15 Myths in RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 BUSTED!

[@MarcelVos]

I have two corrections for this video. Firstly, it appears that I was right with the "best park in the country" award, as in the Dutch translation it the "value" in "best value park in the country" was not included so it became "Beste park van het land". Or at least, that's what several people have commented and it seems logical, but since I can't change the language in RCT1 I can't check it myself. And secondly, at 2:40 I included the same half of the table twice. See this video for the maximum prices of all the shops: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eaLPommZh9xjp5o

[@Eluyaa]

Agree! In german it has been: "Bester Park des Landes"

[@Studebeezy]

Out here starting myths in a myth busting video

[@thePalindromeCrafter]

I had a feeling it was a translation thing, given that you showed you looked it up in English, despite growing up Dutch! I wonder what other sorts of funky translation things are present that explain why things aren't as you remember (I know you mentioned the ordering of the RCT2 scenarios is different per language due to being alphabetized)

[@fqras]

I was just going to say this!

[@skilledcasual9443]

They calculate distance as the nazgul flies, not how the horse gallops

[@ophios]

"there is no such thing as saltyness in rollercoaster tycoon 1 and 2". i don't know man, some of the scenarios made me angry

[@seaborgium919]

I hate the "build 10 roller coasters" ones.

[@Krasbin]

​@@seaborgium919It is however called "Rollercoaster" Tycoon. If you don't like building rollercoasters, maybe find another game?

[@MarcelVos]

​@@seaborgium919I hate the "Finish 5 coasters" ones. They're always in the most annoying places and you can't change that.

[@MatterTheCause]

​@MarcelVos that's wild. The Finish 5 coasters are some of my favorites specifically BECAUSE of that challenge. Trying to make something that's cool or interesting out of a weirdly placed ride just fuels ideas.

[@Imadude-1243]

@@MarcelVosI was expecting you to say Rainbow Valley for a second there

[@stylesrj]

5:45 I always got the impression that guests never used the First Aid stall because they would never actively seek them out, only using them if their random pathfinding led them into it while sick.

[@huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhn]

Maybe it's because the ride they were on is so intense that they all throw up on the way to the first aid stall, which might be the reason puke puddles are concentrated in some areas of your park. Or perhaps they just tend to use a bench if they find one on the way there. just some guesses tho

[@Jappymovies]

These are the ones I heard as a kid: Pressing the M on your keyboard added a 1.000 Eur every time you pressed it. If you kept your park closed a whole year, a guest would come to your entrance with a million bucks begging you to open the park. Building stalls next to popular rides makes more money. Another one was that if your ride had too little supports due to say, path or other rides passing underneath, it could collapse

[@bdown08]

I think the amount of myths and misconceptions around this game shows how well designed it is. As many of your videos show, the underlying systems are actually quite simple in most cases, but when you put them all together it becomes complex enough that people start to come up with their own explanations for how things work. Also, I definitely remember trying some of those bogus name cheats back in the day!

[@Cythil]

I am pretty sure that the original Theme Park actually gave you the option to increase salt or water down drinks, and such things did have an impact in that game. I do wonder how many myths may have started off with Theme Park.

[@chrisfair11]

6months after RTC1 came out my mom decided to try playing a video game for the first time. She looked over our games and chose RTC. My mother disappeared for 2 weeks as she became obsessed. When my brother and I checked in on her after realizing she hadn't been making us food for a few days she had a massive monster park. Bigger than any I had ever seen before or since. She asked us "why don't my paths change when I try to do different ones. She did not know people threw up or that janitors cleaned it up. The entire park was covered in puke...

[@fathomtuns7127]

Zoo Tycoon 2 also used saltiness of food as a mechanic, with salty food descriptions stating that it increased thirst. I remember using pretzel carts as the most common snack stall, and then only serving drinks through the family restaurant.

I was once told by my friend that when the Miniature Railway train goes down a long slope, it builds such speed it's unable to break to stop in the station directly following the slope, running through and exploding.

[@mementomori5580]

The "salty food makes them drink more water" might be just from another game as the origin... I know in "Theme Park World" you could change the amount of salt on fries and could change the amount of ice in a drink. So having high salt and high ice made it so that they wanted to drink a lot, but the drinking that they could by only quenched their thirst a little so they had to buy a lot of the drinks... which, in the end, was usually the best way to make money in that game ^ ^

[@videocrowsnest5251]

A thousand hungry customers swarming an ice cream stall at once like some horde of invaders is probably the stuff of pure nightmare fuel for any customer service staff unlucky enough to be working there that day. Almost sounds like they'd have war stories to tell after living through that particular nasty business at the amusement park in the spring of 94'.

[@ZeldaTheSwordsman]

I could swear I remember guests throwing up in litter bins in RCT2. Given that guests throwing up in litter bins is literally mentioned in the manual, it seems like a bug that they don't.

[@crabman3144]

I wonder if part of the genesis of the Rival Parks myth was Bullfrog's Theme Hostpial, a sort of spinoff of their Theme Park series. In that game, there were offscreen rival hospitals that you were competing against.

[@worldsno1drwhofan]

The salt mechanic was in the original Theme Park game as well. It was the fries you could set the salt level for.

[@club311gaming]

I think I know where the E=MC2 naming myth comes from. It was a cheat code in Age of Empires which I guess released around the same time. It spawned a trooper with a bazooka for your team and there was also another cheat for a trooper with a riffle tough i believe it was not E=MC3 (don't remember that one)

[@Stick_TKD]

I work at a pizzeria and I think I would be pretty sad if 1000 hungry guests walked past our stall just to get ice cream.

[@hunterrickert6026]

My enemy park is doing too well. JERRY! Launch the Intercontinental Ballistic Bobsleigh...

[@Soandnb]

I'm fairly certain that the saltiness myth comes from the game manual. "Drink stands are more popular when placed near food stalls that sell thirst-inducing products - salty things like popcorn, for example." -RCT1 manual

[@MadameSomnambule]

I can see why people think toilets or even bins alleviate nausea in the game because barfing in toilets and trash cans is something that happens irl, so it makes sense. I don't remember Rollercoaster Tycoon 1 having infirmaries though, but correct me if I'm wrong in assuming there were none in the first game.

[@linhero797]

This reminds me of a study that was done on the behavior of birds when presented with a purely random scenario. See, when given a button that when pressed will randomly dispense bird seed or not. The birds eventually formed a ritual, which they believed would increase the odds of it actually getting the bird seed. Despite the fact that the bird seed being dispensed was entirely random. This is where it's believed we humans came to have most of our myths and beliefs. The difference is that we have the ability to use logic and deduction so our myths tend to be more logical. HOWEVER, that doesn't explain why people thought bombing the "rival park" with coasters, like it's WW1, would work. Where the HELL did people come up with that!?

[@stylesrj]

I feel like that's an RCT3 myth being used? Then again I hardly played RCT3...

[@DerpyDooReviews]

I believe the salt myth was started because of other games, theme park world did have this as a mechanic and people sometimes blur and combine memories from childhood.

[@limeadeTV]

I wonder if the "nauseous guests using the bathroom" feature was intended to work but a bug prevents it from working or it wasn't add by mistake

[@abyssalreclass]

My sister and I used to find guest #420, name them "Snoop Dogg" and make them a special section of the park where everything is free.

[@Tinf0iI]

i liked crashing the coasters but i never thought it would do anything to a neighboring park

[@TheBalthassar]

The rival parks one I believe originated from a Karl Smallwood joke about launching roller costers into them to lower their rating.

[@Meldrian1986]

I'm pretty sure somebody already said it but I won't read 779 comments so: A lot of Myths in this video need to be feature requests for openRCT2! Saltiness? Give it to me! Guests puke into toilets to relief themself? Hell yeah! Two vandals fighting each other in the middle of a crowded park (destroying everything around and need a security officer to calm 'em down)? I want all of that! Bonus points for creating a mod or custom scenario where you have to shoot with rollercoasters at a rivals park to crash their park rating (before they crash yours!). Endless possibilities.

[@Martin-kv3th]

Which dev added his Ex to the game, by making a char named "felicity anderson" make guests vomit when nearby...

[@NLxDoDge]

@MarcelVos you really should play Theme Park World and Theme Park Inc. I loved those games as well and have some unique quirks when playing

[@GiantFlyingFoxes]

Is it true that building food stalls near roller coasters makes the guests throw up more? What is the distance they need to be placed away from the entrance?

[@scottclowe]

2:37 Who would pay more for hot ice cream than cold ice cream??

[@HECKproductions]

myth or no myth if you dont start your park by playing a merry go round by the entrance you are playing the game wrong it is just the done thing oh and i like how the dude who buys a photo from a ride that didnt take a photo is called massive idiot 10:40

[@QwertyG.]

That’s a myth, it doesn’t matter. Also look at the photo’s name, lmao.

[@stevensteven327]

Now someone make a version including as many of these as possible... RCT Mandela lol

[@timothyverbist5795]

10:00 irl i would be spaghettified if i would ride this ride.

[@brx8r]

What about Ice Cream shops causing vomit?

[@TheRedGauntlet]

Saltyness in RCT2 isnt a myth. I do get quite salty failling an objecyive at the end.

[@jimmehsaint]

Huh, I swear I remember getting "best park in the country" in RCT1 as a kid. Guess it's another one of those Berenstein/Berenstain things. Another odd one I used to believe as a kid was that lightning could hit the rides during thunderstorms and kill guests, so I'd always shut all the rides down during storms.

[@A-D-D-F_Toxic]

I suddenly seem to remember also shutting down rides during thunderstorms. This one may have been relayed to me by the friend that I now realize was notorious for telling me BS

[@CTGrell]

I still have the thought when a ride brakes down in the rain: of course, it's raining after all

[@shybandit521]

i wonder how many misconceptions people DIDNT post, because you asked them to share misconceptions, and they were so misled that they thought "oh yeah this things true this isnt a misconception so this comment section isnt for my fun facts"

[@foohawesom]

As someone who works in food, the idea of a massive blob of 1000 ravenous guests marching towards me gives me anxiety lmao

[@TTMS-Khaz-kun]

I can relate. Especially if there's only one or two of you to manage all 1,000 ravenous guests. Spare me from that nightmare..

[@stylesrj]

@@TTMS-Khaz-kun One or two people to serve them, your manager lacks empathy and thinks two people is enough to serve any number of customers and any complaints from customers will result in a serious reprimand or firing. Oh and all those customers are Karens. With screaming kids and babies.

[@Astradyne]

It's like the first episode of SpongeBob.

[@Spikehead777]

Please, no. I literally could not make my Smart car go fast enough to handle all of the deliveries! 😰

[@wolfpackflt670]

Meep@@Astradyne

[@user-xsn5ozskwg]

I love the rival park one. Using coasters as artillery pieces somehow benefits your park because you're besieging an invisible, unmentioned enemy... just wild.

[@johnfrian]

You may enjoy some of LetsGameItOuts videos on Planet Coaster

[@taake1372]

Imagine some kind of a multiplayer mod like that, having a map with several players having own parks and them launching rollercoasters at each other.

[@Justout133]

Just the concept.. Yes, we're here to rate your amusement park. You would score very well, except for the fact that roller coaster trains keep flying into your park from the sky and exploding. Maybe get that looked into, see you next year.

[@Chocomint_Queen]

In the story that originated the myth, the guy claims he was launching guests into the neighbouring park and to reduce their "approval rating" because "technically those people died in the rival's park". He was later badgered into including a screenshot, but it was just a crop of a coaster aimed downward at some completely normal land, not even a fence.

[@cwookdev]

Reminds me of this ride contest: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iWSUkKeAp7OWbqssi=oz6Dp5aghGZzh6ab

[@wincat77]

The original Roller Coaster Tycoon installation/game guide might also have spawned the salty food myth. This is one of the bullet items under the Food and Drink section of Shops and Stalls (page 14). "Drink stands are more popular when placed near food stalls that sell thirst-inducing products - salty things like popcorn, for example."

[@607]

Well, I think that's settled, then!

[@twistedoveryou01]

I have the prima guide for rct2 and it says the same thing. Just looked at it to confirm.

[@Rosseloh]

This is exactly what I remember and why I thought it was the case.

[@Arcanua]

Seems that it was intended to be a thing and never got added in the end knowing how many manuals have it.

[@cappantwan2978]

That’s exactly why I thought the same! That wonderful instruction manual lied to me!

[@Potatoflesh]

The myth at my school was that putting in too many flowers would lead to your guests complaining about the number of bees harassing them.

[@WackoMcGoose]

"Soon, Peeps, you will look just like my high school report cards... COVERED IN BEEEEES!"

[@SonOfFurzehatt]

That's really quite a sweet idea.

[@graduator14]

NOT THE BEES!!!

[@BryceLynch838]

Someone should create a mod where a guest will think, "Not the bees!" If you name them "Nicholas Cage".

[@Jinxanator66]

@@BryceLynch838 Ill post about it on the openrct2 subreddit and see what people think

[@DarkWarchieff]

I got told as kid that if you wait long enough in RCT1, you'll unlock the ''cigarette stall'' which will have it's own walk animation and then make guests addicted so they buy more at higher prices. I kind of want this as a mod now.

[@nthgth]

I'd like a version of that with beer and other alcohol. It could make them more susceptible to nausea but also get hungry faster. And maybe increase happiness but be more susceptible to things that reduce happiness.

[@GogotteandSig]

Why drown guests when you can just have them destroy their own lungs by choice?

[@CTGrell]

can we have then a drug dealer entertainer too? that would actually make guests happy

[@TheStoodUpKid]

That's the kinda fib my dad would make about the games I played. Hell yeah

[@charredUtensil]

​@@nthgthAlcohol has been a major change to theme parks over the last 25 years so it makes sense to include it as part of an "expansion pack" to OpenRCT designed specifically to create a challenge for people like Marcel who have such a complete understanding of game mechanics. Manic Miners did it and I absolutely loved its interpretation.

[@frankvandorp2059]

I wonder if the "crashing trains into rival parks" myth originates from people having memories about Transport Tycoon, also made by Chris Sawyer and running on the same engine as RCT, where you could cripple rival transport companies by stopping trains before an intersection and then activating them to plow over your rivals' transport busses and trucks.

[@stylesrj]

Or leaving a train partway on the tile of a rival's station right as their train comes in so they cause the collision and thus ruin their ratings... (If you just sent a train at them while ignoring signals, it's your ratings that'll be affected)

[@MarshalStomm]

@@stylesrj Trains from separate companies cannot collide, as they can only operate on company track. The only vehicular sabotage you can use on your rivals are trapping their Road Vehicles or Boats, or destroying their road vehicles with a train.

[@stylesrj]

@@MarshalStomm Clearly you underestimate childhood me and old websites. When a train leaves a depot, they can stick themselves partway on a rival's track while still technically being on the tile you own. If you time it just right, the rival's train will enter the station and collide with your stopped train. Don't time it right? Well your rival can't use that station as the signals won't let them. But only in the case of a double station which they use a lot of. Single stations are easier. Seriously, I did that strategy a lot back in the original TT and TTD.

[@buckrodgers1162]

Are you sure it's 'Transport Tycoon'? Or was it 'Locomotion'? Because I remember Locomotion having 'Rival Companies', though i can't remember Transport Tycoon having them.

[@MarshalStomm]

@@buckrodgers1162 It was definitely Transport Tycoon Deluxe, as I have never played Locomotion. Side note, I did some digging and found a post that almost backs up @stylesrj 's claim. The details are different, but the idea is the same, so I'll chalk up the inconsistencies to old memory and admit I was wrong.

[@Foxy_AR]

The fact that a guest can consume a whole bucket of popcorn faster than a burger

[@ArsonRaboot]

Maybe they're just buying the little paper bags of Popcorn?

[@OnionChoppingNinja]

Gotta be some damn good burgers

[@Davtwan]

Probably easier and less taxing on the system to alter consumption time rather than give them all different rates of satisfying hunger. But yeah, it is just another weird thing about Guests.

[@MrGhosta5]

Depends on the size of the bucket and the size of the burger.

[@sweetpepino1907]

And coffee being faster to drink than lemonade. These guests have an adamantium esophagus if they're chugging hot coffee

[@JohnnyCasey]

9:35 "Your mom looks too intense to me." "Just looking at your mom makes me sick." "I'm not paying that much for your mom." "Your mom was great."

[@realrealyforreal]

lmao

[@eatskatefastass]

"Your mom is a really good value." "I'm not getting on your mom while it's raining."

[@realrealyforreal]

@@eatskatefastass lmao

[@ThorburnJ]

The original Theme Park (released in 1994 by Bullfrog) allowed you to adjust the Salt level of the fries, which did make people more thirsty, so I'd guess that is where that myth came from - not the later Theme Park Inc.

[@davidmcgill1000]

Also where the park sign myth would come from.

[@Aozame]

RTC3 also has a weirdly in-depth system for adjusting the types and quantities of ingredients in food/drink sold by stalls, though I have no idea whether that actually DOES anything mechanically

[@BasbaseNL]

If you maxed out the salt on the fries and maxed out the ice in the drinks the peeps would start to complain you were making too much profit.

[@gemfyre855]

It was quite possibly Theme Park that had the "Best park in the world" award too, because in that you WERE competing with other parks.

[@nathangamble125]

The mechanic is in both Theme Park and Theme Park Inc. I never played the original Theme Park, but I remember it from Inc.

[@ce7.0]

You mentioned the bathroom nausea thing being in the RCT1 manual, but there were others that started there too: - The foreword by John Wardley at the beginning of the manual says "Position the camera in the best place for good expressions on riders’ faces to maximize sales." - The "Design Tips" sidebar for Mild Rides says "Elevated rides allow your guests to see other rides and areas of the park, which can spark interest in visiting them" and "Rides that provide music often add to the atmosphere of the park, cheering nearby guests" - The "seeing rides while on other rides" myth is repeated in the sidebar about water rides: "Like transport rides, well-designed mild water rides give guests a good view of the park, which can increase their interest in visiting other rides" - The shops and stalls section says "Drink stands are more popular when placed near food stalls that sell thirst-inducing products -- salty things like popcorn, for example" -- not technically false, but definitely implies that a saltiness mechanic exists - The bathroom nausea myth is alluded to multiple times in the sections about rides, and is then explicitly mentioned in the section about bathrooms: "Sometimes, guests will need a bathroom after a particularly intense ride. Consider the ride's nausea factor, too." Could probably make a pretty lengthy follow-up to this video just going line by line through the RCT1 manual and seeing how much of it is actually accurate. For example, is it true that guests will get confused if you use queue lines for regular paths, like the manual claims in the path section? While some of these myths were definitely made up by older siblings or early-2000s websites trying to pull a fast one, especially with those "might not work on all versions" disclaimers (or maybe some of the fake codes were intended to be like "paper towns" in maps, so they could tell when other RCT fansites were plagiarizing their content?), a lot of them are beliefs that made perfect sense with what we were told about the game directly from its publisher.

[@SonOfFurzehatt]

You beat me to it - I've just left a comment about John Wardley's tip about photo sections.

[@ce7.0]

Oh also, the Corkscrew Follies and Loopy Landscapes manuals both say "Banner Signs not only notify patrons of what part of the park they’re in, but they also help to attract attention to the area, much like advertising does."

[@XanthinZarda]

Maybe these were features that were culled for being too fiddly, error prone, or just not really fun at all?

[@screamingcactus1753]

@@XanthinZarda If that were the case, then that means the instruction manuals must have been finished and printed before the game was. Otherwise they would have just edited out the false information before printing. Another explanation is that these were mechanics they wanted to include but couldn't get to work, so they just put them in the manual to make people think think they were real and play the game as if they were.

[@Tahngarthor]

Honestly a lot of these were fine details that might have been planned but ultimately got cut because of performance or other reasons. When this game came out they had to make the code very efficient so it might have been a factor.

[@benceracz6515]

I also had an interesting Myth too. I always tried not to put food courts next to intensive rides like rollercoasters since I always believed if guests go on them while eating/drinking it will be more likely that they get nauseous and throw up.

[@CTGrell]

I still try to avoid it because the puke on the path is not aesthetic for the food curt XD

[@andos2923]

I thought it was you shouldn't put food near exits, where guests are likely to be sick and vomit easier.

[@MaxArceus]

This is one of the best videos you've made I think! Some of these are hilarious! Launching coasters off the map to tank THEIR rating, that is wrong on so many levels!

[@nlcovertops4789]

One rumor I thought as a kid was that some stalls had bigger items, so they fill trash cans faster. Like popcorn buckets being bigger than burger boxes.

[@donutsteel6797]

I don't remember if I ever thought the On-ride photos myth was true, but I always preferred to try putting them on more exciting bits because it just seemed weird otherwise regardless if it had any effect or not

[@JD3Gamer]

I definitely thought that guests would use restrooms to throw up as a kid. I used to place a restroom on every single exit path for a rollercoaster.

[@subtledemisefox]

Same here! It would make logical sense

[@Bart134]

Yes, absolutely yes.

[@sluttyMapleSyrup]

Same!

[@SvengelskaBlondie]

Same, had the habit of building bathrooms next to the exits of intense rollercoasters.

[@huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhn]

same here, I never knew why guests would need to see a doctor so I only had a small amount of those stalls on the map (i think they were also expensive to run). but if you zoom in and observe a bit then you can see the sick guests going in

[@ImSquiggs]

The guests not buying ice cream when it rains is so funny to me. Why that one food? I’d say the #1 food to not buy in the rain would be the candy floss, that would just melt away in the rain, haha

[@haxhunyadi5582]

They don't buy that either. Citation needed.

[@korumann]

@@haxhunyadi5582 2:25, they don't buy ice cream or cotton candy. Oddly enough, this fact seems to be entirely undocumented on the rct wiki.

[@Penultimeat]

The fact that so many of these are borderline believable is a testament to the true depth of interaction in this game

[@nosleeptonight]

I learnt recently that the photo sections on rides don't matter as I added a photo spot to my popular log flume at the bottom of a big drop. Only later did I remember I'd added a reverser turntable before the drop, so this meant guests had been buying photos of the back of their heads this entire time. They LOVED it apparently haha.

[@ciklop4206]

I'd also be happy to see the back of my head. You don't get to see it very often

[@huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhn]

maybe they bought it because you cant make a weird embarassing face if all you see is the back of your head xD

[@ginomctony6773]

The truly fascinating thing about these rumours and myths is the fact that this game is/was so good for it's time and still is that people are putting way more faith into the programming and mechanics that they expect things that would have been extremely hard to implement at the time.

[@Putnam3145]

It doesn't help that stuff like guest weight is, in fact, kind of a baffling level of detail for *today*, not to mention of the time.

[@Br3ttM]

With weight, they were probably trying easy ways to add complexity. It's not going to require a lot of processing. Later games in a genre will drop mechanics that aren't interesting, and add ones that would take more processing or that need higher detail graphics.@@Putnam3145

[@CertifiedDoc]

@@Putnam3145 I'd never even heard of it before. I had no idea what he was talking about when he got to that part and assumed guest weight itself was the myth.

[@huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhn]

this game was centuries ahead of its time, the guy who made it is a legend. With all the attention to detail that it had it's only natural for people to go fantasize about stuff

[@Davigugu55]

today I learned about the weight, and discovered that when testing Launched Freefall and setting a launch speed just about it to go flying and explode, when you open the ride to the public, it will eventually crash, probably due to a combination of riders' weight (take it with a grain of salt as I may be inventing a new myth by my failing memory)

[@SemiHypercube]

A lot of these basically sound like playground rumors, especially the "rival park" one Also I didn't know some of those name cheats existed, first time I've ever heard of one that gives guests pizza, wanting to leave the park, giving purple clothes

[@LeggyBoiTim]

As for the "best park in the country" myth, have you considered looking at the awards in other languages? I've played RCT a lot as a kid but back then in Dutch language, and I can recall having seen that award as well.

[@MarcelVos]

Oh damn you might be onto something. I'll check when I'm home.

[@Vanatice]

precies haha

[@Noormis]

@@MarcelVos Could be the "Beste park van het land" or something, I have a vague memory having that one aswell.

[@comiker91]

Yes i thing in German it is there too

[@RCTitan33]

From the UK and I was sure I saw it in the english language version of the game, maybe just not in the american version?

[@11chuckles1]

The myth about salty foods causing guests to become thirstier probably was also started based on what the game manual said. Under the Food and Drink section for RCT1 it states: "Drink stands are more popular when placed near food stalls that sell thirst-inducing products - salty things like popcorn, for example." When you said that was a myth i swore I had read that it was true in some official source and had to look it up!

[@Studebeezy]

I think the salty myth comes from the RCT1 manual: "Drink stands are more popular when placed near food stalls that sell thirst-inducing products - salty things like popcorn, for example."

[@ce7.0]

The RCT1 manual is also the source of the "put the on-ride photo element in an exciting place" myth: the foreword by John Wardley says, talking about his real-life ride-designing experience: "If the riders get off feeling that the ride has dulled-out halfway through, they will be disappointed, but if they get off on an emotional high, they’ll come back for more - and they’ll be more likely to buy an on-ride photo of themselves. (Position the camera in the best place for good expressions on riders’ faces to maximize sales.)"

[@gormster]

So like… the manual was written by someone who had played the game but not talked to Chris Sawyer at all? Did they just make everything up?

[@ce7.0]

@@gormster Maybe there were features that Chris wanted to implement but didn't end up getting to, or maybe whoever Hasbro got to write the manual was intentionally overselling the depth of the simulation because they knew they could get away with it in the days before datamining. (The John Wardley on-ride photo one could just be chalked up to him talking about real-life designing to get you in the mood for the game, but there are other examples of the manual directly telling the player that gameplay mechanics exist which do not actually exist.)

[@BQD_Central]

I would think the salty-myth comes from Theme Park 1 where this was an actual mechanic (but with the fries stand). And the game is also older then RCT1 and 2, but looks at least somewhat similar. Sometimes games from that time merge in peoples head.

[@bigcraudio3066]

Yeah, and it was also a thing in zoo tycoon 2 (I think it also was on 1, but I'm not sure) the game actually would tell you about it. And zoo tycoon 2 also had a guest prefence mechanic, where the guests would prefer certain types of food, like adults prefers coffee and children cotton candy

[@thomassynths]

If I recall, the game manual for RCT alludes to the fact that saltier foods makes peeps thirstier.

[@madduckuk]

@@thomassynths *googles "roller coaster tycoon manual pdf"* Page 21: ♦Drink stands are more popular when placed near food stalls that sell thirst-inducing products - salty things like popcorn, for example.

[@WackoMcGoose]

SimThemePark (or to the rest of the world, Theme Park World, which was my first park-making game and I'm fairly sure predates RCT3 by several years) retained this mechanic, and I never really thought about what effect salty food would have on peeps. I always just went "make food good quality, change the stall-specific setting (salt, ice, sugar, etc) to whichever end minimizes the cost of goods, set sale price $10 higher than cost of goods, Apply All, done".

[@wertigon]

Ooooh, Theme Park 1... I remember playing the snot out of the SNES version :D It sucked though, I could never understand how to sell my park for more than I paid for it, I earned $3M pretty easily, and then $5M, and then $8M... But I could never sell my park past $8M even if I spent $15M on it :( Was just 12 at the time thou

[@Dschonathan]

My brothers and I used to surround intense rollercoasters with hedges or mazes because we thought "hiding" the coaster would increase the intensity tolerance of guests.

[@machecor]

I used to believe "the red faced guests" were people who were, say, thrown from a coaster which they just had entered and then had a break down. I knew about the name cheats, but never could make them work. I also thought about how people had a food preference, so always built pizzas and burgers stands instead of ice creams. As always, great video, Marcel.

[@kiwami5604]

The “rival park” myth came from an old facebook post where the OP reminisced about playing a scenario with a rival park and crashing coasters into it to lower the rival’s ranking. It got spread around Reddit and Tumblr, which is probably how it entered general conscious

[@pilotwhaleproductions5880]

Im surprised to see you be the only person mentioning this

[@Putnam3145]

One person making a semi-popular post that claimed to remember something can spread a *lot*, it's kinda hilarious. Dwarf Fortress had something similar recently, where someone complained about not being able to watch combat reports in real-time anymore. Someone misremembered some utility or similar and it spread like wildfire, because it just seems like a logical thing that might exist. Anyway, it's in the game now, because it *is* a logical idea, so I made it a priority, but it originated with one of these goofy mythmaking things.

[@arkadyshersky8704]

@@Putnam3145 Of course the Dwarf Fortress guy watches this channel!

[@jamesdolphin4158]

@@Putnam3145 That might itself be a misremembering, because for a wee bit the whole combat reports were inaccessible, or VERY quickly faded away. IIRC it was around the time when it first came out on steam with the new graphics and rehauled UI.

[@SirGingerOfKnight]

Karl Smallwood/"FactFiend" He's mentioned it on his channel before

[@JCBro-yg8vd]

The Bobsled Coaster *CAN* crash off the tracks at turns in Rollercoaster Tycoon 3. But that same game also removes the ability of the Ghost Train to crash at all and makes the Observation Tower capable of crashing if you don't build anything beyond the station.

[@christiangingrich1616]

I thought it would just go upside down but wouldn’t fly off the tracks, but that might be for the flying turns in RCT 3

[@BinaryHedgehog1]

Yeah, it’s the flying turns that for some reason will never crash from going off the tracks and instead just flips.

[@bobkile9734]

5:46 one note is that guests prefer benches to first aid stalls. If you have a bench in front of a first aid stall, and that bench has an open seat, nauseous guests will always sit down on the bench before going into the stall.

[@drizkie9361]

I put lots of benches right outside rides with high nausea rating and it helps ALOT with guests throwing up, I think guests who eat before they get on a ride tend to throw up no matter what, but guests who are hungry but get nauseous on the ride don't because they have nothing really to throw up lol. good to know I don't have to put washrooms near the exits now though lol.

[@soccerguy2433]

hungriness doesn't affect nausea@@drizkie9361

[@crushermach3263]

I'd guess this has to do with pathing, much like the food stall example in the video, only this time it's "nearest nausea reducer" and since the path is nearly always closer to a guest than the building it connects to they always find it first. We could test this, again similar to the video, by placing a first aid stall around a corner with benches technically further away on the path to it and see what they go for.

[@bobkile9734]

@@drizkie9361 another option is to put a first aid stall right outside a ride. Best is right across from the ride exit and make sure that the path tile that the entrance to the first aid stall is on doesn’t have a bench on it. With this, you should have very few guests puking due to the ride.

[@bobkile9734]

@@crushermach3263 i dont think it has to do with path finding. I think it has to do with action priority. Nauseous guests attempting to path to a FA stall will sit down. Every so often, a sitting nauseous guest will stand up and attempt to continue to their previous destination, but then immediately sit back down. My theory is that a nauseous guest does not seek a bench, but will sit on the first bench they come across, ignoring any destination they had

[@JD3Gamer]

I used to be very hesitant to take out loans since my dad said that it would make the guests unhappy. I don’t know what his reasoning was and I didn’t even know what “loan” meant at the time but it had an impact on how I played for years.

[@coolkiddo3110]

i guess your dad was trying to teach child you that taking out big loans was a bad idea

[@RhdgNl]

In Dutch the award was called "Beste Park van het Land", so I think this is what has been burned in your memory.

[@BasCPU]

Precies wat ik dacht!

[@RhdgNl]

​@@BasCPU Ik kan me ook niet herinneren dat er een "Meest waardevolle park" award was, dus ik denk dat "Best value park" slecht is vertaald naar "Beste park van het land".

[@ExpoAviation]

I think the myths regarding mowing the grass stems from the original theme park where you'd get a tax break (for 5 years I think) if you got a handyman to start mowing the grass as soon as you create your park. At least that's how I remember it (heck it was 30 years ago) and always put a handyman or two straight onto the grass when starting scenarios in RCT :)

[@huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhn]

I was certain mowing the grass would affect your park rating or something or atleast nominate you for the best looking park or whatever that award was called

[@AngelEmfrbl]

Theme Park is likely also the origin of the salt thing, because thats in its handbook

[@GaussFlame]

The last rival park myth made me remember something from my childhood. My brother told me that normally your park would get some sort of penalty when guests died from a crash, but if they died outside of your property, there was no penalty. I remember his reasoning being that legally it's not your fault because they didn't die on your property lmao. So whenever I created rides to kill guests by flinging them off a hill way too fast (as one does), I would always make sure they would land outside the park fence.

[@huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhn]

Was the park named "Disney Land"?

[@piratebear3126]

Kinda want an OpenRCT mod to make some of the logical ones real. Like signs give a slight boost to pathfinding like a map does, bathrooms treat nausea, mowed lawns increasing park quality, stuff like that.

[@omikronweapon]

Sometimes I'd start out with a great theming idea for a coaster or park and just abandon it because of the cost & effort compared to the nonexistent effect.

[@garethwilkins6744]

"There's no such thing as Saltiness in Roller Coaster Tycoon." Well sir, you definitely haven't seen my trying to get a rollercoaster to work properly.

[@Xudmud]

To be fair, there _is_ a Megapark in RCT1 vanilla (that the game doesn't even generate the scenario file for until you've finished all the others), but it doesn't have the glass dome (unless you build one) or the earthquake mechanic. I can't remember if there was a similar park for the expansions or RCT2 though.

[@charredUtensil]

There's a good chance that kid started with the truth and then made up the rest when I asked him what the gameplay was like because he'd already told me he beat it.

[@markdebruyn1212]

There was Megaworld Park in Loopy Landscapes, wich is just a finished version of the vanilla's Megapark

[@martabachynsky8545]

For some reason, I have this memory of playing RCT with a wild west scenario and there being the two entertainers: a bandit and a sheriff (black hat/white hat). They would walk around entertaining guests, but if they met, they would have a "shoot-out", and one or the other would "die", then get back up and start entertaining guests again. I have no idea where this came from, but it would be cool to have the entertainers interact like this.

[@NEEDbacon]

While there were bandit and Sheriff entertainers if you researched wild west theming in RTC2, I'm not sure if they'd have that special interaction.

[@scose]

sounds like something that would pop up in a dream

[@martabachynsky8545]

@@NEEDbacon I wish they did; it would be great.

[@martabachynsky8545]

@@scose Yeah, I suppose so because I have no idea of where that memory came up. When I started playing again after many years, I was disappointed that it wasn't there and wondered where I thought that up. A dream makes sense.

[@Jinxanator66]

Idk why this reminds of Spy vs Spy from MAD

[@NiekNooijens]

Friend of mine told me that if you make the reverse-freefall coaster very long and place it very high, the cart can fly off into space. 2 in-game years later it would come back down with a guest and a few aliens riding it. Unfortunately that's not the case, but such an easter egg would be brilliant. I hope the openRCT2 devs can one day make that happen... Or I need to start coding a mod myself

[@CanOfRabbitHoles]

I remember reading somewhere that food stall placed next to each other would compete for business, being a child I thought "oh no, they will fight and do worse" so I used to make sure all my shops and stalls were on their own and miles apart from each other.

[@Duvelthehobbit]

I definitely thought the salty food thing was something mentioned in the manual, but couldn't find it there. Must have misremembered that part. I also find it kind of weird that a burger takes longer to eat than a bucket of popcorn. For me it is the other way around. Edit: Upon seeing the consumption times listed in the video, a lot of them don't make sense. Seems like the game does not take cooling hot drinks for consumption into consideration, nor how easy they are to eat in real life. I think the time eaten/drinking must purely be based on their hunger/thirst replenishing stats.

[@607]

See @wincat77's comment. :)

[@Putnam3145]

Easier/more memory-efficient (which was far more important at the time) to make having food/drink remove a set amount of hunger/thirst every tick and have the food itself last a specific amount of time, rather than having both "recovery per tick" and "tick length" values.

[@Midnight.Shadows]

A few things I remember, most of these are probably myths tho 1. Changing the colour of rides increases park value and makes guests want to ride them after they stop being popular 2. Path type effects mood I.e. in hot regions concrete is too hot, in wet regions dirt gets muddy, lowering guest happiness 3. If you make it so guests can't leave an area of the park they'll always buy more food/drink 4. Guests will always pay to use the toilet no matter the cost

[@StephanieMiller-r3m]

1. Not sure about that, but having certain colors (bright orange, bright pink, bright green, and 1 other I can't remember) can give you a park award, which is certainly helpful. 4. Nope, guests will refuse to use the bathroom if it's too high price, I had this happen with my bathrooms at 50 cents, so I keep them at 20 so it's never an issue and makes up for operating costs at least.

[@jpiche93]

a popular myth when I was a kid that I heard from multiple friends was that lightning can strike your roller coaster and kill your guests, so we would always be telling each other to close our roller coaster when it's thundering and raining lol

[@huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhn]

they were just your rivals trying to minimize your income haha. But to be fair a lot of guests dont go on certain rides if it rains anywayys

[@Kaboom1212Gaming]

You mentioned the colour shirt and ride intensity myth. I do however, wonder if there is some accidental correlation from the way RNG works. If each guest seed has some bias in some direction if the shirt and excitement rating are pulled from the same value in the RNG. So it would still be a certain low percentage, but could result in some shirt types or rider characteristics being impossible combinations. I don't know at all if that's how it works in RCT, but I do wonder about it!

[@yorgle]

I wonder if the "give a guest this name" thing is more of a trap street kind of thing. When they published the list in magazines, they add a few of their friend's names with fake effect, to see who copies the information. Also, i got 2/3 through this and remembered that I need to watch it a second time to catch all of the names you put in for guests... :D

[@leilaclarridge5807]

Fighting vandals would have so much hilarious potential. Maybe nearby guests that witness the brawl would either have their happiness lowered because they witnessed needless violence, or increased because they saw a knockdown drag out fight for free and didn’t have to go to a wrestling competition.

[@Wrenling]

There's a line in the manual that says something like "don't place stalls next to each other, they will compete and lower prices". I had always assumed there was an actual game mechanic that would cause them to lower sale prices if they were adjacent, so I would always make sure there was at least one block between each stall. I will say, it speaks to how well-done this game is that a lot of these myths sound plausible. In a game where each guest has a random weight and this changes the physics of a coaster, it's really not that implausible that some foods would be salty or that on-ride photo placement would affect price.

[@televisiemomenten2474]

8:23 ik ken de zogenaamde pickpocket cheat nog van vroeger! Ik weet zelfs nog dat ik aan m’n ouders vroeg wat een pickpocket was omdat ik geen effect zag! Leuk om dit weer mee te maken. Ga zo door Marcel, ik kijk alles.

[@MatterTheCause]

On the withered flowers/handyman one: I know nearby scenery can increase a ride's excitement rating. Does flowers withering affect that at all?

[@CTGrell]

I don't think so. they look cool in darker themed parks

[@CaveyMoth]

There may not be saltiness in RCT...but why are my guests always salty?

[@qa399]

The control failure myth may be related to Theme Park from 1994 - if a broken ride operates for an extended period of time without being fixed it will eventually explode, leaving behind an immovable pile of rubble

[@Wiimeiser]

So you can basically never build there again?

[@digitaldeathsquid3448]

9:55 I think this happened to me once in RCT3. I had a Bobsleigh train fly out of a banked turn after a steep drop. I switched it to an un-banked turn and the coaster no longer crashed.

[@CompanionCube]

human friend?

[@nobodyyouexpected]

I'm assuming it's because RCT3 uses more complex physics to simulate how the train behaves in turns compared to RTC2.

[@Floke900]

Yes, that is possible in RCT3, happened many times to me as a kid. It can also happen to the Flying Turns, the Soaked water slides and, I believe, the Dingi Slide. However, the Side-Friction Coaster and Ghost Train cannot derail in RCT3. I've never seen any coaster flying off a hill though

[@guilhermecampos8313]

14:25 This remembers me Sim City 3000 in which you could have up to 4 neighboring cities and if you put your polluting industries at the edge of the city, the game would ignore the pollution that was off the map (like the pollution was going to the other cities). As a kid I saw these other cities as rivals as the game would show their total popullation in comparison with yours.

[@stylesrj]

I do recall that in those games if you put your polluting industries at the edge, they'd get mad at you or was that just a myth? I know in Sim City 4 it wasn't an issue because you were the rival cities and pollution didn't transfer over the edge but in the earlier games, I always thought they would and it was bad?

[@guilhermecampos8313]

@@stylesrj I don't remember this happening in SimCity 3000. Game magazines from those years would tell that, and that logic makes sense, but the pollution of you city doesn't go to the others city because there isn't a neighboring city there to start, its just a game illusion. The pollution just goes outside of the map, so the game simply discards it.

[@ExtremeBirdTypography]

Now imagine a mod of some sort which implements all of the most popular crazy myths. That would be kind of awesome.

[@HomingRocket1]

I played Theme Park World. Altering the 'saltiness' of a fries stall does not make guests more thirsty. It only changes the price of stock but also it more likely for guests to 'disapprove' it. I'll have to play it to research it.

[@5MadMovieMakers]

Thanks for answering my questions!

[@Incidion]

This was a good one! Every time I think I know everything about a game this old, you seem to be able to throw a few new things at me. The map effects were particularly interesting. I think there would be an interesting video in displaying the exact effects of maps on peeps' behaviors. I know you shouted out Duerklink's, but the effects seem to change guests' behavior enough that there could be some interesting things in terms of the pathing effects for farther items. Would be neat to dive in to!

[@plaguedoct0r]

I'd like to see you make 12+ excitement _practical_ coasters of as many types as you can.

[@BillehBobJoe]

what i remember about 'saltiness' from theme park world (The sequel) is that increasing it raised guest satisfaction (The happiness stat in that game) at a higher level with a rather harsh penalty to your shops supply costs (eating into your profits at a higher percentage, than if say you placed two stalls) Basically it was some sort of fine tuning for your finances and efficiencies of a stall - like in sim city when you over fund a school to get higher capacity while still paying somewhat less per month than the larger capacity school

[@ambeer6]

I remember a friend in elementary school who showed me her RCT1 game and told me to build coasters that fire into the edge of the map so that it would ruin our rival park. For the longest time I still believed that there was a scenario where there is a rival park that you need to exceed.

[@conaly082]

I remember something very vividly: It was not really a myth from inside the game, but something I saw either in a magazine or online around the time of release of Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 (not sure if before or after but must have been around 2002). There was a screenshot from the game with the window of a guest open. It basically looked like it does today with two big exceptions: Firstly: the face icon of the guest, that shows the guest's mood was different, as it was wearing a baseball cap (yes, the face icon!) Secondly: There was a very basic 3D model of the guest standing in the live picture, and looking through the fourth wall and the text "What's this camera doing here?" was displayed. I actually believed, this was a new feature of RCT2 as at that time I have not played it yet. I was a bit disappointed when I finally got my hands on RCT2 some time later, as the face/mood icon looked the same. I've googled for this particular picture a few times but never found it, so I assume it was photoshopped and a hoax, but it looked hilarious anyway.

[@MaxArceus]

1:31 Are they the worst though? If a guest's hunger is barely removed, they'll buy more, sooner, and you make more money!

[@MarcelVos]

The more frequently a guest is looking for food, the less time they have to go on rides. I guess it depends on the circumstances.

[@MaxArceus]

@@MarcelVos Fair point, though if the park's with a stall-sale goal, then this might be a good thing to keep in mind

[@MarcelVos]

@@MaxArceus True, although it also depends on how much you can charge for different foods.

[@MaxArceus]

@@MarcelVos Does that also differ per food ? :O

[@MarcelVos]

​@@MaxArceusLook at the tables at 2:40

[@emmata98]

0:12 this is a mechanic in RCT 3 etc though

[@SniperTeamTango]

until watching you, I always thought the crash-prone phobia coasters in diamond heights had a scripted event to crash, so until VERY recently whenever I played that scenario, Id crash reset them (2x redlight) at the start of every run.