Dante80

Not so fast. Just one week after release ATARI decided to do a 45% off exclusive "fall sale" for RCTW, thus @#$%^@$% over their existing customers...again. The caveat? This sale is only happening through their own website, not Steam. http://www.rollercoastertycoon.com/buy/ If you go to Steam now...you pay 45% more. http://store.steampowered.com/app/282560 The reason ATARI decided to do this is two-fold.. 1. So that many existing customers on Steam won't find out they have been shafted. Btw...if you buy right now from the Steam Store, you pay 45% more. 2. So that the Steam 2hr refund process does not apply to the guys that get it from there. Good luck getting a refund from ATARI themselves. Steam won't cover you. Niiiiiiceee..

Posting some pictures from around the web. The things people do in this game give a lot of inspiration, and also make me feel like a corncob. Example of how you can use verticality for both theming and ride building. The art shapes are somewhat limited (this part really needs both a re-texturing option, as well as a scaling tool), but you can still do a lot of things with them. The 4m block size as well as the rotation/translation tools can help in making sincere re-productions of known venues. Here is someone making the Efteling entrance. With the grid tools for pathing you can make pretty compact and efficient food courts.

If you have the thrillseeker edition (or pre-ordered the game before alpha 3 came out to Steam), you can access the sketchbook and soundtrack right now. Go to your install drive, Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Planet Coaster, and the two respective folders are there. That works for Win7. The sketchbook is 93 pages long, with an excruciating amount of detail and pretty sweet illustrations. It covers how the game was made. The soundtrack (16 tracks) is offered in lossless FLAC and 160kbs MP3. Also has a printable album cover picture. Both are pretty sweet additions imo. I'll definitely get some mileage out of that soundtrack while driving to work.

And the game is live. Grab it if you have it. It’s here! Planet Coaster has officially launched! Today, on November 17, 2016, Planet Coaster is officially released! Adding to the beta update earlier this week, the released game comes with all 12 Scenarios and more general balancing and fixes, as well as Steam Achievements and Trading Cards. We’ve hit so many milestones over the past months, and it’s been a long way from concept to finish, so let’s quickly recap some of the highlights: At the heart of the game are the park guests. Everything you do, whether it’s management or creativity-based, now has an impact on each individual crowd member. Each of them have their own simulated preferences and needs to ultimately affect gameplay, and new, advanced crowd simulation and path-finding algorithms help with the logistics of guest flow around your park. Authenticity is key – a huge amount of research and development went into all aspects of the game, something especially noticeable in coasters. For example, the system which automatically designs the correct support structures for wooden and hybrid coaster had to be built with a new rendering pipeline, with so many pieces being on screen at once. In fact the attention to detail and development effort that goes into each ride, coaster, guest and scenery piece from a technical, visual and audio point of view is an order of magnitude more than any previous coaster park game we’ve worked on. Piece-by-piece construction gives you the opportunity to build anything and everything you’ve ever dreamed of. Change your parks by theming your areas, create buildings in every style, or add (animated) scenery and customised audio to entertain your guests and up your park and scenery ratings. The unprecedented control and customisation means that you can truly get super creative or be more focused on sophisticated finance and management; whatever suits you as an individual player. The technology underpinning the game is both advanced and highly useable. The 3D voxel landscape gives terrain that’s completely in your control, the lighting engine ensures that everything you create in your park instantly becomes a seamless part of the whole dynamic lighting environment, and you can now create your own dark rides with full creative control of triggering ride events, lights and audio. Every single aspect and element of Planet Coaster has been carefully selected and designed to work in conjunction with every other one as an integrated whole. The tight integration with Steam Workshop has a front end that puts your friends to the fore. It enables creators to share and receive credit for their original designs, and also allows those of us who want to use these fantastic creations to download that content and enhance their parks with those existing blueprints. It has been a fantastic experience for us at Frontier to have the opportunity to create a new game which we hope sets a new quality bar for a genre loved by so many people – no team could have been better suited to the task or more passionate. It’s taken a blend of the team’s expertise and experience, talent, and deep connection with the community; and for that we must thank you all. First and foremost, we want to thank the developers for their incredible hard work, passion, and dedication to the project. Everyone at Frontier has contributed to Planet Coaster in one way or another; a true team effort and shared love for the game from the start. Programmers, animators, producers, sound team, designers, artists, QA, publishing team, engine wizards, support team, video editors, and all you other experts: you’re awesome, well done. #FrontierFam We also want to give a massive shoutout to our forum mods, content creators, and master builders. Thank you for keeping the community an overwhelmingly positive place, where everyone has a voice but no one feels unwelcome. Thank you for making videos or streaming the game, showing it off to your viewers, and spreading the word across your community. Thank you for challenging yourselves and creating the most intricate buildings, for using shapes and items in ways even the devs couldn’t have thought of, and for pushing your creativity to the limit. Last but not least: thank you. Thanks to every single member of this amazing community for your ongoing support, invaluable feedback, and enthusiasm about Planet Coaster. In the end, this game is for you, the players. You have helped shape the game in so many ways, inspired the devs with your ideas and suggestions, and humbled us with your shared passion for the game. We are honoured to have a community like this one. So thank you for joining us on this crazy and ever-evolving rollercoaster ride!

Launch trailer is out. Frontier decided again to use mostly community creations for people like Silvarret and De-Lady-signer. Which is a pretty good choice for showcasing what the game can do imo (far better than a pre-rendered trailer).

A new update is out. Birds, ballons, rapids, giga-coasters, and 2.5x larger parks among other things. https://forums.planetcoaster.com/showthread.php/15053-Planet-Coaster-Beta-Update!?p=127880#post127880

They have also announced what NVISSIO was really working on all this time. And it was not RCTW really...

Btw...I still cannot get over how good the sound design in this game is. I mean, ok..Frontier has shown that they can produce something very good in this category via Elite Dangerous, but this thing is next level. The soundtrack is pretty good, the way music meshes with gameplay is superlative, the actual ride effects are extremely sophisticated, UI sounds are masochistically extensive (almost everything you tweak, plop down, move etc has a different sound), and the camera sound LoD and mixing when going around your park is out of this world. Sound is something that many times is just tacked on and doesn't get much attention from developers, and we are talking about a CMS game here, where (barring the coaster sounds) sound should be even lower in the list. It really really isn't though, and I am glad of it. I mean, do this, as an example. Make a hybrid or wooden coaster (or get one from the workshop), put your headphones on and go on a ride in the front seat. And then in the back. The game even uses my buttkicker that I have bought for E:D, with pretty good results. VR support cannot come soon enough for this one...

Here is a pretty cool hybrid coaster creation. Also, a short preview video by Gamespot.

So, it seems we are getting 27 coaster types/variants for the beta.

Last pre-release dev diary is out. Management matters.

Yeah, it really seems they delivered on this one. Here is the full stream for anyone interested.

Some new shop types shown. You gotta give it to Frontier..most of the franchises there are pretty inspired and catchy. And a pretty nice kotaku article on this, after they went over to the Frontier offices for a day. http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2016/11/05/elite-dangerous-developer-is-building-the-ultimate-theme-park-sim

More. This time about management. https://forums.planetcoaster.com/showthread.php/12510-Management-Matters

Frontier posted this picture on Facebook today. Among other things, we can see a full color picker, what seems to be the option for custom ride music, the ability to make custom signs, a day/night cycle picker, a tracked rides tab in the UI and the ability to change the name of the ride.

Planet Coaster beta coming out on Nov9. Launch on Nov17 as planned. https://forums.planetcoaster.com/showthread.php/12401-Planet-Coaster-Beta-Open-for-Business-November-9! Also, a couple of sneak peeks on the Western theme.

Alpha 3.4 was rolled out yesterday.

No, that would require woodie/hybrid support (which is not ready yet). The RMC T-Rex monorail track is in the alpha though.

Silvarret is at it again..C: Also, some images from around the web (alpha 3). Click for full resolution.

Game looks pretty good in 4k (video and creation by mTTTTn). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi6K-9dmIZ0

Btw...the new alpha is slightly bugged (as expected) but ridiculously good. Especially the new lighting shaders.

They have hinted about a possible water park expansion. Btw...I had a weird crash at startup. Removing my keyboard and starting the game solved it lol... Also, five biomes confirmed for launch. Fingers crossed so that we can mix and match them in sandbox.

Alpha 3 out now. https://forums.planetcoaster.com/showthread.php/9420-Planet-Coaster-Alpha-3-launch-and-Update-notes Planet Coaster – Alpha 3 Update Notes General Overview / Intro: The change log below isn’t exhaustive but gives you an idea of how big a step Alpha 3 is on the way to release on 17 November; don’t forget there are many other things being worked on for release. The highlights of Alpha 3 are the beginnings of our simulation, the first sight of our community and sharing functions built on Steamworks, even more support for creation with the 400+ pieces of the new Fairytale theme, more coasters, more editing improvements, water, more customisation, more flatrides, (you get the idea) … and, of course, general performance, visual and audio quality improvements. We can’t wait to see what you do with it! Here we go: Simulation New Park Management tabs where the player can Hire Staff and track their Overviews. Guests are even more like real humans and drop litter everywhere…unless they see a bin of course. Janitors can be hired to keep the parks clear of litter, vomit and empty bins when full Mascots are available for hire to entertain your guests All Staff can be fired. Sacked. Shown the door to Adios City. Staff can now be trained to increase efficiency. Trained staff work and move faster. New Guest behaviour makes them more reactive than ever to Mascots. Economy System is getting serious now where all items have a placement and running cost Improvements to the Guest Brain Guests actually make considered decisions by assessing the value of rides, coasters, shops and facilities As Guests make these decisions and experience the park they give feedback through Guest Thoughts [*]ATM are now available for your guests to withdraw even more money, keeping them in the park for longer [*]New Mascots added – Cosmic Cow and Princess Amelie [*]Detailed analysis is now available through Info Panels for Guests, Staff, Rides, Shops and Facilities including price adjustments, custom settings and recent thoughts [*]Ability to focus camera on Attraction, Shop or Facility relating to a specific Guest Thought [*]The expanded and improved Park Rating now incorporates Ride Rating, Scenery Rating, Park Balance and Guest Happiness [*]Added Summary Overview tooltips to status bar for Total Guests, Park Rating and Current Cash [*]Priority Pass system allows players to create priority lanes for rides and coasters [*]Priority Passes are available to Guests from the new Information kiosks [*]Staff become less efficient when demotivated by being underpaid, overworked or both, which can be easily seen in the awesome animations played. [*]Players can be true gods by picking up and moving groups of guests and staff too. [*]Staff now have all the same camera functionality available to Guests Main menu Curated Planet interface brings all your content into one place, including Steam Workshop New “My Parks” screen uses screenshots from your Save Games for fast navigation More appropriate game-mode flows for Sandbox and Challenge mode Sandbox still offers total freedom with unlimited cash-flow Challenge Mode won’t allow you to go into negative money, heralding the first steps to fully functional park management [*]Brand new 3D globe interaction populated with a host of charming, animated Avatars [*]Our new “Desert” terrain pack offers a new proving ground for park creators to explore [*]Planet Coaster’s Community get personal with first glimpse Avatar Editor and HQ placement tools Blueprints You can now save local blueprints of buildings, scenery, coasters and combinations of all three! Get a name for yourself in the Community by sharing local blueprints via Steam Workshop Steam functionality Steam Workshop integration to access blueprints/parks from in-game Steam Workshop is fully integrated into the Main Menu making park sharing simple. Planet Coaster Steam Friends appear in-game with their Steam Workshop content Planet Coaster “Celebrities” debut in Alpha 3 with Steam Workshop content Celebrities include Frontier developers and select members of the community Contains new parks and blueprints created by Frontier staff Coasters 6 new coaster types have been added Barghest - Is a Euro-fighter style coaster. The trademark feature is its beyond-vertical drop. This is an excellent compact looping coaster. Basilisk - This has a distinctive look and sound and creates amazing silhouettes over the landscape like a beautiful flowing ribbon. Loony_Turns - With 2 cars placed close together with 4 riders per car and 8 riders per train, this steel roller coaster is characterised by a vertical or beyond-vertical drop, tight corners and abnormal banking. Test_Pilot - This is a 4th dimension roller coaster were the riders are suspended either side of the track. The car then spins on a horizontal axis 360-degrees forward and backwards. There are new widgets in the track editor for adjusting 4D coaster to control the car rotation round each section of your track. Tiamat - This is a prototype wing coaster featuring a high-speed cable lift mechanism. This coaster is all about speed, airtime and high g-force along twisty track layouts. Torque - The Torque is the only coaster to feature a loop with a top hat element connected to the top of the loop. This coaster also features a reverse launch mechanism which stops the train then propels the car backwards down the track and then gives it another boost forward. 1 modified existing coaster type Black Falcon - Planet Coaster fans asked for a chain lift variant of the wing coaster so we gave them one - we now have a LIM launched and chain lift wing coaster variants. Now has Black Falcon adornment on the coaster car. New Track Special Pieces Over 40 new, Special Pieces are available to terrify your guests including: The “Top Hat Loop” with two entrances and two exits in the same piece “Heartline” rolls, huge news for all the fans desperate to see this included Vertical Chain Lift with a 120 degree drop making it the world’s steepest coaster! [*]Improvements to making Specials smoother than ever New Utility pieces Blocks sections - ability to have multiple trains on a single track Cable lift variant for the Tiamat coaster Stackable vertical chain lifts on the Eurofighter tracks Dive drop – This has had some graphical and usability improvements New animated stations These stations now work with glorious detailed engineering just like the real thing Werewolf Aetheon Stingray Boa Roller Coaster Blueprints Move and reposition existing tracks Save your coaster layout Load it into any park Share with your friends Track Editor Improvements Disable supports option - Tracks now have a toggle to have their supports disabled when placed which was a request from the fans, you asked and we listen. Improved the “tweaky-tweak” behaviour when editing a placed piece of track Ability to smooth track banking without changing the position of the track Updated banking widget provides angle feedback Moved track selection controls into in-world rather than UI buttons to make it easier for you to select your existing track pieces for editing Dual direction booster that slows the train to a stop, launches it backwards then propels it forwards as it comes back over it Default track lengths for different coaster types Ride cameras added to coaster construction Ability to adjust load rules for smoother loading and unloading of rides Initial testing mode containing live readouts of your excitement, fear and nausea ratings Testing mode provides a final readout of key information and statistics about your ride once complete Coasters must be tested before they can be ridden by guests Special pieces can now be rotated, scaled and moved in situ without the need to delete any track Amusement Rides 5 new amusement rides ranging from the classic Teacups to the ultra-contemporary Cube, including the towering Sundial swing, guest-flown Wild Blue and the steel beast they call the Gears of Fear Amusement rides even more faithfully realised with controls booths on all bases We give players more control allowing you to adjust individual load rules of each ride Existing rides have been given greater polygonal detail and improved surfaces. Scenery/Buildings Introducing our new ‘Fairytale’ theme consisting of over 400 original assets. Nature packs get even more varieties of tree and plants, including decorative topiary and a fantastic rock-set to support the new Desert theme. Pre-built blueprints of scenery and buildings lovingly created by our artists are included for creators to modify and managers to bit beautiful parks straight out of the box. Advanced Move and Rotate gizmos can now switch World and Local making creation of blueprint smoother than ever. The new “Duplicate and Advanced Move” allows creators to clone complex structures and blueprints quickly and precisely. New particles offer ever more freedom and movement to your theming, including mysterious Mist, explosive Splashes, and plumes of rising Steam. Ability to change the grid size of your buildings offers far greater flexibility when planning park spaces. Players can create an entirely new building simply by selecting a section of an existing one and choosing Split, making creation of complex structures Grid items have a different Browser background allowing seasoned players greater expectation of how an item will function when used Shops and Facilities Alpha 3 comes complete with pre-generated blueprints of shops and facilities in various themes to allow players to quickly build evocative parks. Shops and Facilities now have their own Browser tab to speed navigation Shops are now internal buildings ready and waiting for custom wall pieces to be added New First Aid shop included to help control Nausea in Guests New ATM to supply Guests with cash for new clothes if the First Aiders fail J New Info kiosk to sell the Priority Passes to impatient guests New, clean and a well-tiled Toilets Customisation Players can choose custom colours for Amusement Rides, Scenery, and even Building Pieces. Paths Placing bins and benches along paths is now simple with the soft snap-to-edge feature Paths now have an toggle to prevent supports being dropped when the path is raised Running paths through buildings has never been easier now we have the Align to Grid toggle when laying paths. Guests Guests throw litter into bin (like b-ball pros!) Guests sit down at benches when tired Guests may vomit if they’re nauseous The new pattern system for guest clothing increases variation We’ve added more varied body-types to increase the diversity of the crowd If a guest becomes trapped in busy areas of the park they play a trapped animation Guests Thoughts now take account of congestion in your park Terrain Our new Roughen tool allows players of all abilities to sculpt natural-looking noise into the landscape. We introduce Water including 4 different types of water to suit most requirements with more to come on release. Global Improvements to the browsers target categories and sub-categories for all items make navigation easier Improvements to filtering options for theme, materials and sets for targeted browser searching New multi-select mode allows you to select multiple types of items Global vertical grid has been made optional, increasing player freedom when placing structures while still offering precision placement you’ve come to expect, with the Vertical Grid moved to a toggle (the default is Off) Lighting/Shader Significant improvements to the lighting and shader systems Real-time, screen space reflection for water and reflective surfaces Adaptive exposure gives greater lighting realism when going between dark and light areas. Improved lighting makes tunnel darker the deeper they go and prevent surface atmospherics from brightening subterranean areas Bounce lighting is more advanced, with rich surfaces reflecting hues upwards to structures built upon them. Lights turn on when underground Volumetric atmospheric effects, such as cones, appear on placable lights HBAO has been improved to occlusion to be visible further from the camera, making the large structures feel far more solid and guests more ground to surfaces. [*]Added advanced graphics options to allow players greater control over their gaming experience Audio Obstruction/Occlusion our audio is now aware of the space it is in and will change accordingly! Buildings, tunnels and caves will alter the sound according to how you build them. Made a huge cave? Well prepare for an echo! Move the camera into a narrow passage and there will be early reflections to simulate such a small enclosed space. Sounds that are outside will be muffled, making it much easier to create underground or indoor rides. [*]We have started adding sounds to special track pieces such as the Drivetrain and Chainlift. This is ongoing. [*]We are replacing placeholder sounds, like the mechanical brake noises on magnetic brakes. [*]We are beginning to diversify the audio on coasters, which up until now where all using the same sample set. [*]The Cloudrunner, Rival, Wendigo and Sprint 500 have bespoke sound design layers. [*]Small objects close to the tracks produce little swooshes when a coaster goes by them at speed. [*]We have recorded over 46 voice actors for the game, all speaking the language specifically designed for Planet Coaster. [*]Previously close-up animations didn’t have any sounds, we’re beginning to add these. This is ongoing. [*]Guests in the park react to the sounds that mascots make. Move in closer to King Coaster see the Guest react when he makes noises. [*]Not only will players be able to see the happiness of guests at a glance, but they’ll now start to hear them emoting and reacting to their surroundings (Note: this is not just mascots performing – this is coasters racing by, opening new rides, etc.) [*]Loads more Planco is spoken throughout the park now, replacing placeholder background “walla” layers. [*]Added a lot more music to the rides. We personally love the teacups ride, give it a spin! [*]We have changed how far music carries (just like in a real park!) so take this into account when placing your rides. Close together for a fairground feel, further apart for that theme park feel. [*]We have added layers to existing music, check out the Whirly Rig [*]A huge pass on scenery, there are sounds for placing and moving it around and even more pieces of scenery have unique sounds now. [*]Loads more bespoke sounds for animated scenery and new scenery pieces. [*]New ambient soundest for the desert biome. Game Optimisations Guest optimisation. Updates now 3-4 times faster and uses half the memory overhead from Alpha 2 Optimisation and LOD pass on all ride and coaster assets Optimisation and LOD pass on existing scenery and building items As well as improving the visuals, we optimised materials on rides, coaster cars and tracks by removing the clip material from surfaces that did not require it and moving the alphas onto a separate, smaller texture. Audio systems now use less resources Optimised and improved the model renderer system Optimised and improved the animation rendering system Optimised and improved the crowd rendering system Optimised and improved the particle rendering system Reduced the cost of rendering the reflective shadow maps used to populate light propagation volumes. Softer shadow filters. Reduced memory usage of the terrain system. SIMD optimisations to improve terrain editing performance. Enjoy! Zac

They said that multi-train functionality is coming. Not in alpha 3 launch though. Maybe beta. In other news, heads up. The Workshop is online. https://steamcommunity.com/app/518340/workshop/ Alpha will be available for download in the following hours I presume. None of those in alpha 3, so why would they talk about them?. The game will release with 1 or two water rides. Dark rides have been hinted too (we've seen renders of tracked cars for them).

The RMC T-Rex indeed caught me off guard. You can also see the track for it in the Janitor video Frontier showed in Gamescom, around 19 seconds in. Having a monorail type all-steel coaster in the game would be marvelous. Do we have any idea when we are going to see that train in real life? I wonder whether Frontier is going to inform the design (especially as far as sound is concerned) after they get a real life equivalent to study. What they showed off for the train looks pretty close to the RMC renders too.