10 Year Anniversary / History of New Element - 2007

10 Days, 10 Years

- 2007 -

by Liampie

2007 was quite a turbulent year for NE, in both positive and negative ways. H2H4 just ended in an anticlimactic way, and some people complained that there weren't enough active NE parkmakers. If you looked at the NE parkmakers page, the list of retired parkmakers was indeed at least three times as long as the active parkmakers' list. And even from the list of active parkmakers, not everyone was actually still active. The old formula of NE didn't work anymore, but it took the management quite a while to understand. A problem that surfaced in 2007.

This is evident from the Pro Tour 3, which Kumba launched in April. At first it looked like it was going to be a great contest with a ridiculous amount of entries, then Kumba lost some credibility with biased judging decisions during the Prelims and giving out random wildcards, and then it looked like there wasn't going to be a Pro Tour 3 at all. Instead, NE got Micro Madness in November which was quite a success, contrary to the Pro Tour. A ridiculous amount of 64 people entered, of which not even that many people forfeited. Some old names came back, as filling a small map didn't require too much effort, and some new names appeared to steal the show. Of course this all couldn't go without a little controversy. The whole contest can best be illustrated by Round 1 - Match-up #10. RRP came out of retirement. Kumba gave him a #1 seed, proportional to his reputation on the site. He faced the #16 seed Xin, now known as FullMetal, who was considered an annoying prick back then. No one doubted that RRP would win this match single-handedly. However, RRP's entry called "1" was very unfinished and confusing. Xin's map wasn't anything special, but it was finished. Xin, the site's pain in the arse, beat the legend with 3-0. More positively, the unknown #14 seed Camcorder22 appeared to have an amazing talent for cramming incredible amounts of content on a 15² map. With arguably the craziest entries in the whole contest, he easily made it through the first few rounds beating more experienced players like Fanatic of RCT and OLE (Milo). Even though the outcome of these matches were unexpected and shocking, it was clear that Xin and Camcorder should've won. In other cases this wasn't as clear. Like during the Pro Tour 3 prelims, the judging system was said to be horribly flawed. Kumba learned from the Pro Tour and actually asked several other people to judge, but apparently it still wasn't good enough.
 

Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves by Midnight Aurora on the left, and LiftOff by 5Dave on the right.

XCoaster's CCCP on the left and Levis' The Lonely Mountain on the right.

2007 wasn't a very good year for contests, bittersweet at best. Fortunately 2007 was a good year for accolades to compensate that. Exactly a year after the last spotlight from 2006, Kumba finally won his desired spotlight with Dimensions: Realms of Creation. No matter how 'hate it or love it' Kumba's style was, Dimensions was an obvious spotlight winner, packed with crazy rides, details and ideas. The spotlight drought had ended. Barely a month later, Cedarpoint6 had his breakthrough with Watkins Woods Amusement Park becoming the second spotlight of 2007. Whereas Dimensions was fantastical and over-the-top, Watkins Woods was exceptionally realistic and down to earth. The park didn't even feature a B&M! Watkins Woods revolutionized the realism genre in many ways, and Cedarpoint6 released two more designs this year, even more establishing his name as a realism institute. To this day, Cedarpoint6 remains an avant-garde realism parkmaker.
 

The first spotlight: Dimensions: Realms of Creation by Kumba



The second spotlight: Watkins Woods Amusement Park by Cedarpoint6

Two months after the milestone that was Watkins Woods, another parkmaker had his breakthrough. This time it was J K with Spellbrook Shore, a more traditional NE-style theme park. Together with Greendale by Darkfire (LL Gold), Mountaineer by Cedarpoint6 (Design) and two concept creations (more on that later), Spellbrook Shore served as a present to celebrate the sudden launch of NE3, the new layout that Kumba and Darkfire had been working on for ages. The site turned from red to blue and has been blue ever since.
 

The third spotlight: Spellbrook Shore by J K

Greendale by Darkfire, probably the least commented on Gold in NE's history

2007 saw three strong, but totally differentiated spotlights. Faceman’s Paradise Island almost became the fourth spotlight, but it was rejected because its suspicious similarities to parks by Turtle, artist and X250: “Faceman does give us some amazing atmospheres that are NE Spotlight worthy, only most of them have already won...”. Another player that had his breakthrough in 2007 was geewhzz. His first solo release, Kindred, won design and was well received by the community. A few months later, geewhzz again outdid himself with Salga. Later that year, he started advertising a design with disneylhand and it looked like it was getting even better.
 

Faceman's Paradise Island

Geewhzz' second design Salga

An interesting novelty on NE3 was a new accolade category, Concept Creation. Basically anything not suitable for spotlight and design could fit in this category, for example mini and micro parks, non-coaster designs, or maps that weren’t theme park related at all. The first two concept creations were a mini park and an indoor park by respectively RCTCA and Fr3ak. Nowadays both could be submitted for spotlight, but things were a little different back in 2007. The concept creations that followed these parks were more distinguishing though. In chronological order, we got a golf resort, a heavily hacked micro map, an empty landscape, an Escher-themed mini map, a stadium and a bedroom-type park. Apparently, the rapidly changing community was in need for such a category. This still wasn’t enough change for the community though. The future of the site depended on what was to happen next, in 2008....
 

cBass' Escher Island, a concept creation.

Must-See Releases of 2007

Dimensions: Realms of Creation by Kumba, Toon and X250 Thira by J K KINDRED by geewhzz Mystique by Six Frags Over the Top by Splash-0 The Beasts by Splash-0 Le Viaduct by 5dave Blue Steel Force by Splash-0 Jaguar by Splash-0 Watkins Woods Amusement Park by CedarPoint6 SALGA by geewhzz and egg_head Spellbrook Shore by J K, Cedarpoint6, geewhzz and Turtle Paradise Island by Faceman Mountaineer by CedarPoint6 Target Fields by RCTNW Greendale by darkfire Escher Island by cBass Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves by Midnight Aurora The Lonely Mountain by Levis Lift-Off by 5dave It's a Bug's Life by Loopy Paramounts' Xtreme by zburns999 and geewhzz CCCP by Xcoaster Tenochtitlan by Loopy

I couldn't include it in the text since it's not an official NE release, but I think this park is a milestone in the history of RCT as well.

WTF are you smoking today, Liam? First, you imply that Whitehawk is trying to steal "Thoughts" as a park name and now this?

The closer these histories are getting the more I seem to enjoy them.

just as context (I know it wasn't 2007 but whatever) when was premier park released? that was really the park that got me into rct2.

anyway, great writeup liampie, these have all been really interesting and I'm looking forward to more!

WTF are you smoking today, Liam? First, you imply that Whitehawk is trying to steal "Thoughts" as a park name and now this?

i kind of agree here, maybe it's not for exactly the same reasons but how was that park any sort of milestone?

I think he was joking guys...

It's his first park?

Thatcher park resembles his coming to NE. It was his first release on here!