RCT Discussion / RCT History

Well. Back in late 1998 i had just been playing "Theme Park" when i thought about looking up any news on a sequel to it. it just so happened that on that search i found a site labled the "First Ever RCT site". it was quite small and had a few screenshots that had been released. a simple forum and a few wishlists by ACE members. Such as more corner types (45* degree corners were added in quite late) and different hill angles (that never happened in the end). I became a member and a month or 2 afterwards the time limited demo was released.

It wasnt long before someone cracked the demo and gave us a trainer that gave unlimited time (we still couldnt save) but it was everyones first taste of RCT, Eventually the game got released around about March and i got it for my birthday. It took a while for someone to actually create a FLat Land Mega Park. It was the last scenario that someone had earnt lots of money on and flattned it lol. And the mega park was born. Hybris Mega Park anyone? I started my own RCT site at some point to. (Daves RCT site) it was rubbish but i first move into websites and it was moderatly successfull.
there was also a whole plan called RCT Ellite which was to create a community much like NE is today. if i remember the plan was started by Myself Buster and Danmack. (but this could of been during the Danimation days... i forget) anyway the project died eventually.

The First RCT site suffered an attack from someone labled Jenny? who hacked into the site and disabled the forums for a while. at about the same time a site i called Danimation was releasing reasonably good real recreations. I remember Gwazi and Superman Ride OF Steel as 2 that stood out.

After a while i got an account at Danimation. spent a few years there. and as everyone knows the Danimation story. ill skip a bit.
Eventually i became a moderator there. and got a couple of forum spotlights with THe Last Causeway and Arnos Grove. I used to spend far too much time there. But one day while in the chat "myself, Buster and Danmack" came across the idea of creating a pack of micro parks.. But the site itselfwas going downhill and after various random arguments falling outs and bannings (dont think any of them were to do with the 3 of us ) and the creation of NE, i got an account here. and the whole micro project fell through. I somehow seemed to do pretty well here somehow while the amazing Buster and Danmack vanished... (im still bewildered) I somehow became a Mod here and eventually the micro project was picked back up as the Revolution Project. Which as you know did pretty well and spawned a sequal and another on its way.

I got a couple of spotlights here with Snow Drop and Arnos Grove as well as some other tidbits. designs and such. But as RCT2 grew in popularity i stuck will LL and sort of faded away a bit... But im still here. And am working on various things. My last success was VDFs runner up which was cool and with the advent of Codex im hoping to climb the ladder a bit again .

anyhow thats a bit of a cut down history but none of it would of been possible with out various people.
Joe Holland, LAA, DanMack and Buster from the early days
and More recently Iris, X-sector, Nevis, Posix and Panic.
all have helped and nudged me at times before (there are countless others so sorry if i forgot you)

All in all its been a long time (8 years) but its still one of my fave time wasting activities lol

Edited by Gutterflower, 27 August 2006 - 09:36 AM.

I don't even want to think about the all the time I spent on RCT sites.

Edited by Nic, 28 August 2006 - 03:15 PM.

Ok well around this time last year i played rct2 for the first time. Ive always been interested in architecture and roller coasters so it was a nice break when i had some free time.

I started at coasterforce (a coaster enthusiast site) basically to hear news about all my favourite theme parks and its forum is extremley friendly. I browesd the rct2 players forum and i saw work from X250 and Cedarpoint6. I was absolutly blown away and the game that i had on my shelves that was never played was installed on my computer and i started from there. I started talking to Cedarpoint alot and he helped me by giving me some advice on my coasters (my weakest point) and i just kept building from there. He also helped me by explaining how to add stuff to your object folder lol. As i was unsure about adding unknown files to my computer.

I got used to the game then i started building on my first solo Sikinos. It was a 90x90 map and i themed it to different parts of Greece. While this was underway i also entered a competition at coasterforce. Only half of the park was hacked as i only downloaded 8cars halfway through. I won the competition which felt amazing. I carried on building on Sikinos. At this time i got accepted at my club RCTfury. Its been one of the best decisions throughout my year playing because i met alot of friendly people and learnt alot from the other members. Im still really happy in the club because we are all friends and know each other quite well. Also our work is turning out to be something really nice.

At Christmas i entered the Happy holidays 15x15 map at RCT2. I came third runner up in this but it was a really fun thing to build.

At the halfway point through Sikinos, i decided i wanted to try a new style of building. So i started building on my first design. It was called moon mountain themed to a medieval village. It got declined for a design but it was quite close apparently. It did'nt matter as i loved building on it and my coasters were showing alot of improvement. At this point i would of never expected getting a design so it was just something to try harder for. I carried working on Sikinos and a few parks for my club. I then finished my first solo and it got a VP runner up. This was another amazing thing for me.

I then organised a club competition (which is still going on now btw). This pitted 8 builders in a tournament with 4 matches, a win moving you to the semi finals then onto the finals. In the first round i beat Breakaway with Cape congo. I then sent it of for a design not expecting anything. One morning i opened the front page of NE and saw the logo and the writeup of it. I was absoltuly stunned as this was the one goal i set myself for rct2. My next goal is to complete a major solo so i made my bench and started working on it.

In the time then i started the semi finals of the competition and learnt a few more hacks and a different building style. I beat Thirteen in the round with Siren and sent this off for a design as well. This got me my second design which sorta proved my first was'nt a fluke.

Then i just concentrated on my solo which is still going really well. I released a few screens on the forums while i kept building. I then entered H2h4and built in week 1 with Ragnorak, winning this with my partner Egghead. Then week 5 with Tierre Aventura, winning this with my partner Steve. Both was really good to build on as i had a decent input. H2h4 has been really good seeing my teams parks progressing and getting a few tips off others.

At this very moment in time. im building in my Clubs competitions finals against Senz. This should be a close match as we have the same building style and he's been a close friend ever since i joined the club. Im also constantly building on my solo which i love and i hav'nt got bored of it yet. Then im building on one more park which i'll keep quiet for a bit.

So yes thats my first year in Rct soon to be a few more i think.

JK

^ I always have liked your work...

As for me, I have been playing RCT/RCT2 for years, although I just started building actual parks about 2 or 3 months ago. I have one released work, two unfinished RR entries (I plan on finishing them soon), a planned design, and a solo. In all of my works so far, I have focused on one major element, so I could hopefully get better at those. BGO:PP is my first attempt at actually combining my work from ALL of the elements. I know this is a wierd way to work, but I kind of like it. Very short history, not very detailed, but of course I am still relatively new.

I remember when JK first started RCT, he sent me a string of very nice PM's over at CoasterForce telling me how me and cedarpoint6 were the best ever at RCT and everyone else sucked badly... ah, those were the days.

-X-

I remember when JK first started RCT, he sent me a string of very nice PM's over at CoasterForce telling me how me and cedarpoint6 were the best ever at RCT and everyone else sucked badly... ah, those were the days.

-X-

...now hold on just a minute...

Hahahaah i don't think i put them in those words really but i remember sending you a few Pm's. I just can't believe that was a year ago.

Well, you have improved a lot then

Damn! Nemesischris! U:P was just a talent machine, wasn't it? You, Ablaze, Thorpedo, Rctfreak2000 (what happened to him?), we all came out of that. Btw, those mini-hypers you've been making in your parks are hella inspiring.

Correction. I helped RUN U:P

Never was in it.

And ironically UP are the initials of my university.

^ That was a wierd bump. Anyway, I'll post my simple and short RCT history.

I don't remember when I first got RCT, but I remember anxiously waiting for Corkscrew Follies and Loopy Landscapes to come out. When they did, I built the most n00bish, sorry looking parks you've (n)ever seen, but hey, I was having fun! I remember playing the Evergreen Gardens scenario from over and over because I thought it was the biggest map at the time! I first came into the RCT community through RCT Station, although I only posted like once in my life there. RCT2 came out and I moved to RCT2.com, where I went under the name "Mad Dawg" for quite a while (still my name there btw). I started on a park called "Six Flags over Florida" and got some attention for the realism in my parking garage and my "midwestern" style structures in Six Flags Plaza. It's funny, I actually found my old freewebs page for Six Flags over Florida by accident recently. Anyway, the park went at a snails pace, and I finally canned it in early 2003 in favor of a Disney park. To this day, I still get the occasional PM asking about SFoF. Funny stuff. BTW, I don't recall if I ever advertised Six Flags here at NE. I was pretty petrified of posting here as well.

Anyway, now we're to my Disney period. I started Disneyland around the end of 2003 and after a rough start the park became a decent hit. I was so into it, too. I could build in the park for hours on end and never get tired of it. Working on the park, I gathered well over 1,000 images from the Magic Kingdoms worldwide and that was the start of my now 10,000+ photo collection. I got off to a sort of rocky start here at NE because of my n00bish attitude and really lame jokes. Most people liked my work so I got away with it for a while. Toward the end of 2004, I submitted my Disneyland for the NE spotlight, and in March 2005, it was announced as a Super Runner-Up. It was met with mixed reviews, and to be honest there were parts that I wasn't really happy with. After joining the boards, I began to feel rushed and basically slapped together the last few areas of the park. After it's release as and SRU, I quietly went back and began redoing sections I didn't like including the Jungle Cruise, Discoveryland, Shadowlands, and the northern area of Frontierland. When I announced my second park, DisneySea, in the ad district, I also showed the new Disneyland, and it was met with farily positive reviews. Thanks to tyandor, Disneyland was re-released on November 9, 2005 withouth WW. Now more people could see and enjoy the park.

As of right now, my second park, DisneySea, is almost done. After that it's on to the Walt Disney Studios and a few "mini-maps" for the parks as well.

Edit: Here's my old Freewebs page.

Edited by Iceman, 21 January 2007 - 10:18 PM.

wow, reading through a lot of these, brings back a lot of good memories. i cant believe it has been that long. ah, the good ol' days. its kinda shocking to see people around for so long. if anything, i sure would wish to see another park come from Kai. his parks used to blow me away. still do. talk about color usage and original ideas/themes.

i remember so much of my history with this game i would have no idea where to begin. so few people would even recognize who i am around here now anyway. so many new faces. you would probably need to have been around for about two years to really remember where i come from. funny cuz i think the most enjoyable day for me in RCT was prolly when i became a moderator at RCT Station. i prolly could say my most enjoyable park to build was the my first SRU, Gardens of Desires. Mysterious Isles was pretty fun too.

sigh...i need to get back to those days.

I was a coaster fanboy first and RCt fanboy second. I was there for thrillride.com, which then became TN- i liked the coaster element and there were enough rct players there to sustain me. so, i hung around Thrill network for too long and missed danimation and the NE startup. I've never been really familiar with the station or danimation, TN was kind of a self-contained RCt bubble i didn't want to leave. it had Ride6 and Kraken and intamin101 and others, which was good enough for me. the NE style just looked stupid back then, what with the jagged rocks being slung everywhere like so many three-letter internet acronyms and bizarre hacked rides... where was their common sense, what the hell were all these ghost trains doing in the sides of buildings, and what the fuck was the the deal with that wooden coaster track dangling out over the path like it was some sort of... *grimaces* awning? no, these NE'rs were way too out of touch and too busy being stuck up future architecture majors to be able to build a decent Hershey Park recreation, or kennywood's Racer, which was all i really wanted from the game then. I eventually got over this after I found someone had in fact already made a decent hershey park rec. and I discovered the joys of how a virginia reel could maybe actually look like an overhang.. i think one day i just looked at some glass-station-windows and had an epiphany and joined NE.
Shortly after registering and posting a few times I lost interest in RCT and disappeared for years.
After a return (in .. 2005? I don't even know) I began producing poorly-made RCT2 parks, eventually I entered Fusion Survivor 3, where I finally made a halfway decent park, made an AD topic for a park called Nihombasa (which was rct2 at that point) and placed second in the rct2.com annual christmas micro contest. Around the same time Roomie/Gutterflower posted his Revolution Project 3 topic and I picked up LL again to make a few micros. Having thusly decided that micros were something i was good at, I made a lot of them- submitting several to the startup RCTavenged website and winning. I was actually enough of a regular there to be put on staff, as they were short judges. Once there the admin team discovered I knew how to use photoshop and recruited me for logo-making duty. RCTA was later hacked and wound down, but having established an LL presence in the community in the meantime (with a design, concept creation, and a restarted, LL version of Nihombasa claiming Gold on top of my RCTA exploits) i was drafted by Geewhzz for his whzzkids h2h5 team. That led to some cool parks and ideas of course, but after being in contact regularly for h2h5 Gee and I never really stopped talking. Several times when an LL accolade submission was caught up in the queue because few people like judging LL things he contacted me to guest judge, and eventually I was quietly tacked onto the panelist group, as well as the release prep group. I now help out with some of the behind-the-scenes at NE while slowly (ever so slowly) continuing to develop my particular brand of "postcard" parkmaking and acting like i've been here a long time.

I forgot about this thread. The whole first section of that post was very enjoyable, well written *applause*.

Edited by Lloyd, 10 February 2007 - 08:49 PM.

A short update on my story. Obviously there was another Pro Tour 2, I was in it and, of course, I'm now a parkmaker as a result.

I've cancelled the same (basic) solo twice now. That's been released over in the other area. Right now I'm tinkering with the Codex trainer and to say the least I don't plan on playing much rct2 for a good while. I have an LL solo in the planning stages and several (very) small side projects going on.

Sadly (for my NE "life" anyway) I've been getting into guitar a lot more recently. I've been playing for about 2 & 1/2 years now and have finally started jamming with people I can really 'jell' with. It's the shit really. As a result most of my creative energy goes that way. But on all those late nights when I'm at home, bored, unable to play my instrument at any enjoyable volume, rct (mixed with music listening pleasure) still rules.

My history is probably a little different to most people's RCT history. I got RCT 1 and Added Attractions (Corkscrew Folies) and played the game until I got bored of it. I then got RCT 2 and did the same stopping playing about midway through the summer holidays after I built technically my first park, Greenworld. My RCT fired died away until just before xmas that year. I had joined the Atari forums after I need help with a technical question. Bored one day I started browsing and I noticed a park competition was being run by a member of the forums (I think it was Sunbeam?). The aim was to build a Valentine's park in time for Valentine's day. I decided I could do this, so I joined in. My valentine's park didn't take me that long, but I was convinced I could do better. At the same time Mousing started running his monthly competitions, and I joined in with them.

Many parks quickly followed, Wacky Waterworld, The Legend of Robin Hood and Easter Gardens. Exams put a hold on things, before I resumed playing. I managed to finally win something winning the Steel Coaster Challange and two rounds of the winners park as well as completing parks for the Wastelands and the Quad Quarters Retreat competition. I joined RCT Mart, and won a couple of competitions there before starting on my first non-competition park, Plunder Dock, which was entered for a VP. Needless to say it got crushed by RWAdams South Beach. During the construction I joined the RCT Architects club. I then built a no-custom scenary mini called Tailsworth Funland while I waited for RCT3 for Xmas.

With RCT3 work started on Colonia: Empire Revisited, with only minor breaks to work on several designs, club parks, and Six Flags over Cumbria, my RCT Olympics entry. Eventually Colonia was released in the summer of last year, when it won VP3D at RCT2.com. Since them I've had little projects in progress including 3 road rally entries, and a happy holidays entry.

My personal RCT history is mostly just as a hobbyist, I don't have any renown in any of the RCT sites, but I think it's interesting.

I started off with RCT1 in 2000 when I got it for Christmas. It was what started my love for Roller Coasters in general, and I don't know where I'd be today without it. Anyways, I was only seven then and my dad made all the parks that I thought were impressive, and I didn't get into it too much.

It ended up the park that was my favorite out of my first Run (runs end with complete deletion of all files) was evergreen Gardens. I was a SLOW parkmaker, but EG just seemed to click for me. I ended up making $1,000,000 from scratch (which is an accomplishment even today, I think, because mostly people get the $5,000,000 start so they can build massive parks, which is still respectable) in 20 years. I don't have any screenshots, because I didn't know how to take them. Another park I really enjoyed was Dynamite Dunes. I made what I thought at the time was a gigantic park there, but I don't remember anything about it.

At the time of those parks, I wasn't concentrating on completing the long scenario list, but in my 2nd run with my piece of crap laptop I unlocked every single park in RCT1, even though I had RCT2. I've never finished CF/LL to this day. I happen to think myself that I did very well on those parks. My favorite park out of the original set was Ivory Gardens, believe it or not. Out of LL, my favorite was Haunted Harbor. I never really did very many CF scenarios.

Moving back, however, before I got my laptop RCT2 came out. I was psyched for it to come out, so I got it. I enjoyed it, but never really DID anything really impressive. In my first RCT2 run, I had a bunch of really crappy rides and parks, and my skill from RCT1 didn't seem to carry over. I was a bit frustrated, so I went back to RCT1 (see above paragraph).

After my second RCT1 run, I went back to RCT2. I had gotten a new computer, so this is my second run. I spent a LOT of time trying to perfect my skills. I eventually started using scenery, which improved my parks greatly. I'm still terrible at managing money, but I got through a lot of work there. I eventually decided to try a small park that was going for roller coaster quality. I put about 26 roller coasters in a 100x100 map, approximately. That was my first attempt at a quote unquote "good" park. Then I went back to just building rides and theming them. I have quite a number. Then I started on my biggest project to date: Nawpin Fields. Don't ask, I don't know. I filled a 150x150 park with rides, theming everything, etc.... I still have it, I'm thinking of putting it on a site, at least it would be better than SOME parks I've seen.

I decided to dig out my old LL/CF CDs, see if I could get them to work on my new computer. Eventually (after many long and stupid run-throughs with the internet) it got resurrected, and the third run began. It was really dull, because I still had no progress, and no rides... I considered it a miracle when I dug up come old parks, and found that they were the same ones that I had been using in my 2nd run! So today, I have my $250,000 DD park, my new $25,000 EG park. Anyways, it's been fun.

My computer got fried. Luckily, or forthoughtedly (not a word) on my part, I had backed up my files. So began the third run of RCT2. Today, I still have all the files from my 2nd run but lost a lot of data between my backup and my crash. I have all my old parks and rides (which is a relief), but lost all my scenarios. I made/am making a series of parks, called the Everywheres. In these parks, you follow paths and are lead around through variously themed areas. Everywhere I sucked, it was divided by fences and was basically me using the bush tool on random scenery pieces from different sets. Everywhere II was a 256x256 map, and I got bored, so I only filled about 1/3 of it up with crap. Everywhere III was a relatively small map, and was the best, having many areas and still being buildable. Everywhere IV was slightly larger, and the best to date, same concept as Everywhere III. Everywhere V has been in the making for about a year and a half, I don't know if I'm really going to finish it.

Throughout online games and different fads, Roller Coaster Tycoon has lasted, and will last until the end of days.

I would love to see some screenshots.
You can take them by clicking the file in the top left corner of the game screen and then clikc the option that says screenshot.

Hmm.. might as well...

I started playing RCT somewhere around 2000-2001. I didn't own the game, but I played it with my cousin. I remember playing scenarios, but I never got real far because I usually just continued on a park. I got the game for myself a few months after LL came out. I never played anything besides the scenarios. When RCT2 came out, I got it a few weeks after. The scenarios were a big disappointment. Eventually, I looked stuff up online and came across a few sites that I didn't join. After seeing some parks, I went to create my first park. I forget its name, but it actually had a decent steel coaster called Hydroelectric. Later, I downloaded vacation parks from rct2.com and got custom scenery, and began creating my second park. My cousin and I built it together one weekend. It was called Big Man Acres, and it had a Martix Coaster, a huge red giga coaster, and a mansion in the back.

Anyways, rct2.com was the first site I joined. I worked on a few parks like one for the rctfun contest, one for the never is sixty contest, and a solo called World Showcase. I only completed a terrible park for never is sixty contest.

Soon, I found NE sometime around Pt2 was finishing I think. And that concludes my exciting rct history.

Ha! I didn't even know this topic existed... Interesting topic idea though.

I started playing RCT1 not long after it came out (1999). I remember thinking, "Dude! You can build your own roller coasters? That's freakin' awesome!" I just had to have it, and ended up getting it as a gift. I fell in love with it on the first day. The scenarios were fun, the game ran well on my computer (Windows '95), and I spent hours playing. Unfortunately, my computer had a habit of crashing, and I was never able to get to the later scenarios. I'd get so to Pacific Pyramids, and then BAM! All gone. My parents decided to upgrade to Windows '98, and the game ran even better. About that time, CF came out, but I was too busy playing the original to even notice. Then LL came out, and sure enough, I gobbled that up too.

Times changed though, and as of '01, I was playing Age of Empires. RCT was a thing of the past. Then I heard about RCT2. I remember thinking, "Dude! You can build Six Flags parks? That's freakin' awesome!" I honestly think that most scenario players were disappointed by the fact that all the scenarios were unlocked at the start. I know I was. At that time, I wasn't into building custom parks, although I did experiment from time to time, with less than satisfying results. I went back to LL for a time. The game was more fun, and I had gotten better since I first played back in '99. I could rake in the cash, and build decent coasters that weren't too intense.

But eventually, RCT fell out of play entirely. Again, I had lost interest. I found this really awesome game called Stronghold: Crusader. It's still awesome today, actually, and I play it when I get frustrated with RCT.

About '04 I was back into RCT2. I wanted to try and make my own custom park, but I still wasn't that good. I tried to do the scenarios again, but I was more into making a killer custom park. After a while of tinkering, my first custom park was born! Christened Adventureland, it was far less than eye candy, but it was still a finished piece, and I was proud of it. Then my computer crashed again, and I lost my great (at the time) piece of work. After my self-envisioned success with Adventureland, I was ready to tackle my next project. Itwas going to be even better, but it never got off the ground.

About '05, after I moved from California to Indiana, I started using the internet more. An old friend from CA told me about Tycoon Planet (which is back online, surprisingly). I went there, and I was no longer blind to the world of RCT. Here was an entire community at my fingertips, with parks to download, screenshots, etc. There was even a project going on: A recreation of Walt Disney World in Florida, using RCT2! That was something to look foreward to for sure! I guess you could say that from '05 on, RCT2 was my primary game.

One thing that Tycoon Planet had though, were photo manips of various parks. Most were poorly constructed (poorer than my poorest attempts), and I thought, "I could trump those guys easy." I suddenly had the urge to strut my stuff. Although there were a few screens that showed much more skill than my own, I figured those builders were a rare occurance.

In '06 I started looking around for a good site to go to. I didn't have to go very far before I was blown away. It was one of those "holy shit" moments that only comes every so often. The gem I had discovered happened to be Tyandor's Enchanted Gardens: Shady Oasis at RCT Compo. Now, I had heard about trainers, and custom objects, but I was afraid those things would mess up my game, so I stayed clear of them. EG: Shady Oasis didn't use any of these things, and I wanted to build a park just like it!

I tinkered a bit, but couldn't get into the swing of that kind of skill, so I went back to RCT Compo to look for more inspiration. But alas, the site had disappeared. I was still itching to show off though. I practiced, and got a little better, but not by much. The Walt Disney World recreation was released at Tycoon Planet, and I was fairly dissapointed. It wasn't all that great to look at, and the site sort of died after that.

Finally, '07 rolled around and I was still searching for the place where I could kick some RCT ass, and show off. Most of the sites I found though, had been inactive for a while. So I went to the Official site for some help. I browsed through the list of fansites and stumbled upon a site called New Element. Hot damn, that site was awesome! I had just come in after Pharoah had been released. It was an LL park, so I was under the impression that the site was pretty active. Besides, I had a fresh RCT idea that I wanted to get working on, and NE would be the perfect place to show off. Enter Liberty Land!

And what's this? A contest on the rise? Even better. I was quick to join in April, as I really wanted to be a part of an active RCT competition. Unfortunately, I neglected to really explore the site thoroughly. With the PT3 prelims underway, I got started on my first RCT contest entry. And boy, what a piece of shit that was! I was still new to custom objects and hacks (which I had tentatively downloaded), so I wasn't surprised that my entry got over-cooked by FK's "holy shit" bridge entry.

I've been working on my RCT skills ever since, and I think I've gotten better at it. A lot better than I used to be. But I'm still a few stones' throws away from being a Parkmaker. And that's my RCT history. Congrats to those who read all that. Sorry if I rambled. :/

I have never thought "Dude, that's freakin awesome" in my entire life.

"but I was afraid those things would mess up my game"

I've never thought that either.




:')

Edited by JJ, 14 June 2008 - 09:31 PM.