Our first Beta Weekend is now over and we want to sincerely thank you for ALL the feedback you’ve provided. A preview like this is an opportunity to showcase one main feature, in this case the coaster builder, and gather feedback. It is a way to test game elements and get some portions of the game in your hands, but this also means that the game you preview is neither complete nor final and should not be treated as such. Going forward, we will make sure to label what is and is not final during our previews in order to properly set expectations.

Additionally, what we showed during our Beta was a small portion of the content available in the finished game. Many core features were deliberately not included, giving us extra time to continue tweaking and polishing them. There is much, much more to RCTW – peeps, rides, simulation, campaign, economy, UGC, – than what you got to play in our first Beta. It’s heartening that even with this small slice of the RCTW experience, you were able to give us such tremendous and useful feedback.

As we had hoped, you’ve filled our forums with your thoughts, told us what you wanted this game to be and of course, filed a number of bugs. It shows your dedication and passion to the franchise, and your desire to have an impact on the development of the game and see your feedback implemented. It also got us thinking about all the other ways we could push the franchise forward with some additional time.

Many of you loved the game, some found certain aspects frustrating, and you all had tons of thoughtful suggestions for improvements. Based on your feedback and our own internal processes, here is a short list of features that will significantly improve the final product: easier “predefined piece” coaster building, additional coaster test feedback, a robust fencing tool, improved on-demand grid, and various smaller improvements.

To accommodate these improvements, and ensure that RollerCoaster Tycoon World will be the best, most innovative RCT experience to date, we will launch the game in early 2016. The new launch date will be communicated after the second preview.

Our highest priority has always been to release a game that we’re proud of, one that lives up to the lofty standards set by the previous titles. With this new timing we will be able to do just that – deliver a robust tycoon experience along with additional layers of polishing and tweaks that the extra time affords us.

So now, here is more detail on what improvements and additional features will be implemented within our adjusted timeline:

Additional Coaster Builder Functionality, using predefined lines and curves: As you know, the game offers a 3D spline-based coaster editor, giving you full flexibility to create never-before-possible track designs. As seen by the entries to our Alienware contest (http://bit.ly/RCTWContest) many of you were able to create some truly breathtaking rides. At the same time, it’s clear from our review of the Beta that some of you also desire the ability to build tracks with predefined lines and curves. Thus, we are adding that functionality to the coaster system to give you both options. It’s truly the best of both worlds.

Improved Coaster Test Mode Feedback: A pillar of the franchise is the ability to test coasters and then adjust them to provide a more exciting, safer, or in some cases even more nauseating experience. Our Beta test revealed that not everyone had the information they needed to effectively accomplish this. We have now designed an incredible system to provide detailed superimposed heatmaps right onto your coasters following tests. Also – we know that coasters fly off the tracks too often. An update is in the works!

Fence Tool: People are very passionate about their fences. So are we. Our fencing tool will be improved, allowing you to place fences more quickly, and align them exactly how you want.

On-Demand Grid: A number of you used the on-demand grid provided in the Beta but found it still too limiting. We have a number of designs for how we can make our grid system bigger and better.

We’ve learned a lot from the Beta and obviously have a number of bugs, memory leaks, polish items, and optimizations we want to do to make the game run smooth as butter.

There are also a number of other suggestions we’ve received from you that we are looking at implementing as well (such as improving path placement). That said our list above addresses the key items.

Speaking of tests; the change in timeline means that our next public play test will be moved as well. We are now targeting a second preview weekend for December. Our focus remains on the coaster builder with the additional tweaks and functionalities described above, along with a few other features. We want to ensure we get this right and we need your feedback.

Until our next test, the work continues, and we will keep you all updated with additional Twitch streams, production blogs and more in the coming weeks. We want to share renderings of some of these improvements as soon as we have them so that we can get feedback early. Please remember to continue participating on our forums and streams! Your voice is being heard and we are adapting to it!

Long before we started working on RollerCoaster Tycoon World, we knew it would be a massive undertaking. Not only did we want to remove the grid and overhaul the coaster builder, we also needed to create next-generation graphics, bring the entire franchise into the future, and create a title worthy of the RollerCoaster Tycoon legacy. We now have a clear path ahead of us, and with your instrumental feedback, we will be able to make RCTW the great game it is destined to be.

Sincerely,

Atari and Nvizzio

Team RCTW

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