NE 20th Anniversary / History of New Element - 2012

 

The History of NE

 

 

 

Early in 2012, an announcement was made. A new assistant Admin, and later in the year Admin - and thus started a new era for the management of NE - at least from my point of view. I was hesitant to take up the job, because I didn’t want to ruin RCT and play policeman. However, excitement quickly took over as I gained access to the admin section of the site, stumbling head first into some exciting events that the admin team had been preparing. I saw several things that took me by surprise, but even at that point I could not have predicted how eventful 2012 was going to be. NE was in a bit of a slump, so new events to bring some life to the community were very welcome. Let's get the small changes out of the way first: the theme park forum was created and all off topic forums were merged into General Chat.

 

In March, NE celebrated it’s tenth anniversary with the 10 Days, 10 Years event. A new subforum was made, which was filled with content over the course of ten days; hence the event name. 5Dave supplied the logo featuring the NE orbit in a regal golden shade. The most important feature of the event were the yearly write-ups, a tradition which was evidently continued in the future. Authors were Kumba, SSSammy, posix, robbie92, Milo, and myself. Memories were exchanged and prestigious awards were handed out. Most notably, a panel of experienced members decided that the top 3 RCT2 players of the decade were Kumba, Cedarpoint6 and Turtle, and the top three LL players of the decade were natelox, Fatha' and RRP. All awards were received with a lot of "where is [insert player/park here]!??". The anniversary finished with the announcement of what would be the most significant event of the year - something that the community had been hungering for for three years. Head-2-Head 6!

 

After the unprecedented success that was H2H5, expectations were high. Nearly a hundred people signed up, among which Kumba and Turtle who were chosen to be the respectively #1 and #3 RCT2 parkmakers of all time in the 10 Days, 10 Years event. Kumba reprised his role as captain of the Hurricanes for the fourth time with his trusted vice captain J K reprising as well, whereas Turtle was drafted in the first round into the new team Heaven’s Kitchen, captained by yours truly, with my next pick being Steve - a big gamble at the time, but I was too obsessed with making the good old Turtle-Steve combo happen again. The H2H3-winning Flying Germans, captained by Magnus, were another familiar team returning, though the team roster had only little overlap in the form of disneylandian192. Robbie92 was the biggest revelation of H2H5, and by now he was highly sought after by the captains. It was Magnus who drew the longest straw, and robbie92 joined the Flying Germans. These teams were complemented by K0NG’s Reservoir Dogs, hungry and confident with geewhzz as the top pick, nin’s The Replacements with an impressive line-up including 5Dave (overall #1 pick!), Cocoa and Fisch, and Louis’s LL-only RevoLLutionists. Yes, a LL-only team in an era dominated by RCT2. A bold move. The full draft order and team roster can be found here.

 

At first, The Replacements were seen as the favourites for the title. Their line-up, featuring nin, 5Dave, Fisch and Cocoa among others, looked solid all the way down and their first parks Sea of Sagas and Tivoli Gardens were exceptionally well received and helped to set a very high bar for the contest early on. Sea of Sagas' main coaster, Fafnir - Dragon Flight, ended up winning an award for best steel coaster in the H2H6 awards. The third round presented a turn of events as Heaven’s Kitchen beat The Replacements’ Worlds of Fun with the China themed Lijiang.

 

Maybe it was the result of their reputation of ‘the favourites’, but The Replacements continued to face the strongest park of each round and they did not win another match. Meanwhile, Heaven’s Kitchen kept outdoing themselves. In round 4, they took the role of favorite definitively as Le Rêve Parapluie by Turtle, AvanineCommuter and Wicksteed, swept the floor with everything and everyone. It was revered for unique surreal narrative of the park representing the dream/subconsciousness of a Belle Epoque umbrella maker. Having already qualified after Round 4, with nothing at stake, Heaven’s Kitchen pulled a stunt with Colorflood in round 5, a two-day build that no one saw coming - not even Heaven’s Kitchen. Why? To save the real Round 5 park for the play-off...

 

Sea of Sagas by The Replacements	Tivoli Gardens by The Replacements
Lijiang by Heaven's Kitchen	Le Reve Parapluie by Heaven's Kitchen

 

Up to that point, the RevoLLutionists hadn’t managed to bring back LL to glory. The Flying Germans were suffering engine failure and eventually a missing pilot. Even though it pretty soon became clear that these teams would not make the play-offs, they still had some great RCT to offer. The Germans’ round 2 park, Park Edda was seemingly an attempt by Magnus to replicate the success of Park Asterix in H2H5, not entirely unsuccessfully so, despite the park being somewhat unfinished. It’s centerpiece was a familiar looking wooden coaster (‘Ragnarok’), and Robbie92 provided some memorable Nordic theming. Despite the rough edges it proved to be quite influential over the years, and Ragnarok eventually won best wooden coaster in both the H2H6 awards and the 2012 awards.

 

The RevoLLutionists’ moment of historical significance came at the eleventh hour in the form of The Siege of Jerusalem, which also featured the steel coaster of the year 2012 in the form of Battle for Jerusalem, though it came it somehow missed the top three in the H2H6 awards. With incredible creative theming by pierrot, the aforementioned incredible coaster by Louis, and a single bush by djbrcace1234, The Siege of Jerusalem became an instant top-tier classic that actually almost propelled the RevoLLutionists to the play-offs at the expense of the bad luck-stricken Replacements, not just in the overall standings, but also in this round as Jerusalem was up against the Replacements New Fantasyland. The match would officially earn the title 'match of the season' in the H2H6 awards - a classic LL vs. RCT2 clash with major stakes.

 

Park Edda by the Flying Germans

The Siege of Jerusalem by the RevoLLutionists

 

Meanwhile, the Hurricanes and the Reservoir Dogs were doing reasonably well with parks like the black and white (one of the first creative uses of a custom palette!) Frankenstein by K0NG and BelgianGuy, and ‘nature gone wild’ Terra Progressia by Kumba, J K and Comet. No one was surprised to see RCTNW contribute a map featuring a large scale hotel, Atlantis Resort, though the challenge of making such a large scale building style work in H2H-context was obvious - teaming up with BelgianGuy and Cena ensured that it did. The Dogs' last park, Galaxy Geeland, made waves with its innovative ride design. The Hurricanes adapted movies on several occasions - first with Zombieland, and later with Avatar, and eventually again in the semi-finals.

 

Frankenstein by the Reservoir Dogs

Avatar by the Hurricanes

 

It was these who would accompany The Replacements and Heaven’s Kitchen to the play-offs. However, The Reservoir Dogs did not manage to beat The Replacements’ Neverland by 5Dave, Cocoa and Dimi, and the Hurricanes’ definitively would not prolong their H2H title when Kumba and Six Frags saw their Rowling versus Tolkien get annihilated by that other instant top-tier classic: Disney’s American Waterfront by Pacificoaster. We need to talk about that park. Forget that it was only a 60x60 map in a 70x70 round, forget that it didn’t have any major coasters - remember what was on the map: flawless architecture, great ideas on every inch of the map, atmosphere, and even some hidden Mickeys. This park nailed 'Disney'. Many years later, 'DAW' would go on and occupy the #1 spot on the revived The List. Pacificoaster convincingly won 'Most Valuable Player' and 'Rookie of the Year' in the H2H6 awards, and taking home 13 medals overall...

 

Neverland by the Replacements

Disney's American Waterfronts by Heaven's Kitchen

 

On paper, The Replacements vs. Heaven’s Kitchen seemed like the perfect final; the two favourites facing off. We did see two parks go head to head, but both parks seemed flawed. Perhaps we were spoiled by the brilliance in previous rounds. Fisch and nin represented The Replacements with Parque Warner, a park that clearly did not have the smoothest building process, though still high quality. Heaven’s Kitchen answered with Corsair Veredian, after a very stressful and inspiration-draining season. This was the first final since H2H3 that was decided by the actual quality of the parks, and not by one team forfeiting. It was a fair fight, and eventually Heaven’s Kitchen came out on top. It may have been the Colorflood-DAW swap where they won the championship…

 

Parque Warner by the Replacements

Corsair Veredian by Heaven's Kitchen

 

I took a risk drafting old names like Turtle, Steve and chapelz and combining them with up and coming players like Pacificoaster and AvanineCommuter, but the gamble paid off. Despite all the stress that H2H brought, participating in H2H with that team is among my very favourite memories here on NE. And I say stress because as is tradition, this H2H did not go without drama and tension.

 

The community shared its celebration of good RCT, but got divided in other ways. Barely a month after H2H was wrapped, the drama reached its climax as some members were banned to restore peace. It was an important step to end an ugly time for the community. Over the course of a few months, calls to unban the banned were made resulting in more drama. I’m mentioning this because a synopsis of the year 2012 would not be complete without it, but it's best to not get into the specifics here.

 

 

At the same time, the severity of the drama was a testament to how much NE meant to the community. The most important takeaway here is that the forum was very tense around 2012, with many arguments sucking the fun out of the game, but that we came back together and NE continued to exist, fueled by people passionate about the game and the community.

 

So, what happened outside H2H? As usual in a H2H-year, the output of solo releases was relatively low. No full scale parks managed to win spotlight this year, but we did see a few high calibre gold winning parks, nonetheless, all from the European mainland interestingly Scoring over 79%, prodigy's Violet Gardens was a valiant effort. Jonny93 had an exceptional debut with Frankischen Abenteuerland, that didn't do too shabby with the panel either. Hard Rock Park Belgium by BelgianGuy, Dimi and Kenneth made a rare example of a finished group park. PineHills Orlando, a tiny park by gijssie1234 that slightly revolutionised small-scale realism with tiny custom flat rides - the 2x2 custom flat rides never left after this. RCTNW de facto ended his Hyatt's project (or: Project Aries) with one more glorious hotel creation: Hyatt's Crystal Cove Resort. In the LL department, one full scale park appeared out of nowhere: Great Escape Colorado. Very likeable and unpretentious, but considering it was built in a week as a personal challenge by Louis!, not something that was destined to blow minds. Impressive achievement, nonetheless.

 

Hard Rock Park Belgium by BelgianGuy, Kenneth and Dimi

PineHills Orlando by gijssie1234

 

Disneylhand made up for his disappointing H2H performance with the rather unique design Thunderclap, a huge and spectacular wooden roller coaster with a lot of trackitecture on the map. The accolade panel scored it at exactly 85%. Scoring over 82%, Loopy’s Raven provided some relief for those who lost all faith in LL after a somewhat disappointing H2H LL output, though we'd seen another nice traditional LL design with Gwazi's Luscia a few months prior. Other notable designs include RamSam12's Ghostliner, a realistic Arrow hyper coaster. RamSam12 was a Cedarpoint6-disciple, but he was clearly coming into his own here.

 

Thunderclap by disneylhand

Raven by Loopy

 

An interesting park was RCT2Day’s Indian Point Ballpark. It was mostly a baseball stadium, won only Bronze, and RCT2Day was an unknown member of the community. However, it also did not use any custom scenery at all. Nothing new by itself, but this park kind of marks the beginning of a new parkmaking movement that would become more apparant in the following years. Another notable newcomer was Arjan v l, with releases both in January (scoring 33%) and December (scoring 67%) of the year, showing tremendous improvement. Arjan v l would go on to release more succesful parks, becoming a prolific object maker as well.

 

Indian Point Ballpark by RCT2Day

Halcon Azul by Arjan v l

 

Indian Point Ballpark silently presented a promise for the future. As did the New Element Design Contest 2 in December. In contrast to the first NEDC, there was only a mandatory theme and no mandatory layout. The people who were burned out from H2H got back to work, and the results would be posted in the next year. And with this, the year 2012 came to an end. A rare calendar year without a spotlight, though not without good RCT.

 

Other selected releases		Other selected forum links
The Lost Samurai		Predicting OpenRCT2
Concrete Jungle		On NE4
Thrill Point: Worlds of Adventure		Who's Your RCT Daddy?
Outlaw		On the spotlight drought
Nightingale		Dimi's unfinished park
Six Flags Washington		'Seahawk' panel debate
Ashcome Country Park		Cedarpoint6 announces a new park
Midnight Runner		The Google Brain
Mythos		What Parque Warner could've been
Sunset Valley		KONY 2012
Monstrocity		Peep Lottery
Falcon
Kim Jong-Il's Present to His People Park

 

I remember how exciting RCT was at the time. H2H was crazy competitive. Perilous forums, but an amazing creative and safe space in my team. Also interesting that the first real creative use of palette happened this year, but the palette revolution didn't really start until six years later.

Personally, definitely one of my weaker years, didn't really play a lot and also the experience on the Reservoir Dogs wasn't the greatest. But yeah H2H6 brought some really cool parks and also the begin of the Heaven's franchise which would start to dominate the following seasons. Also seeing the foreshadowing on openRCT is quite cool.

For someone who only joined halfway last decade, this is a great read-up and way to connect more with the community. I love to read about some of these amazing parks and kudos for adding to the lore of New Element!

so far away from the drama, I remember that h2h fondly. I was still in the beginnings of being somewhat well-regarded in the community, and although I think I had a relatively poor showing in my two parks, there was just so much excellence that whole competition that it totally overshadows my disappointment in my role. it really feels like 'modern times' here... these h2h parks would fair well today. can't believe I was still in high school then lol

 

great writeup. I'm feeling a lot of happy nostalgia right now for this site. I went back and read the previous years ones too. I particularly like how much liampie's writing style has grown over the decade! kind of funny to remember that the community was not in a fantastic place when we were last reminiscing about the good old days... and that those times are as distant as the creation of NE was to 2012. I remember that even then, it felt like ancient history.

I particularly like how much liampie's writing style has grown over the decade!

 

Hey, that's nice to hear. I think my old write-ups hold up as not bad, but I was definitely feeling it now. Ironically I wrote 2012 five years ago for a hypothetical 15th anniversary that didn't happen, though I've improved and expanded it now. It's really a lot of fun to write this stuff. Wish I could do all the years, but I don't have time for it and the variety in writers is great.

Loving these write-ups. What a great initiative. It's interesting to read how this community developed through the years and it also helped me find some great parks to look into, that I hadn't discovered yet. So please keep up the good work. On another note; DAW has always been one of my favorite parks. So bizar that it's 10 years old and IMO still holds up today. 

Love this, thanks very much Liam. That H2H is probably my favorite RCT experience ever, I feel like we made some amazing parks and dealt with any stress in a really cohesive way as a team. Tons of credit for that has to go to you as the captain, although everybody chipped in of course. For me, building Le Reve with AV and Wicksteed and building Corsair with you (and Steve, a bit) were such awesome experiences... just sending the park off after cramming all night and then getting it back a day later with so much new and exciting stuff on the maps... cool ideas i'd never have thought of, ridiculous ways of using objects... loved it. It's in those moments where you're bouncing off each other that I think your RCT skill level increases more than any other. Just sorry that other teams didn't have such a good time by the sounds of it. 

 

Also totally forgot about those top players of the decade awards... 3rd, was it? #robbed ;P