Park / Dulce, NM
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05-February 08
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Description
This entry provoked quite a lot of hatred, angrer, and controversy to say the least. That was because it was the entry that got me my parkmaker spot as I beat Corkscrewed to enter the final four, which Kumba had promised parkmaker status for anyone to make it that far. I’m sure that many might have ran away screaming after viewing the overview and not had a chance to look at the park, as it is one that requires opening to fully understand. It is based on the rumored secret underground base in Dulce, New Mexico, with a twist as the bottom level is a Vekoma torture machine to test the limits of human tolerance. This was different from my other entries since I started from the top and built down, which would be the logical step for an underground base. It required a lot of reading on the supposed contents of the base for me to try to capture the true feeling of it. I literally almost went crazy from reading it. With the message that anything possible could be hidden from us, I had thoughts secret government technology could have been messing with my head to keep me from finishing it, or I could be abducted and had experiments done on me, or some crazy shit like that. Needless to say, I won’t be reading more about it for a while.
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I shoot for a parkmaker spot for the recognition, sure, but also because it's a personal goal.
I still manage to have a shitload of fun playing the game, and ONLY post screens to get suggestions on how to improve. I want to build beautiful, realistic looking parks that i would have fun in in rl, and I want to be able to throw my own ideas in there as I go. It's fun, sometimes it looks good, I like it.
There's a happy medium here, and I'd like to think I've found it.
What I said earlier was that i'd feel much more accomplished if I had to work as hard as say, turtle, to win a parkmaker spot. Granted, I'd be overjoyed to get it now, but I don't deserve it, so even if it was offered, I'd turn it down. I suck at the game, but I have fun sucking at it.
Also if Camcorder has a spot, why the crap doesn't Loopy have a spot? I think he deserves the spot more than anybody who's been crowned Parkmaker recently, with the exception of maybe 5dave. LL prejudice is what it is starting to feel like, imo.
So if I manage to get an entry in for PT3 and do fairly well, will I get a Parkmaker spot too? Sorry, kinda pissed in general right now, not in a good mood...
Edited by Gwazi, 06 February 2008 - 11:04 PM.
Corkscrewed Offline
Make sense?
Everyone will have some form of selfishness in building RCT Parks and advertising them, or in taking part in a contest. This is perfectly fine, as long as winning a contest or becoming a parkmaker is not your ONLY reason for playing RCT.
Savvy?
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Now, to be honest, I would have objected to a non-parkmaker automatically becoming a parkmaker just by getting to the final four--had I actually bothered to read the MM thread and pay attention. I didn't, so I don't have much of a case. But here's my theoretical argument:
A parkmaker makes parks. You can't justify awarding a parkmaker spot in a contest where you're not even making parks. Micro Madness in its very nature is different from any type of contest at NE. You have 15x15 squares, which means there's no way you're building anything remotely immersive. So you try to combine immediate quality with quantity to get an edge. Only here's the thing: in this type of contest, quantity adds up much more quickly than in other situations.
Picture this theory: when you're judging a MM park, whether you're a judge or a regular member, you're trying to figure out its qualities. And essentially, if you were to turn that into a formula, how good a park is basically matches what it would score if you were to use the equation SCORE = (QUANTITY) x (QUALITY)
This is true for everything, but the quantity becomes magnified in MM.
Lets say that filling one plane of a map nets you a quantity of 1. And for quality, lets score from 0-10, with zero being crappy and 10 being Spotlight quality work. Because a MM is so small, and it's so easy to get bored because there's only so much that can be on a standard map, parks that have more stuff, even if it's of average lesser quality, will have the advantage over parks with less stuff that averages a higher quality.
EXAMPLE:
I look at Camcorder's park and note that it's got a ton of stuff there. He built and built and built, and did a pretty good but not amazing job. So for quantity, I'd say he scores a 3, because there's effectively about three levels of content. In terms of theming/coasters/overall park quality, it's nice, but not great. I'd give it around a 6.5 (those of you who've been here for years may be familiar with my park ratings system from my Corkscrewed's Reviews; I'm judging on the same criteria). Multiply those two and Camcorder "scores" 19.5 pts.
Look at my park. Lets say that the quantity in my park scores at a 2, because I've got about two levels of work there. I honestly would say that my quality is higher; the theming is more refined, I like my coaster better; I have two coasters; I have more experience than Cam here. So lets say the quality is an 8. Well, plug that into the formul and I get 16 pts. Less than Camcorder. He wins, not because he had an overall better park than I did, but because he had a good park and more of it.
The above math was for illustrative purposes. But I think you understand the concept I'm getting at. Micro Madness rewards putting stuff down more than other contests where you have a larger map and can develop atmosphere and don't have to rely only on the stack effect trick. How many times did we get comments like "this was nice, but I got bored quick." That's the nature of this contest, more than anything. And that's why it's geared to allow upsets like this matchup. That's not to say that you can build tons of crap and get away with it. Say someone built like ten layers of stuff and scored a 10 for quantity. If the quality is still a 0.5, that's not going to get him anywhere.
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Now is there anything wrong with this? No, not at all. In fact, I really like this contest and applaud Kumba for coming up with the twist on QftB:X to create something that generates this buzz. Micro Madness is a nice contest that caters to a different style of parkmaking, but it's not the only thing going on at the site, so I don't think it's a problem to hold a contest like this.
However, I will say that it doesn't properly measure a person's caliber according to parkmaker standards, because you're not actually making enough to test. Anyone can make something amazing on a tiny map in a week with this. But not everyone can make something amazing on a full size map even if they had months.
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Now, I'm not going to protest violently or anything. Who knows, maybe we're catching Camcorder at an early stage, and six months from now, he'll be as highly regarded as CP6. Or maybe not. I have no problem with his accepting a parkmaker spot. He just knows that he's got a lot to prove. Ya know... kinda like Shaq going to Phoenix.
I've never thought RCT was important enough to argue seriously and violently over. Debating is fine; just keep it civil.
P.S. The last time people got this upset for me, D-Net was celebrating its new Spotlight, R.U.P.E. I know, 90% of you are like "WTF is RUPE?!?!?!"
Corkscrewed Offline
A micro park is 15x15. A standard full sized park is about 120x120. That's 64 times the size of a micro!
So if you build some amazing stuff on a micro, you've done some great work. But just think--if you wanted to get a Spotlight, you'd have to maintain that quality throughout a full park. You'd have to maintain that quality for 64 times as much as you built!
So put that in perspective. Because even a Pro Tour park (lets assume it's 90x90 to make math easier) is 36 times as large as a Micro, so to maintain a super high level of building, you have work 36 times harder.
And even if you brought it down to an H2H map (assume 60x60), that's still 16 times greater than a micro park, AND you're probably going two or even three times in a season. If you assume you do half the work on every park, you're still trying 24 times harder than in a micro, and you don't see people getting parkmakered for exemplary performance in H2H quite as easily as you see someone becoming a parkmaker by reaching a milestone in a contest.
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Again, these numbers are for illustrative purposes only, but you get the idea.
just for randomness' sake i wanna throw in what i always had to hear when i went dramatical about the health and prosperity of our beloved child name nedesigns.com:
IT IS JUST A GAME. GET A LIFE!!!
that said,
ole is the man of this thread.
i don't really want to get into this, just want to say i've always been for it to change ne in such a way that people will no longer see the game as a mean to promote themselves. of course, that's easier said than done, because i think 95% of mankind gets the fun out of "winning" something, rather than the process of doing it itself.
Everyone plays the game for their own reasons, no one reason is better than any other. You want to play for yourself, that's fine. You want to play for recognition? That's also fine. You'll probably quit the game when you don't experience the success you want, and will go and search for it in other walks of life.
Me, I love playing this game, but I mostly love people liking my work. I like submitting something and people telling me how nice it was. I probably mostly play for the recognition. However, the fact that i'm still playing on and off after so long tells me that I still really like just playing the game, and creating something that I see in my head.
There's nothing wrong with playing for recognition, especially on a message board for a site that rewards people so much for playing with accolades, parkmaker spots and the like.
On Camcorder getting parkmaker, I was a little confused at first, but it makes sense. This is a major contest on the site, getting in the final 4 is a great accomplishment. What the site needs is more active parkmakers. I remember the days of waiting to see which parkmaker got the next spotlight or design. Now, there aren't many active parkmakers who are actually making full parks... or anything for that matter. Some new parkmakers might get people building more.
So really, this is a game, there's no reason to be mad that Camcorder got parkmaker unless you're jealous. And if you are, then work harder to get that parkmaker spot you think you deserve!
But what do I know, I had to drop out of round 2 and haven't played RCT since
Corkscrewed-the park was a great idea, getting this far in, you really have to have updown parks to win and this was great. the colors were nice and the ideas and what not were great. the coaster was fun, although packes, but what can you expect. the flying cyro thing was great. i think you had alot of good things, but what happened was there was alot of room to expand. i saw alot of built up brown land mounds, and was thinking you could try to fit some 'inside buidling' theming by hallowing those out. i think you had a great park, it just feel abit short.
Camcorderer-WHOA was that big. you must have been building the higest you could from the hightes land point to get that much height. the flying saucers were by far my favorite. the quick then slow was great and really pulled off a great alien observation sort of effect. the rest was an awesome idea. the whole hidden lab, illegal human pain facility and what not was great. i think there you fell short was the execution. you could tell what things where here and there, but there were floors that i couldnt tell what they were. also, everything was sooo grey. i think that you could have had both a lab look, as well was some atmosphere and color. it was good, but the colors really didnt excite me. the coaster was a nice idea, somewhat fun to watch, but not amazing. overall, i think you deserved the win on idea and attempted execution, but the overall quality no better then corks. you won, but not by alot IMO
Again congrats both!
on the explotion of opinion about playing the game, im kinda like turtle. i LOVE the game, and love playing and building and doing new creative things, but everyone loves getting some recognition. i would not say i build to impress, but i would not say i only play for myself, im more in the middle...
FK
Edited by FK+Coastermind, 07 February 2008 - 06:04 PM.
FullMetal Offline
Corkscrewed Offline
(I have a tendency to complicate things up, but that's the simplest way I could explain an abstract idea.)
I liked the whole idea, it was amazing. I liked the levels, the ideas and details throughout. The coaster was pretty intense, but reading the story it totally makes sense. I don't like those huge "pillar-parks", but it works quite well here. Although a bit sloppy in some parts (naming, messyness,...) it was nice to look at and hold my attention for quite a while. The only thing that's bad IMO is that you have to read the read-me file to fully understand the story. Nice idea to tell such a story and to make fun of Vekoma
Nemesis X:
Again, a very fantastic entry. The rides were all well executed, although there were a bit too much rides for a non peep-friendly park IMO. The park looked somehow peep-friendly but it unfortunately wasn't. The crashed ship in that mountain was a genius idea and also well executed. The entry had a lot of atmosphere. The only let-down for me were the missing details at the back of the mountain. There was just nothing to see there unfortunately.
"MFG"
Corkscrewed Offline