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Let's go Wild in Rollercoaster Tycoon 3!
What's up with Rollercoaster Tycoon 3?
RCT3 is the third installment of the all time classic Rollercoaster Tycoon series. RCT1 was originally released in 1999 and developed by Chris Sawyer and MicroProse. Tthe first RCT game is still considered to be an all time classic. There is in fact a thread full of people playing the game right now in our very own games forum, and there's even a link to the game for $6 on GoG.com if you have the sudden urge to build horrifying rollercoasters of your very own But enough about that, we're here for the third game in the series.
Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 receives a varied response from many fans of the original two games. Doing away with the graphic style and isometric viewpoint of RCT1 and 2, the third game utilises free camera movements across a fully 3D landscape, allowing you to get down and dirty when you're building whatever you feel. There's even an isometric view option for those purists out there, however the game isn't really designed with this in mind and as such can be cumbersome to navigate. The game also placed a lot more emphasis on giving the player total creative freedom, finally introducing a true Sandbox mode after Chris Sawyer simply disapproved of putting one in the original games. His influence wasn't as heavy in RCT3 and this shows, for both positive and negative. The game is far easier compared to the previous two, and the interface often feels a lot less intuitive. These aren't as big an issue as some people would have you believe Nevertheless they are a step away from what made RCT and RCT2 great games for a lot of people.
I mentioned the game giving a lot of creative freedom to players - There is a metric ton of various scenery options available. With a little imagination and a sprinkling of too much spare time you can turn the most barren piece of flat, dull field into a work of art. The issues surrounding the clunky interface can make this more of a chore than enjoyable at times, but back when this game was released I managed to spend enough time trying to recreate something or other that I eventually got around that. My wrist never has but that was probably going on its way out anyway, so it's no major loss.
So here we have a game that tried to break away from what made its predecessors so great a little bit too eagerly. When all is said and done though, I find RCT3 is more than capable of standing on its own two feet. It introduced a new angle to the series and I can't fault it for that, and it's given me a lot of enjoyment since its release back in 2004.
Features, so many features.
The vanilla version of RCT3 comes packed with 24 scenarios, Sandbox mode and a Scenario editor. The 24 scenarios are all quite similar to the previous games and all host the stage for goals such as raising your park value to x amount, getting so many guests into the park, or the brand new addition of playing host to a "VIPeep" which I'll explain in a bit.
The first of these scenarios is almost identical in nature to the first scenario available way back in RCT1 - Vanilla Hills. From there onwards they increase in complexity, both in landscaping and goals. Various scenarios have themes to them, one taking place in a derelict movie studio covered in sick and litter, and one taking place in what could pass as the Taj Mahal. The scenarios all play host to the core of the game and come with three sets of goals each. The goals are ranked at "Apprentice", "Entrepreneur and "Tycoon" levels to signify their difficulty. The actual truth is that Tycoon goals can take a few hours to a days worth of play to accomplish, and the Apprentice goals can be done in maybe an hour or two. It's very difficult to "lose" a scenario in RCT3. It can definitely be done, you just have to work at failing (sometimes moreso than at succeeding).
Other features in the game include the aforementioned Sandbox, where you receive a gigantic plot of flat grassland, access to all the rides and scenery in the game, and unlimited funding. Sandbox is probably where I've spent most of my time playing RCT3 over the years, not only for just building to my hearts content, but also to test various coaster designs and such without having to worry about finances getting in the way. It's a welcome addition to the game, and having it in RCT3 makes me wish for it all the more in the first two games.
There's also a scenario editor that allows you to go extreme with creativity and effectively build a park from the ground up - it can act as a more versatile sandbox, allowing you to build huge sprawling entrances to your park, or you can use it to design your own challenges. I never really bothered with it and I don't foresee much change in the future.
Other features include the ability to pause the game whilst building, and at long last the ability to fast forward. With the restrictions of scenarios being on a time limit, the fast forward is a huge bonus. It can be used to make ride tests be over quickly, during an advertising campaign to get get however many guests you need to reach your goal in the park, and has a variety of other uses. While I can understand why it was never in RCT and RCT2, it is certainly useful to have at long last.
The rest of the features of RCT3 such as fireworks displays and peep behaviour are better explained as I go through them (have to put up with them) during the LP, so I'll leave this alone at this point.
Expansions?
There were two expansions released for RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 - Soaked! and Wild.
Soaked! allows you to introduce swimming pool complexes to your theme parks and came packed with a few new types of ride and store. There are also a few things here and there that show Hersheys was included at some point - You now have the option to let your guests buy Hersheys Chocolate from stalls, for example. The swimming pools were the major addition, and come included with a variety of waterslide options varying from the basic body slide to the "aqua blaster" - A slide where guests sit in Dinghies and are propelled through huge rollercoaster-like turns via water jets.
Wild allowed players to introduce animals into their park, effectively enabling the building of zoos. Along with the typical introduction of a few new rides and stalls, the features of Wild are mostly useful for taking up a lot of space in your park so your guests can get bored watching a single Panda look very lonely, but then whine about it when you introduce a friend for it to play with. There were new levels of micromanagement introduced and a new staff member, the animal keeper, who exists solely to clean up dung and ocassionally feed a Lion whilst it stands two feet away from her.
Both expansions introducednew scenarios. 9 come packed with Soaked that are more often than not themed in a tropical manner, and focus on building and maintaining swimming pool complexes. Wild introduced 12 new scenarios that range from maintaining zoos, helping scientists fund Monkey research farms and building your own park from the ground up. Wild's scenarios are in my opinion the most fun, challenging and interesting.
So what can we expect from this LP?
I have told a tiny lie about doing an LP of "Rollercoaster Tycoon 3". I'm actually going to be playing through the Rollercoaster Tycoon 3: Wild scenarios for the reasons mentioned above. This is also because Wild will enable me to show off every single last feature of the game on interesting and varied landscapes and scenarios. This means a playthrough of each of the twelve scenarios available in Wild as the thread wills it - I'll post a list after each update and let you guys decide which I tackle next. I'll also be showing off a few things here and there in Sandbox mode inbetween updates when I need some downtime from becoming a Tycoon yet again.
All the features of the game - building rollercoasters to animal enclosures, organising Lion shows, creating your very own peeps and all the typical stuff you'd expect from a game like RollerCoaster Tycoon - will be included. I'm going to do my best to identify how things are different in RCT3 compared to the previous two games, and whether or not it works out as a good thing. I will leave you hanging as to whether this all includes stupid ride names for the sake of comedy, though.
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Update 0: Welcome to Vanilla Hills!
What we have here is the Scenario selection screen of vanilla Rollercoaster Tycoon 3. You'll notice that 12 of the 18 scenarios are currently locked and unavailable to play. In order to unlock a scenario you simply need to beat one that's open to an Apprentice level. This holds true for the first ten scenarios. For the 17th scenario each of the previous must be completed at an Entrepreneur level, and for the 18th you're going to need to conquer the Tycoon objectives in all the previous scenarios. It's a neat system I guess.
Vanilla Hills introduces some core concepts of Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 without being too taxing. It's designed in a similar way to the first scenario of RCT1 to the point of it being almost identical in layout. The game points out to us quite early on that our "meteoric" rise to Tycoon status might not even happen, which I suppose is a nice way of them saying "if you suck you can just go back to the Sandbox mode. We put it there for you. Yes, you.
It also lets me build a test post for the LP, which is always a bonus!
And here we are. We're supplied with a completely flat landscape with two small gardens. We're also provided with an Suspended Roller Coaster and a Top Spin. There's really not that much going on here, and we're already supplied with a generous number of guests. They're going to eventually get bored with having just two rides to play around on, one of which is a Top Spin, so lets see what the objectives are and get underway.
The Apprentice objectives are fairly straightforward here. We need to attract another 100 guests give or take, and raise our park value to the more than lenient ?20,000. Park value is the complete sum of how much your park costs to exist and some other things that have never really been ironed out since the very beginning of the series. The easiest way to raise it is always to build a fresh Rollercoaster, but that's getting a bit ahead of ourselves.
The next port of call is our finances. Accessed by clicking on our money count shown at the top of the screen. We can see already that our park value is currently just over ?14,000. Based on last month we can expect to turn a profit this month, although it won't be much. So we have our goals set - find ?6,000 worth of Park Value and attract 100 guests. That can't be too hard at all.
We've also got access to graphs that show our cashflow. Graphs are always nice.
You've probably noticed that there's been spending and earning done before March of Year 1. I'm not 100% sure but if the scenarios of Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 were designed in the same way as the previous two games (which this suggests is the case) then what happens is a designer is called in to create the scenario from the ground up, including landscaping and whatever else is required. What puzzles me about this all however is the loss of ?5,100 in August - Not many things come under the "other" category. It is a mystery.
Dwelling on this won't get this LP very far so nevermind.
The Top Spin is a bad ride.
Rides are graded in the same way they were in RCT and RCT2 - Excitement is how much a guest will want to actually get on the ride itself (and how much they're willing to pay), Intensity is a secondary factor in how willing a guest is to get on a ride - Too high and people will pussy out, too low and people will call the ride a pussy. It's all about finding a delicate balance. A decent park will have a mixture of high and low intensity rides. A general rule of thumb in RCT3 is to have the first ride your guests will come across in the park be between 3 and 5 intensity - most of them will want to ride it and it'll 'warm them up' for later rides.
Nausea is what causes people to violently throw up the processed food they just bought from one of the many rat vans in your park. High nausea ensures your Janitorial staff will have their hands full and is usually best to avoid. It correlates with intensity, but then an intense ride is not always a nausea inducing ride. The nausea being the highest rating is never really good news and cements the Top Spin as being a bad ride. We won't be seeing one of them again.
The Rollercoaster we're given isn't too bad, however. It's exciting and has a good intensity score for its position in the park. It's a Suspended Rollercoaster so it swings to and fro on the rails as it travels along them and is otherwise more nausea inducing than other Rollercoasters because it doesn't like to have banked turns. So far the two rides we have been given in this park are pretty mediocre, but I'm just going to keep them around.
...
Much better. If you're big into micromanagement you can charge more for newer rides, but after a few months you'll need to decrease their admission fee. The alternative route is to be lazy about it and set the admission for the ride to be the same as its excitement rating, rounded down to the nearest ten. Our coaster here has a rating of 5.95, so ?5.90 shall be the price to pay if the guests want to throw up and get thrown around a bit.
Here we have our staff panel. Fro here we can see a full list of the entire staff roster in the park, as well as hire any new staff we may or may not need. We've been supplied with a Janitor and a Mechanic, which are bread and butter. Other staff types include Guards which stop guests being assholes, Entertainers who enjoy dancing around like morons, and animal keepers who, perhaps unsurprisingly, keep your animals in check. We're also given the mysterious "Park Inspector." In actual fact he is just a peep representation of all the various messages you get about your park being terrible, rides killing peeps and what have you. He is going to be RCT3's representation of my unhappy wife throughout the game.
Patrol paths ensure your staff members don't wander off into the nether and throw themselves into the nearest lake. They act differently to in RCT and RCT2, in which you had to set patrols in 4x4 square lots across the park - it made making corners of your paths go unpatrolled a common occurence. In RCT3 however you can set your patrol paths on a tile by tile basis, meaning a lot more control over where your staff go.
In the Dialog box for the Mechanic, various options are available. From left to right these are;
Pick up - Move the mechanic from one place to another.
Send thoughts to notifications - You can send the staff members thoughts to appear in the notifications area of the screen.
Display name - You can keep track of the staff member throughout their journeys via an arrow that points to their head.
Set patrol area - Tell your staff to do a thing in one area only.
Remove patrol area - Give your staff free reign to throw himself into a lake.
Fire - Tell your staff member to 
Discipline - If the staff member is being lazy or unmotivated you can tell them off. It actually works (for a while).
Training - Spend money to make your staff move and work faster. Level 1 costs ?100, level 2 ?200, Level 3 ?300. ?600 is a pretty sweet deal at first glance, but it doesn't really pay off for around 20 years or so. Not really worth it.
I should add that the first three of these options are also available for usage on guests.
Anyway now that we have all that out of the way, lets build some rides. Our current two rides are both pretty intense, so the natural choice is to lay down a Merry go Round. It is also the natural choice because it's our only choice of gentle ride at this point.
Attatching a queue line to the entrance of the ride is essential - guests simply won't go on it if there isn't a queue line. We can see the Merry go Round is pretty tame, as such rides usually are, and has an excitement rating of 1.65. It also looks ugly and the queue line doesn't complement it at all. This will not do.
Far better. Admission is in line with the excitement, I feel like a capitalist pig for a brief moment for making people pay ?1.60 for three circuits on an uncomfortable horse, and the entire thing recieves a lick of paint. Unlike in previous RCT games, you can manually assign colours to that specific type of queue line. There are other types, but we won't be seeing them for a while yet. Each queue line and ride supports three different colours, but I've just went with two here because it looks pleasant.
We get access to a selection of amenities. Toilets, first aid booths, an ATM and the Information kiosk. All of these things except for the Info kiosk can be accessed from all four sides, so you can path around them if you're feeling good about yourself.
Setting down an information kiosk is one of the first things anyone should do in Rollercoaster Tycoon games - they sell maps which stop guests from getting lost. They also sell umbrellas which can be the most profitable item in the game if you exploit the hell out of them whenever the weather becomes rain. I'm just leaving the prices as they are for the moment, it'll still turn a profit which is good enough.
The "Enterprise" is one of those magical "Intensity 3-5" rides, however I've opted to put it up near the back of the park instead of the front. More rides in an area of a park will cause guests to visit that area more often, and at the moment compared to the front of the park, this area is scarce of guests.
Now that we've got a decent spread of rides it's about time we made made use of these trees.
And here we have the RCT3 Coaster designer. This here will wind up being a pretty basic junior coaster, but for now I'll go over this interface here.
Any of the highlighted areas, or the portrait of the piece on the left can be clicked and it'll build that piece, meaning there are at least four things you can click to build, and also four things you can click to make a mistake. All of the basic functions are here, including on ride photo sections, brakes and on the far right of the panel, special pieces. The red track icon with the blue arrow coming off of it and stars runnign along it is a new feature in RCT3 - Autocomplete. If you're finished building a coaster or can't figure out a way to weave it through some difficult landscape / other coasters / hell itself, a click of that button will enable the computer to attempt that work for you. Unfortunately the computer doesn't know how to do a very important thing. Turn banking. Therefore, it is useless.
Junior Coasters are pretty straightforward and aren't very interesting to build. They appeal to a wide audience of guests however and can often achieve decent intensity without getting overly nausea inducing.
This thing doesn't really get up to a very fast speed, but it makes a circuit in 38 seconds, and has a lot of capacity, meaning it'll move a lot of guests. Considering the Excitement rating, with every guest paying just under ?5 for a ride, it should become a decent moneymaking machine. After a quick recolour this thing is good to open. I give it a charming name, but you'll see that in a moment.
Sure enough, fifteen days later and the queue line is practically full. R&D popped out another thrill ride, so I placed it down near the coaster and gave the stupid thing an acceptable name.
Eight days later and the first set of objectives have been finished up! Just under three months to complete that set of objectives is a huge difference from what RCT and RCT2 were like with their scenarios for sure, but there are still Entrepreneur and Tycoon level objectives to achieve, so Vanilla hills is far from done with.