Guest Spawning and Advertising in RCT2 Explained

How and when do guests spawn? This video explains how the guest generation algorithm works and how advertising plays into that.
Deurklink's guide: forums.openrct...
Deurklink's channel: / deurklink
RideBonusValues: docs.google.co...
How to get all awards: • How to get all awards ...
Entry price explained: • How much can you charg...
Harder guest generation explained: • RCT2 - Harder guest ge...
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Follow me on Twitch: / marcelvos
Follow me on Twitter: / marcelvos96
Join my subreddit: / marcelvos
My second channel: / @marcelvods2630
OpenRCT2: openrct2.org/d...
Background music: RCT2 Gentle style
Outro music by Panorrrama:
Outro Music: • RollerCoaster Tycoon g...
Spotify: open.spotify.c...
KZbin: / @mengersponge

[@MichaelfromtheGraves]

I'm already advertising your content as much as I can. I sent the "42 Tips" video to my entire family and they were like "what is this? stop texting us"

[@bendervorleser8906]

"Marcel Vos looks too intense!"

[@roager5571]

Michael, we worry about you. You have finals next month stop watching this, highly informative, content and get back to studying.

[@Floxxoror]

As you are talking about your family, I have a Voucher for Free ride on your mom. :-D (7:40)

[@familybroakajonny]

“I look too intense”

[@cranapple3367]

Fortunately all the advertising is increasing viewer generation.

[@Ishoam]

That "please advertise as much as possible for your park... and my content." line got you my Like.

[@gannonhuiting9788]

I love how you made a "your mom" joke really subtly.

[@Shepardus]

"your mom looks too intense for me!"

[@jefffinkbonner9551]

Danny DeVito 😂

[@insanospaz]

Was going to redeem my voucher but the line was too long.

[@bitemytail]

@@insanospaz Just looking at "Your mom" makes me sick!

[@Rebateman]

where's the joke?

[@roberte2945]

I knew about the vouchers/coupons. I always thought it was a cool detail that they actually arrive with something they probably clipped out of the newspaper as opposed to it just being a flag applied to that guest.

[@tom117323]

I like how time wasn't very kind to this aspect of the game actually. nowadays people would show up with a QR on their phones. clipped out ads from newspapers are not a thing anymore nowadays, while it surely was back in the 90's when this game was being developed. ^o^

[@ducky_vt3982]

@@tom117323 I think they're still around, just more infrequent. When I was a kid, I always imagined people bringing in a coke can because around me those always had six flags coupons on them in the summer!

[@PaulCashman]

@@ducky_vt3982 heck, they might still have those!

[@roberte2945]

@@ducky_vt3982 Haha, I always wanted to use one of those cans but my family could never afford a theme park visit. At least I had RCT.

[@PianoKwanMan]

@@tom117323 In the UK, the ceral boxes still have a 2 for 1 or children go free vouchers

[@Nihilore]

can we just take a minute to appreciate how Marcel presents this information with the parks behind it? take 3:30 for example, it already looks cinemantic with the rides sitting on one side of the screen, but then the info comes in over the grass, he took the time to make the exact backdrop in RCT2 just for the information to look nice, it's really cool

[@eier5472]

> Toilets add 5 to the soft guest cap So you're telling me you can win a scenario where you need X guests after year Y with only toilets?

[@filiaaut]

How am I supposed to sleep at night without knowing the answer to that question, now ?

[@OntarioTrafficMan]

I'm replying to be notified about any updates on this essential research.

[@HiSodiumContent]

120 guests with 10 entertainers, some extra footpath and 100 bathrooms. Money makes this tough. 2250$ per 50 guest softcap. If there's a scenario that ignores park rating, it's still hard, if not impossible, with anything more than 500 guests required and that's relying on the loan limit being 30,000$. I'm not saying it's impossible, I got a best toilets award, so if the timing of receiving that is when you're near toilet potential you may be able to somehow squeak 250 guests over 600 rating in Flushing, I mean Forest Frontiers.

[@tkbreen9913]

MARCEL NEEDS TO DO THIS

[@HossBlacksilver]

Are they pay toilets?

[@EnaBBQ]

7:40 well played sir.

[@eriktwice]

I love how you have created parks just to you can display text next to them!

[@MarcelVos]

I didn't create any of those parks for the video, I just took parks I had already built and cleared the area where the text would go.

[@arposkraft3616]

Step 1, put a reversed no entry sign at your park entrance; step 2, advertise, step 3: see guest stonks go up and park rating stonks go down

[@roberte2945]

When I was a kid playing RCT, so many cheat websites had that "tip" like "durr put no entry sign on the entrance guests can't leave nurrr."

[@MarcelVos]

@@roberte2945 I still got quite a few comments saying that on my Amity Airfield with one ride challenge video.

[@johnmartinez7440]

@@roberte2945 "If your guests are lost, just drown them! Then more guests will come!"

[@jefffinkbonner9551]

Charge a ton of money for every ride, but make the one free ride exit into the void. 👌🏼

[@arposkraft3616]

@@jefffinkbonner9551 nah, but in fluxtrance tradition I do still put one on "display" at the main entrance for other peoples entertainment

[@BigFr0sty]

I cant believe you're nearly at 100k subs, from Roller Coaster Tycoon vids! Totally deserved, so much details in every video 😊

[@Anonymous-ru2wk]

🚀 📈

[@planescaped]

This channel, Spirit of the Law's, and Decino's are basically the equivalent of How It's Made but for video games. Sure I'll watch a video on how lug nuts are made. Sure I'll watch a video explaining detailed mechanics of a game I don't play. :P

[@renakunisaki]

Each video raises the soft subscriber cap by a factor...

[@thendar823]

Im quite sure the 7k limit was put into place to make sure huge parks dont become unplayable back then. I know it lagged way before that for me but I assume Sawyer drew the line there to not overheat our computers.

[@drewsapp4384]

It lags on rct classic when you hit about 5000 guests regardless of how many rides

[@Deilwynna]

with 5k guests and ~150 rides on my old mothball mountain save, rct1 ran at only about 20 fps with a pentium 4 cpu, if i found that save file again, i could try it in openrct on my more modern 9th gen i5 cpu

[@Bonesters]

I have to say, as someone who has done some assembly programming, it's really neat to see how the games are set up so that they don't actually need to use multiplication to calculate the multipliers. the x=x*0.75 multiplier can be calculated like x=x-(x>>2) (>> being bit shifting). It's just really cool to see some of the tiny and hidden optimizations that were made for these games.

[@Mister_Brown]

yeah although fixed multiplication by any arbitrary factor only takes a few more cycles with the shift and add method always fun to bust that one out when you see someone doing a loop to multiply if i'm calling it the wrong name it's basically 1010011010 * 1000101 = 1010011010 + 1010011010

[@vinesthemonkey]

also constant integer division can usually be done by multiplication by an approximation of the inverse. see compiler output in godbolt for this

[@RolandWolf]

I'm my 3 decades of coding I've never seen the clamp() function before. Seems neat. Learn something new every day.

[@SioxerNikita]

It's just min(x,max(y,n))

[@RolandWolf]

@@SioxerNikita Yea, just never seen it rolled into one function before.

[@SioxerNikita]

@@RolandWolf If you use it a lot, it's useful

[@JTLChannel]

I just want to say your videos are an absolute joy to watch, they're so relaxing and everytime I hear "Hello everyone!" I can't help but de-stress and smile 😁 Thank you for making them and being so wonderful!

[@redheadsg1]

7:42 Danny DeVito - "Free ride on your mom" 🤣🤣🤣👌

[@eier5472]

And, if you want the slowest possible guest generation, e.g. the lowest guest probability possible: have a park with 7,000+ guests in it (divide by 4 twice), delete all rides and stalls, get the park rating under 200 (base value 50), get 4 negative awards (*0.75^4) and raise the entry fee way too high (divide by 4 twice): (50*0.75^4)/4^4 ≈ 0.062, which equates to 0.000038 guests per second or roughly one guest spawned per 7 1/2 hours. Assuming this value can be a non-integer, otherwise it would be 0.

[@VocalMabiMaple]

I think it would be a fun idea for marcel to do a lowest none 0 guest generation test

[@NoLongerBreathedIn]

The guest probability is a uint16_t. The correct calculation for the .75 is almost certainly “divide by 4, floor, add to original if bad, subtract if good”. This means we have 50 * .75 = 38, 38 * .75 = 29, 29 * .75 = 22, 22 * .75 = 17. Then dividing by 4 twice leaves 1, and we wind up with zero even if the entry fee was only just barely too high. Which it can't be, because the max is 0. So free entry, and we have a gp of 1.

[@MaddoBatto]

So the Fyre festival, effectively

[@mjc0961]

"voucher for free ride on your mom" is even funnier when you see that the guest is Danny DeVito 😂

[@ohnoitschris]

Man, every single video you do is classy and professional

[@StarKillerFr34k]

"Voucher for free ride on your mom". I see what you did there!! That's why I love your videos, the small things that are barely noticeable but so entertaining

[@jasonpelletier8555]

Hi Marcel. Love the vids. I was actually thinking of messaging you to request a video explaining the exact effects of advertising, so it’s like you read my mind. I’ve always loved old school RCT and your videos have made me a better player. Thanks!

[@vertujoe2886]

3 rct video in a week! Christmas comes early.

[@AceAviations2]

in hybrid parks the Free Entry campaign is actually a quite powerful tool to use, given that you're also charging for the rides (admittedly at a severely reduced rate) it turns these guests into more long-term guests in parks where you have guests who are richer. Plus unlike a purely pay-per-entry park you'll still slowly bleed them dry in a consistent manner and much more frequently. In most parks I never use the Free Entry campaigns, however when I do a hybrid park I make use of it due to the benefits of having guests last longer while still being able to get money out of them reliably due to the rides.

[@EventH0riz0n]

Very nice how much new content Marcel had for us in the last days/weeks.

[@KOS_Nova]

"Advertise as much as possible, both for your park and my content" Bouta buy a superbowl ad for Marcel Vos' channel

[@SleinMcAwesome]

If only I could generate and spawn friends this way.

[@Meadras]

Your campaign for half-price friendship has ended

[@beunjoris]

I spawned

[@daniellewis1789]

Have you tried taking out an ad or publishing a coupon?

[@electrollama2127]

I'm glad this addresses the common question, "What if I advertise with Free Entry Tickets while my entrance is already free?" Nice detailed video as usual.

[@ARTiculations]

Lmao Danny DeVito’s voucher at 7:42 🤣

[@Racrdude24]

7:17 when you say "generated by that campaign", how is that determined? I know that not every guest spawns with a voucher, but how does the game decide between voucher/no voucher when the guest probabilities all get added together?

[@Blitzer1001]

in mijn mening ben jij een van de beste rct2 youtuber. ik kan niet wachten tot de volgende video

[@jonnnnniej]

Ja he! Ik ben daar als Nederlander best trots op :D

[@Xc1we]

I find it amusing that the information kiosk attracts guests

[@TS_Mind_Swept]

I feel like the mechanics of how this game works are more fascinating than actually playing it SuperVinlin

[@Axquirix]

According to TVTropes, in harder guest generation coasters that count past the initial 1000 soft cap (>600m, >6.00 excitement) have their soft cap contribution tripled. So if you're a fan of building big coasters it might actually become easier!

[@PaulCashman]

Yes, everyone, please advertise for Marcel's videos. He is tantalizingly close to that magical 100,000 subscriber cap. :)

[@baystated]

Oh, Danny Devito, you jokester!

[@IllyasArt]

What a good birthday present! Thanks Marcel!

[@sErgEantaEgis12]

Is Chris Sawyer a wizard? That seems to be the only way these games were possible to make.

[@youmukonpaku3168]

assembly programming do be like that sometimes.

[@WoddCar]

7:42 that voucher is a bit interesting wouldn’t you say

[@BarriesChannel]

I was really struggling with retaining guests. I tried spamming the advertisements but the number hovered around 1,200 and wouldn't increase. I finally realised that guests were flooding out of my park because they had ran out of money! Cash machines weren't available so I lowered prices on everything and the guest number shot up!

[@PhilipMurphyExtra]

Another great KZbin video by Marcel this was.

[@MEDYuzu]

Hey this answers my question from a few videos ago! Heck yeah, thanks Marcel!

[@J-Post86]

Laughed so hard when I saw what your free ride ticked was for, lol!

[@timothyverbist5795]

I would like to see you Beating Six Flags Belgium with the next Challenge: Guests Prefer more Intense Rides!

[@Bibibosh]

What if you build a really long path before the Park Entrance so that it takes a long time for the guests to actually enter the park. You would presumably have a tiny micro park to to maximise the pre-path which can contain 1000's of guests walking to the entrance! I would also assume this pre-path would also contribute to the additional 7000+ guess as they cross the entrance into the park. Can a guest get lost outside the park; how could you pick it up? Can a guess die outside the park? Can a vandal damage outside the park? Make this map in scenario editor (vanilla or RTC open) (no hacks or mods) (run time: 3 years)

[@TheThirdDaySH]

You have the best thumbnails lmao.

[@BrightCiro]

One of the best videos so far.

[@MightyBiffer]

I am still confused about the guest probability. How is it effected by adding an advertisement for Marcel Vos videos? I assume that if you dislike a MV video that all subsequent guest probabilities are divided by 4 (or is it 16?)

[@J-Post86]

32

[@wvvwkx]

I wish my younger self knew how much ads would pay out, I wouldn't have stuck playing Crazy Castle for so long lol

[@KatieZeldaKat]

Kind of a random question but are all the parks you show in your videos made by you?

[@MarcelVos]

99% of the parks are made by me or came with the game. If one isn't then I will most likely credit whoever made it.

[@BroudbrunMusicMerge]

"Danny DeVito has a voucher for a free ride on your mom" Thanks, Marcel.

[@battles.digital]

That free ride coupon tho 👀

[@Gui101do]

Marcel Vos the Boss!

[@thekilla1234]

There's something amusing about a guest taking a day out of their life to visit a park for a particular ride after seeing advertisements for it then deciding it's too scary once they get there.

[@bladactania]

It's even more amusing when you realize it takes the guests days or even weeks to walk all the way from the entrance to the ride!

[@thelunaticcultist5157]

0:28 "This video is based"

[@viridiscoyote7038]

Is there an ideal path arrangement for the entire park? I imagine the "perfect" path for the guests' AI would be a straight line with no branches, minus the ones necessary for queue lines and exits; unfortunately, this means the available path tiles for lines and exits is extremely limited.

[@kanrakucheese]

Given his recommendation for scenarios where it's possible, the best is a simple grid. No overcrowding (like a straight line), few lost guests, and lots of space to work with.

[@nikkye1720]

Looooooove the background music!!

[@clarajarvis2345]

Do you think you could do a video on what the guest are thinking and what causes them to think certain things?

[@YawleyG]

I just finished Extreme Heights, and I can say that I underestimated how long it would take to get 4,500 guests without advertising. Ouch.

[@gumba2k]

Thank you for theory crafting the game !

[@harleyowen91]

How does the game decide if they get the free ride or park entry? Is it more RNG? Or is it an algorithm?

[@IIMajaTadeoII]

Did you already make a video about how to get awards? If not, could you make one?

[@cemmy410]

He already made one: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bGm1mGOwo7GnrpY

[@ghable23]

I had to check this video today after I somehow got over 500 guests in one year and manage to beat an scenario with a challenge. It seems my soft guess cap was high enough. I don't know how impactful was my park rating to not get more guests before. That or there were a lot of them leaving.

[@jacob-magnuson]

Is there a link to the pretty spreadsheet you mentioned at 3:25? All I can find is the GitHub link in Deurklink’s forum post.

[@kackers]

so if i'm understanding correctly, if you made a park on harder guest gen with no rides/stalls, a huge terrible path layout with plenty of benches, a high admission fee, advertising to generate some guests and a no entry sign blocking them from leaving, you could theoretically get four negative awards (Worst Value, Untidy, Worst Food, Confusing Path) at once (0.75^4 multiplier), the 1/16th multiplier for the park entry, 1/16th for being over the guest cap, and no bonus for park rating since it would be absolutely abysmal granting a guest probability of 50 * (3/4)^4 * 1/16 * 1/16 = 50 * 81/65536 = ~ 0.0618 meaning a guest would only spawn if the random number was 0, given it rolls 40 times a second and it's effectively random that's about a guest every 27 minutes or so if my maths is correct, i don't think it can be lower than that however, even without one of the 1/16th multipliers (for example, park entry) the probability value is still less than 1, again meaning guest spawning can only occur when the random value hits 0 leading to the same rate of spawning as before I may be wrong though, i don't know if parks can even earn awards if they don't have rides or stalls at all, so if i'm wrong anywhere please do correct me

[@renakunisaki]

The video states that the random number has to be less than the probability, not equal, so zero would mean no guests ever.

[@jez9999]

So as far as I can see, you can still get more guests into the park by offering "free entry" and "half-price entry" when your park entry is free. :-) I do this a lot.

[@smith9808]

7:40 - near 25 years playing. Never noticed this 😮

[@bockjrnl]

Nice one! Can you make a video on how to get awards efficiently?

[@SirPembertonS.Crevalius]

Never knew park awards gave a bonus to guest generation. I'm still amazed at the detail in this game.

[@martianfromjupiter3]

1:52 is that an Eragon reference park name?

[@woutervanderdoes5163]

I also noticed! Ancient language for "i am a friend and a rider" ;p

[@Exnem]

I rememebr as a kid I had a weird bug in RCT1 where I got 0 guests spawned. Still dont understand why that happened.

[@lakotacorff4012]

Would love to see you do a DYKG video

[@Davtwan]

I will be sure to use that power responsibly. *Proceeds to make lots of death mazes in a pay-for-entry to maximize profits with the guest generation.*

[@Zebra_M]

Marcel, you know a lot about the game but I see from the vouchers that you advertised your mom. There really is no need to do that, she's already at the maximum throughput as it is

[@bucky97]

After all these years of playing I never noticed the ride vouchers were actual items guest held

[@thornrosealex]

You touch on it a little, but how does voucher generation work with free/half price ads? Do all guests generated by the ad have one, is there a roll for those guests, is there a roll for ALL guests?

[@MarcelVos]

The same as for the rides. The guests spawned from that ad get a voucher that they use when they enter the park.

[@kanrakucheese]

So does the ride you pick when selecting advertise for a certain ride even do anything? I always just selected the most prestigious ride or something in the back of the park.

[@josephmatthewspearsslade8900]

What you’ve explained was pretty incredible from both a casual and technical standpoint. But I’ve got two new video ideas, one of which you could vote on: *Is RollerCoaster Tycoon World Really That Bad?* *What if you gave a park infinite time? (OR Is it possible for a park to sustain itself indefinitely?)*

[@kanrakucheese]

Infinite time is entirely possible given the scenarios that Openrct2 speedrunners just ultra fast forward through several years of gameplay once they setup their park. As long as the park will function with rides that are 200 months old (the cap for ride aging), it will run fine indefinitely.

[@zaxtonhong3958]

You should’ve named one of the rides in the advertisements “don’t forget to subscribe” and not acknowledged it.

[@07_sev52]

I think the free ride on your mom is also pretty funny ngl

[@Kevin-jb2pv]

I keep reminding myself that this game was originally coded by _one person._ Edit: _IN X86 ASSEMBLY._

[@TonyRedgrave]

Love the thumb nail.

[@daviddavis7665]

Basically, make your park ‘kick ass’!

[@treatwomenright33]

I love ur videos bro. I really only watch u for RCT videos. also why cant i zoom in with open like everyone else i see. how do u get so close in. i have the most recent update. though my title sequence is set to rct2 not open.

[@Alnarra]

So I made a little sandbox park to goof around in, and according to the soft guest cap plugin / calculator it should only have ~1450 Guest, but it's comfortably sitting at 3020 and not really going down. I have ATM's and such so I know why guest aren't leaving, I'm just trying to puzzle why in the world I got so many in the first place. Shouldn't guest generation have all but halted about ~1000 ago?

[@redoctober1991]

7:45 I can't believe Danny DeVito got a voucher for a free ride on my mom.

[@voodootrois]

6:08 Is that from Dangerously Dense Diamond Heights?

[@OJR5]

Hello everyone and welcome to another video

[@mikasa1641]

7:44 indeed, I've never seen these kind of vouchers

[@tamasraduly2676]

Scenery, themeing is shown "The most beautiful park in country" at all time.

[@max5183]

I think it is plausible how good the ads are. How often do you see buy 2 tickets for 1 ads in real life? All the time, and that's essentially half entry price. I bet this "half the guests come from advertisements" is pretty accurate

[@arposkraft3616]

probably more, irl theme parks rely on long term periodic repitition of advertisements else they deffo see the number go down, its not just the price its also "out of mind out of heart" some family will decide they want 'something to do' and then come across a deal for that themepark and go...well we can go do that

[@Qwerty45559]

In the not too distant past. Someone was view number 69,420..

[@siiiiiiiiiimo]

Hah! Nice.

[@rcbuggies57]

What is the background music used in your videos?

[@JesterWhoHelps]

No Guests? *insert megamind.png here"

[@matsv201]

So wait a minut.. tou got more guest if you charge for entrance and advertize free entrance ... than if you have free entrance?

[@George_K.]

It's awkward since this isn't something people usually say in the comments, but I love this channel

[@dojelnotmyrealname4018]

I suppose this begs for the opposite question: When do guests want to leave the park?

[@cautionthisissparta]

I'm surprised arrivals are uniform, and not poisson with a moving rate parameter.

[@nameless5413]

Yeah Marcel is the biggest customer of all the advertising agencies in RCT's maddening realm. People too dense to swim but otherwise unbreakable (okay fine one MORE exception being an explosion of attraction). Beings so advanced that they laugh at the concept of physics, especially gravity. Even in such fantastic land the advertisements permeate and rule over daily lives of poor mortals.

[@TamDNB]

2.3k to go!

[@Wiimeiser]

I wonder how RCT3 changed this. In particular, does the specific publication you advertise in just impact the age group of who spawns?

[@renakunisaki]

8:20 "probably"

[@richardf.4023]

7:45 I'm dying of laughter 🤣