RCT Discussion / Fantasy vs. realism

Surrealism.

You guys are forgetting, Micool is the only fantasy parkmaker. 

Not anymore!!

I guess that I don't build either, I have never given fantasy or realism a thought when I build things, but when looking at the finished product, you could then class it as fantasy or realism. I just build whatever I like, not giving a care in the world if its fantasy or realism.

I think so called "realisitic" and "fantasy" parkmaking are just different aspects of the same thing, as Ed and Blitz already stated in that chat. Basically, what I believe every parkmaker (or any sort of artist, but I'll stick to reasoning about RCT now) wants and tries to achieve is realism, only from different perspectives depending on what aspect of your reality you want to express with the park.

Whoa, my thread. I missed this for a few days. And how would I have found the debate in the "Parkmaker you'd like to see return..." thread?
Anyway,
Butterfinger has pointed it out best.

Realism - Park could easily exist in real life.
Fantasy - The opposite.

Therefore, "realism" is in my opinion the wrong word. It should be "accuracy". Meaning that realistic/accurate parks always have to resemble already existing ones.

mantis, please explain to me in how far your parks area realistic and in how far mala is a realistic parkmaker.
I don't think that your parks resemble real-life existing ones in the slightest. This is not meant offensive in any way. I'm just pointing out why your parks aren't realistic to me.


Many people have written something like "I don't care whether I do fantasy or realism, aslong as it looks good I'm happy". This is the worst attitude towards RCT you can have and I promise you it'll lead you to nowhere.
If you find yourself in a mix between fantasy and realism then that just doesn't work. (In my opinion at least). The clearer your style is the better your parks will be. I'm sure many will disagree with that but I still believe it.
Define your style and know clearly what you want to go for. Otherwise there is no basis on which you can improve on.

You guys are forgetting, Micool is the only fantasy parkmaker. 

(cough)me?(cough)

Thanks,

Kai

1.mantis, please explain to me in how far your parks area realistic and in how far mala is a realistic parkmaker.
I don't think that your parks resemble real-life existing ones in the slightest. This is not meant offensive in any way. I'm just pointing out why your parks aren't realistic to me.

2.Many people have written something like "I don't care whether I do fantasy or realism, aslong as it looks good I'm happy". This is the worst attitude towards RCT you can have and I promise you it'll lead you to nowhere.
If you find yourself in a mix between fantasy and realism then that just doesn't work. (In my opinion at least). The clearer your style is the better your parks will be. I'm sure many will disagree with that but I still believe it.

3.Define your style and know clearly what you want to go for. Otherwise there is no basis on which you can improve on.

1. I make my parks in the belief that they are parks. I consider that realistic - I make things that could be engineered, as far as I can imagine. I think Micool and Blitz are fantasy parkmakers because they do not build things that I could imagine being parks. They build worlds, stories, thoughts. Mala builds parks. Escalante River Falls is very realistic.

2. I think 'looking good' is possibly one of the best things you can strive for, because you will gain satisfaction from it. I look at my parks and think 'they look good to me' and I like them. I agree that some of the best things don't look 'good' in the normal sense (Battlefield, Escalante), but they are not at all realistic in your sense either.
What if someone develops a style that does look good, and they are happy with it? Shouldn't they be? Should people strive to make parks that purposefully don't look good?

3. People clearly set out to make things 'look good', so they have an aim and a purpose and they get results. And over time they make things that look better to them, hence improvement. At best, I think that a mixture of Fantasy and Realism, as you define them, can lead to wonderful new ground being broken - increasing the range and possibility of 'personal style'.



Kai, your parks are parks nonetheless. The Happy Place is not a park by a long shot.

My simplified definition for engineer:

Engineer (in-gin-near); n; person who takes fantasy and makes it reality.

(in-gin-neer) <----lmao. That is hilarious.

[font=tahoma]Many people have written something like "I don't care whether I do fantasy or realism, aslong as it looks good I'm happy". This is the worst attitude towards RCT you can have and I promise you it'll lead you to nowhere.
[font]

Agreed.

Realism - Park could easily exist in real life.
Fantasy - The opposite.

Therefore, "realism" is in my opinion the wrong word. It should be "accuracy". Meaning that realistic/accurate parks always have to resemble already existing ones.

mantis, please explain to me in how far your parks area realistic and in how far mala is a realistic parkmaker.
I don't think that your parks resemble real-life existing ones in the slightest. This is not meant offensive in any way. I'm just pointing out why your parks aren't realistic to me.


Many people have written something like "I don't care whether I do fantasy or realism, aslong as it looks good I'm happy". This is the worst attitude towards RCT you can have and I promise you it'll lead you to nowhere.
If you find yourself in a mix between fantasy and realism then that just doesn't work. (In my opinion at least). The clearer your style is the better your parks will be. I'm sure many will disagree with that but I still believe it.

Define your style and know clearly what you want to go for. Otherwise there is no basis on which you can improve on.

See what I mean about different definitions about fantasy and realism? This debate will always come up (I think I started it in the first place actually, but I know it's never gonna end) and ultimately the only argument that makes sense is:

1. This is my definition of fantasy and realism.
2. Parks in Group A fit my definition for realism.
3. Parks in Group B fit my definition for fantasy.
4. Group A parks are realistic, Group B parks are fantasy.

I guess the reason I usually argue with you specifically over this is that I don't like your definition of realism. You say a park is only realistic if it looks like parks which exist. I don't like that idea. If people had that idea, we would never get anything new and exciting. We'd all be watching Casablanca 265 or something and Disneyland wouldn't exist and IOA wouldn't exist and any coaster other than wooden coasters wouldn't exist. Innovation is the key to everything. Every person is different. If you use what is unique about you to design something no one has seen before, that is real art to me. Copying other people develops skill and skill is important but nobody praises the guy who can paint a perfect replica of the Mona Lisa. That guy works in a studio making wages for their copies. They're not going to be honored in the history books for that.

I'm going to go out on my theoretical "ledge" for a moment (very precarious out there) and bring back the binary opposition discussion again. I imagine a scale with "extreme realism" at one end (in the mrICE style) and "extreme fantasy" at the other end (in the Cydonia City style). Now, binary oppositions exist to define subjects but you don't have to choose one or the other. The two sides should blend together, enhancing each other. It's a perfect match, like Male and Female. Each side balances the deficiencies of the other. So it's fine to seperate the two on a theoretical level, but in reality there's always going to be some of both.

I guess it depends if you want to define realism and fantasy as styles of building or concepts. If they're styles than it makes sense to seperate them as mrICE style amusement parks and Mala style theme fests. Theoretically though, I don't think mrICE parks look realistic at all. As I explained some other time about my theory of clutter, life is not neat and orderly. Amusement Parks try to take the edge off and make it all cheery (like Panic said) but even there it's a constant battle between weeds and groundskeepers. Between decay and maintenance. So you can choose the cartoon representation where everything is clean, simplified lines, well ordered and perfectly maintained. That's an ideal I suppose. Or you can take the c'chaos theory' approach that clutter, disaray, and decay are more realistic. More organic and more alive. If we're talking about what is really realistic, not as the two labels as pre-existing parkmaking styles, than I'd have to say that clutter appeals to my sense of organic uncertainty more than any super clean utopia park.

And in keeping with my admiration for life in all it's imperfect glory, I love it when parkmakers try new things and make mistakes. If you define your style as you say than you're going to get very good at building one type of park. As Blitz says, the best guitarist is not the guy who knows every chord in the Punk Rock handbook, it's the guy who can play in any style. Because once you know all styles you're not just following a trend, you're defining a new trend. If all you have to work with is what other Punk Rock guitarists have done, the extent to which you can innovate is not very big.

And to end I guess I should give my definitions.

1. Realistic parks to me are parks where rollercoasters are rollercoasters, buildings are buildings, and everything is generally meant to be what it looks like.
2. Fantasy parks then are parks where what is on the screen is not literal but more of a metaphor for some other intended meaning. (like Blitz's flight paths)______________________________
3. Most parks then are realistic including Mala's parks, mantis' parks, Schuessler's parks, and my parks.
4. Blitz's parks are fantasy because they have meaning beyond what is seen on the screen. I can't think of anyone else who would fit this definition though.

Disagreed. The greatest musicians are those that don't say, let's form a rock band, but those who say, let's make the music that's most pleasing to us. I think a similar thing applies to rct. If you have a clear plan of what you want a park to be, what style etc, then it doesn't matter whether that's fantasy, realism or whatever. As far as I'm concerned, that doesn't come into building a park unless you're really going for something extraordinary.

1.mantis, please explain to me in how far your parks area realistic and in how far mala is a realistic parkmaker.
I don't think that your parks resemble real-life existing ones in the slightest. This is not meant offensive in any way. I'm just pointing out why your parks aren't realistic to me.

2.Many people have written something like "I don't care whether I do fantasy or realism, aslong as it looks good I'm happy". This is the worst attitude towards RCT you can have and I promise you it'll lead you to nowhere.
If you find yourself in a mix between fantasy and realism then that just doesn't work. (In my opinion at least). The clearer your style is the better your parks will be. I'm sure many will disagree with that but I still believe it.

3.Define your style and know clearly what you want to go for. Otherwise there is no basis on which you can improve on.

1. I make my parks in the belief that they are parks. I consider that realistic - I make things that could be engineered, as far as I can imagine. I think Micool and Blitz are fantasy parkmakers because they do not build things that I could imagine being parks. They build worlds, stories, thoughts. Mala builds parks. Escalante River Falls is very realistic.

2. I think 'looking good' is possibly one of the best things you can strive for, because you will gain satisfaction from it. I look at my parks and think 'they look good to me' and I like them. I agree that some of the best things don't look 'good' in the normal sense (Battlefield, Escalante), but they are not at all realistic in your sense either.
What if someone develops a style that does look good, and they are happy with it? Shouldn't they be? Should people strive to make parks that purposefully don't look good?

3. People clearly set out to make things 'look good', so they have an aim and a purpose and they get results. And over time they make things that look better to them, hence improvement. At best, I think that a mixture of Fantasy and Realism, as you define them, can lead to wonderful new ground being broken - increasing the range and possibility of 'personal style'.

1)
Your parks do not resemble real life ones at all. How could they be called realistic?
Just because you could imagine them in real life (which is kind of absurd, honestly) doesn't mean they are realistic. No park in the whole world would ever build something like WOMB for it's areas would have to be huge sculptures, or something like that. I also don't understand how building worlds or stories is different from building bands. And worlds could also be understood as "themes", which would be realistic again.
As far as I understood it, everything that you could imagine in real life is realistic to you. So accuracy doesn't count much for you? I think we have a totally different understanding of "realism".

2)

What matters is the idea behind the park. The heart and soul. The essence

...and not the looks.
Quite honestly, Phatage's park didn't have colours and shapes that looked as aesthetic and eye-pleasing as Schuessler's to me. Yet the park was filled with thought and innovative ideas. That really made it for me. After almost an hour I had only looked at half of the park and it still kept me interested. That's something looks alone can't achieve. I think it's a bad trend that people basically care for looks only. If you do that, you park is only a shell with nothing inside. It's dead and won't have an atmosphere. Ed would say, it has no "heart"
And of course I'm not saying people should make their parks look bad. I'm just saying they should care much more for contents than looks. Good looks come, as you say, with time.

3)
Why can't I have a personal style when I'm strictly going after realism? I think there are countless ways of making realistic parks in RCT. You choose the one you like best and get happy with that.

Ed, I disagree on almost everything you said. But I guess it's just because we both come out of totally different cultures.
Half of your post, I wondered what you wanted to tell me. But I'd like to state my opinion on the parts that told me something.

First of all, I find it a mistake how you do this: new = good
Why should new not be bad?
Also, I think you're wrong when you're saying that new = original. You're too focused on the new thing. New = exciting is something you can't claim to be a fact either.
However, I admit that new = interesting. But after a certain while you'll judge. And you won't automatically judge everything new as good.

Then about the guitarist. I promise you you will never find a guitarist who can do all styles well because that'd be inhuman. The Asian ideology is to choose and stick to one thing. The sense of your life is to master it. That ultimatively fits to me. You belong rather into the American model where they want the all and everything without any limitations. (American Dream)

If you choose to have shops in your park (for people to buy stuff they need), then you're a realistic parkmaker.

SF

The main problem here is the definition of fantasy:
fantasy: something unreal to this world what you probably never will find in reallife OR something with good imagination that could be real. Lots of LL park have hacked coaster with the most strange design you would find in reallife. That's one version. Take Rivers of Babylon for example: very fantasy but it could exist in the real world.
That's my favorite type a park with rich fantasy, but with lots of realistic aspects.

I think many of the common RCT "rules" for realism are objective, arbitrary, and ultimately constrictive. E.g. realistic coasters should never drop below X mph on Y type of inversion, but no one has a problem with coasters that are 10,000 feet long or more, which is completely unrealistic. And god forbid you make a building with a plain flat roof. But dammit you'd better have 4 moderately-but-not-too-strongly-themed areas surrounding a lake, and 2 beemers, a woody, and a water ride. Of course there are exceptions, but my point is this: For me to build what is considered a realistic park at NE would inhibit my creativity to the point where it would be no fun for me at all. Of course there's room for creativity within the confines of realism, and a lot of people like to explore that, but it's not for me.

Here's how I generally build parks: I think of some ridiculous idea or theme or set of themes, and then challenge myself to realize that idea while still making it pleasing to my eye and functioning as a successful theme park according to the rules established by Chris Sawyer.

And WTF is overtheming?!?

Hmm...I don't think those parks are so much "realistic" as they are "derivative" and "cliche." Could even be the dreaded "NE Style," non?

Well you're right that new isn't always good. It isn't new exactly which I want to see, it's personality. When I say "do something new" what I really mean is "do something that is unique to you" as in, it's something no one else could have done before because it's personal. That's why I haven't made any Disney parks I guess. Disney parks are beautiful and fun to explore but Space Mountain and Thunder Mountain and Pirates of the Carribean, etc. are not me. They're nice, but they aren't personal. I think it would be fun to reinterpret those rides in a unique way though. A Mala-meets-Disneyland park sounds like it would be really fun to me. A realistic Disney park though just doesn't interest me. When I think of themes to build I'm thinking through books I've read, movies I've seen, and I pull out themes which really excite me.

That's a good point you made about the Asian ideology. It is abig cultural difference. For Samurai, sword skill is not a hobby it's a way of life. You live it everyday so the sword is part of who you are. I admir that kind of focus and consistency. On the other hand, I don't think perfection is the ultimate goal -- I think understanding is the ultimate goal. And part of understanding (the most important part) is trying new things. When you challenge yourself and enter the unknown, you find out things about yourself that you otherwise would never find. I think focusing on the perfection of an endeavor is one valid goal. And it's a goal I admire in people who have that kind of discipline. It's not my goal though, my goal is the journey into the self which is also the journey into the universe of possibility. Forgetting what you know or what you think you know and making mistakes are meaningful to me because they are the causes of learning and learning not perfection is my end goal.

I'm glad you posted that Posix. I understand you better now.

2)

(Coaster Ed)
What matters is the idea behind the park. The heart and soul. The essence

...and not the looks.
Quite honestly, Phatage's park didn't have colours and shapes that looked as aesthetic and eye-pleasing as Schuessler's to me. Yet the park was filled with thought and innovative ideas. That really made it for me. After almost an hour I had only looked at half of the park and it still kept me interested. That's something looks alone can't achieve. I think it's a bad trend that people basically care for looks only. If you do that, you park is only a shell with nothing inside. It's dead and won't have an atmosphere. Ed would say, it has no "heart"
And of course I'm not saying people should make their parks look bad. I'm just saying they should care much more for contents than looks. Good looks come, as you say, with time.

3)
Why can't I have a personal style when I'm strictly going after realism? I think there are countless ways of making realistic parks in RCT. You choose the one you like best and get happy with that.

I'm rather surprised to hear that from you Posix. I always thought you were the "it must look good Nazi" -- but now I understand, I think, that your criticism of my work has more to do with it's failure to meet a standard of perfection, something I am well aware of. I know Erwindale is flawed for example. I wasn't totally happy with it. I do work on perfection but it's not my primary goal. I'm okay with mistakes, they're an important part of art to me. If art reflects the human condition, than it should be flawed. That doesn't mean I'm not going to do everything in my power to eliminate those mistakes. Generally I think it's the comment that mistakes are acceptable that you don't like cause it indicates laziness. It isn't that I think people should slap work together without regard for perfection, it's just that the constant struggle between human fallability and human desire for perfection is a part of life that I accept and I appreciate when people fail just as much as when they succeed. Both are human and beautiful.

I think many of the common RCT "rules" for realism are objective, arbitrary, and ultimately constrictive. E.g. realistic coasters should never drop below X mph on Y type of inversion, but no one has a problem with coasters that are 10,000 feet long or more, which is completely unrealistic. And god forbid you make a building with a plain flat roof. But dammit you'd better have 4 moderately-but-not-too-strongly-themed areas surrounding a lake, and 2 beemers, a woody, and a water ride. Of course there are exceptions, but my point is this: For me to build what is considered a realistic park at NE would inhibit my creativity to the point where it would be no fun for me at all. Of course there's room for creativity within the confines of realism, and a lot of people like to explore that, but it's not for me.

I think this is a bit of an unfair clichéd view of realistic parks which unfortunately many people have. These so called "realistic parks" we're talking of are not supposedly lake parks with a beemer, a woodie and a line up of other SA trademarks rip offs. I admit that there isn't much diversity in realistic parks but I think you must avoid seeing them as Legends West look alikes.

When I say "do something new" what I really mean is "do something that is unique to you" as in, it's something no one else could have done before because it's personal.

Glad we got that sorted out. I agree with it. The most personal style is always the best.

Disney parks are beautiful and fun to explore but Space Mountain and Thunder Mountain and Pirates of the Carribean, etc. are not me. They're nice, but they aren't personal. I think it would be fun to reinterpret those rides in a unique way though. A Mala-meets-Disneyland park sounds like it would be really fun to me. A realistic Disney park though just doesn't interest me.

On the the one hand, I see your point. On the other hand though, I find it extremly impressive when someone knows so much about Disney parks that they can actually recreate or even make up their own authentic Disney parks. That is something I could never do because I don't have the park knowledge but also because this is possibly one of the hardest tasks ever in RCT and many many people fail at it, seeing the dozens of shitty Disney parks which haven't any resemblance with Disney in the slightest.

That's a good point you made about the Asian ideology. It is abig cultural difference. For Samurai, sword skill is not a hobby it's a way of life. You live it everyday so the sword is part of who you are. I admir that kind of focus and consistency. On the other hand, I don't think perfection is the ultimate goal -- I think understanding is the ultimate goal. And part of understanding (the most important part) is trying new things. When you challenge yourself and enter the unknown, you find out things about yourself that you otherwise would never find. I think focusing on the perfection of an endeavor is one valid goal. And it's a goal I admire in people who have that kind of discipline. It's not my goal though, my goal is the journey into the self which is also the journey into the universe of possibility. Forgetting what you know or what you think you know and making mistakes are meaningful to me because they are the causes of learning and learning not perfection is my end goal.

I think that this theory of yours is quite a little questionable but I respect it of course
You know, I strive for perfection all the time. I can only enjoy something when I own at it. And to me, something is art or admirable when it's absolutely flawless. When it's far ahead of my abilities. Therefore I hate mistakes.
In the end it's just a personal thing. Again and again.

I don't think those parks are so much "realistic" as they are "derivative" and "cliche." Could even be the dreaded "NE Style," non?

Whua, NE style, that's something different and extremly hard to define. We'd better not get into that debate.

Well "NE Style" means different things to different people, but I personally kinda see it as the four-lands-around-water idea that cBass described, that's what I meant. But yeah, let's not even go there. Forget I mentioned it.