10 Year Anniversary / History of New Element - 2011

10 Days, 10 Years

- 2011 -

by Kumba

2011 will be remembered as a great year in New Element history thanks to a pair of amazing RCT2 NE Spotlights and an amazing LL NE Spotlight. The contest drought was ended when the NE Design Challenge was announced in October.

Let’s just start with Dreamport… J K’s monster solo was released in February and set a new standard at NE. It nudged its way up past my Kumba Re-Creation to claim a new Accolade Panel high score of 93.08%. The park oozed creativity from its every crevasse. For anyone who doubted J K’s skill after Spellbrook Shore, Dreamport was the proof that he’s a legitimate parkmaking force. Also in February Louis was promoted to admin to help geewhzz and posix run the site.
 

Following Dreamport a couple of other parks flirted with an NE Spotlight. RCTNW’s Hyatt’s Northwest Adventure was VERY close to winning James a second NE Spotlight, but the “no votes” added up to a gold release. James was unhappy with the narrow miss and went into exile for a while. Metrople returned in 2011 and brought with him a park many remembered from its old Advertising District days as “Safety in Alarms.” Chronicles of Arransia took home gold for Metro thanks to its old school charm and awesome coaster line-up.
 

Just a few months after Dreamport set the bar higher for an RCT2 solo park, another park reached for that bar… Six Flags Santa Fe by robbie92 was arguably the best full scale realistic park NE had ever seen. It scored an even 90.00% to become the third member of the exclusive 90% club. Robbie had already gained a lot of popularity in H2H5 and thanks to SFSF he became one of the top players at the site. A pair of nice NE Designs were released in May with Voyager by Liampie and RRP and Inyoni by Belgian Guy with help from K0NG.
 

After the outstanding RCT2 spotlights LL got its turn in June. Roomie helped Jusmith finish Through the Ages and it turned out to be a real ground breaking LL spotlight. Roomie was red-hot in June and TTA came just 10 days after Portal made even experienced LL players do a double-take at his new teleportation hack.
 

In July a pair of NE Designs created some buzz, but in different ways. K0NG finally proved he had the skills to back up his talk when he joined the 90% design club with Vulture. It was his first finished release after his controversial canceled H2H5 finals park. My release of Son of Kumba got some very mixed reviews as many were unsure if it should have shared a map with Kumba… or included a giant cat head…
 

Loopy did not win another NE Spotlight in 2011, but did produce a fantastic LL design, Leviathan. It was enough to net Loopy a spot in the top 3 for the top LL Designs of the decade.
 

After nearly two years without an official NE Contest, 2010 give everyone a chance to compete. To keep the design contest even everyone had to use a layout made by RRP. In the end 5Dave won the contest with Archimedes by a slim margin over pacificoaster’s Schwazrwald. This marked the first time anyone had won a second solo NE Contest. 5Dave got his first contest win in the PT3 finals.
 

If TTA and Leviathan were not enough LL goodness for you NE had a Christmas present for you… Adelaar. Pierott had shown a lot of impressive screens of his LL work, but many were unsure if the Korean parkmaking sensation would finish anything. He did and Adelaar was a great example of how the codex trainer can further LL parkmaking.
 

Must-See Releases of 2011

Pirana by Liampie Floating Resort by Freerider Stone Valley Adventure Park by prodigy Dreamport by J K and guests Voyager by Liampie and RRP Chronicles of Arransia by Metropole and Phatage Hyatt's Northwest Adventures by RCTNW, CedarPoint6 and robbie92 Inoyni by BelgianGuy and K0NG Six Flags Santa Fé by robbie92 and CedarPoint6 Colossos by turbin3 and prodigy Portal by Roomie Through the Ages by jusmith, Roomie and geewhzz Hyatt's International Speedway by RCTNW Vulture by K0NG Joker's Revenge by RamSam12 and zburns999 Leviathan by Loopy Phantom by disneylhand Cthulhu by Cocoa Archimedes by 5dave Schwarzwald by Pacificoaster VesperIsland by AvanineCommuter Shock 2 by Levis Adelaar by pierrot Canyoneer by Xophe