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RCT2.com 1st ANNUAL SUPER CELL CONTEST
Judging:
The basic rules of the contest must be followed.
There will be lots of factors in judging these parks with one component no important than the other. This contest is basically Rollercoaster Tycoon 101.
More areas (cells) is more challenging, therefore would score bonus points with the judges. The peeps must be able to traverse your entire park. The layout of the coasters will be important. Other rides in each area will be important. Theming will play a part. Keeping those peeps happy and moving along will play a big factor.
The winner is not necessarily the park that has the most peeps get through the park, but this will be one component of many that the judges will look at.
I know you will have questions, so please ask away here!
As this is a rather tricky but also very challenging concept, I by now still have some "tricky" questions.
First let me tell you what I did.
I was not thinking I would enter this one (and still think I won't), because of limited time this and next months. But the challenging concept kept moving around in my head, so I did some tests on a layout I thought of.
I made a layout, actually I made 3, in principle similar, layouts, one with the minimum amount of cells (4) one with more, and a third one with even more . All based on the same concept, only the parks with more cells had congruently more coasters and rides in them.
They existed only of the required coasters (with higher excitement in each cell)and rides (+ some extra flat/water/transport rides in each cell), the paths, shops/toilets, but no scenery, as they were just for testing.
I made sure all 3 had (within 2 months from opening the park) a 999 parkrating.
None of the parks initially had any "escape"- paths (paths leading back to the first cell for "I want to go home/cannot find park-exit whiners)
While doing my other businesses in between, I tested all 3 parks during 2 years (setting the alarm to run back to the computer when the 2 years were gone).
After 2 years I made notes of the parkratings and the other going-alongs.
They were like this:
-The park with the most cells (= most coasters and rides) did have more guests than the other ones, although altogether the amount of guests did not differ amazingly after these two years.
- All 3 parks still had a rating of 990+. In all 3 parks still hardly anyone was lost or stuck, at least not to the amount that it influenced the park ratings.
I set my alarm again, and tested all 3 parks again, for one more year, and after that for a 4th year.
After the 3rd year, results were as follows:
In all 3 parks the parkrating now had dropped till around 700, due to lost/stuck peep.
After the 4th year:
In all parks the parkrating now had dropped to zero and they all had a lot less guests than after the 3rd year.
After the 2nd year, I had from each park counted the amount of guests that had done "the whole circuit", so the amount of peeps that came out of the coaster of the last cell of each park, and I counted that during 2 months.
As expected, the smallest park (4 cells) produced the most for that (peeps had just to pass 4 cells, and just 3 chances to get lost or stuck.
The park with the most cells, produced after just 2 years, very few people spitted out by the last coaster.
I counted these things again, after the 3rd year.
Although in all parks ratings were dropping and more peeps were lost, the last coasters of the more-cell parks now produced quite some more people than the former year, (seems logical, people had had more time to come through that many cells) and also the 4-cell park produced some more.
Did the same, after the 4th year (while now in every park ratings had gone to zero and the amount of guests was diminishing rapidly in each park).
Now there still came some peeps out of the last coaster of the 4-cell park, but hardly any out of the more-cell parks.
Seems logical too, for in the more-cell-parks time had lasted long enough for most peeps to get stuck anywhere before the last cell, and due to the zero-parkrating no fresh blood was brought in anymore (the peeps that just flew through every cell without letting themselves been stuck/lost had long since gone and no new ones to do that were brought in, while the rest was stuck somewhere).
Believe it or not, but now I did this whole testing procedure again, for every of the 3 parks, but now I gave all of them 1 (ONE) direct escape path to the exit.
And after that I did it again, after I had given all 3 parks an escape path from every cell.
If I would describe here all experiences that came out of that, I would need half a book and make it even more boring than it is now
So just some main conclusions here:
- With a bit of parkmaking-experience, it is no problem to make a park without any "escape"-paths and to keep peeps happy and parkratings 990+, during 2 till 3 years anyway. Just after the 3rd year the problems start.
-If it is a park with few cells (4 or 5), the last coaster will , in year 3-4 produce a reasonable amount of peeps that have ridden the last-cell coaster.
-If it is a park with more cells (the more cells the higher the effect gets) these 3 years seem not enough to give a reasonable amount of people the time to reach the last coaster.
- The more "escape-paths" (directly back to exit-cell) in the park , the higher the park-rating stays (also after the 5th year) but the less people will ever reach the last-cell coaster (they now are no longer stuck somewhere, but most will have gone back to the first cell somewhere, so if you have 10 cells, hardly anyone will reach the tenth cell)
The logarithms of the cell-difficulty does not seem a straight line: It is not so that 8 cells seems "double as difficult as 4 cells", it seems more that 8 cells is 4 or 5 times as difficult as 4 cells.
This all goes of course, if they are measured with the same standards.
The timing-moment on which the park (and its quality, flow, peeps coming out of the last coaster) is seen/judged, also is extremely important:
For every amount of cells (the most I tested was 12 cells- as I used no scenery for the test I had space enough!) it is easily possible to have a very good park during the first 2 or 3 years. With a 4 cell park it is also very well possible to get a good amount of people riding the last coaster within 3 years. ( I guess with 5 too, but I did not test every
amount of cells). With an 8 or 12 cell park this amount will generally be less, due to , amongst others, time.Final conclusion: the differences due to the the amount of cells, their different interaction with and effect upon the amount of guests that will reach the last coaster and the interaction of the amount of cells and the amount of "escape"-paths with park-rating and time, make it seem to me a near-impossible task to do any judging on these parks.
For how do you take into "deserved" account all those interactions ? At which time do you "measure"/"estimate"/view the "flow"/quality of the park, and at which time the amount of people that reach it to the last cell ??
Of course, most goals mentioned in the rules are very clear by now, and "easy", or at least relatively clear to be judged (does every cell have just one coaster?, and is the excitement higher than the previous one? and does every cell except the first one have an "other" ride? etc....)
For quality of coaster-layout there will also be some standards (+ a lot of personal preferences of the judges) and for theming/architecture ditto.
The announcement says:
"There will be lots of factors in judging these parks with one component no important than the other."
And also:
"The winner is not necessarily the park that has the most peeps get through the park, but this will be one component of many that the judges will look at.
More areas (cells) is more challenging, therefore would score bonus points with the judges".
Question for Becky:
^ This last one is, after the "research" I did, what I am so interested in, Becky!
Is there any kind of "formula" on how to count/judge these (imo very complicated to establish/value) "bonuspoints", or is this like with the VP, where every judge makes out for him/herself how much/none at all weight is credited for peepfriendliness/accesibility ?
Please do understand it right ( my English may be crippling me here), I do not mean this cynical/sarcastical in any way, I am just plainly interested and (pleasantly) puzzled about that. My testing of the behaviour of the game within the "hard" contest-rules (the cell-thing, limits on coasters, their paths, "other" ride etc) took "4 days" . As said, the game was just running untill the alarm went off and I had to invest 30 minutes again to note down stats and check peeps coming out of the last coaster during 2 game-months, but I did that for quite some variations, although not really enough to make it a scientifically "validated" experiment (LOL!)
I did have a lot of fun testing this, anyway.
I must admit though, that if I still find the time and gust to make a real/complete park out of one of my test-layouts, having had the fun already of the layouts, I will certainly not go for more than 4 cells, unless the judges can convince me that more cells do really weigh up/add to (and how) to all the other aspects of the judging.
Does anyone else have real experiences with "testing" layouts for this contest??
Of course you are free/welcome to post things like " In my park I have......, etc."
But what I am more sereously interested in is if there are people who have set themselves an objective to find out about the behaviour of parks within the contest rules, like "If I make 6 cells, each with 5 flatrides, does it behave differently with the same park that has just 2 flatrides in every cell (while the rest of the park is the same) when I test it during 2, ... or 3.. or 5.. game years ?, or: " Is there a difference in the behaviour of the park when I put in 30 restrooms, compared to exactly the same park, only without any restrooms?"
Anyway, have fun with the contest-parks, and send inthe most amazing things!
