What exactly do people have against RCT3 ?

[Sir Clinksalot]

Seeing as in the short time I've been here I seem to already be branded a staunch RCT3 defender. I thought I'd let people know what I really think of RCT3 and get people's views/feedback.

 

For ease of explanation I'll sometimes compare to equivalent features/problems in RCT2.

 

RCT3 Pros and Cons

 

First things first, I like RCT3, I know that's hard to believe but bear with me.

RCT3 has most of the features of RCT2 and some that aren't in 2 at all.

 

Full 3D

One of the benefits RCT3 brings is the fact that now it's in full 3D it makes aligning and building coasters much easier. The isometric views in RCT2 could sometimes get a little cluttered and confusing when trying to line up a turn to join somewhere, RCT3 helps with the problem of lining up for the end by having an Autocomplete function for tracked rides (which can sometimes make a right mess of it, but it usually makes it easier for you to edit it if you get totally lost).

 

Ride Coasters

The ability to ride your coasters adds that much needed visual excitement factor to coaster building, seeing tracks you've built in RCT2 come alive in 3D is really neat. (No Limits lets you do this for RCT1 rides, does it for RCT2 ?)

 

Peep AI

The peep AI has been improved (although it's still a bit dopey on occasion) with peeps able to walk around in groups as well as individuals, the peeps no longer do the walk in a line and visit every stall/ride on the path thing and don't get stuck finding their way out anymore like they do on RCT2. The group AI is something you either love or hate though.

 

Being able to see the peeps expressions brings a lot of feeling, seeing peeps with hands in the air screaming on coasters, or showing they aren't enjoying the ride really helps you improve your coasters.

 

Soaked! Additions

With Soaked! we gained the ability at long last to use tunnels the same as we could in RCT2 (this should have been in from the start) as well as more theming options and the whole waterpark angle (which is REALLY good but could be fleshed out a bit more).

 

Evil Lag

Now RCT3 has it's faults, the most obvious one being that it's a resource hog, even with a beast of a PC the game can lag horribly if you have a big park with lots of guests (1500+). Soaked! improved this drastically and it'd be great if this improved again with the next expansion (Wild! is the guess at the moment) which is due in November.

 

Evil Faults

Other faults include, some ride pieces not working correctly (notably the flume/track end to lift hill piece on some water rides and something has changed on the ghost train lift hill), some of the scenery pieces not linking correctly and the new soaked scenery not being sorted into the new categories (they are currently dumped in with the Generic items).

 

There are plenty of other niggles with RCT3 and lots of cool extras too like the ability to adjust menus on stalls etc, but on the other hand you can no longer colour sale items like umbrellas, so they gave with one hand and took with the other .

 

Cool Soaked Stuff!

Soaked! also improved the campaign mode by provided cool mini-objectives during scenarios. You might be asked to add 3 themed rides in a year or to sell 1000 inflatables. These things give you mid-term goals as well as your over-archinng main goal which helps the game flow.

 

CHRIS SAWYER WAS INVOLVED IN RCT3

One common mistake that people constantly pick up on is they seem to think Chris Sawyer wasn't involved in RCT3 at all, this couldn't be further from the truth, Chris Sawyer was Executive Producer on both RCT3 and Soaked! which is equal billing with David Braben at Frontier. Frontier has always been involved in the RCT franchise since RCT2 as they made both the Wacky Worlds and Time Twister expansions for RCT2 as well as RCT for XBOX. That ultimately is how they ended up doing RCT3!

 

RCT2 Pros and Cons

 

RCT2 is a great game and I still love it dearly, here are my pro's and cons to RCT2 done in the same way as I did RCT3 above.

 

Some of the advantages RCT2 offers are down to it being a 2D game. Because of this, the system requirements are a LOT lower than RCT3.

 

Speed and Stuff

This allows for huge parks with little to no impact on speed. The downside to that though is that there is little variety in the peeps and sometimes things can look a little bland, especially the terrain. On the plus side the coasters look fantastic thanks to being pre-rendered images.

 

Peep AI

The peep AI in RCT2 is laughably bad sometimes, but for the time it worked and was functional although the path-finding routines are bad. They also had the habit of walking along a path buying or using everything in sight. (In RCT3 I've noticed that the peeps will sometimes return to stalls where they've already bought stuff and complain they already have it, so there is room for improvement still but it is still much better)

 

Average Sequel

The one thing people forget about RCT2 is that it really wasn't much of a sequel, it did very little that RCT1 didn't already do. It added Themed Toilets and ATM's as well as the Six Flags rides and some other bits and bobs, but really it could have been an expansion. People were VERY disappointed with RCT2 when it came out. The graphics hadn't improved, the scenarios were just more of the same, no really new objectives etc.

 

 

Mini-Rant and Pose the Question !

At least that's one complaint you can't throw at RCT3, it really was a true sequel even if some elements hadn't been properly thought out or executed properly.

 

Frontier have had pretty good community contact from launch and responded well to problems in RCT3 and fixed a lot of peoples grievances in the two patches that followed. Because of that feedback they used an Open Beta program for Soaked! and implemented a lot of the suggestions they were given by the community and Soaked! feels a better product because of it.

 

Of course you are free to hate RCT3, you are free to hate Soaked!, I just find it immensely annoying when people attack RCT3 for no reason, or without justification. If you don't like it, don't play it or waste time commenting about it when it's not justified, just stick to RCT2.

 

It's like saying Apples are crap, Oranges are better. WHY are oranges better ? that's a far more constructive post and encourages debate/discussion. A statement on it's own is FAR more likely to get a flame in response.

 

Phew.... sorry for the long post....

 

Anyway, those are my pros and cons for RCT2/3...

 

What elements of RCT3 / Soaked! don't you like and why? Are there any features you'd have preferred to be left as they were pre-RCT3 ?

[Sir Clinksalot]

My, what a long post! That must have taken you all day!

 

Well, erm, I really love RCT2 & 3. Most of the time just lately, I'm playing RCT3 mainly because Soaked! is still new and I'm still figuring out what you can and can't do with it. I really miss the scenery out of RCT2 though, especially the Arctic, European and Egyptian theming, which was really cool.

I'm hoping that the Wild! expansion will include some similar theming, or better!

Apart from the scenery, I do think that RCT3 is a better game. I love how you can actually ride the coaster that you've just spent hours building. And it is easier to design coasters now that you have a fully 3D camera.

 

Even though I do think RCT3 is better than 2, RCT2 is still a fantastic game and eventually I will get around to playing it again

[Sir Clinksalot]

My, what a long post! That must have taken you all day!

 

Well, erm, I really love RCT2 & 3. Most of the time just lately, I'm playing RCT3 mainly because Soaked! is still new and I'm still figuring out what you can and can't do with it. I really miss the scenery out of RCT2 though, especially the Arctic, European and Egyptian theming, which was really cool.

I'm hoping that the Wild! expansion will include some similar theming, or better!

Apart from the scenery, I do think that RCT3 is a better game. I love how you can actually ride the coaster that you've just spent hours building. And it is easier to design coasters now that you have a fully 3D camera.

 

Even though I do think RCT3 is better than 2, RCT2 is still a fantastic game and eventually I will get around to playing it again

 

Hehe, yeah it took awhile, I didn't realise how long it was til I finished....

 

Yeah I forgot about scenery, that's one place where RCT2 definitely has the edge... I really miss the Arctic and Egyptian themes. I do really like the Atlantis theming in Soaked! though.

 

I definitely agree on the designing being easier in 3D but I agree RCT2 is definitely still a great game. I still enjoy having a little potter now and then. I do prefer RCT3 now though.

[phazan]

i just cant stand the lag. my computer isnt fast enough to run rct3 with no lag. its really a disapointment that i spent 39$ on it and i cant use it.

other than that its a great game.

[coasterdude5]

RCT3 is great and RCT2 is too. I just go back and forth playing them.

 

Pucechan- I don't agree with your opinion on RCT2. It did approve upon the original game. It brought tons of new elemants for coasters, buildings, new flat rides, music, and so much more. But that's just my own opinion. (not trying to start a flame war)

[Sir Clinksalot]

i just cant stand the lag. my computer isnt fast enough to run rct3 with no lag. its really a disapointment that i spent 39$ on it and i cant use it.

other than that its a great game.

 

It's a shame the lag is so bad for you phazan. BTW, your RCT2 park is looking good.

 

RCT3 is great and RCT2 is too. I just go back and forth playing them.

 

Pucechan- I don't agree with your opinion on RCT2. It did approve upon the original game. It brought tons of new elemants for coasters, buildings, new flat rides, music, and so much more. But that's just my own opinion. (not trying to start a flame war)

 

Glad you like them both coasterdude5, I do think RCT2 improved on RCT1 but it wasn't the big leap that everyone was hoping for, I can remember how disappointed people were at the time. But yeah it did add a LOT of new stuff. I just think that it felt more like an expansion rather than a new game. It doesn't stop the game being ace though.

 

By the way, nothing you said could be taken as a flame at all, just a difference of opinion. I'm not some deity that's always right I love hearing what other people think.

[Maynard_Hicks]

Well, most people seem not to even give RCT3 a chance. I know this, because I was one of them. Basically, I bought RCT3, ripped open the box, and was looking forward to a more in depth, and 3D RCT2. What I got was something totally different, and I was so used to RCT2, that I kept playing it while the RCT3 box rotted in the corner. But one day, my RCT2 disc broke right in half, and so I was stuck with RCT3, eventaully I grew to like it much more than it's counterparts. Now all I have to get it soaked.

[benzo41190]

I thought that RCt3 sucked but then I played Soaked and I felt much better about the game.

[Sir Clinksalot]

Well, most people seem not to even give RCT3 a chance. I know this, because I was one of them. Basically, I bought RCT3, ripped open the box, and was looking forward to a more in depth, and 3D RCT2. What I got was something totally different, and I was so used to RCT2, that I kept playing it while the RCT3 box rotted in the corner. But one day, my RCT2 disc broke right in half, and so I was stuck with RCT3, eventaully I grew to like it much more than it's counterparts. Now all I have to get it soaked.

 

Yeah, I think a lot of people didn't give it a chance, although to be fair, at launch it was buggy as hell. With the 2 patches since it is a much better game . Especially adding the Peep Thoughts in Patch #1 (How could they leave that OUT !) and all the coaster, staff and peep fixes (although people still don't like some or all of these )

 

I thought that RCt3 sucked but then I played Soaked and I felt much better about the game.

 

With Soaked it improved even more, the lag lessened and you gained so many more options. I was really impressed with Soaked as an expansion !

[coasterdude5]

^^When I bought the game when it came out (which was about a week early) I went home and tried to play it. It was so screwed up I almost took it back. Then I heard about the patch and that worked.

 

Basically, I feel the opposite way. We gave it a chance, it was the one that was so screwed up. Now, especially with Soaked! and some other tweaks I've made it works very well. But I think what happened was alot of people bought it, then just gave up on it. I mean, think about the kids (the magority of the players) who don't have the internet. They're stuck with this bug-infested game. But that's just my opinion.

[RollerC]

Most people dont like RCT3 cause you basically need an expensive high end computer to run it at a good speed

[Sir Clinksalot]

Most people dont like RCT3 cause you basically need an expensive high end computer to run it at a good speed

 

It does lag quite badly once you reach a certain amount of scenery/peeps but honestly I have never had it reach frustrating level yet and my machine isn't exactly cutting edge (Athlon XP1700+, GF4Ti4400 128Mb (Oveclocked to just above Ti4600 level, 512Mb RAM) and I've built some fairly big parks and I have detail settings fairly high.

 

Soaked! improved the lag quite a lot, and I get on average 10-15fps improvement even on my average PC with between 1000-1200 peeps, generally around 20fps, over that and my fps starts to drop, the worst I've had so far is around 8-10fps (with around 1800 peeps from memory) which was still playable (for me at least but maybe I'm used to dealing with this due to my PC ) but I generally enjoy building sandbox parks so I don't usually have too many peeps anyway, the park is usually closed just so I can build in peace

 

Loading can get pretty horrendous on my PC, presumably because of RAM. Can be upwards of 5 minutes or so in my bigger parks. I'm guessing if I had more than 1Gb of RAM that I would see a fairly sharp improvement.

 

The game is definitely a resource hog though, and there are plenty of people on the official boards with much higher end machines than mine that get bogged down badly.

 

I think that maybe I'm just very lucky in that my playstyle doesn't incur the wrath of the lag demon.

 

The only things I can think of that could explain that are that I'm fairly conservative with scenery, I only use what I need to get the effect I want and that I've tweaked the detail and distance settings until I'm happy with the look/performance compromise. I still have all the more advanced options enabled like Soakeds refraction and reflections and laser occlusion.

 

The one place where I do lag badly most of the time is when I use the Pool Building tools, once I've finished building it's fine, but during building can be really traumatising ! Oh and using the peep-cam cheat can also bring my machine to it's knees with larger amounts of peeps.

 

I get the impression from reading a lot of the posts on the official boards that it has a lot of issues with certain combinations of hardware, for some people it seems to cope well (like me) and for others even with 3Gb machines with a Radeon x800 it lags like crazy.

[Sir Clinksalot]

Most people dont like RCT3 cause you basically need an expensive high end computer to run it at a good speed

 

Isn't that like saying that you don't like roads because you don't own a car? Or you don't like microwave meals because you don't have a microwave? Just because you don't have a good computer, I don't think that's a reason to not like the game, (unless you have actually played it, given it a chance, and don't like it). It's a good reason for not owning or playing it though!

 

Joanne "RCT3 really is a fantastic game, whether your computer is good enough to run it or not!" Allison

[coasterdude5]

^^I've been thinking about this and that is EXACTLY what I came up with. RCT3 is not a bad game. It's top of the line. It's the computers that can't play it and bogs the game down. But that's just my opinion.

[FlyingScooter]

First off, it took several upgrades on my system to get it to run. When it ran, it was a bit laggy, but overall a fun game.

However, I bought Soaked and tried to load it. Now, RCT3 does not run at all. i get a Bad Version 4 msg.

I looked at the booklet, and it tells me that it may not run right w/ Geforce 2 and 4mx vid cards. Why? RCT3 worked fine w/those but the expansion needs an ATI Radeon? That is wrong and i'm not happy.

Anyone else notice this?

[Sir Clinksalot]

First off, it took several upgrades on my system to get it to run. When it ran, it was a bit laggy, but overall a fun game.

However, I bought Soaked and tried to load it. Now, RCT3 does not run at all. i get a Bad Version 4 msg.

I looked at the booklet, and it tells me that it may not run right w/ Geforce 2 and 4mx vid cards. Why? RCT3 worked fine w/those but the expansion needs an ATI Radeon? That is wrong and i'm not happy.

Anyone else notice this?

 

Soaked! works fine on most NVIDIA cards, at least any Geforce 3+ card (excluding the GF4MX as it's essentially just a faster GF2) I've seen people with GF2's and GF4MX's having problems.

 

Both myself and Bocakey have got NVIDIA cards, in my case a GF4Ti4400 and in Bocakeys case a Geforce FX 5200. The game runs fine.

 

About that error message, I can find 2 references to it on the official board both responses suggested completely uninstalling both Soaked and RCT3, delete any left-over pieces then re-installing. Which to me doesn't sound like much of a solution but it's worth a try I guess

 

As to why Soaked might not work on the same hardware as RCT3.. I expect it's because of the water effects, it probably needs shaders to work properly which could be why GF2/GF4MX peeps have problems (GF2 doesn't support them at all and GF4MX have limited shader support).

[FlyingScooter]

thanks.

I checked the atari board. will try to uninstall it their way.

Tried like crazy last night to uninstall soaked and it wouldn't do it.

Thanks.

[Sir Clinksalot]

thanks.

I checked the atari board. will try to uninstall it their way.

Tried like crazy last night to uninstall soaked and it wouldn't do it.

Thanks.

 

No Problem, I hope it helps! I've never come across that error before and to be honest that solution just sounds like a last ditch effort, but if it works that's cool.

 

There are a couple of threads on the Atari boards about uninstalling Soaked! so I hope they help you !

[RollerC]

Most people dont like RCT3 cause you basically need an expensive high end computer to run it at a good speed

 

Isn't that like saying that you don't like roads because you don't own a car? Or you don't like microwave meals because you don't have a microwave? Just because you don't have a good computer, I don't think that's a reason to not like the game, (unless you have actually played it, given it a chance, and don't like it). It's a good reason for not owning or playing it though!

 

Joanne "RCT3 really is a fantastic game, whether your computer is good enough to run it or not!" Allison

 

I did play it and it ran awful. My computer is only 2 years old and I expected it to be playful. Im not saying that I dont like it, Im just saying that it would be cool if they designed it for both high end and lower end comps

[Voovegas]

This game is definately designed for high end machines. I built a fairly high end computer just to be able to play it (Athlon 64 3200, 1 gig ram, ATI Radeon 9600xt) and have had no problems with all the bells and whistles turned on. Prior to building this computer I didn't even realize how incredible this games graphics are because features like water reflection automatically turned off if your computer/graphics card couldn't handle them.

[RollerC]

mabey once when i get my new computer, ill change my mind, but i still stand firm on my opinion about it...still though, i dont know why i bought Soaked cause i cant play it

[scarymy]

I need a better comp for it

[ShoubraStreet74]

It's really a shame that such a great game gets such negative reactions because it's a resource hog. If everyone were to see and play the game to it's full potential with all the great graphics and effects we would all agree that it's a great game. Hopefully in a few years it will be fully appreciated.

[FlyingScooter]

^agreed.

I ended having to buy a whole new system. At best buy and circuit city, their moto seems to be: Hey, if it'll run RCT3, it'll run anything. and run it well.