What makes a good rct2/rct3 park?

[Dirk_Ermen]

Like the topic title says. What can make a simple rct park turn it into something great! All i know so far is theming. That's what i'm always doing. But since i'm working now for a long time on a bigger park i'm really wondering what can make it better and more realistic. [:)]

I think originality is key on a game like RCT.

[Brtnboarder495]

Coordination of theming really. Don't just throw scenery around. Don't make box buildings, allow them to have shape, originality and theming.

Good amounts of stores+bathrooms+food places. I'm really good at RCT2, If I could I'd show ya what I mean.

^ Thanks for bragging...

And its true, themeing and architecture makes good ratings. Original realistic rides. All that. I, myself am not and expert, but I learn fast, and my buliding making skills are improving. When I started RCT, I focused on the rides, but I realize thats not all to a park. Check out http://www.Rctfusion.com for ideas, theres so many amazing parks. One of my favorites is Busch Gardens Europe by Artist.

I highly recomend looking at the atari forums! Lately there has been tons of themeing to make parks realistic, including these huge bolders!

[Dirk_Ermen]

Thanks for some tips guys, but I won't go download and install tons of custom scenery packs. It would slow down my rct3 and of cource other peoples pc. Also I don't want to force other people to download tons of extra scenerypacks.

But what about park layout? This is the first time that i'd acutally build a park this huge and with theming area's so does anyone of you have hints for that?

Oh, RCT3, I didn't see that... It won't run on my computer because its to large a program. Personally, I think RCT3 is stupid.

[Dirk_Ermen]

whoop and there goes the information I was talking about both sims [;)] Since it's all kinda the same but still in some way different

There completely different. Comparaison:

Rct2: Rct3:
Good Sucks

See? There completely different! Lol, well, theres too much to say why Rct2 is better.

[Brtnboarder495]

^ Thanks for bragging...

Wasn't really bragging ... I just said I'm good at it.

For layout, space the big rides out and have smaller rides inbetween. Also, have no blank squares of land when your done with the park, have everything totally covered. An effective transportation system is a good idea too.

^No, you said you were really good. And for really good, I don't see any RCT things uploaded...

[Brtnboarder495]

It's because I used to have a P3 PC without internet access (so I could DL files, burn them on a CD and put them on the PC but not vice versa), but that died.

To be honest BrtnBoarder, the advice youre giving is just generalistic things that I'm sure dirk already is aware of. I think he wants more specific or in depth input, not just the cliche space your rides, have bathrooms etc. stuff. Especially since all of that stuff is much less important when speaking of a truly great RCT park. The main things that can make a park great are archy, coordination and planning, theming(obviously), good ride layouts/interaction, and success at achieving the intended affect ie realism for a realistic park or creativity and originality for a fantasy park.

Archy- Along with the obvious that youre archy should be aesthitically pleasing, you must ensure three other things. Consistency in architectural style per each area (in other words avoid having randomly constructed buildings that dont look like they have anything to do with each other aside from color), always ensure that you have a certain level of architectural variety while maintaining the consistency, and lastly always ensure that your archy possesses funcionality and reason. Every building should serve a purpose, and every piece if every building should add to the building and provide added quality/usability/aesthetics to the building of which it is a part of. Follow the golden rule of archy-The structure should be better than the sum of its parts.

Coordination and planning-Self explanatory really. Ensure that every part of your park is well planned and makes sense. While you don't have to neccessarily have premeditated everything (many great areas of excellent rct2 parks started as somehthing else), at least refine what you build to create a sense of coordination and organization. Also, pay attention to details and come up with clever means of arranging your park/coasters/paths etc in order to give a sense of extroardinary refinement to your park, which in turn will greatly add to the quality of the park.

Theming- Try to come up with original themes, or an original way of creating a common theme. Or if you are going for a deeply realistic feel (ie a disney based park with a tomorrowland), ensure that you get the theme across well with every section of the area adding to the theme's development, as this will make even a theme as common as tomorrowland or jungle become a sophisticated area that will add to the park being great.

Ride layouts/interaction- If you are going for a realistic park, make rides that have believable layouts with accurate realistic supports as well. Also, try to add realistic details to the rides such as transfer acts, believable stations, sophisticated foliage and landscaping, and solid entry/exit lines. Also, if you desire even further realism, consider mimicking rides (ie make a woodie that goes underground numerous times to be very similar to Voyage, which will make the ride more believable and exciting). Also, attempt to duplicate the atmospheres of real parks such as IoA, Disneyland, or any other park with a great atmosphere, if you successfully add in the details and surroundings that can be found in these real parks your park will become even greater and more believable.

Realism-Already covered above for the most part. Use your knowledge of rollercoasters and parks to accurately create a realistic park that remains interesting and fun to look at. Attempt to have realistic pathing, foliage, and buildings that are detailed and refined to the furthest extent, but still not overdone.

Also, it helps to view other great parks. For WWS.com, I'd reccomend checking out SupremeScreamer's parks as well as X250's creations. SS's are extremely realistic, while X's are extremely creative and well made but may be a bit less realistic. Also, I'd reccomend that you look at some of the parks on nedesigns.com, the spotlights on ne.com are unquestionably some of the best parks available for rct. Specifically, I'd recommend checking out Rivers of Babylon by SACoasterFreak, Euroscape by Butterfinger, Six Flags Worlds of Excitement by Phatage, Isole Calabria by Turtle, and Islands of Enchantment by Artist. These can all be found in the spotlights and runnerups links at ne.com. There are many other great examples of quality realistic parks there as well. Hopefully I have been of assistance to you. [:D]

^ I can never get stuff from NE, I always download and it gives me some weird file. Am I missing something?

It should give you a zip/rar file, just extract it to wherever you'd like and what will be extracted is the .sv6 file which is the park file, and any readmes etc. Also, any park with custom objects will cause an error the first time it is opened most of the time, so that may be the problem. If that still doesnt work let me know what is going wrong and details through pm's and I'll try to help. [8D]

^ I just get .td6, thats it.

Dont mean to revive a weeks old topic but I think its always a good I dead to look at perks for insparation a really good place to do that is either Rct2.com's Vacation park section or NE Designs Spotlight section.

http://nedesigns.com/?ne=spotlight <New Element

http://vp.rct2.com/ <Rct2.com

http://www.rct3d.com/index.php?rct3d=vp3dx&rct3i=index <Good Rct3 park