RCT Discussion / Has the realistic "theme park" style reached it's pinnacle

Wow... That disney sea shot of the bay is absolutely fantastic. If only my desktop was powerful enought to run rct3 smoothly. I'd be a lot more into it but alas, I dont have the coin to drop on an awesome gaming pc.

Returning to what i said earlier is what holds me back from rct3. At the rate its going, there are very few limits on what people make, to the point its just perfect recreation after perfect recreation. I mean, it all looks very fun, but i think the limits of rct2 really push us to come up with better and more innovative ideas. If we could make a perfect recreation of any park we wanted, what would be the point? without limits, it requires no creativity, just the ability to look at what you see and put into the game.

rct3 is impressive, but not for me. TBH, i've spent too long getting highly proficient at building in rct2 to want to switch and have to start all over again...

FK

As impressive as some of those shots are, they just make me want to try the same thing in rct2.

and maybe that'd be a nice relief of style aswell nin, see where realism in rct is mostly generic amusement parks, we currently fail to achieve true realism within a theme(most of us) I mean the truly great players can achieve this to an extent but still not as fully as rct3? I mean I'd love to see more themed realism in rct2 but people don't tend to do it for the sake of it being harder to incorporate things into their parks... while in my eyes themes are made by details colours and mostly type of structures, parkplanning and basic architectural forms remain the same whether it's a themed park or generic, this is also why I'm baffled people still make tons of generic parks knowing that with different colours, a little more thought and attention to more accomplished details in terms of what you want something to look like, it's all basically the same macro play so to say, only the finish of that macro play makes it generic or themed, and personally I'll always go for themed over generic to be honest...

Looking at the link Leonidas posted I still think the textures aren't that great. It kinda sucks that rct3 doesn't support bump-mapping. This would help so much getting the flatness out of it. Controlling the bloom wouldn't hurt much either I think (may be possible, I don't know).

Then again about realism, it's a nice tool to have to make thing work, but for me it will never be the ultimate goal. At least an over-reliance on objects to create a realistic scene is really not required. There are more ways than that to attain that.

Returning to what i said earlier is what holds me back from rct3. At the rate its going, there are very few limits on what people make, to the point its just perfect recreation after perfect recreation. I mean, it all looks very fun, but i think the limits of rct2 really push us to come up with better and more innovative ideas. If we could make a perfect recreation of any park we wanted, what would be the point? without limits, it requires no creativity, just the ability to look at what you see and put into the game.

First of all. RCT3 is not all recreations, and the few links I just posted do not represent the entire RCT3 database of parks ever. There's way more tendencies towards artistic/fantasy creations, than recreations actually. I just posted these links because of the fact this topic is about realism. I did my best to find a few parks that are somewhat realistic.

Your second statement is a huge misconception. Limiting possibilities is not equal to more creativity. Painting something within predetermined lines isn't more creative that painting on a blank canvas, starting from scratch.
Also; only being able to paint squares wouldn't make you more creative then someone who may use any shape he wants.

What you're talking about is being inventive and practical. Finding new ways of doing things with limited tools, just like with duplo. RCT3 is in any way more complex and limitless, which doesn't make it easier, but rather much harder.

Sorry for being so fierce about this.

This RCT3 stuff looks so god damn complex, it must take hours to build, and a huge CPU.
You'd have to build interiors and everything.

Your second statement is a huge misconception. Limiting possibilities is not equal to more creativity. Painting something within predetermined lines isn't more creative that painting on a blank canvas, starting from scratch. Also; only being able to paint squares wouldn't make you more creative then someone who may use any shape he wants. What you're talking about is being inventive and practical. Finding new ways of doing things with limited tools, just like with duplo. RCT3 is in any way more complex and limitless, which doesn't make it easier, but rather much harder.Sorry for being so fierce about this. />

This is a very interesting discussion. Weirdly enough I don't fully agree, but also don't disagree enterily either with your statement. This splitting point is that we don't have a full understanding of what creativity means for everyone. I think the difference lies in the personal approach of what you are creating. Are you a designer or are you an artist (or something in between). The difference between art and design is that with art you generally strife to create with as little as limits as possible besides the ones you want to have yourself, where as in design you generally have some forced constraints on you. Both require creativity, but generally not the same kind of creativity. I also don't believe one is harder than the other in general, but that it depends on how well one fits the person working with it.
To me it's the limits that makes stuff interesting. It creates more affinity with creativity in solutions.
That said I do agree that more options can make your work harder, however that's a sign that you are not able to set your own limits. That's also a difference between art and design; art doesn't necesarrily has an end goal where design has. Believe me, that's the bane for many architects that are artsy, you need to keep the real world in mind which has limits, while you want to practice it in a way that hasn't any.
On an open canvas you can be very creative setting your own limits. Having heavy limits on you doesn't make you less creative though. In the open version you can create the 'perfect' ideal, provided you can guide yourself. With the limited one you try to creat the most perfect solution with the stuff you have. Remember it's the limits that gave us the awesome machine that is Nemesis for example.

This RCT3 stuff looks so god damn complex, it must take hours to build, and a huge CPU.You'd have to build interiors and everything.

A big GPU is even more important. However when it comes to 3D, what you don't see, you don't make/model unless you are incredibly dumb or just a new to modelling .

I think the most crucial difference lies in the motivation with which you play.
Are you playing a game, because you like the game-play and the challenge of creating something as good as possible within that grid. Or is the game secondary and mostly a tool of artistic expression. In this case your interest comes from an external pool of vision and creativity that reaches further than the game itself. In the second case, you shouldn't limit yourself to one RCT game. Broaden your set of tools, so that your vision is seen throughout different angles and dimensions. Because the more you differentiate between disciplines the less you tend to forget what your work is really about, despite playing around with a certain gameplay. For me, so called RCT-virtuoso works, where it's basically about showing what you can do with a limited toolbox, couldn't be more irrelevant and uninteresting. Imho, it's about the content of what you create; what does it say about you and your vision or the world in general. So I guess you could say i'm from the artsy side.

simply put, this 'realistic' style has damn near killed the game. the game is now at a crawl, wounded.

I've got to agree with RMM a bit here, just not so drastically. Do I think this realistic stye is literally killing the game as we know it? Pshaw, no. It's just acting as a limitation, as everyone is aways falling back on the fact that something needs to be realistic, which tends to be generic amusement park realism.

It sucks and it's boring for the most part, and I to am sick of it. I hate when I see people steering new members towards the style as it just gives us another concrete&coasters parkmaker, just like the 20 before. Where are all the cool themed parks from years past?

Exactly what I mean Nin. Themes are the future.

It sucks and it's boring for the most part, and I to am sick of it. I hate when I see people steering new members towards the style as it just gives us another concrete&coasters parkmaker, just like the 20 before. Where are all the cool themed parks from years past?

I'm still working on the one I started in 2002.

i think the general detail fetish is what's slowing the community down (w/r/t both games and all types of parks), not the popularity of a certain theme

THEMEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSS, but with detail. At least that's what I'm trying to do.

People definitely need to STOP making sixflags/cedar fairs parks, and do more Busch gardens/IOA/Phantasialand parks. Disney is bleh if it's just a recreation, but it will be amazing if someone makes another shadowlands or disneyair.

It sucks and it's boring for the most part, and I to am sick of it.

Then why do you build it?

AC hit the nail on the head. I feel a thirst for purely imagined fantasy creation.

I'm here Pierrot.

And to add something... All those Six-flags types of park are sooooooooooo boring, i've seen so much of those.

You know guys, parks can be realistic AND themed at the same time. DAW and Ruishi are perfect examples, they are themed, but they have realistic details which make them believable. Personally, I don't like parks that don't seem believable, which is why I don't really like over-the-top themed or fantasy parks. I'm probably the minority, but that's my opinion and I'm not changing it.

THEMEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSS, but with detail. At least that's what I'm trying to do.

People definitely need to STOP making sixflags/cedar fairs parks, and do more Busch gardens/IOA/Phantasialand parks. Disney is bleh if it's just a recreation, but it will be amazing if someone makes another shadowlands or disneyair.

Its obvious I don't build anymore and I rarely stop by so take this as you will, but do you really think its wise for NE to tell people what to build and what not to build? Last I checked, people build what ever they the fuck they want to build and if they find it enjoyable to build SF/CF style parks, let them. What gives you guys the right to dictate that to them? What harm is it causing? I guess if your trying to kill the community even more by discouraging those members to build and move to some other site, then go for it. I mean, look at the AD, it seems like a hot bed of activity with a whopping 15 topics updated on the past 7 days!