RCT Discussion / Fantasy vs. Realism

^That would be nice for the fact that the white is too bright at times. There are soo many colors that I can think of for rct. I think another type of gray will be good for the fact the one that is with the game is a bit too dull imo.
-JDP

100% incorrect

How so? The peeps have a very low AI compared to the player. They're not going to care what color scheme you choose for your buildings or rides, and some players have certain preferences on what colors go well together. I really hate to degrade Tycoon Planet, but the Disney World reacreation there isn't exactly pretty, although very accurate. Especially compared to some of the stuff here. The Disney Tilted Acres park has generally the same layout but is much more stunning. In either park, the level of detail makes little difference to your peeps. It may make or break a best scenery award, or a most beautiful park award, but no matter how many awards you have, it's not going to stop the player from thinking your park looks bad. So tell me Metropole, how am I 100% incorrect?

You are 100% incorrect because, put it this way: Say Disney, or Universal, or whoever, were building a new park, they would always, always build it for the guests. That's blatently obvious, as the guests are paying the money, riding the rides, etc. They wouldn't build it for the guys in helicopters flying around above the park. That's why, when building a truly realistic park, you build it for the guests...not necesarily the RCT guests, as you are right, they are ridicullous, but what I mean is, you have to build it from the peep's perpective, what they would see, what you wouldn't want them to see etc.

Xin, you're onto a loss here. Metro knows of which he speaks.

I guess my solo has been branded fantasy? I don't think thats to fair tho, seems just one thing (more then 1 in my case) can make a park unrealistic. I really just build whatever I want to and don't care which group it might fall into.

I even talked about this a little in the parks FAQ as I knew it would come up:

Q: There are things in the park that seem very unsafe and unrealistic, but it does not seem like a fantasy park. Why is this?

A: I never take things to seriously. I’ll mess around and put in stuff like that just to get some kicks if anyone ever sees them. Is it realistic or fantasy? I lean more to realistic even tho there are a few things I did you would never see in a real park. My main goal is for a park to be enjoyable, and this park was really for myself (hence the acronym being my initials).

Alright Metro, you got me. Now see, that means that for a park to look really good in the eyes of the player, it can't be entirely realistic. And that means that an incredible level of realism can't be reached without sacrificing beauty. Unless of course, you have extremely decorated buildings and fantastic paths. But not many people can do that.

And Kumba, that's a great way to think. Don't care what group it falls into, just build it cuz you like it. (Some very wise words.)

hey jdp, if my posts are useless then what are your responses to them? at least people can understand my posts

Alright Metro, you got me. Now see, that means that for a park to look really good in the eyes of the player, it can't be entirely realistic. And that means that an incredible level of realism can't be reached without sacrificing beauty. Unless of course, you have extremely decorated buildings and fantastic paths. But not many people can do that.

And Kumba, that's a great way to think. Don't care what group it falls into, just build it cuz you like it. (Some very wise words.)

Who says you have to have extremely decorated buildings for it to be beautiful?

A lot of realistic parks I call beautiful, take SFWOE or Busch Gardens Sydney. Not necesarily beautiful in a SloB-esque sense, but in my eyes, stunning. And then of course, there's CP6's solo, which looks to be both beautiful (probably more in the sense you are talking about) and extremely realistic.

Kumba: There's a lot about your solo that veers away from reality. Theme parks typically have taste. And understand elementary physics.

-ACE

Kumba: There's a lot about your solo that veers away from reality. Theme parks typically have taste. And understand elementary physics.

-ACE

^ With your first sentence I fully agree.
(but whomever decided/had the right to claim that RCT-parks do have to be just reality, instead of making dreams come true and creating parks that would blow us off our feet if they really existed...... ?)

Your second one "Theme parks typically have taste" make me laugh and wonder... at least when you intend to apply that on to theme-parks in the real world....imo nearly all theme-parks in real world do hardly have any taste at all......understably, as their first goal is to make money, which has nothing to do with "taste"", just and only with zooming in on primitive taste-needs of the masses with no room whatsoever for anything real classy...just like soaps: they can be real fun and distraction, so nothing wrong with that, but "taste" and "class" imo are really of another level......

ha ha

FVR debate.

...again.

...for the millionth time.

Kumba: You are absolutely right... your park wasn't fantasy.


... it was randomness, given the color scheme of a man throwing bales of paint at a wall ^_^


Levis: Can you "expand" the color palette to include more color choices? Can you create colors that are tesselated textures and put them into the color spots?

Drop me a PM.

As for the debate itself:

Here's a thought, what if...

I were to say that, all things in RCT are fantasy simply by the virtue of the impossibility of constructing non-linear things in a game that forces linearity?

Now, what if I were to also say that, all creativity is born not out of thin air, but out of experience based on reality? After all, there is nothing new under the sun.

So that means, no rct park can be described as realistic OR fantasy!!

=O We are all slinging around terms that don't even properly apply to the parks we are making!!!

Oh yeah, I am TOTALLY the most realistic parkmaker. Ever.
For realz.

Your second one "Theme parks typically have taste" make me laugh and wonder... at least when you intend to apply that on to theme-parks in the real world....imo nearly all theme-parks in real world do hardly have any taste at all......understably, as their first goal is to make money, which has nothing to do with "taste"", just and only with zooming in on primitive taste-needs of the masses with no room whatsoever for anything real classy...just like soaps: they can be real fun and distraction, so nothing wrong with that, but "taste" and "class" imo are really of another level......

Okay, let me rephrase. Real parks have more taste than Kumba's. Blood and Guts Cafe?

-ACE

I wasn't going to stick my hand in the pot seeing as it's really not my matter to debate anymore, but considering I made mention of this in my spotlight review without explaining it, I might as well get a word in. I said in my review of Kumba's park that it puts a lot of realistic parks to shame. I think it goes without saying that any park featuring giant tapeworms and scabbing mountainsides and lifesize claw grabber games is a fantasy park. However, realism in RCT has generally been used to refer to a certain attention to detail -- customs supports, transfer tracks, custom flat-rides, etc -- moreso than the actual content. So the question is, do you have to make "Six Flags Whatever" or "Busch Gardens Something" to have a realistic park? And if you don't put in any of those details, does it matter whether or not you call your park Six Flags? I think "realism" refers more to the process than the content. It refers to the attention paid to detail. What I liked in particular about Kumba's park is that, rather than putting all his effort into designing the perfect lifthill and transfer track, he put his effort into making sure every ride and shop and restaurant was different and then in precisely theming each and every one of them right down to 1/4 of a square. Very few parks manage to maintain a realistic level of detail down to a 1/4 of a square. It's not photo-realism, but in certain places it's closer to it than about anything else I've seen in RCT. That's why I described this park as realistic. Not because Disney would build it or because these rides are believable or I saw these rides at IAAPA or whatever, but because its visually dense to the point of approaching a kind of photo-realism. Contrast that with the rather abstract look of most RCT parks.

I'm not making a judgement here about which is better than the other. I think both are equally interesting and valid ways for parkmakers to explore their ideas. Like photography and abstract art. It doesn't have to be one or the other, and it doesn't matter what we call it. Ultimately it's a personal choice, a style. And the argument here is more about which style deserves to be praised more -- which is a ridiculous argument in my opinion. (Especially when, as Blitz points out again, we have never agreed to any clear definitions of what realism and fantasy are). It's just running in circles. The sensible thing would be to keep an open mind and appreciate the hard work of other people on it's own terms rather than how well it lives up to some arbitrary standard we've made up already.

no i won't, no i won't, no i won't, no i won't, no i won't, no i won't, no i won't, no i won't, ...

off course there are diffrences between sites to ...
if you for example look to the german or dutch site you will see park there which work in years ... they keep track of there finance and build things which are only avaible for that year ... this gives a "realistic" feeling ... its not the park it self but more the way how it's build which makes for me the split between "fantasy" and "realism" ...
a park like Kumba's isn't build in years and attractions are removed to make place for others ... there was a sketch in his head and he build it ... that would make it for me a Fantasy park .... of course every rule has its exceptions and I'm not going to argue about some peoples work because it is in (almost) everyones eyes "realistic" but according to my rule it should be "fantasy"....

than again emergo was right .... you can build a park to make it look as much as a real lift theme park but you could build a park also which shows your dreams to everyone .
When I'm building a park I've got a vision in my head about how it must be and I try to recreate that as acurate as possible ... I can imagine more people to work like that.... but probally there will also be people who build in a diffrent way ... here you can also make the split between fantasy and realism .... but here you will encounter problems also ....

I think the best way is just to scrap the idea of fantasy and realism and call it all rct2parks (or semi-realism if you want to).

^Some people like the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter movies (fantasy). Some people like indy flicks with real-life-ish stories and characters (realism). And some people like Jerry Bruckheimer movies and period pieces (in between). But they're all fictional and on screen. They're all movies. I don't see how you could ever find a hierarchy.

There will always be those that wish for a hierarchy, because they want their own tastes to be vindicated over the tastes of others.

That's why you have people arguing over this in the first place. But none of you were there when such and such was making their park. You don't know what went into it. Whether choices were thought out or spur of the moment, whether it meant more because someone was skilled or not skilled, there isn't a measuring stick in the world that can decipher what constitutes skill in rct. So, most people come up with their own ideas of what constitutes skill in order to, like I said, force an institutionalization of their own ideals and beliefs and establish a hierarchy where, having secured a high enough perch, they'll be able to look down on others.

Of course theres always the flip side...
Those of us who just like to theorize things into the ground =P

^Maybe people want a heirarchy because they feel one already exists. I remember when I first saw one of the big parkmaker's (for example, Six Frags or Kumba) works. I immediately knew that I was at the bottom of any list, even if there wasn't one. That's when I started working harder. In my mind, there was a heirarchy. And I wanted to be at the top of the heirarchy (and still do). There are probably tons of people out there that look at great parks and think to themselves, Wow, I suck! Some people just don't have, or don't think they have, the skill to make great pieces of art. It's the same way people struggle in math. They just don't understand. That's why I suck at chemistry. And in this example, there is a heirarchy. If I'm (hypothetically) valedictorian of my highschool class, that means that I'm the best. I'm probably the person who works the hardest, and is the smartest (it's not easy getting straight A's). Heirarchy exists everywhere. Take the Super Bowl for example. The winner is considered the years best football team. (It's not like European football, for all you Europeans. They do more talking than playing, and surprisingly, it's one of America's greatest sports.) Leonardo di Vinci is considered the greatest artist of all time. He is the definition of a renaisance man. Plato is one of the greatest philosophers. Einstein is one of the greatest scientists. President Bush is one of the worst presidents in US history. The heirarchy will always exist in everything. There's no avoiding it. Whether someone great invents it, or whether someone who wants to be great invents it. Whether nobody invented it, but you think it exists already. It will never go away.

But anyway:

I were to say that, all things in RCT are fantasy simply by the virtue of the impossibility of constructing non-linear things in a game that forces linearity?

Now, what if I were to also say that, all creativity is born not out of thin air, but out of experience based on reality? After all, there is nothing new under the sun.

So that means, no rct park can be described as realistic OR fantasy!!

=O We are all slinging around terms that don't even properly apply to the parks we are making!!!

Duuuuuude, that's like, deep man...

But didn't Walt Disney say something about imagination and dreams, and all that crap? I'd post it, but I don't have the time to look for it. Anyway, isn't that what RCT (1, 2, or 3) is all about? Building what you imagine? Isn't that why Chris Sawyer made the game in the first place? To be able to build some of the most awesome parks ever? To be able to build what you thought was a great amusment park, or great coaster?

There will always be those that wish for a hierarchy, because they want their own tastes to be vindicated over the tastes of others.

That's why you have people arguing over this in the first place. But none of you were there when such and such was making their park. You don't know what went into it. Whether choices were thought out or spur of the moment, whether it meant more because someone was skilled or not skilled, there isn't a measuring stick in the world that can decipher what constitutes skill in rct. So, most people come up with their own ideas of what constitutes skill in order to, like I said, force an institutionalization of their own ideals and beliefs and establish a hierarchy where, having secured a high enough perch, they'll be able to look down on others.

Of course theres always the flip side...
Those of us who just like to theorize things into the ground =P

I thought this post was notable because Blitz actually posted more than a paragraph. In paragraph form. Cheers.

Xin, you are thinking of "heirarchy" in terms of rank, but I think this is more about classification or categorization, not "who is better", but "where does it fit".

Not to nitpick or anything...

Edited by ride_exchanger, 31 May 2007 - 07:03 AM.