NE 20th Anniversary / History of New Element - 2017
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04-May 22
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G Force
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The History of NE
< 2016 2017 2018 > As 2017 started, there was some incredible momentum within the community of New Element. Coming off a jam-packed 2016 that saw OpenRCT2 rise from relative obscurity to completely dominate the game. Multiplayer would really come into its own and prove a very viable method to develop detailed group parks that met New Element standards. Combined with the maturation of the New Element Discord server that offered a fresh new way for members to connect and discuss the game, producing a real rise in community discussion and well… discord. We also saw an unbelievable run of seven spotlights that culminated in one of the top parks in NE history which continues to influence the game to this day.
When the year began many of us were heavily focused on the multiplayer park, which at this time was still pretty raw and unguided. Liam, Alex, and RWE among others had staked their claim on large portions of the map, but there was little coordination on the project initially. Wasn't until around the first of the year that Liam had laid out some stricter creative guidelines on the site to help steer the park to completion rather than constant idea-dumping. Interesting that much of this was actually hosted on the site at the time, as the discord was still in its infancy and felt much less “standardized” then compared to now. But this leadership proved to be pretty valuable as the park slowly came together with big contributions from many members like Bubbsy41, WhosLeon, and Rene which fleshed out the park. It really was quite fun to see the park grow and change almost daily at the time, there was really an impressive momentum behind it that formerly wasn't seen outside of big contests like Head-2-Head. By the end of January, the park was nearly complete, final touches were added attempting to tie all the styles together and clean up the park into a finished state. Around this time there was some great debate over a name, but ultimately Mirage Islands was chosen, and the park was released on January 30th, 2017.
With all the different builders contributing to the genuinely high quality of the park, and the new-ness of the whole concept of a multiplayer based group park, there was tons of hype behind the release. Some were clamoring for spotlight, while others remained a bit skeptical to award something like this with the highest award of New Element (queue the Obama Medal Award meme). It turned out that so many members contributed to the park that a few had to have their shares temporarily removed so they could submit their panelist votes on the park. Me being one of these members, only having token shares on the park and next to no creative input, didn't feel the park really hit the mark to warrant a spotlight “yes” vote. When the dust settled, the park received an 81.25% score but only a 3/10 spotlight vote, so Gold it was! All things considered a pretty impressive mark when you think about how chaotic and quick the building process was here. Years later there are definitely aspects that have aged but also a few places that are very strong and warrant a second viewing.
At this point, the hype behind OpenRCT2s multiplayer capabilities was at a high. As soon as Mirage was finished, there was clamoring for a new server to be started, and one was quickly. However this server with a more American realism focus wasn't quite as successful, as it lacked the focus and guidance that eventually fell on Mirage Islands. Without constant moderation or a real heavy discord presence, the server was pretty hard to manage and often had many different visions being put onto the same map. Over the next few months we saw two new parks started as alternatives to the realism map, and these three maps rotated on the server for the majority of the first half of the year. The first of these two maps was a smaller NCSO style park that proved pretty popular, even with members who historically hadn't seriously built with the style. This is probably one of the key moments in the rise of NCSO as a legitimate sector of the NE community, exposing many to the opportunities within the style, which had been further uncovered by the capabilities of OpenRCT2's Tile Inspector feature. Eventually completed and released in June, this park became known as NE's Sandwich Springs and earned a respectable Silver Accolade. The second of these maps was a more standard custom scenery map, but one that was focused on flash building, that is building large sections of a park quickly without focusing too much on the little details that can drag on a project. This server was only up for a few days before the park was completed and released in late May. Known as NE's NE's Spaß Welt, it earned yet another Silver for the community. Little did anyone know but these would be the last official NE multiplayer parks to be completed in until 2019, as focus and hype diminished a bit after the initial flux during those early months of the year. Besides, there was a contest going on too…
As part of my initial Admin ambitions, I wanted to host a serious attempt at a design contest, see NEDC3, in the vein of NEDC1 which had been so successful back in 2011. Like NEDC1, an official layout was supplied and it was up to the competing members to finish it however they like, and submit it for judging as a Design Accolade. Officially announced on March 12th, NEDC4 would feature a B&M looping layout provided by none other than Louis! and would allow builders 5 weeks to submit their entries. Quite a good amount of hype built up for the contest after a round of screens were posted by some members intending to submit entities. By the deadline, 15 entries had been submitted and were voted on behind the scenes by a select group of panelists who didn't submit entries themselves.
Submissions were revealed in batches, starting with the lowest scoring entries. In total 8 of the 15 entries received design status, 3 of which broke the coveted 80% barrier. But it was Alex who came out on top with his fantastic “The Junkyard” submission. Truly something very unique and different, and a shining example that Alex wasn't simply an LL player and would go on to do great things in RCT2 as well.
Really, all of the entries are worth looking at, all in all I was pretty happy with the quality of the submissions in the contest despite what might be a restrictive layout. Ultimately NEDC4 was a big success and proved to be one of the most memorable solo contests in the site's history.
As the summer began, NE was once again hungry for new content, and they would get it with the release of bigshootergill's Mario Kart: All-Cup Tour in June. Bigshootergill (also known as BSG) produced perhaps one of the most unique parks in NE history. Based off of the Mario Kart franchise, perhaps one of the most played in gaming history, this map featured mostly Go Kart tracks with only two classic roller coasters. In total, there were 16 classic circuit recreations on the map, each extremely well themed and detailed. Even containing some unique animated objects that really sent the map to the next level. Any fan of Mario Kart could probably identify at least a handful of their favorite (or least favorite) tracks on the map and instantly be turned back to the nostalgia of the old games. BSGs creativity and unique fantastical style really fit the map perfectly and combined to create a lovable and memorable submission that is certainly a wonderful example of how far you can stretch this game.
Mario Kart would earn BSG a solid 85% spotlight accolade, his first, and became NE's first spotlight winner of the year. However it would certainly not be the last.
Not even two months later, NE was already gearing up for what would be another spotlight. Lagom, coming off his famed Liseberg recreation from 2016, was at it again and rapidly coming to completion on his next project. Another recreation, this time of Sweden's other world class park, Gröna Lund. Lagom started posting screens shortly after the release of Lisaberg and immediately the community was hyped and had high expectations for the project. Coming back with an even more refined and elaborate style, Lagom would once again battle the object limit to complete the map, however thankfully it was not quite as restrictive as it was on Lisaberg and allowed him to recreate the park and its wonderful surroundings to an extremely high level. Perhaps this time even more of the focus was set on the surroundings than the actual park itself, which was starting to become a trend at the time as the OpenRCT2 really made the necessary hacking required to replicate non theme park scenes in the game far easier for the average player. No longer were complex and tedious invisible hacks or shoestring merges required to fill roads with traffic or add the little details that really can make these areas special. Finally, Gröna Lund was released to us on August 7th.
Immediately everyone knew that we had something truly special on our hands. Lagom no only produced a masterful recreation of a very unique park, but made it fun and enjoyable to those who weren't as interested in the accuracy or realism of the park. Making it one of the first in a line of more “European” styled realism parks which would produce yet another spotlight later in 2017 and many more high quality parks over the next few years. But back of Gröna Lund, the park would reach accolade voting and quickly be awarded Spotlight, to absolutely no one's surprise. However, it would also be given an incredible score of 93.13%, making it at the time the 3rd highest scoring park ever! Which placed Lagom right near the top of all NE Parkmakers and would solidify his place in the community forever. Unfortunately since Gröna Lund we've seen very little from Lagom, as he has declined to participate in contests and refrained from posting new work. Hopefully we see more from him someday soon and he makes an attempt at the New Element Spotlight hat trick!
posix wrote: A hugely necessary step into the right direction. At last we have a combination of micro obsession which is removed from the liberties and leisures of CSO, and in turn beautiful creativity everywhere. For this reason alone, this must be a spotlight for me.
With summer drawing to a close, yet another big release was on the horizon at NE, this one being many years in the making. Shogo had been a consistent producer at NE for some time now, contributing to many contests over the last few years. However up until now Shogo had failed to complete a true solo project and earn the spotlight accolade many thought was well within her skill level. This all changed in September, as after many years of on and off work, an unfinished submission, a full restart, and lost saves, finally Shogo had completed what at that point was a truly revolutionary spotlight contending NCSO park. Initially intended to be a PT4 submission in 2013, the core of the map had survived and finally been expanded, and brought to a mostly finished state and was submitted. Only a few times since the early days of RCT2 had an NCSO park actually been considered on the level of Spotlight. The custom scenery revolution which quickly took off after the game was released quickly made the old way of building obsolete in many players minds. It wasn't until years later that players had tried to go back to that way of building, and Shogo was one of the best at it. Named Blue Oak Amusement Park, Shogo had created a completely original and magnificent park within the NCSO style (except for a few custom path types).
While NCSO had been controversial among many in the community since its revival a handful of years earlier, Blue Oak finally was able to break through and hit the mark for New Element's most prestigious accolade. Scoring a solid 85% and receiving 10 of 10 yes votes, Shogo had produced NE's first modern NCSO spotlight. From afar Blue Oak probably looks like any old realistic park on the site, but Shogos' uniquely creative style really sets this map apart. This distinction cemented her place among the elite builders on New Element, and with other large projects already underway, the community was bracing itself for more to come soon.
One member I haven't spoken of at all yet, Liampie, actually was extremely active and productive during this period, however, never quite submitted work at a high enough level to make it into these summaries. This would all change in November. Liampie has always been a big proponent of the site's history and building in classical, neo styles, in an effort to pay respects to the builders of the past. As part of this, during this time he was quite a big LL player and producer, submitting two high quality solo parks along with a handful of other submissions. Yet one of his longest running LL projects was finally nearing completion, with screens posted during the very early days of NE5, he had taken a very codex-light approach, which was unique for the time. But now in a post-Alex world, where non-codex building was once again the norm, Liam found himself in a unique position. Yet he pressed on, and completed his ultimate ode to LL of the past, yet at the same time creating such a unique and fresh atmosphere in what was now nearly a 20 year old game. It was titled Giari Palms, a sprawling lagoon hopping park full of multiple themed areas, some very unique and others with a more nostalgic familiar flair. Could he be the 2nd to win an LL spotlight during this renaissance? Many thought so!
][ntamin22 wrote: After an intense internal review the Accolade Transparency Committee has reached the following non-binding conclusions:
BSG is an idiot and clicked the wrong thing
Voting on LL parks had always been tough, as at this time very few members had their applications working well enough to even view the park in its true form. Note, this was well before OpenRCT allowed near complete viewing of LL saves. So while Giari quickly went to voting, it was quite a while before an accolade was awarded, a few days passed and it seemed that Liampie had just missed out on Spotlight, falling one “yes” vote short. But it turned out that there was a mistake, the site had incorrectly counted bigshootergill's vote as a “no” instead of “yes”. So once this was corrected, Liampie was awarded his 2nd spotlight, and first one in LL, and joining very exclusive company as a member with spotlights in both games. Looking back, I was way too hard on this park, it's definitely grown on me a lot in the last 5 years and would probably yield a higher vote from me now than it did at the time. But hey, that's how this works, voting is not only a snapshot of people voting but of the time in which the voting takes place. Liampie has certainly proven his parkmarker status many times over in the years since, and Giari Palms remains one of the crown jewels on his parkmaking resume.
When I discussed Blue Oak Amusement Park by Shogo and mentioned that she already had another large project underway, well, I wasn't kidding. Not even three months after the release of Blue Oak, Shogo had completed her second full scale solo park. Built concurrently with Blue Oak, this park was yet another sprawling realistic styled theme park, however this time built using custom scenery objects. This allowed it to be quite different from Blue Oak, as oftentimes builders bold enough to construct two projects concurrently produce works that feel pretty similar stylistically. Yet this was definitely not the case with Shogo's project, no one would ever confuse the two, or really any of her work for other members. Her style remains very distinct to this day, sometimes to a fault, but this time it allowed her to produce a top tier realistic park that yet again pushed the threshold for what this new world of OpenRCT2 building allowed. This project actually started as a design attempt, featuring the Blitz Coaster at the center of the park, in the fall of 2015 (a few screens survive). But distractions and new inspirations arose and Shogo was motivated to expand the map into a full park. Thankfully she went this way as the final product was truly magnificent. Coors Park was released on December 9th, 2017 and instantly was in contention for Spotlight, possibly Shogo's second of the year.
Coors Park was released as perhaps one of the more unique realistic styled parks in existence at the time. Shogo had produced not only a unique aesthetic but the subject matter, sense of place, themes and execution of the concept were all quite unique. While not flawless, the park strengths outshone the few weaknesses and pulled in the accolade votes. And to little surprise, Shogo was awarded a second spotlight in the same calendar year. It was close though, just hitting the minimum seven “yes” votes needed. Finally, the often divisive style Shogo possesses had broken through; two Spotlights in less than 3 months, an incredible feat. I was lucky to be pretty close to the whole process of this park and got to see most of it from the ground up. Like any park, completed areas are changed and adjusted over time as the style develops, but Shogo really re-made the aesthetic of this park quite a number of times in an attempt to perfect it. It'll always be very memorable to me for that reason and for all the late nights I spent bugging her to fix the micro issues and details. It was great to see this park finished as it was and earning a well deserved Spotlight.
Up until this point I've completely neglected to discuss another pretty significant development in the RCT universe around this time, RCT Classic. Historically all attempts to move the RCT franchise to the ever expanding and profitable mobile gaming market have been pretty sad to put it mildly. Despite multiple attempts, pretty much all have failed pretty spectacularly to much criticism. That was up until late in 2016 when the man himself, Chris Sawyer, worked to release the two original games on the platform. Immediately it proved to be a big success, as the controls were not only usable but quite practical even for relatively detailed building. Not only that but an expansion “toolkit” was available that essentially unlocked the games desktop features and allowed for one to import custom scenery saves (a bit tediously) and theoretically build NE style parks on one's smartphone. Well no one took more to this new platform than longtime member Steve. Swaying between stints of activity since his heyday back in the mid-late 2000's, he had grown increasingly active through the rise of OpenRCT2 in 2016, sharing some screens of a new solo project. But it was RCT Classic that really allowed Steve to become productive once again, building from his iPhone, he constructed the majority of what would be his first, true, fullsize solo work, Veteris Shores. The restrictions of RCT Classic and Steve's unique style really worked hand in hand, as he was sort of motivated to not try and adjust his approach to the new standards of the day, but instead build in a more nostalgic style that took inspiration from the likes of Turtle, Artist and X250. Slowly but surely the park came together, and on Christmas day 2017, Steve released Veteris Shores to the world.
Truly a fantastic piece of parkmaking, Veteris Shores really didn't fit the modern mold of realism or fantasy or anything like that. Sure it had grounded buildings and paths and rides, but it didn't have the gritty backstage areas of real parks. It was sort of an idealized view of theme parks, built with extreme care and precision, with flowing gardens and abundant theming, glorious architecture and exceptional ride design. Quickly the park reached accolade voting, and was put up for judgment. By the slimmest of margins Steve earned his much deserved first spotlight, after over a decade of parkmaking he had done it. Ironically, mostly using a device that hadn't even existed back in his prime building years, as the iPhone didn't release until June of 2007, years after Steve had perhaps produced his best work. Regardless, Veteris is a fantastic piece of work, truly the pinnacle of “nostalgic” parkmaking which was still pretty popular in 2016 and 2017 as we've seen with the likes of Giari Palms and many other accolade winners during this span. Thankfully, this time Steve was back for good though and would continue to be one of the most present members of the community, both on the site and on Discord. His work has consistently evolved to this day despite his old age and he remains at the top of his game.
So we had yet another Spotlight on our hands, at this point it was kind of getting out of control honestly. It had been a decade since a string of RCT like this before, and it just so happens that the best was in fact saved for last.
But first, let's rewind a bit, to early 2017. Back when the hype for multiplayer was at its peak, another longtime member, Fisch, decided to start what was to be a sort of timeline group park utilizing the new capabilities of multiplayer. So he enlisted many of NE's best and brightest to help him build the surroundings and details of his Riverland project. Always an extremely skilled builder, Fisch had consistently produced some of the best H2H parks in each season, yet never quite was able to complete a big solo project of his own. Now was his chance, with multiplayer and an evermore connected community via Discord, Fisch was able to complete Riverland in February of 2017, earning him a solid 84% Gold accolade, mostly on the backs of some extremely atmospheric and enjoyable scenes surrounding what was a pretty modest park featuring only one real roller coaster and a small handful of attractions.
But Fisch was not satisfied with this, his vision was truly just beginning to take shape. Immediately upon the release in February, he posted a teaser screen, showing that what we saw currently was just the beginning for Riverland, and that what was a very modest and simple park was about to become something much much greater.
Through the year, Fisch teased us consistently with snapshots and snippets of what he was working on. Employing a classic timeline park approach to the advertising for the park, he expanded and expanded, and expanded until Riverland was a massive, world class theme park with many top tier coasters and themed lands that would even make the likes of Phantasialand jealous. So, on the 11th hour, the completed version of Riverland was released to NE, and immediately it solidified 2017 as the most stacked year of parkmaking in the site's history.
SSSammy wrote: this is, unambiguously, one of the best pieces of rct the world has ever seen. sometimes timeline parks can come across as perhaps a bit lazy, leaning on the gimmick or perhaps newer players wanting more regular positive feedback. however, this park uses it to its fullest potential yet. the timeline quality truly adds to the park. i spent so long jumping back and forth between the saves my eyes hurt.
Riverland was truly a release unlike any other in the site's history, never had we seen not only such an incredibly themed, detailed and complete feeling park, but one that had 9 different versions showing the park's progression from a tiny local joint to a world class establishment. Fisch had really outdone himself this time, it was frankly quite overwhelming to take it all in especially on New Year's Eve which is probably a day people don't think about RCT all that much usually. But this year was different, Riverland might be one of the greatest parks ever, certainly stands strong against any other from the site's long and established list of classics. Slowly the votes came in through, and well unsurprisingly it easily won spotlight with a 100% “yes” vote, being the first park to require 12 accolade panelists to score it (in an effort to improve consistency and slow down scoring). Even more impressive was the 94.50% accolade score, surpassing all but BGA and Starpointe to sit 3rd all time on the highest score rankings. This meant that Lagom's Gröna Lund from way back in August would somehow not be the highest scoring park of the year despite its only incredibly impressive 93% accolade score. Fisch was cemented as a Legendary parkamker and earned near universal acclaim from all in the community. From a technical perspective Riverland was truly impressive as well as it featured many custom objects created to circumvent the object limit which threatened to squash Fisch's ambitions. Of all the parks to be released in 2017, Riverland certainly sits at the top as it might do in almost any year. It's probably also one of the most influential, as its approach to not only parkmaking but park surroundings has really influenced the meta in the years since. These days it's not enough to just create a fantastic park, but to build a narrative and story around the park that is detailed by its surroundings. While it might not have been the first to do any of this it's still one of the best examples of complete boundary pushing parkmaking and for that Riverland will forever be considered one of the best that NE has produced.
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So clearly 2017 was a packed year, with seven spotlights, and this has made it really tough for me to speak about any of the other fantastic releases we saw. So I'm gonna mention a few here that I really think deserve being brought up. First is Musket, a unique LL design submission from Kumba and featuring a few guest spots from other LL giants past and present which had been a longtime WIP. Dominating the front page of NE many a times, Musket was in complete contrast to the relatively new wave of post Codex LL parks and heavily featured the exploits of the trainer. Musket received an incredible 85% design score placing it among the highest rated LL releases of the Accolade Panel era. Also in 2017 we saw some fantastic NSCO designs, including Steppenwolf from RCT2Day, the current apex of RCT2Days unique maximalist micro style was on display with Steppenwolf, narrowly missing awarding RCT2Day a parkmaker green name, receiving a 79.38%. We also had a lot of rising stars begin to make waves in 2017, including Leon, Royr, CoasterCreator9 and Saxman1089. Each had show work previously, either through humble screens or primitive solo submissions. But 2017 saw them all really come onto the scene of New Element where they would continue to make waves over the next few years. Lastly I'll slide in a mention of my own submission Adventureland, which broke the coveted 80% barrier, something I had managed to do for three straight years now. This park was heavily inspired by the real park of the same name, “Adventureland” located in Altoona, Iowa. It was a unique approach to classic American realism, featuring a very stripped down and dare I say “crunchy” style which would continue to develop during the next few years.
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So with that my dive back to 2017, comes to a close. One of the best years of New Element I think, the discord server revived many dynamics of the community which had started to dwindle and contributed to an extremely active year. I was lucky to be an admin for it all and view it fondly despite there being a number of rough points and contentious topics throughout the year. It was an incredibly productive span for many members and for that we got to enjoy some really incredible parkmaking, yielding us seven fantastic spotlights and a plethora of other parks which I couldn't elaborate on here but are certainly worth checking out too. With 2018 we all hoped that more of the same would come.
| < 2016 | 2018 > |
Gustav Goblin
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This makes me unbelievably happy. It's my era! This is when I came in! I clearly remember watching Sandwich Springs being built and talking with Trav and Jappy in the server. NCSO/Open tricks considered basic blew my mind back then, and I was shocked that Jappy's first attempt at NCSO (his British train-themed area, because of course) turned out as well as it did. You even captured one of the most surreal experiences I've had in a MP server; stumbling upon the Blitz from Coors Park being built as a design. And of course Riverland, which might still be my favorite NE release of all time. Absolutely spellbinding from the moment I opened the server, and even after I left and immediately forgot what it was called I always wanted to rediscover it. Absolutely insane year for NE with so many titans dropping spotlights left and right, and I really think Open and multiplayer did so much to grow both NE and the overall RCT community.
In:Cities
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I remember being completely absent for basically the entirety of this year and 2016 due to living on the cruise ships and working in management. I wasn't paying attention to the site or community at all really during this time - so it's really nice to hear a full recap. I didn't realize how all of these parks came to be,
I appreciate the writeup Russ!
Cocoa
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little known fact, I made the invert layout in mirage springs. I think someone else (g? pac?) tweaked the turnaround/break run bit from what I had though
what a year though. i had forgotten how jam packed it was. i still think the entrance for veteris is a top-all-time entrance area
Jappy
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One of the most fun and productive years in recent past. JWAK being built, the multiplayer server... I had a blast on Sandwich Springs, Mirage Islands... Just hopping in with Fisch watching Riverland being built was such fun, I really miss those moments.
Tolsimir
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Yeah I was basically inactive during this whole year. I remember when I came back for H2H8 the following spring that it was incredible to learn how much happened and also how much the game evolved. 7 spots in one year is beyond anything.
Xtreme97
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I'm also in the boat of having essentially missed this year as I drifted from the site, but coming back it was such a huge stack of content to discover which was very fun. Was nice to see the site had bounced back so strongly with OpenRCT2 too.
Gustav Goblin
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little known fact, I made the invert layout in mirage springs. I think someone else (g? pac?) tweaked the turnaround/break run bit from what I had though
I've always thought that layout kicked ass and wondered who made it. Love the over-under interactions with the path.
ottersalad
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Can’t wait to hear about 2018!