10 Year Anniversary / History of New Element - 2004

10 Days, 10 Years

- 2004 -

by Kumba

It can be argued that 2004 marked the peak of activity at New Element. Eight NE Spotlights were released in 04 and two fantastic new contests were born. While other years had seen more spotlights, the quality bump in these spotlights was significant.

January kicked off with the final round of prelim entries by “non-NE Parkmakers” to the first NE Pro Tour. Gymkid Dude won the adventure ride round with a Grand Theft Auto inspired car chase design. At the end of the month Posix took home his second of what would later be six NE Designs with Machete. Days later Posix made a lot more noise. This time with a little help…

Audrix Towers was released in early February. It was the first NE Spotlights of 08 and showcased some fantastic LL parkmaking by Posix and X-Sector.
 

Audrix Towers, by x-sector and posix

March was the start of what would be two outstanding months of RCT at NE. Mantis’ legendary solo park WOMB was released as an NE Spotlight. To this day many argue that WOMB is one of the best, if not the best LL parks ever created. cBass was upgraded to NE Parkmaker for a combination of his PT prelim and his RCT2.com VP park winner, Wisconsin. NE Parkmaker status was huge in those days. The catch was you had to impress iris, who normally would pick on his own. With an earlier version of H2H3 stalled since 2003 an H2H3 re-draft was done in March.
 

Walkman of my Brain, by mantis

Map of Walkman of my Brain, by mantis. When you see it, you'll shit bricks.

Easter April 13, 2003 was possibly the biggest day in the history of NE. Hidden parks had been done before, but on this day it was taken to another level. Three NE Spotlights were hidden. To find them you had to go an “Ester egg hunt” around the website. Some clues took you to more clues and some took you to the NE Spotlights. The first of the eggs was The Aegean by natelox. The second egg was City of Dreams, formerly a LOS collabo, by X-Sector, Mantis and Toon. The third and grand egg was Disney’s Movie Magic by Fatha. Also in April the NE Awards nominees were announced. At the end of the month Phatage’s Six Flags Worlds of Excitement was released and we got our first real glimpse at the future of RCT2. Realism.
 

The Aegean, by Natelox

City of Dreams, by x-sextor, mantis and Toon

Disney's Movie Magic by Fatha'

In May already hot Parkmakers Posix and Phatage won NE Design with Nagas and Fire Dragon. Also in H2H3 my Hurricanes team was churning up a storm. Following the draft our roster was: Coaster Ed, Voodoo, Blitz, Metropole, Aeroglobe, leighx, Steve, Loopy, Raven and me. After a series of trades we ended up with: Coaster Ed, Corkscrewed, Phatage, Blitz-Sama, DarkJanus, Aeroglobe, Hevydevy, PenguinBOB, Loopy and me. This would lead to the eventual second re-draft of H2H3.

June gave us another NE Spotlight in the form of DisneySea Spain by Corkscrewed. The NE Awards were held on June 9. It was a pretty classic show that featured lifetime achievement award for Mala, who shocked everyone by coming to the chat to accept the award. Mantis won NE Parkmaker of the Year and LL Park of the Year for WOMB. Phatage narrowly won the Best Non-NE Parkmaker award over me to claim his NE Parkmaker spot. Oh and bokti made the startling revelation that he was “maked” during the show…

July was a huge month for NE contests. The Pro Tour (That’s the PT1) contest finals parks started to be released in mid June and the top seven were released in early July. cBass got the win thanks to Basics of my Brain (BOMB). He beat out Mala’s Rift Valley for win. On AIM he told me that, “I can't believe I beat Mala. It feels like I kicked Jesus in the balls or something.” The Quest for the Best: Xtreme contest started up in July. The premise was basically that 64 parkmakers face off 1 on 1 on a huge bracket. Each round cut the field in half, 64 to 32 to 16 to 8 to 4 to 2 to 1. Also in July Meretrix won his second NE Spotlight with Disney’s Phantasia. Kevin won NE Design for Helios in July and was immediately elevated to NE Parkmaker by iris.
 

Basics of my Brain, by cBass

Helios by Kevin

QFTBX was all the buzz in August. The #1 seeds were Mantis, Toon, X-Sector and JKay who replaced Fatha. Round 1 of QFTBX was released late in July. Surprisingly no “big name” parkmakers lost in round 1, but a couple did forfeit. The same was true for round 2, but #1 seed Toon was one of the forfeits. Cork and Metropole each won close matches against Titan and Turtle. In round 3 things heated up when X-Sector lost… you can thank me for that. Also in round 3 Mantis mailed it in against Mortician and was taken out. The final four would be Cork, nate, JKay and Jacko Shanty. It took place later in the year. Cork beat JKay in what might have been the best duel of the contest. A pathetic Jacko Shanty forfeit put nate into the final against Cork. For some reason that championship match never came and it was just concluded that Cork won for RCT2 and nate won for LL. The full QFTBX bracket is still available here

September and October were fairly quiet months. A lot of work was going into possible QFTBX and H2H3 entries. Iris issued his first ever “NE state of the union” address in September where he announced a focus on plans for NE3. He also decided to crackdown on inactive NE Parkmakers and required them to post a certain amount of screenshots. In October a pair of NE Designs were released. Hawkeye by sloB was an instant hit and it along with Caymen IoA sparked a “sloB style” that was later attempted in many parks. Still, the real history in this time span came from the brilliant brain of Adix and it was called a Fiesta!

In November it was decided that H2H3 would again be re-drafted. Most teams were falling apart and a few captains had even quit. My Hurricanes were treated with the same regard as today’s Miami Heat. I again picked Ed first in the H2H3 (version 3) draft and later traded him to Butterfinger for Cork and sloB. After a NE Spotlight drought Turtle made it rain with Bijou Magique.
 

Turtle's Bijou Magique

After years of rule under the iron fist of iris NE got its first admin change in December. Cork was appointed the new “overloard” of NE. As he was, and is still to this day, one of the most popular people at the site his appointment was met enthusiastically. H2H3 had its first round of parks released in early December and Cork was on center stage for his parkmaking skills as Escape from Rockwood Prison was likely the best entry of the opening week. JKay continued to emerge as the top RCT2 player at the site late in 2004 when Universal Hawaii came close to netting an NE Spotlight.

 

Must-See Releases of 2004

Bijou Magique by Turtle Hawkeye by slob Premier Amusement Park by SupremeScreamer The Before and the After by Natelox Favela by Natelox Machete by posix Audrix Towers by x-sector and posix Walkman of my Brain by mantis Six Flags Worlds of Excitement by Phatage The Aegean by Natelox City of Dreams by Toon, x-sector & mantis Disney's Movie Magic by Fatha' Fire Dragon by Phatage DisneySea Spain by Corkscrewed The Divine Comedy by mantis Helios by Kevin Rift Valley by mala Basics of my Brain by cbass A Love Token by x-sector Disney's Phantasia by Meretrix

We apologise for the delay, the site being down has caused a bit of an adjustment to the schedule we had in place.

2004 by Kumba, enjoy!

Woo, Granted I didn't pay much attention to the site until the end of the year but still was great <3

I'm stoked for the next year!

Must have been weeks I spent looking at Helios back in the days ...

Must have been weeks I spent looking at Helios back in the days ...

Yuck... Helios is likely the most overrated design ever released. If it was sent in today id give it a 35/40% score. There are no shops, no peeps, just dull brown castle textures everywhere. The layout fails. In the 8 years since he's released it how many coasters has B&M made like that? Well, zero that are supported by blocks that can float on water. The atmosphere is very bland, but I will admit I like the courtyards. /rant. I included it because it did lead to a surprising new NE Parkmaker spot.

Hope you guys like my reviews. I put a lot of time and research into them.

No offense Kumba but Helios has better looks than any of your releases.

Weird I thought the atmosphere of Helios(colors, arch, music) made it one of the best designs ever.

@Liampie, I think Roman Vice beats Helios in every way possible.

Even with those two bigass palaces?

Hmmmm...I'm not sure hmmmmmm

These are the years I wish I had been around for. I remember being fascinated with Audrix Towers when I first discovered NE.

come on, guys. we're here to celebrate and you two are being fussy fusspots?

excellent review, kumba. i was 10 in 2004. i'm young as shit.