Disabled Visitors and Wheelchair Access
- Thread starter Wood377
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IMO this would add nothing to the gameplay, this would be depressing to see guests who cant access certain rides. I play games to escape reality, if they add disabled guests, then why not fatalities like in the original RCT? there are so many other aspects they could add to the game, that I would not want to see development time spent on making disabled guests. This would require a complete overhaul of the guest brain, not only adding tons of new animations (are we talking crutches, broken bones in casts, wheelchairs, autism, like where do you draw the line??) but on top of that guests would need special paths to get around.
Its funny how people cant tell that the current system for guests are very limited (they are still working on security). You can tell guests dont have many differences outside of height/weight and clothing color. They all have the same exact animations, and movement. They walk around the same, but their only differences are in their stats (hunger etc) and there ride preference is probably the biggest calculation the game has to make. Its a fact that having a monorail in your park greatly decrease FPS for guests to calculate their destination outcome. The slogan "simulation" is just a marketing gimmick
Once you start adding in every possible disability or indifference (you will always leave somebody out!) it sounds like a completely different game, like a "hospital" game and not an amusement park ride constructor. I'm a cancer survivor, do I get recognized in the game for that?? No, and I dont want to see that every time I boot up my game. PC is a cartoon world with digital peeps and building a realistic mass of thousands of varying possibilities of peeps is a biiiig process and takes lots of time. Maybe once Frontier releases UGC players can make their own unique guest designs, and having it as optional would be great so that I wouldn't have to download it.
Lets be practical. Would it be nice if everybody could be included? Of course. Is this specific idea cool/fun? Eh. Would it be worth the time and effort? Sorry, but no. Lets see where things are in a year from now.
Its funny how people cant tell that the current system for guests are very limited (they are still working on security). You can tell guests dont have many differences outside of height/weight and clothing color. They all have the same exact animations, and movement. They walk around the same, but their only differences are in their stats (hunger etc) and there ride preference is probably the biggest calculation the game has to make. Its a fact that having a monorail in your park greatly decrease FPS for guests to calculate their destination outcome. The slogan "simulation" is just a marketing gimmick
Once you start adding in every possible disability or indifference (you will always leave somebody out!) it sounds like a completely different game, like a "hospital" game and not an amusement park ride constructor. I'm a cancer survivor, do I get recognized in the game for that?? No, and I dont want to see that every time I boot up my game. PC is a cartoon world with digital peeps and building a realistic mass of thousands of varying possibilities of peeps is a biiiig process and takes lots of time. Maybe once Frontier releases UGC players can make their own unique guest designs, and having it as optional would be great so that I wouldn't have to download it.
Lets be practical. Would it be nice if everybody could be included? Of course. Is this specific idea cool/fun? Eh. Would it be worth the time and effort? Sorry, but no. Lets see where things are in a year from now.
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Banshee at Kings Island has a wheelchair elevator.
FinalMantasyX
Banned
There is a difference, that it difference is that ethnic diversity (especially in a game with stylized characters like these) is a trivial inclusion and happens as a natural result of designing the characters, and sexuality diversity is a simple matter as well.
But "We need to do all the extra work required to represent disabled people/dwarves/amputees/people with vitiligo/burn victims/anorexics/bodybuilders/left-handedness" is an extra on top of the basics like "multiple skin tones".
Representing gay characters for the sheer sake of it is included in my argument. Representing black characters for the sheer sake of it is included in my argument. In a game where neither of those are necessary for the plot or world, no, excluding them is not a problem, and including them purely to fill a diversity quota is a stupid idea.
Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow feature not a single sprite that doesn't have a pale skintone. And does it matter? No, absolutely not, it does not. The games are set in a japan-like expy and everyone is presumably japanese. There is no necessity to represent anyone else, the game's value does not change based on whether or not they do, the plot has not a single thing to do with any character's race, and there's no need to fill a quota for the sake of it. That game world is not worse, offensive, or insensitive for not having characters with different sprite colors.
Plenty of RPGs with romance mechanics don't feature gay options. Does that bug me? Yes. Are the developers obligated to include them for the sake of fulfilling a diversity quota? Abso-freaking-lutely not, no, they are not. It's their story and if none of the characters are written as gay, that's how it goes, big whoop. If it's set in a space environment where all races have melded into one, sure. If it's set in space detroit where all charactesr are black, whatever.
You do NOT need one of everybody represented in anything, ever. It is not, nor should it be, a necessity. No developer, writer, artist of any kind should ever be shamed or pressured to emphasize inclusion or diversity simply "because". representation is very important, it is very powerful, and I am a huge fan of it particularly when it comes to homosexuality because my experience with homosexuality and learning that I was gay and what gay was and that it was just a thing and not a big deal all comes from my male sims being able to kiss in The Sims 1 (a game in a genre where sexual diversity is actually important, simply by design). But no, not every game needs a diversity quota and to fill it at the whims of anyone who asks. No person has a right to representation in any media. You just don't.
Also, I'm gay. So. Uh. Egocentric. Sure. Go straight people, only real people! Yeah, that's totally where I'm coming from.
Make your info store a "Disabled Badge Booth" with the piece by piece designer and imagine the fast track paths are the disabled access paths, again create something to make it look like you want.
Problem solved, frontier don't have to tackle an issue that will cause nothing but "WHAT ABOUT BLIND PEOPLE" debates and you have your disabled access routes.
Problem solved, frontier don't have to tackle an issue that will cause nothing but "WHAT ABOUT BLIND PEOPLE" debates and you have your disabled access routes.
this guy deserves a medal, genius!
I called you egocentric because you only see the world from your own perspective.
Adding peeps with disabilities has no value *to you*, and that's fine (if a bit egocentric), but do you think it would be the same for someone who is disabled?
It doesn't have to add 'gameplay', even.
Let's assume PlanCo shipped with only white males visiting the parks. Adding women, non whites, kids, etc, doesn't add 'gameplay' either. But it feels great to see diversity and over time, inclusion of things like homosexuality in pop culture makes the subject less of a cultural taboo or something that is made fun of, and more something which society generally accepts, celebrates and empathises with.
@robdood this isnt a matter of "who deserves to be recognized" and "what taboos should be celebrated" i think that arguement is very off to one side and thats where this becomes an issue. I just focus on development time and would rather see other things added to the game ahead of this one (see my earlier posts) if your discussion is simply with FMX then I dont think you will achieve any progress there
On paper it sounds easy to "include everybody" but in reality it's pretty much like "opening a can of worms."
Some people here have elaborated about "standards" for ramps and as a programmer myself, I'm sure this can be a nightmare to implement considering the additional assets and animations the program has to render.
And besides, if you try to cater to one group, there will always be something that another group will be opposed to or have issues with.
It's pretty much like trying to please everybody - because you just can't, no matter how noble the cause.
Not saying that it's impossible, but with the current state of the game (it's also been spelled out that the guests still need a lot of work) this would fall on the "nice to have" list as opposed to a "must-have", at least for now.
Some people here have elaborated about "standards" for ramps and as a programmer myself, I'm sure this can be a nightmare to implement considering the additional assets and animations the program has to render.
And besides, if you try to cater to one group, there will always be something that another group will be opposed to or have issues with.
It's pretty much like trying to please everybody - because you just can't, no matter how noble the cause.
Not saying that it's impossible, but with the current state of the game (it's also been spelled out that the guests still need a lot of work) this would fall on the "nice to have" list as opposed to a "must-have", at least for now.
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Yes,. it absolutely does matter what a change brings to the game. Any change costs development time - think of all the model building and animations that would need to be created to include wheelchair-bound guests; imagine the coding changes in the game engine to ensure correct pathing and the management of this totally different guest behaviour.
As has been pointed out, the diversity that has been included is cosmetic - it doesn't alter game mechanics and is relatively trivial in development time.
Do you really rate depictions of wheelchair based guests above new flat rides, new themes, additional props, extensions and finessing of the building tools? Those are the choices that the developers would need to make.
A game environment is a simplification and abstraction from the real world and that real world can only be included to the degree it fits with the game's core objectives. If games companies start feeling they have to start catering to every whim of the identity politics crowd, they'll just start using aliens or abstract beings instead of 'humans' to get away from the hassle.
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I think we can ALL agree that Custom Images / Billboards, additional/varied Scenery and Animatronics, Terrain Paint options, deeper Management Simulation, additional Staff (Security Gaurds), Tables/Chairs and Benches for eating and additional Ride options should all be the main Dev focus at this point.
I've suggested this before, but I think the minimum to give some inclusion could be to include some persons with disabilities in something like the VIPs on previous game - a little bit of custom AI for a VIP who couldn't use stairs could make a scenario more interesting, without affecting the overall crowd system or the way the pathing tools are currently implemented.
For anybody with an interest in disabilities and games in general, especially how it pertains to development, Sony held a very interesting panel on this over the weekend.
For anybody with an interest in disabilities and games in general, especially how it pertains to development, Sony held a very interesting panel on this over the weekend.
I love the idea of adjusting park ratings more highly for those parks that exclusively use ramps (e.g. half-stairs) instead of full-stairs. Admittedly, it presents a new challenge for park design. Nothing is wrong with that. If as a park designer you don't want to make your park accessible, you don't have to... but it is only fair to have your park rating penalized for that, just as you get penalized for poor scenery, uninteresting rides, lack of shops, and so forth.
Beyond park ratings, guests appearing in wheelchairs would also be great to see. It isn't as much extra work as the people against the OP's idea claim, as the Devs already have animations and positions for peeps seated on benches. So there isn't really any new geometry or posing necessary for animations. And the Devs already have a mechanism for attaching props like hats, balloons, etc to peeps already, so they could just attach a chair with wheels and be done. I wouldn't even bother with spokes on the wheels; just use simple discs and let them slide around, nobody will notice they don't turn just like nobody notices the peeps ankles don't rotate L/R.
For getting onto and off rides, note that even able-bodied peeps just sort of get close to their ride seats and then teleport in, and similarly they teleport out of a ride seat and start walking... it would be a reasonable rendering compromise to have the wheel-chair simply vanish when the peep teleports into the ride seat, and have it re-appear when the peep teleports out of the ride seat.
When the Devs added balloons, they didn't need to add every possible size and shape of balloon and string. A single balloon addition (with colors) made for a welcome improvement in the game and a new dimension of selling them. Similarly, having some peeps in wheelchairs doesn't mean the Devs need to model every possible disability, or every single aspect of a wheel-chair-bound peep. But a more encompassing view of park peeps would be a welcome improvement.
Devs, please, please seriously consider the OP's suggestion.
Beyond park ratings, guests appearing in wheelchairs would also be great to see. It isn't as much extra work as the people against the OP's idea claim, as the Devs already have animations and positions for peeps seated on benches. So there isn't really any new geometry or posing necessary for animations. And the Devs already have a mechanism for attaching props like hats, balloons, etc to peeps already, so they could just attach a chair with wheels and be done. I wouldn't even bother with spokes on the wheels; just use simple discs and let them slide around, nobody will notice they don't turn just like nobody notices the peeps ankles don't rotate L/R.
For getting onto and off rides, note that even able-bodied peeps just sort of get close to their ride seats and then teleport in, and similarly they teleport out of a ride seat and start walking... it would be a reasonable rendering compromise to have the wheel-chair simply vanish when the peep teleports into the ride seat, and have it re-appear when the peep teleports out of the ride seat.
When the Devs added balloons, they didn't need to add every possible size and shape of balloon and string. A single balloon addition (with colors) made for a welcome improvement in the game and a new dimension of selling them. Similarly, having some peeps in wheelchairs doesn't mean the Devs need to model every possible disability, or every single aspect of a wheel-chair-bound peep. But a more encompassing view of park peeps would be a welcome improvement.
Devs, please, please seriously consider the OP's suggestion.
I REALLY think this needs to be added, as someone who volenteers for a disabled campsite (and someone with a disability) I can 100% say that we go to theme parks. There needs to be more representation in this game (and PlanZoo)