What do you people out there think of an RCT 3 UCES...I know not many of you can play it...But i want your comments and sugestions and let me know if you are interested...Thanks

I think its a great idea, but are there any members on this site who can make custom objects for RCT3? Or would we try to recruit one of the existing RCT3 object creators from Atari Forums?

They have some good RCT 3 Object creators. ..And thats a good idea..I might post something about the project there...

Just a note/reminder... in the past the original UCES team has requested that other groups NOT use "UCES" as part of their name or project title. While not formally registered as a copyright, due to prior first use and publication on the web, the name is considered the intellectual property of the RCT2 UCES Project and its members.

If you go through with such an expansion pack idea, please refrain from using "UCES" in the name.

Thanks.

A few comments (I've written this before - apologies to those who have already read this)

Anybody wanting to lead something like this should expect a few obstacles:

1. Most people who join won't follow through and deliver. Sad, but true.
2. People will have (or develop) VERY different expectations. It is inevitable that a group is not on the "same page" at some point.
3. Misunderstandings may escalate and get very ugly.

Here are my suggestions to overcome these obstacles:

1. Before anyone commits to leading a project, get a "management team" in place. You need three or four people who are insanely commited (I like how those two words go together btw) to seeing it to the end, or you don't have a chance.
2. RECRUIT, RECRUIT, RECRUIT. I wrote HUNDREDS of PM solicitations, and ultimately acquired a GREAT team. Remember, you're asking people to work - a lot - for ZERO pay. It's a tough sell. The recruiting never stops. Even after the team is in place, expect people to drop out. UCES took 9 months. I was recruiting up until 3 months from the end.
3. Have a "contract" prepared for members to read and agree to. Particularly, once they submit work to the project, forbid bailing out, taking their work with them. Have policies in place at the very start (non performers, troublemakers get the heave-ho at management's discretion after a formal process is followed).
4. Define a project plan, timeline, and group leaders for each area. Publish it and keep the group informed and on-board.
5. Keep it light and have fun. One flame war is all it takes to ruin everything. The group leader can't afford to get angry or upset. The leader has to be prepared to take some s---. There's no need to EVER return a flame, because it's real obvious to the group what's going on.
6. A "quality process" - a feedback loop where testers review work, identify problems and suggest improvements - will give the project a higher overall quality. I am quite certain that the UCES quality process was better than Atari's own. It really helped the UCES shine.

If you actually get something going, I suggest that you "go dark." No publicity or progress reports to the general community. It only puts more pressure on the group. Once you get very close to release, then you can crank up the PR.

I second MBLA on use of the name UCES. Trust me though, a name is the least of your worries.

Good luck!

I never got UCES. I saw mentions of it a lot but every link I ever followed was dead so I never got around to actually getting it. I get the idea though. Doing something like that for RCT3 would be really cool, but it would have to be approached very differently from the other. #3 simply does not have that many object creators. Those who are out there have put out some absolutely awesome stuff, but I'm not sure that the entire cllection of custom scenery for #3 so far would be enough for something on UCES scale and it's trickled out over months. How we're going to manage to wrangle up enough fresh custom stuff to put out something that large, I have no idea.

As far as building, scenario design, and the other elements, I think enough talent could be scraped together. I've seen enough good builders around to cover that end.

As far as actually getting it done . . . I worry. I belong to a number of different sites, mostly for the competitions, and I see a lot of inactivity, dropouts, hanging contests, etc.
-I signed up for RCTtown's Survivor something like 3 months ago; it still hasn't even started yet, there are few signups, and they won't even speculate on when it might start. And that's not taking into consideration that it had already sort of started up once months ago and killed on takeoff due to dropouts.
-Fusion's Survivor has been plagued with dropouts, no-shows, I-can't-finish-in-times, etc.
-The weekly contest here has been hanging by a thread with OrlanDude and I at each end.
-I joined a club, chipped in for 3 different projects; on one, the other guy bailed to work on something else a week after we started; the other two I have been waiting on benches for. One is being worked on nicely, the other seems to have just been forgotten about.
-Most of the clubs I've peeked in on look like turnstiles with member lists changing but nothing being put out.
-I belong to other places too but there is so little going on that I won't even mention them.

I say all of this not to moan, but to illustrate Fossil's point taking the current RCT environment into consideration. I'd like to see something come out of this, but if all the sites out there combined can't even run a simple competition with more than a handful of stable participants, I don't know what the chances are.

All that being said, I'd be onboard in whatever capacity I might be needed.

I think at this current moment the number of object creators who have released much can literally be counted using less than all your fingers. I know there are a number of people learning the process, which a positive thing, but I'll bet that even the current crop of creators will tell you that there is a huge amount of unknowns yet in the game, and jonwil's work has just scratched the surface. Many creators are currently tied up with the Wild! beta test as well.

I have to agree with Kace's observations. There isn't a fan site I know of that isn't struggling in one way or another, the same with clubs and individual park releases.

I DO think that we are at the cutting edge for a major expansion of custom objects for the game, information continues to be discovered about how things work (no thanks to Frontier or Atari...), and there's a large group of people learning the processes involved, but they are there quite yet. Just as what happened with RCT2, once that level is reached there will most likely be an explosion of new objects, which in turn will lead to an explosion of new parks, new competitions, new members and a new excitment for the community.

I think this might be an excellent idea that is just a little before it's time.

It's too bad Frontari isn't including an object importer with Wild but it's a possibility with the 3rd expansion. If they do that you'll see an explosion of custom scenery and a renewed interest in the game. If they don't I think projects like an RCT3 UCES will just be impossible.

As for clubs.. Yeah, they're shrinking. Mine has several inactive members now and I see the RCT2 hosted clubs are accepting practically anyone who still plays RCT2. It's really a shame because RCT2 is a much much better game.

Some good input guys.

Kace... we know RCT2 UCES was plagued with some broken links for a while (largely because of games being played by one of the hosts) but you can now find the site here: http://www.rct2uces.com/

I just checked and everything seems to be working and the downloads are all there... so give it a try again.