Dante80

The first livestream about alpha 2 is out. This one deals with changes to guests and pathing after player feedback from alpha 1. Transcript of the livestream. And the development videos shown inside.

In other news..an official PC video with some community creations.

I did have one but it expired on April the 4th. I got it one month earlier, since I was an Elite Dangerous backer. Sadly, I forgot about it until today...and even paid my own early access in full instead of applying the code... Yeah..I'm an idiot.

Two things happened. 1. Nvissio was rushed to bring a "feature complete" build forward instead of taking the time to work on each module and part of the feature set until it was good. You can see this with the feedback given in the beta, which was really not taken into account at all. The plan was apparently to keep on getting the features from the ATARI list in, instead of paying attention to each and every facet of the game. So, now we have a complete game (scenarios, campaign, management, sandbox, people, staff, economy, rides, scenery, UGC, shops, rollercoasters etc) but each and every part of the game feels rushed or tacked on. I cannot really blame them for this btw, they are contractors and really have no creative and schedule freedom in this. 2. Performance problems. As you add more stuff and features to your game, your game gets heavier, performance wise. If you don't have the time to properly integrate the features, mesh them together, optimize the game and polish the end result (due to the first point I made above), the only way to present it as playable is to simply dial down anything and everything, until you get something that does not melt your computer. This is the reason that the game Beta looked a lot better, 5 months prior to this. All in all, if you let this cook for six more months, I think that we will get a passable game. The actual bet now is whether ATARI will run away or put the money in to get the game out of EA.

Many thanks for the update, it is looking great! Really love the volcano idea, that was a very clever use of the red spotlights and rocks. I think that after all that rock addition...you are wishing for the terrain tool to come. Enclosing something like this would be very easy with it, since it is supposed to automatically keep the space needed for the coaster/paths etc. You would also be able to put a ride on top.

Sadly you are below the minimum requirements. Also, to get access to the alpha you need to get the early bird package, which costs a tidy sum (75$). I don't say this often, but here is what I would do. The alpha is already pirated, so you could check it out to see if you can run it. Be sure to buy it though if you can run it (or later down the line), I think that it is very important to vote with your wallet and support good developers making good games. It is really the only way for the industry to move forward too! In other news...a Cool Alpine coaster I found on reddit. And some more buildings from around the web...Asian and Viking this time. Click for full res (it really makes a difference in those). What you can do with a single theme is bordering the ridiculous. I mean, the pirate theme can make so far: Aztec Italian Mayan Japanese Rome Viking Tirol oh...and Pirate too! lol

What are your PC specs?

This is an incredibly awesome creation, I really like your planning and pacing in making this. Same goes for the terrific (and informative) preview. Have you enclosed it yet? A video would be wonderful to see..

You can build a pretty smooth coaster right now, but the builder is lacking, and the camera is bugged. Frontier has acknowledged both problems and that was one of the reasons for not wanting to even release it for testing in the first alpha (the other major reason was so that the testers focus on pathing and modular building feedback instead of building coasters). To be more precise. 1. The POV camera exaggerates every minor bend or change in the track, it has something to do with them programming it around the actual center of gravity on the coaster car. This will change. 2. The set pieces cannot be re-sized. 3. Transitions when building are not very smooth (especially if you do changes with small track increments as pieces). There is a smooth button to alleviate that, but it is used as a stopgap right now. 4. After building your track, editing it is really fiddly. 5. Boosters don't work. 6. You cannot make your own inversions, or build at very steep angles. Physics are pretty good right now, and the coasters behave properly when momentum, friction and weight is concerned. It is nice to see the subtle difference in the ride by adding or subtracting cars from the train. Mechanical sounds are also good for now. Guest sounds on the coasters need work (as per Frontier).

Agreed, it feels to me (which is something subjective) like many of the buildings/shops are simply off, both in scale or in needed size.

It is scheduled to launch somewhere inside Q4 2016, if everything goes well. I'm personally waiting to get my hands on the fairy tale theme. Here is an early concept picture for some of the pieces planned for the set. If the above gets to the game, we might be able to do Magic Kingdom properly. At least the castle textures in the concept art look to be spot on.

Not my park, and not one park. Just some nice pictures from around the web. The Colosseum is by Kukamonda. Here are two more shots from it.

Planet Coater image dump. Click for full res. And a pretty good on-ride video.

Also..dark rides do not work yet, but given the limited props and theming available people have been able to do some nice things.

If Planet Coaster had not come around, this would have been released a year ago or so.

This one..might be on you man. You start the sandbox map at 1/9th the possible map size, and buy 8 more pieces to extend your park outwards. There is more than enough space for multiple rollercoasters. And now for some funny videos... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BfNO5Tn9r0

Yes. Its a hack-ish way to do it, but then again the editor was not even ready for the Alpha, so all bets are off..

Some nice screenshots from the Alpha. Something interesting I saw is that you can run a coaster through a flat ride, and also add scenery inside it.

I have some of the same reservations. Here is some things I found. Sharp-ish cornered paths are in the game, you have to fiddle a little with the exact location you put your cursor though. Not too intuitive. A thing that does exist and helps a lot with pathmaking is using the ctrl key to disable auto-snapping/connecting when building a path. Also, when you like two paths together, a neat trick is to go to the destination path and make an indent in the exact location you want your paths to link. Then go to the first path and build from there. Plazas are sorely needed indeed. 10m width is ok-ish for individual paths, but you need to be able to do more. Right now it is possible to build a plaza like structure by using the paths provided, but you have to cover the circular patches of grass that remain after placing them. As in any game during an open development process, its is our "job" of shorts to give feedback and really provide the developers with the info/data points they need to understand what works and what does not. There are many times when a developer feels/understands that he has made a good choice about something, but in reality it he has not. Getting feedback from the outside can really help him, provided he is ready to accept it. And many do. In the last years, there has been a trend in games under development where constructive criticism from one part of a community is brushed down by a more..er..loyal part, simply due to the fact that the project itself is not finished. This is a slippery slope, since it sometimes transforms a project into an echo chamber, thus deluding the quality of the feedback process itself. You can view this in a number of different big projects, and Star Citizen comes to mind immediately. So, the best attitude is to judge what you see right now, and explain in a constructive way what works for you, what doesn't, and what would you want to see as the process moves forward. There has been some information on this one, from the Q&A sessions. Re-posting. Have in mind that the two last answers are more recent (for what it's worth). (click for full res) Also, this particular Q&A with Sam Denney is pretty cool to read (the guy is a veteran, and was involved in both RCT2 and RCT3, among other projects). He even gives two spoiler pictures in the end. This one is really important for me, I want this game to be a competent construction simulation management game, not only a zen sandbox like RCT3. I want the choices that I make in the campaign to matter, to research new and better rides for my parts and to have this be a challenge as a strategy game. In other news, another video from Silvarret. This guy is pretty good.

To tell you the truth, I think that Nvissio does care a lot, and given the actual amount of time they had to work on the project, the difficult task at hand and the probably limited funding the project has from Atari...I think they have done well so far. The decision to postpone the launch, put this back in the oven to bake and involve the community in the development process via the Early Access program is in my opinion the best scenario that we could have now, given the circumstances. A question. When was this screenshot taken?

The plan has changed. The game launches on Steam Early Access this Thursday. No date given for a retail release.

Hello, and salutations from sunny Greece...first time poster, been lurking for a while though. <3 I've been playing theme park games since...well the original themepark. I am also one of those guys that liked RCT2 a lot more than RCT3, and really thinks that Parkitect is the best project in the current flock of rollercoaster games in the making. Having said that, I have been following the Planet Coaster project for some time now, mainly due to the fact that I love the genre and I am also an early backer for the other big project Frontier has made, Elite: Dangerous. A disclaimer. I am a bit cynical in general when game projects are concerned, and a little wary of the way the game industry has evolved in general (being playing games since the 8-bit home computers were around). Planet Coaster looks good so far, but there are a number of areas that are a little too..er..."muddy" for my taste, especially concerning the way the game will be monetized and work as a true CMS (construction management simulation), not simply a glorified sandbox. Having said that, I want to post three video links. The first one shows a small vignette of the overall ambience and polish the current alpha has. The second one is a timelapse from a competent RCT3 player of making a themed scene using the limited sets the first alpha provides. And the third is a POV video of playing and watching things move in your park in the current alpha. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR6qRwNtGJc ----- Now..there are a couple of things I can nitpick about (path-making, the eventual ability to re-theme flat rides, possible performance issues in large parks when the simulation is brought to the alpha process, rotation and scaling options for scenery, building grid re-sizing, more realistic queue lines, etc etc). There are also a couple of things that I am ambivalent on, or don't have enough information to stop worrying about (pricing, monetization practices via DLC/expansions, the fact that proper dark rides and water rides may be an expansion, number of themes at launch, offline gaming support and always online DRM, modding support for UGC and other aspects of the game etc etc). What I can say though from watching the above videos (and a couple of playthroughs) is that this is looking good so far. Something that really, really turned eyebrows for me is the sound design of the game. From little things, like the menu theme song changing according to the menu you are in, to the way rides sound as proper machines, not just fantastical creations. Also, I don't know if it really shows in the down-sampled youtube video..but binaural positional audio sounds excellent, especially when you zoom in and out on your park or move the camera about. I don't pre-order non crowdfunded games, so I will get this on release if it matches the expectations. I'm having high hopes for this one, and I really thing that between this, parkitect, TPS and RTCW we fans of the genre are going to get a lot of things to be excited about (and spend hundreds of hours in).