Demo Released

Lord Gonchar,

It has been confirmed that there are NO TUNNELS in the demo and there will not be any in the full version either. There just were too many issues with tunnels. The good news is they have spent the time doing things that were not planned like riding flat rides. I love riding the observation tower! Waveswinger is pretty cool too.

Here's the full text from Frontier this morning:

Tunnels

This applies to both the demo, and the full game.

Most tunnels in real life parks are simply covered-over cuttings, and you CAN do these. What you can't do is general through-the-mountain type tunnels, and the reason for this is we only wanted to do them if we could do them well.

The main problem with building underground is getting the camera to work well, but also there is the problem of excavation of the area that's being built in - if things like underground paths, stations or shops are allowed.

Tunnel entrances and exits also present problems with the flexible terrain - both while building them, and afterwards if you want to alter the terrain.

Overall, we felt that the disproportionate amount of work required to address these issues (and others like underground lighting) was better spent elsewhere - for example on making all the rides ridable rather than just the coasters - which is only one of the things done with the time saved.

It is always a difficult decision to prioritise one feature over another, but I hope you think we made the right choice = and it doesn't mean we won't do through-the-mountain tunnels in the future.

In other words:

"We wanted the game out for the holiday season" :)

That's too bad. Underground stuff can be fun. At least you can still go underwater! :)

Impressive rides there Lord Gonchar! Especially like your inverted. I made a nice woodie but the demo timed out before I could take a picture. (sigh). The water splashes on the woodie look HELLA cool.

Glad you posted the sunset picture. My sky is all white fog and was wondering if it was just me. But I have an old video card by today's standards. Still looks cool though.

Paths are driving me nuts though. They seem way harder to build then they should be and even more difficult then any coaster I have done.

The only issues I am really having are with the music (copied from my blog):

I know each person will have a different view on this, because I have heard of people not getting sounds at all... but...

A) I would like the ability to turn the "game music" off. That tune that plays no matter where you are in the park. Its on the same volume control as the park music so (unless there is a hidden speaker in my park somewhere) I can't just turn it down. (Its the Summer Air.wma file and plays in the main menu too)

B) There seems to be some kind of bug where the ride music will start playing for me at random times when I am near the ride (inverted swing in this case). I can be away from the ride and it will play full volume or I could be near it and hardly hear anything.

C) Anyone know if we can import our own music into the demo? Do we have to put the files into the RCT3\Music directory (or hopefully just shortcuts too it) ala GTA. Or can we keep them where they are and go to their location in game some how?

UPDATE: After some testing it looks like all you have to do is put your music files in C:\Program Files\Atari\RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 Demo\Music (or where ever you installed RCT3).

Unfortuantly, shortcuts to your files wont work (like they do in Grand Theft Auto 3/4). That means you would have to move (or COPY, increasing the space used in your hard drive) your entire music collection or just ones you want to use, limiting your music selction.

Not to mention that the music selector would be hard to use after you added a lot of music files. *** Edited 9/27/2004 7:05:55 PM UTC by viper432@aol.com***

Some first impressions...

Camera control (once you unlock it in the options from being fixed to a certain angle) is really pretty good overall. Takes a little getting used to, but having the option to lock it into isometric views is probably good for folks that want it. I thought about turning it on while building rides.

Performance is up and down. Generally in the game it's pretty good on my GeForce FX 5600 with an Athlon 2000+. In CoasterCam view, it very nearly sucks. It runs a bit better on Steph's 5700/2 GHz P4 setup. What annoys me is that there's no framerate counter (not documented, anyway) that allows you to measure the impact of tweaking the settings.

I was annoyed that there was no 1280x1024 mode because I have LCD's, and non-native resolutions rarely look very good. Fortunately you can hack the options.txt file after you've run the game and set it to whatever you want. Oddly, performance wasn't impacted one way or another at lower/higher resolutions.

Peeps walking through each other is weird, but I can overlook it. What isn't cool is peeps and their interaction with rides. They put their hands up and the arms go through the seats. Also, I went to cam view on the swinging inverter ship and could only see the inside of the peep's head.

I don't have any problem with the music... is it because I'm running at a high resolution and don't need to zoom out very far?

Speaking of sound, who the hell thought that restaurant chatter was a good background noise on the ride? The people don't sound like a hundred people in a room talking about politics while on the ride.

Building stuff is just different enough to merit the tutorials, but once you get used to where stuff is, it's fairly natural UI.

Despite the quirks, I'm really impressed overall. I'd probably have more good things to say if you could do more, but I understand the demo can't be full-featured.

For the music thing, what format does it accept? Wav, mp3, aac, wma?

Hey guys, can you help me out, please. When downloaded it, the dialogue box that asked what setting I wanted the game on came up, and I set it to "low." The game gets choppy and point and I would like to change from "low" to something else, but I can't find the option anywhere. I am pretty much talking about the setting that DawgByteII was talking about when he placed his on "extreme." If some one can tell me where I can find the option, that would be much appreciated!

Thanks!

-Michael

Another attempt at sadism.

Run your coaster through the fireworks.

The link is a 10 sec video clip. It's around 800kb. If you click it, it should stream or right click and "save target as" to stick it on your hard drive.

To me, little things like that show the lack of attention to details.

Lots of good and lots of not so good so far.

---

olympic10086 said:
Hey guys, can you help me out, please. When downloaded it, the dialogue box that asked what setting I wanted the game on came up, and I set it to "low." The game gets choppy and point and I would like to change from "low" to something else, but I can't find the option anywhere. I am pretty much talking about the setting that DawgByteII was talking about when he placed his on "extreme." If some one can tell me where I can find the option, that would be much appreciated!

Thanks!

-Michael

---

Yes, Please... Same here, I cant find the damn box and i don't want to figure out every frickin setting.

Lord Gonchar, was that an answer to my question, or a general statement to everyone? I am confused-lol.

-Michael

anyone figure out how to rotate the screen and zoom in and out?

BTW, Anybody have this problem.

I start playing, The game is perfect....No lag whatsoever on very high settings. Then about a minute or 2 into the game, The lag gets extremely horrible and its impossible to play. I think there is some kind of flaw in the game. Obviously my PC can handle the game fine since its perfect for a few minutes.

I havn't got the demo yet...but listening to all these problems makes me wonder. But Gonch....nice coasters mate...I see you are getting the hang of ot quickly. I just wondered.....and this might be a stupid question...but....with the Demo,Can you create a track take a screenshot and upload.This was just something I wanted to ask...I guess just to ask it....!!!

If anyone's trying to download this from the official Atari/RCT site, I suggest using the link above instead.

When I clicked to download on the official site, it was going super-slow, and gave an estimated time of 1 hour, 40 minutes. The Yahoo link above only took me 4 and a half minutes to download.

I guess Atari's servers are swamped.

After playing with the game some more, I have come to the conclusion that it is NOT ready to be released at all. Especially if they want people to be able to play using the minimum requirements. Way too many bugs.

Finding lots of bugs too.

Peeps melding with trains is a big one. Just a face and legs sticking out from a seat back.

Also, try to build stations/structures around the coaster. Horrible! Themers are going to hate this. They look like hell, some of the roof pieces are invisible when using coaster cam (the tent top was at least), things don't line up square in many cases, just messy overall.

As for you guys with questions, make sure you do the tutorials first if you're not following basic gameplay techniques. Any settings related stuff is under the "options" tab. It's all there. Slide the various settings up and down to change the display qualities.

I totally agree with Big D. I also defiantely think that coaster construction is not as intuitive as it was.

"I don't have any problem with the music... is it because I'm running at a high resolution and don't need to zoom out very far?"

Its not the zoom level. I can be looking up close at something at one the far of the park and all of a sudden the Inverted ship's (or any ride's) music will play full blast.

I've also started getting some graphical glitches at night and when I am editing terrain. The ground will vanish or change colors. Scenery will vanish. Lights will extend to infinity (think lasers). Etc.

Big D,

I was having the same problem you had, where it ran fine at first, but then after a few minutes it became intolerable.

There seems to be no reason for it, I've even reduced graphics quality and everything. This is really annoying, as I have an extremely high-end system (Intel P4 3.0Ghz Prescott CPU, 2gig ram, Radeon 9500 video card), and I have run Doom 3 with no problems.

I'm going to try in on my win2000 box in a little bit and see if it helps any.

So far I've been extremely disappointed with it, and unless the quality improves before the release, I will not be buying a copy.

The coaster building interface is confusing at first and feels redundant. After a few coasters, it slowly becomes second nature like the original did.

The actual pieces are all the same (with the two included coasters) the only new additions are the large corkscrew piece and the overbank pieces. Other than that, it's the same old RCT with a 3D perspective.

Sadly, I think they listened to too many of the "we need more flats" whining - and in my not so humble opinion, that was one of the last things this game needed. There is no skill/fun involved in plopping a flat down and after watching them run for a couple of cycles, the thrill is already gone.

To me, building coasters should be the main attraction to a game called "Roller Coaster Tycoon" - it seems they added/changed next to nothing in that department. The last year seems to have been spent on flats. Very disappointing on that side of things.

*** Edited 9/27/2004 8:43:12 PM UTC by Lord Gonchar***