and are easy and fast to find.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Night light
Some signs are lit at night, some are not. I tried to sort lit and non-lit signs to be apart. As I already listed for "stand alone brands", I expect some lit signs to be missing in relation to existing non lit signs for one brand but not for the other.
There are some more inconsistent to be marked here.
- Hotdoq squad sign - wall sign4 lit = Are not lit.
- Gulpee slush sign - standing sign 1 = Is lit but not its related ones.
- Gulpee wall sign series of 1 and 2 are inconsistent for all three shops.
- Hats fantastic wall signs are not lit though its related ones are.
- There is an overall inconsistently about naming objects "lit" at the end. About half of the lighted signs have it marked out in its name. A lot of them have it not. But by obvious testing who glows in the dark or not it's easy to find out to point out what sign missing this in its name. All glowing signs should have it in their name to be more user friendly. I would even suggest an icon in the corner with a light bulb to make it more user friendly.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. The sign browsers
Let check how well the items are put together in the browser. Are they easy to find? Personally, I would prefer to skip the Scenery>Props>Signs and Adverting all together, because it is a mess compared to the Building>Wall signs main category well sorted with sub-categories for shops, facilities and themes. Standing signs should be together with their family groups of wall signs. And as seen above, Frontier gets quite sloppy when it comes to sort between standing signs and wall signs. But it is at it is. Let check them out.
3.1 Standing signs
Scenery > Props > Signs and Advertising
Some notes:
- I marked out with a red cross on items that should not be here. Some are listed above. Most are wall signs that should be categoriezed as wall signs.
- I coloured them after the brand groups. Most shop sets are together except some few as showed above. To be more easy user friendly, brands should be together as well, because they have an equal set and are related.
- It is a big issue that the racing car signs are spread out across the whole list instead of be grouped together.
- As you will notice in the other browser, all wall images of products are grouped together. Here however, the statues depicting products and mascots are completely spread out.
3.2 Wall signs
Building > Wall signs > Shop signs
To be fair, I should use the "All" sort for Wall signs. Because standing walls are mixed up and the All-sorting is the first you see when open this main category. However, I'm very bias by being very fond of this well sorted area for wall signs with its own main category with well thought trough sub-categories, that the standing signs lack of. So I will focus of the sub-category of shop signs and how to improve it.
Now, I have made some even more detailed color marking on this one to analyse this mess:
- Cross over in red for objects that do not belong. There two Chief beef items that is obvious by design standing and not intended for walls. I have listed them earlier.
- I framed the objects signs in yellow because they are named different in series of "Basic-" to be grouped together. However, the "Milkshake sign" and "Milkshake sign neon" does not start with Basic, hence fails to be grouped together.
- I color coded the areas again after the brands. Chief beef fails to stays together, however Gulpee and Pipshot success. The Chief beef brand have no mutual naming with Hotdog squad and Pizza pen. They should though because they belong to together and would be more user friendly if they did. Same thing with the own branded foodshops and the giftshops.
- Color lines over items belonging to the same shop. Despite the Basic-signs they are all successfully sorted together as they should. The Cosmic cow objects however, should be consistent named "Cosmic cow milkshakes", as this is only an implicitly now.
----------------------------------------------
Thanks for reading!
Soon one year have past since Planet coaster released. I'm one of them that was very active during the Alpha period, but not after the release due to some frustrations about the gameplay. However, after the three seasonal updates I came back and finally start to play and enjoy it during summer and until now. I love Planet coaster and I want it to be of its best!
It is time to adress some stuff in the game that I know more than me gets annoyed about but no one really want to take time to dig into. Some quite messy stuff, other just non consistent that make my OCD go nuts. I do respect that a lot of player just don't care, not notice this stuff or that just accept this kind of errors and build ways around it to handle it. Like there are a lot of item assets that is hard to find today in the browser because they are missplaced into the wrong category. Some just accept and learn were to find it and stop depending on the categories. Another common error are items with the wrong xyz-coordination making extra work for the user to place them in the park or jumping between items in the X-mode.
Well that is not a good aim for a high qualtiy AI and gameplay. And people like me are like the canary in the mine, so if I am content, everyone are content and gains from it! Right? [big grin]
So I want to help and make something creative of this frustration. I have a range of issues to bring up and will make a series with separate parts to focus on, because the topics will be different. This first one however will be more generic to make an understanding of what kind of issues I want to bring up into the daylight. I don't find this as bugs, rather errors. And this are not really suggestions. I have plenty of that in its correct forum area. So I place this in the main discussion forum of Planet Coaster.
Please feel free to assist by pointing out any additional wrongs and errors you find as well. [happy][up]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shop signs
Today, I'm going to check trough all advertisement signs and objects up to date. I have sort them up to see the consistens of assets for the different brands in the game.
I will look for and point out:
- Missplaced items were it is obvious that this item should be categorized differently for the user to find it. I mark it with yellow in the pics.
Items I had to find in the wrong category are placed outside the colored areas I made for the the wall signs and standing signs.
- Wrong oriented xyz-coordinated items. I mark it with green in the pics.
- Lack of content. Items I expect should be added to the game later, because related shops in the same brand has it. I mark it with red in the pics.
A lot of content was missing at the release last year which felt bad, however additional assets have been added by the devs at the three free updates during the year. So I have a great trust in Frontier still working on this.
- Night lights.
- Name inconsistency that makes related objects being apart from each other in the browser.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Brands
1.1 The Chief Beef brand
Chief Beef - Hotdog Squad - Pizza Pen
Very worked trough today. Lots of assets and only miss 2 objects. I would love to see more mascots and mascot statues though. Otherwise the supply of ads are good.
Errors:
- Hotdoq Squad Sign - Projecting sign 1 Lit = Missplaced in Scenery -> Should be in Building > Wall signs > Shop signs.
- Pizza Pen Sign - Projecting sign 1 = Missplaced in Scenery -> Should be in Buliding > Wall signs > Shop signs.
- Hotdoq Squad Wall Sign 5 = Missplaced as themed sign though burger and pizzas counterpart are categorized as Shop signs (and have the name "wood" in them).
- Chief Beef Sign - Wall sign 6 Solute cutout = Missplaced or wrongly xyz-coordinated. -> Standing advertisement should be consistently placed in Scenery > Props > Signs and Advertising.
- Chief Beef patrol light = Missplaced as wall sign. -> Should be in Scenery > Props > Signs and Advertising.
Missing:
- Hotdoq Squad Sign - Projecting sign 2 Large
- Pizza Pen Sign - Projecting sign 2 Large
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.2 The Cosmic Cow brand
Ice-cream - Milkshakes
Lots of assets. Both shops have a equal set of signs.
Errors:
- Ice Cream Cone / Ice Cream scoop / Ice Cream Souce = All these are missplaced as Props > Misc when they should be in -> Scenery > Props > Signs and Advertising.
- Planet coaster sign - splat = Missplayed. At least this one is in a sign category compared to its ice-cream cone counterparts.However, it should be better placed in -> Building > Wall signs > Shop signs.
Note, the splat is xyz-oriented for being placed on ground. So unsure if it is wall intended or not.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.3 The Gulpee brand
Energy drinks - Slush - Soda
This brand have developes after release, but still some assets missing.
Errors:
- Gulpee Soda Sign - Projecting sign 1 Lit = Missplaced in Scenery -> Should be in Building > Wall signs > Shop signs.
- Gulpee Soda Sign - Projecting sign 2 Lit = Missplaced in Scenery -> Should be in Building > Wall signs > Shop signs.
Missing:
- Basic Soda Sign - Wall sign 1
- Basic Soda Sign - Wall sign neon
- Generic Soda Drink Statue
- Generic Slush Drink Statue
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.4 The Pipshot brand
Juice - Smoothies - Water
Pipshot barely existed at the release and it assets have grown at every update. Nothing is missplaced, very good.
Still missing though:
- Generic Smootie Statue
- Generic Water Bottle Statue
I would love to see a mascot to this brand.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.5 Stand Alone brands
Mexelente - Tikichiki - Monseiur Frites - Missy Good Donuts - Street Fox Coffee
Then we have five food shops with their own branding. Only two have mascots. I would love to see some of this brands to grow. Like Monsiur fritas could sell churros.
Anyhow, you can see that they are related because they have similar range of signs though they are not connected by brand.
Errors:
- Missy Good Donuts - Projecting sign 1 = Missplaced in Scenery -> Should be in Building > Wall signs > Shop signs.
Missing:
- Generic Chicken statue
- Mexelente sign - Swing Sign
- Mexelente sign - standing lit sign
- Mexelente sign - Projecting Sign 1
- Mexelente sign - Projecting Sign 2
- Tikichiki sign - standing lit sign
- Tikichiki sign - Projecting Sign 1
- Tikichiki sign - Projecting Sign 2
- Missy Good Donut sign - standing lit sign
- Missy Good Donut sign - Projecting Sign 2
- Street Fox Coffee - Swing Sign
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.6 Giftshops brands
Hat's Fantastic - Just A Momento - Looney Blooons
What to say, we only have three merchandise giftshops today and they haven't any big range of signs to choose from. What is, is at least complete. However...
Errors:
All three standing merchandise stands have different xyz-coordinates when placing them. This is such a mess, part 2 will explicit be about this issue.
The overall standard in the game for objects standing up are to be oriented as the Loony Balloon sign; were green is up, front facing the blue arrow and red sign shows the side. Wall objects are oriented as the Hats fantastic sign were blue is up and facing front to green. However, the hat fantasic sign is a standing sign by obvious design!
- Hats fantastic sign is facing wrong and lies down. The origo-reference point is misplaced compared to the others.
- Just A Memento are standing but facing in the wrong direction.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.7 Facilities
Toilet block - First Aid - Information - ATM
Last to check is the facilities.The main theme set are complete for all four facilities. However, we only got themed signes for toilets at the moment. And that is only for pirate and fantasy.
No missplacement. But those four standing signs are quite hard to find. They are not put together and they dissappear in the Props>Signs and Advertising category, while the others have its own sub-category and are easy and fast to find.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Night light
Some signs are lit at night, some are not. I tried to sort lit and non-lit signs to be apart. As I already listed for "stand alone brands", I expect some lit signs to be missing in relation to existing non lit signs for one brand but not for the other.
There are some more inconsistent to be marked here.
- Hotdoq squad sign - wall sign4 lit = Are not lit.
- Gulpee slush sign - standing sign 1 = Is lit but not its related ones.
- Gulpee wall sign series of 1 and 2 are inconsistent for all three shops.
- Hats fantastic wall signs are not lit though its related ones are.
- There is an overall inconsistently about naming objects "lit" at the end. About half of the lighted signs have it marked out in its name. A lot of them have it not. But by obvious testing who glows in the dark or not it's easy to find out to point out what sign missing this in its name. All glowing signs should have it in their name to be more user friendly. I would even suggest an icon in the corner with a light bulb to make it more user friendly.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. The sign browsers
Let check how well the items are put together in the browser. Are they easy to find? Personally, I would prefer to skip the Scenery>Props>Signs and Adverting all together, because it is a mess compared to the Building>Wall signs main category well sorted with sub-categories for shops, facilities and themes. Standing signs should be together with their family groups of wall signs. And as seen above, Frontier gets quite sloppy when it comes to sort between standing signs and wall signs. But it is at it is. Let check them out.
3.1 Standing signs
Scenery > Props > Signs and Advertising
Some notes:
- I marked out with a red cross on items that should not be here. Some are listed above. Most are wall signs that should be categoriezed as wall signs.
- I coloured them after the brand groups. Most shop sets are together except some few as showed above. To be more easy user friendly, brands should be together as well, because they have an equal set and are related.
- It is a big issue that the racing car signs are spread out across the whole list instead of be grouped together.
- As you will notice in the other browser, all wall images of products are grouped together. Here however, the statues depicting products and mascots are completely spread out.
3.2 Wall signs
Building > Wall signs > Shop signs
To be fair, I should use the "All" sort for Wall signs. Because standing walls are mixed up and the All-sorting is the first you see when open this main category. However, I'm very bias by being very fond of this well sorted area for wall signs with its own main category with well thought trough sub-categories, that the standing signs lack of. So I will focus of the sub-category of shop signs and how to improve it.
Now, I have made some even more detailed color marking on this one to analyse this mess:
- Cross over in red for objects that do not belong. There two Chief beef items that is obvious by design standing and not intended for walls. I have listed them earlier.
- I framed the objects signs in yellow because they are named different in series of "Basic-" to be grouped together. However, the "Milkshake sign" and "Milkshake sign neon" does not start with Basic, hence fails to be grouped together.
- I color coded the areas again after the brands. Chief beef fails to stays together, however Gulpee and Pipshot success. The Chief beef brand have no mutual naming with Hotdog squad and Pizza pen. They should though because they belong to together and would be more user friendly if they did. Same thing with the own branded foodshops and the giftshops.
- Color lines over items belonging to the same shop. Despite the Basic-signs they are all successfully sorted together as they should. The Cosmic cow objects however, should be consistent named "Cosmic cow milkshakes", as this is only an implicitly now.
----------------------------------------------
Thanks for reading!
Last edited:
