(Archive) Advertising District / Tropical Dreams Florida

He only got banned before because he was a target.. for everyone.

That and adix dont like him.

No, he got banned because he went through mood changes faster than a woman on PMS, sometimes getting all self doubting, then other times being really beligerent and annoying when he was offended, then back to playing victim again.

It got old. Fast.

true. he misbehaved over and over. however, since i could care less about what he posts on ne, i don't care if he's let back or not.

as for the screen. wow, it's png, and finished. doesn't look bad but doesn't capture me. it's not convincing. and not my style. so, uh, finish the park.

I really really like it. I would personally add a couple more windows in a couple of places. The glass looks really nice, and so does the foliage.

Great to see that this park is still going.

Marshay.

Nice stuff Turtleman. I'm glad you're still making stuff like this, cause it never gets old. I like the elevator shaft especially. I just made something very similar yesterday. I'm really liking those glass blocks lately. One of the most versatile theming pieces in LL.

Some general parkmaking comments for everyone though...

Part of the reason I'm so critical of screens with just nice looking trees and bushes and buildings is that I consider that the 'easy stuff'. That's the stuff I put off until the end. I can understand that people want to 'hone their skills' with that type of stuff because those details are important, and they make a park look good. But if you can build one nice building you can build 100 nice buildings. That's not going to take you to the next level of parkmaking. All of that is the frosting on the cake. Yeah it's good, but it's not the cake itself. And sometimes I see parks where the frosting is all there is. Some scattered coasters (the typical grab-bag - a couple Beemers (one floorless at least), a woodie, maybe a liquid coaster) and then all trees and buildings and fountains and paths.

If you want to make something really quality, you've got to put the majority of your time into the substance of the park. Inventing new ride ideas and making them work. Developing and building unique theming ideas. Experimenting with aspects of the game you haven't used a lot in the past. That's where the real work is. You can throw in all the trees in a few hours (if you've developed those skills already). Buildings practically build themselves half the time. Really good architecture takes thought and planning and skill. But even that is sortof wasted on a park with no interesting rides in it. So here's my hierarchy of importance:

1. Ride and Theming ideas - original ideas scattered throughout that fit the theme(s)
2. Basic Layout - paths, where buildings go, where rides go
3. Architecture - Detail work on all the buildings
4. Last touches - trees, fountains, small scenery that give off a pleasing atmosphere

Build in phases. The first phase is the idea phase. This is where you decide what will be in the park and where it will go. You want to make sure you've got a variety of ride styles in the park spread fairly evenly across the areas. Theme and ride are parts of a whole. Try to make your rides part of the theme. You may need to experiment to get your ride or theming ideas to work. With LL in particular stacking requires planning ahead, so make it part of your theme and take care of it first.

The second phase is the planning phase. This is where you layout the skeleton of the park. You can do this one area at a time or for the whole park. It's a good idea, even if you want to do it one area at a time, to have some idea of how the whole thing will fit together. Look at Disneyland's layout. Where the mountains are, where the main rides are. It all makes sense. That's what you want when you plan a park layout. Make the best possible use of the space on the map. I like to fill in where I plan to put buildings with blank blocks. That helps me with the spacing so I can get stuff down without taking a lot of time to get it just right. Think of it like a first draft. The rides are the big landmarks on the map, so part of this phase is putting them in there and finalizing their layouts. The landscaping should be roughed in at this point too. Once you've put the paths in, that pretty much sets your elevation so you'd better do some landscaping if you don't want your park to be flat as a pancake.

The third phase is the architecture phase. This is where you go back and replace those blank blocks with real buildings. Hopefully you've come up with some original idea as part of your planning to encorporate into your architecture. Buildings can be landmarks just like rides, so treat them the same way. Each area should have at least one 'hero' building which has got all the tricks you can muster. This building serves as kindof a template for the rest which are kindof like it's offspring. You can have more than one hero building in an area obviously. You can even try to make every building a hero building. I wouldn't recommend that for LL cause you'll run out of rides fast. But in RCT2 that can be something to work for.

The fourth and final phase is the detail phase. This should takeup the least of your time. This is where you add in the trees and little theming objects like bushes and fences. It can also be where you theme rides sometimes if you're going to give them a naturalistic look. Give the landscape it's final look by tweaking edges as necessary until it looks right. Make sure the colors in each area go well together. If you're going to have peeps, make sure they can find their way around and there's suitable amounts of benches, trashcans, and stalls.

Now that's pretty much the model I follow and I expect you guys have your own preferred way of doing it. I just outlined that to point out that the real work of it is done (for me anyway) in the idea and planning phases. I've made enough buildings and placed enough trees by now that I know I can put those off until last and I'll be able to make it look good. My reason for being a pain in the ass about the lack of rides in screenshots is because it indicates to me that people are putting more of their effort into the surface detail. Why are you showing off your buildings and trees when the rides are the real measure of a park's quality? And rides, when properly integrated, should be omnipresent. You shouldn't be able to take a dozen screenshots without catching a glimpse of some ride somewhere.

So that's the long explanation. I want to see some parkmaking. I want to see the rides! I want to see the cake, not just the frosting. The first thing I do when I open a new park is press '3' and '4' to make the rides and trees invisible. I can tell pretty fast if there's anything there underneath the details. The overhead map is a good indication too. The more jumbled it looks, with all sorts of colors jumbled on top of each other, the better the park will be. Take a look yourselves.

PS - I do read hate mail, but I don't usually respond. You know, in case you felt like sending me a PM to tell me what you think about all this.

Still my favorite parkmaker. Wish he'd finish more...or anything.

It's nice.
But that building with the gray tiles sticks out like a sore thumb.

Ed, I'm very glad you're back.

The reason you're not seeing rides is because I'm not advertising.
Really though if you care to dig up the old IO advertisements then you'll see that all the screens have some ride in them and many have major ones. I understand ed completely on the "fluff" concept. It seems that almost every park these days is "fluff" with very little solid ground underneith it. I'm entirely guilty of it myself. I personally do my parkmaking quite differently from Ed's system and I've found that flat rides are by far the hardest bits to remember to put into your park. They're small and fit almost anywhere but because they're the same park to park and are hard to make special they're easy to remember. Try to make them special anyway and definently build flats; they make the park come alive.

ride6

I totally get what you're saying Ed, but there is a ride in that screen.

You just can't see it.

Thanks for the comments everyone. I changed some things around and made it a little cleaner. I hope to get
another update in soon maybe this week. Also special thanks to Coaster Ed with his reply and tips.

And also a lotta thanks to Iris who let me post in my topic.

It actually looks rather dull and boring to me. Nothing really catches my eye.

Then again I'm used to RCT2 so I'm not up to date on quality RCT1 parks.

Personally I find both "sides" of the screen quite beautiful but the center area with that marble building with the grey tile roof doesn't fit well. It really thows a lot of this off.

I'm impressed by the fact that you even kept this going after getting banned. You must be determined to get some where with it.

ride6