Theres another livestream tonight, at 7pm. They've said that the beta is basically the feature complete game just lacking some of the scenarios, which is pretty much what you'd expect from a beta - final aside from tweaks and minor/circumstantial bugs. Tonights livestream should essentially show us the stuff they've been holding back on, like additional themes & rides etc
This coming Thursday marks 1yr since i started this thread, im not sure how long it'd been announced for but it wouldnt have been too much earlier and all we had were a couple of screenshots (whats on the first post, really) and an announcement trailer showing nothing really.
In that timeframe, RCTW has skipped past its announced release date, decided its going into Early Access (!?!?) and still doesnt have a release date (supposedly close to release though) or a community that thinks its even close to being release worthy. From what i understand, Planet Coaster exists because Atari/whatever wanted something different to Frontier, and tasked a different studio (now plural) with the job, and so we have 2 contenders.
Planet Coaster seems like its the game the community wanted.
RCTW seems like a game created because a successful franchise exists, that alone will make it successful.
My concerns have only really been whether the 'game' aspect of Planet Coaster is there, the management & simulation sort of stuff, and to a degree whether *I* have the creativity to really do the building tools justice, because theres been plenty of evidence to show amazing stuff is possible since the first alpha, its just down to user creativity. Even then, theres the workshop to access tons of stuff others have created with base content and plop it in and modify it if you want, break it down to see how they did it and try to learn and replicate it.
Beyond that, i think its just a matter of whether or not you its worth it to you personally at that price. Thats always going to be subjective, but beyond the price vs interest in this sort of game, the hype seems justified, with around 8mo of alpha access to support it and provide feedback, its just whether it all comes together nicely as a finished product thats left uncertain really, and we'll be better placed to tell in a few days time.
As for best price, with it being steam-based, i dont see how really cheap keys will be knocking about, so unless you can see it being sold somewhere cheap now (ie GMG for example) i wouldnt expect bargain deals. I'd expect say 10% off (as we have now) around Xmas steam sales, and 20-25% off by Easter, thats fairly standard practice. That goes back to the price vs interest argument.
Watching now 
