H2H3 / H2H3 Awards Voting Discussion

The thing is, the park was finished about two weeks before the deadline. I was then away for the week on which the deadline was on, and it didn't get sent in. Was pretty hilarious, though.

"finished"

In that particular case you guys could've done much better, lets leave it at that.

ride6

Ok, let me reiterate.

My part was finished.

Ok, let me reiterate. 

My part was finished.

Ah now, that makes much more sense.

ride6

How the heck did we win with no "Best Parks"???

I think you won by getting more votes, not by makeing the better parks

How the heck did we win with no "Best Parks"

You got lucky.

H2H3 Park of the Year: Aviara Cove

Ghost Cell Crisis was a brilliant concept pulled off perfectly, but it was also fairly small in scale. Cajamarca 1532 had some good ideas, but also felt unfinished. Aviara Cove was the park that had the best total package of ideas and execution. It was super-detailed, contained some fantastic architecture, a great custom free-fall ride, and those cool underground themed caves. The flying coaster wasn't very good, but just about everything else about the park was fantastic. I thought Gotheburg was very well-done, just a notch below Cajamarca since it really only had the one ride. I'm surprised Eternal Springs City wasn't nominated because I had that marked down as the third best park of the season just below Aviara Cove and Ghost Cell Crisis. A lot of problems with the rides not running or missing a piece of track, but otherwise a phenomenal piece of work. Disastrous Paradise had some great architecture, but not much else. Same with Venetian Harbor which I wouldn't even put in my top 10. It didn't have any rides.

Most Valuable Parkmaker: ride6

It really came down to X-Sector and ride6 for me since they had the biggest victories. That's a tough call since both were equally instrumental in earning their team the championship. X-Sector won in week 10 to advance the Germans into the playoffs and pulled out a close victory in match one of the finals. ride6 won in the divisional championship to advance the Germans to the finals and pulled out the closest of all victories in the second finals match to claim the championship. I give ride6 the edge here for two reasons. One, he pulled off one victory all by himself which makes me think he's slightly more responsible for those two victories. Two, Eternal Springs City was my third favorite park of the season. Corkscrewed was largely responsible for two victories for his team. He was really only a third finals match away from winning MVP I think. As much as I love Aviara Cove, his first park was executed well, but not an especially original idea. Blitz gets a ton of respect from me for pulling off Ghost Cell Crisis so well. With only one park to his name though, the nomination is accomplishment enough I think. And I didn't even manage to finish one of my parks, so I don't feel like an MVP myself.

Best Steel Coaster: Pandemonium

An easy choice for me. Not only was Pandemonium a compeletely different type of coaster than we're used to seeing, it was also was the most complete looking coaster in the way it interacted with the theming and the landscaping of the park. It was paced like an adventure ride but without any of the slow meandering turns we're used to seeing on such rides. It really did take you on a journey through the park. Das Duell was very well done, but it's nothing terribly new either. Same for Peregrin. Very solid coasters, but not exceptional. WME's duelers were very well done, I especially like that opening duel, but there's really a limit to how impressive this type of thing is when you've seen it 100 times. WME's layouts tend to be more original than most, but it still doesn't compare to the originality of something like Pandemonium. Halotosis didn't really stand out to me as an exceptional coaster. The coasters in Paradise Island and Space Lake River Shrine would have been equally deserving. Even the Moche Temple Gliders. Collision Course was a good idea, and definately something original, but it wasn't really finished in the way I intended it to be. That pyramid was there for the two tracks to duel in and I had such a tough time getting the mechanism of the ride to work properly, that I never could finish the layout how I wanted it to be. On the other hand, I am very proud of how well the visible portions of the track are integrated into the theming. I guess the unfinished nature of Aquatica kindof disqualified it, but I think Deep Blue is probably worth a mention.

Best Wood Coaster: Casseus

There were a number of very nice wooden coasters this season. The two that really stood out to me were Echo and Casseus. I love how well Echo used the unique landscape of Excavation de la Forclaz. It had an unusual kindof pacing with large drops at the end half of the ride and was very inventive with the layout. Casseus was a very different type of terrain woodie. It's appeal came mainly from the twisted stretches of track interacting with themselves more than with the landscaping. It was probably the unfinished theming of Echo that made me go with Casseus because the theming is a part of how I evaluate the ride experience. Of the other wooden coasters Tantrum and Lush Valley Roar were really exceptional coaster for about half their layouts and pretty ordinary ones for the rest. Dragon Rider had a nice curving first drop but not much else to remember it by and Anaconda was pretty average.

Best Non-Coaster: Apocalypse Plunge

The clear winner I think in terms of inventiveness. What I love about this ride is that you can watch it working without making the walls invisible. That makes this ride better than the other similar Tower of Terror type rides found in a lot of parks. The correlation between ride and theming to create a unique experience was worthy of merit. Escape from Rockwood Prison had some new ideas (the collapsing bridge expecially) but was basically just another adventure ride that went on a little too long. Filling a whole map with Go-Karts was an interesting idea but I would have liked to see more interesting theming from such a concept than some pretty ordinary mountains and trees. The Mario Kart rainbow track was a fun reference. More of that kind of thing would have made it better. It's hard to really make a water ride standout without doing something new. And then with Drive-By Practice, it's kind of ambivalent to me whether that could even be considered a ride or if it's theming. It didn't seem to do much. I guess the submarine rides in Aquatica may have earned a nomination had they been finished. I loved the heartline coaster in Artesian Water Works. Those would probably fit best under this category.

Best Captain: Kumba

If you look at the records at the end of the season, it was all very close. The Vehemences make the playoffs if the Hurricanes and MoLLesters don't tie in week 2 since they had the tie breaker over each of them. The IIICons make the playoffs if they win in week 10. And even in the playoffs, most of the matchups were very close. I don't think it was a matter of any captain really out-leading anybody else, it just came down to voter preferences. And with only one forfeit the whole season, everybody did a good job of keep their team competitive. I think the MoLLesters winning with LL parks was mostly a misperception. They only scored three victories the whole season and one was done with an RCT2 park. It was the unexpected parrity across the board that kept them competitive. Really I think with no clear winner it's between Posix and Kumba. I gave the vote to Kumba mainly because I know how involved he was in every aspect of the process. Not to mention he participated in three parks himself, two of which earned victories.

Best Chemistry: Blitz-Sama and Darkjanus

Any of these choices would be good ones for this category since the parks mentioned didn't feel like the work of two parkmakers, but rather one unified whole. That's even more impressive for a concept park like Ghost Cell Crisis which is really only one theme/ride with not a lot of room for variation. It's always a big question mark to all but those involved exactly how the work was split up. However they divided up the work, all of the nominees did a great job of producing a consistent finished product. Ghost Cell Crisis was the best park though, so that's as good a criteria as any for deciding between them.

Worst Chemistry: Kumba and Jacko Shanty

I think a good argument could be made for Turtle and muuuh considering they never did finish the park (whoever was responsible) and cost their team two matches as the result of the miscommunication. That actually makes it a worse collaboration than Kumba and Jacko Shanty's park, which actually had a lot of solid ideas in it. Unfortunately, I think it was Kumba and Jacko's inability to really integrate their seperate parts of Day After Tomorrowland which cost them the match and consequently the H2H3 finals. They produced the best park out of any of these nominees, but they were a couple votes away from extending the finals to an elimination match and it was mostly due to the chemistry problems so I think this one had the most negative impact.

Most Disappointing: Turtle

Gymkid's almost total absence was disappointing. Natelox's unfinished park and unfunctioning coaster park was disappointing. Jacko's unfinished Suck City park was disappointing though he made up for it somewhat with some nice contributions to The Day After Tomorrowland. It was disappointing that Phatage wasn't able to score a win for his team, but he did submit some very nice work in two parks. Not the dominating presence we've seen in other contests, but at least he made some attempt. Metro disappeared, but he wasn't the only notable person to only release one park. John's abscence from all but week 1 was more disappointing to me, even though that wasn't his fault. X-Sector would have been in the same place had his park lost in week 10. I think Turtle was the most disappointing considering his recent spotlight. His team must have expected more than a little bit of work on a mediocre park. Personally, I'm most disappointed I didn't get to see another park from Blitz (especially since I know what his plans were).

Good Idea/Bad Results Award: The Cave

This is a tough one for me to decide. The Cave had the biggest disparity between quality of idea and quality of execution. Hotel of Horrors was just unfinished in a major way. I'm not sure Star Wars Death Star Assault could be considered a good idea in the first place. Same with Suck City. Monopoly Tycoon I think was better than most people give it credit for. Really the only problem I had with that park is that it didn't aspire to do more with the concept, but for what it was it was at least well-executed. The Day After Tomorrowland had the best idea of any of them I think with the sequence of events and really didn't go anywhere with it. I could have voted for it again simply because it was so disappointing in a finals match to see a cool concept fail so miserably. But ultimately I had to go with The Cave because there are so many cool ride ideas to go along with that and the park didn't do any of them.

Rookie of the Year: ride6

How can you win MVP and not win rookie of the year? Answer: you can't. Kumba deserves some recognition here as a first time captain taking captain of the year (based on my voting) and producing some solid work along the way, but it's really a pretty easy choice considering how important ride6 was to his team. Every playoff park submitted by the Germans had either X-Sector or ride6 at the helm, and all were victorious. Blitz was very impressive certainly. A lot of people probably can't even remember the last time Blitz released something and he just blew everyone away with Ghost Cell Crisis. Like I said before, he sat on the Blue Meanies bench last season, so he’s technically not a rookie. Slob was a heavy hitter in this contest, even if he never got a victory. The quality of his parks was up there with the best of them. John produced a very nice park and probably would have gone on to contend for this award if the Seal Clubbers had made it to the finals. JKay also did some very nice work in his unique style. Artesian Water Works was one of the most impressive displays of ¼ tile theming I’ve ever seen.

Sleeper of the Year: Splash-O

I think Drew, Loopy, and Six Frags performed on par with what expectations. Magnus is a guy I didn’t really know, so he surprised me a little more. Raven had a very good season for the Seal Clubbers. But really it’s Splash-O who made the biggest, er, splash. Cliffs of Utopia was one of the better parks of the season and then his work on The Faraway Tree helped his team win a match in the finals. He took a primary role on a championship team. That’s very impressive for someone who wasn’t very well known going into the season.

Best Match-Up: Cajamarca 1532 vs. Ghost Cell Crisis

If you go by vote totals and win importance, it’s definitely the two finals matches that should win. Sierra Glen and Symphony of Pollution was an interesting match that pitted LL against RCT2 and ended in an improbable tie. Artesian Water Works and Eternal Springs City was probably the toughest choice I’ve had to make in voting all season. But just in terms of two very good parks going against each other from two last place teams trying to make a come back with big names involved on each side, friends even, I think Cajamarca and Ghost Cell Crisis was the biggest match. The awakening of Blitz and the return of Ed at the same time, and one of them had to lose. But then maybe I’m a little biased. 

Biggest News Item: Iris and Toon leave the Icons

There were a lot of good storylines this season with Slob’s unability to break through for a win, the Seal Clubber’s free-fall from best record to average record after two non-votes, the Vehemences losing an almost certain victory to a technicality and going into an 0-2 hole, the hilarious coincidence of week 8’s bedroom parks (at least they didn’t face each other). All very good stuff. But it was the first one that sent the biggest ripples through H2H3 and changed the outcome of the season dramatically.

Best Losing Park: Cajamarca 1532
Coming off a fantastic season in H2H2 I knew I had a lot to live up to. I stepped it up to 70x70, threw in a huge ship sculpture, used river rapids track for paths in a way I’ve never seen it used before, and invented a new type of dueling ride and I still couldn’t get a win. It just goes to show how much everyone else has caught up to me in the year or so since I last released anything. There were some other terrific parks that suffered close losses, but this one I think was the most surprising. Especially for me!

Worst Winning Park: Strange Happenings in Time

How a park can be as unfinished as Aquatica and The Boardwalk and still manage to win while parks like Gotheburg and Cajamarca get losses is pretty astounding. That’s the unpredictability that makes H2H so interesting. I actually liked Paradise Island a lot and Go Kart Chaos was a decent park that went against some pretty crummy competition (which got disqualified anyway for good measure). Rainbow Valley had some solid architecture, but suffered from ‘more of the same’ syndrome. It’s really Strange Happenings in Time that stands out. It wasn’t the worst park of the season, but it was pretty close. Which made the disqualification that much harder to swallow.

Worst Park of the Year: Blossom Springs
This park might have even won the award in H2H2. At least 50% of it was trees and the rest of it wasn’t that impressive either.

LL Park of the Year: Cajamarca 1532

I liked some of the stuff in the MoLLesters parks, but many of them felt like they were stamped from the same mold to me. Some sort of bizarre mix of technological gaggetry with trees and earthy textures. It all seemed rather unfocused and boring. Hanson and Space Lake River Shrine had more of a sense of purpose, but they also used the horribly cliché ‘lake in the middle of the map’ technique. The Tissot Archipelago had a chance to be something nice, but it felt very rushed considering it only had one coaster and it wasn’t working. This really isn’t much of a contest.

Ed, you've inspired me to finish Forclaz.

Good! Please do.

See, this is what I love about Ed. He gives amazing feedback.

I vote Ed for non-participating captain next year! (unless he DOES want to participate)

btw,

Good Idea/Bad Results Award
1.The Cave by Old Red and Gymkid Dude
2.Hotel of Horrors (Under Construction) by Phatage and Anolis
3.Star Wars Death Assault by ride6 and jon
4.Another Night in Suck City by Jacko Shanty and RCTNW
5.The Day After Tomorrowland by Kumba and Jacko Shanty
6.Monopoly Tycoon by Mindbender and Valp

You've already voted for Excavation de la Forclaz