Park / NSpheres Empire
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15-December 04
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This is what I keep talking to Blitz about. The dichotomy of East and West or Rationality and Spirituality gives us the two main ways of looking at life. One tradition is the desire to understand why things happen and why they affect us the way they do. That's rationality. The other is a more simple kind of understanding. It's the beauty of the unexplained. The wisdom of letting things come to you instead of chasing them like feathers in the wind. Ultimately I think it's a mistake to choose one over the other. Embrace the rationality and the spirituality as they suit you. It's productive to explain and analyze what art means when it leads you to new perspectives. Like deduction. You start with what you know and deduce new styles and techniques from that. It's also productive just to build whatever you're inspired to build. When inspiration strikes, you should seize the opportunity. That's all very theoretical, but it makes sense on a practical level I think. Look at other parks, see how they were made, plan out what you're going to build, and then let inspiration take you the rest of the way.
You're good enough by now that you can just build parks one after another as they come to you and they would all be great. Thinking more intensely about it distracts from the actual parkmaking, but in my experience, the result is a more pronounced growth. If good art is equal parts good technique and personal expression, the good technique once learned stays with you but personal expression is something you can always get better at. And the more you think about RCT as art and what it can mean, the more willing you get to express yourself personally through your parks rather than just concentrating on the technique of it all.
So that's why I think theory matters. But I also think it's just a good way to exercise the mind by making connections you otherwise would not. You get ideas from everything you experience and the mind's job is to connect all of those ideas together in constructive ways. Well talking about RCT and the history of parkmaking and what words like 'realism' and 'atmosphere' mean to different people is going to form some new ideas and that's always good for you. I enjoy that more than just making parks now.
Well like you said, there's a lot of different styles of parkmaking. Some people are just creating worlds for themselves to get lost in. Others are creating compositions to awe and amaze people. So making things easy to see has more value to some than to others. I think if you really want people to see something, you should take the time to place trees and bushes so they can see it without deleting them. But then if you're creating an imaginary world, that wouldn't matter to you. So while I agree with you about planning outward appearance as well, that's because we seem to share certain ideas about parkmaking that motivate that.
The one key element for me in viewing a park, the reason some wow me and others don't, is whether I can imagine anyone else making the same park. A good example is cBass' brain park. I can't imagine anyone else ever making that park, it's totally unique to him and who he is. Technique is impressive and hacks are impressive and good coasters are as impressive but none are as singularly impressive as a really great unique idea.
Anyway, I apologize if that is unclear. I really should use simpler sentences knowing I'm talking to people who aren't native English speakers, but I'm kindof addicted to the sound certain words make when strung together. That's why I write so much I think. Writing is fun (when it isn't work).
ll isn't working on my computer.
and i really want to look at it cuz it looks great, and it's from you.
hmm... damn technology.
looks great screens though.
-drew
hmm, honestly, i never thought of rct as an art. and i know i don't want to express myself either. i want to express certain things, like the style that created such a gentle, harmonic and elegant atmosphere schuessler "celebrated" in his parks. or realism.
i guess my personality is somewhat linked to that though. i've never liked fantasy romans or movies.
To me it is fazinating discussing on this game, but in fact this so called "fuzz" doesn't make sense to me if we i can't realize it on a park afterwards. That would be like learning how to drive a car and then never drive a car. (just my opinion)
back to the real discussion:
1. making plans:
Every good park has to be planed. People can build up quite good parks without planing, but in most cases this doesn't turn out too well. But a plan is only good to me if it can be changed if it doesn't work out. The theoretical part of parkmaking, so called planing, provides people in my opinion of making mistakes while building. A good plan excactly tells you what to do on the game and it should work out in the end. if the plan doesn't work out it's a bad plan.
as a conclusion I'd say:
A plan exists merely to abadon and improve it, (thanks posix for the translation of that) but also gives you advice how to build a park.
2. planing what to build or also how to build it:
In my opinion we have to plan what we are building and how we are going to put this in rct. and easy example might show this:
you are planing a coaster. the idea behind it isn't important for this example. you want your guests look at the coaster which means you hace to build a way next to it. this sounds easy and stupid thus far, but it shows that we have to plan the outward appearance because otherwise it would be impossible to get up this part of the coaster. It's very easy to find other examples on this point and it doesn't have to be only coasters. it can be gardens, layout of the park and all the other things belonging to a good park.
3. perspective of looking at a park:
might also sound stupid, but i thought a while of this. the "problem" while building is that we are having to perspectives on each park. the guest's perspective and the viewer's perspective. if you put up an idea on a park this is seen by the guests and be the viewer, but what about the outward appearance. the guest's can't fly over the park. they have to stay on the ways. (i hate peeps getting lost on a park cause i deleted part of a way). for the guest's you "only" have to build a park. building a good park is hard enough.
but what about the viewer sitting in front of his monitor and looking at the park. if we only build the park for the guests it might look bad for the viewer. in fact we always get up features just for the viewer. for instance balconies. no guest can look at them. People even put up flowers on them or such. nobody of the guests will look at those flowers, because no guest can see them. But if we leave put all the features for the viewer the park mostly looks boring. If rct wouldn't use the isometric view and we could only walk through the park as guests it would be no problem to leave out all those features. But RCT needs to isometric view. just thing of how to build a park from the guests point of view. having a closer look at what a park has to be for the viewer led me to the point of art. Maybe i didn't describe too good what i want to say with that in the first post over here.
4. art!?!
in fact a park is art to me. we can't really compare it to writing a book, painting a picture or writing a song, but in fact all this is art. Building a park has a lot in common with those things i named. RCT and other computer games bring up a interactive style of art and everybody is able to take part at this. that's what i love most on the game. it's not just killing monsters or such. you are really creating something and others have the chanve to view it. back to the art discussion. for me every park is some kind of art. as i meantioned above we have two perspectives, the guest's perspective and the viewer's perspective. as to the viewer every park is some kind of art. posix mentioned that we can't express our feelings and such with a park, but i say we can. let's have a small example on this. someone is painting a picture. a man and a girl in a forest and the sun is going down. that would somehow create a romantic atmosphere. we can also paint this kind of picture within RCT. we build a forest and a way running through it. maybe a small lake and a bench where people can sit down. this would also give the viewer a romantic atmoshere. in this example the guests act as mediators.
on my next park (ok my first real park) you will even see more art, but i don't want to tell too much at all. For me RCT is some kind of interactive art. everybody can have a different opinion on this, but i think my arguments show that the comparison of art and RCT works.
sorry posix that i'm writing such long texts. i know you don't like long text, but for me a good argumentation needs lots of words, cause i want to do more than giving thesis and that needs some more words at all.
hope you all got what i mean.
@ coaster ed: your english is easy to understand for me. sometimes i have to look up a word or such, but internet dictionaries make this easy. (hope i didn't mention it before)
actually, this game is pretty much like composing music...
1) there is the skill brought on by practice and experience, your ability to do it.
2) there is the theory that you learn, so that you may understand it.
After that, in music and in rct...
it's not a question of "what can I create?", it's a question of "what do I want to create?"
however i am actually not playing the game as much as i think and discuss about it. it's a pity.
Corkscrewed Offline
While I admit to being nowhere as analytical about this sort of stuff as Ed or Posix or Blitz or Mala, I can definitely see their points of view, and I do enjoy the occasional round table discussion. Blitz is right: theory isn't a problem until it stifles production.
That said, one of the things I've really enjoyed over the past few months is exercising my ideas in smaller map form, and QftB has given me an excellent opportunity do this, an opportunity I probably never would have taken on my own. Sometimes, you have to build things you don't like in order to mature and grow. If you sit there making everything in your mind and then tearing things down because you don't like it, you may never achieve anything. Heck, I have an architecture professor at school who's only had one project built in his life... or I think it's one project being built. He's a massive Corbusier fan and his excuse is that he doesn't want to construct anything that's "not perfect." Well, good luck waiting, because no project will ever be perfect. To go on that thread, even Corb's greatest work, Villa Savoye, had its flaws. For one thing, it leaked. A lot.
Anyway, I've found that exercising your ideas on a miniature map forum, such as through an NE Design or H2H sort of scale, is pretty helpful. If it comes out great, then great. And if it doesn't, at least you haven't wasted your efforts on a full map. And even if it comes out a little off, you know what to do next time, and the important thing is that you didn't waste too many resources.
The solution to writer's block is to write. Even if you produce trash, you can salvage or edit things later.
And seeing as RCT is very much like that sort of creative art, I think the same thing is true for RCT. Yeah, you gotta take breaks sometimes. I've managed to retain my enthusiasm for the game series for over five years now because I don't do it every day for weeks on end. I work when I'm in the mood. So it might be a few times a week. Or it might be for a week straight, then a week off. Or in the case of WDE, it may be months between touching projects, but when I do, I'm pretty into it, as I'm into WDE at this moment.
Maybe a little side project can benefit you, Posix, and heck. Even if it's bad by your standards, it'll probably be good enough to post as an NE Design!
I build my parks very much from an architect's point of view, which incorporates some of the stuff Ed and Posix adhere to, but provides some twists. I'm very much an experiential guy. Heck, looking at my last three QftB entries should tell you that. It's very spatial, and I imagine myself actually in the stuff I make. So in terms of scale and height issues, I try to be keen about lines of sight, enclosure, open space, and that sort of stuff. I think that's part of why my style has become so unique and recognizable; I'm extremely architectural. And I think that's also part of why I love Disney and why I apparently can build in the Disney style so well, because that too is very heavily based on spatial issues and architecture and sheer experientialism. For me, that is the main part, and the story or yarn serves as an inspiration. Whereas for Ed or Mala, the story is usually the driving factor, at least to my knowledge.
In any sense, I think the whole "essence" argument is valid. I believe in and endorse it, and I think it's what separates the great parkmakers from the good. It's amazing how two screenshots can look the same, with the same amount of skill, but one might be favored because it seems to have soul and thought and care put into it.
We RCT critcs are finnicky people, and we always demand more innovation and new stuff. And heck, the skill level overall is the highest it's ever been in the history of parkmaking, so just about anyone can make something look good. But it takes a special person to make something look great.
That's why people like SA, Ed, Mala, and Natelox are revered. That's why people like JKay are rapidly gaining steam. I mean, look at something like Universal Hawaii. Too me, it doesn't seem like a sophisticated work. It's quite ecletic, but there's something about it... an enthusiasm and sense of fun, that really attracts me to it and JKay's other stuff (well, recent stuff at least). The same lies with Aero, whose screens always make the park look crappier than it really is.
I think it was Phatage who said that 90% of people make parks that can easily be judged by their screens. So basically, 90% of people make good parks. But it's the remaining 10% who actively ponder what they make who produce GREAT parks. And I think he makes a valid point. Having had Epica explained to me, I can really comprehend the genius behind a mind like that.
Now, there's nothing wrong with being the 90%. But those who strive for something more should strive to be in that top 10%. And though it may take a long time to arrive at that point, when you do, it's well worth the effort.
so many good points in all the posts. i've lost the overview for too long already.
like i said before, rct theory actually means a blockade for me at the moment. and possibly for way longer. i've been in situations where i had to forbid myself touching rct because i had no planning done. i need to improve at planning i believe. it can't hold me back that long. it also shouldn't be the pre-burden it currently is.
also what keeps me from finishing most of my started projects is that there are spots i'm not happy with, that are not perfect, as corkscrewed said it. it's quite stupid because it holds you back so much and you always have to think "next time you will do better". but really, at the moment i feel i've played the game long enough to finally build something that satisfies me. yet i can't. it's very frustrating.
often when i start building i am in a trance-like situation. the first hour flows wonderfully. i can build and build and it all fits together nicely. then happens the accident. i make something that looks odd to me our i don't know how to go on. in 90% of all cases, it means that i cancel the project. i just am not the person who fiddles around on a certain spot until it's better. i find patches stick out and ruin the flow.
so these accidents i try to avoid through a concept. hasn't really worked so far. then again, i haven't built anything with a true concept that matches the norm i hold for them which has become higher and higher within the last months, years.
i also believe that parks must be built quickly. for benefit of flow. i think i've said that before, so sorry to get on your nerves. i'm just referring to corkscrewed's point of taking month-long breaks on a project. really, i think it does only harm. you lose the feel and character for a park. or better, you change it. the result is missing harmony. at least that's what i think. sa made me think of that because he made all his legendary parks in mere weeks. or nights, talking of crystal horizons, heh...
skill level highest ever in rct history. i completely disagree. i think it's actually quite low. people who come to the site become victims of the anti-originality-ne-mechanism that is on the go.
they see the parks, they are amazed, they want to become parkmakers like that, they want to be admired (due to their weak puberty egos), they become copycats. ne-style is nice and enjoyable as long as it is pulled off by it's founders, such as x-sector or pyro. but honestly, i find it a fucking tragedy to look at ozone's parks, to name a prime example.
it's even worse with rct2 and all the crappy custom scenery. i don't think this trend is stoppable. the cloning will continue and possibly get worse. sadly.
but anway, phatage's last 10% (a genius hypothesis by the way) do in fact exist i think and they are what i hope for concerning ne. i also hope that one day i will belong to them.
PROS:
experience
corporate job with good pay
CONS:
about 70 shitty things. I don't even want a corporate job.
The point is I still haven't applied for college, because although I really want the university experience, I could care less about everything people want me to do based on the ideals that people have formed over time. I want to make my own life, thanks.
And the point of all that is this: in not just this game we all take so seriously but everything out there, well, okay, stop. What the fucking hell am I talking about.
What I really wanted to say but got sidetracked was that I start up the game and I just start building, and then I plan as I go. Because if I plan beforehand then I will build some and realize I can't do what I wanted because it won't work. I used to do that and that's where I would get the frustration that you seem to be having, Posix. So I figured if I didn't take everything so seriously and just start building, everything would turn out right. Keep in mind I started doing this toward the end of The Happy Place---why do you think all those parks took so long? One of the biggest thrills I get out of RCT now is when I'll build something on one side and something on another and say, hey! If I put that there, and that there...wow! That would work out perfectly!
Unfortunately now my problem is that I have this great work on another hard drive that I can't access and I am terrified of starting a project and not being able to finish, although I have done so before. So I don't want to start anything else right now. I know I'll be able to transfer it eventually but when? It's been sitting there for ages and I haven't done anything about it! Does anyone else have that problem? When for whatever reason you can't work on something or you're stuck in the middle of building without ideas, but you like what you built so much that you don't throw it away? I guess that wouldn't really happen with many other games out there...perhaps that's why RCT is so addictive.
Anyway as far as OZONE goes I completely agree with you and actually confronted him for it once or twice but honestly he either didn't understand or didn't seem to care. I think he is made of the breed that considers RCT like any other video game, where you play it however everyone else plays it and when you're bored of it, you quit. I don't know about the rest of the serious RCT players out there but I don't spend much time on other video games much. They're not really my thing. But RCT is different. I can go at my own pace. I can do my own thing. I can express my ideas. I can do it however I want. But simultaneously, I can share what I do with a whole community of people, and that means something to me. Maybe that's why I've played it so long. Maybe that's why, even when I get frustrated, I keep playing, even if I take a break for a while. Because whenever I finish something, no matter what it is, or how good it is, I am always proud of it when I'm done. Ironically, to be honest, even though it is so much an individual game, finishing something other people like give me a sense of "fitting in," you know? And together, I think those two qualities work together to make RCT so great. If we all built the same way no one would care, definitely. But if we only built for ourselves then what would be the point? I love seeing parks in the AD district, no doubt. It's fun. But when I have screens I'm showing off in there I check it twice as much, maybe more. That's how I know RCT is art----we all build our own way---you might even say our own medium----but we all end up showing it off in the end. This is just our museum.
Frankly I'm somewhere between Posix and Micool on the issue of things though. I take my projects relitivily searously and honestly there is only one park that I've finished that I'm proud of its entirety, and that park was and is Waters of Civilization. The two major solo releases I've made since (Poplar Grove for the PT and IO) were both roughly half done when I lost modivation or focus and in both cases the parks spiriled out into disaster. I agree with Corkscrewed when it comes to building on the main project only when you're ready to, if I'd done that with my newer parks maybe they would've been more consistent and better off. Barring a major personal 'rct revolution' you should be able to match up you're newer work with your older stuff in a way that blends together. You are still you.
Personally I think I've let rct become too large of a peice of my life though. I mean I have about 5 projects right now. Most of them are group projects that I feel responsable to finish and the only other is my solo that I refuse to let go because it is, to my eyes anyway, my best work by far. None the less I'm in a better situation than I was a month ago and it'll get done soon enough.
I hope I can break into that top 10% someday but for now I am still stuck somewhere in th 90. I am just another person conforming to the NE style and trying to find my own within it.
ride6
Corkscrewed Offline
Well, what I meant by "skill" was the literal ability to put things together to make something that more or less looks nice. Maybe that was a bad word to choose, but basically, I think that most people today can make stuff that looks really nice. It might be a copycat, but it's still a good copycat. Compare that to years ago, when a lot of people made stuff that frankly, just sucked.
We're saying the same thing, just approaching it a bit differently.
You managed to put what I've been thinking since RCT2 came out and NE went mainstream into a post. But first, I've never downloaded any of OZONEs parks simply because, to me, they look dull, unoriginal and nothing I haven't seen before. It was fine and dandy when JS, Buster, LastArchAngel created that shell which the from the "NE style" evolved but when it gets endlessly repeated and repeated it loses its thrill. When Danimation was created and reached its we had our first renaissance and the creation of NE was the second renaissance, born out of the ashes of Danimations collapse. Then, in my opinion, the evolution stopped after Disneys Forgotten Kingdom, the last spotlight I actually enjoyed. (as much as I don't like Nates work)
After that we entered the RCT2 stage and the world of plastic, artificial rubbish. Because NE had no headstart over other RCT2 fansites (after all we all got the game at the same time) we ended up taking on the style of other sites in a desperate attempt to find a "RCT2 NE style" Did we find it? Well, to be perfectly honest, I don't know and don't care. There is no "RCT2 NE style" bar perhaps slob and Phatage. (the only two RCT2 parkmakers I actually see any NE in)
Indeed, is it strange that when I actually look at any of the Korean make parks I actually think: "wow, that actually looks different from all the other crap." Hating to sound bitter, but I see so very few RCT2 parks that actually make me smile.
However, this isn't the subject of this topic.
I won't beat around the bush Possi. I didn't like this park at all and its no wonder you didn't finish it. I don't think its you whatsoever. Style or an ism is just a word we tag on to something to make it seem more approachable. Everyone gets put in their little pigeonhole of style much the same as music today. "oh, you're post-Hednix classic rock with a twist of Pearl Jam". The same thing can be applied to RCT. Possi is post-Danimation-classic-unevolved-RCT. Or something.
What I'm trying to say (and probably failing) is that in our effort to pigeonhole what beauty is, or what innovation is, we're losing sight of what the subject actually is. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and if someone likes what you do, then fantastic, you've made one person happy.
Admitedly, I tried to emulate the NE style at points (pity the saved games don't exist anymore, I'm sure you'd all have a good laugh) but gave up. Its not me. So I continued on my merry way, just building how I felt. (okay, I only finished one park after that, but still) What we all need to do is just get out of the mindset that we're building for someone, when we're building for ourseleves. Not anyone else. If you want to build a massive castle with an invert down the side, so be it. Thats why we still play this game, thats why we still build on and on because theres the possibilty of making something amazing.
nic, you are actually taking a step back here.
We know that to be the case to a degree, but my post explicitly states that it's only an issue if it DOES take away from the focus of actually building. You can be analytical and then still be creative, they are not infact mutually exclusive.
(edit: do my parks make you smile?
It's true that we must build for ourselfs. The proplem is that we're in a community and so we leach off each other in a futal to improve our own work. Frankly I agree with Corkscrewed that our skill level is at it's all time high because I would define "skill" as the ability to manipulate the game. We're doing that now like never before. Where we are limiting ourselves is our own lack of expearimentation. We must try new things with color and texture combinations or otherwise we'll never discover the larger abilities of the game. Sure tan, grey, white and black are easy to make look great but try splashing alittle color on there, it's hard. Another major problem caused more recently by rct2 is that there is such a viriety of colors and textures that sicking to a "style" is much harder. You have to do it with form rather than texture and color because it's no longer "exceptable" to use marble walls on a "western" building. There's the problem... excepablity...
Don't let what others define as "exceptable" detirmine your definition. You should build what's exceptable to you, but don't limit yourself too much or you may never find your way to something new.
ride6
Just fyi.
And if you have checked your PM's within the last, i don't know, 3 MONTHS... you might have seen a message from me.
I think we're totally over analyticical and we've lost all sense of what we strive for. We've become so overwhealmed with what beauty is we've completely forgotten how to achieve it. I'm saying this an overall view of the RCT community, not a direct attack on your posts.
Why do we feel the need to assess and analyse our work?
Because we want to make it better. Just look at this forum, people asking "how can I make it better", and then people give them an entire list of what to do, what to fix. And these people listen, thats whats wrong. In our efforts to analyse we're actually crippling any innovation that might be coming through.
Being analytical and creative are not mutally exclusive, but being overanalytical and still inspring creativity are.
Analyse away, just don't force yourself upon other people. That, I think, is where we all agree.
*
i'm glad to actually have a true discussion about the game again. i was afraid it wasn't possible on ne anymore.
also very interesting what you said about ne to fail at develloping an rct2 ne style. having thought about it, i believe you're right. back in the day we had pyro, x-sector and most importantly nevis to devellope the style. they were who revolutionised the game due to their immense talent. the new age didn't have such talents. i think that rct2 fails to disclose any such parks as uix or disney dreams. maybe that's also a minor reason why the game doesn't attract me. quite weak really, seeing as i could have been the one to revolutionise it... (not that i believe i have the skill though, heh)
corkscrewed, have you ever considered making ne3 invite only?
and about the "make something look nice" issue. i understand what you meant better now but in my opinion making a personal park with your own ideas is way harder than throwing together a cliché park. i think that parks that have a heart are nicer than "good looking" ones. harakiri's for example. frankly, at first glance, they are ugly. but when you look longer you feel there's something in them. something that sucks you in. or well, you should be able to sense something like that.
later then, all the supposedly randomly thrown together buildings suddenly make sense and you define them more as innovative and beautifully abstract. at least that's what was the case with me.
micool, what you criticised about planning was very interesting to me. in fact, it was so witted that i'm going to try it your way right now. even if i'm still afraid of frustrating myself again.