News / Site Changes

                                

Site Changes

                                

The following are changes we have decided to implement because we believe the site will benefit from them. At first glance, some of them may seem counter-productive, but not when looking at the big picture.

♦ Closing of the 'Concept Creation' Accolade Category

Today we announce the closing of the Concept Creation category. We think Concept Creations (CCs) should be closed because they have to be distinguished by their concept, which lies in the view and understanding of an individual person, in most cases an admin. Therefore, it can be easily misinterpreted. We also found that most of the CCs we have are better fit in the 'Spotlight' or 'Design' category. For instance, Sunrise Bay Ballpark, Gamez, Magic World - Indoor Paradise and Pleasure Point could, or in fact should, all be Bronze or Silver Winners. We don't see a reason why they would not be eligible for these accolades. Yet we see no sense in separating them into CCs, a category Corkscrewed had quickly thought up and Kumba later implemented because they didn't know how to categorize certain submissions so they went with how they personally see RCT creations and how they interpret concepts. From the admins side, this is no easy thing to do, therefore splitting up the then existent accolade categories was an easy way to solve this. Moving on, House of Happiness and Escher Island are typical, good, fantasy creations. We think they should stand a chance at winning Bronze, Silver, Gold and also Spotlight. These accolades should not be limited to submissions that strictly follow a 'Park' concept. It feels like forcing our members to follow building concepts and conventions that are not necessary and instead will only hinder their creativity. We're also concerned that without this a too strong bias towards realistic style parkmaking exists, simply because 'Parks' are conceptually originating from real-life.



Then you have other CCs like Quiahuitl that should be a Design. The reason why it was not eligible for Design back when it was submitted was because Designs were, again, suffering from a conceptual limit, the requirement that they had to be coaster layouts and must not be water rides. We believe it's bad to uphold this kind of requirement and are therefore broadening the Design category into accepting any kind of ride design, be it a coaster, water ride or a giant custom ride like I remember Corkscrew used to do them. We just don't want to limit people into our categories anymore. We have done it for a long time and are continuously having problems with it. Every month you see a release where people reply "this should have been a design," or "this has more than one coaster, it should have been a Bronze or Silver winner because it is a mini park". The problem is: where do you draw the line? Does the additional coaster count as surrounding or its own ride? Every single member will decide this for himself. We believe the point of defining something as fantasy, park, design, etc. is not reliable and never objective. Thus, we do not want to operate it any longer.



The few submissions we receive to justify this accolade category are mostly RCTNW's creations. But again, we see no reason why a resort or stadium he builds could not be a Silver or Gold Winner. The only problem are people's expectations and strong focus on a park concept that has established itself in their minds over years. As mentioned though, we believe it's harmful for the community and especially the creative freedom of our members.



To summarize: an accolade category ideally should not be linked to a specific concept because concepts are vague and interpretable in too many different ways to find a solid ground of agreement for everybody. Also, categorizing accolades too much is forcing creators to follow what the category demands. Winners of previous CCs will not be stripped from their accolade, and will remain CC winners, but the category is closed to new submissions. We would also like to mention that we believe the very same problem exists for the Design category and in order to truly fulfill the idea of no limitations at all would mean to have only one accolade category for all submissions alike. However, we have refrained from imposing this as we see the Design category too rooted in our site's culture to change it just yet.

♦ New Policy on Winning Spotlight

The changes regarding the rules of winning Spotlight are threefold.

♦ Submissions going up in the Accolade Panel are no longer made anonymous before posting

This change is due to the following reasons:

1. We believe it is better if panelists see the park in its original form. Up until now we have been removing custom messages, staff that were named after creators or contributors to the project, flower or land texture designs that either represented the full name or the initials of the creator and similar hints worked into the park that held the creator information. However, all of these things are part of the creative outlet the creator(s) of a park add to their project and we feel it is wrong to take them away. Panelists must not miss out on these things.


2. It's not easy to make a park anonymous. Staff cannot be sacked at once in either game, nor can we look into every hidden corner of a park to find a possible indicator of the creator's identity. It's much too time consuming and we often miss out on one or two banners, names in the readme, shop or ride title.


3. As admins, we take care of all the steps from submission to release will have a much easier life when having to deal with only one file instead of two per submission. This will make our work flow faster which will benefit everyone at NE.


4. Perhaps the most striking reason is because we are powerless over inside information panelists may have about submissions. Hardly anyone submits anything of which he hasn't posted a screenshot in the AD or in the Dump Place topic before. Our panelists are people who visit the site regularly and we think it's safe to assume they know what's happening quite well. So in many cases, although we went through the trouble of getting something to be anonymous, they will know who made the park anyway, simply because they recognize it from the screens that were posted beforehand.


5. Finally, we trust our panelists to always vote objectively to not let themselves be influenced by a name attached to a new submission arriving in the panel.

This rounds up all of the changes we wanted to announce today. Thanks for reading this far and for telling us your opinion on any of this by replying. Onto more thriving and exciting RCT Parkmaking Culture!