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Planet Coaster, New Details from the Dev Diaries. Public alpha release March 2016

W

Wrynnax

Member
SpacePirate Ridley said:
I think they are not going to take out of their store the alpha until the game is released. The one that going to release in 2 days have been said has an emphasis on placing paths and building structures.

If you are on the fence I would recommend you to wait, they are going to be updating the alpha with more things to test until the game releases and they are not going to take it away like the RCTW beta after a weekend.
Click to expand...
I know, but I'm so tempted! So looking forward to this game! Hope it delivers everyhting they say.
 
S

SpacePirate Ridley

Member
Wrynnax said:
I know, but I'm so tempted! So looking forward to this game! Hope it delivers everyhting they say.
Click to expand...

Its hard I know :p
As a theme park aficionado, and of course gamer that loves managent games with creative aspects, RCT has always been one of my favourite franchises ever. Having Frontier develop a real spiritual successor, and everything that they have showed so far, is a dream come true. And as an indie dev I understand when they talk about the game in the diaries or AMAs, I know where the limits of a game like this are, and I love how they are pushing the boundaries.

I have a terrible headache right now but im f5 the forums waiting for some news that slips from tomorrows endign embargo lol
 
M

Mikeside

Member
Confirmed Features:

  • Themes in Alpha: Planet Coaster, Pirate
    [*]Themes at release: 97 themes planned, including 'Math'!
  • Coaster Builder unlocked with cheat code in Alpha 1 (because we begged for it)
  • One coaster type available in alpha
  • Customizable signs with themed 'fonts' you can type in
  • Full UGC support after initial launch
  • #ChiefBeefBelief #CosmicCowWow
  • All structures will be shared via the 'Planet' menu/UI
  • Buildings can be constructed or just use blueprints
Click to expand...

info

But there’s a catch! Planet Coaster’s coaster-construction still isn’t 100% ready so until Alpha 2 we’re locking it behind a cheat code. That’s right! An old-school cheat code just like back in the day. We’re giving you the cheat code now, and you’re welcome to tell people all about it from March 21 at 11AM.

To access coaster building, open a map and select the ‘Rides’, ‘Scenery’ or ‘Buildings’ tab, then select the ‘Search’ option (a magnifying glass) and enter the code ‘underconstruction’ (all one word) to enable the coaster construction tab.
Click to expand...
 
Y

Yoshi88

Member
I can't help but just sit here almost crying for happiness. Growing up with RCT as one of my very first own PC games, there's such a huuge smile on my face watching the new material. They're really nailing it.
 
S

SpacePirate Ridley

Member
Yoshi88 said:
I can't help but just sit here almost crying for happiness. Growing up with RCT as one of my very first own PC games, there's such a huuge smile on my face watching the new material. They're really nailing it.
Click to expand...

Yup! Its just out of this world. Just crying of happiness like you, becuase it looks just perfect.

Mikeside said:
info
Confirmed Features:

Themes in Alpha: Planet Coaster, Pirate
Themes at release: 97 themes planned, including 'Math'!
Coaster Builder unlocked with cheat code in Alpha 1 (because we begged for it)
One coaster type available in alpha
Customizable signs with themed 'fonts' you can type in
Full UGC support after initial launch
#ChiefBeefBelief #CosmicCowWow
All structures will be shared via the 'Planet' menu/UI
Buildings can be constructed or just use blueprints
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Absolutely incredible. We all thought the alpha was going to be only paths and buildings, but at the end, is everything they have been showing to us except terrafoming. And then the even put a cheat code to build coasters lol. The 97 themes planned is ridiculous, you can think so many themes planned is becuase they were at the end not going to add UGC, but then SURPRISE! Real UGC is planned after realese.

The bolded is basically the final nail in the coffin of RCTW, it was their only ace and the big marketing tool they were using to make a mediocre unfinished game that fans could finish.
And the funny thing is this alpha is more expansive than the weekend beta Atari did.
Today is going to be a fun day on the official forums of both games, and tomorrow we are going to play this amazing alpha and I cant wait.

Will continue to put the interviews and more videos appearing of the official forums here.

Im ready, choo choo!
planetcoasterhypetraiowo1s.png
 
S

SpacePirate Ridley

Member
ekim said:
UGC?
Click to expand...

User Generated Content. Basically new scenery pieces made with 3D programs like 3ds max by players and imported into the game.
Its what creates a super long life for this games. RCT3, made also by frontier, survived 12 years thanks to the players making more and more scenery. And that time was not official but done thanks to mods, this time is going to be official and easy to implement and use.

ekim said:
Oh right. :D

Well the previews are intruiging. If I preorder the early bird package I will get the Alpha today, right? :eek:
Click to expand...

Yup. The early bird gets the alpha and the game (theres a cheaper early bird that only gets the alpha though).
 
S

SpacePirate Ridley

Member
ekim said:
Sounded like today.
Click to expand...

That meant that youtubers and press could talk about that cheatcode today at 11am GMT. Thast why the info is already out (its 12am GMT already) doesnt mean the alpha is released today. We know is tomorrow, porbably in the afternoon GMT.

whiteape said:
Is the alpha a steam game or just a normal installer you download from their site?
Click to expand...

Installer form their website, they are not using steam for the start, similar to what the did with Elite Dangerous.
 
E

epmode

Member
whiteape said:
Is the alpha a steam game or just a normal installer you download from their site?
Click to expand...

It's very likely to use its own launcher from Frontier's site, just like Elite.

I hope they'll offer Steam keys if and when it arrives on Steam. ..just like Elite.
 
A

Anton Sugar

Member
Looks really cool--I might have to give it a shot. Never played any of these types of games.

Hope they can use some of this tech in Elite: Dangerous once there are populated worlds. I imagine that crowd behavior will be really useful.
 
S

SpacePirate Ridley

Member
Two interviews with the games producer Jonny Watts (you will remember his name becuase it was the cheatcode in RCT3 to put a first person cam in the guests).
I spoke with him some year ago in real life, during an inde dev conference were I assisted and they were showing Coaster Crazy for WiiU. I remember asking his if they would do RCT4 (in those years RCTW didnt exist yet), and he said that not exactly that, but wait to be surprised in the next years. Great chap.

https://youtu.be/D_UwWLCHfPc

Shout out to how citiy skylines did things for city management games in this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7dNTG68Wqw

This one is a littler hard to hear, but thankfully theres a transcript:
Angelis :
What can you tell us about custom content ?

Jonny Watts :
So, as we've already said; on the Q&A that John Laws did. Is that, we are interested in doing UGC the way you've said it; but it's not for release.

What I can tell you is that the game has been designed from the ground up to be ready for when we're ready to do that; or the way we load things into the game has all been designed to do that.
But for release, we really wanted to concentrate on doing what we call 'UGC in the box'
Which is slightly different. It's to give people ultimate creativity to a very fine level of granularity in the game.

So it's two stages. So to start off with, we want to give you the tools and all the things that our imagineers have made; which I think are incredibly beautiful.
And then once people have got tired of that, then we will start allowing people to model it in Maya or Max or whatever 3D Package they want.

But that's just a little bit later on after release.

Angelis :
When custom content is available, will you consider a central platform to share it ?

Jonny Watts :
Right from the, you know, from release. Even when you are doing your own blu-, we call them blue prints, so you've built your own coasters.

It's all going to accessed via the planet that you see on the front end of the game; and that's going to be how you share with your friends and various other people.

When we are going to do UGC, we'll use exactly the same sort of framework for that. So it will all be stored on our servers, it'll all be very, make sure it's all maintained, it won't be corrupted files, you'll be able to share it and it'll be done properly.

That's why it's going to take a bit of time to do, but we going to, as I say, first off, what you build in the game, you can share.
And thats a good step, it's all about, we are going to be supporting this game for a long long time, I hope so anyway; because I love coaster games.

Angelis :
Will signs be customizable?

Jonny Watts :
So not for Alpha but definitely for release.

We're going to have a few different fonts, so if it was like a western theme, we'd be able to have the fonts just looking like an old saloon or something like that. So you can type, whatever you wanted into it. We think signage in this game is really important. Not only does it look great, and when you play the game you'll see how you can slide it over and put it anywhere on the scenery.

We wanted to actually have the simluation benefit which means if you sign your ride, the guests will like it just that little bit more.
This is that attention to detail that I am trying to get in.

So yeah, that's one I can answer.

Angelis :
What can you tell us about "Dark rides"?

Jonny Watts :
So that's a harder question to answer, so that's still, in sort of design. So we understand dark rides, we like dark rides.
It's... How much are we going to support it in release, we don't quite know, because interestingly different people have different answers...

So when I look at a dark ride, I want really sophisticated lighting, for the dark ride. That can't be for release, because that's a job in itself.
So we'll be able to get some approximations of dark rides. Whether that will satisfy everybody to start off with, I don't know, but it's again something that we really want look into moving forward.

We say it's on the list, I can tell you I've got more things inside here. Than I have lifetimes to make, it's the same with Sam, the same with John; we are absolute theme park enthusiasts, we're just trying to pick which ones are the right ones to do first.

Angelis :
Can you talk a little more about a part of the game that we have not seen yet ; The Management?

Jonny Watts :
So. I've made roller coaster games for a long time; started back in the day on Roller coaster tycoon 2 and then Roller coaster tycoon 3; and those two games really looked at depth with the simulation on them.

What we're trying to do now, want to do now, is to make the simulation even deeper. And so, you've seen, you will have seen all the creativity stuff which we'll probably so first in alpha; but at the same time we have been working on the simulation; so we want it to be deeper.

The first thing that is really interesting about the game is, it's all based on the crowd, on the guests, is that they have to physically get to that shop, they've to physically get to that ride, to physically get to that coaster.

And so with our new pathing system, which is all curved and things like that, there's all sorts of gameplay just to join up it all. It's all fluid dynamics and things like that.

And then, we've worked with, where the simulation really comes in is how do you get your people to go around the park. So like in real life, if you have a really exciting ride at the back of the park, people will be inclined to follow it, you know.

People need to go to toilet, people like lovely scenery. We've written this massive big heuristic on how do we judge a building to be 'beautiful' and that's in there. So people will then so 'aww, okay we'll go around there' that's probably the place you want to put a ride.

So it's all about how do certain parts of your park appeal to your guests, and have your quests physically get there and that depth is quite amazing; because then it's all about judging the 'asks'. So for your coaster, it's not much 'G' it pulls, how smooth it is and everything like that, it's, does it cross over, does it go underneath, you know. Is it a tight coaster, has it got very small footprint, is it because you've used too many special pieces and all the special pieces are the same. It's just, there is so much depth, that it's really... I don't want to explain it all because it will demystify and give the game away but that's what we're constantly doing here, just trying to work out, what happens in real life? In a real theme park? We're going to get in this game because fact is actually stranger than fiction.

Just looking at how a theme park operates is beautiful, and thats what we're trying to re-create.

Angelis :
Do you have examples showing us how far we can go with the management ?

Jonny Watts :
I can answer the question sort of... sideways.
A sideways answer, a strange answer, which might explain the length that we getting to.

So rather than write it down in some code and an algorithm i'll just say. When we made Roller coaster tycoon 3. We had a partnership with Hershey, where we would offer a $20,000 scholarship; to the person who could build the best roller coaster. Fantastic prize, you know in America, with the education system.

So we said "Yeah, we'll do that, great". Just send through your roller coasters and we'll judge them, thinking that we'd only have 200. 16,000 roller coasters later we suddenly realised we had a problem; we didn't have enough hours in the day to look at it. So we wrote this heuristic, to judge them, and this took weeks to write, so as I say, it's not just the excitement, the intensity, the nausea, it wasn't just how much G, it wasn't ummm, it wasn't based on the colour.

It was based, how compact the coaster was, how many undulations do they have, was it repetitive, ummm. All these things that we did, and all that learning, we're going apply. So that's just how we're going to judge the coasters in the game; using that learning from that heuristic, 10 years ago. We're going to apply a similar strategy, that's how you judge an amusement ride, that's how you judge a piece of a building that you've made, that's how you judge the layout of all your trees around the paths, that's what we're trying to do. We're trying go to that level of depth that, if you place something down the path will function well, but if you go that extra mile, spent that extra little time on it. You'll make those things, slightly more appealing, so that your guests will like it even more.

So that's like, the long winded down serve. But it's quite a hard thing to explain with specific examples.
I don't want to ruin the magic.
Click to expand...
 
P

Pachimari

Member
I really want to get into this alpha. I was a huge fan of the original Rollercoaster Tycoon back in the day, and I'm so happy to see how Planet Coaster is progressing. $75 is just a lot of money to me unfortunately. :(
 
S

SpacePirate Ridley

Member
Madridista said:
I really want to get into this alpha. I was a huge fan of the original Rollercoaster Tycoon back in the day, and I'm so happy to see how Planet Coaster is progressing. $75 is just a lot of money to me unfortunately. :(
Click to expand...

If you really want to play the alpha now, theres a version that only comes with the alpha and its cheaper, and then you can get the full game apart in the future.
 
M

Mik2121

Member
I would love to have an OT for all of us with the Early Bird alpha so we can share comments on a thread better than this one. Anyone up for making it? We might have to ask the mods about it to make sure it's ok to have an OT for it.

We are one day away so we could have the OT anytime now.
 
E

ekim

Member
After reading all previews available and watching the videos my hype went from "well I know the name of the game" to "That 1-Day wait is going to be brutal" :eek:

Mik2121 said:
I would love to have an OT for all of us with the Early Bird alpha so we can share comments on a thread better than this one. Anyone up for making it? We might have to ask the mods about it to make sure it's ok to have an OT for it.

We are one day away so we could have the OT anytime now.
Click to expand...

I could do one but don't expect a lot of effort :p
 
P

Pachimari

Member
Mik2121 said:
I would love to have an OT for all of us with the Early Bird alpha so we can share comments on a thread better than this one. Anyone up for making it? We might have to ask the mods about it to make sure it's ok to have an OT for it.

We are one day away so we could have the OT anytime now.
Click to expand...

This is a good idea.
 
3

3AD101

Banned
This game looks great.

Shaping up to be the best game of this type since Roller Coaster Tycoon II.

Seriously considering the Alpha.

Is their any date on when the final version might hit?
 
S

SpacePirate Ridley

Member
Mik2121 said:
I would love to have an OT for all of us with the Early Bird alpha so we can share comments on a thread better than this one. Anyone up for making it? We might have to ask the mods about it to make sure it's ok to have an OT for it.

We are one day away so we could have the OT anytime now.
Click to expand...

Im already doing the OT for the full game (put my name on the make threads list months ago lol), so im up for it.

Will have to go up tomorrow though, as OT needs to be put up on the release day now.

I had a title for the final release thread, but I dont now if its better to use for the alpha OT.
It was something like:
"The Tycoon King is dead, long live the Coaser King!"

If you have any better ideas for the alpha thread title just write them here.
 
M

Mik2121

Member
ekim said:
After reading all previews available and watching the videos my hype went from "well I know the name of the game" to "That 1-Day wait is going to be brutal" :eek:



I could do one but don't expect a lot of effort :p
Click to expand...
It seems like SpacePirate Ridley might be able to go for it! But thanks for the offer!!!

Madridista said:
This is a good idea.
Click to expand...
It should be nice for discussing all the stuff we find in the game as well as future updates, etc...
SpacePirate Ridley said:
Im already doing the OT for the full game (put my name on the make threads list months ago lol), so im up for it.

Will have to go up tomorrow though, as OT needs to be put up on the release day now.

I had a title for the final release thread, but I dont now if its better to use for the alpha OT.
It was something like:
"The Tycoon King is dead, long live the Coaser King!"

If you have any better ideas for the alpha thread title just write them here.
Click to expand...
Oh, didn't know it was release day now. Last I knew was day before! If you had planned to do the OT and had some idea for how to set it up, it'd be nice if you could get some of that stuff for the Early Bird OT! Can't wait to get my hands on the game, come ooooooooooooonnnnn

That OT title sounds cool :D Maybe a bit aggressive, but hey, at least a good way to attract attention :p
 
E

ekim

Member
Well I then just show off the progress of the logo I just made :p

logo-h_otdqkkn.png


edit: having the OT up one day early is no problem. 24 hours is the rule afaik.
 
E

ekim

Member
SpacePirate Ridley said:
Hahaha, thats true.

Any ideas for the OT title, or do we go with the more agressive one I posted?
Click to expand...

Planet Coaster Alpha |OT| The Alpha Beta (as in the superior beta bc of RCT:W)
Planet Coaster Alpha |OT| Grow your Hat Shop
Planet Coaster Alpha |OT| underconstruction (The cheat code to enable coaster building)

I like the last one most.
 
S

SpacePirate Ridley

Member
ekim said:
Planet Coaster Alpha |OT| The Alpha Beta (as in the superior beta bc of RCT:W)
Planet Coaster Alpha |OT| Grow your Hat Shop
Planet Coaster Alpha |OT| underconstruction (The cheat code to enable coaster building)

I like the last one most.
Click to expand...

I like the third one a lot, very smart also.
Probably going to use that then, and leave the other one for the final release.
 
R

RossGeller

Banned
SpacePirate Ridley said:
I think they are not going to take out of their store the alpha until the game is released. The one that going to release in 2 days have been said has an emphasis on placing paths and building structures.

If you are on the fence I would recommend you to wait, they are going to be updating the alpha with more things to test until the game releases and they are not going to take it away like the RCTW beta after a weekend.



Alpha on the 22nd of March. Emphasizing on building paths and structures (but we dont really know if there will be rides there).
Alpha with game costs 67 euros. Game alone without alpha 27 euros.
You can get it here:
https://www.frontierstore.net/eur/games/planet-coaster-cat.html/
Click to expand...

Is it a Steam key?
 
E

ekim

Member
TimeEffect said:
Any footage of the micromanagement??

Setting ticket prices, advertising, loans, bankruptcy, looking at financial charts, etc
Click to expand...

Good question. Haven't seen any of this. Selecting a building also just spawns the menu at the top right to move, demolish or edit the structure. I don't think any of this will be in the Alpha.
 
D

dumbo

Member
Themes at release: 97 themes planned, including 'Math'!
Click to expand...

Apparently, this is a misunderstanding. It sounds like they have identified 97 potential themes, and they'll try to create a number of different themes for launch... but they're certainly not expecting anything like 97 themes for the launch.
 
S

Sir_Crocodile

Member
So as someone who loved Theme Park but never really played any of the RCT games, would I enjoy this? Can I add extra salt to fries and get people to crave a soft drink
 
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