10 Year Anniversary / History of New Element - 2006

10 Days, 10 Years

- 2006 -

by Kumba

2006 was a year with as many ups and downs as the coasters we make. There were disappointments. Iris left NE in September, there were no NE awards handed out during the calendar year and only one NE Spotlight was awarded. The ups included the awesome entries in the Pro Tour 2 and H2H4 and the aforementioned NE Spotlight.

February and March were highlighted by the PT2 finals parks. There were some truly fantastic entries in the bunch. cBass did not repeat, but did submit a pretty damn good entry, Zodiac Thrills. Non-NE-Parkamers had a great showing as X250, Steve and Ride6 all placed high with strong entrees. The top there were Phatage, Cork and Xcoaster. DisneyAir stunned just about everyone. It contained a level of detail not seen in RCT2 before and had a breathtaking atmosphere… just a corner was missing… don’t contest deadlines suck! Cork’s Tierra Mortica was insane. Cork went the extra, extra mile and decided to create a new human language for the park and used it on the text for everything in the park. Phatage went the realistic rout and took won the win for Busch Gardens Sydney. It was really a fantastic park and like all Phatage parks the rides were pretty much perfect.

XCoaster's DisneyAir

Corkscrewed's Tierra Mortica

Phatage's Busch Gardens Sydney

In a backstage staff forum Toon took requests for new objects. Phatage asked for B&M supports and the rest is history. Since Toon did not want to just post a .zip of .DATs on the forums the NE Parkmakers had a little race to see who could be the first to make an NE Design with the supports. No surprise, JKay was the fastest and Blue Thunder was the vehicle used to release Toon’s B&M support set.

Blue Thunder by JKay

In May the NE Spotlight finally got to flash across the sky as JKay won with Divinity Ridge. It was a spotlight, but not a great one with all its bright colors and overused candy theme. Another, figurative, spotlight flashed that May, this one in the shape of… Batman! Fatha, a big Darth Maul fan, went over to the RCT2 dark side for his first and only NE Design win, Batman Night Flyer.

Divinity Ridge by JKay

Batman Night Flyer by Fatha'

H2H4 kicked off with a pretty nice first week of parks, just nothing too amazing. In week two three great parks were released. Kayte Ridge by CedarPoint6 and geewhzz vs. Internet City by X250 and Leighx was one of quite a few H2H4 match-ups of downright awesome parks where it’s a shame that one of them must lose. Week three saw Emergo’s first ever NE release, Mont Saint Michel by her and Six Frags. It won easy, but was overshadowed by Fatha' and bokti's Slime Meridian, which is likely one of the best H2H parks ever made. In week four the Tycoon Bandits unleashed the big guns on the Hurricanes. Hallowhusk Cove by Corkscrewed and JKay was a combo that almost no one could have beat at that time. Week five’s top park was the Hurricane’s Tierra Aventura by Steve & J K. In week six the unthinkable happed… Kitabasaki Dragonland, a solo Ferocious Tigers park by Coaster Ed… lost an H2H match! True, he did lose to Ghost Cell Crisis in H2H3, but Ed was the undisputed king of H2H parks. His second loss was a shock. Now we do need to give credit where credit is due. Mamba Kilima by X250 and Chapelz was also an amazing park. This match-up sparked a debate over the fairness of an LL park facing a RCT2 park in a public vote.

Mamba Kilima by X250 and Chapelz

Kitabasaki Dragonland by Coaster Ed

Slime Meridian, by Fatha' and bokti

In September iris had vanished for a while, despite having an H2H4 team to captain. Many were concerned about the future of the site since his interest was clearly starting to fade. Every now and then iris would sign on AIM. One day I decided to see if he might be interesting in selling the site to me. To my surprise he jumped at the offer of $200 I made for the site. We went over ideas for transferring the money. Turned out the most fast and easy way to do it was for him to pick it up from my sister. They did not know each other, but they both went to Florida State University at the time. I called my sister and asked her to write iris a check and told her I would pay her back. Though hesitant, she agreed. As it turned out before writing the check my sister, a psychology major, called my mother, a former lawyer. They decided that if $200 of my money was going to change hands a receipt was needed. Apparently iris did not have a problem with it and signed over New Element to me:

A copy of the receipt iris signed to transfer the rights to NE

My first actions as webmaster were to add new life to the staff with five new moderators (Panic, Steve, JKay, Magnus and X250) and I added ekimmel as an admin since he had a lot of technical experience and understood the system Adix had in place. I also wanted to try and put more focus on hard working parkmakers. Iris did not seem to take that into account and only went with his gut on a parkmaker’s skill.

When iris left Phatage took over the Demigods. Iris was not happy about Phatage’s repeated attempts to contact him about his inactivity as team captain. Phatage told me that because of this iris refused to pay him the $100 that was promised to the winner of the PT2. To my surprise Phatage did not want me to pay him the prize money. He wanted iris nominated for the NE Award that no one wanted to win back when it was around, the asshole of the year award (normally won by Posix). I was happy to help Phatage get even and put iris’ name down.

With iris away me and Cork in France I took over management of H2H4. I had a pretty good park to release in my first week on the job. The Tycoon Bandits’ Kukuana by RCTFAN and Turtle dripped with hot jungle atmosphere. I don’t know how they did it, I would have been banned from the site if I sent in anything with that much brown in it, but they made it work. It’s really a shame that it won by forfeit and did not get to pummel some other poor helpless H2H park. Weeks 8-10 did not provide parks as strong as the ones at the beginning and middle of H2H4. Most team’s top players were working on their playoff or finals parks.

Kukuana by Turtle and RCTFAN

A weekly “Favorite Park of *insert week here* poll was posted throughout the season. Here is a recap:

Week 1: Winner - Strangelove - The Seige at Castle Grijs by Ride6 & tracidEdge
Week 2: Winner - Strangelove - Slime Meridian by Fatha' & rainbow connection
Week 3: Winner - Hurricanes - The Great Carolina Quarry by Kumba & ekimmel
Week 4: Winner - Tycoon Bandits - Hallowhusk Cove by Corkscrewed & JKay
Week 5: Winner - Hurricanes - Tierra Aventura by Steve & J K
Week 6: Winner - Ferocious Tigers - Kitabasaki Dragonland by Coaster Ed
Week 7: Winner - Tycoon Bandits - Kukuana by Turtle & RCTFAN
Week 8: Winner - Ferocious Tigers - Harkview Heights by Geewhzz & Drew
Week 9: Winner - Hurricanes - Arcade by Gymkid & Xcoaster
Week 10: Winner - Ferocious Tigers - Cutless Coast by 5Dave & Phil

In the playoffs Xcoaster and Steve's amazing Disney’s Shadowlands would have likely shutout most parks, but JKay’s squad put up another amazing park, Alice in Wonderland by Emergo and JKay. Shadowlands put us in the finals where we faced Evil WME’s Ferocious Tigers who were fresh off a win over a Ride6 Strangelove solo playoff park. An unfinished Mars Colony Eurolai by Ed and gee was all it took to get past the ever misunderstood Ride6. If you look at the roster now the Tigers seem stacked. Ed, WME, 5Dave, RCTNW, John, CedarPoint6, and geewhzz! Well at the time 5Dave, CP6 and gee were still a little unrefined. Myself and J K got the win over a very unfinished Snowdrift by CP6 and 5Dave in the first of the best “2 out of 3” final. Levis and Tyandor provided the knockout punch in match two with Nostalgia Vale which won by default since the Tigers failed to submit a park. After just barely losing the H2H3 championship by a total of two public forum votes, the Hurricanes got their H2H Championship.

Disney's Shadowlands by XCoaster and Steve

The 2006 NE Awards were handed out February 21, 2007. The results can be viewed here

Must-See Releases of 2006

At Versicoloured Valleys by emergo Port Azure by Splash-0 Divinity Ridge by JKay Batman Night Flyer by Fatha' Busch Gardens Sydney by Phatage Tierra Mortica by Corkscrewed DisneyAir by Xcoaster Euphoria City by Ride6 Sea World Brisbane by Steve The Time Machine by X250 Zodiac Thrills by cbass The Genesis by Magnus Mont Saint Michel by emergo and Six Frags Slime Meridian by Fatha' and rainbow connection (now bokti) The Seige at Castle Grijs by Ride6 and tracidEdge Kukuana by RCTFAN and Turtle Kitabasaki Dragonland by Coaster Ed Kilika by Loopy and Twisted Tierra Aventura by Steve and J K Anheuser Busch Park & Zoo by Kumba J K Disney's Shadowland by Xcoaster and Steve Alice in Wonderland by emergo and JKay Mars Colony Eurolai by Coaster Ed and geewhzz Tolán by J K Dueling Dragons by Faceman Mamba Kilima by X250 and chapelz Blue Thunder by JKay

I didn't do JUST a ride, there was more! Ryan, tell them! I'm so unloved

Nice read, Kumba!

And from this point on, what I read is not just a history, but a memory.

Phatage...you fucking genius. Probably the best realistic ride ever right there. (Other than La Cosa Nostra of course)

Ah Kitabasaki Dragonland. So amazing and so tragic...

I didn't do JUST a ride, there was more! Ryan, tell them! I'm so unloved

Nice read, Kumba!

Yeah, that made me feel bad for you. Basically, you did the Black Cauldron darkride and much of the surrounding area (which turned out awesome), the basic landscaping for the Badlands, and the original layouts for Dragon's Tower (tiny looping coaster) and Spirit Mountain (the launched Australian mine train/woodie), both of which I ended up rearranging (Dragon's Tower not nearly as much). Here's what I posted in the original topic:

Dark Kingdom-
*Steve did much of the Dragon's Tower layout (I think the station, prelift, lift, and first drop), and had originally done the entire thing. Then Kumba gave an order to hardcore the coasters a bit, so this and Spirit Mountain were changed. I changed up the layout a bit, changed the trains, and added in the loop. If you needed to give it a manufacturer, I'd always imagined it as a Mack spiral lift steel coaster (similar to Euro Sat) but with a loop. I think it fits, especially with the trains it has.
*Steve's biggest contribution was making pretty much the entire Black Cauldron corner.
Badlands
*Steve was originally in charge of this section, but I ended up doing most of it. He did do a layout for the coaster, and a logflume, and he did some of the basic landscaping shapes, which was helpful. I ended up taking out the log flume, since I didn't have many theming ideas for it, and a coaster helix seemed easier.
*The coaster (previously it was New Gold Mountain, but I changed it to Spirit Mountain since it was less of a mouthful and fit the theme I was going for better) was originally a minetrain. Kumba insisted we make the coasters more exciting, so I changed it too a wooden coaster, and changed quite a bit of the layout. The basic idea is still about the same, and the layout from the brake run to the first drop is the same as Steve had it. Also, when I got the park from him, the coaster wasn't quite complete, and I wasn't sure what he was doing with the banked track at the top of the lift, so I decided to make it a launch lift so that we could keep the banked track. Plus, it made it a little different.

Anyways, I've really been enjoying these write-ups, thanks for putting these out there!

Crap, I had meant to edit that part this morning. Just for some reason I had it in my head you only did that one ride... my bad guys. Just edited it.

I like that for this review I was able to use a scan of what might be the only historical NE document

Ha, thanks Ryan, you tell 'em

And this was the year that I wish could repeat itself. Why don't we ever see any DisneyAir's or Mamba Kilima's anymore?

Sigh, 2006 was the last time I ever finished a park?.... I'm getting old xD

Anyway I still remember the awesomeness that was Disney Air. Still think that Xcoaster got screwed over with it 'only' getting third place.