Games like No Man's Sky come to mind. The developers promised the game delivery would be 'game changing' but it was nothing but a mess...after many years and updates, it has become one of the most interesting and UNPAID content-filled games in history. Frontier...you can do this too. You have been doing it for Elite Dangerous for years.
Frontier we believe you can bring this game to its potential.
- Thread starter Digler
- Start date
Not while they keep making a space empire game and not a space pilot game.
I am not at all sure what this means. Elite is the jewel in the crown. I am fairly sure that what happens in the development of that game has zero effect on this game and vice versa. It's a good thing that these encouraging posts pop up I think. It should be obvious that we're only in a couple of teething difficulties the same as might happen with most games at release
They made Planet Zoo. That's all the proof we need. Planet Zoo is filled to the brim with love, quality of life improvements, quality, charm and abundance. PC2 should be easy to translate this too as it's meant to be a game in the same series, just rides instead of animals! But the product we've got is like it's made from 2 wildly different teams.
Totally agree. No explanation is needed, it is what it is. But I think the same. Planet Zoo is totally rammed full amazing incidental features. Individual behaviours on each animal type, save terrain with blueprints, educator and tour behaviours etc. So much stuff. Honestly did think these extended technologies would be default in all future games.
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It's the little things as well, the little quality of life features that are absent. The UI is top tier in Planet Zoo and was scrapped completely for this placeholder dev mode console-focused looking UI in Planet Coaster 2. And the fact vista points, modular gift shops, restaurants, and snow are totally absent from planet coaster 2 is just a devolution of the planet series. They need to get those back in as a matter of priority.
The first difference to NMS is, Frontier is a Shareholding Company. The second difference is, they already abandoned the first PC once sales numbers dropped and once there was no more potential to publish DLCs with a big enough profit margin. I did say a few months ago how the PC2 release would be a strategic failure, as there should have been some effort to polish PC1 and resuccitate community management first, get a feel for actual improvement beyond POOLS and Waterslides.... even the developments that PlanetZoo brought to the table weren't understood and improved upon for PC2.
Instead, Frontier execs live in the clouds and are mad-ill with Statisticitis.. and they won't care to be cured of their self-destructive share-value addictions.
Player numbers are already below what PlanCo used to draw in the same time frame, albeit short-term peaks in Console sales. But the engine that keeps the game alive would be the PC(Computer)/Steam communities. With past experience on how Frontier does business, they will make the same mistakes they used to with PC1..
One of the "new" features that made it into PC2 ... i suggested the idea of animation-nodes that scenery can be attached to more than 2 years ago already, for PC1.
PlanCo2 may get some practical improvements, but the hype train has passed by already and Frontier will abandon it prematurely once they come to that realization.
Don't get me wrong..i know of the potential and my obsession for the game concept exists since the days of RCT1.
Frontier has a extremely potent "game"concept they don't know how to bring it anywhere close to its full potential. PlanetZoo was a light in the tunnel, but that should be the minimum base line for what could be a Diamond mine.
sorry, but it's just the bitter truth.. not out of H8te, but sadness and dissapointment.
cheers,
ArtificialArtist
EDIT: Another difference to PC2 is, No Man's Sky used to have free marketing, as everyone in the gaming community was making NMS jokes for years...it was a running gag...until they delivered. With PC2 people are just disappointed and move on silently. The cost to gain any "marketing power" would be too high for the effect it could have on PC2 sales.
EDIT 2: Here's the thread where i suggested those animation nodes and a second thread that focuses on (humanoid) animatronics customization:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/action-snap-points.537215/
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/humanoid-animatronics-customization-tool.543856/
Instead, Frontier execs live in the clouds and are mad-ill with Statisticitis.. and they won't care to be cured of their self-destructive share-value addictions.
Player numbers are already below what PlanCo used to draw in the same time frame, albeit short-term peaks in Console sales. But the engine that keeps the game alive would be the PC(Computer)/Steam communities. With past experience on how Frontier does business, they will make the same mistakes they used to with PC1..
One of the "new" features that made it into PC2 ... i suggested the idea of animation-nodes that scenery can be attached to more than 2 years ago already, for PC1.
PlanCo2 may get some practical improvements, but the hype train has passed by already and Frontier will abandon it prematurely once they come to that realization.
Don't get me wrong..i know of the potential and my obsession for the game concept exists since the days of RCT1.
Frontier has a extremely potent "game"concept they don't know how to bring it anywhere close to its full potential. PlanetZoo was a light in the tunnel, but that should be the minimum base line for what could be a Diamond mine.
sorry, but it's just the bitter truth.. not out of H8te, but sadness and dissapointment.
cheers,
ArtificialArtist
EDIT: Another difference to PC2 is, No Man's Sky used to have free marketing, as everyone in the gaming community was making NMS jokes for years...it was a running gag...until they delivered. With PC2 people are just disappointed and move on silently. The cost to gain any "marketing power" would be too high for the effect it could have on PC2 sales.
EDIT 2: Here's the thread where i suggested those animation nodes and a second thread that focuses on (humanoid) animatronics customization:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/action-snap-points.537215/
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/humanoid-animatronics-customization-tool.543856/
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Yeah the NMS comparison is not gonna be a thing here, with PC2.
They could put as many updates into PC2 as there was with NMS by Hello Games, but it won't have the same impact. NMS made huge promises and failed but the promises they made with that game were so ambitious that once they finally delivered on those, you got to experience something that had never been achieved before really.
What do we have to look forward to with PC2? That they'll make the flumes less rubbish? That they'll add themes we had in PC1 that should have been in the base game? That they'll add QOL features that brings PC2 in shoulder to shoulder with PZ?
We should be able to look forward to exciting, never done before, features and DLC. But in the end the story of PC2 will be the long wait for the game to be as good as the first two Planet games. And based on the player count (that you can find one sites that track that) I don't see Frontier seeing this entry as something they can invest in long term.
And the people who should get the blame, will keep their jobs and ruin more Frontier titles probably.
I particularly hate this aspect. Planet Zoo started off great, then added so many new things and game mechanics through free updates over the years like tours, encounters, viewing domes, MODULAR GIFT SHOPS, these kept it so fresh, exciting and incentivizing to keep buying DLC and investing in the ecosystem. So we were all so excited for Planet Coaster 2 to kick off from where Zoo left off and do the same, with who knows what amazing new features to push the game genre forward. Scaremazes? Parades? Minigolf? Arcades? Hedge mazes? Midway games? And then what we got did not kick off from where we left off, instead it went back in time and continued on from the release of Planet Coaster 1 in 2016... lacking everything from restaurants, hotels, vista points, snow... we can't even change the time/lighting by the minute but only by the hour, it doesn't even remember the colour of the wall you're placing when you switch it to a shop front wall piece, the browser disappears whenever I click on a piece of scenery meaning I have to click it again to get it back, we have a massive ugly heatmaps button wedged at the top centre of the screen at all times, I have to click 'multi select' and 'confirm' selection whenever I want to move 2 trees, and a horrible to navigate full-screen management screen with fake crowd and scream sound effects in the background of it...
A lot of these things (heatmap notch, confirm selection, full-screen management) are clearly due to the UI being made for console and forced onto PC. It might work for console, but it does not work on PC. Frontier, please adapt the UI for PC, as this is one of your most criticized aspects from players, and will do so much to make the game feel more fluent and complete for launch.
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