Questions about OpenScenario

[shnupz]

I have some questions and ideas regarding the OpenScenario project and wanted to get feedback. It's something I think I'll be able to help out with, and it currently looks like there's nothing going on. I'm hoping that if possible  somebody could set one up specifically for scenario designing, it would be long term and a discord server would be created to go along with it, to form a sort of committee on the direction of the level design and to actually build the maps together, along with playtesters from the community. There would be focus on quality and game design, aiming to slowly teach players the features and gameplay elements of OpenRCT2 as they play in an organic manner. I've seen the Main_SoS pack, along with others people highly praise, but from a game design standpoint (I have no experience here or anything mind) I've noticed they always try and emulate RCT1, which while iconic those scenarios were there to teach players how to play that game, not OpenRCT itself.
My main questions are:

• Is CSO made for this project and added to OpenRCT officially (there's an ongoing project to replace objects and assets, right?) allowed for use in official scenarios?
• Which features/cheats of the game are in the long term planned to be staple gameplay elements, and allowed to be incorporated into scenario play. Zero clearance? Rotated entrances? Drawing all available track pieces? (some in-game tutorials on these would be a nice touch I think)
• Should there be multiple categories for official scenarios? Perhaps one that plays like RCT1, one that plays like RCT2, and one that takes advantage of new OpenRCT features and the new save format incoming?
• Should they be designed with scenario unlocking in mind, or with everything being available?
• Is trackitecture-such as rapids track for rough water or aqueducts-allowed with the intention of being replaced if/when future objects are made to fill that role?
• Is modifying game speed something people are expected to do? It makes a lot of scenario goals really quick and easy
• Should this be put on hold until the new save format, or simply started now with scenarios taking advantage of it coming when that's available?
• Unrelated, but would official track designs be something to work on, or should that wait until new track types, elements and such is introduced to take advantage of them?

[X7123M3-256]

2 hours ago, shnupz said:

Is CSO made for this project and added to OpenRCT officially allowed for use in official scenarios?

IIRC it was suggested in the original announcement that there be a CSO and an NCSO pack.

2 hours ago, shnupz said:

there's an ongoing project to replace objects and assets, right?)

I wouldn't say ongoing. Someone started one, did one ride, and hasn't done anything since. Nobody is actively working on it, as far as I'm aware.

 

2 hours ago, shnupz said:

Which features/cheats of the game are in the long term planned to be staple gameplay elements, and allowed to be incorporated into scenario play. Zero clearance? Rotated entrances? Drawing all available track pieces? (some in-game tutorials on these would be a nice touch I think)

I think there are a number of things currently considered cheats that ought not to be. There are some track pieces that currently can't be built without cheats that should be available by default (though not pieces that the current ride type explicitly suppresses, like inversions on a hyper), and entrance rotation could go in the ride construction window rather than in the tile inspector as it is now.

But I have no idea if there are any plans to change this. Personally, I wouldn't design a scenario that requires a player to use these features in order to complete it, as some people won't want to use anything that's considered a cheat when playing a scenario. But it's actually quite difficult to engineer a situation in which a scenario can't be completed without using those features, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

 

2 hours ago, shnupz said:

Should they be designed with scenario unlocking in mind, or with everything being available?

Scenario unlocking is an optional feature, it's up to the player to decide whether they want to enable it.

 

2 hours ago, shnupz said:

Is trackitecture-such as rapids track for rough water or aqueducts-allowed with the intention of being replaced if/when future objects are made to fill that role?

I don't see anything wrong with using trackitecture, but if your intention is that it eventually be replaced by an object, I would just make that object.

 

2 hours ago, shnupz said:

Is modifying game speed something people are expected to do? It makes a lot of scenario goals really quick and easy

Modifying game speed doesn't make the game any easier - all it does is save time. I would say that if your scenario is only difficult because most people would get bored and give up before the goal is reached, it's not a good scenario.

 

2 hours ago, shnupz said:

Should this be put on hold until the new save format, or simply started now with scenarios taking advantage of it coming when that's available?

I don't see why you'd need to wait. If a new save format is introduced, there will be a way to convert old save games to it.