RCT Discussion / Giving Spotlight to Great H2H Parks

This topic pops up on Discord pretty often, and after searching for a dedicated thread on the topic, I couldn't find any and decided to make my own.

There seems to be a lot of debate on the definition of a spotlight, and whether the top level H2H parks qualify as spotlights. The current NE meta seems to be that H2H parks cannot win spotlight, because they lack the size/scope/vision of larger maps. Some believe that size shouldn't count, and because H2H parks often contain amazing quality, that this meta should be changed. Note that there is nothing structural currently keeping H2H parks from winning spotlight, we just don't vote yes on them.

 

To kick the discussion off, I am in the camp with the NE meta. I believe that spotlights should be full-scale parks with a truly impressive scope. I also believe that it takes much more effort to make a larger full-scale park cohesive and impressive than it does for a smaller H2H park. In other words, my opinion is that considering screenshot-level quality equal between two parks, a full-scale park is harder to build and maintain a narrative throughout than a smaller H2H park. I've used a running analogy in the discord before. Spotlight is kinda like running a marathon, whereas H2H parks are more like sprints. If you consider someone running with an equal pace in both races, the pace in the marathon will be more impressive than the same pace in a sprint. It's not a perfect analogy by any means. 

 

Vote in the poll and let's see some discussion below!

Yes; with a big but. It takes a truly exceptional park on a H2H scale to be worthy of Spotlight, and I mean truly exceptional.

 

Addendum: This will always vary between person to person. As I had mentioned on Discord, the only true answer to such a debate is official word on what makes a Spotlight. As simple as "H2H parks are not eligible for Spotlight" or as specific as "A park must be at least this size to be Spotlight" - the second definition being more dangerous.

Np, I'm not even sure they should be eligible for accolades.

Yes; with a big but. It takes a truly exceptional park on a H2H scale to be worthy of Spotlight, and I mean truly exceptional.

 

 

Sooooo, do you have any in your mind that meet this requirement? Or even some that come close? Would be interesting to see a list.

In my opinion size does matter, however I think in some very exceptional cases where the content is so unbelievably good (like for example the case with DAW, Le Reve or Lenox Mall) the quality of the content is good enough to push even a small park over the edge of becoming spotlight.

Sooooo, do you have any in your mind that meet this requirement? Or even some that come close? Would be interesting to see a list.

 

 

Le Reve, DAW, Tubiao, Zerzura.

 

These come to mind, but I don't know if I'd change my vote on any of them. Honestly, I don't really know if I have a strong opinion either way. I'll score the same percentage regardless of yes/no.

 

tl;dr - If I think a park is deserving of the most prestigious accolade, I'll say yes if I'm allowed to. People will agree and disagree with that, and that's fine.

You all obviously know my stance on this. I will say, throughout all of my campaigning, I hope I dont come across as insensitive to others perspective on this. I know this panel is a democracy and one that Im incredibly proud to be apart of. I know I am usually a retarded caricature of myself but when it comes to this: please know Im deadly serious. I care about this site maybe more than most. Having been here almost twenty years, I cherish everything that the site has done for us and I have nothing but the utmost respect for all of you and your opinions (even when it might not feel like it).

Anyway, to touch upon something: twenty years? This place is old. Yet, the game is becoming new. OpenRCT has bred a new class of park, one that on a small scale such as H2H produces content that we couldnt dream of ten years ago. Why arent we adapting? Baby steps? Fine. Im willing to wait for things to catch up, but to blindly dismiss the glaringly obvious quality of what we are seeing now because its too fucking small? I cant, I simply cant. H2H is one of the things that generates truly amazing work, outside of solos. Some years we dont even see a Spotlight, but every couple of years we have this blessing of H2H. We see such incredible work. Work we would never see because of it. Zezura? Its a testament to the quality we have worked towards. And because its a contest and its just not big enough because its what were used to, we are going to write it off. I can agree with not liking whats on the map, not with you not liking what could or what shouldve been on it. I realize that might be disrespectful, and I dont say it to be mean or discredit any of you.

Anyway, I say all this with the current state of things. Maybe the admins are working towards a solution. I hope they are. If any of them are reading this please know that I am always open to this discussion to offer any insight. I know my thoughts are radical, but whos to say thats not what we need in this games current climate? Godspeed, New Element.

Considering that some H2H parks have received "yes" votes, I don't think there's much need for a change? An accolade and its score are always a fusion of several panelists' opinions, and usually I quite like the outcomes.

Considering that some H2H parks have received "yes" votes, I don't think there's much need for a change? An accolade and its score are always a fusion of several panelists' opinions, and usually I quite like the outcomes.

 

This is my line of thinking. The thing stopping most people is convention, and if enough people think a park is worth breaking convention for it will happen. 

I've spoken quite a bit about this too, though scattered across a few different days and probably a mix of public and private discussion.

 

I don't think we've collectively decided what a Spotlight means ever since breaking the old Spotlight/Super-Runner-Up/Runner-Up system. In the new score-based system it's functionally just a "Platinum" or "Diamond" ranking above Gold, and a lot of people think about it this way - it's a "Spotlight" in name only because of the heritage of the site. If something is "perfect enough" it passes the score threshold and just becomes Spotlight instead of Gold.

 

The other option is we reserve Spotlight for a specific class of submission - this is how I believe the rest of the panel likely thinks. That is, a competitive, large-scale mostly solo release that marks a crowning achievement for a parkmaker, outside the confines of a contest. It represents what a parkmaker can do when they set their own goals, restrictions, and execution. By this logic, no competition park can be Spotlight because it's inherently restricted by the contest rules. But conversely, a format like H2H is so open-ended that the only thing holding it back is the map size. However, the average Spotlight 10+ years ago was absolutely massive compared to the size of an H2H map, now they're not nearly so different because we've stopped rewarding building styles that lack fine detail.

 

If we take the "Spotlight is just the next accolade up from Gold" school of thought, many H2H parks have already won this (set the bar at, say, 80%). That would be a simple name change. But is this what we want Spotlight to represent? Should we instead add new categories that distinguish 80-90 and 90-100 parks, but call them something else? Any park could then get this, the same way it is now, and then Spotlight would be a separate decision, maybe a retrospective one after six months or a year - a small handful of parks could get the "Spotlight" treatment where they get written up, showcased, and discussed a while longer.

 

As for whether contest parks deserve this, I say why not. Contests are getting fewer and further between, I doubt we'll ever see anything other than an NEDC or H2H ever again, and NEDC entries already win Design accolades.

 

I know it's only tangentially related, but as to the size vs. score debate, my position is pretty simple. Effort should be a big consideration, and more high-quality work takes more effort than less high-quality work, so I will always vote a bigger project of the same exact quality higher than a smaller one, assuming they both accomplish their artistic goals and contain equal amounts of "fluff" (open water, forested surroundings, empty fields, roads, whatever the context flavor of the week is). I think a lot of people on the panel probably feel similarly even if they haven't articulated that point before.

Spotlights shouldn't be made in a few weeks. A spotlight is more like an 'extra' reward for one or several players who put down something excellent. Better than others. Looking at most H2H parks, I think what's there is mostly spotlight-quality already. So it's not a quality-issue. Size takes a big role in this, but also the amount of spotlights in a H2H season compared to non-H2H years. Giving H2H parks spotlights would make the other spotlights less special. While there's much more effort put in full-scale spotlights.

I dislike the argument that a Spotlight “shouldn’t be built quickly” or “needs scope.” Have you guys even built parks in H2H? They’re arguably more difficult to build than a solo at a leisurely pace of your choosing. Also, how do parks on a small scale lack scope? There are several H2H parks that come to mind that have more “scope” than some Spotlights.

the thing for me about h2h parks being or not being able to be spotlights is the fact that the majority of parks aren't a full park. Take DAW, it feels more like a snippet of a larger park rather than a full park. Zezura and cosair are the closest parks that are of the highest quality and feel like a full park, but still fall too short. I don't maybe it's just me. *shrug*

I'm in the 'no' camp. How I see Spotlights certainly overlaps with things that others have already said above me. I like to think of them as parks that exhaust their themes and ideas completely without leaving anything worthy on the cutting room floor, whether that is because of liberty to choose park shape and size, the amount of time you take to build it, or anything else. Their true 'potential', in a way, is very well realized in Spotlight parks for me. The amount of content, the level of obsessive attention that it needs, and the time consuming process come ever closer to their limits in these.

Looking at most Spotlights in NE history, I see parks that make next-level effort to make their ideas come to realization. Very easy examples to fit my point would be parks like Mario Kart, Riverland, Grona Lund, etc. I see these parks as exhaustive attempts at the ideas they wanted to show (a mario kart themed park, a recreation, an idealistic... German timeline park?) something that is in my opinion impossible to pull off the way H2H is right now. 

 

Due to the competitive nature of H2H, there's almost always ideas that you are unable to do due to any number of factors, which leaves me personally with a desire to see 'more', as if H2H parks aren't complete packages of what the builders could have done with the park. Scoop already said all this in a more concise way, but I thought I'd give my two cents as well. For parks like DAW, Zerzura, Tubiao, there's things that I feel simply don't justify a Spotlight tag just based on the parks which are already Spotlights. Size factors in very significantly for me, because of that. There's so much more potential left in them for me compared to full-scale parks of equal quality. 

 

Would it be too much of a stretch to call H2H parks short films compared to Spotlights being feature-length movies? Probably.

Due to the competitive nature of H2H, there's almost always ideas that you are unable to do due to any number of factors, which leaves me personally with a desire to see 'more', as if H2H parks aren't complete packages of what the builders could have done with the park. Scoop already said all this in a more concise way, but I thought I'd give my two cents as well. For parks like DAW, Zerzura, Tubiao, there's things that I feel simply don't justify a Spotlight tag just based on the parks which are already Spotlights. Size factors in very significantly for me, because of that. There's so much more potential left in them for me compared to full-scale parks of equal quality.

 

This is assuming that a spotlight park is always more complete or better quality than a H2H park, I feel like this is definitely not the case. There are many spotlights which are of significantly lower quality or which are less complete imo than some of the best H2H parks like DAW or Le Reve. It depends on how you want to define the spotlight tag, but if we are purely talking about quality and potential I don't feel like H2H parks or smaller parks should be excluded. To me it is more the product of the size and quality that matters the most, a small park can win, but only if the quality is ridiculously good.

 

I also don't really get the argument that spotlights shouldn't be built quickly and that they are an extra reward. Some parks take literally years to complete and still don't win spotlight. Also, in 2017 and 2016 Shogo and Lagom both got back 2 back spotlights within a little over a year. Sure this is still longer than H2H but I also feel like it isn't THAT much longer.

I think the question is kinda weird. It's not like it's banned for h2h parks or smaller parks in general to be a spot. If enough fellow panelists think it's a spot, than it is one. Does being a h2h park makes me never hit that 'yes'? I don't know, but it might be possible! I feel like the definition of what deserves spot and what not is very different from person to person, my personal one is that spotlights are that parks, to which we will come back for ever to find ideas and inspiration. Parks that are cemented in history and are kind of above anything else. So if a h2h park manages to achieve that, i would totally vote 'yes', although it might be really very difficult to achieve, probably even more difficult than with a park that is released outside h2h.

^That's the problem. We have laid out some general guidelines for panelists to translate their thoughts into a score so there is some consistency. But a lot of people have different ideas of whether they should even be considering certain parks for Spotlight or not. So you have people automatically voting "No" on things because it's never been done before even though the system itself technically allows for it.

Do we really have panelists that cast votes automatically? Isn't the process supposed to be looking on a park, thinking about it and then voting based on your thoughts? Am i doing something wrong?

I cast a vote automatically if I already voted when it goes up for accolade but thats not what your referring to I think

Do we really have panelists that cast votes automatically? Isn't the process supposed to be looking on a park, thinking about it and then voting based on your thoughts? Am i doing something wrong?

I think Ling is referring only to the spotlight vote. People say this is an H2H park and we’ve never awarded a spot to an H2H park before and I don’t want to be the one to do it, so I click no without really thinking about whether the park is a spot.