Devs, can we get a definitive answer on Weather?

[TRJTA]

Dear developers,

Just like the thread about multiplayer, I would really like a simple plain answer to the question if weather will eventually make it into Planet Coaster?
Just a yes or a no would be awesome. Maybe you could also say if it's planned for the near future or later on. That's all the details I need![heart]

I really hope you can answer this question[yesnod]

Love,

TRJTA

 

[cerealfruitcakes]

They'll never answer.

 

[Vampiro]

They'll never answer.

Maybe because the answer to it isn't set in stone yet [happy]
Could be a perfect case of what FutureFear said in another thread (which was confirmed as true by Bo)

If you watched or were present at the expo you could actually understand why there isn't a really long term plan, for any game of Frontier.

Basicly it's their way of working (now), certainly when it comes to planet coaster.


They are developing the game based on our (the community) input.
Yes i know we might not see all our suggestion in the game but that's kind of ridiculous to do so.

We have seen manny suggested features already inplemented in the game and with the anniversary update we can see they keep doing so.
Because they can't see in the future and don't know what we will suggest in 2 - 3 months, years or decates... they obviously can't make long term plans.

Also the forum is overrun with suggestions,i'm sure they are exploring what is possible and what isn't and try to find ways to inplement manny, manny more in the future.
But these things need time, hard working developers and sadly but as expected money.

And the reason that they don't inform us what they are working on is because they don't want to give us false hopes.
Nothing is more frustrating to get hyped by alot of things and then to hear none or only a few can make it into the actuall game.
Also don't forget Frontier isn't the only gamedeveloper company, they need some secrecy to "battle" the competition.

 

[Ramm]

Pretty obvious weather is not off the table. It's not technically impossible.

I'm willing to bet the reason we don't have it yet is because of optimization issues. Mainly because the vfx is very costly and you cant just do an overlay because you would need to have dry spots too.

 

[ojonas]

Pretty obvious weather is not off the table. It's not technically impossible.

I'm willing to bet the reason we don't have it yet is because of optimization issues. Mainly because the vfx is very costly and you cant just do an overlay because you would need to have dry spots too.

I think this is the issue too. It is not a question if they want weather in the game. I am sure they do. But technically it is a big issue to resolve. How do you handle the dry spot? How do you optimize and handle the interaction with rain and scenery pieces? I am sure none of us want to have rain inside a building for example. Or underground or in a cave to that matter. It may sound like simple things to resolve but these are very complex items to work on programatically. Very taxing on the system resources.

 

[BigDragon]

I think this is the issue too. It is not a question if they want weather in the game. I am sure they do. But technically it is a big issue to resolve. How do you handle the dry spot? How do you optimize and handle the interaction with rain and scenery pieces? I am sure none of us want to have rain inside a building for example. Or underground or in a cave to that matter. It may sound like simple things to resolve but these are very complex items to work on programatically. Very taxing on the system resources.

Yes, I agree. I think people on this forum think that weather is a simple thing. It can be much more nuanced. In addition to your interaction points, consider that weather requires:

1) changes in guest behavior which also necessitate balance considerations. Guests may avoid some rides during rain or wind or other weather effects. How does this impact finances?

2) planning for how weather impacts a park. Is it pouring down rain on the entire map simultaneously, or can some areas be partly sunny while others suffer from rain? Do some rides become less reliable in rain?

3) visual design implications. What does weather look like in a voxel world? Should it be a simple screen overlay like in RCT games, or are there regions of the map covered in fog or different intensities of rain? How do you communicate this to the player? The old global distance fog used in older games is likely not going to look right.

I think Frontier recognizes that weather can impact a park. They've included weather in previous park simulation games. I don't think Frontier can give a "definitive answer" on something they may be working on or planning to work on. Personally, I don't want them to commit either way, so an answer is not appropriate.

 

[breezerHOG1]

I'm hoping they are holding certain things like this back for a big expansion like water parks (would make sense for weather and rivers and boats and slides and pools to all be one big add-on)

 

[Sakujo]

I'd be totally fine for just a rain/snow effect without dry spots and with it raining inside caves. Make it an optional setting and I'd love to have it.
I'm not always with the camera inside a cave or a building, knowing that dry spots and collision isn't added yet (or might never come) is enough for me
to ignore the minor glitches.

 

[Ramm]

Yes, I agree. I think people on this forum think that weather is a simple thing. It can be much more nuanced. In addition to your interaction points, consider that weather requires:

1) changes in guest behavior which also necessitate balance considerations. Guests may avoid some rides during rain or wind or other weather effects. How does this impact finances?

2) planning for how weather impacts a park. Is it pouring down rain on the entire map simultaneously, or can some areas be partly sunny while others suffer from rain? Do some rides become less reliable in rain?

3) visual design implications. What does weather look like in a voxel world? Should it be a simple screen overlay like in RCT games, or are there regions of the map covered in fog or different intensities of rain? How do you communicate this to the player? The old global distance fog used in older games is likely not going to look right.

I think Frontier recognizes that weather can impact a park. They've included weather in previous park simulation games. I don't think Frontier can give a "definitive answer" on something they may be working on or planning to work on. Personally, I don't want them to commit either way, so an answer is not appropriate.

The maps aren't that big that we need to have rain in one part of the park and no rain in the other though.

 

[Crowdpleaser]

I'd be totally fine for just a rain/snow effect without dry spots and with it raining inside caves. Make it an optional setting and I'd love to have it.
I'm not always with the camera inside a cave or a building, knowing that dry spots and collision isn't added yet (or might never come) is enough for me
to ignore the minor glitches.

See, here is the thing: While you might be ok with a Weather option that is like the old Games where it just rained through solid objects, a lot of people would want a change in that. Including me. I was quite annoyed at the fact that totally enclosing a ride wouldn't make it rain proof and nobody would ride it in the Rain. The only way around that was build the Ride underground and covered up completely.

On the other hand i see the huge undertaking that is rain or Snow. A "simple" thing like turning the ground white is not trivial at all. Also it would take up one of the 8 texture Spaces. So would a ground with Leaves. While all of this can be done, the question is how long does it take to develop and furthermore: is it worth it?

The CPU will get taxed more in calculating if an Object is hit by rain so it kills the particle when it intersects. And don't bring Optimization up again. I am not a Programmer, but talking to Andy C made it much more clear. Here you have a Game that has to handle thousands of Guests with individual Goals and individual preferences. Then you have Buildings made up of thousands of Objects. There is not much Room to optimize here. Just stop and think for a moment what this Game is capable of doing before you raise the Optimization Flag again. Maybe you yourself can do some optimizing? Like NOT build a Mountain out of a Boat load of single Rocks? And what do you think the Guest limiter is for?

Not to sound condescending, but sometimes we complain about stuff we not fully understand and i myself have fallen into that trap in the Past and it will happen again.

Bottom Line: yes for Weather, but i don't think it will come in the near Future. So don't hold your Breath for that

 

[mr.sugar]

See, here is the thing: While you might be ok with a Weather option that is like the old Games where it just rained through solid objects, a lot of people would want a change in that. Including me. I was quite annoyed at the fact that totally enclosing a ride wouldn't make it rain proof and nobody would ride it in the Rain. The only way around that was build the Ride underground and covered up completely.On the other hand i see the huge undertaking that is rain or Snow. A "simple" thing like turning the ground white is not trivial at all. Also it would take up one of the 8 texture Spaces. So would a ground with Leaves. While all of this can be done, the question is how long does it take to develop and furthermore: is it worth it? The CPU will get taxed more in calculating if an Object is hit by rain so it kills the particle when it intersects. And don't bring Optimization up again. I am not a Programmer, but talking to Andy C made it much more clear. Here you have a Game that has to handle thousands of Guests with individual Goals and individual preferences. Then you have Buildings made up of thousands of Objects. There is not much Room to optimize here. Just stop and think for a moment what this Game is capable of doing before you raise the Optimization Flag again. Maybe you yourself can do some optimizing? Like NOT build a Mountain out of a Boat load of single Rocks? And what do you think the Guest limiter is for?Not to sound condescending, but sometimes we complain about stuff we not fully understand and i myself have fallen into that trap in the Past and it will happen again.Bottom Line: yes for Weather, but i don't think it will come in the near Future. So don't hold your Breath for that

Here, I think this game is badly designed from the very beggining. I don´t understand why they went with PbP system (nostalgia?)? It´s something we are used to, yea, we even asked for it. But developers should have seen PbP is obsolete as the grid system is. These two things go hand in hand with each other and imo, PbP doesn´t work that well with PC which now is a hybrid between freeform and grid system....It doesn´t even make much sense to me to have walls devided into specific pieces and have each wall piece 100x in the list just because it has different texture. Why not having a click and drag tool for walls and then choose texture for it? I think this is where is plenty of room for optimization, yet not sure if it´s doable at this stage. Maybe PC2...But yea, I don´t care about the weather much, I don´t care anymore about any new features. I want to get QolL on what we have rigth now and then expand the game.

 

[Ramm]

I wish we had triggers.

Which would be like an invisible object over something and then set the option for it to "Block Rain" or the option to "Block Light"

 

[ncutt010]

Weather would really hurt frame rate and performance....in my opinion this shouldnt be high priority

 

[l:D]

Adding weather would give a new experience to the game maybe flooding, rides getting Brocken because of storms but the Dev's have not confirmed. I would rather the game was on XBOX ONE[IMGUR][/IMGUR]

 

[mr.sugar]

Adding weather would give a new experience to the game maybe flooding, rides getting Brocken because of storms but the Dev's have not confirmed. I would rather the game was on XBOX ONE

Just very unrealistic expectations. Flooding would be quite a big task for devs. And how can you expect that if even current ride maintenance system doesn´t have real impact on gameplay...

 

[ojonas]

Here, I think this game is badly designed from the very beggining. I don´t understand why they went with PbP system (nostalgia?)? It´s something we are used to, yea, we even asked for it. But developers should have seen PbP is obsolete as the grid system is. These two things go hand in hand with each other and imo, PbP doesn´t work that well with PC which now is a hybrid between freeform and grid system....It doesn´t even make much sense to me to have walls devided into specific pieces and have each wall piece 100x in the list just because it has different texture. Why not having a click and drag tool for walls and then choose texture for it? I think this is where is plenty of room for optimization, yet not sure if it´s doable at this stage. Maybe PC2...But yea, I don´t care about the weather much, I don´t care anymore about any new features. I want to get QolL on what we have rigth now and then expand the game.

And I am happy with how the game is now. Just want more rides and scenery. We all have our priorities and in many cases they will be polar opposite. That is with anything in life. It is unrealistic to think that the devs can please everyone. They so far has been balancing it pretty well in my opinion. I know you and some others have a different view and that is fine.

As for weather, I can go either way with it. Not a must have for me. Would probably just be irritated when it happens after the initial wow factor has worn off. I feel the same with night mode. It is cool and looks nice but I have to disable it when building or doing anything but just watching the park because it becomes a pain to see what you are doing. Nice for screenshots and on ride YouTube videos but has very little effect on the actual game play. Same will be with weather is my guess.

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Adding weather would give a new experience to the game maybe flooding, rides getting Brocken because of storms but the Dev's have not confirmed. I would rather the game was on XBOX ONE[IMGUR][/IMGUR]

Games like this never works on consoles. They are both way under powered compared to a PC and what is required to play PlanCo properly. Heck, even a good PC today can't really handle this game once you hit a certain point if you are a very detailed oriented player with 100s of parts for each building( I am not). Controllers are also too clunky to use for precision building that PlanCo requires.

 

[jamesviago]

Weather annoyed me in rct3.
Like it annoys me in real parks (usually; a downpour at 3pm for 10 minutes is excellent for clearing out a park and halving all the queues).

 

[apsims]

Like many of you have said, it would be brilliant to have weather in the game but, again, like many of you have said, it would certainly be costly in terms of performance. Questions like "how would rain interact with the world?" is a big one. If it was ever implemented, would the devs try to allow people some form of optimisation (like toggle rain-scenery collision, rain-ride collision, rain-terrain collision or toggle rain/weather altogether)? This would also mean that all/most scenery pieces would have to be edited to include solid meshes instead of just texture meshes; and again, those calculations alone would be a serious performance hit.

Although, it could add to park management. Guests could wantto stay under covered areas and/or want to buy waterproof ponchos & umbrellas. It could allow you to set what rides are not allowed to run in certain conditions (rain/storms/high winds) which can affect guest flow. They could also implement a wet-weather guarentee system, which could affect admission profits.

I certainly see potential, but at the same I can see how it could also over tax systems and tank performance, especially on a 3-dimensional worlds that is essentially player built and already simulating complex crowd movements and ride dynamics.

 

[cerealfruitcakes]

They could do it like Sims 3 did it, make it a screen filter that changes the rotation of the effect depending on your camera angle rather than realistically behaving in a 3D environment.

 

[Hopix]

If it rained through solid objects that'd be worse than no rain at all.