OpenRCT2 Survey Results

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Total Participants: 1,363

What is your primary operating system?

I was surprised to see that almost a quarter of the participants were using Linux as their primary operating system and only just under 7% were using MacOS. We already support Windows Vista and above, MacOS and Linux (as many distributions as possible). The remaining platforms are such a minority that we don't feel there is any need to put in extra work to support and release builds for them, this includes Windows XP and below which do not have even have official support from Microsoft - we have to draw the line here.

Most platforms are 64-bit, so when possible we will probably only ship 64-bit development builds and both 32-bit and 64-bit release builds.

Select the games you play or used to play

RCT2 has the majority, this is expected with RCT1 not too far behind. This was asked as we generally wanted to see how many participants would likely be playing OpenRCT2 solely or alternating between that and other games.

In regards to the new RCT spiritual successor games, the order of interest starting at 3/4 of the participants is Planet Coaster followed by Parkitect and RCT World.

Do you enjoy watching...

Almost half of the participants enjoy watching live streams. This was a nice surprise as streaming services such as Twitch could play a big part in attracting a wider audience of players. 29 participants stated that they were introduced to OpenRCT2 via Twitch. This should also be an encouragement to current RCT streamers.

More participants enjoy watching timelapses of park construction. Many timelapses can be found on YouTube demonstrating the creation of parks in a short amount of time. They probably are favoured over longer let's plays.

Demonstrations were equally favoured. We have seen a few videos appearing showing how various tricks and hacks such as track merging or switching can be done. I personally think more videos should be made to guide players, particularly new players how to be more creative and build better parks.

What is your "preferred" style of play

Out of those who had a preference, sandbox mode is favoured just a bit more than scenarios. We have concentrated more on the sandbox side so far with OpenRCT2 by adding helpful tools and cheats, but we would definitely like to improve the game progression side of it in the future perhaps with a set of official OpenRCT2 scenarios, something that would help new players learn the game like many participants did playing RCT1.

Do you still play original RCT2 if ever?

66.6% of the participants said they no longer play RCT2, if we assume that they now play OpenRCT2 instead then that nicely shows that in just over two years, 2/3 of RCT2 players have now completely transferred to OpenRCT2.

12.8% of participants said that they haven't tried OpenRCT2...

A small number of participants said that they were unable to get OpenRCT2 working. We understand that the process is not particularly easy especially when not using Windows, but we will keep trying to improve it. If you ever need help running it, please ask on either Reddit, GitHub or Gitter OpenRCT2 channels.

Another group of participants stated that they still want to use RCT2 trainers. This is fine, we will of course hope to implement more tools in the future (such as the tile inspector) to accomplish tasks that would otherwise be done using trainers.

Do you play OpenRCT2?

75% and growing... we hope! Please let us know if there is anything we can do to for you to play it. The more popular the project becomes, the faster it can improve.

How did you discover OpenRCT2?

Reddit being the leading source of players was no surprise, it was Reddit that caused the project to initially go viral. It is definitely the most active place for RCT players and we will always be there.

What feature have you liked the most.

I was surprised at the mixture of answers we got for this. It was very distributed indeed, and it was probably a hard question for you to only pick a single answer for. The "window mode / flexible resolution / uncapped FPS" was however the more popular answer which is understandable. It was the first change to be introduced and greatly improves the playing experience.

What feature do you look forward to the most?

This was the other difficult question, and again I was surprised by the result. I didn't expect "night time and effects" would be picked by so many participants. I guess this shows the project should not just focus on improving the game-play itself but also the appearance of the game. The most popular feature is new guest / staff AI, which I agree is something that could do with major improvement.

We will of course be implementing all of these features when possible. The answers here will have some influence in the order we do them in.

How often do you play multiplayer

I think multiplayer will be the selling point of this game. It is the one feature not seen in other amusement park simulation games and is probably what made games such as Minecraft so popular. 15% of participants play at least once a week, which is very nice to hear. We will definitely be trying our best to improve the multiplayer experience. As for the 45% of participants that haven't tried it, I recommend they join one of the more mature servers. While there are still issues with desynchronisation and sometimes fatal crashes, it is still possible to have a lot of fun and collaborate on parks together with other people.

Are you interested in playing OpenRCT2 on mobile devices?

Our current Android port is more of a proof of concept, but we will one day see if we can actually make a decent UI that works for touch - certainly so that it also works for larger Windows touch devices. If you are wondering why iOS was not asked in this category, that is because Apple have a restriction on GPL licensed apps in their app store - so we would probably not be able to publish OpenRCT2 there (other means such as side-loading or jail breaking devices aren't going to appeal to most players).

Experiences with multiplayer

Many participants commented on the de-synchronisation. We have tried hard to find out the causes for this in the past but not yet fully succeeded. This will eventually be solved, hopefully when the code base becomes more mature and stand-alone from RCT2. It is however still possible to play sandbox games reliably regardless of the de-synchronisations.
Some participants said they had connection issues and found the game laggy. We will try to improve that in due course.
Some participants said they had problems opening ports. Unfortunately this is a problem with any multiplayer game, there are some things we could do to help such as UPnP but otherwise there isn't a whole lot that can be done without 3rd party hosting.
Griefing tended to be a big problem previously, but this was recently fixed with the addition of remembering permissions. Servers can now build white lists of players so that no random person can just go in and destroy everything.
Many participants have said that they enjoyed it and think that it is a great experience despite the aforementioned issues.
Some participants also said they would like to place pre-designed tracks in multiplayer. This something we will fix at some point in the future. We can't say when that will be though.

Quotes:

"It's vastly improved in short amounts of time. A server with good admin and moderation makes for a really fantastic time, and I've made some friends doing it."

"I've played with some friends just playing some of the default scenarios. It's been a lot of fun but the desync of guests, park personnel, money, rides breakdowns, and weather has been a bit annoying. Overall though, 9/10."

"Promising!"

"Minor synch issues (e.g. park rating, money, guest count not always same on all player screens) but otherwise very stable. I miss the option to import rolllercoaster designs made in singleplayer"

"Difficult to join sometimes. Have to reload the multiplayer game several times. Fantastic fun though!"

Experiences with new tools (e.g. tile inspector, disable clearance)

Mostly positive comments.
Some participants said they like the cheats, some said they don't. We will at some point hide them by default for scenario play (triggering them stops you from recording the scenario as complete) - and allow them to be used in sandbox mode.
Some participants mentioned issues with the RCT1 group by track type feature. We are aware of this and are trying to work out the best way to fix it.
Some participants still aren't satisfied with what is currently implemented and want every capability RCT1 / RCT2 trainers had.

Quotes:

"The additional tools are great for more detailed design, no complaints with their functionality."

"These tools are vital to running any form of RCT2 on modern Windows, given declining ability to support popular cheat/hack engines like 8cars and SoB"

"Never got into hacking RCT2 other than money and date cheats in 8cars, so the clearance hacks and obj selection hacks are a Godsend, very user friendly and powerful"

"Cool stuff, but i'm missing map object manipulation like 8cars does it. I can't get trainers to work and normal RCT2 doesn't function, so this is a pain in the ass when creating stuff."

Other feedback

Almost all positive, we are very happy to hear that. Some participants commented and suggested ideas I hadn't even thought about.

Quotes:

"I love the OpenRCT2 project and I hope it comes out as amazing as it promises, even more impressive than it already is. Thanks for working on it!"

"Thanks so much for doing all this. Ever since I played OpenTTD I've wanted that for RCT. It's like a dream come true. Thank you!"

"Thank you for all the hard work you guys have put into this project. You have singlehandedly revived a community of dedicated players and I think that's just incredible."

Overall we will take all your feedback into consideration and re-prioritise our work on what you desire most. The project has so far exceeded the expectations I had originally had when I started it and it wouldn't be this far without all of you, your interest, commitment and contributions.

Posted Jul 17, 2016, 4:04 PM UTC · edited

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