Raven77
Member
Yep! Hella nice
Nice, I could care less about a career mode. I just want a sandbox to get creative in and I pray the community is active with it's creations.
Yep! Hella nice
Nice, I could care less about a career mode. I just want a sandbox to get creative in and I pray the community is active with it's creations.
Hmm, I have a 6600k and a Hyper 212. Maybe I'll just OC to 4.0 GHz and hope for the best.
I love the orchestral versions of the main theme (Welcome To Planet Coaster and Journey to Planet Coaster I think they're called). Great for speakers in the park entrance/main street, it captures that magic perfectly. The attention to detail in the audio in general is pretty staggering.
I was blown away by Elite Dangerous so I can definitely believe this. I need to play some more.
(seriously, Elite Dangerous has some of the best sound design in the industry)
Nice, I could care less about a career mode. I just want a sandbox to get creative in and I pray the community is active with it's creations.
From what I read the game is great for fans of simply creative building. For people like me, who like some actual challenge and tycoon aspect of those games there's not really much to offer. Shame
From what I read the game is great for fans of simply creative building. For people like me, who like some actual challenge and tycoon aspect of those games there's not really much to offer. Shame
From what I read the game is great for fans of simply creative building. For people like me, who like some actual challenge and tycoon aspect of those games there's not really much to offer. Shame
I just got back from the launch party. It was great to meet people and chat with some of the devs, they were all really friendly and approachable. Also, free bar and some Planet Coaster themed food
It was a really good night! I don't know any other devs that invite their fans to a party!
You lucky man!
Did zac (the community manager) print my poster at the end to show it there?
I don't know if they've said anything, but based on how they support Elite Dangerous and assuming they'll probably want to keep Planet Coaster going for a loooong time, I'd assume they'll probably keep working on it a bunch.Does anyone know if Frontier have mentioned anything about working on the management part of the game post-launch? It's really the only thing that's preventing me from pulling the trigger.
I did not expect to be immediately intimidated the second I launched int othe game.
but man I see tons of potential. So much that it intimidates me.
What's the color indicator on the rides imply? Just that red is bad and green is good or is it like a greater theme of your park? Like your park guests prefer stuff with lower excitement?
Usually when playing games like this I zone in and don't notice at all... But the soundtrack actually caught my attention and seems pretty good. I'll have to give it a proper listen sometime.
Anyway I played about 3 hours of Sandbox mode so far and I'm pretty impressed. I can spend many many hours in just the one park alone plus there's the Challenge/Scenario stuff waiting for me.
Overall really happy with the purchase... I hope the game catches on and there's tons of new stuff added to the workshop frequently.
I am not sure why people are disappointed about career mode - I see those as some kind of tutorials - the challenge is the one that is the most fun if you are looking for proper management game-play.
Or am I totally off here?
Man, making custom coasters totally kicks my butt. I have a really hard time with banking and making high excitement/low fear coasters..rocking the scenery and creative part though
Having tons of fun creating my own custom buildings and some-such - will upload more to the workshop as time passes.
Yeah, still getting the hang of good coaster design. The best I can generally hope for is a 7.5ish in excitement with relatively low fear/nausea. I tend to make coasters that are a bit too slow, because I overcompensate for how higher speeds can really up the fear/nausea a ton. Last coaster I built was pretty meh initially but I intentionally left space to adjust the lift hill at the start so I could easily make it faster/slower, that helped a lot. One extra section going up and the coaster was good enough.
New picture time!
So that's most that I've got to show, although with the pictures from top you miss a TON of cool details that I've put in every nook and cranny of the park. Sometimes I like to put the camera down at the road, like the picture I'm showing you next, just to feel like I'm walking around in my own park. Its so... cozy! Love it
That's it for me now! All in all I think I've put 10 or so hours in this park, maybe a few hours more. Have to get some sleep now but I look forward to work further in the weekend! For all that have read and watched the pictures, thanks for your attention!
Happy park creating everyone!
The park looks ace! The only thing that jumped out at me is that I feel it could have some more Greenery on the flat areas?
Very successful and fun first day. Ended up getting a building and a coaster finished. The building was actually pretty difficult to make, it kinda sucks that you can't rotate building pieces up and down. The coaster editor is really great though, the smoothing options really help.
Here's a video of the coaster. It has 6.3 excitement, 4.15 fear and 1.73 nausea. I actually only had to adjust it for nausea, cause it was around 3.5 at first. Got lucky with the others I guess. Can't wait to play more tomorrow!
New picture time!
Here is an update from Atlantica World, a theme park that I started two days ago that will combine different themes into one big park. I've mostly done work on the fantasy / medieval section that is at the beginning of the park, consisting out of lots of cool buildings, often with shops and toilets inside (and I've downloaded a lot from talented Steam Workshop-users, so props to the hundreds of them!), two rollercoasters, a few scary rides and one or two easy rides for the kids.
This is the entire park up until now from above.
And here is most of the medieval section from up closer.
The roads in the medieval section all lead up to this market. Very cosy!
Right next to the market is a relaxing pond with a restaurant looking over the water. What a view! Great for seflies
I'm very happy with this rollercoaster that I've dubbed Dragonstone. As in dragons on stones (rocks), hah. There are two, one breathing fire and one sleeping. I also like the tower in the middle. Its pretty cool to go in first person mode on the ride and see all the cool setpieces you've placed, and of course the rest of the park in the distance. Mind you, behind the rollercoaster I've not build anything yet, so don't mind the empty space.
As I've said I'm not done yet with the medieval part of the park, I'm still working on this part, the end of the medieval part. Like I said this is still work in progress so its missing many details. Visitors can exit through the gate you see here, which will bring them to the western part, that I've seperatated with mountains!
Now I've done no work at all on the western part yet, that will be my next project, but I have placed this cool water ride with the waiting line actually going in the attraction. Again, most of this attraction has been made by someone on the Steam Workshop. Very talented folks! There's even a drink shop IN the waiting line, lol.
So that's most that I've got to show, although with the pictures from top you miss a TON of cool details that I've put in every nook and cranny of the park. Sometimes I like to put the camera down at the road, like the picture I'm showing you next, just to feel like I'm walking around in my own park. Its so... cozy! Love it
That's it for me now! All in all I think I've put 10 or so hours in this park, maybe a few hours more. Have to get some sleep now but I look forward to work further in the weekend! For all that have read and watched the pictures, thanks for your attention!
Happy park creating everyone!
My personal issue with the career is that many of the objectives are very easy to obtain and rather bland as a goal to strive for. A number of scenario's have as a gold medal requirement to pay off all loans (they say all loans but it's always just 1 single loan) which is very easy to do since money is never hard to earn in this game. Neither is it very hard to attract 1000 guests which is also a gold medal requirement.I am not sure why people are disappointed about career mode - I see those as some kind of tutorials - the challenge is the one that is the most fun if you are looking for proper management game-play.
Or am I totally off here?
Man, making custom coasters totally kicks my butt. I have a really hard time with banking and making high excitement/low fear coasters..rocking the scenery and creative part though
Having tons of fun creating my own custom buildings and some-such - will upload more to the workshop as time passes.
I'd like to start by congratulating Frontier for making this game. There is no doubt that what they have come up with is as good as or better than anything I've played before. I hope they enjoyed the launch party (I'm looking forward to watching the VoD later) as they deserve to celebrate their success. For me, the fundamental difference they have achieved is this: when I play, I feel like Im building a theme park as opposed to just plonking down some rides in a field and joining them together with a path.
However, I also share with other players my disappointment in some of the 'management' aspects the game that I don't think live up to the same standard as other aspects of the game. I agree with others that the game does not seem to have moved forward from what we had 10+ years ago in many areas and I'd like to expand on some of my thoughts below.
Career Mode
To me, if you have three tiers of objectives (easy, medium and hard) that implies that it is more difficult to complete the 'hard' objectives than it is to complete the 'medium' objectives, which in turn are harder to complete than the 'easy' objectives. The trouble is, in the game it doesn't work that way. The objectives system in this game reminds me very much of RCT3 which I found to be quite bland and uninspiring.
Here's the thing: building 4 flat rides is not harder than building 3 flat rides. Earning a ride profit of $6000 is not harder than earning a ride profit of $4000. Why? Because all you have to do is keep building and you'll get there in the end. It doesn't matter how good you are at 'managing' your park, just keep plopping down rides and eventually you'll hit the target. With no time-limit and no way to fail getting the gold star is an inevitability. Consequently, I feel no sense of achievement for having completed the level on 'hard' as I don't feel like I've been rewarded for my 'management' skills, just my tenacity.
I've mentioned before that difficulty seems to be added by having gimmicks such as the Monolith scenario. Instead of 'objects with strange cosmic powers' why not say:
"You've been asked to turn around a dilapidated park on the brink of bankruptcy. The rides are all worn out and there's no money to repair them. The council will revoke the parks license if safety does not improve. The board of directors want you to sort out repairs and maintenance, get the park making a profit again and build a new rollercoaster to reclaim some of the lost market-share."
I'm willing to bet (I haven't seen the remaining 10 scenarios yet) that at some point there will be a scenario where every square inch of path is covered in litter and vomit. That's not a challenge. Just hire some janitors and wait for them to clean it up.
Challenge Mode
This is well covered in other posts but I share the same feelings. The only difference between 'easy', 'medium' and 'hard' is the starting cash (and how many rides you have available at the start). Consequently the only point at which the game is challenging is at the start. Once you've built up a profit-making park you're off and there's no longer any challenge.
So how else can you add difficulty into the game? Here are a few ideas:
- Making the guests more fussy and less willing to spend their money
- Increase running costs to make it harder to make a profit
- Make the staff more demanding in terms of wages
- Reduce the number of guests that come to the park - make the player work harder to attract them
Simulation
I've yet to see evidence that the simulation is as sophisticated as the pre-release 'hype' (i.e. dev diaries, live streams etc.) claimed it is.
We were told that the guests would care much more about what was around them. We were told that scenery and theming your rides and shops was important as it would influence how much profit you could make. I'm yet to see evidence of this.
What I've observed is that it doesn't seem to matter what you build, the guests will think it's great and will happily hand over their money. As many players have pointed out, its far too easy to attract a crowd to the park. Build a small fairground with a teacups ride, a carousel and a thrill ride and suddenly you've got 800 guests. Do they come and say "this park is rubbish, there's only 3 rides"? No, they have a whale of a time and spend a substantial amount of money. What's worse, is that you can build 6 Whirly Rig rides all next to one another and the guests think it's the best theme park ever.
Rides
- I think flat rides are too lucrative at the moment. The amount the guests are prepared to pay is too high and you can make profit far too easily. In a livestream I saw one player charge $14.00 for the Insanity ride (a 100% increase on the base price). That ride alone was making over $2000 a month profit. What's more, the flat rides don't seem to be well-balanced amongst themselves - some are definitely more 'powerful' and more profitable than others.
- Flat rides attract too many guests to the park
- The guests don't seem to care whether or not the flat rides are suitable for their preferences. Most of them seem to have a go anyway just to kill time. I've built a park that only has 'family rides'. There are still a large number of teens in the park and they're not complaining about a lack of thrill rides they are having a whale of a time riding the Whirly Rig. Why are they even coming to the park in the first place?
- The fact that ride refurbishment seems to be an optional feature makes it seem very superficial and not worth bothering with. Why don't the guests refuse to go on a ride that looks like it isn't well maintained? Why doesn't the park get fined for having unsafe rides? Why isn't the park ordered to close the ride and be unable to re-open it until the repairs are done?
-Scenery and theming doesn't seem to have that much of an impact. There is perhaps a marginal difference in queue tolerance but that's about it.
Shops
- The guests don't seem to care that much about scenery and theming. I've made plenty of profit from a shop by simply placing the 'cube' next to the path. You can still raise the prices and the guests will pay.
- The diverse selection of shops available seems to be superficial. The guests don't complain if the only food outlet you have throughout the park is Chief Beef. Where is the motivation for the player to provide variety? It seems if they're hungry they'll just go to whichever outlet is nearest to them. At the moment you may as well just have a 'food shop' and a 'drink shop' as the different brands appear to be nothing more than cosmetic, which is such a shame because they are so well thought-through I'm terms of the branding and really do make the world of Planet Coaster more believable.
- The option to add toppings/extras to food and drink items seems incredibly superficial and I suspect only added to please the community members who were repeatedly asking for it. It doesn't seem to have any impact on sales, profitability, guest satisfaction, or...anything really.
Guests and other issues
- The guests will come to your park no matter how good it is. Why do groups of teens turn up to a park that has no thrill rides or rollercoasters? And what's worse, why don't they think the park is rubbish? Why do they seem to be happy to keep spending their money?
- The guests don't seem to appreciate novelty or lack thereof. You'd have thought that if you ran the park with the same rides for several years that eventually very few people would come. That guests would stop wanting to ride your coasters because they've been on them before. In real life theme parks are continuously having to innovate and develop in order to hang on to their market share. In real life theme parks close down rides that are no longer drawing in the crowds to make room for their latest star attraction. There's no need to worry about this in Planet Coaster.
- Your park exists in isolation, free from competition. Where is the incentive for the player to make their park better? The guests and the profit will come regardless so you may as well just plop down some rides in a slap-dash fashion and wait for your gold star. Wouldn't it be more of a challenge if you discover that a rival park has just built a new rollercoaster and suddenly you've just lost a huge chunk of the market-share? And to make matters worse you can't afford a new rollercoaster at the moment so have to do your best to attract more guests with a couple of new thrill rides?
- The park rating system. What is that all about? What do the numbers mean? How can I do better? And more importantly, why would I want to do better? If I'm making loads of money and have loads of guests where's the incentive to aim for a better rating? Except of course if it's yet another bland scenario objective.
- Overall there just doesn't seem to be any incentive for the player to 'engage' with the simulation in the manner that the hype led us to believe. I was led to believe that attention to detail would matter. That the game would be about optimising and tweaking and trying to squeeze every last drop of profit out of the guests. But there's just no need because profit comes too easily. You can just drop in a couple of flat rides and a couple of shops and a loo and just sit back and wait for the money to roll in. Then build some more and repeat ad-infinitum (or until you've beaten the level on 'hard' difficulty and you're ready to move on to the next one). The only reason to optimise as much as you can is if you're attempting a 'speedrun' JMR style.
What don't I want to see?
As some people have already said - having more management options available is not the same as making the game more challenging. I personally would find the idea of having to manage my parks waste disposal and power distribution tedious and I can't see how it would add to the challenge, You build a new ride, you build a new underground wire to connect it to the power supply. Simple. It would end up being just another superficial feature rather than an actual challenge.
What do I want to see?
In short, I want to see the player be rewarded for being good at managing their park. I want to see that my actions have consequences. I want to see that good design and attention to detail matters. I want to have to work hard to earn three stars on each scenario. I want to feel a sense of achievement for having earned three stars.
I'd like the guests to be more demanding and more discerning, less willing to part with their money. I'd like to work for my profit, to earn it.
My personal issue with the career is that many of the objectives are very easy to obtain and rather bland as a goal to strive for. A number of scenario's have as a gold medal requirement to pay off all loans (they say all loans but it's always just 1 single loan) which is very easy to do since money is never hard to earn in this game. Neither is it very hard to attract 1000 guests which is also a gold medal requirement.
A poster on the official forums put it better than I could myself: