Soaked! Developer Interview.

There's two new videos from Gamespot on RCT3: Soaked

Just click here...

Basically, they interview Ken Allen, Sr Producer for Atari & he decribes the new expansion pack & all its offerings while showing a lot of gameplay footage.

Bad news:
- Looks like the game still runs a little choppy
- A lot of mix-master additions like the laser show, water show, dolphin show & orca whale show.
- More special effects which will slow down performance
- A lot of focus on peep interaction & reaction
- Only 8 new senarios.
- $29.95 MSRP.
- June 28th Release

Good news (some already noted by screens):
- Tunnels for both coasters & paths
- Waterfalls as simple as a click of a button for water from one level to another.
- A peep cam so you can take control of the water cannons & spray the peeps
- Make whirlpools with your mouse on the pool for a humerous reaction by peeps.
- Ability to create aquariums that peeps love.
- Water gets on the lens of the camera and drips (part of the bad since it's more special effects)
- Ease of moving the camera in & out of water.
- Over 50 new rides
- Over a dozen new coasters
- Can combine all 3 shows (fireworks, laser, & water) to make one spectacular show ala: Fantasmico.

A nice combination of new features...
...no word at all in the interview on performance improvements & the overall gameplay shown during the interview doesn't look as smooth as the trailers, but not as choppy as some of the slow down experienced when there's a lot going on in the current RCT3.

*** Edited 5/3/2005 7:17:51 PM UTC by DawgByte II***

Random thoughts:

- I'm glad it comes out June 28th. I'll be out of town. I'll be able to get some online feedback before I commit.

- New light and water effects and no mention of improved performance = more problems for more people.

- All the little 'easter egg' type stuff (pee, whirlpools, wet lens) does absolutely nothing for me and the only ones who will enjoy it long term are the people who thought drowning peeps was still amusing a couple of months into the previous game's life cycle.

- Not sure how true this is, but from the wording Ken Allen used and the screen they showed, it really seemed like tunnels on work going into a sheer land face. Not horrible, but very limiting. Could be wrong on that though.

- More mixmaster features? The most boring element of the game is now expanded with tons of new tedious features. ;)

- The waterfalls sure are purty.

- I have a feeling the aquarium building will be a lot like mini-golf construction. Good short term. Not good long term.

- No mention whatsoever of new themes and building pieces. (even though we kind of know there is)

- Only 8 scenarios is actually a good thing in the same way that a double negative become a positive.

- Overall I didn't like the way Ken was selling the game to me. He seemed enthusiastic about and focused on all the things I personally have been complaining about. Still looks like they're trying to do 'Sims Theme Park' to me. I don't want to live vicariously through the peeps. I want them to be almost an afterthought. A mere graphical representation of my patrons.

- Frontier has promised all 'new' rides & coasters in past expansions. Proceed with caution.

Just a random stream of thoughts.

Did I mention the waterfalls look terrific? :)

*** Edited 5/3/2005 10:18:56 PM UTC by Lord Gonchar***

I'm still old school and enjoy scenarios. Having only 8 isn't enough, and frankly Frontier's scenario design blows anyway.

It'd honestly be nice to play for something...

In other words... for each couple of senarios you play through, you should have some kind of reward like a new ride that is not previously available in sandbox mode or otherwise. It'd give a little incentive to work towards something.

Honestly, how hard is it to come up with senarios? You lay out a little land, decorate it... give out some pre-set park piece & give an objective. It really can't take that much effort to pop out a few senarios in a few given hours. Senarios should have been 3rd on the list of features to the expansion pack (the waterpark & improved performance being #1 & 2, respectively).
I'd be a lot more excited if there were at least a couple dozen to work through... There's only so much sandbox mode you can take & making your own senarios isn't as fun since winning your own senario isn't all that satisfying with no rewards.

I wouldn't say it's that easy. You do have to balance the goals and create some level of challenge, which is something that has never been that easy since the general public doesn't actually know the internal rules that drive the game.

When I first saw the whole whale show, all I thought of was Zoo Tycoon. I want to build an amusement park. Not this other stuff. This is starting to become all the tycoons put together. We'll be able to make a town with an amusement park and a zoo and a mall. :)

I agree there should be more then 8 scenarios. By far. i don't play them much myself, but I do think that is a valid complaint.

But the other stuff isn't bad. Not at all. And if you think things like the water drops are effecting your perfomance adversely, just turn them off.

The stuff like whirlpools, urine (ugh), and water on the screen should, to me, be like the geese/ducks in RCT1 & 2.

They were an afterthought, put in as more of a joke, because Sawyer was finished with the game, it worked well, was fun, and he had time to add that little afterthought. It shouldn't be the focus of all these developers.

Exactly.

The easter eggs Sawyer included were just that - nice little surprises you found if you played around the game enough. A silly reward for the diehards.

This guy spent 20% of the interview pushing crap like whirlpools and water drops as bona fide features of the game.

Who are the fools that buy into this?

I don't think I could sit through more than 8 of the new style scenarios. Thus, the 'double negative' comment I made earlier.

"Ugh, only 8 scenarios. Then again, if they're like the ones in RCT3 that's probably a good thing."

But man, those waterfalls sure are cool. :)

The worst part is, I'll probably end up buying the damn thing just for the waterfalls...

...I'm a corporate tool. ;)

There are only 3 features that draw my attention, tunnels, extra rides (including coasters), and the waterfalls, the water rides i could care less about, I go for the major features most of us do or should anticipate.

But Gonch, don't hold back now...

...How do you feel about the waterfalls? ;)

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Lord Gonchar said:

Still looks like they're trying to do 'Sims Theme Park' to me. I don't want to live vicariously through the peeps. I want them to be almost an afterthought. A mere graphical representation of my patrons.

---

Exactly, Exactly, Exactly.

If I want to see what it is like to walk though a park, guess what... I will get up off my arse and drive to a park and walk thought it! I don't need to see it through the eyes of some demented little pseudo cartoon figures.

I want to run parks in the grand scale... not micro manage a "Lemon Chill" Stand.

In the old game, I could ignore the fact that there was a giant Ice Cream Cone stuck on top of my ice cream stall... in #3 I can't ignore that monsterous Buffalo trying to take a bite out of each patron at the Bison Burger stand.

In the old game, the only thing neat about the baloons that you sold were that everyone would release them when you met your objectives... so what if you couldn't "pop" them with your cursor.

The old game was titled "Roller Coaster Tycoon" for a reason... Your job was to build parks and coasters. (Personally, I always looked at as more "Park Tycoon", but oh well, it still worked)... It was not called "Maintenance (or Security or Janitoral) Supervisor." In the old game, as the designer / builder / manager / owner / whatever of the park, my job was to hire the staff and assign them and then get on with running my park in the grand scheme, not micro manage every little part of their day... dropping everything when Maintenace Man 1 is "feeling sad".

As I said in another post... the abstract nature of 1&2 were their strong point. The game in a way gave a rough sketch and you filled in the details. Sure, that ferris wheel didn't look quite big enough to be the Big Wheel at Great Adventure... but looking at it as a simple represnetation of Great Adventure's wheel, it was passable. The Ferris Wheel in #3, because you can get in so close, and see so much detail, can only be looked at as what it is... a rather small, bench style wheel, that no matter how good of an imagination you have can never be imagined to look like anything but that.

The abstract nature of 1&2 gave you a rather detialed representation of the real world, but still kept you far enough away so that your brain had to fill in the little details. RCT3 leaves no such room... the details are all there... no latitude... you see what they want you to see.

In another post, Gonch supplied a link to the old RCT2 site where you can down load "classic" RCT1 scenarios for use in RCT2. Even though those are "old games", I can hardly wait to get home this evening and down load them. Compare that to the fact that RCT3, while I am warming up to it, I still can say I can take or leave it.

In adding all of the 3D graphics etc, RCT3 presents a much more detailed world, that in its detail seems even less realistic than the rather generic RCT1&2. It's all flash, its all bright and shiny, all bells and whistles, however it somehow lost the heart and fun factor that the first two versions of the game had.

A bad marketing decision? Or a reflection on our times? RCT3 seems more content to "entertain" the person palying it rather than allow the imagination to run wild like its predecesors did.

As of late I've had more fun watchin the videos than playing the game. As much as I thought i was really anticapating this, its slowly starting the wear off. I just might be saving money for somthing else rather than this, to probably only sit and collect dust like the 1st one is.

Roller Coaster Tycoon is still the same game despite its pretty pretty factor and bad performance. I dare someone to make a Cedar Point recreation and try to manage the park, Its about managing it with 2 styles of Economics, Micromanaging, from the little stuff around the park and focusing on that, or take it from a Macromangaging and manage the park as a whole.

There is a major part of me that likes the previous versions better because of its easier to play, once you know how to run any park. In all due respect, I like RCT3 because it adds more life in the park, like a fireworks show for the opeining of your park. I won't go into detail of whats wrong with the game, that could go on forever. Everyone is entitled to their opinions! *** Edited 5/5/2005 2:40:13 AM UTC by DC2Beltz3***

So, I have a question, with tongue only partially in-cheek. Given that Gonch is typically not, well, typical in his preferences, (and neither are enthusiasts) can his (and our) dislike of the new features mean that Atari has figured out what *will* appeal to the masses?

Full disclosure: I own an copy of RCT3, but haven't actually managed to sit down with it yet in more than goof-off mode.

*** Edited 5/4/2005 11:09:30 PM UTC by Brian Noble***

If you CLICK HERE....

It looks like Gamespot has 5 new IN-GAME footage.

Looks like it's full versions of the clips that were presented during the interview.

The bad news is that the game still runs choppy (if not, very) when there's a lot going on during the game.
Also of note is that the sound effects are basically the exact same & have not made any improvements to match those of RCT2 (*sigh*).

The good news (maybe?) is that I haven't seen any true single-digit frame-rate issues. Then again, they didn't show it at night...

Other than that, the interface & everything looks basically identical to the original.

I am seriously going to think about this one before forking down $29.95 ($24.95 on sale) when it comes out... because all it is, is just that... an expansion pack, not an improvement pack.

Gonch is head on with this. There is no that there is enough time in the park to make handyman 22 happy and still build that big ride. The fireworks were nice, but as you build that fancy show, people are complaining about hot dog stand 2. You just can't build rides AND keep everything in that park running smooth. All while you're computer is doing 7 fps becuase you have 750 people wondering weather or not they should pee in your pool.

There is no way that this is what the general public wants. They want to build 20,000 ft. coasters with 20 inversions. They want to have 72 coasters with fireworks going off during the circuit. They want to build enough stuff to keep the park running and profitable and then build rides. No one cares if someone pees in your pool after playing the 10th time.

Yeah whales are nice, but when whale 2 becomes p’d off because animal worker 16 is cleaning up someone in the pool’s piss then what are you going to do. When I want animals I want zoo tycoon. When I want to micromanage a lemonade stand I go on Yahoo! and play lemonade tycoon. Chris Sawyer had it right. This is called ROLLER COASTER Tycoon. Do I want to be able to plop stands and charge money? Yes. But once I put that stand down, I don’t want the taco guy asking me what I want them to put in a taco.Building your own coaster AND the park management is what sets this game apart from No Limits and insert business name tycoon.

Overall, this expansion has done zilch for me. If it increased performance and brought back what was fun in the game then I would have bought RCT3 and Soaked. Now, I’m sticking with RCT2 and my expansion. Atari has ruined a great series and unless Sawyer comes back and creates the next one I’ll probably never buy another RCT game again.

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Brian Noble said:
So, I have a question, with tongue only partially in-cheek. Given that Gonch is typically not, well, typical in his preferences, (and neither are enthusiasts) can his (and our) dislike of the new features mean that Atari has figured out what *will* appeal to the masses?

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As much as it pains me to say so, I think you nailed it. :)

The one thing, ONE THING I wanted hasn't been added.

RIDE OPERATORS!

It's no fun without ride operators dispatching trains Cedar Point style "The all clear means your outta here"

Imagine the Raptor headsets..

Wouldn't that be great compared to the peeing peeps?

The game is good but my only complaint is that the guests stop coming to my parks for months at a time even if I spend money on advertisements and they don't eat any food for the first year.

I have a no CD crack because my CD drive will let me install the game but won't let me start it because the security doesn't "agree".

I'm hoping that I can install this and still have the game work..

I got a Dell last year loaded so the game runs great but then again I have the other problem I have to worry about.

Not many people have gone through this game without having some type of problem.

Well I always imagine those people in side that booth entrance that sells the tickets as the rider operators, but yea that's a feature I would want too, plus saving scenery, more generic scenery pieces like in rct2 where you could build almost anything. Just stuff to add to the effect without adding stupid crap like exploding birds or peeing...I'd rather have stuff that is worth using or seeing in the game! ;)