RCT Discussion / "Eras" of RCT2

I've had this idea for a while, and have always wondered if RCT2 can be divided into discrete eras based on the toolset and building style. This is how I would break it up, although there isn't an exact date of transition.

 

 

Early Era (2002-2003)

RCT2 was still in its early stages and offered few advantages over LL (such as stacking scenery) at the expense of hacking and land textures, thus experienced builders preferred the latter. The most impressive earliest parks were very large given that quarter tiles and zero clearances were not widely used with examples such as Meretrix's Disney's Tilted Acres and Butterfinger's Euroscape. Most parks during this time were designed in a timeless semi-realism style using either NCSO or CSO that was taken from other games or made from recolored objects.

 

 

8cars Era (2004-2007)

When ja227 created 8cars, a lot of pioneers of the game arose with both realism and fantasy rising to prominence with parkmakers like cBass and Phatage. Toon's quarter tile objects were being used far more often as well leading to far more detailed and complex creations. We also saw the first use of custom palettes and black tiles. Large, realistic parks were quite popular as well with many examples such as RCTNW's vacation parks at rctspace. The community was probably at its largest and building styles were progressing at a very fast rate.

 

Transition Era (2008-2015)

There weren't really any new trainers for RCT outside of rctavenged's failed rctmodified. Nevertheless, this time period can be characterized by the rise in realism and detailed building, as seen with the dramatic increase in quality from h2h5 to h2h7. The greater use of deco blocks and other detailing, increased popularity of hacking such as the removal of entrance huts and double stations, and a gradual transition to much smaller and more detailed parks describe this time period. However, earlier parks from this time haven't aged very well however given how time consuming 8cars could be.

 

 

Openrct2 Era (2016-2019)

Openrct2 has made the game much easier and more playable, thus far more detailed work can be completed in less time. The project was launched in 2014 but we didn't really Openrct2 used for major releases until the rct olympics and with the compatibility of LL, it has likely made LL redundant. Detailing and realism are likely to reach their logical conclusion in the near future given the object data limit, however we've seen two contrasting forces... NCSO is becoming popular again with the easy ability to change layers and zero clearance. However, many builders are trying to take the game in a new aesthetic direction, thus the custom palettes and ride types we saw in H2H8 are becoming increasingly popular. There has also been something of a revival, not only on NE but on discord and reddit as well because of multiplayer mode.

 

The Future of RCT2?

With the creation of a new save format and the removal of the object data limits, very large parks will become viable again. We possibly may also see more track types, more terrain types, and other features not found in the vanilla game, making RCT more seamless and atmospheric than it has ever been before.

Interesting idea to do this based on tools. Kind of makes sense compared to how human history is divided in different ages. Stone age, bronze age, iron age. Even the distinction between history and prehistory is defined by tools. I don't agree with the distinction between the 8cars era and the transition era, it seems to be based on an creative shift rather than a technological one and therefore it's the odd one out. Even ignoring that I don't agree with where you laid the boundaries. H2H5 wasn't the big transition, there's stuff in H2H4 that is just as advanced as the average H2H5 park. The only big technological milestone between the rise of trainers and the rise of OpenRCT is the geewhzz invisiblity trick dated 2009, but that's still an 8cars thing.

 

Your observation that parks were getting more and more detailed around that time is correct is rather obvious, but it leads me to a point that may perhaps be more of a milestone in line with the technology theme. As objects got smaller and smaller and parks more and more detailed, it was around 2009-10 that it reached a level where most of the high profile solo projects where hitting the object limit. As a community we hit a wall that maybe started a new shift. For a while there were less large scale solo parks. NCSO slowly gained popularity too, and LL had a small scale revival. The easy of OpenRCT and a slowly expanded object toolkit to 'stretch' the object limit has resulted in a comeback of large scale parks again.

I propose...
2002-2003: infancy (RCT2 trying to find its feet)
2003-2010: puberty (Quick change and development of nearly all tools and common custom objects)
2010-2016: midlife crisis (Constraints)
2017-now: OpenRCT era (New possibilities and workflow)

Nice read Jag. Always good to exemplify with releases, if you're interested.

Interesting read and idea to define RCT along the tools available. I do believe the 8cars era was much longer then you portray it to be

Transition could be renamed to winhack

Very interesting way to organize it, and for me to see what I missed...especially since I was active from 99 to 04...lol

Obviously we can't know yet how OpenRCT2's eventual new save file format (and consequent object limit removal) will affect the community. Since very few people actually hit the object limit, perhaps the impact will be minor.

I havn't played for a while, could someone answer me, I have two questions...

Does OpenRCT already break the object date limit? Does OpenRCT support LL?

the object limit is still there for now but i dont think theres too much longer to wait? i thought someone said we can expect it this year but i might be wrong. you can open sv4s but some textures wont display correctly like paths and land edges that arent in rct2

Maybe the problem of the limit of objects, is that creators need to build a new schedule, I think this involves financial cost.
I understand the difficult disclosure of the game, "I mean sell more" to pay for new developments.
I have no idea if this game continues to be sold in good quantities.
I paid many years ago equivalent to $70 (considering the coin of Brazil at the time), and 1 year ago I bought the official website again for $10 because I lost the original CD.
It is a dream someday to see this game with new terrains and 1,000 objects available, hehe, it would be very fantastic.
I would definitely pay for it again.

Since very few people actually hit the object limit, perhaps the impact will be minor.

 

I think the impact will actually be quite big. Maybe not for every park and every player, but if you look at nearly all recent spotlights or the highest scoring spotlights, they have in common that they all hit the object limit. I also think its currently impossible to really build something like a 200x200 map with spotlight like quality. Large scale iconic parks are currently limited only by the object limit. If the object limit goes away these things could become a possibility and we could see a new era of large scale parks unlike any we have seen before.

I think more important than the object limit will be the selection limit. Getting more than 256 small scenery objects will allow a lot more accurate exact representations. The crunch level will explode.

Don't forget the map size limit! 500x500 NE multiplayer map?

So a question about this, of the object limit were to be removed and increase the map size, could you open an existing map and then expand its size?  Would be interesting to take my old project and bring it to a single map.

Lol I hope it would, atleast for the object limit. Otherwise my current project is going to be super fucked.

Wow rctnw 1000×1000 comeback please