Five things that all Rollercoaster fans are waiting for this game.

[Dante80]

Five things that many PC gamers are waiting for this game.

This is a short list of features that I think are important for making a new good PC roller-coaster game. Of course, this is my personal opinion, ymmv.

1. A true offline single player game. Yes, you can have online features, and yes, sharing your work with other people does make the game better. But the core game should be a single player experience, and you should be able to have full functionality (except parts that do need a connection, like going to someones park or downloading a modular piece, or uploading something) in that mode. This is very important for a lot of players, especially after we have seen what happened with backlash in SimCity or Elite Dangerous.

2. An efficient and powerful mouse driven UI interface. Don't design this for a game pad, future ports (if they happen) will have to have a different UI. Don't compromise on this aspect.

3. A respectable tycoon experience. We need a theme park or a theme hospital, a game that is not only a glorified sandbox. Our choices should matter, and the game should be a challenge.

4. FP experience and VR support. What you build, you can ride. What you make, you can walk in. 1st/3rd person modes for taking a walk in your park as well as VR support for rides would be very, very welcome.

5. Extensive modding support. Look at what City Skylines is doing. You can still sell expansions and DLCs without having to restrict user generated content to pre-fabbed parts. This is actually what will make or break the game in my view.

ps: I know FDEVs answers to most of the above questions. I am mostly posting this thread to get feedback on whether they are indeed important to other players or not.

Cheers..C:

 

[Sawyer1]

5. Extensive modding support. Look at what City Skylines is doing. You can still sell expansions and DLCs without having to restrict user generated content to pre-fabbed parts. This is actually what will make or break the game in my view.

Gonna disagree here, I think if we are giving this amazing tool box to play with then I won't need UGC at all, I think it could look very out of place in such a beautiful game.

 

[Coasterfan312]

I wouldn't really say this is what rollercoaster fans are looking for, rather what gamers are looking for. People like me will be wanting coaster styles and track details and such.

Not too bothered about the tycoon aspect since I always do sandbox myself, and it isn't called RollerCoaster Tycoon, but I think it'll be a key aspect of the game since it's what many people will be expecting from the creators of RCT3.

I have to agree with Sawyer about the UGC. Although many treat it as a very important feature, I'll be happy with the existing content offering. UGC would be cool, but I think it would make the game too advanced for its main audience, so I'd prefer expansion packs or something if I wanted more theming.

I'm not too bothered about VR support (even if I was getting a headset right now, I'd prefer to use it on things like NoLimits 2 where it's more immersive).

The UI already looks pretty good and very mouse-driven, so that should be all good.


Remember, most of that is just my (fairly informed) opinion

 

[Dante80]

Regarding modding support and tools, my personal opinion is that if FDEV decides to strictly gate content via paid DLC, they are going to get destroyed both by parts of the media and gamers. The same thing will happen if they do something like Sim City (as far as the game being designed for CORE offline play is concerned).

This time though, there will be competitors to fully capitalize on that.

I understand that my opinion is too strong in this.

Gonna disagree here, I think if we are giving this amazing tool box to play with then I won't need UGC at all, I think it could look very out of place in such a beautiful game

There is nothing that a game developer can do, which modders will not be able to do better by capitalizing on the developers work while having a good API and the tools to do it.
For free.

City Skylines, Sim City 4 and RCT3 comes to mind.

 

[inspectorgadget1]

• UGC will not 'make or break' the game
• They are not 'going to get destroyed both by parts of the media and gamers' if they don't end up implementing it
• The 'competitors' won't be around for long based on what we've seen so far

 

[Sawyer1]

there will be competitors to fully capitalize on that.

Who, RCTW? You're joking right. Mate that game, UGC aside is just looking wrong. UGC won't save it unless it has a great core game. Theme Park Studio doesn't have a good core game and you can mod even rides and look at it, hardly anyone I know plays that.

• UGC will not 'make or break' the game
• They are not 'going to get destroyed both by parts of the media and gamers' if they don't end up implementing it
• The 'competitors' won't be around for long based on what we've seen so far

[up][up]

 

[Coasterbuff]

Gonna disagree here, I think if we are giving this amazing tool box to play with then I won't need UGC at all, I think it could look very out of place in such a beautiful game.

I'm with you on this Chris, to a certain extent. I know from what we have seen of the game so far, that Frontier will make it a great game, with what they are aiming to provide for the future. More theme building pieces and more new rides/coasters, when they become available. Possible new expansion packs in the next few years. I can live without UGC, but if Frontier does decide to allow it, it has to be controlled properly, to make sure that it blends in with the style, the way Frontier have designed this game.

I am not bothered about multiplayer, because I never get involved with it, I prefer to play games for my own enjoyment, not having to worry about what someone else is doing in the same park. The ability to share and copy new designed buildings and things I welcome, as this will help people who are not capable of designing complex structures for our parks.

I am quite happy to go along with Frontier and have no worries about this game at all, because with or without UGC, it will still be the best Theme Park Game ever designed. As far as competition goes, I have no worries there either, because RCTW with all it's UGC or whatever, will definitely not outclass Planet Coaster or come anywhere near it. Planet Coaster has everything what I want from this sort of game and it is evolving far more than I ever expected or ever could have imagined.

 

[widlan]

1. Offline: Yes, it's important to be able to play game offline.

2. Interface: I'm sure they are aware about the UI importance and difference between computer and other platforms. They'll not make this mistake.

3. Management: About the management part, I also found it very very important. I'm much more a manager than a builder, even if I understand the 2 aspects are very important. It's THE aspect I so much want to have more information about.

4. VR support: I really don't mind about this. The ride cam they showed is enough for me.

5. Modding support: At the beginning, I'm good with blueprints and piece-by-piece, but it's true that UGC is important to give a complete freedom. They already said they understand the importance of UGC. But, for the moment, I prefer they give all the importance on building/blueprints from their contents, on management part and on performance/reliability of the game.

 

[Helena]

Do not really see this as *rollercoaster fan* (as in the riding the rollercoasters physically.. which I LOVE!) but as for the game...

1. Offline play is good, that is, optional offline play. You should be able to choose to play offline, when you for example have to do a long overhaul flight or something or simply having no internet or dialup or so.. For me it would be the summer house, but for some people that's the life.
Of course if you want you can do online play with the extra features, but it should not exclude offline.


2. As for me I would love full keyboard shortcuts support. In that sense RCT3 was lacking compared with 1+2 but the best would be that you cna modify/add shortcuts.

3. Yes. It should matter and it should be challenge. Of course in a gradual way, the first scenarios would be easy to learn the game. It should be possible to fail to meet the criterias. Or it would not be fun game. For me I love playing the scenarios. So this is important to me. Indeed.

4. It would be fun! I haven't done the VR thing (do not know what FP, would it simply being the normal "watching the monitor riding the rides, or walk") I am all in for it. Of course FP is most important (if it is what I think of) but VR would be fun but I am ok with it not being the highest prio, I would prefer water rides to be done.

5. I am torn on this here. PC has a very distinct art style going on and it would clash for most part if you see the stuff being common online. But It might work. Of course there's always the grading the downloadables so the worst ones would be down the bottom. But what I would love to have: Ability to recolor the prefabs!!! That would go long way. I do not know if this will be or not. You know, recolor the walls the parts, the ride parts, the flowers of the foliage, the flags, the.... yeah everything. If worrying about choosing clashing colors at least a few color options would be fine.

Of course UGC would be fun in the long run. maybe it can be added later on, to extend the life... it is not high prio at start so to say for me, provided that I can recolor things in game. (Like you could do in RCT1-2 and to some extent in 3)

If unable to recolor then UGC is more important for that very reason.

Well, that's me.

 

[Crowdpleaser]

3. A respectable tycoon experience. We need a theme park or a theme hospital, a game that is not only a glorified sandbox. Our choices should matter, and the game should be a challenge.

Theme Park didn't even come close to the Things you could do in the Rollercoaster Tycoon Games. In fact it wiped the Floor with them. With ALL of the Theme Park Games.

 

[Dante80]

Theme Park didn't even come close to the Things you could do in the Rollercoaster Tycoon Games. In fact it wiped the Floor with them. With ALL of the Theme Park Games.

Fully agreed. I should have put something like transport tycoon there instead. My main gist was that it would be very desirable to view the management simulation is THE core aspect of the game. A good campaign, scenarios, etc etc.

 

[_Tilly-Tony_]

I'm with you on this Chris, to a certain extent. I know from what we have seen of the game so far, that Frontier will make it a great game, with what they are aiming to provide for the future. More theme building pieces and more new rides/coasters, when they become available. Possible new expansion packs in the next few years. I can live without UGC, but if Frontier does decide to allow it, it has to be controlled properly, to make sure that it blends in with the style, the way Frontier have designed this game.

I am not bothered about multiplayer, because I never get involved with it, I prefer to play games for my own enjoyment, not having to worry about what someone else is doing in the same park. The ability to share and copy new designed buildings and things I welcome, as this will help people who are not capable of designing complex structures for our parks.

I am quite happy to go along with Frontier and have no worries about this game at all, because with or without UGC, it will still be the best Theme Park Game ever designed. As far as competition goes, I have no worries there either, because RCTW with all it's UGC or whatever, will definitely not outclass Planet Coaster or come anywhere near it. Planet Coaster has everything what I want from this sort of game and it is evolving far more than I ever expected or ever could have imagined.

Well said.


The modular building looks very powerful. And with the ability to save blueprints and share them it's going to be amazing.
This is almost like having a UGC creator built directly into the game without any fuss. And i know we are going to see some incredible blueprints.

I know it's not the same as full modding support(Custom rides/Signs, physics mods ect). But we cant say this game doesnt have UGC.
Or am i over estimating the power of the modular building along with the ability of saving them as blueprints to share?

 

[Dante80]

Another thing. When I'm talking about modding support, I'm not merely talking about UGC. That is a very small sub-set of it. I'm talking about the ability to mod the game itself, which is also why I think that point 1 (about offline single player) is very important.

I don't view single player games as a service, but as a product. And, however one may spin it, this is a single player game, the online features SHOULD be the optional part. I want to be able to do to this game what modders have done to minecraft, to KSP, to Skyrim or to Xcom. And that is a reason that I view FDEVs notion about expansions, online features and modding support after launch with a little suspicion. Especially the online part, since it could turn this game into another SimCity debacle if FDEV is not careful.

I do think they are going to do the right thing with this. Just stating the obvious.

Well said.The modular building looks very powerful. And with the ability to save blueprints and share them it's going to be amazing.
This is almost like having a UGC creator built directly into the game without any fuss. And i know we are going to see some incredible blueprints.

I know it's not the same as full modding support(Custom rides/Signs, physics mods ect). But we cant say this game doesnt have UGC.
Or am i over estimating the power of the modular building along with the ability of saving them as blueprints to share?

It is indeed a very good feature. It can also be powerful too, since the modular system allows a lot of creativity and variation.
Custom UGC support is stronger. And full modding support is even more strong. I don't think this needs explanation.

One potential (and only potential) problem if FDEV goes for the own hosting in-game online way for UGC, is that would make modding very difficult. I want to get a ride, a trash bucket, a lamp post, a new campaign scenario, a cinematic camera mod, a particles mod, a set of guests or a whole theme from Nexus or the Steam Workshop, not have FDEV host only modular re-arrangements of their own assets and deny everything else due to online compatibility issues (which really is market-speak for online DRM and gating all assets/content to paid DLC).

This is a real concern. I'm not saying they are going to do this, I'm just saying it's damn important for me as a PC gamer and a consumer.

 

[svensonic1]

I think it is important that we only get UGC support and all general features like pools should be Expansion Packs just like RCT3 did, it packed out really well and I really liked the idea of Expansion Packs around that time.
Now we only get stupid DLC for each pixel you see in most games.

 

[widlan]

Yeah, recolor and being able to change prefabs pieces are very important point. And it would be very good to be able to change some pieces like the sun or witch we already saw in rides. I don't want my rides to always look the same, so if we'll be able to change some parts of the ride, it could be very great.

 

[DreamMaster]

• UGC will not 'make or break' the game
• They are not 'going to get destroyed both by parts of the media and gamers' if they don't end up implementing it
• The 'competitors' won't be around for long based on what we've seen so far

Gonna disagree here, I think if we are giving this amazing tool box to play with then I won't need UGC at all, I think it could look very out of place in such a beautiful game.

Not to be rude but you guys have no reason to disagree with usg as it's optional. Adding it to the game doesn't remove or change any of the other feature and nobody is forcing you to use it. IT's clearly the most popular request out of these 5 so to simply say that it's should not be in the game based on your personal needs is.....

 

[Nico1]

Not to be rude but you guys have no reason to disagree with usg as it's optional. Adding it to the game doesn't remove or change any of the other feature and nobody is forcing you to use it. IT's clearly the most popular request out of these 5 so to simply say that it's should not be in the game based on your personal needs is.....

Exactly my thoughts. [up]

 

[Coasterfan312]

Not to be rude but you guys have no reason to disagree with usg as it's optional. Adding it to the game doesn't remove or change any of the other feature and nobody is forcing you to use it. IT's clearly the most popular request out of these 5 so to simply say that it's should not be in the game based on your personal needs is.....

I don't think you took it quite the right way. We (or at least, I) am by no means against UGC - I'd love it (even if I couldn't make much use of it because I can't model well) - I just don't think people need to say things like 'I'll only buy it if it has UGC', which I've seen a lot. I'd much rather they worked on new coasters, rides, e.t.c before implementing it.

 

[jamesviago]

1. A true offline single player game. Yes, very important to me.
2. An efficient and powerful mouse driven UI interface. Yes, very important to me.
3. A respectable tycoon experience. Yes, graduated career to gradually expose/teach features.
4. FP experience and VR support. Yes to fp, not fussed about vr yet, maybe later.
5. Extensive modding support. Yes, important to me, not immediately but very soon; within 6 months of release.

 

[Nemesis1]

Gonna disagree here, I think if we are giving this amazing tool box to play with then I won't need UGC at all, I think it could look very out of place in such a beautiful game.

Nope. You can never make a park exactly how you want it with UGC. Even if they gave us every scenery they could think of, it wouldn't work without UGC. "it would look out of place in such a beautiful game" is a weird excuse for Frontier being lazy lol. It wouldn't be hard to just allow modding. If you don't want it, you don't have to use it.