Guest Spawning and Advertising in RCT2 Explained 

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"

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

> 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?

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

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.

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.

7:40 well played sir.

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!

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

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

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!

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?

Man, every single video you do is classy and professional

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.

If only I could generate and spawn friends this way.

3 rct video in a week! Christmas comes early.

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

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

"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

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?)

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.

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

I find it amusing that the information kiosk attracts guests

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

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

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.

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

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!

What a good birthday present! Thanks Marcel!

Lmao Danny DeVito’s voucher at 7:42 🤣

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.

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)

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

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

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?

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

Oh, Danny Devito, you jokester!

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!

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

Another great RU-vid video by Marcel this was.

One of the best videos so far.

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

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

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

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?

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

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

What is the background music used in your videos?

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

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

1:52 is that an Eragon reference park name?

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

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

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.

Looooooove the background music!!

You have the best thumbnails lmao.

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

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.*

6:08 Is that from Dangerously Dense Diamond Heights?

Thank you for theory crafting the game !

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

Would love to see you do a DYKG video

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

That free ride coupon tho 👀

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.

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.

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.

Marcel Vos the Boss!

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

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

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

0:28 "This video is based"

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

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

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?)*

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.

Basically, make your park ‘kick ass’!

Can you beat a goal with only scenery pieces?

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

Love the thumb nail.

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

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

Why am I getting 4 adds? Multiple midrolls

In what order are the bonuses applied? That could change the match, couldn't it?

Hello everyone and welcome to another video

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

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.

I don’t know if my parents have ever had hall passes (and I pray to every god ever that I never find out,) but Danny DeVito? ….yeah, I could see that.

I remember only advertising the park and a ride but no vouchers because I didn’t want to give anything away for free or a discount 😅

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

I still need to understand guest behavior. I want to understand how guests make all of thier decisions and thoughts.

7:45 I'm dying of laughter 🤣

I'll take Danny DeVito's voucher!

2.3k to go!